Spiritual Combat

At long last I intend to read a book I should have read long ago, Spiritual Combat. This book was a favorite of St. Francis de Sales, and one he highly recommended. So it is beyond time to take it on. I may therefore post excerpts from time to time in the space. First one is today, and at the advice of Vizzini to Inigo Montoya, I need to go “back to the beginning. So this is the beginning.”:

CHRISTIAN SOUL!  If you seek to reach the loftiest peak of perfection, and to unite yourself so intimately with God that you become one with spirit with Him, you must first know the true nature and perfection of spirituality in order to succeed in the most sublime undertaking that can be experienced or imagined.

Some, who judge by appearances, make it consist in penances, in hair shirts, austerities of the flesh, vigils, fasting, and similar bodily mortifications. Others fancy themselves extremely virtuous when they indulge in long periods of vocal prayers, hear several Masses, spend many hours in church . . . Others, and this does not exclude some of the religious who have consecrated themselves to God, think that perfection consist in perfect attendance in choir, in observing silence and in a strict observance of their rule. Consequently, different people place perfection in different practices. It is certain that they all equally deceive themselves.

Since exterior works are nothing more than dispositions for achieving true piety, or the effects of real piety, it cannot be said that Christian perfection and true piety consist in them. They are, without doubt, powerful means for becoming truly perfect and truly holy. When used with discretion they are of unique value in supporting our nature which is always indifferent to good and inclined to evil; in repelling the attacks and escaping the snares of our common enemy; in obtaining from the Father of Mercies those helps that are so necessary for the faithful, and especially for beginners. They are, moreover, precious fruits of the consummate virtue achieved in truly holy persons. Such men chastise their bodies either in punishment for past offenses or for greater humiliation and subjection to their Creator. They seek solitude and observe silence that, withdrawn from the world, they may preserve themselves free from the least stain of sin, and speak only with Heaven and Angels. Their time is spent in works of piety and in the service of God. They pray and meditate on the life and Passion of our Redeemer, not through curiosity, nor for the sake of some sensible pleasure arising from this, but from a desire of knowing better, on one hand, the grandeur of the Divine Goodness, and on the other hand, the depth of their own ingratitude. They do this in order to increase their love of God and detestation of self, to follow their Lord in shouldering His Cross, and in renouncing their own will. They receive the Sacraments for no other reason than the honor of God, a closer union with Him and greater security from the power of the devil.

The situation is much different with those who ignorantly place their devotion in external acts, which frequently are the cause of their own downfall, and are of far deeper consequence than open crime. In themselves they are not evil, but only when wrongly applied. They are so attached to these acts that they utterly neglect to watch the inner movements of their hearts; but giving them free rein, they leave them prey to their own corruption and to the tricks of the devil. It is then that this destroyer, seeing them go astray, not only encourages them to go on their way, but fills their imagination with empty ideas, making them believe that they already taste the joys of Paradise, the delights of Angels, that they see God face to face . . .

[…]

Since, therefore, you seek the highest degree of perfection, you must wage continual warfare against yourself and employ your entire strength in demolishing each vicious inclination, however trivial. Consequently, in preparing for the combat you must summon up all your resolution and courage. No one shall be rewarded with a crown who has not fought courageously.

But remember that as no war can be carried on with greater fierceness, the forces, no other than ourselves, being equal on both sides, so the victory when gained is most pleasing to God and most glorious to the conqueror. For whoever has the courage to conquer his passions, to subdue his appetites, and repulse even the least motions of his own will, performs an action more meritorious in the sight of God than if, without this, he should tear his flesh with the sharpest disciplines, fast with greater austerity than the ancient Fathers of the Desert, or convert multitudes of sinners.

It is true, considering things in themselves, that the conversion of a soul is, without doubt, infinitely more acceptable to the Divine Majesty than the mortification of a disorderly affection. Yet, every person, in his own particular sphere, should begin with what is immediately required of him. Now what God expects of us, above all else, is a serious application to conquering our passions; and this is more properly the accomplishment of our duty than if, with uncontrolled appetite, we should do Him a greater service.

