When Will Catholics Defend Themselves?

As I write this, Notre Dame is burning, and will almost certainly be totally destroyed. As I write this, there is no definitive cause of the blaze. It is of course best to wait until the cause is established. I merely note the speed with which the government-beholden media pointed to the possibility that it “could” be linked to the ongoing restoration work. I also note that Paul Joseph Watson ran a story that a worker at the Cathedral claims it was intentionally set. You have to consider the sources for both versions, and wait and see. One thing is certain: should this be an intentional act, by a Muslim especially, the media will not be quick to acknowledge it, and will likely blame Catholics for inciting it by their “hate”.

I am not the only one who sees a metaphor in the loss of this magnificent church in honor of the Mediatrix of All Graces. It may or may not be a direct product of the death of Western Civilization– in other words, Catholic Civilization. But at least it is a symptom of it.

We have a Church that has been taken over by either a) the most anti-Catholic pope in history; or, b) the most anti-Catholic antipope in history. The hierarchy has totally sold out to the world, most of them exuberantly, most of the rest cowardly, and a very few “good” ones meekly. The wolves are among the sheep and NOBODY will do anything about it.

We are left to shift for ourselves.

The UK is long gone. France, like most Western European nations, is under seige. The U.S. is just a few years behind. Nobody does anything. Donald Trump campaigned, in his inimitable way, on the promise of doing something, ANYTHING, about it. We elected him. The results have been mixed at best. But still.

Who will do anything to protect Catholics from the satanic mob that howls for our blood? Bergoglio? Please. Benedict? Obviously not. The good bishops? No, but they will write a cogent obituary explaining how we were right and probably should not have been killed.

Where is our hope? Of course, our hope is in the Lord, and victory is certain. Of course, our hope is in Our Lady, her triumph, predicted at Fatima, is certain.

But is that it? Pray your Rosaries and wait for death? That’s it? Let Mary sort it out?

How far we are from the Crusades, Lepanto, Vienna and the victory in Spain.

Our Lady of Fatima, how long? And what can we do until you act?

Bonus Lent

In my mind I have been dividing time into periods before and after October 2017, the 100th anniversary of the Miracle of the Sun at Fatima. Not in a systematic way, of course, but it just feels to me that every day since then, the consecration of Russia not having been done, is a day of God’s mercy tinged with a foreboding of the justice to come. This feeling of mine grows, and as last November was the 100th anniversary of the final death of Christendom, another sad marker is passed.

And so, as the Church’s liturgical year rolls on, this year has felt, to me, like a great big unearned bonus. Bonus Christmas. And now, Bonus Lent. I thoroughly enjoyed the celebration of the bonus Christmas, and I intend to thoroughly make good use of this bonus Lent. After all, no man can say when it will be his last, nor even if he will outlive it.

Some thoughts by smarter and holier men:

The observance of Lent is the very badge of the Christian warfare. By it we prove ourselves not to be enemies of the cross of Christ. By it we avert the scourges of divine justice. By it we gain strength against the princes of darkness, for it shields us with heavenly help. Should mankind grow remiss in their observance of Lent, it would be a detriment to God’s glory, a disgrace to the Catholic religion, and a danger to Christian souls. Neither can it be doubted that such negligence would become the source of misery to the world, of public calamity, and of private woe.

–Pope Benedict XIV, Constitution Non Ambigimus, 1745

More than a hundred years have elapsed since this solemn warning of the Vicar of Christ was given to the world; and during that time, the relaxation he inveighed against has gone on gradually increasing. How few Christians do we meet who are strict observers of Lent, even in the present mild form!

And must there not result from this ever-growing spirit of immortification, a general effeminacy of character, which will lead, at last, to frightful social disorders? The sad predictions of Pope Benedict XIV are but too truly verified. Those nations, among whose people the spirit and practice of penance are extinct, are heaping against themselves the wrath of God, and provoking His justice to destroy them by one or other of these scourges– civil discord, or conquest.

–Dom Prosper Gueranger, The Liturgical Year, c.1850

The modern fast, of course, is nothing compared to the fast Dom Gueranger calls ‘mild’ in the mid-19th Century. That is the decision of the Church, who, out of concern for the weakness of her children, has over the ages allowed for relaxation of the Lenten fast (which is of Apostolic institution), and given freely of dispensations in various times and places. It is the decision of the Church what must be obligatory, for she speaks for Christ.  She has allowed such latitude that our present obligatory penitential requirements for Lent (fast and abstinence on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, and abstinence on all Fridays during Lent) ought to be easily and eagerly accomplished.

