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                   November 21, 2012

 

Keeping Our King and Queen Waiting While We Live in Agitation

by Thomas A. Droleskey

Most Catholics in the United States of America, including most traditionally-minded Catholics no matter where they fall along the vast expanse of the ecclesiastical divide, choose to live in endless states of agitation.

Even tradtionally-minded Catholics choose to get upset about such completely irrelevant and totally meaningless events as the annual meeting of the so-called United States Conference of Catholic Bishops as its president, Timothy Michael "Cardinal" Dolan, the conciliar "archbishop of New York" (see Timmy's In The Well (Of Americanism, That Is)), ruminates about the possibility of "restoring" Friday as a day of mandatory abstinence from meat in the United States of America. Ah, you see, there is no need to be agitated by what is alleged to be a "move" in the direction of "tradition" as there is no getting the Ipana toothpaste sold by Bucky the Beaver back into the conciliar tube out of which has been used to wipe away the "tartar" represented by such mandatory penances as abstinence from meat on every Friday of the year. The Catholics who have gotten used to "theological updating" in liturgies that assure them of their essential goodness do not want to hear of "mandatory" penances as they take seriously the sense of Paragraph Fifteen of the General Instruction to the Roman Missal even though most of them have not read it:

 

The same awareness of the present state of the world also influenced the use of texts from very ancient tradition. It seemed that this cherished treasure would not be harmed if some phrases were changed so that the style of language would be more in accord with the language of modern theology and would faithfully reflect the actual state of the Church's discipline. Thus there have been changes of some expressions bearing on the evaluation and use of the good things of the earth and of allusions to a particular form of outward penance belonging to another age in the history of the Church. (Paragraph Fifteen, General Instruction to the Roman Missal, 1997.)

 

Friday abstinence from meat is just one of those "forms of outward penance" that belongs "to another age in the history of the Church. There's no getting that toothpaste back into the conciliar tube any more than there is of stopping girl altar boys or the proliferation of "Eucharistic Ministers" or what purports to the reception of Holy Communion in the hand or the administration of what purports to be Holy Communion under both kinds. These are accepted conciliar practices that are not going to go away until Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ restores His Holy Church in His good time. There is no need to be agitated by any of this.

Similarly, there is no need to be agitated by the reports that the Archdiocese of Boston is planning to "consolidate" over half of its parishes and to have those so consolidated served by one priest and a business manager (see Boston Enabler of the Kennedys Approves Archdiocese Reshuffle) as this is but the fruit of apostasy. False doctrines and sacramentally barren liturgical rites and the systematic protection of clerical predators, a disease that is not confined to the conciliar structures, sad to say, drive Catholics out of the pews and into the waiting arms of Protestants sects or into the ranks of simple unbelievers. Although such announcements are sad given all of the sacrifices that Catholics made over the decades to build and maintain those parishes, it is also a just chastisement from the hand of God upon the refusal of most Catholics to recognize apostasy, sacrilege and blasphemy when it is before their eyes and thus to flee from it.

There is also no need to be agitated by the latest outrage from Kurt "Cardinal" Koch the "president" of the "Pontifical" Council for Promoting Christian Unity, who recently stated that he "would never refuse" to administer what purports to be Holy Communion in the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo liturgical service if a person he knew to be a Protestant approached to take it in his hands. After all, Joseph "Cardinal" Ratzinger gave the Protestant syncretist Roger Schutz the Novus Ordo non-sacrament at the "Mass of Christian Burial" of Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II. on Friday, April 8, 2005 (see Ratzinger gives False Sacrament to Protestant Roger Schutz and Brother Roger Died a Protestant). Kurt Koch will receive no reprimand from "Pope" Benedict XVI, who has done the same as he has. Why be agitated or surprised?

As I wrote about endlessly during the recently concluded farce of naturalism, most Catholics all up and down and across the vast expanse of the ecclesiastical divide choose to live in states of apoplexy concerning the state of the world, refusing to recognize that we are eyewitnesses to the emergence of Antichrist in his precursors of Modernity in the world and Modernism in the counterfeit church of conciliarism.

Worse things than possible Israeli attack on Iran are on the way in upcoming years.

Worse things than President Barack Hussein Obama/Barry Soetoro's refusal to come to the assistance of Americans when they were under a seven-hour attack in Benghazi, Libya, and then lying about the cause of the attack so as not to jeopardize his re-election chances and as he has engaged in a cover-up thereafter. Yes, much worse things are on the horizon, especially when most people in this country do not have now or will have any outrage over this scandal.

Worse things than the sixteen billion dollars of national;l debt and the full enforcement of Obamacare that will drive the United States of America to the point of bankruptcy will be happening in the lifetimes of our children, if not in our own lifetimes.

Worse things than scandals caused by the lustful hearts of intelligence directors and their mistresses who think that their supposedly "private" sins will be kept "private" in this age of social communications.

We are only at the beginning of the worsening of the Church Militant in this time of apostasy and betrayal and of the world as Mohammedans continue to win by procreation what they lost centuries ago at the Battle of Tours on October 10, 732, and at the Battle of Lepanto on October 7, 1571, and at the Battle at the Gates of Vienna on September 12, 1683. Mohammedanism's Sharia Law is becoming more and more accepted the very European nations that once flowered until the Social Reign of the King that was overthrow by the Protestant Revolution in the Sixteenth Century and the rise of Judeo-Masonry two hundred years later. There will be a union between "church and state" in most European nations before too long. Unfortunately, it will be a union between the civil state and the false religion of Mohammedanism. Such is the fruit of apostasy.

All of what is happen now is but a prelude to Antichrist's destruction of all false religions and his ultimate battle with the true religion, whose honor will be defended by a Catholic king. We have not even begun to see how bad things are going to get in future years.

In the midst of these events, my friends, we must  not let the devil disturb our peace. He loses in the end as the Immaculate Heart of Mary and Our Lady's Fatima Peace Plan manifest a glorious victory at the time appointed by God from all eternity for this to occur. Do not let anyone serve as an instrument of the devil to disturb your peace.

Why do we let ourselves to continue to be agitated by this or that event or by the outcries of naturalist babblers on the radio or on television who do not see the world clearly through the eyes of the True Faith and have thus have no understanding about the state of the world on which they claim to be "expert" analysts and commentators?

Why do we keep Our King, Christ the King and our Queen, Mary our Immaculate Queen, waiting when they are beckoning us to trust in them all the more?