Now that you know what Christian perfection is and that, in order to attain it, you must resolve on a perpetual warfare with yourself, begin by providing yourself with four weapons without which it is impossible to gain the victory in this spiritual combat: DISTRUST OF ONE’S SELF, CONFIDENCE IN GOD, PROPER USE OF THE FACULTIES OF BODY AND MIND, AND THE DUTY OF PRAYER.

A Lawyer’s Prayer

Give me the grace, good Lord, to set the world at naught; to set my mind fast upon Thee and not to hang upon men’s mouths. To be content to be solitary. Not to long for worldly company but utterly to cast off the world and rid my mind of the business thereof.

Saint Thomas More

It’s on Days Like These…

…that I get ticked off all over again about a massive, creepy heretic putting his rear end on the throne of my patron saint and usurping the crown in a farcical ceremony taking place in a church that was stolen from us.

Will This Finally Be Enough for Someone to do Something?

The answer, of course, is no.

Archbishop Viganó Tells It Like It Is: Easter Edition

IN AZYMIS SINCERITATIS
Homily for Easter Sunday

Fratres: Expurgate vetus fermentum
ut sitis nova conspersio, sicut estis azymi.
Etenim Pascha nostrum immolatus est Christus.
Itaque epulemur: non in fermento veteri,
neque in fermento malitiæ, et nequitiæ:
sed in azymis sinceritatis et veritatis. 

Brothers: Clear out the old yeast
so that you may be a new dough,
since you are unleavened.
For Christ our Passover has been sacrificed.
Therefore, let us feast: not with the old leaven,
nor with the ferment of malice and wickedness:
but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

I Cor 5:7-8

The modern world is held hostage by lies. Everything that is theorized by the elite, affirmed by the Institutions, and propagandized by the media is a lie, a falsehood, and a deception.

The psychopandemic emergency is a lie, all on account of a virus created in a laboratory for the sake of a mass vaccination that is as ineffective as it is harmful to health. Gender theory is a lie, which denies the distinction of the sexes willed by the Creator, and which seeks to cancel the image and likeness of God in man. Climate change is a lie, based as it is on the false premise of man-made climate crisis and on the even more false chimera that the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions in certain countries can even minimally change the earth’s temperature. The Ukrainian crisis is a lie, which was provoked in order to destroy the social and economic fabric of European nations through unreasonable sanctions against the Russian Federation. The Agenda 2030 is a lie, which is being imposed by a gang of subversives in order to enslave humanity. Woke ideology is a lie, which causes the cancellation of our identity, our History, and our Faith in order to impose the infernal religion of the New World Order and the barbarism of the Great Reset.

What is most disconcerting is that this fraud against the peoples — perpetuated by those in authority who ought instead to be protecting and defending them — has also infected the ecclesial body, where other no less serious falsehoods corrupt the purity of the Faith, offending the Divine Majesty and causing the damnation of many souls, whom the Lord has paid for dearly, redeeming them with His Most Precious Blood. Ecumenism is a lie, which abases the Living and True God to the level of the idols of the nations. The Synodal Way is a lie, which subverts the divine constitution of the Church intended by Christ under the false pretext of listening to the People of God. The liturgical reform is a lie, introduced with the excuse of making the Mass understandable to the faithful, with the sole intention of taking honor from God and pleasing the heretics. The feminine diaconate is a lie, which with the alibi of giving a role to women attacks the Mass and the Sacraments and tampers with the Holy Orders instituted by Our Lord. The possibility of divorced and cohabitating couples receiving Holy Communion is a lie, the blessing of homosexual unions is a lie, the entrance of transsexuals into the Seminary is a lie: Morality does not follow the fashions of the day, whatever Bergoglio may say. The acceptance of sodomy is a lie, which too often seems to want to legitimize the conduct of many Prelates and clergy rather than saving the souls of poor sinners.

These lies have the effrontery to manifest themselves as obvious falsehoods, deprived of any rational or credible arguments. They are not the lies with which one clumsily tries to hide something: they are the arrogant affirmation of falsification, of the subversion of logic, of the negation of the truth.