Yet even this seems too much. Again, Gueranger:

The word of God is unmistakable: unless we do penance, we shall perish (Luke 13:3). But if our ease-loving and sensual generation were to return, like the Ninivites, to the long-neglected way of penance and expiation, who knows but that the arm of God, which is already raised to strike us, may give us blessing and not chastisement? 

A good point, and one reinforced by today’s Lesson from Joel 2: 12-19:

[12] Now therefore saith the Lord: Be converted to me with all your heart, in fasting, and in weeping, and in mourning. [13] And rend your hearts, and not your garments, and turn to the Lord your God: for he is gracious and merciful, patient and rich in mercy, and ready to repent of the evil. [14] Who knoweth but he will return, and forgive, and leave a blessing behind him, sacrifice and libation to the Lord your God? [15] Blow the trumpet in Sion, sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly, 

[16] Gather together the people, sanctify the church, assemble the ancients, gather together the little ones, and them that suck at the breasts: let the bridegroom go forth from his bed, and the bride out of her bride chamber. [17]Between the porch and the altar the priests the Lord’s ministers shall weep, and shall say: Spare, O Lord, spare thy people: and give not thy inheritance to reproach, that the heathen should rule over them. Why should they say among the nations: Where is their God? [18] The Lord hath been zealous for his land, and hath spared his people. [19] And the Lord answered and said to his people: Behold I will send you corn, and wine, and oil, and you shall be filled with them: and I will no more make you a reproach among the nations. 

“Auspice, Maria!”

The Bishop rode home to his solitude. He was forty-seven years
old, and he had been a missionary in the New World for twenty
years–ten of them in New Mexico. If he were a parish priest at
home, there would be nephews coming to him for help in their Latin
or a bit of pocket-money; nieces to run into his garden and bring
their sewing and keep an eye on his housekeeping. All the way home
he indulged in such reflections as any bachelor nearing fifty might
have.

But when he entered his study, he seemed to come back to reality,
to the sense of a Presence awaiting him. The curtain of the arched
doorway had scarcely fallen behind him when that feeling of
personal loneliness was gone, and a sense of loss was replaced by a
sense of restoration. He sat down before his desk, deep in
reflection. It was just this solitariness of love in which a
priest’s life could be like his Master’s. It was not a solitude of
atrophy, of negation, but of perpetual flowering. A life need not
be cold, or devoid of grace in the worldly sense, if it were filled
by Her who was all the graces; Virgin-daughter, Virgin-mother, girl
of the people and Queen of Heaven: le rêve suprême de la chair.
The nursery tale could not vie with Her in simplicity, the wisest
theologians could not match Her in profundity.

Here in his own church in Santa Fé there was one of these nursery
Virgins, a little wooden figure, very old and very dear to the
people. De Vargas, when he recaptured the city for Spain two
hundred years ago, had vowed a yearly procession in her honour, and
it was still one of the most solemn events of the Christian year in
Santa Fé. She was a little wooden figure, about three feet high,
very stately in bearing, with a beautiful though rather severe
Spanish face. She had a rich wardrobe; a chest full of robes and
laces, and gold and silver diadems. The women loved to sew for her
and the silversmiths to make her chains and brooches. Father
Latour had delighted her wardrobe keepers when he told them he did
not believe the Queen of England or the Empress of France had so
many costumes. She was their doll and their queen, something to
fondle and something to adore, as Mary’s Son must have been to Her.

These poor Mexicans, he reflected, were not the first to pour out
their love in this simple fashion. Raphael and Titian had made
costumes for Her in their time, and the great masters had made
music for Her, and the great architects had built cathedrals for
Her. Long before Her years on earth, in the long twilight between
the Fall and the Redemption, the pagan sculptors were always trying
to achieve the image of a goddess who should yet be a woman.

— Willa Cather, Death Comes for the Archbishop

Hey WYD, Whose Side Are You On?

[4b]…and the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to be delivered; that, when she should be delivered, he might devour her son. [5] And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with an iron rod: and her son was taken up to God, and to his throne. Apocalypse 12:1-5

Others have long pointed out, consistent with Bergoglio’s previous propaganda/’70s we-are-church style art offerings, this creepy little logo for WYD in Panama. Yes, it looks like a serpent devouring the Cross. Promoters state the image contains the Virgin, and a heart indicating charity. I see the image of the Virgin, and the serpent, and Apocalypse 12 came straight to mind. That dragon swept a third of the stars from the sky. That woman gave birth to the Man Child Who will rule all nations with an iron rod. And yet that serpent is not beneath Our Lady’s feet, but rather waiting to devour.