Yes, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, He Who is meant to be the King of all human hearts and all nations, is attempting to get our attention here in the United States of America, a land steeped in the demonic lies of the abject, wretched evils of Protestantism and the naturalism of Judeo-Masonry as its national laws promote things offensive to His Divine Majesty and Glory and Honor and that harm grievously, the souls for whom He shed every single drop of His Most Precious Blood on the wood of the Holy Cross. The insidious lies of the United States of America have been exported to all parts of the globe, which are now fully immersed in the American standards of immodesty of attire, indecency of speech, agitation of so-called "music," and the violence done to bodies and souls by what passes for motion pictures and television and magazines and newspapers and professional sports. Look at "grateful" the Iraqis are for our having "liberated" and then occupied their country in the name of "teaching" them about the "American way" (Liberated Iraq calls on Arab states to use oil as 'weapon' against the United States of America).

Yet Americans wonder--yes, wonder--why this land of so much evil that is protected under cover of law and promoted in every single aspect of popular culture is being pounded by the forces of nature and brought to its knees by all manner of financial problems.

There is no wonder about the fact that God is attempting to use His loving, correcting hand to chastise sinners so as to convert them from being under the yoke of the naturalism and religious indifferentism and cultural relativism and legal positivism and Calvinist materialism and semi-Pelagianism and individualism that come from the devil and lead nations into the abyss and souls into Hell for all eternity.

God bless America tomorrow, the annual celebration of religious indifferentism?

For what?

For what?

For what?

For the fact that we have continued about our business of making money and enjoying our leisure time quite blithely for over forty-six years after all laws against contraceptive pills and devices, each of which denies the Sovereignty of God over the sanctity and fecundity of marriage and most of which kill living human beings, were declared invalid by the Supreme Court of the United States of America in the case of Griswold v. Connecticut, June 7, 1965?

For the fact that we have continued about our business of making money and enjoying our leisure time quite blithely for over forty-four years as one state after another passed legislation to "permit" the slicing and dicing of innocent human beings in their mothers' wombs under cover of law and as the Supreme Court of the United States of America in the cases of Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, January 22, 1973?

Even most traditionally-minded Catholics have zero understanding of the truth expressed by Silvio Cardinal Antoniano in the Sixteenth Century:

 

The more closely the temporal power of a nation aligns itself with the spiritual, and the more it fosters and promotes the latter, by so much the more it contributes to the conservation of the commonwealth. For it is the aim of the ecclesiastical authority by the use of spiritual means, to form good Christians in accordance with its own particular end and object; and in doing this it helps at the same time to form good citizens, and prepares them to meet their obligations as members of a civil society. This follows of necessity because in the City of God, the Holy Roman Catholic Church, a good citizen and an upright man are absolutely one and the same thing. How grave therefore is the error of those who separate things so closely united, and who think that they can produce good citizens by ways and methods other than those which make for the formation of good Christians. For, let human prudence say what it likes and reason as it pleases, it is impossible to produce true temporal peace and tranquillity by things repugnant or opposed to the peace and happiness of eternity. (Silvio Cardinal Antoniano, quoted by Pope Pius XI in Divini Illius Magistri, December 31, 1929.)

Orestes Brownson understood that true national greatness does not consist in money, money, money:

 

What, then, is true national greatness? We answer, that nation is greatest in which man may most easily and effectually fulfil the true and proper end of man. The nation, under the point of view we here consider the subject, is in the people. Its greatness must, then, be in the greatness of the people. The people are a collection or aggregation of individuals, and their greatness taken collectively is simply their greatness taken individually. Consequently the greatness of a nation is the greatness of the individuals that compose it. The question of national greatness resolves itself, therefore, into the question of individual greatness. The greatness of the individual consists in his fulfilling the great ends of his existence, the ends for which Almighty God made him and placed him here. No man is truly great who neglects life's great ends, nor can one be said in truth to approach greatness any further than he fulfils them.

In order, then, to determine in what true national greatness consists, we must determine in what consists true individual greatness; and in order to determine in what true individual greatness consists, we must determine what is the true end of man; that is, what is the end to which Almighty God has appointed man, and which he is while here to labor to secure. What, then, is the end of man?  For what has our Maker placed us here? To what has he bidden us aspire? Were we placed here merely to be born and to die,-to live for a moment, continue our species, toil, suffer, drop into the grave to rot, and be no more for ever? If this be our end, true greatness will consist in living for this life only, and in being great in that which pertains to this life. The greatest man will be he who succeeds best in amassing the goods of this world, in securing its honors and luxuries, or simply in multiplying for himself the means of sensual enjoyment. In a word, the greatest man will be he who most abounds in wealth and luxury.

We mean not to say, that, in point of fact, wealth and luxury, worldly honors and sensual gratifications, are the chief goods of even this life; but simply that they would be, if this were our only life, if our destiny were a destiny to be accomplished in this world. It is because this world is not our home, because we are merely travellers through it, and our destination is a world beyond it, that the life of justice and sanctity yields us even here our truest and most substantial pleasure. But confine man to this life, let it be true that he has no destiny beyond it, and nothing could, relatively to him, be called great or good, not included under the heads of wealth and luxury. Nothing could be counted or conceived of as of the least value to him that does not directly or indirectly minister to his sensual enjoyment. No infidel moralist has ever been able, without going out of his own system, or want of system, to conceive of any thing higher, nobler, more valuable, than sensual pleasure.

But this life is not our only life, and our destiny is not accomplished here. The grave is not our final doom; this world is not our home; we were not created for this world alone; and there is for us a life beyond this life. But even this, if we stop with it, does not answer our question. We may conceive of a future life as the simple continuation of our present natural life, and such the future life is conceived to be by not a few among us, who nevertheless flatter themselves that they are firm believers in the life and immortality brought to light through the Gospel. Every being may be said to have a natural destiny or end, which its nature is fitted and intended to gain. The Creator, in creating a being with a given nature, has given that being a pledge of the means and conditions of fulfilling it, of attaining to its natural end. Man has evidently been created with a nature that does not and cannot find its complete fulfilment in this life. He has a natural capacity for more than is actually attainable here. In this capacity he has the promise or pledge of his Maker that he shall live again.


The promises of God cannot fail. Man therefore must and will live again. But this is only the pledge, so to speak, of a natural immortality, and reveals to us only a natural destiny. It is only a continuation of our natural life in another world. The end we are to labor for, and the means we are to adopt to gain it, must be precisely what they would be in case our life were to terminate at the grave. Our future life being still a natural life, what is wisest and best for that portion we are now living would be wisest and best for that portion we are hereafter to live. Hence, what is wisest and best for time would be wisest and best for eternity.

Hence it is that we find so many who, though professing belief in a future life, judge all things as if this life were our only life. They look to the future life only as the continuation of the present, and expect from it only the completion of their natural destiny. They agree in all their moral judgments, in all their estimates of the worth of things or of actions, with those who believe in no future life at all. They profess to hope for a future life, but live only for time; because their future life is to be only a continuation of time. Hence they say, as we ourselves were for years accustomed to say, He who lives wisely for time lives wisely for eternity; create a heaven here, and you will have done your best to secure your title to a heaven hereafter.

