The Conciliar Revolutionaries: Just a Bunch of Naturalists and Rationalists

Eight days shy of seventy, I find that I have increasingly less and less interest in documenting the multifarious ways in which the counterfeit church of conciliarism has not been, is not now nor can ever be the Catholic Church, she who is the spotless, virginal mystical spouse of her Divine Founder, Invisible Head, and Mystical Bridegroom, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. There are so only so many times and ways that one can repeat the following:

The conciliar “popes” have made war upon the very the nature of dogmatic truth, cleaving to the philosophically absurd notion that dogmatic truth can never be expressed adequately at any one point in time, that each expression of dogma is necessarily "conditioned" by the historical circumstances in which it was pronounced. Condemned by the [First] Vatican Council, Pope Saint Pius X in Pascendi Dominici Gregis, September 8, 1907, and The Oath Against Modernism, and by Pope Pius XII in Humani Generis, August 12, 1950.  (See Antichrist Has Shown Us His Calling Card .)

The “Second” Vatican Council’s Lumen Gentium, November 21, 1964, the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, instituted the false ecclesiology of "full" and "partial" communion that flies in the face of the teaching of the Catholic Church, a teaching documented by Bishop Donald Sanborn in The New Ecclesiology: An Overview and The New Ecclesiology: Documentation and Communion: Ratzinger's Ecumenical One-World Church). This “new ecclesiology,” of course, was the handiwork of none other than Father Joseph Alois Ratzinger, who was acting upon a recommendation by a German Lutheran "observer" at the "Second" Vatican Council, suggested should be placed into the text of Lumen Gentium, November 21, 1964, in order to give formal recognition to the "elements" of "sanctification" that he believed exists in the "ecclesial" (Protestant) "communities" and in the Orthodox churches. In other words, the man who is considered the “great dogmatist” helped to attack the Sacred Deposit of Faith at the "Second" Vatican Council to help to give birth to the heresy that is the “new ecclesiology, whose principal contention was refuted prophetically by Pope Pius XII in Mystici Corporis, June 29, 1943: ​​​

Actually only those are to be included as members of the Church who have been baptized and profess the true faith, and who have not been so unfortunate as to separate themselves from the unity of the Body, or been excluded by legitimate authority for grave faults committed. "For in one spirit" says the Apostle, "were we all baptized into one Body, whether Jews or Gentiles, whether bond or free." As therefore in the true Christian community there is only one Body, one Spirit, one Lord, and one Baptism, so there can be only one faith. And therefore, if a man refuse to hear the Church, let him be considered - so the Lord commands - as a heathen and a publican. It follows that those who are divided in faith or government cannot be living in the unity of such a Body, nor can they be living the life of its one Divine Spirit. (Pope Pius XII, Mystici Corporis, June 29, 1943.)

Jorge Mario Bergoglio has taken the “new ecclesiology” to mean that all “believers,” including those who deny the Sacred Divinity of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, are saved as long as they “do good," and he has built on the foundation of the attack upon the monarchical nature of the papacy that is "episcopal collegiality" to use "local churches" as laboratories for the development of subjective applications of Holy Mother Church's received teaching on Faith and Morals in the name of "synodality." 

The conciliar popes, of course, reject what Ratzinger/Benedict called disparagingly the “ecumenism of the return,” and Jorge Mario Bergoglio has gone so far as to issue endless apologies to Protestants and the Waldensians for the manner in which they had been “persecuted” by Catholics in the past, thereby making a mockery of the exhortations of one true pope after another for such a return of non-Catholics to the true Church. Thousands of "papal," "episcopal," sacerdotal/presbyteral "interfaith" prayer services have been held in full violation of admonitions of Saints Paul the Apostle and John the Evangelist as well as the specific condemnation and prohibition of such services by Pope Pius XI in Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928.

Despite all their protestations to the contrary, the conciliar "popes," starting with Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini/Paul VI and continuing to the present time under Jorge Mario Bergoglio, have given "joint blessings" with non-Catholic clergymen and engaged in endless services exhibiting a syncretism for which millions of Catholic martyrs gave up their lives rather than to even give the appearance of doing andhave endorsed, at least on a de facto basis, the very sort of religious indifferentism condemned by Pope Gregory XVI in Mirari Vos, August 15, 1832, by Pope Pius IX in The Syllabus of Errors and Quanta Cura, December 8, 1864, by Pope Saint Pius X in Pascendi Dominici Gregis, September 8, 1907, and Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15, 1910, by Pope Pius XI, Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928, and by the Holy Office under Pope Pius XII, July 5, 1948:

Mixed gatherings of non-Catholics with Catholics have been reportedly held in various places, where things pertaining to the Faith have been discussed against the prescriptions of the Sacred Canons and without previous permission of the Holy See. Therefore all are reminded that according to the norm of Canon 1325 § 3 laypeople as well as clerics both secular and regular are forbidden to attend these gatherings without the aforesaid permission. It is however much less licit for Catholics to summon and institute such kind of gatherings. Let therefore Ordinaries urge all to serve these prescriptions accurately.

These are to be observed with even stronger force of law when it comes to gatherings called “ecumenical”, which laypeople and clerics may not attend at all without previous consent of the Holy See.

Moreover, since acts of mixed worship have also been posed not rarely both within and without the aforesaid gatherings, all are once more warned that any communication in sacred affairs is totally forbidden according to the norm of Canons 1258 and 731, § 2.

Given at Rome, at the premises of the Holy Office, on June 5^th 1948. (This was translated by those who run Novus Ordo Watch. See The Holy Office's 1948 Canonical Warning against Ecumenical Gatherings.)

The “Second” Vatican Council proclaimed the heresy of “religious liberty and the conciliar “popes” have consistently praised nonexistent ability of false religions to "contribute" to the "betterment" of nations and the world. Condemned by Pope Pius VI in Brief Quod aliquantum, March 10, 1791, Religious Liberty, a “Monstrous Right Pope Pius VII in Post Tam Diuturnas, April 29, 1814, Pope Gregory XVI in Mirari Vos, August 15, 1832, and by Pope Pius IX in Quanta Cura, December 8, 1864.)

Karol Josef Wojtyla/John Paul II, Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI and Jorge Mario Bergoglio have endorsed and even praised the Protestantism’s and Judeo-Masonry’s concept of the "separation of Church and State," a thesis called absolutely false by Pope Saint Pius X in Vehementer Nos, February 11, 1906, and have rejected outright the obligation of the civil state to recognize the Catholic Church as its official religion and to pursue the common temporal good in light of man's Last End, an obligation reiterated by pope after pope following the rise of the religiously indifferentist civil state of Modernity.

The conciliar “popes,” therefore, are social modernists of the sort described by Ratzinger/Benedict, therefore, falls into the category of a social modernist described by Pope Pius XI in Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, December 23, 1922.

Wojtyla/John Paul II became the first conciliar “pope” to enter into a Mohammedan mosque, doing so on May 7, 2001, in Damascus, Syria, paving the way for Ratzinger/Benedict and Bergoglio to do the same, thus engaging in acts of apostasy and blasphemy as they, who have believed themselves to be Successors of Saint Peter, have permitted themselves treated as inferiors while treating treated places of false worship that are hideous to God as worthy of respect, thereby scandalizing Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ’s little ones no end.

Ratzinger/Benedict termed Mount Hiei in Japan, where the adherents of the Tendei sect of Buddhism, worship their devils, as "sacred," a term he used to describe the mosque of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem on May 12, 2009, and Bergoglio is constantly praising the temples of false religions as sacred places that give honor and glory to God.

The conciliar “popes” have rejected the clarity and certainty of the Scholasticism of Saint Thomas Aquinas, in favor of the condemned precepts of the so-called “New Theology” and they have held a view on the Doctrine of Justification that, in essence, hinges on the belief that the Fathers of the Council of Trent, who met under the influence and protection of God the Holy Ghost, were wrong (as is explained in Attempting to Coerce Perjury.)

The counterfeit church of conciliarism has promulgated abominable, sacrilegious and sacramentally invalid liturgical rites, including the aforementioned Novus Ordo liturgical travesty and the conciliar rites of "episcopal ordination"--the conciliar terminology, presbyteral "ordination," Confirmation and the so-called "Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick." The Novus Ordo service has been the chief means by which the conciliar authorities have broken down the sensus Catholicus of older Catholics and brainwashed three successive generations into accepting the doctrinal heresies and false moral teaching of a religious sect that is nothing other than the counterfeit ape of the Catholic Church. Even the Sacrament of Penance has been renamed, at least in many places within the conciliar structures, as the "Sacrament of Reconciliation" as the faithful have the option of going to what they think is Confession on a "face to face" basis while sitting down rather than kneeling. 

The egalitarianism of the conciliarism is such that the conciliar "popes" have granted permission for the administration of what they think is Holy Communion in the hand, to abolish, at least on a de fact basis, kneeling for what is purported to be Holy Communion,  abolished the Communion rail in many Catholic churches held in conciliar captivity, designed new church buildings and wreckovated others for the Cranmer Table to be in the nave of the church and to be circular in shape and permitted a veritable army of laity, including women, into the what used to be called the sanctuary of a Catholic Church.

The conciliar "popes" and their "bishops" have taught that the Old Covenant God gave to Moses was never superseded by the New and Eternal Testament that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ instituted at the Last Supper on Maundy Thursday and ratified as He shed every single drop of His Most Precious Blood during His Passion and Death on the wood of the Holy Cross on Good Friday, thus rejecting as "obsolete" the plain, immutable teaching of the Catholic Church as summarized very succinctly by Pope Pius II in Mystici Corporis, June 29, 1943:

28.That He completed His work on the gibbet of the Cross is the unanimous teaching of the holy Fathers who assert that the Church was born from the side of our Savior on the Cross like a new Eve, mother of all the living. [28] "And it is now," says the great St. Ambrose, speaking of the pierced side of Christ, "that it is built, it is now that it is formed, it is now that is .... molded, it is now that it is created . . . Now it is that arises a spiritual house, a holy priesthood." [29] One who reverently examines this venerable teaching will easily discover the reasons on which it is based.