But why do so many people voluntarily choose to renounce their own critical judgment and accept blatant lies as rational and true? Because adherence to error is the price that the world asks of its adorers, of those who do not want to be marginalized, criminalized, and persecuted. And who is the prince of lies if not Satan, the father of lies, he who was a murderer from the very beginning? Satan, who tempted our first parents with a no less brazen lie: If you eat of this fruit, you will be like gods. This was a brazen falsehood, and by believing it Adam and Eve chose to abdicate reason and disobey God in order to follow a false promise made by a repugnant creature.

What Satan promises Our Lord when he tempted Him in the desert was also a lie: All this will be yours . . . for the sake of something of which Christ was not only already the Master but also the Creator.

In the Epistle of the Mass on this most holy day on which we celebrate the Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead, the Apostle exhorts us to eliminate the old leaven: expurgate vetus fermentum. Anyone who is familiar with the ancient methods of making bread knows that the mother dough is that portion of flour and water which, when left to ferment, becomes the leavening mass. It can be kept for decades, periodically re-kneaded with new flour and new water, so that today’s bread is substantially linked to all the preceding bread going back in time. But if the fermentum is vetus, if the leaven is old, this affects the new dough and the new bread. Purging the old leaven means starting over from the beginning, accomplishing a true “great reset” of each individual soul and of the social body, cancelling the ferment of malice and perversity, and starting afresh with unleavened bread, a figure of the Holy Eucharist and Blessed Sacrament of the new and eternal Covenant made by Christ with His Church, made new in Grace and not subject to the changes of time, fashion, and circumstances.

This is why Saint Paul speaks of the azymes, of the unleavened bread. A bread of austerity, the bread of those who do not have time to preserve the mother dough alive, the bread of those who prepare with their loins girt to eat the Lamb without blemish and the bitter herbs before abandoning the land of Egypt and crossing the Red Sea. The reset, the New Creation, the New Passover, is fulfilled in Christ, the unique, indispensable, eternal Truth, the Living and True Word of the Eternal Father. The true reset is returning to the Truth of Christ, of the One Who said of Himself: I am the way, the truth, and the life. A Truth that is, while error in contrast has no existence. A Truth that demands sincerity on our part — in azymis sinceritatis — as a necessary response to the light of Truth — et veritatis.

Satan, the ape of God, grotesquely mimics Creation, engaging in monstrosities that any sensible person recognizes as such. He mimics the Redemption even more grotesquely, promising men a good that is unknown to him and which he does not himself first possess, asking in exchange that men acknowledge him as their god. We ought to recognize this law of his for what it is; we ought to reject and fight against it.

If we fight for the Truth — for any truth, not just theological truth — we align ourselves on the side of Christ; on the side of the One Who was not lying when He announced to His Apostles His own Death and Resurrection.

If instead we choose not to fight for the Truth, or even to allow error to be proclaimed or to spread it ourselves, we align ourselves on the side of Satan, the prince of lies, on the side of the one who makes promises and does not keep them, for the sole purpose of dragging us into that abyss of damnation into which he chose to sink when, committing the sin of pride, he believed he could put himself in the place of God and decide what is and what is not, that is, what is true and what is false, what is good and what is evil, what is beautiful and what is ugly. And in fact, the infernal world we are rushing headlong into today is composed of lies, malice, and ugliness. Nor could it be otherwise.

It is not by chance that Satan is called the prince of this world: he is not king; his power is ephemeral and permitted by God only until the time comes to end the period of trial and the moment of Judgment comes. It is no different for Satan’s servants. Even if their power seems to overwhelm us, even if the means at their disposal seem unlimited and overwhelming, their end is inexorably approaching as Christ takes back His Universal Kingdom. Oportet illum regnare, it is necessary that this happens; it is in the order willed by God, and no one, not even all of Hell combined, can prolong the apparent triumph of evil by a single instant.

Only two days ago we were contemplating the Mysteries of the Passion and Death of the Lord, after the maneuvers of the Sanhedrin, the uproar of the crowd, and the tortures of the executioners. Along with Joseph of Arimathea and the Pious Women, we accompanied the lifeless Body of Jesus towards the Sepulcher. We remained in prayer in the bare silence of our churches. But “Consummatum est” does not mean “Everything is lost,” but rather, “Everything has come to its fulfillment,” that is, “The work of the Redemption has been accomplished.”

