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  The Recusant #58 - September 2022
Posted by: Stone - 08-30-2022, 04:50 AM - Forum: The Recusant - Replies (2)



[Image: Capture.png]



Contents:

• “Those who are pro-Syllabus, those who are anti-Syllabus” (Abp. Lefebvre, Écône 1990)

• Sowing Even More Confusion - Bishop Williamson promotes:
  • Garabandal
  • The New Mass & The Conciliar Church
• “Sorrowful Heart of Mary SSPX-MC” (Fr Hewko)

• “Ten Years Ago…” Part 2

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  Abp. Viganò: Globalist doctrine is essentially ‘satanic’; we must ‘rebuild’ Christendom
Posted by: Stone - 08-30-2022, 04:39 AM - Forum: Archbishop Viganò - No Replies

Abp. Viganò: Globalist doctrine is essentially ‘satanic’; we must ‘rebuild’ Christendom
'Never expect the truth from the Great Reset advocates. For where there is no Christ, there can be no Truth,
 and we know how much they hate Our Lord.'

[Image: vigano-1-810x500.jpg]

Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò
YouTube screenshot

Aug 29, 2022
Editor’s note: The following is the text of a conference given by Archbishop Viganò at the Summer University – CIVITAS on August 14, 2020 in France. The Archbishop’s Q&A session is published in a separate article HERE.

(LifeSiteNews) — When human beings act, they do so with an end in view. Man’s action, what he does, represents a means to an end, which may be morally good or bad. Action proceeds from the will, and is born of thought, which is an act of the intellect. What we do is determined by who we are (all our faculties: memory, intellect and will). Scholasticism summarises this concept perfectly in three words: agere sequitur esse.

No one acts without a purpose. And even what has been happening before our eyes for more than two years now is the consequence of a set of concomitant causes that presuppose an initial thought, an informing principle, so to speak. And when we realise that the reasons given to us to justify the actions taken are not rational, it means that these reasons are pretexts, false reasons, which serve to hide an unmentionable truth.

This is the way of the Evil One. When he tempts us, he lies to make us believe that he is our friend, that he cares about our good. Like a fairground peddler, the devil offers us his miraculous finds, his elixirs of happiness and wealth, for the modest sum of our immortal soul. But this, like a swindler, he omits to say, of course; at most he writes it in small print in the clauses of the contract.

Everything is a lie when it comes to Satan. The premises are false: Your God oppresses you with heavy precepts. The promises are false: You can decide and get what you want. And everything is a lie too when Satan’s minions are organising to establish the dystopia of the New World Order.

Well, since we cannot expect the Great Reset conspirators to tell us clearly what their final goal is – since it is something unmentionable and criminal – we can nevertheless reconstruct the mens, the thought that guides their actions by knowing the principles that inspire their actions and backing them up with their own words. And we are also able to understand that the reasons given are only pretexts. And yet the pretexts, as they are presented, demonstrate malice and premeditation, for if their plan were honest and good, they would not need to disguise it with illogical and incoherent excuses.

But what is this Great Reset? It is the forced imposition of a fourth industrial revolution that will lead the present economic and social system to implosion, and will allow, through a general impoverishment and a drastic reduction of the population, the centralisation of power in the hands of an elite of aspirants to immortality and world domination. They would like to reduce us to an amorphous mass of clients/slaves confined in boxes and perpetually connected to the network.

Through the Great Reset, they want to erase Western Christian society in order to establish a liberal-communist synarchy on the model of the Chinese dictatorship, in which the entire population is controlled and manoeuvrable at will. In a society inspired, if even only in a small way by Catholic values, the financial power groups and the New World Order elite would have no place. But this should not lead us to believe that their opposition to Christian society is merely economically and politically motivated. In reality, what triggers this hatred is that there might be, even in the most remote corner of the planet, a possible alternative to the globalist dystopia, a world in which the employer can honestly pay his employees, in which the state imposes reasonable taxes on its citizens, in which charities render services free of charge and without speculation, in which the innocence of children is respected and LGBTQ+ propaganda is not permitted. A world in which the Social Reign of Jesus Christ is shown to be not only possible, but the best form of society, administered for the common good and for the glory of God.

The mere existence of a term of comparison is a burning disavowal of the globalist deception, showing its horror and failure. The lies about the need for lockdowns are disavowed by the evidence that where they have not been adopted, there have been fewer cases of serious illness than where closures and curfews have been imposed. Lies about the effectiveness of the gene serum are debunked by cases of re-infection of multi-vaccinated people, serious adverse reactions, sudden deaths. The lies about the “sovereign people” and inviolable human rights have been debunked by absurd rules, unconstitutional norms, discriminatory laws in the silence of the judiciary.

Even the term of comparison constituted by the Mass of all time makes it impossible to prefer its Montinian counterfeit: this is why the Bergoglian church wants to prevent its celebration and keep the faithful away from it. To impose this horror on us, they have resorted to deception, telling the faithful that the Apostolic Mass is incomprehensible, and that it must be translated and simplified so that the faithful may better appreciate its meaning. But this was a lie. And if they had explained to us that their aim was exactly the same as that which the Protestant heresiarchs had set themselves – that is, to destroy the heart of the Catholic Church – we would have gone after them with pitchforks in hand.

The globalist world does not tolerate comparisons. It demands this “exclusivity” which it denounces with horror as soon as it is not itself that claims it. It tears the clothes off the temporal power of the Church – with the complicity of fornicating and heretical clerics – and then demands absolute and irrational obedience to the dogmas it proclaims from Davos or Brussels. It celebrates freedom of speech and of the press, which it generously funds, but tolerates neither dissent nor truth, which it seeks to make simply inaccessible, invisible.

And again: the globalist world has no past to show us to confirm the greatness of its ideas, its philosophy, its faith. Conversely, it lives by falsifying history, by erasing the past, by eliminating it from the new generations. So that there is no one who, in front of Chartres Cathedral, is able to recognise the images of Christ and the Saints. So that no one would know that in the Holy Chapel was kept the ampulla of the Holy Chrism carried by an Angel to consecrate the Kings of France. So that no one could know their deeds, find their tombs, or understand the treasures of art and literature that have made the Catholic Nations great. The Cancel Culture reveals the radical ontological inconsistency of globalism in the face of the splendour of Christian civilisation.

The globalist world has no future. Or rather: the future it intends to give us is the darkest and most terrifying that the human mind can conceive. The future it presents to us is false and unrealizable. “I don’t have a house, I don’t own anything, and I’m happy,” Schwab and the promoters of Agenda 2030 try to convince us. But their aim is not to make us happy – which will not happen in time, of course – but to take away our homes and possessions. When they talk to us about pacifism and disarmament, it is not because they want peace, but because, being disarmed and without ideals, we will let ourselves be invaded and dominated without reacting. By imposing welcome and “inclusiveness” on us – adopting an insider’s lexicon – they do not want us to really welcome and integrate people from other cultures and religions, but they want to create the premises for social disorder and the consequent disappearance of our traditions and our Faith.

When they talk to us about “resilience,” they are not telling us that they will protect us from the disasters that threaten us, but that we must resign ourselves to absorbing them without protest. When they accuse us of extremism or fundamentalism, it is only because they know that the faithful and the citizens with noble and holy ideals can resist, organise opposition, spread dissent. And when they impose on us a mass inoculation with a gene serum that has no efficacy but many serious and deadly side effects, they do so not for our health, but to modify our DNA and make us chronically ill, with a permanently compromised immune system and a life expectancy lower than the average healthy person. And to introduce into our bodies – as we have learned from the complaint recently filed by Attorney Carlo Alberto Brusa – self-assembling graphene nanostructures, capable of making us geolocatable, including the military.

Never expect the truth from the Great Reset advocates. For where there is no Christ, there can be no Truth, and we know how much they hate Our Lord. A hatred they cannot hide, which they display in the inauguration shows of European events (think of the inauguration of the St Gothard tunnel in Switzerland or the London Olympic Games, and very recently the inauguration of the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham), in the “recommendations” not to celebrate Christmas and not to use Christian names for our children. Their hatred becomes murderous when they theorise abortion as a “human right,” hiding its atrocity behind the hypocritical expression of “reproductive health:” because it is life that they hate, in which they see the image and likeness of that God they have lost forever.

This image and likeness is much deeper than we think. They consist in the Trinitarian dimension of man, with his faculties that refer to the Three Divine Persons: memory (the Father), intelligence (the Son), and will (the Holy Spirit). And just as in the Most Holy Trinity, the Holy Ghost is the Love that proceeds from the Father and the Son, so in man the will is the faculty that comes from the memory of things past and the understanding of things present. It is no coincidence that in the hellish reversal of the contemporary world, man finds himself deprived of his memories, history and traditions (think of Cancel Culture and demands for ‘forgiveness’ for falsified or distorted actions of our past), unable to express critical judgement (think of the cognitive dissonance generated by psychopandemia) and unable to order his will by subordinating it to intelligence (think of the inability to react to imposed evil or to the good of which we are deprived).

Modern society, with its fable about democracy, has taught us to think that we can possibly be Catholics, perhaps even traditionalists, as long as we do not question the fact that equal rights should be granted to anyone. We must respect the ideas of others, they tell us. But in the metaphysical sphere, in the eternity of God, this battle between Good and Evil is not secular or ecumenical: it is real, as are the armies deployed, that of the Civitas Dei and that of the civitas diaboli. The angels of Heaven and the apostate spirits of Hell have nothing to do with conciliar irenicism: they are waging a battle in which as many souls as possible must be snatched from the adversary. The saints who intercede for us have not read Fratelli Tutti, and St. Michael’s scales are not calibrated to the “case-by-case morality” or “situation ethics” of a heretical Jesuit or to the pastoral contortions of the synodal path.

Let us stop being politically correct, always afraid that our convictions might disturb the sensitive consciences of those who do not hesitate to tear apart a defenceless creature in its mother’s womb or to smother the elderly and the sick in their sleep. Too often we have been silent in the face of things that should not even be mentioned – from the normalisation of vices to the most degrading transgressions. Yet, as Catholics, we should know that God is alive and true despite the atheists, and that Christ exercises the titles of sovereignty over us as our Creator and Redeemer despite the liberals.

If we are not persuaded of these realities, we cannot even understand the action of the enemy, who is perfectly aware of this reality. If we are not persuaded of these realities, we will not set a credible example to those who, by our words and actions, might open their eyes and become compliant to Grace. It is difficult to believe those who do not like what they profess, just as it is difficult to give credence to the modernists, who by their uncharitable behaviour disavow their empty words. It is impossible to believe those who ask us to eat grasshoppers and cockroaches to save the planet, while they eat precious pieces of Kobe beef, or to abandon the diesel car, while they travel in private jets (there are hundreds of them in Davos during the World Economic Forum summits!).

We must rediscover this dimension of realism and objectivity, which they have made us lose step by step, or which they have taught us to be ashamed of. We are milites Christi, soldiers of Christ, called to fight an enemy who would like to strike us in the back or make us desert cowardly, because he knows that when he fights us openly, behind us he finds the Immaculate Virgin, terribilis ut castrorum acies ordinata. This Mother whom the Enemy hates in all the mothers of the earth, this Wife of the Lamb whom he vilifies by attacking the sanctity of Marriage and domestic virtues, this Woman whom he humiliates by disfiguring femininity or making an obscene parody of it.

The globalist doctrine is essentially satanic, because it is the most direct and implacable social and global application of the rebellion of Satan. We find in it that hybris, that defiance of Heaven which classical civilisation – still pagan but preordained to the advent of Christ’s message in the fullness of time – had wisely stigmatized and which brings us back to the rebellion of Lucifer. Hybris, the foolish pride of those who believe themselves to be like God and usurp the divine attributes, leads science today to deny its vocation to serve the good in order to place it at the service of the New Order, to accomplish with technological progress what was unthinkable in the past: to erase the separation between man and machine, between his mind and artificial intelligence.

It is therefore not surprising that transhumanism is one of the key points of Agenda 2030. Behind this crazy project of getting hold of creation and even daring to alter the sanctuary of consciousness into which only God descends with His Grace; behind this plan to violate the human being in order to “make him more efficient” there is, once again, a doctrinal aberration, a lie opposed to the Truth of God. To create an immortal being – as some would have it – is the technological reissue of an infernal delirium, at the base of which is the presumption of being able to erase in man the consequences of Original Sin. Where Adam’s sin brought death and disease, the deception of transhumanism promises immortality and health; where it led to the weakening of the intellect and the evil inclination of the will, the fraud of the machine-man promises access to knowledge and the possibility of being one’s own law. Where sin led to work fatigue, war and epidemics, the globalist dystopia promises a universal income, peace and the prevention of all diseases.