Hence it is that the morality of many who profess to be Christians is the same which is adopted and defended by infidels. This is so obviously the case, that we not unfrequently find men who call themselves Christians commending downright unbelievers in Christianity as good moral men, and who see no reason why the morality of the infidel should not be the same in kind as the morality of the Christian. Hence it is supposed that morality may be taught in our schools, without teaching any peculiar or distinctive doctrine of Christianity. Morality, we are told, is independent of religion, and not a few regard it as sufficient without religion. So common has this mode of thinking and speaking become amongst us, that we heard the other day a tolerably intelligent Catholic, who would by no means admit himself to be deficient in the understanding or practice of his Catholic duties, say, that, if a man were only a good moral man, he did not care what was his distinctive religious belief. Many who go further, and contend that religion is necessary to morality, contend for its necessity only as a sort of police establishment. It is necessary, be cause the natural sanctions of the moral law are not quite sufficient to secure obedience, and religion must be called in by its hopes and fears to strengthen them.

Now all this is perfectly consistent and right, if it be true that man has only a natural destiny. We ought, in such a case, to judge all things which concern us precisely as if this were our only life. Religion could be of no value further than it strengthened the police, kept people from picking one another's pockets or cutting one another's throats. But man's destiny is not natural, but supernatural. Almighty God created him with a specific nature, but not for an end in the order of that nature, or to be attained by its simple fulfilment. He created him to his own image and likeness, but appointed him to a supernatural destiny,-to an end above what is attainable by the fulfilment of his nature,- to an end not promised in his nature, and which is not be stowed as the reward of fulfilling it. This end is to know and love God; but in a sense far higher than we can know and love him by our natural powers, and as he is now beheld through a glass, darkly, or seen dimly through the medium of his works, as we see the cause in the effect. It is to see him face to face, and to know and love him with a knowledge and love the same in kind, though not in degree, with which God knows and loves himself ;-this is the end for which man was intended, and which it is made his duty and his high privilege to seek. But this end surpasses the utmost capacity of our nature, and requires not only a supernatural revelation of God, but the supernatural elevation of our nature itself. It consists in our being made partakers of the divine nature in an ineffable sense, and in a sense above that in which we partake of it in being created after the image and likeness of God. Hence, St. Peter says, "By whom [Jesus Christ] he hath given us very great and precious promises, that by these you may be made partakers of his divine nature." So also St. John :-" We are now the sons of God, and it hath not yet appeared what we shall be. We know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; because we shall see him as he is."

This fact in these times is overlooked. Men have wished to rationalize the Gospel, to find a philosophic basis for the mysteries of faith. In attempting this, they have labored to bring the whole of divine revelation, within the domain of reason, and have been led to exclude, as no part of it whatever they found themselves unable to bring within that domain. Reason is necessarily restricted to the order of nature, and can in no instance, of itself, go out of that order. Hence, revelation has come very widely to be regarded as only a republication of the natural law, as at best 'only a running commentary on it, designed simply to explain the natural order, and not to reveal any thing above it.

Men who claim to be Christians, and even ministers of the Gospel, everywhere abound, who have no faith in the supernatural order, scarcely a conception of it. We spent nearly two hours the other day trying to enable a Protestant minister, and him by no means a weak or ignorant one, even to conceive of the supernatural; but in vain. So perverted had his mind become by the false theologies of modern times, that he could attach no meaning to the assertion, "There is a supernatural order." He could use the word supernatural, but it had no meaning for his mind not within the order of nature. Thousands are in the same sad condition. To them nature is all, and all is nature. Indeed, the word nature itself has no definite meaning for them. If a man by a word raise the dead, it is natural; if Moses smite the rock and living waters gush forth, it is natural,-all by a natural power, a natural law. Travelling in the same direction, they lose themselves in a wilderness of absurdities.


Natural laws cease to be laws imposed on nature, laws she must obey, and from which she cannot withdraw herself, and become forces, agents, creators. It is not strange, then that they lose sight of the supernatural destiny of man, and look only for a natura1 destiny, to be obtained not as a reward for obedience to grace, but as the natural consequence of the cultivation or development of our natural powers.  Read the writings of the celebrated Dr. Channing, or of the school which he founded or to which he was attached, and you shall never find a single recognition of the supernatural order, properly so called,-any allusion to a supernatural destiny. The highest end you will find presented is that to which we may attain by the unfolding of our higher nature, of our natural sentiments of love and reverence. The school goes so far as to contend that our nature is susceptible of an unbounded good, and that our natural sentiments of love and reverence are capable of an infinite expansion. Yet these are rational Christians, and they boast of their reason! They talk of the absurdities of Catholic theology, and see no absurdity in supposing that a finite nature may be infinitely expanded, or that a nature can be something more than it is without any thing super-natural.

But this by the way. The true end for which man is to live is the supernatural end to which we are appointed, the beatitude which God hath promised to all that love and serve him here. His true end is not the fulfilment of nature, but what the sacred Scriptures term "eternal life"; and "This is life eternal, that they may know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent." We cannot know God, without loving him. Hence we say, the end of man is to know and love God. But to know him intuitively, as he knows himself; for we are to see him as he is, -not as he appears through the medium of his works, but as he is in himself. We cannot thus know him naturally, for thus to know him exceeds the power of the highest possible created intelligence. We must be like him, before we can see him as he is,-be made, in a supernatural sense, partakers of his divine nature. To know him intuitively as he is in himself, is, however, the glorious destiny to which we are appointed, and to which we may attain, if we will. A more glorious destiny we cannot desire. In it we possess God himself, who is the sovereign good. Even here we find our highest good in knowing the truth and loving goodness, dim as is our view of the one, and feeble as is our hold of the other. What must it be, then, when we come to behold, by the light of glory, our God face to face, with no cloud intervening to obscure his infinite beauty, no distance between us and his ineffable love? Well may it be said, "Eye hath not seen, ear hath not heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive what our God hath prepared for them that love him." He will reward them with no inferior, no created good; but will give them himself, will himself be their portion for ever.

But this supernatural destiny, since it is supernatural, is not naturally attainable. We may cultivate all our natural powers, we may fill up the highest and broadest capacities of our nature, realize the highest ideal, and yet be infinitely, -we use the word in its strict sense,-infinitely below it. It is not attained to by "self-culture," by the development and exercise of our highest natural powers, including even the boasted sentiments of love and reverence. It is nothing that is due, or ever can be due, to our nature. It is a gift, and can be obtained only as bestowed. But it will be bestowed only on the obedient, and is bestowed as the reward of obedience. Our destiny is eternal life, and the condition of obtaining it is obedience. Obedience is not, as some of the sects teach, the end for which we were made. We were made not that we might obey God, but that we might possess God, and we obey him as the condition of possessing him. (National Greatness)

God bless America?