Whose side is the Vatican on?

A picture is worth a thousand words, they say. How appalling a situation is it that it is not difficult to guess with which character they really identify.

Come Lord Jesus, and triumph over Thy enemies! Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us! Our Lady of Guadalupe, pray for us!

Feast of Pope St. Sylvester

Today’s feast of St. Sylvester brings the secular year to a close. It is entirely fitting that this great saint’s day should mark the occasion. St. Sylvester was the 31st Pope, following 30 martyred ones. In his time, Constantine was converted to, and legalized, the Faith.

Pope St. Sylvester confirmed the Council of Nicea which condemned the Arian heresy. He oversaw the construction of the mother Church of Christendom– the Basilica of Our Saviour, otherwise known as St. John Lateran. He governed the Church immediately following that period of severe persecution, lasting three hundred years, by the Roman empire.

As Dom Prosper Gueranger wrote:

So that Sylvester is messenger of the Peace which Christ came to give to the world, of which the Angels sang on Christmas night. He is the friend of Constantine; he confirms the Council of Nicea; he organizes the discipline of the Church for the new era on which she is now entering: the era of Peace. His predecessors in the See of Peter imaged Jesus in his sufferings; Sylvester represented Jesus in his triumph. His appearance during this Octave reminds us that the Divine Child who lies wrapped in swaddling-clothes, and is the object of Herod’s persecution, is, notwithstanding all these humiliations, the Prince of Peace, the Father of the world to come.

Pontiff of Peace! from the abode of rest where now thou dwellest, look down upon the Church of God, surrounded as she is by implacable enemies, and beseech Jesus, the Prince of Peace, to hasten her triumph. Cast thine eye on that Rome which is so dear to thee, and which is so faithful in her love of thee. Protect and defend her Father, King and Pontiff. May she triumph over the wiles of political intrigue, the violence of tyranny, the craft of heretics, the perfidy of schismatics, the apathy of worldlings, and the cowardice of her own children. May she be honoured, loved and obeyed. May the sublime dignity of the Priesthood be recognized. May the spiritual power enjoy freedom of action. May the civil authority work hand in hand with the Church. May the Kingdom of God now come, and be received throughout the whole world, and may there be but one Fold and one Shepherd. Amen.

___________________________

I can never mark this feast day without thinking of the final conclave and last Sovereign Pontiff in The Lord of the World, by Robert Hugh Benson. It is a good reminder to always trust in God’s Providence in the face of the worst of worldly situations. And ain’t we in one now?

It could always get worse. And likely will. But victory is just as certain. Come, Lord Jesus!

Feast of St. John the Evangelist

Today’s Lesson:

Ecclus, ch, XV.

He that feareth God, will do good; and he that possesseth justice, shall lay hold on her, and she will meet him as an honourable mother. With the bread of life and under standing she shall feed him. and give him the water of wholesome wisdom to drink, and she shall be made strong in him, and he shall not be moved; and she shall exalt him among his neighbours; and in the midst of the Church she shall open his mouth, and shall fill him with the spirit of wisdom and understanding, and shall clothe him with the robe of glory; she shall heap upon him a treasure of joy and gladness, and our Lord God shall cause him to inherit an everlasting name. 

I love this reading for the many meanings it contains. The surface reading is true enough– fear God, and do good, and wisdom, justice, and everlasting life follow. And any reference to the just one who possesses wisdom evokes the Messias, the Divine Wisdom Himself.

But on the Feast of St. John it is especially rich food for meditation. Our Lady is often equated with Wisdom in readings taken from the Old Testament Wisdom-books. She was in the mind of God from the beginning, before the world was made, she is the mother of fair love, and fear, and holy hope. And to whom does Our Lord give His mother during His last agony? To St. John, the one He loved. And “she will meet him as an honorable mother.”

I could reflect on that phrase for days. I pray that one day, after following the example of that holy trio at the cross, after fearing God and trying to do good, Our Lady might meet me as an honorable mother and make me pleasing to her Son such as to secure my salvation.

Mother of Divine Grace, pray for us.

St. John, pray for us.