But death, disease, the weakening of the intellect and the evil inclination of the will, work fatigue, war and epidemics, are the just punishment for the infinite offence that all humanity, in its Progenitors, has caused to the Majesty of God by disobeying Him. He who deludes himself into believing that there are no consequences for this disobedience, does not want to accept his own degradation or recognise the work of Redemption of Jesus Christ, who came to earth propter nos homines et propter nostram salutem, dying on the Cross to redeem us from the yoke of Satan.

This is the true theological perspective from which to view the crisis of society and the Church. The delusion of transhumanism does not aim to make the athlete’s run faster or the soldier’s aim more precise, but to corrupt man in the body, after having struck him in the soul. Satan does not resign himself to defeat, which is all the more terrible because in it Our Lord’s obedience to the Eternal Father has shone forth, in opposition to the pride of the Luciferian Non serviam. And if God, through the ways of Grace, succeeds in touching souls and bringing them back to Himself, restoring them to eternal life, Satan is now attacking bodies, contaminating the work of the Creator and disfiguring the creature. His devastating work extends to the rest of creation as well, with abominable results that claim to rival the magnificence of God.

Such is the struggle between Good and Evil, which, since the creation of Adam, has also included human beings, who are called upon to choose which side to take. Because neutrality is already an alliance with those who deserve defeat. We know how powerful the enemy of the New World Order is and what his organisation is. We also know what drives him and what he wants to achieve. But it is precisely for this reason that we know that his victories are only apparent and doomed to failure; and that our duty, in this war already won by the Crucified One, is to choose which side we want to side with and to fight, first of all by opening our eyes to the lies that the mainstream information makes us swallow.

Understanding that there may be evil people who deliberately choose to side with Lucifer against God is the first step we must take if we are to resist the gigantic coup that is underway. These people are, in a sense, Satan’s “mystical body” and act to spread evil in the world and blot out the name of Christ: just as the Mystical Body of Christ, which is the Church, acts in the Communion of Saints to spread Grace and glorify the Name of God. Again, civitas diaboli and Civitas Dei. If we believe that the pandemic emergency has been handled by incompetents and not by cynical exterminators, we are completely on the wrong track. Equally so if we believe that our leaders are not subservient to this elite of criminals, usurers and subversives, even though they have their careers thanks to them.

There was a time when it was normal for the subjects of a Christian kingdom to live according to the divine commandments, in which abortion, divorce, sodomy and usury were forbidden. That world, thanks to the slow and patient work of the conspirators, has been replaced by this one – which is not yet completely theirs – in which powers that derive their legitimacy neither from God nor from the people rule. And these powers prevent everything that was previously encouraged and rewarded, and encourage what was forbidden and punished.

If in the Civitas Dei Christ reigns, who reigns in the civitas diaboli but the Antichrist? Thus, if in the bene ordinata respublicathe true, the good and the beautiful are the theological expression of the perfections of God; in the globalist republic the false, the evil and the ugly are the most obvious manifestation of them. So much so that it has to become a general norm, a law of the state, a moral precept to which one must conform. Even in this case, if you pay attention, another deception is proposed again: that the tyranny of rulers and clergy justified by papist superstition has been definitively erased from revolutionary society, to be replaced by the government of the people under the auspices of the goddess Reason. Today we see how tyrannical are the globalist Leviathan and the Bergoglian Sanhedrin, united in their denial and in their betrayal of their role as rulers of the State and pastors of the Church.

Dear friends, your task – like that of many people of good will in so many other nations – is a sacred and very important one. It is the task of rebuilding, restoring, edifying. Exactly the opposite of what the followers of the civitas diaboli know how to do, capable only of destroying, demolishing, piling up rubble. And to rebuild, we must start again from the foundations, which are the foundations of the social edifice, placing Christ as the cornerstone, the keystone.

Remember that this perverse and corrupt generation has no future: it is a victim of its own blindness, its own sterility, its own inability to generate. Because to give life is a divine work, and this applies as much to the life of the body as to that of the soul; whereas the devil is only capable of giving death, and with it the dull despair of the soul torn from its ultimate and supreme end, which is God.

Be sure: the New World Order will not prevail. Its devastating fury that would reduce the world’s population to half a billion human beings will not prevail. His hatred for unborn life and for life that is dying out will not prevail. His plan of tyranny will not prevail. For it is precisely in the deprivation of the Good that we realise the price of what has been taken from us and find the determination and strength to fight and resist. Nor will prevail the apostasy which afflicts the Catholic Hierarchy, now the servant of the world: the sowers of discord and error who infest our churches will inexorably die out, leaving empty the cathedrals and churches, and the convents and seminaries which they occupied sixty years ago with the false promise of the conciliar spring. Because behind it all there is always the fraud and malice of the Liar.

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  Thomas à Kempis: A Meditation on the Incarnation of Christ
Posted by: Stone - 08-29-2022, 07:42 AM - Forum: Resources Online - Replies (48)

A MEDITATION ON THE INCARNATION OF CHRIST
Sermons on the Life and Passion of Our Lord and Of Hearing and Speaking Good Words



INTRODUCTION


A MEDITATION ON THE INCARNATION OF CHRIST

HERE BEGINNETH A MEDITATION ON THE INCARNATION OF CHRIST, ACCORDING TO THE TESTIMONIES OF HOLY WRIT
“SEARCH the Scriptures,” saith the Lord. O most sweet Lord Jesus, grant me Thy unworthy servant devoutly to ponder the mystery of Thy incarnation; to search wisely, to understand sublimely; what is not understood to venerate humbly: and ever to give thanks to Thee for condescension so great, and love so inestimable. For to contemplate this mystery affords me the greatest delight; and amid all Thy other wonders brings me the sweetest savour, touches me most deeply: draws me most mightily, and ravishes my whole spirit within me. Grant me then often to dwell thereon: and carefully to consider how it was foreknown and foretold by the holy prophets. Open Thou my eyes: and I will consider the wondrous things of Thy law. For Thou art the founder of the law, Thou the inspirer and teacher of the prophets: by whose utterances in wonderful and manifold ways Thou wast foretold and prefigured; now clearly, now darkly: as the whole sequence of the Old Testament when examined manifestly shows forth. For nothing therein is without mystery; but most faithful witness is there contained as well of Thy divine as of Thy human nature. And although the testimony of men is not necessary to Thee, Who art the Truth, and, at Thy pleasure, makest of men prophets; nevertheless, for our instruction and strengthening in the faith, Thou didst will these things to be foretold and written long before by Thy saints: and Thou didst will to clothe their words with such authority, that no man might dare to gainsay them in any point; so that also when Thou shouldst be present in the flesh, Thou couldst be recognized the King of Israel and Saviour of the World: Whom Holy Writ in so many places had declared to be coming. And this it is that in person Thou didst give as answer to the doctors of the law not believing: but closely watching and cunningly tempting Thee. “Search the scriptures: for you think in them to have life everlasting. And the same are they that give testimony of Me.”

The patriarchs give witness: the prophets and the other just give witness of Thy incarnation. For Abraham, first of the patriarchs by the merit of his faith and his act of perfect obedience: received this promise, “In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.” In which seed, to wit, Thou wert designated and prophesied: Who, born of the Virgin Mary, didst truly spring from the flesh of Adam, truly from the stock of Abraham. Who also didst transmit this blessing to all the nations throughout the world, saying, “He that believeth and is baptized: shall be saved.” This blessing, I say, is not an earthly, but a heavenly promise: not transitory fruitfulness, but everlasting bliss; unending life with the angels: not temporal length of days. Which, as it was promised to faithful Abraham: so also through Thee was it given to him, and to all the followers of the true faith. For not those only, who were born of Abraham according to the flesh, are to be reckoned children of the promise: but they that follow in the footsteps of his faith are included in the blessing; whether sprung from him of the flesh: or born again of the spirit from the other nations. And therefore he is called the father of many nations, not of the Jews only: but of all them that believe in Thee throughout the universe of peoples.

A splendid witness also to Thee bears Isaac, the son of Abraham, in the things that befell him. For his birth, foretold by an angel, is a presage of Thy nativity: which however far surpasses the manner of birth of all that are born of women. He was brought forth of a barren mother through the promise of an angel: but Thou, promised from the beginning of the world, in a more ineffable fashion wast born of a virgin mother for our salvation. He in his conception gave joy to parents and friends: but Thou in Thy birth didst give great joy to angels and men. This very miracle wrought in the womb of old age makes easy of belief the child-bearing of maidenhood. Thou therefore, Who didst perform this in Thy servant, couldst certainly do more in Thyself. For seeing that Thou art the Author of nature, Thou holdest all things under Thy power: and Thou art bound by the law or right of none.

In him also is resplendent a figure of Thy Passion: when he was bidden sacrifice himself by his Father, to whom a message from God to this effect had previously been brought by an angel. He carried the wood of the sacrifice: Thou didst bear the wood of the cross, unto the wiping out of the handwriting of original sin. He is bound and speedily placed upon the altar: Thou, after Thou hast been bound and cruelly scourged, art at length lifted up upon the cross, that Thou mayest draw all things to Thyself. He was obedient to his father Abraham: and Thou didst obey Thy Father God, even to the death of the cross. He is offered, but not slain: because he was the figure, Thou the truth: he the symbol, Thou the true sacrifice. He should not die, because he was not the redeemer of the world: but Thou shouldst die, still not of Thy own, but for our crime: because, true Redeemer of the world, Thou wert born unto this, and didst receive this commandment from the Father.

The patriarch Jacob likewise bears most true testimony to Thee. He, taught by the spirit of prophecy: foretold to his children many things to come. For he made known the tribe of which Thou wert to be born, and the time wherein Thou wert to come: when, blessing his son Juda, among other things he said: “The sceptre shall not be taken from Juda,” quoth he, “nor a ruler from his thigh, till He come that is to be sent: and He shall be the expectation of nations.” Which testimony indeed rightly understood stands undoubtedly accomplished in Thee, Who didst most worthily spring from the tribe of Juda: and didst enter this light of the world at that epoch, when a legitimate ruler had failed in Judea: and a king of foreign race, Herod, there held princely sway. Thou art not therefore awaited, as the Jew madly raves; but Thou art believed to have already come God in the flesh: as the Christian confesses, and the Catholic faith teaches. Certainly, there is no longer a ruler in Judea, the law has ceased therein; the priesthood is silent, the temple has fallen, the kingdom is destroyed, that nation is scattered through the world: that the whole world may know, that Thou, the Saviour of Israel, the expectation of the nations and the desired thereof, hast come. The ancient law then was due to cease, after the new grace and truth shone forth with Thy coming: for all that former dispensation was a minister to give witness to Thee. With this agree the voices of the prophets: who, foreknowing Thy coming, foretold the days of grace in which we abide.

For Moses, the lawgiver and teacher of Thy people Israel, utters a most trustworthy testimony: “The Lord Thy God will raise up to thee a prophet of thy nation and of thy brethren like unto me.” Moses called Thee simply a prophet addressing a rude people: who maybe was not yet found capable of grasping a more sublime title of Thee. Which also is sufficiently clear from the gospel, where, when Thou hadst worked the miracle of the five loaves and two fishes, this was the saying repeated by the people: “This is of a truth the prophet, that is to come into the world.” But we, now endued with a more certain truth and a higher understanding of faith: truly confess and believe Thee not only a prophet, but the Lord also of the prophets, and the true Son of God. Nor is it strange if Thou didst speak many things darkly to that people by Thy servant Moses, and to us more things more clearly in Thy own person: for thus it befitted the order of justice, thus the law in fine and grace. This Moses then, in the longing for Thy advent, prayed and said, “I beseech Thee, Lord: send Whom Thou wilt send.”