Χριστὸς ἀνέστη is the Greek Easter greeting: Christ is Risen. To which the response is given: Ἀληθῶς ἀνέστη —Truly He is Risen — Surrexit Dominus vere. That ἀληθῶς, that vere, contains the reality of the Resurrection of the Savior, the truth of that historical event in which the Mercy of the Man-God has repaired the sin of Adam caused by the lie of Satan, who continued to lie when he accused Christ with false witnesses, and who still lies today, trying to frustrate the fruits of the Redemption.

Today, after the solemn notes of the Exsultet have announced the glory of the Resurrection, let us celebrate the triumph of Christ over death and sin, His victory over Satan. Let us also celebrate the victory of the Church and Christian Civilization over earthly enemies, because the fate of the Mystical Body was decreed in the moment in which its Divine Head nailed the ancient serpent to the Cross. Mors et vita duello conflixere mirando: Dux vitæ mortuus, regnat vivus.

+ Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop

9 April 2023
Dominica Paschatis, in Resurrectione Domini

Holy Saturday: More Than Meets The Eye, and the Church of One

In our just sorrow for the death of Our Lord and our grievous sins that caused it, we naturally focus on the mystery of Our Lord lying, dead, in the tomb. The painting of the last post, by Hans Holbein the Younger, is a fruitful source of meditation. But there is so much more to this mystery: Christ’s triumphant descent into hell. From the Liturgical Year:

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“The Son of God has subjected himself to everything, (save sin,) that our human nature has to suffer or undergo: it is by his Resurrection that he is to triumph, it is by his Ascension alone that he is to open the gates of heaven: hence, his Soul, having been separated from his Body by Death, was to descend into the depths of the earth, and become a companion with the holy exiles there. He had said of himself: The Son of Man shall be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights. (Matthew 12:40) What must have been the joy of these countless Saints! and how majestic must not have been the entrance of our Emmanuel into their abode ! No sooner did our Jesus breathe his last upon the Cross, than the Limbo of the Saints was illumined with heavenly splendour. The Soul of the Redeemer, united to the Divinity of the Word, descended thither, and changed it, from a place of banishment, into a very Paradise. Thus did he fulfil the promise he had made to the Good Thief: This day shalt thou he with me in Paradise.

The happy hour, so long expected by these Saints, is come! What tongue could tell their joy, their admiration, and their love, as they beheld the Soul of Jesus, who thus comes among them, to share and close their exile! He looks complacently on this countless number of his Elect, — this fruit of four thousand years of his grace, this portion of his Church purchased by his Blood, and to which the merits of his Blood were applied by the mercy of his Eternal Father, even before it was shed on Calvary! Let us who hope, on our departure from this world, to ascend to Him, who has gone to prepare a place for us in Heaven, (John 14:2) let us joyfully congratulate these our holy ancestors. Let us also adore the condescension of our Emmanuel, who deigns to spend these three days in the heart of the earth, that so he might sanctify every condition of our Nature, and take upon himself even what was but a transient state of our existence.

But, the Son of God would have this his visit to the regions beneath our earth to be a manifestation of his sovereign power. His Soul does not, it is true, descend into the Hell of Satan, but he makes his power be felt there. The Prince of this world is now forced to bend his knee and humble himself. (Philippians 2:10) In this Jesus, whom he has instigated the Jews to crucify, he now recognizes the Son of God. Man is saved, Death is conquered. Sin is effaced. Henceforth, it is not to the Bosom of Abraham, but to Heaven itself, that the souls of the Just made perfect shall ascend, there to reign, together with the faithful Angels, with Christ their Divine Head. The reign of Idolatry is to be at an end: the altars, whereon men have offered incense to Satan, are to be destroyed. The house of the strong one is to be entered by his Divine Adversary, and his goods are to be rifled. (Matthew 12:29) The Hand-writing of our condemnation is snatched from the Serpent. (Colossians 2:14) The Cross, which he had so exultingly prepared for the Just One, has been his overthrow, or, as St. Antony so forcibly expresses it, the bait thrown out to the Leviathan, which he took, and, taking it, was conquered.

