The Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary

“Since in the course of centuries the holy liturgy has been gaining more and more completeness, it is but natural that this precious mine should come to be further opened in honor of the Virgin Mother. The Order of Saint Francis, it would seem, as well as certain particular churches, such as Rheims and Paris for example— had already taken the initiative, when Urban VI in 1389 instituted today’s solemnity. The Pope counseled a fast on the vigil of the feast, and ordered that it should be followed by an octave; he granted for its celebration the same indulgences as Urban IV had, in the previous century, attached to the festival of Corpus Christi. The Bull of promulgation, stopped by the Pontiff’s death, was again taken up and published by Boniface IX, his successor on the Chair of Peter.

“We learn from the lessons of the office formerly composed for this feast, that the object of its institution was, as Urban conceived it, to obtain the cessation of the schism then desolating the Church. The Papacy, exiled from Rome for 70 years, had barely re-entered it, when hell, infuriated at a return which crossed all its plans, had taken revenge by ranging under two leaders the flock of the one sheepfold. So deep was the obscurity wherewith miserable intrigues contrived to cover the authority of the legitimate shepherd, that numbers of churches, in all good faith, began to hesitate, and ended at last in preferring the deceptive staff of a hireling. Thicker yet was the darkness to grow, till night should be so dense, that for a moment the conflicting mandates of three Popes would simultaneously spread through the world; whilst the faithful, struck with stupor, would be at an utter loss to discern accurately which was the voice of Christ’s true Vicar. Never had the bride of the Son of God been in a more piteous situation. But Our Lady, to whom the true Pontiff had turned at the first rising of the storm, did not betray the Church‘s confidence. During all those years while the unfathomable justice of the Most High let the powers of hell hold sway, she stood for the defense of holy Church, trampling the head of the old serpent so thoroughly under her victorious foot, that in spite of the terrific confusion he had stirred up, he was unable to sully the faith of the people. Their attachment was steadfast to the unity of the Roman See, whosoever might be, in this uncertainty, its veritable occupant. Thus the West, divided in fact, but in principle ever one and undivided, reunited herself spontaneously as soon as God‘s moment came for the return of light….

“It was now to be shown that such a return of nations, in the very midst even of the tempest, was indeed the work of her who had been called upon by the pilot, half a century before, to succor the bark of Peter. Even they of the fractious assembly of Basle gave proof of this, in a way which has unfortunately been too much overlooked by historians who undervalue the high importance that liturgical facts hold in the history of Christendom. When about to separate, these last abettors of the schism devoted the 43rd session of their pretended council to the promulgation of this feast of the Visitation, in the establishment of which Urban VI had, from the outset, placed all his hopes. Notwithstanding the resistance of some of the more obstinate, the schism may, from that hour, be said to have ended. The storm was subsiding; the name of Mary, invoked thus by both sides, shone resplendent as the sign of peace amidst the clouds, even as the rainbow in its sweet radiance unites both extremities of the horizon. ‘Look upon it,’ says the Holy Ghost, ‘and bless Him that made it: it is very beautiful in its brightness. It encompasseth the heaven about with the circle of its glory: the hands of the Most High have displayed it.’”

— from the Liturgical Year

Glory to God in the Highest! Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, We Place All Our Trust in Thee!

Of course the long-prayed-for decision in Dobbs, overturning the truly diabolical decisions in Roe and Casey, merits a blog post. It merits a grateful nation offering up prayers of thanksgiving to God and all His Saints for the mercy shown to us, who have certainly done little to deserve it.

As a legal issue, I will say that the rule of law has been resuscitated, after being flatlined in the wake of the Obamacare debacle. Whether the rule of law will recover is doubtful, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see a relapse. As a lawyer, Dobbs is right on the mark in excoriating the exercise of raw judicial power (to quote Justice Byron White in his dissent in Roe) by the Court to prohibit states from preventing the murder of millions of children. Of course, I think the Fourteenth Amendment is a factor– not as the babykillers do, who say it protects a “right” to kill one’s child, but rather, I believe it is the baby who has a Fourteenth Amendment right to be free from being killed without due process of law. In short, abortion should be always illegal everywhere in every state, if we want to follow the Constitution’s provisions to their logical end. But whatever. Today, no carping. Today, a State may outlaw this heinous affront against God. In fact, many have.