This is the Moses, who is sent into Egypt to free the children of Israel: to whom also is likewise given the power of working signs and marvels. He wrought many things and strange, which, read or heard, excite no little wonder: but, understood mystically and duly referred to Thee: convey to pious and faithful minds a higher meaning and a more saving fruit. He led forth the children of Israel from the land of Egypt: Thou didst redeem Thine from the old life, from the slavery of the devil, from the confines of hell. He, having overwhelmed Pharaoh in the Red Sea, made them enter the land of promise: Thou, having destroyed original sin by the water of baptism, makest Thy faithful enter the kingdom of the dwelling above. He on Mount Sinai received the law of the decalogue written on tables of stone, and delivered it to the people to observe: Thou, having become the mediator of the New Testament, didst preach the law of grace to the disciples on the Mount: which also by the spirit of love Thou didst deeply impress upon their minds. He wandered forty years in the desert with the children of Israel: by many signs and wonders he was glorious in their midst; Thou, three and thirty years seen upon earth and conversing with men, didst show forth so many signs of Thy divine power: that the world would scarcely be able to contain them, if they were all written. He acted as a faithful servant: Thou didst act as the Lord and the only Son of the Father: into Whose hands the Father gave all things. Therefore neither he can be compared with Thee: nor indeed any one of angels or men. For to all the spirit is given in measure; but to Thee remaineth power ever equal with the Father: there abideth also in Thee according to Thy human nature an excellence of singular dignity far above the other saints, communicable to no creature. “For to which of the angels hath it been said at any time, ‘Thou art my Son, to-day have I begotten Thee’ ”? Or which of the saints has heard the Father saying to him, “Sit thou at my right hand”? It is a great thing for an angel to be a minister: it is a great thing for any of Thy saints, to sit at table in the kingdom of Thy Father: but to Thee is given all power in Heaven and on earth. And if Thou didst appear in the substance of our mortal flesh; Thou art nevertheless above all the unchangeable God: receiving what is ours, and not losing what is Thine own. Unwaveringly therefore and boldly we confess Thee the Christ, the only-begotten of God, the Saviour of the world, and the Holy of holies promised in the law; desired by the patriarchs; foreseen and foretold by the prophets. Whose witness if a man hesitate to believe, he deprives himself of the light of truth: not keeping the base on which to set the foot of faith: nor looking to the light shining in the darksome place. For the law is a flame, and prophecy a precious lantern, leading us on to Thee the true light of the soul: in Whom they that believe are saved by faith. For without faith and the knowledge of Thy name, there is no hope of life: no gaining of salvation is possible. Thou indeed art our salvation, our hope and redemption: Whom the saints of old awaited, who had received this promise.

Moreover in many symbols, in numerous and wondrous visions also, this salvation promised of Thee existed long before and lay concealed; but, when the mystery of Thy Incarnation and Passion was fulfilled, all these hidden things were made known and accomplished. Thee therefore that paschal lamb: which was ordered to be sacrificed every year in memory of the ancient deliverance from Egypt, prefigured. Thee the offering of calves and goats, Thee the incense of sweet gums: Thee the various celebration of sacrifices, and frequent sprinkling of blood, prefigured. Thou art mystically symbolized in the golden candlestick adorned with seven lamps: Thou in the High Priest, who once a year enters the holy of holies. But all these sacrifices of the law: Thou hast fully completed by the one sacrifice of Thy body offered once upon the cross. Now therefore there is left no profit in the observance of the former things: for what they signified Thou the eternal Truth hast made manifest to us. But they are read and, discussed according to the spirit by faithful doctors, are profitably brought forth for our edification: and their mystic meaning affords delight: but their observance in the letter is not allowed. And if formerly such sacrifices pleased Thee, this was the work of faith in a hidden mystery, which was to be made known: but now those ancient rites are ended: because the true sacrifice has now come, which with faithful devotion holy Church repeats throughout the world.

Thee also the rock springing fresh waters to the thirsty people: Thee the manna giving wondrous nourishment to the hungry: Thee the uplifted brazen serpent healing the poisoned of the bite: Thee the rod of Aaron the priest, flowering and producing nuts, beautifully foreshadowed.

Thee Joshua noble in deed and name: Thee Gideon the most victorious, Thee the most mighty Samson, Thee Samuel the most faithful prophet: Thee the illustrious virtue of each of the Nazarenes and judges wonderfully showed forth.

Thee David, the king and glorious prophet, chosen according to God’s heart, and exquisite psalmist evidently sings: devoutly prays, and ardently desires saying: “Lord bow down Thy heavens and descend. Stir up Thy might and come: to save us. Show us, O Lord, Thy mercy: and grant us Thy salvation. Lord, where are Thy ancient mercies: according to what Thou didst swear to David?” With these and like supplications in the psalms he often shows the desire of his bosom: but more sublime things also than these with the eyes of the heart unveiled he declares in witness to Thee. This is the holy David: to whom Thou didst make manifest the uncertain and hidden things of Thy wisdom: and promise that Thou wouldst be made flesh of his stock. This is the David comely of form, strong of hand, prudent in counsel: wise in word, mild under insults, lowly in his looks, observant of the holy law: precentor of the Gospel, true witness of Thy coming. He has most fully prophesied of Thy birth, passion, resurrection and ascension. Thou art therefore He of Whom he said: “He hath set His tabernacle in the sun: and He is as a bridegroom coming out of His bride chamber. He hath rejoiced as a giant to run the way: His going out is from the end of Heaven: and His circuit even to the end thereof.” Thou art the truth sprung out of the earth: Thou the justice looking down from Heaven: which, after the fall, reconciled us to God the Father. Thou art the beautiful above the sons of men: in Whose lips grace is poured abroad: yea from Whom mercy and grace have flowed to all. Thou art God our king before ages: Who hast wrought salvation in the midst of the earth. Thou art the man born in Judea: Whose name abides before the ages. Thou as rain upon the fleece didst come down upon Mary: and as showers falling gently upon the earth, Thou didst sprinkle the saving doctrine of the gospel. Thou, begotten of the Father before the Day-star, and clothed in the garb of our mortality: remainest a priest for ever, appointed by God, according to the order of Melchisedech. Thou didst drink of the torrent in the way: suffering for us as a true wayfarer the unmerited passion of death. Therefore in the day of Thy resurrection Thou didst put on strength and beauty; nor after our fashion didst Thou see the corruption of the flesh: but the selfsame flesh in which Thou didst suffer, Thou didst raise to life immortal: wherewith amid rejoicing angels Thou didst ascend with jubilee: to return on the last day in the sound of the trumpet. And thus have been fulfilled the faithful songs of David: written in various passages of the psalms.

O Jesus, only desire of the prophets: Thou art the Emmanuel, Whom the virgin conceived, the virgin brought forth, after Whose birth she remained a virgin: of Whom Isaias prophesied with luminous discourse: “A child is born to us: and a son is given to us. And the government is upon His shoulder: and His name shall be called, Wonderful, Counsellor, God, the Mighty, the Father of the world to come: the Prince of Peace. His empire shall be multiplied: and there shall be no end of peace.” Thou art the root of Jesse, Who standest for an ensign of peoples; Whom the gentiles shall beseech: Whose sepulchre is seen glorious even to this day. Thou art the flower rising up out of the root of Jesse; upon Whom rests the spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the spirit of counsel and of fortitude, the spirit of knowledge and of godliness: and the spirit of the fear of the Lord. Thou art the lamb, the ruler of the earth: sent from Petra of the desert to the mount of the daughter of Sion. Thou art the mountain of the house of the Lord prepared on the top of the mountains, exalted above the hills; to Whom all the nations flow: that they may receive of Thy fullness. Thou art the light of Jerusalem, and the glory of Israel: Whose rising and brightness illumine the world. Thou art the tried stone, the precious corner stone: founded in the foundation of Sion. Thou art the bud of the Lord in magnificence, and the exalted fruit of the earth: now seated at the right hand of God the Father: with princes and powers all subject to Thee. Thus Isaias, who in his great spirit saw the future: and comforted all the mourners of Sion with Thy coming. Whence also he says: “Be comforted, be comforted my people, saith the Lord your God: for I myself that spoke, I am here.” O with what burning desire he longed for the fulfilment of the promise of Thy incarnation: when, full of the spirit of daring, he cried out. “O that Thou wouldst rend the heavens and wouldst come down: the mountains would melt away at Thy presence.” Who, unable to cool the heat of his desire: but seeking to make it known to all, said again: “For Sion’s sake I will not hold my peace, and for the sake of Jerusalem I will not rest; till her Just One come forth as brightness: and her Saviour be lighted as a lamp.” And who can unfold all his mystic words: which he uttered concerning Thy glorious incarnation, Passion, triumph, and the expectation of the judgement, as also concerning the calling of the gentiles and the preaching of the holy Gospel? He relates the future as if it were present: he describes each detail: as if he had been an eyewitness of all. But in sooth he did see: yet with the eyes of the understanding, not of the flesh. For by spiritual eyes divine mysteries are beheld: which the animal man cannot perceive. Whence the Pharisees, who considered only outwardly the bodily presence in Thee: were unable to rise to the majesty of the divinity. But Isaias, enlightened from Heaven and uplifted: uttered truthful witness concerning both natures. For of the godhead he spoke thus: “I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne high and elevated: and all the earth was full of His glory.” But of the human nature thus: “We have seen Him: and there was no sightliness. And we have thought Him as it were a leper: and as one struck by God and afflicted. But He was wounded for our iniquities: He was bruised for our sins.”

Likewise also the most holy prophet Jeremias bears witness to Thee: when he describes the great mystery of Thy generation thus: “For the Lord,” he saith, “hath created a new thing upon the earth: a woman shall compass a man.” What thing so new, Lord Jesus, as Thy conception of the Holy Ghost, Thy birth of the virgin? This is the new thing unheard of from the ages: which has not seen its like before it, nor shall have another after it. O truly blessed novelty; by which the old wickedness was driven out: and the new holiness brought in.

Hail, new mother Mary, rejoice: thou art that blessed woman, of whom this prophecy speaks: who also hast merited to be made glad by the most happy bringing forth of this new thing. For Him, Whom all creation doth not contain: thou, raised higher than all creatures, hast compassed in thy spotless womb. And although thou didst bear Him long enclosed within thy virginal womb, small and clothed in fragile members: nevertheless Jesus was a man even while not yet born: but in virtue not in body; by perfection of wisdom, not by measure of age: yea, full of grace and truth as soon as He was conceived. Understanding it therefore thus, we are convinced that this was the great mystery: foretold from the mouth of Jeremias.

Hence also in Baruch that memorable testimony is set: “This is our God: and there shall be no other accounted of in comparison of Him. Afterwards He was seen upon earth: and conversed with men.” The prophet Ezechiel, who had witnessed many heavenly mysteries: this especially notes of Thee saying: “And upon the likeness of the throne, was a likeness as of the appearance of a man above upon it.” And again: “And there was one man in the midst of them clothed with linen: with a writer’s inkhorn at his reins.” He touches also upon the wondrous mystery of Thy most holy birth: when from the eastern gate, he merited to hear the divine answer: “This gate shall be shut, it shall not be opened: and no man shall pass through it; because the God of Israel hath entered in by it: and it shall be shut for the prince.” Thou art that prince: Mary also the shut gate: who, in conceiving and bearing, remained ever a maiden untouched.

Daniel, the man of desires and seer of sublime secrets, when he wisely explained to king Nabuchodonosor his dream: assuredly foretells Thy coming faithfully: “Thus thou sawest,” saith he, “till a stone was cut out of a mountain without hands: and it struck the statue upon the feet thereof that were of iron and of clay: and it broke them in pieces. But the stone that struck the statue became a great mountain: and filled the whole earth.” Thou art symbolized by that stone: Who wast cut out of a mountain, to wit, out of the kingdom of the Jews, without hands: that is, formed of a virgin without the aid of a spouse. Who didst strike the statue in its feet: because even amid the wars of persecution Thou didst bow the state of worldly grandeur by words and signs to the obedience of faith. And thou hast become a great mountain and hast filled the whole earth: for Thou Who formerly wast known to but a few in Judea: afterwards by the bright light of the gospel grace hast revealed Thyself to the whole world.

Another testimony the same Daniel brings forward saying: “I beheld in the vision of the night: and lo one like the Son of man came with the clouds, and He came even to the Ancient of days: and they presented Him before Him. And He gave Him power and glory and a kingdom: and all peoples, tribes and tongues shall serve Him. His power is an everlasting power that shall not be taken away: and His kingdom, that shall not be destroyed.” What more evident than this testimony; in which both Thy advents, in the flesh, and to the judgement, are clearly declared?