The Soul of our Jesus makes its presence felt also by the just who dwell in the abode of expiation. It mercifully alleviates their sufferings, and shortens their Purgatory. Many of them are delivered altogether, and numbered with the Saints in Limbo, where they spend the Forty Days, between this and the Ascension, in the happy expectation of ascending to Heaven with their Deliverer. It is not contrary to the principles of Faith, to suppose, as several learned Theologians have taught, that the visit of the Man-God to Limbo was a source of blessing and consolation to the abode of unregenerated Children, and that they then received a promise, that the time would come when they should be re-united to their bodies, and, after the Day of Judgment, be placed in a happier land than that in which Divine Justice now holds them captives.

We adore thee, O holy Soul of our Redeemer! for thy having deigned to pass these hours with thy Saints, our fathers, in the heart of the earth. We extol thy goodness and love shown towards these thy Elect, whom thou hast made to be thine own Brethren. We give thee thanks for that thou didst humble our enemy: oh, give us grace to conquer him! But now, dearest Jesus! it is time for thee to rise from thy Tomb, and re-unite thy Soul to thy Body! Heaven and Earth await thy Resurrection! The Church, thy Spouse, has already sung the Alleluia of her glad expectation! Rise, then, from thy Grave, O Jesus, our Life! Triumph over Death, and reign our King forever!”

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Meanwhile, on earth, the Church of Christ is down to one. The one person who never wavered in her faith in the Resurrection is Mary. This is why Saturdays are dedicated to her by the Church. Others loved Him, others lamented His sorrows and death, others missed Him.

But she remained, the Tower of David.

Turris Davidica, ora pro nobis!

Lessons from Mass at St. Typical’s

I found this piece by Fr. Robert McTeigue over at Canon 212. Frank Walker’s aggregation of world and Church news demands daily reading, and this piece is one reason why. Your typical Catholic, blogger or not, would simply not come across this type of post. But I digress.

It has not been so many years ago that this novus ordo refugee escaped that wretched experiment that I do not recognize this priest’s lament of a typical parish n.o. ‘celebration’. It is a long piece but well worth reading in full. A taste:

Now let’s turn to the element of Mass that causes the greatest heartache for so many priests each weekend, namely, the way that people receive Holy Communion. Again, the literature on this topic is quite extensive. Even a cursory survey would be impossible. Instead, I will ask you to put yourself in Father’s place. Imagine that it’s Friday. The weekend is finally here! Time to celebrate! But not so for Father. Friday means that he must ready himself for another round of weekend Masses at Saint Typical’s. As he steels himself for the weekend, he recalls what he saw last week:

1. The young man who put out just one hand to receive Holy Communion — because he held a 7-11 Big Gulp in the other.
2. The gentleman who dropped a Host on the floor and, without missing a beat, said, “Oops! Can I get another one?”
3. The smiling woman Father had never met before, who sticks out one hand to receive Holy Communion, while with the other hand she thrusts a pyx under his nose, saying, “I’ll take four please — it’s for my ministry!”
4. And Father knows that after every Mass, he will have to get down on his hands and knees to look for consecrated Hosts under the pews and stuck between the pages of hymnals.

Despite every effort he has made, congregants give Father no reason to believe that this week will be better than last week.

Father concludes, at the end of a very true and fairly exhaustive litany of liturgical crimes at the typical novus ordo, by writing: “At the outset, I spoke of lex orandi, lex credendi, lex vivendi. The only way forward that I can see is to restore the lex to the orandi.

Of course, the LEX to the ORANDI was distilled in more-or-less perfect form in 1570– lex-ing what was oran-ding for more than a millennium before. The only way out of this is for what remains of the Latin Church to jettison once and for all the fabricated liturgy of the modernists. Of course. OF COURSE.