And, praise God, today in my state of Missouri abortion is for all practical purposes illegal.

Who would have thought it possible? Long years of weak inaction on the part of parties, prelates, and Catholic voters could have led one to think of Lucy, Charlie Brown, and the football again and again and again. We were in a perpetual state of “just one more Justice!”

And then, after the election selected Biden, and the rule of law lay motionless on a slab at the morgue, I would not have imagined this. Justice Gorsuch has been solid, but Kavanaugh has caved on several cases and my confidence in Barrett was about 17%. But hey, I give them all credit today. No complaints. I am all gratitude.

And when I say God bless Donald Trump, can I get an Amen? All three of his appointees voted in the majority. All three came through. Though Alito and Thomas were appointed by the Bush family, those presidents offset them with leftist appointments. The Justices get credit, but the Bush contribution was at best accidental. I invite all Catholic NeverTrumpers to come forward today and take their good-natured lumps from their colleagues with some measure of humility. Or at least resurrect the penitential practice of self-flagellation.

Regarding the leaked draft opinion in Dobbs, I thought at the time that the satanic attempt to kill, injure or intimidate Alito and the others was a huge tactical mistake. Alito is not like that. Thomas is not like that. It wasn’t Kavanaugh’s or Barrett’s draft decisions that were leaked. Alito and Thomas are two of the finest Justices in a long, long time. To borrow a phrase from Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men, “You [messed] with the wrong Marine!” And I credit Alito for specifically referring to Justice White and the great Justice Scalia today in his opinion. Credit where due.

Finally, on the spiritual and thus most relevant and practical level, my prayer is that this act of justice, incomplete and late as it is, will spare us from the worst of the chastisement we have earned, and begin the end of it. May the Sacred Heart lead the Holy Father to consecrate Russia as Our Lady requested, and thus kick start her Immaculate Heart’s triumph at long last. May devotion to the two Hearts increase more and more!

Deo Gratias! Gloria in Excelsis Deo!

Dear Catholics, You Are Now in Stoppage Time

I suppose it is some evidence of the subject of my post that I began to write it on April 28th, eleven days ago. And that beginning came after a 16 day void since my last substantive post. [Here is where you say, “You’ve had a substantive post? This decade?”].

Anyhow, I hope you all had an Easter Solemnity full of joy and the thankful, confident hope in the power of Our Lord’s victory over death. Each year, it is more and more obvious to me that everything in our lives is dependent on the fact that Christ is risen– as God, as Man. He died. Our debt is paid. He rose. Our inheritance is Heaven. It’s so beautiful and so comprehensive, that it is sometimes easy to miss it. This year, I followed some spiritual advice and every time I meditated upon the crucifixion I pictured the inscription nailed above Our Savior’s head as being instead inscribed with my sentence to eternal death for my sins. And He took it, and accepted the responsibility for it, and suffered and died for it. He obliterated it. His merits, coming from God, are infinite and simply too much for my sins to ever deplete. His Incarnation makes those merits apply to men. And thus, I am pardoned. It is overwhelming to ponder, let alone to comprehend.

So, the point of this post? Just a snapshot of my take on the current situation. Though it’s the Easter season, like every other year, I just have the gut feeling that we are in a different place entirely. I mean in the supernatural sense. Like we are beyond the allotted time. To illustrate the point, and I apologize for this, I will use an analogy from soccer.*

If you have ever been forced to watch watched soccer, you may recognize this sort of activity:

Well, as you can imagine, the common, ludicrous, time-consuming, and wussified acting involved in faking injuries wastes a lot of time. So what, you say? Baseball has stepping-out-of-the-box, giving and stealing signs, and a myriad of other time wasters. And football has committee meetings built in to the equation. Well be that as it may, soccer uses a clock that never stops. Yep, you play, the clock rolls. You kick the ball out of bounds, the clock rolls. You fake a gunshot wound and roll around on the ground like an idiot because someone came within five yards of you, the clock rolls. You have an actual cardiac event on the field because you took a mandatory, safe and effective experimental gene serum of no discernable reason, the clock rolls.