Michaeas gave a testimony such: that even the Scribes and Pharisees when questioned could not pass it over in silence. For when Herod asked of them, where the Christ should be born: they replied according to the words of this prophet, in Bethlehem of Juda. For so said the same blessed prophet. “And thou Bethlehem Ephrata, art a little one among the thousands of Juda: out of thee shall He come forth unto Me that is to be the ruler in Israel. And His going forth is from the beginning, from the days of eternity.” In which words assuredly is interwoven the truth of Thy twofold birth: while one is declared an eternal going forth from the Father, the other a coming forth in time from a mother. Habacuc the prophet standeth upon the watch and fixeth his foot; that he may hear what is said to him concerning the future: and behold Thee upon the cross. “For as yet,” he saith, “the vision is far off: and it shall appear at the end, and shall not lie. If it make any delay, wait for it: for it shall surely come, and it shall not be slack.” And of Thy Passion thus: “His brightness shall be as the light: horns are in His hands. There is His strength hid: death shall go before His face. Thou wentest forth for the salvation of Thy people: for salvation with Thy Christ.” This one especially, more than the other prophets, expresses Thy most sweet name, which is above every name: speaking thus: “But I will rejoice in the Lord: and I will joy in God my Jesus.”

Sophonias weaves a prophecy of consolation: and raises to spiritual joy the mind, wearied now with long waiting: “Give praise,” he saith, “O daughter of Sion, shout, O Israel: be glad and rejoice with all thy heart, O daughter of Jerusalem. The King of Israel, the Lord, is in the midst of thee: He will save.”

Aggaeus also foretold: “Yet one little while, and I will move the heaven and the earth, and the sea and the dry land: and I will move all nations: and the desired of all nations shall come.”

Zacharias, with rejoicing heart and giving certain indications, bears witness, saying: “Sing, praise and rejoice, O daughter of Sion: for behold I come, and I will dwell in the midst of thee.” And again: “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Sion: shout for joy, O Jerusalem. Behold thy King cometh to thee, the just and Saviour: He is poor and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass.” This prophecy Thou didst then fulfil: when Thou didst approach Jerusalem seated upon the back of a lowly ass. And that no man may doubt that these things were foretold of Thee: words are added that leave no room for doubt: because the experience thereof is now possessed: “And He shall speak peace to the gentiles,” saith he: “and His power shall be from sea to sea.” The which it is clear was faithfully performed by the preachers of Thy holy gospel: who announced peace to them that were near, and to them that were afar. After this he turns to the Passion: showing that Thou wert to redeem the world by Thy blood: “Thou also by the blood of Thy testament hast sent forth Thy prisoners out of the pit: wherein was no water.” And many other testimonies indeed the same prophet and the rest of the prophets brought forth: of which not a few are inserted in the New Testament. Nor should it move the reader to unbelief: if he hears some testimonies rendered one way in the evangelists and another in the prophets. For the evangelists assert in brief and more clearly; as formed by a more free schooling of the Holy Ghost: that which the prophets often treated in a long discourse and obscurely.

Having heard then such great attestations of the truth: do not longer disbelieve, Jew or Gentile. Confess the incarnation of Christ; foretold by the mouth of the prophets, and fulfilled. And if thou dost not trust our writings: consult thy own books, and certainly thou shalt find it so. Only put away the understanding of the flesh, and strive not with senseless effort to defend the naked letter; seek the Spirit, and turn thy heart to the mysteries of Christ: if thou wilt have a right understanding in the holy writ. Otherwise if thou boastest in the law or the prophets outside of Christ; thy glorying is empty: and blind the understanding which thou followest. Nor shall Moses profit thee: if thou hearest not Christ, of Whom Moses wrote. Nor shall the prophets avail thee, if thou acceptest not the Lord of the prophets. In vain thou seekest to be justified by the law: since even before the giving of the law many fathers were found just. By faith Noah was called just: and Abraham believing God, even before the circumcision, received the praise of justice. Boast thee not therefore of nobility of race; nor of the virtues of thy fathers, nor of the divine words handed down to thee, full of heavenly promises: because God regards the hearts of the humble, and looks to the faith of them that rightly believe; and therefore thou shalt be glorious, and acceptable to God: if, believing in Christ, thou follow the faith and life of the early fathers. Who assuredly hoped for merit, not from the observance of the law, nor from a multitude of victims, nor from their own deeds: but from the grace of our Saviour Jesus Christ alone. For thus God promised by Isaias the prophet: “You were sold gratis: and you shall be redeemed without money.” Come back to thy senses, Jew, come back to thy senses: and be converted to the true light of the world, Jesus Christ. He is the Lord ruler and the angel of the testament: as saith Malachias. He has come to save all nations; sent especially to thee: but alack neither acknowledged nor received by many of thy children. For if thou believest that He has come, thou shalt be saved; if thou dost not believe, He shall come against thee, and thou shalt be condemned. For He saith: “If you believe not that I am He: you shall die in your sin.” What excuse wilt thou be able to offer in defence of thy error? Thou hast the law and the prophets; but as accusers rather than defenders: who shall stand in witness against thee, because thou wouldst not believe. Moses saith: “Hear ye, rebellious and incredulous. While I am yet living and going in with you, you have always been rebellious against the Lord; how much more when I shall be dead?” This obduracy abides even to this day in thee, and in thy seed. When thou art converted, God shall be propitious to thee again: even as to the other nations. Be converted, be converted to the Lord Jesus Christ, O Israel: and thou shalt no longer be a reproach among the Gentiles.

For there are two things that chiefly keep thee back in thy perfidy: love of temporal goods, and a carnal sense in the scriptures. However, lift up thy eyes round about, O Jerusalem: and see, O Israel, the number of Christ’s faithful widely spread through the whole world; and blush to be found ever in error: who by believing canst gain everlasting salvation. Let not be a stumbling block to thee the multitude of them that live carelessly, who can speedily amend by doing penance: but look rather to the example of good Christians: of whom thousands, even if hidden from the eyes of men: shall never be wanting in the Church.

But now leaving aside the crowd of the Jews, turn to Christ, O my soul: for He is thy salvation and redemption. If the Jew will not believe, do thou stand in the faith: that Jesus is the Son of God, to Whom bear witness all the prophets divinely instructed and inspired. Whom if the Jews believed, they would believe also the gospel of Christ: as He said to them: “For if you did believe Moses: you would perhaps believe Me also. For he wrote of Me.” But it is not wonderful if they fail to believe Him, carnal men, going after visible things only: since the law is spiritual: and admits none but a spiritual man to its understanding. But because the Lord Jesus Christ came humble, He was not known by them: although also they read of Him in the prophets coming thus. But the wretched men struck their foot against the stumbling stone and the rock of scandal: despising the lowly, and blaspheming Him that wrought things divine. Hearing this, my soul, be thou as a most prudent bee, avoiding the evil pride of the perfidious: and ever following with lowly steps the faith of the pious. Nor let it affright thee that wickedness is of many, and piety of few: since it is the sentence of the Lord, that many are called, but few chosen. Nor is that question thy concern: for to God alone belongs this distinguishing. Turn thine eyes to thyself; and see what great things have been bestowed on thee by God: and be instant in what thanksgivings thou canst render for thy calling and enlightenment. Rejoice and exult with thy whole heart in God thy Saviour: Who, the Orient from on high, has deigned to visit thee. For it was all of grace, and a proof of extreme love: that He, Who could succour, willed to come thus. And if He had made Himself a debtor in promising; He did not thereby deprive Himself of the favour of liberality: for His gifts came without any preceding merits.

O truly great and venerable mystery hidden from the ages: promised by many foregoing witnesses, long expected, burningly desired: and at length shown to the world and faithfully bestowed. Few of the common people had understood this great sacrament of the incarnation; and almost only the prophets seem to have penetrated its inner meaning: to whom by the gift of a special revelation it was granted to know beforehand and write. For they as the chosen friends of God were allowed to enter the secret of so heavenly a design: so that they understood that the human race on account of the guilt of the first offence, had fallen into a misery such as could not otherwise be taken away except by the grace of a Mediator: by Whose incarnation and suffering man should receive redemption. This the ears of the people, to whom all things happened in figure: could not clearly perceive. To them it was a great thing, if they received any gift of earthly promise; to the prophets nothing seemed great and joyous: except what savoured of the sweetness of eternal happiness. Whence one of the most sublime prophets, rising above all earthly things: showed what he loved more especially saying, “What have I in Heaven; and besides Thee what do I desire upon earth? Thou art the God of my heart: and the God that is my portion for ever.” But this love of heavenly and hope of future things all did not possess: and where the shadow and the truth differed, many did not know; until Thou, the true peace, camest down from Heaven: and didst enter, good Jesus, into the valley of this world to enlighten men. And so it was not till after it is recorded that Thou the Word wast made flesh, and not till after Thou the Creator of man didst deign to appear among men; that what long lay secretly enclosed, began to be made clear through Thee: and what was difficult of understanding, became comprehensible; and what to many seemed incredible, by Thy saving presence Thou didst make visible: and in a certain manner, if I may so speak, palpable to the hands.

Finally some things Thou hast humbly fulfilled to the very letter: showing that they were written of Thee. But some things Thou hast not accomplished literally, but hast referred rather to the mystic sense; teaching that all the oracles of the prophets are not to be taken according to the letter: although they are always whole and entire according to the spiritual understanding. For instance, as the evangelist attests, literally that scripture was fulfilled in Thee of the paschal lamb: “You shall not break a bone thereof.” But spiritually that which says, “It shall be a lamb without blemish: a male of one year.” For the lamb without blemish: symbolises Thee, innocent and free from all guilt. With the plain prophecies then Thou instructest the simple unto faith: but with darker sayings Thou drawest the more acute to search deep mysteries. A plain prophecy is, “They have dug My hands and feet, they have numbered all My bones.” A hidden: “I am a worm and no man.” An open prophecy is, “They shall look on him whom they have pierced.” A mysterious is, “Upon one stone there are seven eyes.” In this way also many other testimonies are found most truly foretold of Thee: which the fallacy of the Jews shall never be able to make void. For they strove to bring false witness against Thee: and their witness was not agreeing. Woe to thee, perfidious: who choosest rather to perish than to believe. Give assent to the words of truth: lest it be said to thee, which was said to the Sadducees carnally groping in the law and the prophets: “You err, not knowing the scriptures: nor the power of God.” For all prophecy tends to Christ: and in Christ receives fulfilment.

Nevertheless, Lord Jesus present in the flesh, Thou didst not think of the salvation only of the Jews; but also of all who were to believe in Thee, by the holy preaching of the apostles: whom Thou didst especially choose for this work. Who, although at first they were simple and unlettered men; still by Thy daily converse, and afterwards by the more generous inpouring of the Holy Ghost, as Thou didst promise them, were led into all truth: so as to grasp the fullness of the whole scripture. And their preaching is to be so much the more admired and to be given the more undoubting credit: the more truly evident it is, that they could never have wrought such wonders of themselves: unless Thy most omnipotent hand had strengthened them; seeing that it is an extremely difficult and truly divine work: to have subdued the whole world to the holy laws of the faith.

O Wisdom of God, which camest forth from the mouth of the Most High; what great things Thou hast wrought for our salvation: that Thou mightest recall us thither, whence we fell. Thou didst send before the patriarchs and prophets: to foretell us Thy coming. Then Thou didst appoint the apostles and evangelists: to teach that all things had been accomplished. O ineffable is Thy mercy, O Lord: which has been shown forth above all that can be conceived. For Thou didst diligently seek them that knew Thee not: them that forsook Thee Thou didst not forsake; them that sinned against Thee Thou didst most lovingly forgive: to them that were turned away far from Thee, Thou didst show the way of eternal salvation. If Thou hast been so kind to Thine enemies; what wilt Thou be to Thy friends? Assuredly all in all, that nothing may be wanting to them that feast with Thee and rejoice in the kingdom of Thy Father. Amen.