For what?

For what?

For the fact that the naturalistic falsehoods of "freedom of speech" and "freedom of press" have subjected the souls of countless hundreds of millions of people to all manner of intellectual pornography (theological and philosophical error) and to rot of pornography in violation of the Sixth and Ninth Commandments, some of which is now broadcast quite freely into American homes and displayed on billboards as we go about our daily business?

For the joys of Calvinist materialism that reduces the entirety of human life and government policy to the making of as much money as possible in order to "enjoy" the goods of this passing, mortal vale of tears as an ultimate end that justifies any means employed to acquire and retain it?

For the "right" of men, women and children to use the Holy Name of God and that of His Co-Eternal Son, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, in vain in speech, on the airwaves and in print?

For the "right" of men, women and children to dress immodestly in violation of the Virtue of Modesty and to provoke others into sinful thoughts and/or actions?

For in vitro fertilization?

For euthanasia under cover of law?

For usury as the essential building block of "growing" the wealth of those who are paid exorbitant salaries that have no relationship at all to the common good or the actual temporal worth of their own alleged "work" while the large masses of people are enslaved by massive debt?

For the statism that grows by leaps and bounds with each passing presidential election no matter which political party holds the White House or constitutes majority of seats in the houses of the Congress of the United States of America?

For the increasing restrictions on legitimate human liberties in the name of "national security"?

For the prosecution of wars against Catholic nations that have resulted in the introduction of Masonic lodges and Protestant "churches" into this nations so as to take souls out of the true Church as they are introduced into the insidious lies and errors of the "American" way, a way that contends that it is not absolutely necessary for every man on the face of this earth to submit himself with humility and docility to the Deposit of Faith that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ has entrusted exclusively to His true Church and that it is not necessary for each man on the face of this earth to have belief in, access to, and cooperation with Sanctifying Grace in order to be virtuous, to say nothing of scaling the heights of personal sanctity?

For the falsehood of the religiously indifferentist civil state?

For the heresy of religious liberty?

Yes, heresy.

Consider these words, much quoted on this site, from Pope Pius VII's Post Tam Diuturnas, April 29, 1814:

For how can We tolerate with equanimity that the Catholic religion, which France received in the first ages of the Church, which was confirmed in that very kingdom by the blood of so many most valiant martyrs, which by far the greatest part of the French race professes, and indeed bravely and constantly defended even among the most grave adversities and persecutions and dangers of recent years, and which, finally, that very dynasty to which the designated king belongs both professes and has defended with much zeal - that this Catholic, this most holy religion, We say, should not only not be declared to be the only one in the whole of France supported by the bulwark of the laws and by the authority of the Government, but should even, in the very restoration of the monarchy, be entirely passed over? But a much more grave, and indeed very bitter, sorrow increased in Our heart - a sorrow by which We confess that We were crushed, overwhelmed and torn in two - from the twenty-second article of the constitution in which We saw, not only that "liberty of religion and of conscience" (to use the same words found in the article) were permitted by the force of the constitution, but also that assistance and patronage were promised both to this liberty and also to the ministers of these different forms of "religion". There is certainly no need of many words, in addressing you, to make you fully recognize by how lethal a wound the Catholic religion in France is struck by this article. For when the liberty of all "religions" is indiscriminately asserted, by this very fact truth is confounded with error and the holy and immaculate Spouse of Christ, the Church, outside of which there can be no salvation, is set on a par with the sects of heretics and with Judaic perfidy itself. For when favour and patronage is promised even to the sects of heretics and their ministers, not only their persons, but also their very errors, are tolerated and fostered: a system of errors in which is contained that fatal and never sufficiently to be deplored HERESY which, as St. Augustine says (de Haeresibus, no.72), "asserts that all heretics proceed correctly and tell the truth: which is so absurd that it seems incredible to me." (Pope Pius VII, Post Tam Diuturnas, April 29, 1814.)

 

The "religious liberty" of the Constitution of the United States of America that has been so celebrated by the American conciliar "bishops" makes the proliferation of theological error a matter of a fundamental human "right" and not merely a matter that the civil authorities might have to tolerate in some instances for the common temporal good, as Pope Leo XIII noted in Libertas, June 20, 1888. The American concepts of civil and religious liberty have brought forth a pestilence of unimaginable proportions as men have been plunged headlong into the abyss prophesied by Pope Gregory XVI in Mirari Vos, August 15, 1832:

This shameful font of indifferentism gives rise to that absurd and erroneous proposition which claims that liberty of conscience must be maintained for everyone. It spreads ruin in sacred and civil affairs, though some repeat over and over again with the greatest impudence that some advantage accrues to religion from it. "But the death of the soul is worse than freedom of error," as Augustine was wont to say. When all restraints are removed by which men are kept on the narrow path of truth, their nature, which is already inclined to evil, propels them to ruin. Then truly "the bottomless pit" is open from which John saw smoke ascending which obscured the sun, and out of which locusts flew forth to devastate the earth. Thence comes transformation of minds, corruption of youths, contempt of sacred things and holy laws -- in other words, a pestilence more deadly to the state than any other. Experience shows, even from earliest times, that cities renowned for wealth, dominion, and glory perished as a result of this single evil, namely immoderate freedom of opinion, license of free speech, and desire for novelty.


Here We must include that harmful and never sufficiently denounced freedom to publish any writings whatever and disseminate them to the people, which some dare to demand and promote with so great a clamor. We are horrified to see what monstrous doctrines and prodigious errors are disseminated far and wide in countless books, pamphlets, and other writings which, though small in weight, are very great in malice. We are in tears at the abuse which proceeds from them over the face of the earth. Some are so carried away that they contentiously assert that the flock of errors arising from them is sufficiently compensated by the publication of some book which defends religion and truth. Every law condemns deliberately doing evil simply because there is some hope that good may result. Is there any sane man who would say poison ought to be distributed, sold publicly, stored, and even drunk because some antidote is available and those who use it may be snatched from death again and again? (Pope Gregory XVI, Mirari Vos, August 15, 1832.)

 

Has God changed His Mind?

Can God change His Mind?

Impossible.

Absolutely impossible.

The American concepts of religious and civil liberty have brought curses upon its people. They are not deserving of God's blessing, and it is blasphemous to ask God to "bless" a nation where His Holy Name is blasphemed so freely and where each of the four sins that cry out to Heaven for vengeance, including usury itself, is promoted under cover of law and is such an integral part of our public policy, economy and national life.

We pray for God to have mercy on our nation and to convert it, to be sure. This is our duty before Him and before our fellow citizens. God's blessings on a land founded in the promotion of one diabolical error after another? No.