29.And first of all, by the death of our Redeemer, the New Testament took the place of the Old Law which had been abolished; then the Law of Christ together with its mysteries, enactments, institutions, and sacred rites was ratified for the whole world in the blood of Jesus Christ. For, while our Divine Savior was preaching in a restricted area -- He was not sent but to the sheep that were lost of the house of Israel [30] -the Law and the Gospel were together in force; [31] but on the gibbet of his death Jesus made void the Law with its decrees, [32] fastened the handwriting of the Old Testament to the Cross, [33] establishing the New Testament in His blood shed for the whole human race. [34] "To such an extent, then," says St. Leo the Great, speaking of the Cross of our Lord, "was there effected a transfer from the Law to the Gospel, from the Synagogue to the Church, from many sacrifices to one Victim, that, as our Lord expired, that mystical veil which shut off the innermost part of the temple and its sacred secret was rent violently from top to bottom." [35]

30. On the Cross then the Old Law died, soon to be buried and to be a bearer of death, [36] in order to give way to the New Testament of which Christ had chosen the Apostles as qualified ministers; [37] and although He had been constituted the Head of the whole human family in the womb of the Blessed Virgin, it is by the power of the Cross that our Savior exercises fully the office itself of Head in His Church. "For it was through His triumph on the Cross," according to the teaching of the Angelic and Common Doctor, "that He won power and dominion over the gentiles"; [38] by that same victory He increased the immense treasure of graces, which, as He reigns in glory in heaven, He lavishes continually on His mortal members it was by His blood shed on the Cross that God's anger was averted and that all the heavenly gifts, especially the spiritual graces of the New and Eternal Testament, could then flow from the fountains of our Savior for the salvation of men, of the faithful above all; it was on the tree of the Cross, finally, that He entered into possession of His Church, that is, of all the members of His Mystical Body; for they would not have been united to this Mystical Body. (Pope Pius XII, Mystici Corporis, June 29, 1943.)

The innocence and purity of the young have been undermined and corrupted by explicit classroom instruction in matters pertaining to the Sixth and Ninth Commandments, instruction that was specifically prohibited by Pope Pius XI in Divini Illius Magistri, December 31, 1929, and reaffirmed by the Holy Office under his pontificate on March 21, 1931:

65. Another very grave danger is that naturalism which nowadays invades the field of education in that most delicate matter of purity of morals. Far too common is the error of those who with dangerous assurance and under an ugly term propagate a so-called sex-education, falsely imagining they can forearm youths against the dangers of sensuality by means purely natural, such as a foolhardy initiation and precautionary instruction for all indiscriminately, even in public; and, worse still, by exposing them at an early age to the occasions, in order to accustom them, so it is argued, and as it were to harden them against such dangers.

66. Such persons grievously err in refusing to recognize the inborn weakness of human nature, and the law of which the Apostle speaks, fighting against the law of the mind; and also in ignoring the experience of facts, from which it is clear that, particularly in young people, evil practices are the effect not so much of ignorance of intellect as of weakness of a will exposed to dangerous occasions, and unsupported by the means of grace.

67. In this extremely delicate matter, if, all things considered, some private instruction is found necessary and opportune, from those who hold from God the commission to teach and who have the grace of state, every precaution must be taken. Such precautions are well known in traditional Christian education, and are adequately described by Antoniano cited above, when he says:  

Such is our misery and inclination to sin, that often in the very things considered to be remedies against sin, we find occasions for and inducements to sin itself. Hence it is of the highest importance that a good father, while discussing with his son a matter so delicate, should be well on his guard and not descend to details, nor refer to the various ways in which this infernal hydra destroys with its poison so large a portion of the world; otherwise it may happen that instead of extinguishing this fire, he unwittingly stirs or kindles it in the simple and tender heart of the child. Speaking generally, during the period of childhood it suffices to employ those remedies which produce the double effect of opening the door to the virtue of purity and closing the door upon vice. (Passage and double-indented quotation as found in Pope Pius XI's Divini Illius Magistri, December 31, 1929.)

Can the method be approved, which is called "sexual education," or even "sexual initiation?"

Response: In the negative, and that the method must be persevere entirely as set forth up to the present entirely as set forth up to the present by the Church and saintly men, and recommended by the Most Holy Father in the Encyclical Letter, "On the Christian Education of Youth," given on the 31st day of December, 1929. Naturally, care must especially be taken that a full and solid religious instruction be given to the youth of both sexes without interruption; in this instruction there must be aroused a regard, desire, and love for the angelic virtue; and especially must it be inculcated upon them to insist on prayer, to be constant in the sacraments of penance and the Most Holy Eucharist, to be devoted to the Blessed Virgin Mother of holy purity, with filial devotion and to commit themselves wholly to her protection; to avoid carefully dangerous reading, obscene plays, associated with the wicked, and all occasions of sin.

By no means, then, can we approve what has been written and published in defense of the new method especially in these recent times, even on the part of some Catholic authors. (Henry Denzinger, Enchirdion Symbolorum, thirteenth edition, translated into English by Roy Deferrari and published in 1955 asThe Sources of Catholic Dogma--referred to as "Denziger," by B. Herder Book Company of St. Louis, Missouri, and London, England, Nos. 2183-2185, pp. 597-598.)

Jorge Mario  Bergoglio and his fellow Jacobin/Bolshevik conciliar revolutionaries have minimized, if not entirely denied, ins against Holy Purity, including fornication and adultery have been minimized and those who persist in states of public scandal by means of these sins have been welcomed to receive what the conciliar revolutionaries purport to be the Sacraments without reforming their lives.

Similarly, those practice and persist in perverse sins of unnatural vice have been welcomed in the name of a false concept of "mercy" and their lifestyles of perdition have been celebrated by many conciliar "bishops" and priests/presbyters worldwide without any "papal" rebuke under the current Bergoglian regime--and only infrequently and inconsistently before the elevation of the Argentine Apostate to his current position as the universal public face of apostasy. 

The counterfeit church of conciliarism has inverted the ends proper to the Sacrament of Matrimony and endorsed what is, in essence, a Catholic form of “natural” contraception, and enshrined this inversion in their corrupted 1983 Code of Canon Law:

856. The primary object of marriage is the procreation and education of offspring; the secondary purpose is mutual assistance and the remedy of concupiscence. (This can be found on page 205 of the following link, which is the 1917 Code of Canon Law in English:  1917 Pio-Benedictine Code of Canon Law.)

Can.  1055 §1. The matrimonial covenant, by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life and which is ordered by its nature to the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring, has been raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament between the baptized. (Canon 1055.1 1983 Conciliar Code of Canon Law. By the way, Father Vigano, your beloved Karol Josef Wojtyla/John Paul II propagated the so-called 1983 Code of Canon Law. Not even a true pope can change something that exists in the very nature of things. Why no criticism of "Saint John Paul II"?)

The entire fabric of the counterfeit church of conciliarism’s teaching on the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony, including its endorsement of the falsehood that is "natural family planning," is built on the fabric of the inversion of the ends of marriage that was condemned personally by Pope Pius XII on March 29, 1944, a condemnation that he cited and reiterated in the strongest terms possible in his aforementioned Address to Italian Midwives on the Nature of Their Profession

Certain publications concerning the purposes of matrimony, and their interrelationship and order, have come forth within these last years which either assert that the primary purpose of matrimony is not the generation of offspring, or that the secondary purposes are not subordinate to the primary purpose, but are independent of it.

In these works, different primary purposes of marriage are designated by other writers, as for example: the complement and personal perfection of the spouses through a complete mutual participation in life and action; mutual love and union of spouses to be nurtured and perfected the psychic and bodily surrender of one’s own person; and many other such things.

In the same writings a sense is sometimes attributed to words in the current documents of the Church (as for example, primary, secondary purpose), which does not agree with these words according to the common usage by theologians.

This revolutionary way of thinking and speaking aims to foster errors and uncertainties, to avoid which the Eminent and Very Fathers of this supreme Sacred Congregation, charged with the guarding of faith and morals, in a plenary session on Wednesday, the 29th of March, 1944, when the question was proposed to them: “Whether the opinion of certain writers can be admitted, who either deny that the primary purpose of matrimony is the generation of children and raising offspring, or teach that the secondary purposes are not essentially subordinate to the primary purpose, but are equally first and independent,” have decreed that the answer must be: In the negative. (As found in Henry Denzinger, Enchirdion Symbolorum, thirteenth edition, translated into English by Roy Deferrari and published in 1955 as The Sources of Catholic Dogma–referred to as “Denziger,” by B. Herder Book Company of St. Louis, Missouri, and London, England, No. 2295, pp. 624-625.)

The conciliar revolutionaries have placed the safety of the body over the sanctification and salvation of souls while deifying the natural environment and allying very formally with one anti-population, pro-abortion, pro-contraception nogoodnik and their organizations dedicated to the propagation of Communist, globalist, statist propaganda that empower the civil state, deprive men of their legitimate liberties, gut industries, heavily tax citizens and make national sovereignty a relic that belongs in the same category as the  Immemorial Mass of Tradition and the immutable Sacred Deposit of Faith. Naturalism and Pantheism, not Catholicism, guide the conciliar ideologues who are rigidly committed to the propagation of junk science while offending God by means of their hideous liturgies, false doctrines, false teaching on moral theology and false pastoral theology that lead men on the path to eternal ruin. (See Jorge's Band of Theological Racketeers Legitimize Paul Ehrlich)

Allying themselves openly with George Soros and his Soros Foundation, Jorge Mario Bergoglio has endorsed "palliative care," which is nothing other than the killing of the sick and whoever else is said to be suffering from a "declining" "quality of life," and encouraged Catholics to give their consent to be vivisected for their vital bodily organs under the aegis of the medical industry's manufactured myth of "brain death" that provided scientific cover for the "legalization" of the sort of barbarous practices to which the Aztecs and other pagans were so devoted. (See  Chronicling the Adversary's Global Takeover of the Healthcare Industry and Attack Dogmatic Truth, Open the Doors Wide for George Soros.)

Mind you, this is just a very partial and incomplete listing of the many ways in which the counterfeit church of conciliarism collectively has defected from the Holy Faith. All that Jorge Mario Bergoglio is doing is to the put the “finishing touches,” if you will, on all that has gone before him. The Argentine Apostate has used his daily screeds at the Ding Dong School of Apostasy at the Casa Santa Marta and exhortations and encyclicals such as Evangelii Gaudium, November 26, 2013, Laudato Si, May 24, 2015, and Amoris Laetitia, March 16, 2016, to map out a program of theological relativism that has suborned hardened sinners in their lives and wickedness and given aid and comfort to every leftist, statist, collectivist, globalist, pro-abort, pro-perversity and pro-“palliative care” politician and social leader on the face of the earth. The truth is plain for all but the culpably blind to see: conciliarism is a false religion, and it has been such openly since the promulgation of Lumen Gentium on November 21, 1964, after its occult beginnings in the six years leading up to its release.