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  Gregorian Propers for the Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost
Posted by: Stone - 08-28-2022, 06:14 AM - Forum: Pentecost - No Replies

Gregorian Propers for the Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost
Taken from here

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Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost
Introit • Score • Deus in adjutorium meum intende
Gradual • Score • Benedicam Dominum in omni tempore
Alleluia • Score • Domine Deus salutis meae
Offertory • Score • Precatus est Moyses
Communion • Score • De fructu operum tuorum

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  The Message of Rianjo: The Terrible Price of Delaying the Consecration of Russia
Posted by: Stone - 08-28-2022, 06:07 AM - Forum: Articles by Catholic authors - No Replies

The Message of Rianjo - The Terrible Price of Delaying the Consecration of Russia
by Father Nicholas Gruner

[Image: RianjoMessage.jpg]


The following article is a condensation of Father Gruner’s booklet, Jesus Tells Us: Make It Known.
(https://fatima.org/wp-content/uploads/20..._known.pdf).


Jesus Tells Us, “Make it Known”

In August 1931, at Rianjo, Spain, Jesus gave to Sister Lucia a very important message, telling her of His displeasure because the Pope and the Catholic bishops had not yet obeyed His command that they solemnly and publicly consecrate Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Make it known to My ministers, given that they follow the example of the King of France in delaying the execution of My command, they will likewise follow him into misfortune.

It was a message also of warning, closely corresponding to the text of the Third Secret Vision published by the Vatican on June 26, 2000. In this Vision, the Holy Father is shot and killed – in effect executed – by a band of soldiers as he kneels at the foot of a large wooden cross. Afterward many bishops, priests and religious are also killed. At Rianjo, Jesus warns the Holy Father and the bishops (His ministers) that they will suffer these things just as the King of France was made to suffer a public execution, both punishments being the consequence of similar acts of disobedience.

The Third Secret Vision given by Our Lady clearly shows what will happen to the Pope and his ministers as a result of their refusal to do the Consecration of Russia, and Our Lord tells them that it is a punishment for their disobedience to Our Lady of Fatima’s request – which Our Lord refers to as His own command.


Other Fatima Groups Ignore this Revelation

It is interesting that the two prayers that Our Lord Himself taught to Sister Lucia are published in almost none of the literature put out by other Fatima apostolates. Why not?

It was in Rianjo, a small maritime city on the coast of Spain, that Our Lord dictated these two prayers to Sister Lucia. Why is it that these two prayers that Our Lord Himself dictated are not published by other groups? It is because they are associated with a rebuke that Our Lord gave to His ministers at the same time.

This revelation was given in 1931, just after the Fatima apparitions had been formally approved by the Church. Sister Lucia was ill; she was fatigued by all the constant attention which then inundated her, and she needed to get away from people continually wanting to inquire of her about the Fatima apparitions.

So in August of 1931, Sister Lucia was sent by her superiors to the small maritime village of Rianjo, incognito. Even the people in the house where she was staying did not know who she was; only the owner of the house knew, no one else. And one day she was there in the chapel in Rianjo, a chapel dedicated to Our Lady, and she was praying for the conversion of Spain, of Portugal, of Europe, of Russia, and of the world.

It was while she prayed for the conversion of Spain and Portugal and Europe and Russia and the world that Our Lord spoke to her and said: “You please Me very much by praying for the conversion of those countries. Ask this grace also of My Mother.”

He then dictated two prayers to her, and asked her to pray them often:

“Sweet Heart of Mary, be the salvation of Russia, Spain, Portugal, Europe and the whole world.”

“By Thy pure and Immaculate Conception, O Mary, obtain for me the conversion of Russia, Spain, Portugal, Europe, and the whole world.”



Jesus Warns Those Who Delay and Obstruct His Command

And then Our Lord went on to say:

Make it known to My ministers, given that they follow the example of the King of France in delaying the execution of My command, they will likewise follow him into misfortune.

What is this reference to the King of France? The King of France had been commanded by Jesus to consecrate France to His Sacred Heart, and the kings of France, for one hundred years, had refused to do this. Our Lord gave the command through Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, and it was passed on to the King.

Our Lord gave this command on June 17, 1689. For one hundred years to the day, the kings of France refused to obey. Then on June 17, 1789, King Louis XVI of France was stripped of his power by the uprising of the Third Estate, and four years later he was publicly executed at the guillotine.

These are terrifying words. They are a threat and a prediction. Our Lord would not predict such a dire chastisement for the Pope and the bishops if it were not a serious matter, if they were not under a grave obligation to obey.

Despite the lies commonly circulated even by people who claim to be devoted to Fatima, it is important to understand that this command of God through Our Lady of Fatima to consecrate Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, imposes a very serious obligation on the Pope and the Catholic bishops.


Jesus and Mary Our Only Hope

Our Lord warns – even threatens – His ministers with a terrible chastisement for their disobedience. At the same time He gives advice to all of us here. While He complains about His ministers’ delay, He goes on to say, “They will do it, but it will be late.” He then, so to speak, turns His attention to us, the faithful, and the priests who obviously don’t have the power to consecrate a country as the Pope and the bishops do. He turns His attention to us and says, “It is never too late to have recourse to Jesus and Mary.”

Our personal obligation is to have recourse to Jesus and Mary – which reminds us of the words of the angel to the children when he told them, “The Hearts of Jesus and Mary are attentive to the voice of your supplication.” Just think, the Hearts of Jesus and Mary are waiting. They’re expecting, they’re waiting to hear from us. They’re attentive to the voice of our supplication.

By these words, “It is never too late to have recourse to Jesus and Mary,” Our Lord is inviting all of us to greater prayer. Pray, pray, especially now as you become aware that you are in extreme danger because the Consecration of Russia has not been done.

We are all in danger of undergoing tremendous sufferings in this life, and many souls are in danger of going to hell for all eternity unless the Consecration of Russia is done soon. Please now hear and obey the invitation of Jesus to pray to Him and Our Heavenly Mother, now that you know it is so late, and are more aware of the facts, the dangers, the lateness of the time, and also what the solution is.

But don’t be disheartened; don’t give up hope. Remember, it is never too late to have recourse to Jesus and Mary. That is something we must always keep in our hearts.

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  Short video: Newly created Cardinals visit Benedict XVI
Posted by: Stone - 08-28-2022, 05:59 AM - Forum: General Commentary - No Replies

Francis and the new cardinals just visited Benedict XVI


Short (one minute) video here: https://gloria.tv/post/yz1bhejQ9Sr72CqQXDSt4HbUF

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  Abp. Viganò: President of the PAL has aligned himself with anti-Christ ideologies
Posted by: Stone - 08-28-2022, 05:53 AM - Forum: Archbishop Viganò - No Replies

Abp. Viganò: By praising legalized abortion, the President of the Pontifical Academy for Life has aligned himself with
the anti-Christ ideology of the UN, WHO

[Image: paglia_enlightened-810x500.jpg]

Abp. Vincenzo Paglia, head of the Pontifical Academy for Life.


Aug 27, 2022
(LifeSiteNews) — The President of the Pontifical Academy for Life, Vincenzo Paglia, in the course of an interview given to Italian television channel RaiTre on August 26 (here), referred to the infamous Law 194 legalizing abortion as “a pillar of our social life,” scandalizing millions of Italian Catholics who are faithful to the Magisterium and are still mindful of the fiery words of John Paul II against that horrible crime, which in Italy alone has sacrificed over six million innocent children on the altar of selfishness and liberal anti-Christ ideology.

The just indignation of the ecclesial body in response to the statements of the President of an Academy founded by John Paul II precisely in order to oppose abortion is accompanied by the applause of the advocates of “reproductive health” and the “interruption of pregnancy,” who are always ready to accuse the Church of interference when she speaks with the voice of Christ, but yet offer praise as soon as her worst exponents prostitute themselves to the aligned thought of the world and adopt the inhuman principles of neo-Malthusianism as their own.

As Shepherd and Successor of the Apostles, I am unable not to condemn with the greatest force Paglia’s scandalous words, which contradict the Gospel and the teaching of the Roman Pontiffs.

The New World Order, the United Nations, the WHO, the European Union, the World Economic Forum, the Trilateral Commission, the Bilderberg Club, and all the organizations which follow the Agenda 2030 consider the barbaric killing of the innocent child in the mother’s womb as a right, as a “pillar of social life.” It is emblematic and revealing that the sect of apostates who infest the Catholic Hierarchy and have occupied its highest levels find themselves aligned with the ideological positions of the enemies of Christ, not only on issues that are seemingly unconnected – like the psycho-pandemic narrative and green ideology – but also in the denial of the very foundations of the Natural Law, including respect for life from conception to natural death. 

It is disconcerting that no one among my brothers in the Episcopate, and least of all among the members of the College of Cardinals, dares to raise his voice to condemn Paglia’s delusional words and call for his immediate resignation from the Pontifical Academy for Life.

May the faithful, admonished by good priests, move themselves far away from these wolves in sheep’s clothing and pray to the Lord asking him to intervene to save His Church, occupied by a Sanhedrin of corrupted and perverted men who continue to crucify Jesus Christ in His Mystical Body. 

+ Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop

27 August 2022

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  20 Prepping Foods With The Longest Shelf Life For Your Stockpile
Posted by: ThyWillBeDone - 08-27-2022, 09:27 PM - Forum: Great Reset - No Replies

20 Prepping Foods With The Longest Shelf Life For Your Stockpile – M.D. Creekmore

12 - 15 minutes
by Amanda Hermes


You are here: Home / Prepping / Long-Term Food Storage Staples That Last Forever – 20 Foods to Stockpile for Long-Term Survival

https://mdcreekmore.com/what-foods-have-...helf-life/

1. Dried Beans and Legumes
2. White, Long-Grain Rice
3. Dried Pasta
4. Jerky
5. Dried Vegetables and Fruits
6. Powdered Milk
7. Powdered Eggs
8. Rolled Oats
9. Canned Fish
10. Nut Butters
11. Pickled Vegetables
12. Canned Goods
13. Honey
14 and 15. Sugar and Salt
16. Soy Sauce
17. Worcestershire Sauce
18. Vanilla Extract
19. Cocoa Powder
20. Bouillon Cubes

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  Fed Chair Powell: Rates will rise until 'job is done' bringing down inflation
Posted by: ThyWillBeDone - 08-27-2022, 09:17 PM - Forum: Great Reset - No Replies

finance-yahoo-com.cdn.ampproject.org

Fed Chair Powell: Rates will rise until 'job is done' bringing down inflation
Brian Cheung
4 - 5 minutes

https://finance-yahoo-com.cdn.ampproject...10694.html


Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell on Friday said the central bank’s job on lowering inflation is not done, suggesting that the Fed will continue to aggressively raise interest rates to cool the economy.
“We will keep at it until we are confident the job is done,” Powell said in remarks delivered at the Fed’s annual conference in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
“While the lower inflation readings for July are welcome, a single month’s improvement falls far short of what the Committee will need to see before we are confident that inflation is moving down,” Powell said Friday.
Inflation data on Friday morning showed prices in America rose by 6.3% on a year-over-year basis in July, a notch down from the 6.8% pace measured in June. When stripping out food and energy, the Personal Consumption Expenditures Index showed prices rising by 4.6% compared to a year ago — still well above the Fed’s target of 2%.
The central bank has delivered four consecutive interest rate hikes over the last six months, moving in June and July to raise rates by 0.75%, the Fed's largest moves since 1994. By raising borrowing costs, the Fed hopes to dampen demand by making home buying, business loans, and other types of credit more expensive.
Short-term interest rates are now in a target range between 2.25% and 2.5%, which some Fed policymakers consider to be the so-called "neutral rate," or the level rates that is neither stimulative nor restrictive to economic activity.
Powell said more rate hikes will be needed, with “another unusually large” increase still on the table for the Fed’s next meeting in September. The Fed chair reiterated that “at some point,” the Fed will move to slow the pace of its price increases.
“In current circumstances, with inflation running far above 2 percent and the labor market extremely tight, estimates of longer-run neutral are not a place to stop or pause,” Powell said Friday.
The Fed chair said central banks need to move quickly, warning historical episodes of inflation have shown that delayed reactions from central banks tend to come with steeper job losses.
“Our aim is to avoid that outcome by acting with resolve now,” Powell said.
U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell attends a press conference in Washington, D.C., the United States, on July 27, 2022. (Photo by Liu Jie/Xinhua via Getty Images)
With unemployment at a historically low 3.5% in July, Powell said the labor market remains strong but suggested that the Fed’s campaign to hike rates could restrict economic activity and lead to a “softer” labor market.
Combined with the crunch of expensive credit, Powell warned households and businesses may feel some pain as interest rates increases continue.
“These are the unfortunate costs of reducing inflation,” Powell said. “But a failure to restore price stability would mean far greater pain.”
The Fed chair’s speech is a focal point of the annual Jackson Hole conference, and tends to be a longer speech with bigger picture takeaways. But concerns about financial market interpretations of recent Fed moves were likely a factor in Powell’s decision to deliver a shorter and “more direct” speech this year.
The Fed’s next policy-setting meeting is scheduled September 20 and 21.
Brian Cheung is a reporter covering the Fed, economics, and banking for Yahoo Finance. You can follow him on Twitter @bcheungz.
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  Worm 'burgers' could solve world hunger, scientists claim
Posted by: ThyWillBeDone - 08-27-2022, 09:13 PM - Forum: Global News - No Replies

Worm 'burgers' could solve world hunger, scientists claim
Brooke Kato
5 - 7 minutes

Living

https://nypost-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/...s-claim%2F

August 25, 2022 | 8:05pm

Mealworms could be next on your plate -- but don't worry, it's good for the environment. Getty Images/Science Photo Library

This might be a not-so-happy meal.