Some labored under the misapprehension that because Marxism-Leninism was such an obvious, overt offense against God and man that the "American" way was the only alternative. Various secular organizations, each of which was steeped in naturalism and religious indifferentism, arose to "fight" Communism without realizing that the Protestantism and Judeo-Masonry of the American founding are but slightly different expressions of the same spirit that produced Bolshevism, namely, the practiced and proclaimed sovereignty of man over his own destiny, albeit in the American experience with generic, Masonic references to "God." (See The Inconvenience of Truth.)

These falsehoods bring an endless variety of disastrous consequences for men and states over the course of the passing of the years. Practical atheism becomes the lowest common denominator as public life is stained with crime, facts that Pope Leo XIII noted in, respectively, Immortale Dei, November 1, 1885, and Tametsi Futura Prospicientibus, November 1, 1900:

 

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, 1900.)

God alone is Life. All other beings partake of life, but are not life. Christ, from all eternity and by His very nature, is "the Life," just as He is the Truth, because He is God of God. From Him, as from its most sacred source, all life pervades and ever will pervade creation. Whatever is, is by Him; whatever lives, lives by Him. For by the Word "all things were made; and without Him was made nothing that was made." This is true of the natural life; but, as We have sufficiently indicated above, we have a much higher and better life, won for us by Christ's mercy, that is to say, "the life of grace," whose happy consummation is "the life of glory," to which all our thoughts and actions ought to be directed. The whole object of Christian doctrine and morality is that "we being dead to sin, should live to justice" (I Peter ii., 24)-that is, to virtue and holiness. In this consists the moral life, with the certain hope of a happy eternity. This justice, in order to be advantageous to salvation, is nourished by Christian faith. "The just man liveth by faith" (Galatians iii., II). "Without faith it is impossible to please God" (Hebrews xi., 6). Consequently Jesus Christ, the creator and preserver of faith, also preserves and nourishes our moral life. This He does chiefly by the ministry of His Church. To Her, in His wise and merciful counsel, He has entrusted certain agencies which engender the supernatural life, protect it, and revive it if it should fail. This generative and conservative power of the virtues that make for salvation is therefore lost, whenever morality is dissociated from divine faith. A system of morality based exclusively on human reason robs man of his highest dignity and lowers him from the supernatural to the merely natural life. Not but that man is able by the right use of reason to know and to obey certain principles of the natural law. But though he should know them all and keep them inviolate through life-and even this is impossible without the aid of the grace of our Redeemer-still it is vain for anyone without faith to promise himself eternal salvation. "If anyone abide not in Me, he shall be cast forth as a branch, and shall wither, and they shall gather him up and cast him into the fire, and he burneth" john xv., 6). "He that believeth not shall be condemned" (Mark xvi., 16). We have but too much evidence of the value and result of a morality divorced from divine faith. How is it that, in spite of all the zeal for the welfare of the masses, nations are in such straits and even distress, and that the evil is daily on the increase? We are told that society is quite able to help itself; that it can flourish without the assistance of Christianity, and attain its end by its own unaided efforts. Public administrators prefer a purely secular system of government. All traces of the religion of our forefathers are daily disappearing from political life and administration. What blindness! Once the idea of the authority of God as the Judge of right and wrong is forgotten, law must necessarily lose its primary authority and justice must perish: and these are the two most powerful and most necessary bonds of society. Similarly, once the hope and expectation of eternal happiness is taken away, temporal goods will be greedily sought after. Every man will strive to secure the largest share for himself. Hence arise envy, jealousy, hatred. The consequences are conspiracy, anarchy, nihilism. There is neither peace abroad nor security at home. Public life is stained with crime. (Pope Leo XIII, Tametsi Futura Prospicientibus, November 1, 1900.)

The insidious lies of Americanism reject the binding nature of Catholic Social Teaching. Indeed, the insidious lies of Americanism convinced various prelates in the United States of American that they and their own people and the nation-at-large were exempt from this teaching, a contempt for truth that would lead directly to the counterfeit church of conciliarism's "reconciliation" with the corrupt principles of Modernity, of which Americanism is an important building-block. Writing an not-so-veiled critique of the Americanism of the late Father John Courtney Murray, S.J., a champion of the heresy of religious liberty, Alfredo Cardinal Ottaviani noted the modus operandi of the Modernists as they attack the very nature of truth itself:

 

Here the problem presents itself of how the Church and the lay state are to live together. Some Catholics are propagating ideas with regard to this point which are not quite correct. Many of these Catholics undoubtedly love the Church and rightly intend to find a mode of possible adaptation to the circumstances of the times. But it is none the less true that their position reminds one of that of the faint-hearted soldier who wants to conquer without fighting, or of that of the simple, unsuspecting person who accepts a hand, treacherously held out to him, without taking account of the fact that this hand will subsequently pull him across the Rubicon towards error and injustice.

The first mistake of these people is precisely that of not accepting fully the "arms of truth" and the teaching which the Roman Pontiffs, in the course of this last century, and in particular the reigning Pontiff, Pius XII, by means of encyclicals, allocutions and instructions of all kinds, have given to Catholics on this subject.

To justify themselves, these people affirm that, in the body of teaching given in the Church, a distinction must be made between what is permanent and what is transitory, this latter being due to the influence of particular passing conditions. Unfortunately, how­ever, they include in this second zone the principles laid down in the Pontifical documents, principles on which the teaching of the Church has remained constant, as they form part of the patrimony of Catholic doctrine.

In this matter, the pendulum theory, elaborated by certain writers in an attempt to sift the teaching set forth in Encyclical Letters at different times, cannot be applied. "The Church," it has been written, "takes account of the rhythm of the world's history after the fashion of a swinging pendulum which, desirous of keeping the proper measure, maintains its movement by reversing it when it judges that it has gone as far as it should.... From this point of view a whole history of the Encyclicals could be written. Thus in the field of Biblical studies, the Encyclical, Divino Afflante Spiritu, comes after the Encyclicals Spiritus Paraclitus and Providentissimus.  In the field of Theology or Politics, the Encyclicals, Summi Pontificatus, Non abbiamo bisogno and Ubi Arcano Deo, come after the Encyclical, Immortale Dei."

Now if this were to be understood in the sense that the general and fundamental principles of public Ecclesiastical Law, solemnly affirmed in the Encyclical Letter, Immortale Dei, are merely the reflection of historic moments of the past, while the swing of the pendulum of the doctrinal Encyclicals of Pope Pius XI and Pope Pius XII has passed in the opposite direction to different positions, the statement would have to be qualified as completely erroneous, not only because it misrepresents the teaching of the Encyclicals themselves, but also because it is theoretically inadmissible. In the Encyclical Letter, Humani Generis, the reigning Pontiff teaches us that we must recognize in the Encyclicals the ordinary magisterium of the Church: "Nor must it be thought that what is expounded in Encyclical Letters does not of itself demand assent, in that, when writing such Letters, the Popes do not exercise the supreme power of their teaching authority. For these matters are taught with the ordinary teaching authority, of which it is true to say "He who heareth you heareth Me" (St. Luke 10:16); and generally what is expounded and inculcated in Encyclical Letters already belongs for other reasons to Catholic doctrine."