It is amazing that those who make a good deal of money writing on matters pertaining to the doctrine and organization of what takes place within the walls of the Occupied Vatican on the West Bank of the Tiber River seem to forget that much of what they write about is not news. Many of these well-paid Vaticanologists write stories that supposedly demonstrate something "new" when they are simply permitting themselves to recycle that which some of their confreres had reported a short while, if not weeks, before. As one lost a good deal of support when coming to recognize and accepted the true state of the Church Militant in this time of apostasy and betrayal nearly fifteen and one-half years ago now, I can attest that there is no money to be had by having a relatively decent, although not nearly as good as in the past, memory of who in the Vatican has said what and when and then pointing out the facts to those who are easily agitated by the blare of current headlines.

Things in the counterfeit church of conciliarism have descended to such a depth of utter depravity that sodomite-friendly, if not open sodomites, within the conciliar “hierarchy” have been emboldened under the Argentine Apostate to hold all manner of celebrations in honor of those who live in states of unrepentant perversity and debauchery as the conciliar “pontiff” himself worries about “sustainable development goals” to “save the planet” while caring nothing for the sanctification and salvation of souls.

Significantly, the conciliar revolutionaries work overtime to demonstrate their commitment to naturalism while disparaging any supernatural connection whatsoever between the sins of men and the epic rise of violence across the world and the worsening of natural catastrophes, which they blame on “man-made global warming” and not on the large numbers of people, Catholic and non-Catholic alike, who prefer the darkness of their sins to the light and peace of Sanctifying Grace.

The conciliar revolutionaries, of course, are so steeped in their own sins of heresy, blasphemy, apostasy, and sacrilege that they refuse even to investigate whether the cure of a man who was suffering from the CCP/Wuhan/Red Chinese/Covid-19/Coronavirus was what even the man’s attending physician said was a miracle after Father Solanus Casey, O.F.M., Cap., appeared at his bedside and placed his hand under his ribcage:

A married father of three from the Diocese of Lansing claims that Blessed Solanus Casey, the humble Capuchin friar and priest, visited him twice in hospital and hastened what he believes to be a miraculous recovery from COVID-19. 

The 52-year-old construction worker, Nolan Ostrowski, a parishioner at Saint Peter Catholic Church in Eaton Rapids, Michigan, shared his story with the diocese in an interview Nov. 1.

When his COVID-19 symptoms worsened, Ostrowski was admitted to Sparrow Hospital in Lansing on July 25.

“And then, one night, I was sitting there and I woke up and I felt like there was a lot of darkness around me, a lot of despair over me, and I noticed there was somebody sitting at the side of my headboard and I couldn't turn to see who it was — all I could see were their legs, and his brown robe,” said Ostrowski, adding that initially he thought it might be his guardian angel.

That apparent visitation occurred on July 30, the Feast of Blessed Solanus Casey. The following night, July 31, the same figure in brown robes appeared again in Ostrowski’s hospital room, although, this time, the figure was sitting at the foot of his bed with his hands on his thighs.

“He sat there and that's when I realized that this isn't just my guardian. This is a saint. This is someone special,” Ostrowski recalled. Ostrowski began to pray and “plead for my life,” he said, telling the figure that he didn’t want his children raised without him.

“There was no response from him. It was like I was talking to a statue. Nothing. And then I said, ‘Well, if you save me, I'll never use God's name in vain again.’ And he jumped up like he won the Lotto. I mean, it was kind of startling. And he ran around the side of my bed. And when he ran, it was like a skipping, floating motion,” Ostrowski said.

“And he reached out and he touched my rib cage under my arm and then at the bottom of my rib cage. I remember kind of lifting my arm a little bit, but it was all very quick. And then he just stepped back a couple steps, and I felt like there was this ease that came over me and I felt very relaxed and comfortable. I knew I was saved.”

The following day, Ostrowski’s wife Kathleen showed him a photograph of Blessed Solanus. Ostrowski instantly recognized him as the figure who had twice visited him and laid hands upon his rib cage.

Father Solanus Casey was a Capuchin priest who was based for much of his life at Saint Bonaventure Monastery in Detroit. He was known during his lifetime as a wonderworker, for his great faith, and for his abilities as a spiritual counselor, but especially for his great attention to the sick. He was beatified at a ceremony held at Ford Field in Detroit in 2017.

The Ostrowski family and their friends had been praying to Blessed Solanus in the days prior to the events of July 30-31, although Ostrowski said he “didn't really know what he was about or what he had done.”

On Aug. 3, Ostrowski’s condition deteriorated and he was placed on a ventilator and into an induced coma. Two days later, he was airlifted to Lutheran Hospital in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where he was placed on an Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) machine, which operates an artificial lung for patients with severe respiratory issues.

“I knew once he was there, even though it was a roller coaster while he was there, that he was there to get better, that that's where God sent him to heal,” Kathleen Ostrowski said.

As it happens, the hospital in Fort Wayne is situated only 20 miles away from the former Saint Felix Friary in Huntington, where Blessed Solanus spent most of the last 10 years of his life in retirement. After a month, Ostrowski was able to walk again with the help of the ECMO machine.

“And the other doctors in the ICU, they said it was a miracle and they couldn't believe how well I was doing. They took me off the ventilator. I was able to breathe on my own, non-stop. They didn't have to put me back on it [during the day]. And they said that never happens,” Nolan Ostrowski said.

“I still sometimes struggle with a lack of breath, but for the most part, and it's only been a couple months since I've been off that ECMO machine, I am doing very well — and I think it's because of the intervention that occurred to me.”

On Oct. 1, Ostrowski returned home to his family in Eaton Rapids. Since then the family has made a pilgrimage of thanksgiving to the tomb of Blessed Solanus Casey in Detroit.

They have also written to those responsible for promoting Blessed Solanus’ cause of canonization. It is a cause that requires one more attributable miracle in order for “Blessed Solanus” to be declared as “Saint Solanus” by the Vatican.

“Well, I feel like it's gonna happen regardless. If my part in it is to make it happen, it would be great,” said Ostrowski. Added his wife Kathleen, “It would be great but I also feel that Solanus will keep doing what he's doing, and he's obviously not done, so if Nolan’s miracle is it that would be great — but it'll happen.”

Recently, the Ostrowski family heard back from the promoters of Blessed Solanus' cause to thank them for sharing their story, but explaining that after consulting with their advisory physicians they won’t be pursuing Ostrowski’s recovery as an official miracle, due to the fact that there may be some medical explanation for his recovery.

Even so, the Ostrowskis feel blessed by what happened to them, and they're happy that their story will be kept on file as part of the canonization process. (The Man in the Brown Robe: COVID-19 Patient Says Solanus Casey Appeared at His Bedside.)

While the canonization process in the Catholic Church requires careful and prudent consideration of claims concerning a miracle attributed to a deceased Catholic whose cause for canonization has been opened as a Servant of God or has advanced to the point of a declaration of Venerable or a solemn Beatification, the members of the Sacred Congregation for the Causes of the Saints would investigate all claims prayerfully, not dismiss them out of hand simply because there might be a medical explanation for the cure. If I can adapt a phrase from the conciliar revolutionaries, it would appear that the conciliarists have a preferential option for rationalism in the causes of some candidates for “canonization” by their false religious sect while having almost no standards at all for others (e.g., Angelo Roncalli, Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini, Karol Josef Wojtyla).

Although Father Solanus Casey, O.F.M., Cap., was “beatified” in a liturgical service on November 18, 2017, that was led by Angelo “Cardinal” Amato, the conciliar prefect for the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints (Wojtyla/John Paul II), his desire to convert the whole world to the true Faith is not in accord with the false ecumenism of the counterfeit church of conciliarism. Father Casey made many converts to the Catholic Faith simply by his example, something that I indicated in my lengthy commentary about him that was published five years ago (see Simply Holy: Father Solanus Casey, O.F.M., Cap.).

Modernists have a contempt for the Holy Faith in all things, including the traditions that have been passed down over the course of nearly two millennia concerning the exact location of Our Lord's Ascension into Heaven. A presbyter in the Congregation of the Mission who is the president of the Association of the Miraculous Medal, wrote the following in a computer program generated form letter sent to Sharon in 2011 in a box containing Miraculous Medals that were in need of an actual priestly blessing:

We begin June with the feast of the Ascension. We visit the Church of the Ascension on our recent pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Tradition says there are “footprints” on the floor left by Jesus as he ascended into heaven.

I am not too concerned about that tradition. However, the "footprints" do remind us that once Jesus ascended to his Father, he left the work of the Church to you and me. Where do our feet take us as we do the work of the Lord? (Father James Ward, C.M., June 3, 2011.) 

Please notice that Father Ward put quotation marks around the word footprints, signifying that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ did not leave those footprints Himself, that is nothing other than a "legend" that He did so.

How did Father Ward know this to be so?

Was he not concerned enough about the hallowed nature of those footprints to tremble in awe?

Then again, he was not "concerned" about capitalizing the pronoun he to refer to the Second Person of the Most Blessed Trinity made Man in His Most Blessed Mother's Virginal and Immaculate Womb by the power of God the Holy Ghost.

A mere legend?

My, my, we can't have anything of that sort in our modern age. And those footprints do indeed have symbolic significance as they remind us that Our Lord really did Ascend into Heaven, that we must do hard work to save our souls as members of the Catholic Church. Anyone who would publicly place their authenticity into doubt might be in for just a little bit of rude awakening at the Particular Judgment.

Father Ward, though, was not alone in the counterfeit church of conciliarism. Another visitor to a church, one located on the outskirts of Rome, Italy, said pretty much the same thing about footprints left by Our Lord and His first pope, Saint Peter, in that church, named the Church of Quo Vadis, Domine. Here is my account of an excerpt from that visitor's address in 1982:

The Church of Domine, Quo Vadis? is magnificent. There is a portrait of Saint Peter being crucified upside down on one side of the church and a portrait of Our Lord's Crucifixion on the other side. At the back of the church is a stone slab on which are two footprints, one belonging to Our Lord and one belonging to Saint Peter. A pamphlet about the church states that skeptics might dismiss a claim that one of those footprints belongs to the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity made Man except for the fact that the footprint matches exactly the dimensions of the corresponding foot on the Holy Shroud of Turin. Although some may try to dismiss the meeting of the first Pope and Our Lord outside of the walls of Rome as a legend, as did Pope John Paul II when he visited the church in 1982 (saying that "it is a legend that is true because we have taken it into our hearts"; in other words, it is true because we feel it is so), I had no doubt at all about the fact that I was venerating an actual footprint of the Divine Redeemer. I told Lucy Mary Norma Whose footprint I was kissing. She made sure to kiss it several times. I had always wanted to visit the Church of Domine, Quo Vadis? (A Roman Pilgrimage in Honor of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, written a little less than a year before I began to explore the possibility of the truth of sedevacantism in articles on this site.) 