Hey Timman, what would stop a team with a lead from faking injury after injury to run out the last ten minutes of a match, you say? Well, that is because of a concept they have in soccer called “stoppage time”. It used to be known as injury time, but the new euphemism acknowledges that players are hardly ever injured when the pull the lame acting jobs highlighted above. You see, the clock finally hits zero, but the game goes on. Yes, I know, it is hard to believe there are millions of people who take this game seriously. But to the point. How long does the game continue? Well, the referee makes up a number out of thin air consults with his record of how much time was wasted by the wannabe Johnny Depps during play and adds that amount of additional time. This, friends, is called stoppage time.

In the not too distant past, the referee simply added on time as he saw fit without telling anybody how much time was left. Yep, everyone but the referee was in the dark. As you can imagine, this could lead someone to think that this system was easily corruptible and would enable some shady outcomes. Like if a referee was in the pay of local gamblers, or was gambling himself. Or if he were a fan of one of the teams. Or if some player irritated him during the game by complaining that so-and-so was clearly faking an injury. And so on. It is similar to stopping the counting of votes in the middle of a presidential election and allowing thousands of illegal ballots to be added while no one was watching (“They did dumps. They called them dumps. Big, massive dumps.”– DJT). The problems with that system eventually led to this: even an organization as corrupt as FIFA changed the system so that the referee has to give an actual number that is known to all of how many minutes he added. Even still, this doesn’t completely address the corruption risk, because the number is still an estimate. The referee still has roughly half a minute either way to pull a fast one. And of course, finally, gloriously– PLAYERS STILL CAN AND DO FAKE INJURIES DURING STOPPAGE TIME. On and on it goes, friends.

But what does this have to do with Catholics being in stoppage time?

We all have that feeling that the game is up. That our enemies and their agenda are no longer masked. That are friends are few. That the world simply can’t go on like this. That the anti-civilization that has largely overthrown civilization does not account for God, let alone worship Him. That it must come down. It is obvious that the clock on that feel-good fake world of the late 20th and early 21st centuries is at zero. This feeling is a natural human intuition on our part, informed by our faith and by Divine revelation.

This feels different. It is bonus time. Stoppage time, if you will.

In our situation, God is the Referee, though obviously He is NOT corrupt– 100% the opposite of corrupt, in fact. But He is the only one who knows how much time there is left to us. To us personally, and to the enterprise of time generally. In that sense, ever since the Resurrection, we have all been on stoppage time. But it is surely more imminent now. Since time is finite, it necessarily closer to the end of the game. But more than that, the full clock sure seems to have run out, and we now play on, trying to earn the victory while anxiously looking for the Referee to raise that whistle to his lips and end all play.

I think it was two or three years ago that I wrote about a “bonus Lent” and “bonus Advent”. And I am prone to hyperbole, as you know already. But the boy who cried wolf did eventually spot the wolf. Just saying.

It is hard to play a focused game in stoppage time. But that is our task. We must not be discouraged or distracted, whether we play from ahead or behind. Stay close to the Sacraments and remain firmly in the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. May Our Lady as ever be our Star during this time. She is our guide and our hope of victory.

Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us!

*Anyone who instinctively said to themselves when reading this sentence, “It’s actually called football, moron,” should probably read another blog written by a younger, woker blogger.

Happy Mother’s Day

May Our Blessed Mother bless you all

Happy Easter, from the Vatican!

After a mini-resurgence of regular blogging in the first few months of this so-far annus horibilis, you may have noticed a mini-dearth of posting in the last few weeks. Why? My motivation is still there, but after the nuclear war talk paused among the Ukraine media cheerleaders, and as it seems Russia is slowly but surely drawing the noose over the Azov battalion, there has been an absolute dearth of news.