Creepy crawlies could be the key to solving world hunger — by eating them as food.

The slimy creatures known as mealworms, just like their name suggests, can be turned into grub. South Korean scientists have cooked mealworms, or beetle larvae, along with sugar to create “meat” — and they claim it tastes authentic.

“Recently, eating insects has become of interest because of the increasing cost of animal protein, as well as the associated environmental issues,” said Dr. Hee Cho, the project leader from Wonkwang University, in a press release.

Because the global population is approximated to reach 9.7 billion by 2050 — a large jump from our current nearly 8 billion population — meat alternatives are highly sought after due to their lower impact on the environment.

Climate change is partially fueled by cow emissions — due to the methane they produce — hence the need for beef substitutes.

For those who aren’t willing to part with their burgers, the scientists might have found a solution with the mealworms: grinding them up and seasoning them to taste just like the real thing.

In fact, the critters are a great source of nutrients the body needs, similar to that of meat, according to researchers, and have been shown to reduce cholesterol and inflammation while improving heart rhythms.

“Insects are a nutritious and healthy food source with high amounts of fatty acids, vitamins, minerals, fiber and high-quality protein — which is like that of meat,” Cho said. “Mealworm contains beneficial essential amino acids and is high in unsaturated fatty acids.”
The worm might not look appetizing to some.
Getty Images/Bloomberg Creative

But the squeamish might not voluntarily chow down on slimy worms. In many places, insects are not considered delicacies, unlike in other countries, but Cho is attempting to remedy the stigma.

“Mealworm is one of the most widely used edible insects in the world. However, edible insects are not universally accepted in our food cultures due to their repellant appearance and unique flavor characteristics,” added Cho, whose solution is to grind the worms into a seasoning that can be added to various food products.

Through their research, Cho’s team studied mealworms throughout their entire lifecycle, looking at how the compounds present differed in each stage. They found “volatile hydrocarbons” that evaporated and resulted in strong scents.

Raw larvae smelled of wet soil, shrimp and sweet corn, but that changed depending on the method of cooking. Steamed mealworms emitted aromas of sweet corn, while roasted or deep-fried larvae were more oily.

In fact, the prepared worms had more similarities to food than just smells — chemicals formed that researchers said were similar to those found in meat or seafood. When mixed with sugar, they brewed a “meat-like” concoction.

After trial and error with various amounts of mealworms and sugar, a testing group was given samples to declare a winner that had the most meaty scent.

“As a result of this study, 10 of the reaction flavors were optimized based on consumer preferences,” said co-author and graduate student Hyeyoung Park, who presented the findings at an American Chemical Society convention in Chicago.

The results, which marked the first time beetle larvae had been repurposed as faux beef, will hopefully be used to influence the mass production of worm meat, according to researchers.

Foodies in the EU have included mealworms on their menus for a while now, following research that declared the critters safe to consume. The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization even referred to the insects as “a healthy and highly nutritious food source with a high content of fat, protein, vitamins, fibers and minerals.”

But that’s not all — worms have even been shown to have medical benefits.

Earlier this year, scientists discovered worms could detect lung cancer. The roundworms were attracted to or deterred from certain scents, like that of cancerous tissue.

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  Former Vatican spokesman: Benedict XVI is ready to meet the Lord
Posted by: Stone - 08-27-2022, 07:16 AM - Forum: General Commentary - No Replies

Former Vatican spokesman: Benedict XVI is ready to meet the Lord

CNA | Aug 24, 2022

Father Federico Lombardi, director of the Vatican Press Office from 2006 to 2016, said that Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI is ready for “the definitive encounter” with God.

The Jesuit priest made the observation in an interview with Avvenire, the newspaper of the Italian bishops, on the occasion of his upcoming 80th birthday, which he will celebrate on Aug. 29.

In the interview, published Aug. 22, the priest, who was also provincial superior of the Italian Jesuits and director of the Vatican Television Center, recalled that he was able to accompany Benedict XVI “for almost his entire pontificate from 2006 until his resignation from the Petrine ministry in February of 2013.”

Lombardi stressed that Benedict XVI “is a scholarly man” and would define him as “a pope theologian with very clear ideas.”

The Jesuit priest also said a great virtue of the pope emeritus is “humility. In the conversations with me he always spoke in Italian and not in German,” a language Lombardi learned when he studied theology in Frankfurt, where he was ordained in 1972.

He only sometimes spoke in German, when he spoke with his secretary Archbishop Georg Gänswein, and, Lombardi said, “he had the courtesy to repeat the same things in Italian” although it was not necessary.


His last meeting with Benedict XVI

Lombardi said the last time he was able to see Benedict XVI was “on May 7, to tell him the news about the award of the foundation dedicated to him.”

Benedict XVI, who turned 95 in April, “still retains a formidable mental clarity,” according to Lombardi. “He has a really remarkable memory and capacity to connect for his age.”

The Jesuit also said that after seeing Benedict XVI he was left with “the idea of a man who, despite his fragility, communicates serenity. Thanks, I think, to an intense life of prayer.”

“He always says goodbye giving you a beautiful smile and feels ready for the definitive encounter with the Lord,” he said.

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  Fr. Michael Muller [1868]: The Necessity of Prayer for Sinners
Posted by: Stone - 08-27-2022, 07:12 AM - Forum: Articles by Catholic authors - No Replies

The Necessity of Prayer for Sinners
Fr. Michael Muller, 1868

[Image: The%20Necessity%20of%20Prayer%20for%20Sinners.jpg]


Jesus Christ, speaking of the just man, said: "As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abide in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me." (John xiii., 4.) If this be true of one who already enjoys God's grace and is His friend, with how much more right must it be applied to a sinner, who has forfeited the grace of God; for no one feels more forcibly the truth of the above-cited words, than a poor sinner. In his state of the privation of God's grace, he is like that poor little infant, which, after its birth, was cast by its cruel mother into the most filthy place of the house, where it helplessly died. In like manner the sinner, being buried in the mire of sin, feels himself helpless and unable to rise from this state and be reconciled with God. If without God's grace I am not at all able to preserve His friendship, how much less am I able to recover it after having lost it by sin? "If any one asserts," says the Council of Trent, "that, without a preceding inspiration and grace of the Holy Ghost, man can believe, hope, and love, or repent in such a manner as he ought, let him be anathema." Consider well the words: " Repent in such a manner as he ought." Behold, Judas, too, repented, for Holy Scripture says of him: "Then Judas, who betrayed Him, seeing that He was condemned, repenting himself, brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and ancients, saying: I have sinned in betraying innocent blood." (Matt. xxvii. 3.) But this was no such repentance as is required for justification, proceeding as it did, from natural motives only, it led Judas to despair. "And he went and hanged himself with a halter." (Matt, xxvii. 5.)

Man, it is true, can, by himself, commit sin and offend God grievously; but, to rise again from his fall, he cannot, except by God's assistance. I can pluck out my eyes, but to set them in right again is beyond my power. I can likewise deprive myself of the grace of God, but to restore it again to my soul without God's assistance, is more than I am able. I may cast myself into a deep well, but to get out of it again without any one's assistance is not possible. In like manner I may, by mortal sin, give myself up into the power of the devil, but to escape it again, without God's particular grace, is not within the reach of human nature. St. Peter remained chained in prison until an Angel came and said to him: "Arise, and the chains fell off from his hands." (Acts xii. 7.) Had St. Peter not been awakened by the Angel he would not have thought of rising, and should he have thought of it, he would not have been able to free himself from his fetters. In like manner, the soul which has once been chained by sin, will scarcely ever think seriously of converting and returning to God by repentance, and should it ever do so, all its natural efforts will not suffice to break the chains of sin, and free it from the slavery of the devil, if God's grace does not come to its aid.

St. Anselm met one day with a child in the street, keeping a bird tied with a thin string at its feet, and seeking pleasure in letting it flutter about. The bird was always flying upwards, endeavoring to obtain its liberty, but the child soon pulled it down, and the poor animal would fall to the ground, at which the child would laugh and leap up for joy. St. Anselm looked at this play for a considerable time, and felt compassion for the bird. At once the string broke and the poor animal was free. The child commenced to cry and weep, but St. Anselm laughed and rejoiced. The spectators were astonished to see a great prelate pay attention to such a play of a child, and show compassion in the beginning and joy at the end of it. But Anselm said: "Did you see how the child amused itself with the bird? Do you know what I thought of it? Behold, it is thus, I said to myself, that the devil amuses himself with many souls. Having them once tied with a string, he plays with them as he pleases, drawing them from one sin into another." Some he ties by making them indifferent towards God and religion and their own salvation; others, by enkindling in them too great love and affection for the goods of this world; some again by the sin of avarice; others by the sin of uncleanliness, theft, fraud and so forth. Many a one of these unfortunate souls, seeing its great misery, will sigh and groan: "Would to God that I were once free from this great misery, from the abominable habit of drinking, swearing, sinning against the angelic virtue, and visiting those bad companions! What am I to do?"

What happened to that bird happens to such a sinner also; he wants to fly upwards to obtain his liberty, but in vain; he feels he cannot succeed, the devil keeping him tied up and pulling him into the old sin of drunkenness, injustice, uncleanliness; and the poor captured sinner remains a slave, and hence it is that many give up to despair; cast off all hope of ever returning to a better life, to God's grace and friendship; nay, many even turn so bad, so hardened, so obstinate as to resemble incarnate devils, so much so, that they would sin, in spite of God, should He even stand before them, with fire and sword in hand, to take revenge on them. Others are so miserable that they do not see their misery at all, or do not want to see it, or know anything of it, in order to feel no stings of conscience and conceive no desire of amendment. Others would like to amend, and feel the good will and desire for it, but they lack courage and energy; others, on the contrary, have no desire and goodwill to reform; others, no confidence; others again lack courage, good-will and confidence at the same time. Oh, misery of miseries! Whence shall such men obtain light to understand their misery? "Whence shall good-will, courage and confidence come to them to rid themselves of it? From God alone can they obtain it; He alone can grant it.

The heart of man, says Holy Scripture, is in the hand of God, withersoever He likes He turns it; or, in other words, He can, in a moment, enlighten the understanding of a sinner so as to enable him to comprehend the misery and danger of his state; He can move his will so powerfully that he forms an unalterable resolution to amend, and He can, at once, inspire his heart with so great a confidence in His mercy, that he firmly hopes for the forgiveness of all his sins. But under what condition does God dispel the darkness of the sinner's mind, the obstinacy of his will, and the diffidence and despair of his heart? Under the only one condition, that the sinner ask it of Him, for God does not wish for the sinner's death, but that he may be converted and live. Hence, He is at all times ready to receive him again into grace, provided he sincerely wishes for it. The Lord has declared this by the Prophet Ezechiel (chap. xxxiii.) upon solemn oath. But this very merciful God wills, I say, that the sinner, who feels himself destitute of all courage and firm will to amend his life, of strength and constancy to overcome his passions and evil habits, and to give up his bad companions, should ask of Him, with all humility, this courage, this firm, determined will, this constancy, this grace to change his life, for then God will not fail to assist him to remove all obstacles to His grace, and receive him again into His friendship.