What if these “legends” are true?

Then again, the men who esteem false religions and embrace one condemned proposition another make of the doctrine of the Church but mere “legends” whose authenticity is in doubt and/or may be in need of “adjustments” over the course of time.

Famously, of course, none other than Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI described himself ten years ago as a rationalist,” that is, a person who believes that it is necessary to reason things out on his own in light of alleged new verities (new truths) that man encounters as “progress” takes him to newer visions of himself and the world around him over the course of time.

Rationalism is of the essence of the Protestant Revolution as it was only logical for men, having rejected the teaching authority of the true Church that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ founded upon the rock of Peter, the Pope, to trust in their own “abilities” to interpret Sacred Scripture by explaining it anew with “insights” of their very own.

Rationalism is, of course, at the very foundation of the so-called “Age of Reason” or “Enlightenment” that spawned so many variations of what are, when all of the complexities and intricacies are stripped away, the same naturalist theme: that God, if He exists at all, has revealed nothing definitively binding upon all men at all times and that it is therefore necessary for men to “rethink” basic presuppositions in order to “discover” the meaning of life and ways of improving man's lot here on earth.

Modernism has its proximate antecedent roots in the rationalism of the Protestant Revolution, replete with all its own complex variations that mutations, and the rationalism of the "Enlightenment" that led to reign of the "rights of man" in the place of the rights of the Social Reign of Christ the King.

Although not described by Pope Pius IX as Modernism, the rationalism he condemned in his first encyclical letter, Qui Pluribus, November 9, 1846, is one of the essential building-blocks of Modernism as defined, analyzed and condemned by Pope Saint Pius X in Pascendi Dominici Gregis, September 8, 1907: 

5. In order to easily mislead the people into making errors, deceiving particularly the imprudent and the inexperienced, they pretend that they alone know the ways to prosperity. They claim for themselves without hesitation the name of "philosophers." They feel as if philosophy, which is wholly concerned with the search for truth in nature, ought to reject those truths which God Himself, the supreme and merciful creator of nature, has deigned to make plain to men as a special gift. With these truths, mankind can gain true happiness and salvation. So, by means of an obviously ridiculous and extremely specious kind of argumentation, these enemies never stop invoking the power and excellence of human reason; they raise it up against the most holy faith of Christ, and they blather with great foolhardiness that this faith is opposed to human reason.

6. Without doubt, nothing more insane than such a doctrine, nothing more impious or more opposed to reason itself could be devised. For although faith is above reason, no real disagreement or opposition can ever be found between them; this is because both of them come from the same greatest source of unchanging and eternal truth, God. They give such reciprocal help to each other that true reason shows, maintains and protects the truth of the faith, while faith frees reason from all errors and wondrously enlightens, strengthens and perfects reason with the knowledge of divine matters.

7. It is with no less deceit, venerable brothers, that other enemies of divine revelation, with reckless and sacrilegious effrontery, want to import the doctrine of human progress into the Catholic religion. They extol it with the highest praise, as if religion itself were not of God but the work of men, or a philosophical discovery which can be perfected by human means. The charge which Tertullian justly made against the philosophers of his own time "who brought forward a Stoic and a Platonic and a Dialectical Christianity"[2] can very aptly apply to those men who rave so pitiably. Our holy religion was not invented by human reason, but was most mercifully revealed by God; therefore, one can quite easily understand that religion itself acquires all its power from the authority of God who made the revelation, and that it can never be arrived at or perfected by human reason. In order not to be deceived and go astray in a matter of such great importance, human reason should indeed carefully investigate the fact of divine revelation. Having done this, one would be definitely convinced that God has spoken and therefore would show Him rational obedience, as the Apostle very wisely teaches.[3] For who can possibly not know that all faith should be given to the words of God and that it is in the fullest agreement with reason itself to accept and strongly support doctrines which it has determined to have been revealed by God, who can neither deceive nor be deceived?  (Pope Pius IX, Qui Pluribus, November 9, 1846.)

Rationalism is opposed to rationality. That is, rationalism, trusting in man's ability to “figure everything out for himself,” leads to skepticism of the past and skepticism of most supernatural truths that rationalists believe can only be accepted if they are made “accessible” to “modern men” by adapting their expression to the exigencies of a given period in history.

We have been eyewitnesses to the endless, tireless, ceaseless efforts on the part of the conciliar “popes,” including Jorge Mario Bergoglio, to precisely do this without almost every facet of the Holy Faith.

The conciliar “popes,” puffed up with overweening pride and oozing with hubris, have told us that they know better than the true popes of the Catholic Church.

The conciliar “popes” have known better than anyone else how to re-read Sacred Scripture.

The conciliar “popes” have found the "true way" to re-read the Fathers of the Church.

The conciliar “popes,” including Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI and Jorge Mario Bergoglio, have twisted the words of various saints and doctors to attempt to make them witnesses in behalf of the apostasies, blasphemies and sacrileges of his false religion, conciliarism, rejecting entirely the official philosophy of the Catholic Church, Scholasticism, going so far as to refer the philosophy employed by Saint Thomas Aquinas and endorsed by numerous popes and the fathers of the Council of Trent as "the philosophical school" of the Angelic Doctor's time.

The conciliar “popes” have known more than Pope Eugene IV and the fathers of the Council of Florence under whom Cantate Domino was issued on February 4, 1442.

The conciliar “popes” have known better than Popes Benedict XIII, Saint Pius V, Clement XII, Blessed Urban V, Innocent VI, and Leo XIII, each of whom endorsed the Scholasticism of Saint Thomas Aquinas as the true way by which Faith and reason work together as the creature uses the rational faculties God gave him to see all things through the light of the Faith and to accept that we must accept that the supernatural truths revealed by Him and taught in His Holy Name by the Catholic Church can never be contradicted or understood in any other way.

The Modernist, inebriated by rationalism and the agnosticism that it breeds, stands the true use of human reason on its head, believing that contraries can be true, believing that God the Holy Ghost did not direct the work of the fathers of Holy Mother Church's twenty general councils and/or that the language employed in the decrees promulgated by those councils were but temporary dispositions of the truth as it was understood in the context of the particular age in which those councils meant, that it is possible and every necessary to revisit matters that have been considered closed. This is rationalism, and it was condemned by Pope Pius IX in The Syllabus of Errors, December 8, 1864:

II. MODERATE RATIONALISM

8. As human reason is placed on a level with religion itself, so theological must be treated in the same manner as philosophical sciences. -- Allocution "Singulari quadam," Dec. 9, 1854.

9. All the dogmas of the Christian religion are indiscriminately the object of natural science or philosophy, and human reason, enlightened solely in an historical way, is able, by its own natural strength and principles, to attain to the true science of even the most abstruse dogmas; provided only that such dogmas be proposed to reason itself as its object. -- Letters to the Archbishop of Munich, "Gravissimas inter," Dec. 11, 1862, and "Tuas libenter," Dec. 21, 1863.

10. As the philosopher is one thing, and philosophy another, so it is the right and duty of the philosopher to subject himself to the authority which he shall have proved to be true; but philosophy neither can nor ought to submit to any such authority. -- Ibid., Dec. 11, 1862.

11. The Church not only ought never to pass judgment on philosophy, but ought to tolerate the errors of philosophy, leaving it to correct itself. -- Ibid., Dec. 21, 1863.

12. The decrees of the Apostolic See and of the Roman congregations impede the true progress of science. -- Ibid.

13. The method and principles by which the old scholastic doctors cultivated theology are no longer suitable to the demands of our times and to the progress of the sciences. -- Ibid.

14. Philosophy is to be treated without taking any account of supernatural revelation. -- Ibid. (Pope Pius IX, The Syllabus of Errors, December 8, 1864.) 

Propositions twelve and thirteen apply particularly to the lifelong work of the immediate past universal public face of apostasy, Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI (see  and Mister Asteroid Is Looking Pretty Good Right About Now), and, of course, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who loves every religion except Catholicism—and who  deconstructed Our Lady's Fatima Message but good during in his own inimitable manner during his visit to Fatima fifty-four months ago (see Bergoglio the Blaspheming Heretic Lives Down to Expectations at Fatima, part one and Bergoglio the Blaspheming Heretic Lives Down to Expectations at Fatima, part two).

Moreover, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's rationalism made it impossible for him to believe in the miraculous, which is why his denials of the doctrine of Transubstantiation and of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ's actual, bodily Resurrection on Easter Sunday had to be cloaked with layers upon layers of his rationalistic “search for the truth.” He is an incredulous man, which is why he could not accept the fact of Our Lady's actual, physical presence atop the holm oak in the Cova da Iria near Fatima, Portugal, one hundred four years ago, and it is why he found the actual Third Secret of Fatima to be as much “rubbish” as did Angelo Roncalli/John XXIII when he read it in 1960.

The now retired "Petrine Minister" sought to explain his disbelief in Our Lady's actual, physical presence in Fatima in various ways, doing so in 2000 as a false version of the Third Secret was released and reiterating in no uncertain terms ten years later when he visited Portugal.

Consider these words, spoken by Ratzinger/Benedict on May 13, 2010, Ascension Thursday, on the Esplanade in front of the Shrine of the Most Holy Trinity in Fatima, Portugal:

Brothers and sisters, in listening to these innocent and profound mystical confidences of the shepherd children, one might look at them with a touch of envy for what they were able to see, or with the disappointed resignation of someone who was not so fortunate, yet still demands to see. To such persons, the Pope says, as does Jesus: “Is not this the reason you are wrong, that you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God?” (Mk 12:24). The Scriptures invite us to believe: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe” (Jn 20:29), but God, who is more deeply present to me than I am to myself (cf. Saint Augustine, Confessions, III, 6, 11) – has the power to come to us, particularly through our inner senses, so that the soul can receive the gentle touch of a reality which is beyond the senses and which enables us to reach what is not accessible or visible to the senses. For this to happen, we must cultivate an interior watchfulness of the heart which, for most of the time, we do not possess on account of the powerful pressure exerted by outside realities and the images and concerns which fill our soul (cf. Theological Commentary on The Message of Fatima, 2000). Yes! God can come to us, and show himself to the eyes of our heart.

Moreover, that Light deep within the shepherd children, which comes from the future of God, is the same Light which was manifested in the fullness of time and came for us all: the Son of God made man. (Homily at the Purported Mass on the Esplanade of the Shrine of Our Lady of Fátima.)