By dearth of news, I stress dearth of news you don’t already know. I mean, yes, scads of professional athletes, young people and early middle-aged people are dropping dead of the clot shot. You knew that. Yes, they will bring back the coof restrictions as long as sheeple let them. You knew that. Yes, the Chinese communists have zero respect for human life. You knew that.

And yes, Bergoglio sure does everything in his power to destroy the Church. You knew that, too.

Today, news from Lifesite that he has removed the chaplain of the traditional Carmelite community he is trying to destroy in Pennsylvania. Yep, accompanying them all the way to an inability to receive the Sacraments. This order has said they will resist this unjust and illegitimate crackdown. Good for them.

May their chaplains stick with them, and may faithful Catholics support them. May God protect their vocations, their charism, and their souls.

Perhaps when Mary’s Immaculate Heart triumphs the Pope will finally break his long silence. Until then, pray for him.

Final Fatima Friday Weigh-in

Just because I’m usually so shy about expressing my opinion. Especially opinions where I don’t have all the facts. But, given the importance of the event, here goes:

Of course anyone who knew the importance of the Fatima apparitions/promises/warnings/consequences would want the consecration on Friday to be compliant with Our Lady’s command. We all want that. I want it. So what did she actually request (as translated in English)? From the Fatima.org site:

To save them [poor sinners who are on the road to hell], God wishes to establish in the world devotion to My Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved and there will be peace. The war is going to end; but if people do not cease offending God, a worse war will break out during the reign of Pius XI. When you see a night illumined by an unknown light, know that this is the great sign given you by God that He is about to punish the world for its crimes, by means of war, famine, and persecutions against the Church and against the Holy Father.

To prevent this, I shall come to ask for the consecration of Russia to My Immaculate Heart, and the Communion of Reparation on the First Saturdays. If My requests are heeded, Russia will be converted and there will be peace; if not, she will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions against the Church. The good will be martyred, the Holy Father will have much to suffer, various nations will be annihilated.

In the end, My Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to Me, and she will be converted, and a period of peace will be granted to the world.

The above was from the Second Secret told to the children by Our Lady and made public. Read here. Later, in 1929 Our Lady appeared to Sister Lucia and spoke the following words:

The moment has come when God asks the Holy Father to make, in union with all the bishops of the world, the consecration of Russia to My Immaculate Heart, promising to save it by this means. So numerous are the souls which the justice of God condemns for sins committed against Me, that I come to ask for reparation. Sacrifice yourself for this intention and pray.

So, Our Lady said God wants this. He directs that Holy Father must make this consecration, and that in union with all the bishops of the world. Therefore, on to the first condition.

Will it be the Holy Father consecrating Russia at all? Unless you found this site through an internet randomizer, you know that I believe this question, far from being an obvious yes, is a matter AT LEAST of very understandable doubt. I read the putative Benedictine abdication and I cannot conclude the text complies with Canon Law for validity. If it is invalid, Pope Benedict never stopped being Pope. He is still alive, you know. And there are signs he knows he is still Pope, ET CETERA ET CETERA.

So, the first condition of God’s request given through Our Lady is in serious doubt. OK, but Tim, aren’t both Bergoglio and Benedict “bishops” and thus if both consecrate Russia, would that not be compliant?

Yes, dear readers, that is the million dollar question. IF they both consecrated Russia as requested, then I can see how it very well may be acceptable, even under the bizarre conditions in which we find ourselves and the Church. And I get it– it would be just like Our Lord and Lady to bring such a wonderful miracle out of the mouth of the Church’s enemies themselves. Yes, quite fitting, actually. But what immediately is obvious to me is that we have not heard a peep out of Benedict about his participation. Nope, just the Vatican apparatus and its prison guards who always speak for him. Frank Walker calls this apparatus by the humorous name “BenedictBot”. Again, I tend to see things through the legal lens, and will just say this: everything ever said by anyone other than Benedict that claims to be “Benedict said this…” is HEARSAY. Sometimes they resort to double hearsay. Whatever, it would never be admissible in a court of law due to its inherent unreliability and unverifiability. That is why Ann Barnhardt very sensibly insists that Benedict, if participating at all, should be visibly doing so. Or, you’re going to tell me you will take Bergoglio’s word for it?? The man who allowed a demon to be worshipped in the Vatican gardens, and likely in St. Peter’s Basilica, too? The guy who tried to abrogate the Mass? Do I need to go on?