The Lord's conduct towards sinners is almost like that of the Lacedemonians towards their children. Wishing to make sharp-shooters of them, they would not give them bread into their hands, but placing it high, said to them: "Behold! children, there is bread; shoot it down if you want it." In like manner God seems to speak to sinners. Behold! helpless sinners, My grace and help is ready for you at any time; aim at it, that is, pray to Me for it if you want it; for, as many graces will fall down upon you, as you will shoot down by the darts of your prayer, and should you have no desire to pray for My grace, or should you not be earnest enough in asking it, ask of Me the grace to pray with all earnestness and fervor, and be sure this grace shall be given you; but if you neglect to do so you will perish through your own fault. I have told you often enough, and again I repeat, "Call on Me and I will hear you;" " ask and you shall receive." (John xvi. 23.) "Whatever you ask you shall receive." (Matt. xxi. 22.) And in order that no one might believe that this promise applied to the just only, I have added purposely : "Every one who asks shall receive." (Matt. vii. 7.) Every one, then, without exception, no matter whether he be a just man or a sinner, shall receive what He asks of Me, but ask he must.

Thus God, in His infinite goodness, has promised to give everything to him who prays. Hence St. Alphonsus says that one of the greatest pains of the damned will be the thought that they could so easily have saved themselves by asking of God to give them true sorrow for their sins and a firm will to amend their lives. No one, therefore, says St. Alphonsus, will have an excuse before God by saying that his salvation was impossible on account of the difficulties and obstacles with which he met in the way of salvation. God will not listen to such an excuse; He will answer, if you had not strength and courage enough to overcome all obstacles and difficulties in the way of your salvation, why did you not ask Me to come to your assistance? It would have been My greatest pleasure to help you. If a man has fallen into a deep well and does not take hold of the rope let down to draw him up, no one will feel pity for him if he perish. Thus the sinner, too, is lost through his own fault, if he neglect to pray for his salvation. "For so many years, the Lord will say, did I wait in the hope you would at last commence to ask of Me the grace of true repentance and amendment of your sinful life. I would have given you this grace quicker than a man can pull another out of a well. I would have delivered you from your miserable state of sin just as fast as I delivered Jonas from the whale, for no sooner had he prayed to Me in the belly of the whale than I delivered him from all danger. To pray to Me, and to call on Me for assistance, and to be delivered and saved, is but one and the same thing. Fire does not burn straw as fast as I forgive sinners when they ask forgiveness of Me." The woman of Cana had no sooner said, "Lord, help me," than she was heard and received the grace of conversion. The Samaritan woman, too, received the grace of conversion as soon as she had asked our Lord to give her of the wholesome water of which He was speaking to her. No sooner had the publican prayed in the temple: "Lord, be merciful to me a poor sinner," than he was forgiven and left the temple as a just man. No sooner had the good thief on the cross said to our Saviour: "Lord, remember me when Thou comest into Thy kingdom," than he was forgiven and received the promise of our Saviour that he would be with Him in paradise on that day.

Father Hunolt, S. J., relates of a certain vicious young man who often sincerely wished to change his life and be reconciled again to God, that, on account of his deeply-rooted evil habits, he believed his conversion utterly impossible, and that whatever he might do would be of no avail to excite true sorrow and contrition in his heart. One day he left home to dissipate his sad and melancholy thoughts in company with others. On leaving the house he met at the door a poor beggar. As soon as he saw him, he remembered what our Lord Jesus Christ has said: "Whatsoever you have done to the least of your fellow-men, you have done to Me." He then went to take a loaf of bread, and throwing himself on his knees before the beggar, he gave it to him, thus praying in his heart: "My Lord Jesus Christ, I adore Thee in the person of this poor man; most gladly would I give Thee my whole heart, but I cannot, because it is too hardened; for this time, take, I beseech Thee, this loaf of bread which I am still able to give; do, even against my will, with my heart what Thou pleasest." Oh, the wonderful power of prayer! No sooner had he thus prayed than his heart felt a most bitter sorrow for all his sins, so much so that he shed a torrent of tears. He made a good confession, performed his penance, and ever afterwards received many extraordinary graces. (Hunolt's Eleventh Sermon on the Following of Christ.)

Would to God that all those saints of heaven who, for sometime, led a sinful life on earth, would stand before you in this moment, I would request you to put to them the following questions: Most beloved souls, how did it happen that, for some time you offended God and committed sins? They all, I am sure, would unanimously say, it was because we neglected to pray to God in the moment of temptation. But why did you not die in your sins? Why did God show mercy to you, forgiving all your offences against Him? They all would answer again, it was because we implored Him for mercy and forgiveness of our sins. But how did it come to pass that you did not relapse into your former sins, but persevered in leading a penitential life until death ? And they all would again unanimously exclaim: Beloved brethren, know, that this good will, this strength and courage came not from ourselves, no, of ourselves we were weak like you, we were often tempted to commit the same old sins again, but as we had at once recourse to prayer, God assisted us and we were preserved from sin. But well-beloved blessed souls, one more question: Were the devils never able at all to make you commit a mortal sin after your conversion? Know, dear brethren, know, they would say, that the devils often tempted us most frightfully to that effect, suggesting all kinds of evil thoughts and works, but know and consider, that man, when he commences to pray is more powerful than all the devils united, so much so, that no evil spirit can do him the least injury; nay the devils fly away from a man who is praying, fearing the power God grants to his soul. No sooner did he grievously tempt us than we exclaimed, Jesus help us, Mary pray for us, save us, lead us not into temptation, deliver us from the evil of consenting to sin. By this means we were enabled to give up sin, to lead a penitential life, not to fall back into sin again and to die as holy penitents.

Would to God that now, also, some of the damned souls of hell would stand before you. As the saints confess and avow that their salvation and sanctiflcation is owing to their prayer, so in like manner the damned would confess that their eternal damnation is owing to their neglect of prayer. What do you think would be the answer of the bad thief, crucified at the same time with our Saviour? Listen! he would say, I confess I was a very wicked sinner and a great malefactor during my mortal life, I committed many a murder and other evil deeds, for which I have deserved hell a thousand times, but my companion on the cross was not less guilty, and his sins cried just as much as mine to heaven for vengeance, and yet he ascended from his cross into heaven, whilst I from mine was hurled down into the depth of hell; he rejoices forever and I am tormented in the everlasting fire of hell. What brought him to heaven? What brought me to hell? Behold, when hanging on the cross, he most sincerely prayed to his Lord and God: "Lord, remember me when Thou cometh in Thy kingdom." For this short prayer he obtained the forgiveness of his sins, and the promise to be with his Lord in paradise on that very day. I, on the contrary, did not pray at all, and thus I remained obstinate in my sins and died as a reprobate. In like manner all the damned would answer if commanded to tell the cause of their damnation. O most frightful language for obstinate sinners who do not wish to be converted from their evil ways and reconciled to God again! O most sweet and consoling language for all those who will pray to be delivered from their sins, and received as children of God.

Would to God I could stand on a high mountain surrounded by all the sinners in the world! I would cry out at the top of my voice: Pray, pray, pray, and you will not die in your sins, you will be delivered from them and be saved. God does not require from you that you should go and sell everything and give it to the poor, or undergo most frightful penances, or be put to a rack, or be nailed to a cross, in order to be saved; such hard conditions as these He has not made for your salvation. He has made but the easiest in the world; all that He wishes is, that you should pray to Him and ask of Him with a sincere heart, what you need. He is still the same God, just as powerful, just as merciful to help, to forgive, to receive you into His grace as He was when He said to the good thief, "This day shalt thou be with Me in paradise." He is and will be to you the same powerful, the same merciful God that He was to St. Magdalene, the penitent, to St. Augustine, to St. Margaret of Cortona, to St. Mary of Egypt, and to many other souls whom He delivered from their sins, converting them from being sinners into saints; but you must avail yourselves of His promise, "Amen, amen I say unto you, whatsoever you ask the Father in My name He shall give it to you." (John xvi. 23.) Jesus Christ has made this promise, it never failed to be fulfilled in any one who profited by it. Heaven and earth will pass away rather, but the fulfilment of this promise shall never fail. Lost is he who prays not; saved is he who prays. Witnesses of this truth will be all the saints of heaven on the day of the last judgment; witnesses of this truth will be all the damned in hell, and you also who read this, will on the day of judgment, bear witness to this truth, standing either on the right or on the left of the Divine Judge. You will be a witness of this truth with the elect on the right, if you pray; on the left, with the damned, if you do not pray. Choose what you please.







Litany of Penance


Antiphon: They that are whole, need not the physician:
but they that are sick. I came not to call the just, but sinners to penance.


V. Wash me yet more from my iniquity,
and cleanse me from my sin.
R. Thou shalt wash me, and I shall be
made whiter than snow.

Christ, hear us.
Christ, graciously hear us.

God of all goodness, Who willest not the death of a sinner,
but rather that he should be converted and live,

Have mercy on us.*


Who pardonest not the Angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell for all eternity,*

Who, when Adam fell, didst call him to confession and repentance for his sin,*

Who didst preserve Noe from the flood, and from the lot of the ungodly, but saving him in the ark,*

Who didst draw Lot from the midst of sinners,*

Who, softened by the prayers of Moses, didst forgive the sins of the backsliding people,*

Who didst pardon the sin of David, after his confession and repentance,*

Who didst spare Achab when he humbled himself in penance,*

Who didst graciously hear the penitent Manasses, and establish him on his throne,*

Who didst grant pardon to the Ninevites when they did penance for their sins in fasting, and in sackcloth and ashes,*

Who didst succor the Machabees, when they fasted and lay in ashes,*

Who didst command Thy priests to weep, and pray, and offer sacrifice for the people,*

Who didst come into the world to save sinners,*

Who when Thou wouldst redeem the world, didst send as Thy messenger John Baptist, the preacher of penance,*

Who didst fast forty days and forty nights,*

Who didst prevent, with Thy grace, Matthew, sitting at the receipt of custom,*

Who didst bear witness that the publican, humbly striking his breast, was justified,*

Who didst deliver the paralytic from his infirmity, when Thou hadst forgiven him his sins,*

Who, by the example of the prodigal son, didst offer to sinners the hope of pardon,*

Who didst make known to the woman of Samana the fountain of living water,*

Who didst bring salvation to the house of Zacheus, repenting of his sins, and making restitution fourfold,*

Who didst exercise Thy mercy in behalf of the woman taken in adultery,*

Who didst receive publicans and sinners, and didst eat with them,*

Who didst forgive Magdalen her many sins, because she loved much,*

Who, looking tenderly on Peter, who denied Thee, didst bring him to compunction and to tears,*

Who didst promise Paradise to the penitent thief,*

Who lovest all Thy creatures and hatest nothing that Thou hast made,*

Who givest to sinners both place and time for repentance,*

Who didst come to seek and to save that which was lost,*

Who hast pity on all men, and hidest the sins of those who truly repent,*

Who would have mercy, and not sacrifice,*

Who, when we repent, rememberest our sins no more,*

God, most merciful and patient, tender and loving-kind, notwithstanding our sins,*



We sinners: Beseech Thee to hear us.
That Thou wouldst vouchsafe to lead us to a true repentance,

We beseech Thee, hear us.**

That we may judge ourselves, and so escape Thy judgment,**

That we may bring forth in due time worthy fruits of penance,**

That, denying ungodliness and worldly desires, we may live soberly, justly and godly,**

That sin may not reign in our mortal body,**

That we may not love the world, nor the things of the world,**

That we may work out our salvation with fear and trembling,**

Son of God,**



Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world:
Spare us, O Lord.

Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world:
Graciously hear us, O Lord.

Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world:
Have mercy on us.


Christ, hear us.
Christ, graciously hear us.

V. O Lord, hear our prayer.
R. And let our cry come unto Thee.


Let us pray:

O gracious and merciful God, look with compassion on the frailty of our mortal nature, and sustain our endeavors by Thy grace, that, through Thy boundless mercy, we may obtain the pardon of all our sins, persevere constantly in Thy service, and in the end attain unto everlasting life. Through Jesus Christ Our Lord, Who with Thee and the Holy Ghost livest and reignest, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

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  Macron’s ‘end of abundance’ warning may be preparing the French to accept radical ‘climate’ agenda
Posted by: Stone - 08-27-2022, 05:26 AM - Forum: Global News - No Replies

Macron’s ‘end of abundance’ warning may be preparing the French to accept radical ‘climate’ agenda
As food and commodities prices continue to rise, hitting hard on the monthly budgets of the middle and working classes, the French president has intensified his doom-saying.