It is very significant that the former "pontiff" cited his own Theological Commentary on the Fatima Message from 2000 as he meant to convey, albeit in the obscurantist manner of a Modernist, that the Faith is purely a matter of the senses (no room for the intellect here) and that the three shepherd children had a “Light deep within them” that caused them to “see” Our Lady interiorly, meaning, of course, that she was not truly physically visible to the eyes of their bodies. And that is leaving aside the phrase “the future of God” as no true pope has ever spoken in such an absurd manner. A Catholic can speak about the future possession of the glory of the Beatific Vision of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. One possessed of a Catholic mind does speak of the “future of God” as He is without beginning or end.

How did the Theological Commentary on the Fatima Message connect with Ratzinger/Benedict's words in 2010 to justify a conclusion that he does not believe that Our Lady really appeared physically before the eyes of Jacinta and Francisco Marto and Lucia dos Santos?

Consider this passage from that Theological Commentary on the Fatima Message:

Before undertaking an interpretation of the message of Fatima, we must still attempt briefly to offer some clarification of their anthropological (psychological) character. In this field, theological anthropology distinguishes three forms of perception or “vision”: vision with the senses, and hence exterior bodily perception, interior perception, and spiritual vision (visio sensibilis - imaginativa - intellectualis). It is clear that in the visions of Lourdes, Fatima and other places it is not a question of normal exterior perception of the senses: the images and forms which are seen are not located spatially, as is the case for example with a tree or a house. This is perfectly obvious, for instance, as regards the vision of hell (described in the first part of the Fatima “secret”) or even the vision described in the third part of the “secret”. But the same can be very easily shown with regard to other visions, especially since not everybody present saw them, but only the “visionaries”. It is also clear that it is not a matter of a “vision” in the mind, without images, as occurs at the higher levels of mysticism. Therefore we are dealing with the middle category, interior perception. For the visionary, this perception certainly has the force of a presence, equivalent for that person to an external manifestation to the senses.   

Interior vision does not mean fantasy, which would be no more than an expression of the subjective imagination. It means rather that the soul is touched by something real, even if beyond the senses. It is rendered capable of seeing that which is beyond the senses, that which cannot be seen—seeing by means of the “interior senses”. It involves true “objects”, which touch the soul, even if these “objects” do not belong to our habitual sensory world. This is why there is a need for an interior vigilance of the heart, which is usually precluded by the intense pressure of external reality and of the images and thoughts which fill the soul. The person is led beyond pure exteriority and is touched by deeper dimensions of reality, which become visible to him. Perhaps this explains why children tend to be the ones to receive these apparitions: their souls are as yet little disturbed, their interior powers of perception are still not impaired. “On the lips of children and of babes you have found praise”, replies Jesus with a phrase of Psalm 8 (v. 3) to the criticism of the High Priests and elders, who had judged the children's cries of “hosanna” inappropriate (cf. Mt 21:16).   

“Interior vision” is not fantasy but, as we have said, a true and valid means of verification. But it also has its limitations. Even in exterior vision the subjective element is always present. We do not see the pure object, but it comes to us through the filter of our senses, which carry out a work of translation. This is still more evident in the case of interior vision, especially when it involves realities which in themselves transcend our horizon. The subject, the visionary, is still more powerfully involved. He sees insofar as he is able, in the modes of representation and consciousness available to him. In the case of interior vision, the process of translation is even more extensive than in exterior vision, for the subject shares in an essential way in the formation of the image of what appears. He can arrive at the image only within the bounds of his capacities and possibilities. Such visions therefore are never simple “photographs” of the other world, but are influenced by the potentialities and limitations of the perceiving subject. (Theological Commentary on the Fatima Message.) 

In other words, just as Modernists contend that Faith itself is a matter of interior consciousness that comes from within, so they also believe that seers such as Saint Bernadette Soubirous and Jacinta and Francisco Marto and Lucia dos Santos have had real but necessarily “subjective” experiences that have no actual visible, spatial reality with the eyes of the body.

It is important to examine the connection between the Theological Commentary on the Fatima Message of twenty-one years ago and the “homily” given on the Esplanade of the Shrine of Our Lady of Fátima on May 13, 2010.

First, Ratzinger/Benedict made the point in 2010 that the three shepherd children of Fatima were able to "see" Our Lady because they had “these innocent and profound mystical confidences,” meaning that the children had to have pure, innocent souls to see interiorly what they thought they had seen with their eyes. This corresponds exactly to what he wrote ten years ago, that “this explains why children tend to be the ones to receive these apparitions: their souls are as yet little disturbed, their interior powers of perception are still not impaired.”

My friends, Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI has never believed that Our Lady physically appeared before the physical eyes of Jacinta, Francisco, and Lucia. He has dismissed the Fatima apparitions as an “interior vision” that are designed to move us closer to Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and have nothing at all to do with apostasy in the ranks of those who believe themselves to be Catholics or, Heaven forfend, the consecration of Russia to Our Lady's Immaculate Heart by a true pope with all the world’s bishops.

If what happened at Fatima was but a mere “interior vision,” then why did each of the children, when being examined by ecclesiastical authorities, give identical testimony as to what they saw with the physical eyes of their bodies? Each had the identical “inner vision”?

Logic has never been Ratzinger/Benedict's long suit as his rejection of Thomism (both Thomistic Philosophy and Thomistic Theology) has opened up to grow from young adulthood into an old man, who is now a “retired” antipope, who has lived in a world of contradiction, paradox and ambiguity which makes it almost impossible for to him to see the fallacies in what he presents as "explanations" of the Faith and the events associated with It.

Second, Ratzinger/Benedict said in 2010 that God “has the power to come to us, particularly through our inner senses, so that the soul can receive the gentle touch of a reality which is beyond the senses and which enables us to reach what is not accessible or visible to the senses.” This corresponds with his statement of ten years previously:

It is clear that in the visions of Lourdes, Fatima and other places it is not a question of normal exterior perception of the senses: the images and forms which are seen are not located spatially, as is the case for example with a tree or a house. This is perfectly obvious, for instance, as regards the vision of hell (described in the first part of the Fatima “secret”) or even the vision described in the third part of the “secret”. . . .

It means rather that the soul is touched by something real, even if beyond the senses. It is rendered capable of seeing that which is beyond the senses, that which cannot be seen—seeing by means of the “interior senses”. It involves true “objects”, which touch the soul, even if these “objects” do not belong to our habitual sensory world. This is why there is a need for an interior vigilance of the heart, which is usually precluded by the intense pressure of external reality and of the images and thoughts which fill the soul. (Theological Commentary on the Fatima Message.) 

Why was it “perfectly obvious” that the images and forms seen, to cite the retired nonagenarian’s own example, by the fourteen-year-old Bernadette Soubirous and Jacinta, Francisco, and Lucia “are not located spatially”?

Our Lady did not actually part the earth and show Jacinta, Francisco, and Lucia a vision of Hell that they saw with their own eyes?

This was merely an “interior” vision of theirs that did not really happen in time and space?

Remember, of course, that Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict has written of the resurrection of “persons,” not bodies as He does not believe that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ actually rose from the dead on Easter Sunday.

Pope Saint Pius X summarized these egregious men and their hatred of the supernatural as follows:

39. It may, perhaps, seem to some, Venerable Brethren, that We have dealt at too great length on this exposition of the doctrines of the Modernists. But it was necessary that We should do so, both in order to meet their customary charge that We do not understand their ideas, and to show that their system does not consist in scattered and unconnected theories, but, as it were, in a closely connected whole, so that it is not possible to admit one without admitting all. For this reason, too, We have had to give to this exposition a somewhat didactic form, and not to shrink from employing certain unwonted terms which the Modernists have brought into use. And now with Our eyes fixed upon the whole system, no one will be surprised that We should define it to be the synthesis of all heresies. Undoubtedly, were anyone to attempt the task of collecting together all the errors that have been broached against the faith and to concentrate into one the sap and substance of them all, he could not succeed in doing so better than the Modernists have done. Nay, they have gone farther than this, for, as We have already intimated, their system means the destruction not of the Catholic religion alone, but of all religion. Hence the rationalists are not wanting in their applause, and the most frank and sincere among them congratulate themselves on having found in the Modernists the most valuable of all allies.

Let us turn for a moment, Venerable Brethren, to that most disastrous doctrine of agnosticism. By it every avenue to God on the side of the intellect is barred to man, while a better way is supposed to be opened from the side of a certain sense of the soul and action. But who does not see how mistaken is such a contention? For the sense of the soul is the response to the action of the thing which the intellect or the outward senses set before it. Take away the intelligence, and man, already inclined to follow the senses, becomes their slave. Doubly mistaken, from another point of view, for all these fantasies of the religious sense will never be able to destroy common sense, and common sense tells us that emotion and everything that leads the heart captive proves a hindrance instead of a help to the discovery of truth. We speak of truth in itself — for that other purely subjective truth, the fruit of the internal sense and action, if it serves its purpose for the play of words, is of no benefit to the man who wants above all things to know whether outside himself there is a God into whose hands he is one day to fall. True, the Modernists call in experience to eke out their system, but what does this experience add to that sense of the soul? Absolutely nothing beyond a certain intensity and a proportionate deepening of the conviction of the reality of the object. But these two will never make the sense of the soul into anything but sense, nor will they alter its nature, which is liable to deception when the intelligence is not there to guide it; on the contrary, they but confirm and strengthen this nature, for the more intense the sense is the more it is really sense. And as we are here dealing with religious sense and the experience involved in it, it is known to you, Venerable Brethren, how necessary in such a matter is prudence, and the learning by which prudence is guided. You know it from your own dealings with souls, and especially with souls in whom sentiment predominates; you know it also from your reading of works of ascetical theology — works for which the Modernists have but little esteem, but which testify to a science and a solidity far greater than theirs, and to a refinement and subtlety of observation far beyond any which the Modernists take credit to themselves for possessing. It seems to Us nothing short of madness, or at the least consummate temerity to accept for true, and without investigation, these incomplete experiences which are the vaunt of the Modernist. Let Us for a moment put the question: If experiences have so much force and value in their estimation, why do they not attach equal weight to the experience that so many thousands of Catholics have that the Modernists are on the wrong path? Is it that the Catholic experiences are the only ones which are false and deceptive? The vast majority of mankind holds and always will hold firmly that sense and experience alone, when not enlightened and guided by reason, cannot reach to the knowledge of God. What, then, remains but atheism and the absence of all religion? Certainly it is not the doctrine of symbolism that will save us from this. For if all the intellectual elements, as they call them, of religion are nothing more than mere symbols of God, will not the very name of God or of divine personality be also a symbol, and if this be admitted, the personality of God will become a matter of doubt and the gate will be opened to pantheism? And to pantheism pure and simple that other doctrine of the divine immanence leads directly. For this is the question which We ask: Does or does not this immanence leave God distinct from man? If it does, in what does it differ from the Catholic doctrine, and why does it reject the doctrine of external revelation? If it does not, it is pantheism. Now the doctrine of immanence in the Modernist acceptation holds and professes that every phenomenon of conscience proceeds from man as man. The rigorous conclusion from this is the identity of man with God, which means pantheism. The distinction which Modernists make between science and faith leads to the same conclusion. The object of science, they say, is the reality of the knowable; the object of faith, on the contrary, is the reality of the unknowable. Now, what makes the unknowable unknowable is the fact that there is no proportion between its object and the intellect — a defect of proportion which nothing whatever, even in the doctrine of the Modernist, can suppress. Hence the unknowable remains and will eternally remain unknowable to the believer as well as to the philosopher. Therefore if any religion at all is possible, it can only be the religion of an unknowable reality. And why this might not be that soul of the universe, of which certain rationalists speak, is something which certainly does not seem to Us apparent. These reasons suffice to show superabundantly by how many roads Modernism leads to atheism and to the annihilation of all religion. The error of Protestantism made the first step on this path; that of Modernism makes the second; atheism makes the next.