The second condition, assuming arguendo that the first was fulfilled, is that the consecration is to be done in union with all the bishops of the world and at the same time. A very lengthy discussion, and an informative one, about this condition can be found here. I’ll leave it at that. How many of the world’s bishops are required before this is satisfied? Does it have to be all? Some moral equivalent? I don’t know. So, would the invitation to all the Bishops to participate Friday, and the positive response of many, do the job? Again, I can’t decide, but just leave it as an issue.

Third, what is the effect of the inclusion of “humanity” and “Ukraine” along with “Russia”? Does that invalidate the consecration? Or is the mention of the word “Russia” enough, regardless of any additions? On this point I can see validity (if the other conditions are present) by specifically mentioning Russia. Why he needs to add anything else is a very good question not worth going into here.

Finally, Russia must be consecrated to Mary’s Immaculate Heart. Specifically. If Russia is consecrated to say, a demon, now, I ask you, would that be good? I link to Ann Barnhardt below, but the concern is that included in the many titles given to Our Lady in the consecration, what is rendered in English is “Queen of Heaven”, but in the romance languages the title roughly translates to “Queen of the Land of the Sky”, which according to persons pointing this out is a title attributed to the demon pachamama. The consecration will be read in Italian.

Which ultimately leads me to Ann Barnhardt. Her post is worth reading, and she lays out all the bad intentions/circumstances/effects of Bergoglio’s effort. Ann writes with her usual assurance, but she has been right so many times I can understand her intensity. I think she lays out the worst case scenario, and though I am not 100% convinced Mary will not somehow bring the consecration about despite any shenanigans–because she so desperately wishes to help us— I can’t say the Barnhardt probable outcomes aren’t plausible, to say the least. After all, she wishes to help us but first and always she wishes exactly what God wills.

So, in the reader’s digest version of this post, I would say I think it is very slightly possible this will satisfy Our Lady’s request, but much more likely that it will not. If it does, we will see her Immaculate Heart triumph. IN REALITY. A real miracle, not some needing-to-be-interpreted, just right Francismiracle, like his appalling interpretation of the loaves and fishes. We will KNOW. Mary’s Immaculate Heart will be GLORIFIED. Russia will CONVERT. TO THE TRUE FAITH, THE CATHOLIC FAITH.

Any mild pause in the globalist agenda isn’t the endgame here. Radical conversion, repentance, and the Age of Mary is what I would look for.

And what will happen if this is not good enough, or worse, an outright scam by an antipope? Need I say that this likely would greatly offend Heaven? On the cusp of a nuclear war?

Our Lady asked Sr. Lucia to sacrifice and pray for the intention of the consecration of Russia. I would like to point out we have two days left before the ceremony on Friday.

And no matter what. DO NOT LOSE FAITH IN OUR LORD, OUR LADY, OR THE CHURCH. She will triumph, sooner or later. Don’t give in to scandal should this go down badly. She will triumph. She crushes the head of satan. He is less than a match for her.

God bless you all.

Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us!

Text of Important Speech by the President

Of Russia.

Deo Gratias!… et Tempus Fugit

I could not let this Feast of Saint Thomas Aquinas go by without recalling to mind the Solemn High Mass celebrated by Canon Karl W. Lenhardt at the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Louis on this night exactly fifteen years ago, March 7, 2007. I can’t believe it’s been that long ago.

It was the first traditional Latin Mass celebrated at the cathedral since 1969. May God bless Raymond Cardinal Burke for this and all he has done to promote the return of the traditional Mass in St. Louis and around the world.