Because they are afraid of being accused of wanting to return to the Middle Ages, some of our writers no longer dare to maintain the doctrinal positions that are constantly affirmed in the Encyclicals as belonging to the life and legislation of the Church in all ages.  For them is meant the warning of Pope Leo XIII who, recommending concord and unity in the combat against error, adds that "care must be taken never to connive, in anyway, at false opinions, never to withstand them less strenuously than truth allows." (Duties of the Catholic State in Regard to Religion, March 2, 1953.)

Cardinal Ottaviani saw the enemies armed with Americanism marching through the citadel of the Church to attempt to posit their falsehoods as "true" and representative of a legitimate "development of doctrine" despite the fact that those falsehoods contradicted entirely the Church's perennial teaching. He lived to see those enemies make their entreaties right inside of the Basilica of Saint Peter during the "Second" Vatican Council. The Protestant Douglas Horton, who wrote a four volume diary of his own observations at the council, described exactly what was happening as the Americanist concept of "religious liberty," enshrined in Section 1 of Article VI and in the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America, was "winning the day" at the council, much to the delight of the Protestant "observers" and to the joy of those steeped in Judeo-Masonry who saw their own concepts being embraced by what most people in the world believed to be a valid ecumenical council of the Catholic Church.

Look, for example, at the eyewitness testimony of the Protestant Douglas Horton as he saw some of his fondest dreams becoming true at the "Second" Vatican during the debate on the schema that would produce Dignitatis Humanae on December 7, 1965. Mr. Horton reveled in the defeat of the "conservatives" and saw quite clearly that this was a "reconciliation" of what he believed to be the Catholic Church with "progress:"

Yesterday after church Al Outler told us that he had heard that the schema on religious liberty was in trouble and that the presidents of the council, in response to a petition by over a hundred bishops, had decided to postpone the voting upon it--and this morning the newspapers seemed to support this doleful prognostication. This would mean that the delaying tactics of the last two years would again be applied, and possibly again succeed. So today we waited with bated breath for an undesired announcement.

But no such announcement came.

The debate went on, and is likely to be carried on for a day or two more; and in view of the tenseness of emotions it is surely the part of a wise moderatorship to allow the minority to have its say to the last man. As the day has advanced, indeed, I have grown more and more skeptical about the truth of the rumor. Direct word from one peritus who occupies a high seat indicates that the presidents have not acceded to the request of the conservatives, and indirect word from another discloses that the form of the vote on religious liberty is already being considered--I think the ship is still on course in spite of inclement seas--or perhaps I should say sees.

Before the business meeting began this morning [September 20, 1965], the Secretary General read a letter prepared in behalf of the council to be sent to the Holy Father. It expressed warm thanks to His Holiness for establishing the synod of bishops. "It now becomes our concern to obey and cooperate." It also thanked the Pope for his encyclical on the Eucharist, promised prayers for the success of his prospective trip to New York, and asked his blessing. The clapping hands of the fathers signified their approval. An account of the felicities of Felici should not omit his appeal to the fathers who had forgotten to bring with them the text of the schema on divine revelation. Said the Secretary General, "Unfortunately, there are no more available, so borrow a copy if you can--or at least get hold of one in the most honest manner possible."

The array of speakers for the affirmative this morning made it clear that the forces of progress are not lacking either in men or materiel. Of the nine cardinals who made their witness, only one was shadowed by negativism--Cardinal Browne of the Roman curia. Out of the caves of the past he drew the troglodyte theology that in a Catholic state the spreading of another religion is a violation of public morality.

In what contrast were the others! I cite, for instance the Archbishop of Baltimore [Lawrence Sheehan], who made his maiden speech as a cardinal. In a historical address which showed in a most satisfying way the steady evolution of the definition of religious freedom in the church from the time of Leo XIII to the present day, he cannot but have been convincing to the more thoughtful of the fathers.

Cardinal Beran, Archbishop of Prague, who had just stepped out of prison, to which his championing of religious freedom had condemned him, needed hardly to say a word to be convincing. The marks and memories of his incarceration were his eloquence. The council cannot have been impervious to his plea to approve the document as its stands, without dilution.

Equally telling was the testimony of Cardinal Cardijn--who had recently been elevated to his high office from the ranks of the priesthood, without ever having been a bishop, this because of his surpassing saintliness and his founding and developing of the worldwide organization of Young Christian Workers. His sixty years of experience with youth spoke for him when he said, "If this schema is not approved, the hope of tomorrow will be destroyed."

Of the four bishops who spoke this morning, only one condemned the declaration. Two Lefebvres were participants in the debate. The one, the cardinal, the Archbishop of Bourges, had spoken with complete clarity in meeting the several major objections of the conservatives, but now Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre proved himself a cousin so distant as hardly to belong to the same family. He argued that the schema really came from the pens of such eighteenth-century philosophers as Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau and that it paid more attention to the human conscience than it did to the church. He wanted none of it. He is the Superior General of the Congregation of the Holy Spirit; one of my neighbor observers, in a not exactly neutral frame of mind, expressed the wish that the Holy Spirit might be admitted to the order.

Rome must surely see that Rome will be the chief sufferer if the declaration on religious liberty is finally defeated. The cock has crowed twice--in the second and third sessions. I remember Papini's description of Peter after the cock crew for the last time: "Then in the dim light of dawn the last stars saw a man staggering along like a drunkard, his head hidden in his cloak, his shoulders shaken by the sobs of a depressing lament." I do not think that Peter will take that course again today. (Douglas Horton, Vatican Diary 1965: A Protesant Observes the Fourth Session of Vatican Council II. Philadelphia and Boston, United Church Press, pp. 33-35.)

 

The great apostle of Christ the King, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, was at his best when defending Our King in the midst of the lion's den of the revolutionaries, being mocked without his knowledge by an effete Protestant observer.

Major players in the council's debate on the schema that would lead to Dignitatis Humanae were, of course, Americanists such as Francis Cardinal Spellman, the Archbishop of New York, and Richard Cardinal Cushing, the Archbishop of Boston, and the aforementioned Lawrence Cardinal Sheehan of Baltimore. Behind the scenes, of course, Father John Courtney Murray was busy pushing a teaching that even he himself recognized would be hard to reconcile with what had gone before it. Nevertheless, Father Murray was eager to explain to the Protestant observers the importance of stressing the "dignity of the human person," a phrase quite similar to the "dignity of man" that was promoted by the Sillon, whose revolutionary ideas were condemned by Pope Saint Pius X in Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15, 1910.