40. To penetrate still deeper into the meaning of Modernism and to find a suitable remedy for so deep a sore, it behooves Us, Venerable Brethren, to investigate the causes which have engendered it and which foster its growth. That the proximate and immediate cause consists in an error of the mind cannot be open to doubt. We recognize that the remote causes may be reduced to two: curiosity and pride. Curiosity by itself, if not prudently regulated, suffices to account for all errors. Such is the opinion of Our predecessor, Gregory XVI, who wrote: “A lamentable spectacle is that presented by the aberrations of human reason when it yields to the spirit of novelty, when against the warning of the Apostle it seeks to know beyond what it is meant to know, and when relying too much on itself it thinks it can find the truth outside the Catholic Church wherein truth is found without the slightest shadow of error.” (Pope Saint Pius X, Pascendi Dominici Gregis, September 8, 1907.)

As has been noted in the printed pages of Christ or Chaos (1996-2004) and online since 2004, while admitting the influence of the recrudescence of Sophism during various phases of the Renaissance, the Protestant Revolution against the Divine Plan that God has instituted to effect man’s return to Him through His Catholic Church was the avenue that led fallen man down the path to spiritual and social ruin. Pope Saint Pius X’s discussion of about the role of rationalism and atheism as the natural results of Protestantism echoed the clear statement of undeniable truth made by his immediate predecessor, Pope Leo XIII, in Immortale Dei, November 1, 1885:

The sovereignty of the people, however, and this without any reference to God, is held to reside in the multitude; which is doubtless a doctrine exceedingly well calculated to flatter and to inflame many passions, but which lacks all reasonable proof, and all power of insuring public safety and preserving order. Indeed, from the prevalence of this teaching, things have come to such a pass that may hold as an axiom of civil jurisprudence that seditions may be rightfully fostered. For the opinion prevails that princes are nothing more than delegates chosen to carry out the will of the people; whence it necessarily follows that all things are as changeable as the will of the people, so that risk of public disturbance is ever hanging over our heads.

To hold, therefore, that there is no difference in matters of religion between forms that are unlike each other, and even contrary to each other, most clearly leads in the end to the rejection of all religion in both theory and practice. And this is the same thing as atheism, however it may differ from it in name. Men who really believe in the existence of God must, in order to be consistent with themselves and to avoid absurd conclusions, understand that differing modes of divine worship involving dissimilarity and conflict even on most important points cannot all be equally probable, equally good, and equally acceptable to God. (Pope Leo XIII, Immortale Dei, November 1, 1885.)

The conciliar revolutionaries have made a mockery of what appears to most people to be the Catholic Faith, and it is thus perfectly natural for them to dismiss even the possibility that Our Lod used Father Solanus Casey to effect a miraculous cure for Mr. Nolan Ostrowski immediately upon the Capuchin having touched him in two different parts of his body.

The counterfeit church of conciliarism is not the Catholic Church, and in it, therefore, one can find almost everything except salvation, something that Saint Augustine of Hippo noted as follows:

One cannot have [salvation] except in the Catholic Church. Outside of the Catholic Church one can have everything except salvation. One can have honor, one can have the sacraments, one can sing alleluia, one can answer Amen, one can have the Gospel, one can have faith in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and preach, but never can one find salvation except in the Catholic Church.”  (Saint Augustine of Hippo, Sermon to the People of the Church of Caesarea, Chapter 6.)

Our Lady told Saint Bridget of Sweden noted what would happen to those Catholics who are truly enemies of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and thus who serve as enemies of the souls for whom Our Lord shed every single drop of His Most Precious Blood to redeem, including their own souls:

The words of the Virgin Mother to the bride about the excellence of her Son, and about how Christ is now being crucified more cruelly by his enemies, the evil Christians, than he once was by the Jews, and about how such people will receive a harder and more bitter punishment.

Chapter 37

The Queen of Heaven said: “My Son had three good things: The first one was that no one ever had such a beautiful body as he did, since he had two perfect natures, namely, his Divinity and Manhood. His body was so pure that, just as no stain can be found in the clearest of eyes, so not a single defect could be found on his body. The second good was that he never sinned. Other children, however, sometimes bear the sins of their parents and sometimes their own; but he never sinned and yet bore the sins of everyone. The third good was that some men die for the sake of God and to receive a greater reward, but he died just as much for the sake of his enemies as for me and his friends.

When his enemies crucified him, they did four things to him: First, they crowned him with a crown of thorns. Second, they pierced his hands and feet. Third, they gave him gall to drink. Fourth, they pierced his side. But now I complain that the enemies of my Son, who are now in the world, crucify him more cruelly in a spiritual sense than the Jews who crucified his body. For even though the divinity is unable to suffer and die, still they crucify him through their own vices and sins. For if a man insults and injures an image of his enemy, the image does not feel the damage done to it; nevertheless, the perpetrator should be accused and judged for his evil intention to do harm as though it was a deed. In the same way, the vices and sins by which they crucify my Son spiritually are more abominable and heavy to him than the vices of those who crucified his body.

But now you may ask: ‘How do they crucify him?’ First off, they fasten him on the cross they have prepared for him when they do not heed the commandments of their Creator and Lord, but dishonor him when he warns them through his servants to serve him, and they despise this and instead do what pleases them. Then they crucify his right hand when they hold justice to be as injustice, saying: ‘Sin is not so heavy and abominable to God as it is said. God does not punish anyone for all eternity; he only threatens us with these hard things to scare us. Why else would he redeem man if he wanted us to perish?’ They do not consider that the least little sin a man finds delight in is enough to damn him to an eternal torment, and that God does not let the least little sin go unpunished, just like he does not let the least little good deed go unrewarded.

Therefore, they shall be tormented for all eternity because of their constant intention of sinning, and my Son, who sees the heart, counts that as a deed. For they would fulfill their will with deeds if my Son tolerated or allowed it. Then they crucify his left hand when they turn virtue into sin and the will to continue in sin until the end, saying: ‘If we just once say at the end of our life, “O God, have mercy on me,” God’s mercy is so great that we will be forgiven.’ But this is not virtue - to want to sin without bettering oneself, and wanting to receive a reward without having to work for it, not unless a real contrition is found in the heart that the man wants to change if only he could do so were it not for illness or some other hindrance.

Thereafter, they crucify his feet when they take pleasure in sinning without once thinking of my Son’s bitter suffering or without once thanking him from their inmost heart with words like these: ‘My Lord and God, how bitter your suffering was, praise and honor be to you for your death’ – such words are never heard from their mouth. They then crown him with the crown of derision when they mock his servants and consider it useless to serve him. They give him gall to drink when they rejoice and glory in sin. And not once does the thought arise in their heart of how grave and manifold and dangerous this sin is. They pierce his side when they have the will to continue in sin.

In truth, I tell you - and you can say this to my friends - that such people are more unjust in the sight of my Son than those who judged him, more unkind than those who crucified him, more shameless than those who sold him, and they shall therefore receive a greater torment than the others. Pilate knew very well that my Son had not sinned and did not deserve to die. But he, nonetheless, felt compelled to judge my Son to death because he feared the loss of his worldly power and the revolt of the Jews. But what would these have to fear if they served my Son, or what honor or dignity would they lose if they honored him? They will therefore be judged with a more severe sentence than Pilate’s, for they are worse than him in my Son’s sight. For Pilate judged him because of the request and will of others and due to fear, but these judge him for their own advantage and without any fear when they dishonor him by committing the sin that they could abstain from if they wanted. But they do not abstain from sin nor are they ashamed of the sins that they have done, for they do not consider that they are unworthy of the good deeds of the One whom they do not serve.

They are also worse than Judas, for when Judas had betrayed his Lord, he knew very well that he was God and that he had sinned heavily against him, but he despaired and hastened his days toward hell, thinking himself to be unworthy to live. But these know their sin very well and yet they continue in it without feeling any remorse about it in their hearts. They want to take the kingdom of Heaven with violence and power when they think they can get it, not through their good deeds but through a vain hope, but it is only given to those who work and suffer something for the sake of God.

They are also worse than those who crucified my Son. For when these saw the good works of my Son, namely, the raising of the dead and the cleansing of leapers, they thought to themselves: ‘This man does unheard of and extraordinary miracles. He overcomes anyone he wants with a word, he knows all our thoughts, and he does whatever he wants. If he is successful, we will all have to submit to his power and become his subjects.’ Therefore, in order to avoid being subjected to him, they crucified him because of their envy. But if they had known that he was the King of glory, they never would have crucified him.

But these people see his great deeds and miracles everyday, and they take advantage of his good deeds and hear how they should serve him and come to him, but they think to themselves: ‘If we must leave all our temporal belongings and follow his will and not our own, it would be heavy and unbearable.’ They despise his will so that it should not be placed over their own will, and crucify my Son through their hardened heart when they add sin upon sin against their conscience. They are worse than those who crucified my Son, for the Jews did it for the sake of envy and because they did not know that he was God, but these know him to be God, and yet, in their own malice and presumption and greed, they crucify him spiritually more cruelly than the Jews did physically. For they themselves have been redeemed, but the Jews had not yet been redeemed. Therefore, my bride, obey my Son and fear him, for just as he is merciful, he is also just.” (As found at St. Bridget (Birgitta) of Sweden - Prophecies and Revelations.)