And would it be inappropriate to mention the 2007 was a way better year than 2022? That year marked not only the return of the traditional Mass to the cathedral but also the first priestly ordinations in the traditional rite for the Institute in the United States.

And, of course, 2007 had the best of all: the promulgation of Summorum Pontificum.

These times of tribulation and suffering will no doubt produce greater fruit to come. That’s how God does these things. And I know our Lady will triumph. If we are spared, her victory will bring such great things as to make everything we’ve gone through pale in significance.

Until that glorious time comes at last, keep your heads down, all the better to duck that fire coming from the sky. May the great Saint Thomas Aquinas intercede for us and for the whole Church. Amen.

“As long as we have time, dear brothers and sisters, let us ask God for mercy; let us implore His pardon and make amends for sins that have been committed.”

May God bless and richly reward the brave and faithful Archbishop Vigano. Reprinted below from the Remnant, this meditation by His Excellency could be the last and best blog post I could give until the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart:

________________________

Venite, convertimini ad me, dicit Dominus. 
Venite flentes, fundamus lacrymas ad Deum:
quia nos negleximus, et propter nos terra patitur:
nos iniquitatem fecimus, 
et propter nos fundamenta commota sunt.
Festinemus anteire ante iram Dei,
flentes et dicentes: 
Qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis.

Transitorium ambrosianum
in Dominica Quinquagesimæ

Come and be converted to me, says the Lord. Come weeping, let us shed tears to God: because we have transgressed, and because of us the earth suffers: we have committed iniquity and because of us its foundations have been shaken. Let us hasten to prevent God’s wrath, weeping and saying: You who take upon Yourself the sins of the world, have mercy on us. 

It is difficult for a man of today to understand these words of the Ambrosian Missal. Yet they are simple in their severe clarity, for they show us that God’s wrath because of our sins and betrayals can only be appeased by contrition and penance. In the Roman Rite this concept is made even more clearly in the prayer of the Litany of Saints:

Deus, qui culpa offenderis, pænitentia placaris: preces populi tui supplicantis propitius respice; et flagella tuæ iracundiæ, quæ pro peccatis nostris meremur, averte.
O God, who is offended by guilt and appeased by penance: look kindly on the prayers of your people who implore You; and turn away from us the scourges of your wrath, which we deserve because of our sins.

Christian civilization was able to treasure this salutary notion, which keeps us away from sin not only for fear of the just punishment that it entails, but also for the offense caused to the Majesty of God, “infinitely good and worthy of being loved above all things,” as the Act of Contrition teaches us. Down the centuries humanity converted to Christ knew how to recognize in the mournful events of history – in earthquakes, famines, pestilences and wars – the punishment of God; and always the people struck by these scourges knew how to do penance and implore Divine Mercy. And when the Lord, the Blessed Virgin or the Saints intervened in human affairs with apparitions and revelations, in addition to the call to observe the Law of God they threatened great tribulations if men were not converted.

At Fatima, also, Our Lady asked for the Consecration of Russia to Her Immaculate Heart and the reparative Communion of the First Saturdays as an instrument to appease the anger of God and to be able to enjoy a period of peace. Otherwise, Russia “will spread its errors throughout the world, promoting wars and persecutions of the Church. The good will be martyred, the Holy Father will have much to suffer, various nations will be destroyed.” 

What should we expect from disregarding Our Lady’s requests and continuing to offend the Lord with more and more horrible sins? “They did not want to fulfill My request! Like the King of France, they will repent and do it, but it will be late. Russia will have already spread its errors throughout the world, provoking wars and persecutions of the Church.” These wars, which today afflict humanity to enslave it and submit it to the infernal plan of the Great Reset inspired by Chinese Communism, are once again the result of our indocility, of our obstinacy in believing that we can trample on the Law of the Lord and blaspheme His Holy Name without consequences. What wretched presumption! How much Luciferian pride!