Novena for the Immaculate Conception

In these days of woe, and in all days for that matter, Mary is our sure hope. She is the Mediatrix of all Graces, the Help of Christians. The great feast of her Immaculate Conception approaches. This year, as always, St. Francis de Sales Oratory celebrates a Novena of Masses in preparation for the feast, with sermons delivered by some of the finest preachers in the Archdiocese and beyond. The photo above contains the times and relevant information.

Why not do something useful and place our urgent needs at the feet of Our Lord through the intercession of Our Lady?

This is Outrageous

Bergoglio gives interview and states Mary did not intend to remain perpetually a virgin.

Mary was spotless from the first moment of her existence. The Church has always taught that she either formally vowed perpetual virginity or else had a firm commitment to virginity; this explains her answer to Gabriel of “How can this be, since I do not know man?” (See this article by Mark Shea, who now will now have to rewrite it since the Oracle has changed teaching again).

There is no outrage of which this man is not capable.

O Mary, Ever-Virgin, pray for us.

“We, priests of our Lord Jesus Christ are expected to preach fully, courageously, and without any ambiguity”

Thanks to Frank Walker at Canon 212, I have the opportunity to highlight an open letter to his brother priests by a Fr. Marc Vernoy, a priest of the SSPX in Florida. I find it particularly fitting on this “feast” of Paul VI, whose canonization is putatively to take place next month (the day before which, with gallows humor, I have speculated may be the end of the world). The letter is a beautiful ode to the call of the Church and her priests, and lamentation of the evils caused by the evil men who have had their way with her for many decades now.

I just want to highlight a few quotes, and encourage you to read the rest:

As our Lord suffered His terrible Passion, so His Mystical Body, holy Mother the Church is atrociously suffering today through so many victims, children and young adults and in her immaculate and divine dignity. Some of her beloved sons, consecrated in the Priesthood of our Lord Jesus Christ, have appallingly betrayed her and have sorely defiled their persons with horrible crimes. Their unnatural depravation is so evil that Holy Scripture places it among the four sins that cry to heaven for vengeance. In their sacrilegious abuses, they crucify the whole Church, they desecrate their holy Unction and even give up their fatherhood and their human dignity, as there is no dignity anymore when you depart so sinfully from God, our Creator and Redeemer.

As poor sinners, we all know that human nature is weak and wounded, always ready to fall into sin. Thus, our Lord Jesus Christ is alerting us, “watch ye, and pray that you enter not into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak”. He constantly admonishes us against the perils of the world, whose Prince is Satan, and has no positive or “optimistic attitude” towards them. “The world does hate me, because I denounce it for its evil doings.” “If you belonged to the world, the world would know you for its own and love you; it is because you do not belong to the world, because I have singled you out from the midst of the world, that the world hates you.” “Have you never been told that the world’s friendship means enmity with God, and the man who would have the world for his friend makes himself God’s enemy?”

However, after the Second Vatican Council and through the liturgical reform as well, these evangelical exhortations have been silenced in the Church. In the General Audience of July 3, 1974, Pope Paul VI explained this change as follows: “We have certainly heard of the severity of the saints for the evils of the world. Many are still familiar with the books of asceticism, which have a generally negative judgment on earthly corruption. But it is also certain that we live in a different spiritual climate, being invited, especially by the recent council, to take an optimistic look at the modern world, its values, its conquests.” He then continues his speech praising modern materialism, comfort and technology and gave this advice: “We must maintain a line of demarcation between Christian life and secular life. Between the spiritual and the temporal there cannot exist this communion – or rather this confusion – of interests and ways of life that the old unitary conception of Christianity made easier and more habitual.”

The consequences have been devastating, as anyone with any sense of honesty must admit:

Paul VI concluded the Second Vatican Council with these words: “Indeed, an immense love for men profoundly permeated it. Human needs examined and considered in detail… have absorbed the attention of our Synod. You worshipers of humanity (cultores humanitatis) who renounce transcendental truths ought to pay tribute to the Council for at least this and acknowledge our new Humanism. For we also, and we more than anyone, are worshipers of man.”

This new horizontal attitude, worldly and man-centered, forgetting the primal and preliminary vertical attitude towards God Almighty altered completely the meaning of Christian life and had enormous effects on Catholic doctrine and liturgy.