Douglas Horton related Father Murray's September 17, 1965, talk to the Protestant observers in the offices of the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity, then directed by Bishop Jan Willebrands:

Fr. John Courtney Murray introduced the schema on religious liberty in a way that revealed his knowledge not only of the document itself but also of the whole area of Christian ethics in which the subject of religious liberty lies. In answer to certain critics he pointed out that the document is based not on the passing social situation of today but upon the eternal truth of the dignity of the human person. He hope the schema would open the way to full dialogue with the World Council of Churches and men of goodwill everywhere. As late as the nineteenth century the church regarded the state as being, as it were, within it, part of itself. Then came the great revolutions, which the church did not understand. Only today the church is coming to see the state as secular, but in a good sense--not hostile or indifferent to religion, but concerned only for the good of the human person, justice, charity, freedom.

In the course of the discussion it became evident that most of the suggestions made by the observers had already been considered by the Secretariat during the now long period of gestation of the schema. (Douglas Horton, Vatican Diary 1965: A Protestant Observes the Fourth Session of Vatican Council II. Philadelphia and Boston, United Church Press, pp. 27-28.)

 

So much for Pope Saint Pius X's writing in Vehementer Nos, February 11, 1906, that the separation of Church and State was a thesis absolutely false, and that the civil state has an obligation to aid man in the salvation of his immortal soul. Douglas Horton noted that the Protestant "observers" made contributions that complemented the beliefs of various Modernists. Indeed, one can see in the comments of a Professor van Holk, as reported by Horton, a view of the nature of truth that is identical with the one that has been advanced by Joseph Ratzinger throughout the course of his priesthood, as has been demonstrated on this site time and time again:

Professor van Holk, who has long kept the Remonstrant flag flying at the University of Leiden, saved us from wandering too far into stuffy theologistics (an extremity to which even biblical theology may succumb) by the very tone of his remarks. He asked that the document speak with unmistakable clarity against the misuse by the state, in dealing with minorities, of the argument from "public interest." He also spoke as a modern man against conceiving truth and error as static and independent rather than as dynamic and developing entities in dialectic with each other. I thought of the Latin saying Virescit vulnere virtus and the schoolboy howler which translated it "Virtue is vulnerable but when vulned, she is always invigorated." Truth is indeed vulnerable to error, but its tension with error keeps it strong and alive. Father Murray agreed with Dr. van Holk and Bishop Willebrands observed that many bishops are not really in touch with the thought that enriches the life of today, makes it different from yesterday, and gives it great promise. (Douglas Horton, Vatican Diary 1965: A Protestant Observes the Fourth Session of Vatican Council II. Philadelphia and Boston, United Church Press, pp. 29-30.)

 

Anyone who does not believe that the "Second" Vatican Council represented a revolution against the nature of truth and thus the very nature of God, aided and abetted by the revolutionary "periti" such as Fathers Karl Rahner, S.J., and Joseph Ratzinger, among so many others, and the Protestant "observers" is not seeing things very clearly. And the revolutionaries from the Rhine who gathered near the Tiber between 1962 and 1965 had great assistance from the revolutionaries from the Potomac, men who believed in the false, naturalistic, religiously indifferentist and semi-Pelagian principles of the modern civil state, men who rejected the Social Reign of Christ the King and who refused to teach about his sacred rights over men and their nations. These revolutionaries had to make use of various Hegelian devices in order to obviate the statements contained in this compendium proving the perpetually binding nature of Catholic Social Teaching, The Binding Nature of Catholic Social Teaching.

It is no wonder, therefore, that the cataclysms that agitate so many people, especially those who have surf the internet for every bit of "news" that they can find about current events, of the present moment are taking place. We must remember what Pope Pius XI, that great apostle of the Social Reign of Christ the King, wrote in Quas Primas, December 11, 1925:

Nations will be reminded by the annual celebration of this feast that not only private individuals but also rulers and princes are bound to give public honor and obedience to Christ. It will call to their minds the thought of the last judgment, wherein Christ, who has been cast out of public life, despised, neglected and ignored, will most severely avenge these insults; for his kingly dignity demands that the State should take account of the commandments of God and of Christian principles, both in making laws and in administering justice, and also in providing for the young a sound moral education.  (Pope Pius XI, Quas Primas, December 11, 1925.)

Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is trying to get our attention, attempting to chastise us in the midst of our naturalistic sideshows and bread and circuses and materialism to turn away from Modernity in the world and Modernism in the counterfeit church of conciliarism so that we can become apostles of His Social Kingship as we exalt the Queenship of His Most Blessed Mother, Mary our Immaculate Queen. Every Rosary we pray, every blessed Green Scapular we distribute, every bit of suffering we endure with gratitude and with love as we make attempt to make reparation for our sins and those of the whole world as the consecrated slaves of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary will help to plant a few seeds for the restoration of the Church and hence for the restoration of Christendom in the world.

The crimes of Modernity have been abetted and enabled by Modernism's reconciliation with its false principles. Although there will indeed never be a time of perfection in the world as human nature is wounded by the vestigial after-effects of Original Sin and Actual Sins, there will come a time following the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary when men will at least attempt to live more fully in accord with the binding precepts of the Divine Positive Law and the Natural Law as they have been entrusted by Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ exclusively to the Catholic Church and when civil states will endeavor, albeit imperfectly, to foster those social conditions conducive to the sanctification and salvation of the souls of its citizens, recognizing that Catholicism is indeed the one and only foundation of personal and social order. It is then that God will bless our land, not before. We cannot keep Christ the King and Mary our Immaculate Queen waiting by means of our indifference, if not overt hostility, to accepting the simple fact that Catholicism is the one and only foundation of personal and social order.

Today is the great Feast of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Our Lady is dishonored, if not blasphemed, in most of Protestantism. Today's great feast will thus go unnoticed by most people, including most Catholics, in the world this day. We know, however, that to dishonor the Blessed Mother is dishonor her Divine Son. It cannot be this way with us. We must honor Our Lady as we pray to her, especially by means of her Most Holy Rosary, that she will present us to her Divine Son at the moment of our deaths.

Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., wrote the following about the history of this great feast day in his The Liturgical Year, teaching us that the King of France, Charles V, understood that nations must give public honor and glory to the Mother of God:

The East had been celebrating for seven centuries at least the entrance of the Mother of God into the temple of Jerusalem, when in 1372 Gregory XI permitted it to be kept for the first time by the Roman court at Avignon. Mary in return broke the chains of captivity that had bound the Papacy for seventy years; and soon the successor of St. Peter returned to Rome. The feast of the Visitation, as we saw on July 2, was in like manner inserted into the Western calendar to commemorate the re-establishment of unity after the schism which followed the exile.