The de-Christianized world and the secularized mentality that has infected even Catholics does not accept the idea of a God offended by the sins of men, and who punishes them with scourges so that they repent and ask for forgiveness. Yet this concept is one of the ideas that the creative hand of God has impressed on the soul of every man, inspiring that sense of justice that even pagans have. But precisely because it is present in all men of all times, our contemporaries are horrified by the idea of a God who rewards the good and punishes the bad, a God who reveals himself in His anger, who asks for tears and sacrifices from those who offend Him.

Behind this aversion to the wrath of the Lord, offended by the sins of mankind – and even more so by those whom He made His children in Baptism – is the implacable hatred of the enemy of the human race for the redeeming Sacrifice of Our Lord Jesus Christ, for the Passion of the Son of God, for the ransom that His Blood has merited for each of us, after the fall of Adam and our personal sins. A hatred that has consumed him ever since the creation of man, in a mad attempt to frustrate the work of God, to disfigure the creature made in His image and likeness, and even more to prevent the divine reparation of Christ, the new Adam, and Mary, the new Eve. On the Cross, the new Adam restores the order broken by sin as Redeemer; at the foot of the Cross, the new Eve participates in this restoration as Coredemptrix. The failure of Satan’s action is accomplished in the obedience of the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity to the Father, in the humiliation of the Son of God, just as Adam’s temptation was consummated in disobedience to the Lord’s will and in the proud presumption of being able to break His orders without consequences.

The world does not accept pain and death either as a just punishment for original sin and actual sins, nor as an instrument of ransom and redemption by Christ. And it is almost a paradox: the very one who by the temptation of our first Parents introduced death, sickness, and pain into the world does not tolerate that these very same things can also be the instrument of atonement when they are accepted with humility in order to repair fractured Justice. He does not tolerate the weapons of destruction and death to be snatched from him in order to become instruments of reconstruction and life.

Contemporary man is newly deceived by Satan, just as he was in the garden of Eden. Then, the Serpent made him believe that disobeying the order given by God not to reap the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil would not have any consequences; indeed, the Serpent told him that by such disobedience Adam would become like God. Today, the Serpent deludes man that these consequences are inescapable, and that he cannot accept death, sickness, and pain as just punishment, overturning them to his own advantage by uniting them to the Passion and Death of Jesus Christ. Because in accepting the sentence, the offender accepts the authority of the Judge, recognizes the infinite gravity of his fault, repairs the crime committed, and expiates the sanction that is deserved. By so doing, he returns to the Grace of God, nullifying the work of Satan.

For this reason, the closer the end of time approaches, the more the efforts of the Evil One are multiplied to cancel not only the Truth revealed by Christ and preached down the centuries by the Holy Church, but also to eliminate the very concept of justice that is the basis of the Redemption, the idea of the need of punishment for violation, of the reparation of guilt, of the gravity of the disobedience of the creature towards the Creator. It is obvious that the more men are led to believe that they have not committed any sin, the more they will think that do not need to repent of anything, that they have no debt of gratitude towards God who has so loved the world that He gave His Only-Begotten Son, obedient even to death, death on a Cross.

If we look around us, we see how this cancellation of Justice, of the sense of Good and Evil, of the idea that there is a God who rewards the good and punishes the wicked leads to a definitive, irreparable and irredeemable rebellion against the Lord, a premise for the eternal damnation of souls. The judge who acquits the criminal and punishes the righteous person; the ruler who promotes sin and vice and condemns or prevents honest and virtuous actions; the doctor who considers sickness as an opportunity for profit and health as a fault; the priest who is silent about the Last Things and considers as “pagan” concepts like penance, sacrifice, and fasting in atonement for sins – all of these are accomplices, perhaps unknowingly, in this latest deception of Satan. It is a deception that on the one side denies God lordship over creatures and the right to reward them and punish them according to their actions; while on the other he comes to promise goods and rewards that only God can grant: “All this I will give you, if you will fall prostrate and adore me” (Mt 4:9), he dares to say to Christ in the desert, after leading Him to the summit of the mountain.

The present events, the crimes that are daily committed by humanity, the multitude of sins that defy the Divine Majesty, the injustices of individuals and of Nations, the lies and frauds committed with impunity cannot be defeated by human means, not even if an army would take up weapons to restore justice and punish the wicked. Because human forces, without the grace of God and without being enlivened by a supernatural vision, are sterile and ineffective.