We must take heed to remember that the words spoken by Our Lady to Saint Bridget of Sweden apply to us as well as the conciliar revolutionaries as it has been the case of many of our lives when we who know what is right have chosen to do that which is wrong—that which is sinful. We had better beg Our Lady to send us the graces to make reparation for our sins and to reform our lives on a daily basis while making as much use of the Sacred Tribunal of Penance as may be available to us in these times of apostasy and betrayal.

On the Feast of Saint Gertrude the Great

Saint Gertrude the Great is one of the greatest lights of the Order of Saint Benedict who was blessed with numerous mystical experiences that made her an Apostle of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus four centuries before Our Lord asked Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque to promote devotion to His Most Sacred Heart publicly and with a solemn liturgical feast to combat the coldness of Jansensism that had dried up the wellsprings of mercy and Christian compassion in the hearts of so many Catholics, especially in France and Ireland.

Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., summarized Saint Gertrude of Helfta’s life as follows in The Liturgical Year:

The school which is founded upon the rule of the great Patriarch of the Monks of the West began with St. Gregory the Great. Such was the independent action of the Holy Spirit who guided it that in it women have prophesied as well as men. It is enough to mention St. Hildegarde and St. Gertrude, with whom we may fitly associate St. Mechtilde and St. Frances of Rome. Anyone who has tried modern methods will find, on making acquaintance with these ancient writers, that he is breathing another atmosphere, and is urged onward by a gentle authority which is never felt but which allows no rest. He will not find that subtlety, that keen and learned analysis, he has met with elsewhere, and which rather weary than aid the soul.

The pious and learned Father Faber has brought out, with his characteristic sagacity, the advantages of that form of spirituality which gives the soul breadth and liberty, and so produces in many persons effects which some modern methods fail of producing: “No one,” says he, “can be at all acquainted with the old-fashioned Benedictine school of spiritual writers without perceiving and admiring the beautiful liberty of spirit which pervades and possesses their whole mind. It is just what we should expect from an order of such matured traditions. St. Gertrude is a fair specimen of them. She is thoroughly Benedictine … a spirit of breadth, a spirit of liberty, that is, the Catholic spirit; and it was eminently the badge of the old Benedictine ascetics. Modern writers for the most part have tightened things, and have lost by it instead of gaining. By frightening people, they have lessened devotion in extent; and by overstraining it, they have lowered it in degree.” (Faber, 1855, All for Jesus)

In any case, there are many ways, and every way is good which brings men back to God by a thorough conversion of heart. But we are sure that those who may be led to commit themselves to the guidance of a saint of the old school will not lose their time; and that if they meet with less philosophy and less psychology on their way, they will be subdued by the simplicity and authority of her language, and be moved and melted as they contrast their own souls with that of their saintly guide. And this blessed revolution will take place in almost every soul that follows St. Gertrude in the week of Exercises she proposes to them, if only they really desire to draw yet more closely the ties which unite them to God, if their intention be fixed aright, and their souls truly recollected in God. We may almost venture to assure such persons that they will come forth from these Exercises transformed in their whole being. They will return to them again and again with ever increasing pleasure; for they will have no discouraging memory of fatigue, nor of the slightest constraint laid upon their liberty of spirit. They will feel confounded, indeed, to be admitted so near the inmost heart of so great a saint; but they will also feel that they have been created for the same end as that saint, and that they must bestir themselves, and quit all easy, dangerous ways, which lead to perdition.

And if we be asked whence comes that wonderful influence which our Saint exercises over all who listen to her, our answer would be: from her surpassing holiness. She does not prove the possibility of spiritual movement and advance; she moves and advances. A blessed soul, sent down from heaven to dwell awhile with men, and speaking the language of the heavenly country in this land of exile, would doubtless utterly transform those who heard its speech. Now St. Gertrude was admitted to such familiar converse with the Son of God, that her words have just the accent of such a soul; and this is why they have been and are like winged arrows, which pierce and wound all within their range. The understanding is enlarged and enlightened by her pure and elevated doctrine, and yet St. Gertrude never lectures or preaches; the heart is touched and melted, and yet St. Gertrude speaks only to God; the soul judges itself, condemns itself, renews itself by compunction, and yet St. Gertrude has made no effort to move or convict it.

And if we ask what is the source of the special blessing attached to the language of St. Gertrude, the answer is that it blesses because it is so impregnated with the divine Word, not only with the revelations which St. Gertrude received from her heavenly Spouse, but with the sacred Scriptures and the liturgy of the Church. This holy daughter of the cloister drank in light and life day by day from the sources of all true contemplation, from the very fountain of living waters which gushes forth from the psalms and the inspired words of the divine Office. Her every sentence shows how exclusively her soul was nourished with this heavenly food. She so lived into the liturgy of the Church that we continually find in her revelations that the Savior discloses to her the mysteries of heaven, and the Mother of God and the saints hold converse with her on some Antiphon, or Response, or Introit, which the Saint is singing with delight, and of which she is striving to feel all the force and the sweetness.

Hence that unceasing flow of unaffected poetry which seems to have become quite natural to her, and that hallowed enthusiasm which raises the literary beauty of her writings almost to the height of mystical inspiration. This child of the thirteenth century, buried in a monastery of Suabia, preceded Dante in the paths of spiritual poetry. Sometimes her soul breaks forth into tender and touching elegy; sometimes the fire which consumes her bursts forth in transports of fervor; sometimes her feelings clothe themselves quite instinctively in a dramatic form; sometimes she stops short in her sublimest flights, and she who almost rivals the seraphim, descends to earth, but only to prepare herself for a still higher flight. It is as though there had been an unending struggle between the humility which held her prostrate in the dust and the aspirations of her soul, panting after Jesus, who was drawing her, and who had lavished on her such exceeding love.

In our opinion the writings of St. Gertrude lose nothing of their indescribable beauty, even when placed beside those of St. Teresa. Nay, we think that the saint of Germany is not unfrequently superior to her sister of Spain. The latter, full of impetuous ardor, has not, it is true, the tinge of pensive melancholy which colors the writings of the former; but St. Gertrude knew Latin so well, and was so profoundly versed in the letter and the spirit of the holy Scriptures, that we do not hesitate to pronounce her style superior in richness and in force to that of St. Theresa.

Still we pray the reader not to be frightened at the thought of being placed under the guidance of a seraph, when his conscience tells him that he has still so much to do in the purgative way, before he can venture to enter upon paths which may never open to him on earth. Let him simply listen to St. Gertrude, let him fix his eye upon her, and have faith in the end she proposes to him. When the holy Church puts in our mouths the language of the Psalms, she knows full well that that language is often far beyond the feelings of our soul; but if we wish to bring ourselves up to the level of these divine hymns, our best method is certainly to repeat them frequently in faith and humility, and await the transformation they will assuredly effect. St. Gertrude detaches us gently from ourselves, and brings us to Jesus by going before us herself, and by drawing us after her, though at a great distance. She goes straight to the heart of her divine Spouse, and she might well do so; but will it not be an inestimable blessing if she bring us to his feet like Magdalen, penitent and transformed by love?

Even when she writes for her sisters alone, let us not suppose that these exquisite pages are useless to those of us who are living in the midst of the world. The religious life, when expounded by such an interpreter, is a spectacle as instructive as it is striking. Need we say that the practice of the precepts of the Gospel becomes more easy to those who have well pondered and admired the practice of its counsels? What is the Imitation of Christ but a book written by a monk for the use of monks; and yet who is not familiar with its teaching? How many seculars delight in the writings of St. Teresa; and yet the holy Carmelitess makes the religious life the one theme of her teaching.

We will not now speak of her wonderful style of expression. We are so unused to the decided and elevated language of the ages of faith that some readers, accustomed to modern books alone, may be startled, and even pained, by St. Gertrude. But what is the remedy for this inconvenience? If we have unlearned the language of that antique piety which fashioned saints, surely our best way is to learn it again as soon as we can; and St. Gertrude will give us wonderful help in doing so.

The list of the devoted admirers of her writings would be long and imposing. But there is an authority far higher still—that of the Church herself. That mother of the faithful, ever guided by the Holy Ghost, has in her holy liturgy set her seal upon St. Gertrude. The Saint herself, and the spirit which animated her, are there forever recommended and glorified in the eyes of all Christians, in virtue of the solemn judgment contained in the Office of her festival. (Gueranger, Exercises of St Gertrude (1865), Preface.)

The life of Gertrude the Great, as she has merited to be distinguished among the Saints of the same name, was humble and obscure. (1256-1302). At five years of age she entered the Abbey of Helfta near Eisleben, and there she remained hidden in the secret of God’s face. (Psalm 30:21) For several centuries, by an error which has also found its way into the Legend of the feast, she was confounded with the Abbess Gertrude of Hackeborn, who governed the monastery during our Saint’s lifetime, and was herself favored with divine gifts. It was not until Gertrude’s sublime Revelations, contained in the five books of the Legatus divinæ pietatis, or Legate of divine love, had at length been published, that in 1677 her name was inscribed in the Roman Martyrology. In the following century (1738) Clement XII ordered her feast to be celebrated, as a Double, by the whole Church. The West Indies chose her as patroness; and a town in New Mexico bears her name. (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year, Time After Pentecost, Book IV, Volume 15, pp. 274-279.)

The Divine Office for the Feast of Saint Gertrude the Great contains a summary her life and incomparable work:

Gertrude was born of a noble family at Eisleben, in Saxony, (about the year of our Lord 1264.) At five years of age she offered her virginity and herself to Jesus Christ, in the Benedictine nunnery at Rodalsdorf. From that time forth she was utterly estranged from earthly things, ever striving for things higher, and began to lead a kind of heavenly life. To learning in human letters she added knowledge of the things of God. In the thought thereof she earnestly desired, and soon reached, the perfection of a Christian soul. Of Christ, and of the things in His life, she spoke oftentimes with movings of spirit. The glory of God was the one end of all her thoughts, and to that her every longing and her every act were given. Though God had crowned her with so many and so noble gifts both of nature and of grace, her belief regarding herself was so humble that she was used to number as among the greatest of the wonders of His goodness that He had always in His mercy borne with one who was so utterly unworthy.