Nevertheless, the Apostle admonished the Romans regarding this very attitude leading to all perversions and abuses. “For professing themselves to be wise, they became fools. And they changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of the image of a corruptible man… Wherefore God gave them up to the desires of their heart, unto uncleanness, to dishonor their own bodies among themselves. Who changed the truth of God into a lie; and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. For this cause God delivered them up to shameful affections. For their women have changed the natural use into that use which is against nature. And, in like manner, the men also, leaving the natural use of the women, have burned in their lusts one towards another, men with men working that which is filthy, and receiving in themselves the recompense which was due to their error. And as they liked not to have God in their knowledge, God delivered them up to a reprobate sense, that prompts them to disgraceful acts. They are versed in every kind of injustice, knavery, impurity, avarice, and ill-will; spiteful, murderous, contentious, deceitful, depraved, backbiters, slanderers, God’s enemies; insolent, haughty, vainglorious; inventive in wickedness, disobedient to their parents; without prudence, without honor, without love, without loyalty, without pity. Yet, with the just decree of God before their minds, they never grasped the truth that those who so live are deserving of death; not only those who commit such acts, but they also that consent to them that do them.”

And what of the Holy Father? The author rightly notes that a fish rots from the head down– but that the Pope is Peter, and the solution must come from him. We have a right to expect it, and we must have confidence and pray for him. But at the moment…

However, in his Letter to the People of God, Pope Francis unfortunately avoids the deep causes of so many heartbreaking scandals. Three key words are missing: “homosexual”, “bishop” and “sacrilege”. We do not hear Peter warning us and taking any concrete measure against the liberal and homosexual subculture, corrupting from the highest prelates to the simple assistant priest. We know for years that many in the hierarchy are covering up for and even promoting this evil subculture, liberal in its theory and confusing and perverting in its latest practical consequences. We unfortunately know today that Peter is apparently tainted with this subcultural influence. In the Letter to the People of God Pope Francis gives no concrete direction. Being accountable and responsible for whatever happens under their authority to the flock, Pope Francis is not asking his brother bishops to investigate, to inquire, to thoroughly and canonically visit their diocese. Where is the sense of Fatherhood? Though, “no man can serve two masters!” and we expect our Holy Father to set a clear example, as the Vicar of our Lord and to act as a true Father in order to confirm His Brothers under the authority our only Master, Christ our Lord.

Background checks are a cosmetic measure. We need the help of God the Father, we need to beg the Holy Ghost for the grace to keep the Faith, the grace to persevere in His Charity and Love, the grace to be led by His Hope and to live in His Peace. This requires remaining in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ. The very minimum we must do is to pray faithfully our Breviary, our Rosary, to reserve a quiet time of contemplation, another to savor Holy Scripture, to entertain a deep love for the sacrament of Penance and its frequent use and finally a supreme devotion for the holy Sacrifice of the Mass, which is the summit of our lives and reminds us who we are. We must also ask for prayers. Traditionally, first Thursdays are dedicated to pray for priests, at masses, adoration, holy hour, etc. Our brother priests need our presence and comfort to avoid the curse of loneliness that affects many, which is a deadly danger and for some a foretaste of Hell. “Woe to him that is alone, for when he falls, he has none to lift him up.”

And he ends this letter well:

We, priests and sinners, united with the Passion and Crucifixion of our Redeemer, alter Christus, must fulfil our duty of reparation and expiation for the sin of the world, the sin of our fallen brothers and set a good example for this purpose. In these troubled and confused times, we have the great duty to remind ourselves and the faithful about the evil of the practice of homosexuality and seriously fight against its unnatural contamination.

We pray to Mary Immaculate, who prophesized this crisis at Akita, Fatima, La Salette, Quito, etc. We pray to her for the Church and for you my dear brother priest, who are expected, after our necessary and certainly sorrowful purification, to be a key instrument in the absolutely needed conversion and reformation to return to the Love of Christ.

Consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary

Consecration to the Immaculate Heart Of Mary

By Pope Pius XII

Queen of the Most Holy Rosary, in this tragic hour of the world’s history, we entrust and consecrate ourselves to thine Immaculate Heart, our only refuge, our hope, our salvation.

Have pity on this world, torn by the most terrible conflicts, burning with the fires of hate, victim of its own sins.

May thy Heart be moved at the sight of so much ruin, pain and sorrow.

We consecrate to thy maternal heart our persons, our families, our country (name), the whole of humanity.

Protect and save us!

O Heart of Mary, source of true love, fill our selfish hearts with Divine charity and with that true brotherly love without which there can never be peace.

Grant that men and nations may understand and fulfill the precept of thy Divine Son, “Love one another”, in order that true peace may be firmly established in the Justice and Truth of Christ.