But there is a way to combat this deception, into which humanity has fallen for more than three centuries, that is, since it has had the pride and presumption to deify man and usurp the Royal Crown from Jesus Christ. And this way, infallible because it is divine, is the return to penance, sacrifice, and fasting. Not the vain penance of those who run on treadmills, not the foolish sacrifice of those who make themselves sterile in order not to overpopulate the planet, not the empty fasting of those who deprive themselves of meat in the name of green ideology. These are once again diabolical deceptions, with which we silence our consciences.

True penance, which Holy Lent ought to encourage us to carry out in a fruitful way, is that by which each of us offers privations and sufferings in atonement for our own sins and those committed by our neighbor, by Nations, and by the men of the Church. True sacrifice is that with which we unite ourselves with gratitude to the Sacrifice of Our Lord, giving a spiritual sense and a supernatural end to the pain that we nevertheless deserve. True fasting is that with which we deprive ourselves of food, not to lose weight, but in order to restore the primacy of the will over the passions, of the soul over the body.

The penances, sacrifices, and fasts that we will undertake during this Holy Lent will have a value of reparation and expiation that will merit for us, for our dear ones, for our neighbor, for our Homeland, for the Church, for the entire world, and for the souls in Purgatory those Graces that alone can stop the wrath of God the Father, because in uniting ourselves to the Sacrifice of His Son we will transform what Satan caused for all of us into a supernatural treasure, leading us into sin by disobeying the Lord. This treasure will restore broken order and violated justice; it will repair the faults that we have committed in Adam and also personally. To the infernal chaos there must be opposed the divine kosmos; to the prince of this world, the King of kings; to pride, humility; to rebellion, obedience. “To this in fact you have been called, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you may follow in his footsteps. […] He bore our sins in his own body on the wood of the Cross, so that, no longer living for sin, we might live for justice; by his wounds you have been healed” (1 Pt 2:21-25).

I conclude this meditation by quoting the Epistle of the Mass of Ash Wednesday: this is taken from the book of the prophet Joel, and it reminds us of the role of the priests as mediators and intercessors in admonishing the people of God and calling them to conversion. It is a role that many clergy have forgotten, and that they even refuse, believing that it is the heritage of a Church that is out of date, a Church that does not keep up with the times, a Church that still believes that the Lord must be “appeased” with penance and fasting.

“Blow the trumpet in Zion, proclaim a fast, call a solemn assembly. Between the vestibule and the altar, let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep and say: Pardon, Lord, pardon your people, and do not abandon your inheritance to disgrace, do not make it the slave of the nations; that they may not say among the peoples: Where is their God? The Lord has shown zeal for his land and has pardoned his people. The Lord answered and said to his people: Behold, I will send you grain, wine, and oil, and you will have them in abundance, and no longer will I make you the disgrace of the nations: says the Lord Almighty (Jl 2:15-19).

As long as we have time, dear brothers and sisters, let us ask God for mercy; let us implore His pardon and make amends for sins that have been committed. Because a day will arrive when the time of Mercy will be completed, and the day of Justice will begin. Dies illa, dies iræ: calamitatis et miseriæ; dies magna et amara valde. That day will be a day of wrath : a day of catastrophe and misery ; a great and truly bitter day. On that day the Lord will come to judge the world with fire: judicare sæculum per ignem.

May it please God that the admonitions of Our Lady and the mystic Saints lead us, in this hour of darkness, to truly convert, to recognize our sins, to see them absolved in the Sacrament of Confession, and to atone for them with fasts and penances. So that the arm of God’s Justice may be stopped by the few, when it ought to fall upon the many. And so may it be.

+ Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop

2 March 2022
Feria IV Cinerum, in capite jejunii

“Nothing is as it seems. Open your eyes, friends. Pray for peace, and keep your head down.”

The headline is a quote from Michael Matt, who has a thoughtful video about current things at the Remnant.