In 1373, following the example of the Sovereign Pontiff, Charles V of France introduced the feast of the Presentation into the chapel of his palace. By letters dated November 10, 1374, the masters and students of the college of Navarre, he expressed his desire that it should be celebrated throughout the kingdom: "Charles, by the grace of God king of the Franks, to our dearly beloved: health in Him who ceases not to honour His Mother on earth. Among other objects of our solicitude, of our daily care and diligent meditation, that which rightly occupies our first thoughts is, that the blessed Virgin and most Holy Empress be honoured by us with very great love and praise as becomes the veneration due to her. For it is our duty to glorify her; and we, who raise the eyes of our soul to her on high, know what an incomparable protectress she is to all, how powerful a mediatrix with her blessed Son, for those who honour her with a pure heart. . . . Wherefore, wishing to excite our faithful people to solemnize the said feast, as we ourselves propose to do by God's assistance every year of our life, we send this Office to your devotion, in order to increase your joy."

Such was the language of princes in those days. Now just at the very time the wise and pious king, following up the work begun at Bretigny by our Lady of Chartres, rescued France from its from its fallen and dismembered condition. In the State, then, as well as in the Church, at this moment so critical for both our Lady in her Presentation commanded the storm, and the smile of the infant Mary dispersed the clouds.

Imagine if we had such rulers today as France had in the glories of Christendom! Public honor and glory given to the Mother of God on her feast days.

That would be something worth praising!

Dom Gueranger explained the mystical significance of this day:

Through the graceful infant now mounting the temple steps He takes possession of that temple whose priests will hereafter disown Him; for this child whom the temple welcomes to-day is His 'throne.' Already His fragrance precedes and announces Him in the Mother in whose bosom He is to be 'anointed with the oil of gladness' as the Christ among His brethren; already the angels hail her as the Queen whose fruitful virginity will give birth to all those consecrated souls who keep for the divine Spouse the 'myrrh' and the incense of their holocausts, those 'daughters of kings' who are to form her court of honour.

But our Lady's Presentation also opens new horizons before the Church. On the Cycle of the saints, which is not so precisely limited as that of the Time, the mystery of Mary's sojourn in the sanctuary of the Old Covenant is our best preparation for the approaching season of Advent. Mary, led to the temple in order to prepare in retirement, humility, and love for her incomparable destiny, had also the mission of perfecting at the foot of the figurative altar the prayer of the human race, of itself ineffectual to draw down the Saviour from heaven. She was, as St. Bernardine of Siena says, the happy completion of all the waiting and the supplication for the coming of the Son of God; in her, as in their culminating-point, all the desires of the saints who had preceded her found their consummation and their term.

Through her wonderful understanding of the Scriptures, and her conformity, daily and hourly, to the minutest teachings and prescriptions of the Mosaic ritual, Mary everywhere found and adored the Messias hidden under the letter; she united herself to Him, immolated herself with Him in each of the many victims sacrificed before her eyes; and thus she rendered to the God of Sinai the homage hitherto vainly expected of the Law understood, practised, and made to fructify in all the fullness that beseemed its divine Legislator. Then could Jehovah truly say: 'As the rain and the snow come down from heaven and return no more thither, but soak the earth and water it, and make it to spring: . . . so shall My word be. . . it shall not return to Me void, but it shall do whatsoever I please.

Supplying thus for the deficiencies of the Gentiles as well as of the Synagogue, Mary behold in the bride of the Canticle of the Church of the future. In our name she addressed her supplications to Him whom she recognized as the Bridegroom, without, however, knowing that He was to be her own Son. Such yearnings of love, coming from her, were sufficient to obtain from the divine Word pardon for the infidelities of the past and the immorality into which the wandering world was plunging deeper and deeper. How well did this ark of the New Covenant replace that of the Jews, which had perished with the first temple! It was for her, though he knew it not, that Herod the Gentile and continued the construction of the second temple after it had remained desolate since the time of Zorobabel; for the temple, like the tabernacle before it, was but the home of the ark destined to be God's throne; but greater was the glory of the second temple which sheltered the reality, than of the first which contained but the figure. (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year.)

We must never look to anyone for "advice" on First or Last Things who cannot make these words of Dom Prosper Gueranger his own, who cannot make his own this prayer uttered by the great Benedictine of the Nineteenth Century:

'Congratulate me, all ye that love the Lord, because when I was a little one I pleased the Most High.' Such is the invitation thou addressed to  us, O Mary, in the Office chanted in thy honour; and on what feast couldst thou do so more appropriately?

When, even more little in thy humility than by thy tender age, thou didst mount, in thy sweet purity, the steps of the temple, all heaven must have owned that it was henceforth just for the Most High to take His delight in our earth. Having hitherto lived in retirement with thy blessed parents, this was thy first public act; it showed thee for a moment to the eyes of men, only to withdraw thee immediately into deeper obscurity. But as thou wast officially offered and presented to the Lord, He Himself doubtless, surrounded by the princes of His court, presented thee not less solemnly to those noble spirits as their Queen. In the fullness of the new light that then burst upon them, they understood at once thy incomparable greatness, the majesty of the temple where Jehovah was receiving a homage superior to that of their nine choirs, and the august prerogative of the Old Testament to have thee for its daughter, and to perfect, by its teachings and guidance during those twelve years, the formation of the Mother of God.

Holy Church, however, declares that we can imitate thee, O Mary, in this mystery of thy Presentation, as in all others. Deign to bless especially those privileged souls who, by the grace of their vocation, are even here below dwellers in the house of the Lord; may they be like that fruitful olive enriched by the holy Spirit, to which St. John Damascene compares thee. But is not every Christian, by reason of his Baptism, an indweller and a member of the Church. God's true sanctuary, prefigured by that of Moriah? May we through thy intercession, follow thee so closely in thy Presentation even here in the land of shadows, that we may deserve to be presented after thee to the Most High in the temple of His glory.  (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year.)

 

Yes, America. Your King and your Queen are waiting? Why do you not prostrate before them.

We must offer up our prayers and our sacrifices and humiliations and mortifications and penances to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, praying as many Rosaries each day as our states-in-life permit, so that every human being on the face of this earth will recognize in the Mother of God the Singular Vessel of Devotion without whose intercession we cannot get to Heaven.

A blessed Feast of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary to you all!

Viva Cristo Rey! Vivat Christus Rex!

Our Lady of Guadalupe, pray for us!

 

Saint Joseph, Patron of Departing Souls, 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.

See also: A Litany of Saints

Isn't it time to pray a Rosary now?

 





© Copyright 2012, Thomas A. Droleskey. All rights reserved.