In the thirtieth year of her age she was elected Abbess of Rodalsdorf, where she had professed herself in the religious life, and afterwards of Heldelfs. This office she bore for forty years in love, wisdom, and zeal for strict observance, so that the house seemed like an ideal example of a sisterhood of perfect nuns. To each one she was a mother and a teacher, and yet would be as the least of all, being in sooth in all lowliness among them as she that served. That she might be more utterly God's only, she tormented her body with sleeplessness, hunger, and other afflictions, but withal ever true to herself, stood forth a pattern of innocency, gentleness, and long-suffering. The salvation of her neighbours was her constant earnest endeavour, and her godly toil bore abundant fruit. The love of God oftentimes threw her into trances, and she was given the grace of the deepest contemplation, even to union of spirit with God.

Christ Himself, to show what such a bride was to Him, revealed that He had in the heart of Gertrude a pleasant dwelling-place. The Virgin Mother of God she ever sought with deep reverence as a mother and warden whom she had received from Jesus Himself, and from her she had many benefits. Toward the most Divine Sacrament of the Eucharist, and the sufferings of the Lord, her soul was moved with love and gratitude, so that she sometimes wept abundantly. She helped with daily gifts and prayers the souls of the just condemned to the purifying fire. She wrote much for the fostering of godliness. She was glorified also by revelations from God, and by the gift of prophecy. Her last illness was rather the wasting of a home-sickness to be with God than a decay of the flesh, and she left this life (to live the undying life in Him, upon the 17th day of November,) in the year of our Lord 1292. God made her bright with miracles both during her life and after her death. (Matins, The Divine Office, Feast of Saint Gertrude the Great.)

Father Andrew Prevot explained Saint Gertrude the Great’s intimacy with her Divine Spouse by recounting an exchange Our Lord had with her during one of her mystical experiences:

Now, as the end of time approaches, He says to us what He once announced by the beloved Apostle of His Sacred Heart [Saint Gertrude the Great]: "Let him who thirsts for happiness, grace, and peace, come to My Divine Heart, their source, and draw from it 'gratis' whatsoever he will. My merciful Heart, which desires before the end of time to glorify itself by a supreme manifestation, and to love men to the utmost bounds of affection, has arranged all for this end.

"Let these languid souls come only to Me, confide in My goodness, and abandon themselves to My love. Let them be at rest in the meekness of My Heart, unite themselves to My humility and obedience, and they will no longer feel the weight of My yoke through the abundant consolation with which I will favor them. Come, then, without fear or delay, and abandon yourselves lovingly and for ever unto Me." (Father Andre Prevot, Love, Peace and Joy: Devotion to the Sacred Heart According to St. Gertrude, published originally in 1911.)

Let us repose in the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus as we approach this Font of Mercy and of Love through the Heart out of which It was formed, the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary. Let us accept the chastisement of the moment, a chastisement each of us deserves most richly because of our sins, and use it as a means of making reparation for our sins and those of the whole world by defending the Catholic Faith without any compromises with the naturalists of the false opposites of the "left" or of the "right." Let us proclaim Catholicism as the one and only foundation of personal and social order as we pray as many Rosaries each day as our states-in-life permit, seeking only to plant a few seeds as we give honor and glory to the Most Holy Trinity through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Saint Gertrude the Great will teach us humility as we approach the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. She will teach us to have gratitude for the graces that we have received as seek to imitate the meekness with which the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus bears with our offenses, our ingratitude, our lukewarmness, our inconstancy. She will teach us to imitate the mercy of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus as we extend to others the same forgiveness that is given to us so freely in the Sacred Tribunal of Penance by an alter Christus acting in persona Christi.

Although we see dimly here in this life because of our fallen estate and the damage that we have done to our souls by means of our sins, our goal in life to see God clearly in Heaven. Saint Gertrude the Great will help us to see Him more clearly in this life if we place our trust in the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus that beats in unison with the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Saint Gertrude will teach us most especially to spend time with Our Beloved in His Real Presence in the Most Blessed Sacrament. We receive infused graces from spending time with Our Eucharistic King. These infused graces will enlighten the mind and strengthen the will as our hearts are purified more and more to desire only the possession of the Most Blessed Trinity for all eternity in Heaven. Eucharistic piety is, of course, a very foretaste of the glories of Heaven itself.

Saint Gertrude adored Our Lord in His Real Presence in these words: 

Hail, Most Glorious Body, a most precious Blood of my Lord Jesus Christ, here truly present beneath these sacramental species; I adore Thee with all that devotion and awe wherewith the nine choirs of angels worship and adore thee. I prostrate myself before Thee in the spirit of humility, believing and professing that Thou, my Lord and my God, are herein most truly contained.

Hail, most glorious Body of Jesus Christ my Saviour, true Victim immolated upon the cross. I adore Thee in union with that adoration with which Thy Humanity adored Thy Godhead, and I give Thee thanks with all the love of all thy creatures, that Thou dost deign to remain hidden in this tabernacle for our salvation.

Hail, compassionate Jesus, Word of the Father, Brightness of His glory, Ocean of pity, Salvation of the world, most august and sacred Victim. Hail, Jesus Christ, Splendour of the Father, Prince of Peace, Gate of Heaven, True Bread, Son of the Virgin, Shrine of the Godhead.

I most firmly believe that Thou, my God, are here present, and that Thou are looking out upon me from behind the veil of the sacrament, and dost behold all the most secret recesses of my heart. I believe that under this species of bread are contained not only Thy Flesh and Thy Blood, but also Thy Divinity and Thy Humanity. And although this mystery surpasses my understanding, I nevertheless believe it so firmly that I am ready to give my life and my blood in defense of its truth.

"For what fault have you suffered most?" He replied: "For self-will and self-opinionatedness; for when I did any kindness for others, I would not do as they wished, but as I wished myself; and so much do I suffer for this, that if the mental agonies of all mankind were united in one person, he would not endure more than I do at present." She replied: "And what remedy will be the most efficacious for you?" He answered: "To perform acts of the contrary virtue, and to avoid committing the same fault." "But, in the meantime," inquired Gertrude, "what will afford you the greatest relief?" He replied: "The fidelity which I practiced toward others when on earth consoles me most. The prayers which are offered continually for me by many friends solace me as good news would solace a person in affliction. Each tone of the chant at Mass, or in the vigils which are said for me, seem to me as a most delicious reflection. All that is done for me by others, with a pure intention for God's glory, such as working, and even sleeping or eating, affords me great relief and shortens my sufferings, on account of the fidelity with which I labored for others." (The Life and Revelations of Saint Gertrude the Great, republished by TAN Books and Publishers in 1987, p. 341.)

One of the great tragedies of the conciliar era is that the lives of such mystics as Saint Gertrude the Great have been obscured entirely and/or misrepresented and distorted to make them appear to be veritable prophets of the conciliar apostasies. Such efforts are hideous in the sight of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, which is why it is important for us to make reparation for our own many sins by pleading with Saint Gertrude the Great to help us remain ever steadfast in the true Faith by placing our own trust in the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus Which confided to her Its innermost secrets of love for us erring men.

Dom Prosper Gueranger’s prayer to Saint Gertrude the Great summarizes our need to rely upon the heavenly assistance of the holy Abbess of Helfta every day of our lives:

O revealer of the Sacred Heart, what better prayer could we offer in thine honor than to say with thee to the Son of the Blessed Virgin:

O thou my soul’s calm untroubled Light! O dawn of morning, soft-gleaming with thy beauteous light, become in me the perfect day. O my Love, who dost not only enlighten but deify, come unto me in all thy might; come and gently melt my whole being. May all that is of me be destroyed utterly; may I wholly pass into thee, so that I may no more find myself in time, but may be already and most intimately united to thee for all eternity.

Thou hast first loved me; it is thou who hast chosen me, and not I who have first chosen thee. Thou art he who of his own accord runneth towards his thirsting creature; and on thy kingly brow gleams the fair splendor of the everlasting light. Show me thy countenance, and let me gaze upon thy beauty. How mild and full of charms is that face, all radiant with the rosy light of the dawn of the divine Sun! How can the spark live and glow far from the fire that gave it being? Or how can the drop of water abide far from the spring from whence it was taken? O compassionate Love, why hast thou loved a creature so defiled and so covered with shame, but that thou hast willed to render it all fair in thee? O thou delicate flower of the Virgin Mary, thy goodness and thy tender mercy have won and ravished my heart. O Love, my glorious noontide, to take my rest in thee, gladly would I die a thousand deaths.

O Charity, O Love, at the hour of my death thou wilt sustain me with thy words, more gladdening far than choicest wine. Thou wilt then be my way, my unobstructed way, that I may wander no more nor stray. Thou wilt aid me then, O love, thou queen of heaven; thou wilt clear my way before me to those fair and fertile pastures hidden in the divine wilderness, and my soul shall be inebriate with bliss; for there shall I see the face of the Lamb, my Spouse and my God. O Love, who art God, thou art my best beloved possession. Without thee neither earth nor heaven could excite in me one hope, nor draw forth one desire: vouchsafe to effect and perfect within me that union which thou thyself desirest: may it be the end, the crown, and consummation of my being. In the countenance of my God thy light beameth soft and fair as the evening star. O thou fair and solemn Evening, let me see thy ray when my eve shall close in death.

O Love, thou much-loved Evening-tide, at that dread moment let the sacred flame, which burneth evermore in thy divine essence, consume all the stains of my mortal life. O thou my calm and peaceful Evening, when the evening-tide of my life shall come, give me to sleep in thee in tranquil sleep, and to taste that blissful rest which thou hast prepared in thyself for them that love thee. With thy serene, enchanting look vouchsafe to order all things and prepare all things for my everlasting espousal. O Love, be thou unto me an eventide so bright and calm that my ravished soul may bid a loving farewell to its body, and return to God who gave it, and rest in peace beneath thy beloved shadow!” (Gueranger, Exercises of St Gertrude, Ex. V, “To enkindle in the soul the love of God.”) (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year, Time After Pentecost, Book IV, Volume 15, pp. 274-279.)

May we beg Our Lady in these waning days of the liturgical year to help us to realize that the mysteries of the Sacred Heart of Jesus that were revealed to Saint Gertrude the Great can provide us with much food for meditation every day as we pray her Most Holy Rosary, a fidelity to which, after all, is a sign of predestination to Heaven itself. This is why Catholics must, as consecrated slaves of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ through Our Lady’s Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart, always offer up everything they suffer and whatever good works they are able to do by means of the graces won for us by Our Lord and that flow into our hearts and souls through her own loving hands as the Mediatrix of All Graces.

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.

Saints Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, pray for us.

Saint Gertrude the Great, pray for us.