But that is a post for Captain Obvious. I would like to make a couple of further observations, because that is the Grade-A superblog material you pay for here:

First, I really feel for the priests of St. Typical parishes everywhere. Yes, some may have bought into this foolishness. Yes, some may not really care and–as my brother sometimes Bobsphemes of the great Catholic poet Bob Dylan in the mid-80s (jokingly, I hope)– are just cashin’ them checks. But there are so many priests, and we all know some, who are in love with Christ and are trying to live their vocation and save souls. They get discouraged. They have been deprived of the formation and food of the faith they deserve. They are there, with their flock, doing the best they can. And they have the novus ordo to work with, and so many souls to try to save. No reform, real or pretend, of the novus ordo is going to fix the problem. They deserve the real Mass, of course. But they deserve our prayers as well. Let us not forget them in prayer.

Second, lest we think that the homily cited above only applies to St. Typical parishioners, we should all take heed of the message that the miracle of Holy Mass demands we examine our consciences on our preparation for it and participation in it. Just in the last month or two, in our church– which may be the largest TLM community in the country– the priests have felt the need to deliver two sermons on proper decorum in Church during Mass. Ask: Are we late? Do we prepare well to assist at Mass, and more importantly to receive Our Lord? Do we pray? Are we willingly distracted? Are we grateful?

In the ancient Mass, we do not lack for silence, reverence, and beauty. The Mass is as perfectly oriented to the worship God deserves as that of which human beings are capable. Are we consciously sensible of this great gift of God? Even if we are trying to be properly disposed, we can always strive to do better.

And we should.

I sincerely wish you and yours a blessed and fruitful Holy Week followed by a most joyful Eastertide!

Today is the Tenth Anniversary

…of nothing, legally speaking.

Prosecuted for Telling the Truth: the Future is Now

This is not unique, but as a marker on the world’s ski jump into hell I point you to this story about a UK protestant minister’s arrest for correctly referring to a tranny as a man. It would be easy enough to point out that this is England, the country that so loves to persecute Catholics and others who adhere to any part of the truth. But we all know that every Western country is on the same team when it comes to sexual perversion and the silencing of truth. Ask (though of course you can’t) someone detained without process for attending a political rally in 2021.

It won’t be long, should heaven not intervene, that you and I will face death for telling the truth. Our Lord warned us, and here it comes.

Offer up your Lenten penances that Our Lord and His mother will succor us and convert hearts.

Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us!

The Liturgy is Not the Plaything of Positive Law but is Handed Down

Many of you read Fr. Hunwicke’s blog, that of a Catholic priest in the Anglican use tradition. His blog is often informative and insightful, as is this post. N.B. He uses the term ‘pope’ when referring to Bergoglio, but the article is delightful all the same. Maybe more so if it were true. Excerpts:

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Popes Rescriptive, Popes Prescriptive …
There is a tacit assumption that licit Liturgy rests on a basis of Papal positive legislation. What he decrees, everybody has to do. When he changes his mind, the world must be deafened by the sound of bishops and presbyters all changing their minds. “Catholic Liturgy” is what he grants!!

The very word grants says it all.

Consummate rubbish. Liturgy rests upon Custom and Tradition, not the latest motu proprio on your computer. Or even a Rescriptum ex audientia Sanctissimi. No man on earth grants Liturgy to us.

No Pope did (because no Pope could) issue world-wide or general mandates regarding Liturgy before the invention of printing (in the middle of the 1400s).

I suppose that today’s fanatical uebersuperhyperpapalists could argue that, nevertheless, the power so to legislate was tacitly incorporated in the Lord’s mandate to S Peter, designed to lurk there unrecognised until, a millennium and a half later, the technological moment arrived for it to spring into action …

… but, frankly, that is a theological fantasy-world whose daft sci-fi games I feel little interest in playing.

If only PF were to relocate to Mars and govern the obedient Martian sands with his fearsome decrees …

The notion that we must all obey positive legislation was, I suspect, invented by the English Protestant regime in 1549 in order to impose Heresy. Which, ultimately, it succesfully did. The Evil One simply adores Liturgy which is by Motu or by Rescript or by Prescript. It enables him to display himself at his most effective….