[Image: Macron-and-his-jet-ski-810x500.jpg]

Photos of President Macron enjoying a gas-hungry jet-ski appeared the same week he warned France to be more 'sober' with energy. YouTube


Aug 26, 2022
PARIS (LifeSiteNews) — In a well-noted speech marking the 78th anniversary of the liberation of the Mediterranean coastal village of Bormes-les-Mimosa on August 17, 1944, the recently reelected French president Emmanuel Macron warned the French people that hard times are ahead.

Macron asked his fellow citizens to prepare to “accept to pay the price of liberty” just after mentioning the “archipelago of friendship that today is helping Ukraine to resist against its aggressor.”

In similar remarks made to his government earlier this week, Macron announced the “end of abundance” and spoke about the “grand tipping point” that is nigh – one assumes he was talking about the world, or at least Europe. 

During his August 17 speech, having dwelt at length on the heroism and sacrifice of those who liberated France at the end of the Second World War – D-Day in Normandy and, weeks later, the landing of the Allied forces in Provence – Macron adopted emphatic, war-like tones that had many wondering whether he intends to engage France directly in the six-month-old war in Ukraine.

He stated: “I am thinking of our people, who will need fortitude to face the times ahead, to resist the uncertainties, and perhaps easy ways out and adversity, and to accept, together, to pay the price of our freedoms and our values; to accept that France, as a Nation and as a Republic, is never a given, never a right, but a legacy to be passed on and a battle to be fought.”

In July the French president had called on consumers to be more “sober” in their use of energy as prices soar (gas is now four times the price of the equivalent of a barrel of petrol while electricity prices are going through the roof); ordinary French people found it hard to see the point when Macron was photographed that same week enjoying a ride on an energy-intensive jet-ski while on holidays in Provence.


Cost-of-living crisis in France

Since then, things have got worse. As food and commodities prices continue to rise, hitting hard on the monthly budgets of the middle and working classes, Macron has intensified his doom-saying.

At the first Ministers’ council of the “rentrée” – the time at the end of summer when people trickle back from their holidays and prepare for the new school year beginning in September – Macron went out of his way to have his opening speech filmed by the media. (These meetings are usually private and press coverage is limited to official statements afterwards). He told his government that it would need to stand united and to take the “necessary measures.”

“Basically, we are experiencing the end of abundance, the end of costless liquidities – we will need to draw the economic consequences of this – the end of products and technologies that seemed to be perpetually available, the break-up of value chains. The scarcity of this or that material or technology is reappearing, like that of water. We will have to take the necessary measures,” he said.

Macron listed the “crises” France is facing, “each worse than the last:” the rise of “illiberal governments,” “the climate crisis and its consequences,” “cyber risk” and war “at our doorstep.” “It is also the end, for whoever still had it, of a form of insouciance,” he continued. “The war started again in Europe six months ago to the day.”

The president added: “In the face of this great tipping point, our fellow citizens may react with great anxiety. (…) Faced with such challenges, we do not have the right to wait, to manage things on a day-to-day basis, or even to manage at all. We need an ambitious design for the future of our country, to preserve what must be preserved, and to protect those who will need it.”

The first reaction of many was anger. “Abundance” is not what a majority of the French are experiencing right now, and the President’s latest bout of fearmongering, suggesting that the population will lack money, goods and even essentials such as energy and water – after a particularly dry summer, was ill-timed at the least. On Wednesday, economic indicators showed that the dividends paid out by major French companies reached a record 44 billion euros (roughly the same amount in dollars) in the second quarter of 2022, as a result of “exceptional” profits in the previous year. The large French energy company Total, for its part, is making unprecedented profit following the spike in energy prices.


The French State controls the spending of nearly half the nation’s income

But the question remains: what exactly did Macron mean by his alarmist statements? While he could be preparing France for outright war with Russia, there are other, perhaps more probable, hypotheses.

The first is that Macron, who was reelected to his office when he faced nationalist Marine Le Pen in May but tasted defeat in the legislative elections, when the candidates of his “En Marche” or “Renaissance” movement failed to obtain a straight majority, is preparing the country for the inevitable social unrest that will arise as the cost-of-living soars. He will then at least be able to say he had foresight. He will do so despite the fact that, during the recent political campaigns, when the Russian invasion of Ukraine had already been underway for several months and it was obvious energy and commodities would become increasingly difficult to obtain in Europe, Macron and his parliamentary candidates practically promised an economic boom and assured France that the neediest would get help from the State.

This is an interesting point in the context. Government funding is already in place for “energy checks” for low-income families, and every liter of petrol is being sold with an 18-cent reduction (30 cents as of September) “generously” offered by the State – but taxes on fuel represent between 50 and 60 percent of the price paid at the gasoline station by individual.

Other public measures have been arranged, such as a rise in social benefits that is also being supported by the taxpayer.

In fact, the situation is perfect for the furthering of socialist responses, making individuals and families ever more dependent on the State through the redistribution of riches. Even now, France has a compulsory contribution rate of nearly 45 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP), as opposed to an average of about 36 percent in the OECD (and 25 percent in the US), meaning that the French State controls the spending of nearly half the nation’s income.

It is hard to believe that this percentage will decrease in France, as COVID support measures over the last two and a half years made public spending hit the ceiling. Public debt now represents 111.9 percent of the GDP, as compared with 97.4 percent in 2019. All this “borrowed” money appeared out of nowhere, and the government message was “We’ll do what it takes, whatever the cost.” At the same time, successive lockdowns also complicated the economic situation, for a dearth of raw materials is holding back industries and construction and some of the psychologically damaged younger population is finding it difficult to get to work, despite high demand for workers.


The energy situation is Kafkaesque

The energy situation is Kafkaesque. Turning eastward, Russia has found eager clients for its gas and petrol in China, Iran, and elsewhere while Europe suffers from the economic sanctions it imposed after Putin invaded Ukraine. Under “green” pressure – and the environmentalists have always leaned to the extreme-left in the same way that pacifists and anti-nuclear activists in the West furthered the interests of the USSR during the Cold War – countries such as Germany have been pushed to depend on unreliable “renewables” such as windfarms and solar energy. As a result, coal plants are reopening. And France, which kept its nuclear plants active, is now obliged to share its energy with its EU partners.

However, at the worst possible moment, about half of France’s 56 nuclear reactors were forced to halt as an unexpected corrosion problem was discovered earlier this year. While it was perhaps genuinely unforeseeable, little was done over the last 20 years for the maintenance of nuclear plants, thanks to “green” pressure. In fact, before switching back to a pro-nuclear discourse, Macron had committed in 2018 to shutting down 14 plants by 2035 for environmental reasons. Lack of proper investments in this sector over recent years may force France to ration electricity in the fall and winter. And this would lead, although nobody seems have noticed, to periodical shut-downs of the economy at a time when most human activity is computer-driven.

Is the threat a real one? That’s another question: official statistics published on Thursday show that France’s gas reserves have reached 90 percent and should be at full capacity by November, and an increasing number of families are turning to wood and heat-pumps as primary sources for heat and hot water. Petrol prices have decreased as the world economy slumps, and electricity is more and more expensive. Nevertheless, the sale of thermal engine cars will be banned in the EU as of 2035, and electric cars are being heavily promoted. These come with a heavy environmental cost: electricity is being increasingly produced in coal-plants – which in turn are threatened with closure in the name of the climate, building batteries requires plenty of energy, and the cost of transport from China, where many are made, is high. Meanwhile, fully electric cars have a dismal effective “autonomy” of only a few hundred kilometers, as rows of cars waiting for a recharge in stations along France’s holiday routes showed this summer.


The summer drought was a boon for climate doomsayers

Maybe the threat, making people angry and worried, is the point. Conversations in traditional French country markets nowadays are all about the “planet” being “at the end its tether,” interrupted only by complaints about the cost of living.

This summer’s drought in many parts of France (not as bad as the dry period between 1942 and 1949) has actually been a boon for the climate doomsayers. It is true that use of water has soared since that time, but there has also been a lack of foresight with the universal use of valuable drinking water for everything from flushing the toilet to watering gardens.

At any rate, all these factors can be used as leverage to implement statist measures while creating the illusion that mankind is bad for “the planet” and that lifestyles must be drastically changed. Macron’s “tipping point” might well be found through this narrative.

Already, owners of uninsulated dwellings may no longer raise rents as of this month. By 2028, they will not be allowed to rent out their “energy-draining” property at all – under criteria fixed by a government that actually encourages assessors to under-estimate a property’s “protection” and make it practically impossible for owners of old stone houses or traditional city apartment buildings to meet official standards. Owners’ rights are facing difficult times.

This is just one of the future crises that the government is preparing for the French. Is this what Macron meant in his latest speeches?

If so, no wonder that he is one of the World Economic Forum’s favorite leaders!

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  DOGMAS [TRUTH]
Posted by: ThyWillBeDone - 08-25-2022, 09:05 PM - Forum: Doctors of the Church - No Replies

DOGMAS [TRUTH]
http://www.catholictradition.org/Saints/...uotes1.htm

It is unlawful to add anything to the words of Holy Scripture regarding the sense.

St. Thomas Aquinas

Nothing can ever pass away from the words of Christ, nor can anything be changed in the doctrine which the Catholic Church received from Christ to guard, protect, and preach.

Bl. Pope Pius IX

The Church must persist in the teaching transmitted to her by Christ.

Pope John Paul II

Our teaching may contain nothing impious, nothing diluted.

St. Gregory Nazianzen

I cannot sufficiently be astonished that such is the insanity of some men, such the impiety of their blinded understanding, such, finally, their lust after error, that they will not be content with the rule of faith delivered once and for all from antiquity, but must daily seek after something new, and even newer still, and are always longing to add something to religion, or to change it, or to subtract from it!

St. Vincent of Lerins

The nature of the Catholic faith is such that nothing can be added to it, nothing taken away. Either it is held in its entirety or it is rejected totally. This is the Catholic faith which, unless a man believes faithfully and firmly, he cannot be saved.

Pope Benedict XV

Fly to the Catholic Church! Adhere to the only faith which continues to exist from the beginning, that faith which was preached by Paul and is upheld by the Chair of Peter.

St. Hippolytus of Rome

This Apostolic Church never turned from the way of truth nor held any kind of error. It is imperative that nothing of the truths which have been defined be lessened, nothing altered, nothing added, but that they be preserved intact in word and meaning. This is the true rule of faith.

Pope St. Agatho the Wonderworker

And I hold it not with the understanding that a thing can be held which seems better and more suited to the culture of a certain age, but in such a way that nothing else is to be believed than by the words; and I hold that this absolute and unchangeable truth preached by the Apostles from the earliest times is to be understood in no way other than by the words.

Oath Against Modernism

Diabolical error decks itself out with ease in lying colors with some appearance of truth, so that the force of pronouncement is corrupted by a very brief addition or change, and the confession of faith which should have resulted in salvation, by a subtle transition leads to death!

Pope Clement XIII

The preaching of the Church truly continues without change and is everywhere the same. It has the testimony of the Prophets and Apostles and all their disciples.

St. Irenaeus of Lyons

God forbid we should falsify our faith!

St. Aithalas

Heretical teachers pervert Scripture and try to get into Heaven with a false key, for they have formed their human assemblies later than the Catholic Church. From this previously-existing and most true Church, it is very clear that these later heresies, and others which have come into being since then, are counterfeit and novel inventions.

Pope St. Clement I

Let nothing novel be introduced!

Pope Pius XII

"Avoid the profane novelty of words," St. Paul says (I Timothy 6:20) ... For if novelty is to be avoided, antiquity is to be held tight to; and if novelty is profane, antiquity is sacred.

St. Vincent of Lerins

The ancient doctrines must be confirmed, but novel and absurd inventions must be condemned and cast aside.

St. Cyril of Alexandria

Why cast yourself over a cliff, deciding in your writings about things of which you are ignorant? Why do you not keep to what you have received from the Fathers and Doctors of the Church? You introduce novelties!

St. Eusebius of Caesaria

The devil is always discovering something novel against the truth.

Pope St. Leo the Great

To announce, therefore, to Catholic Christians anything besides that which they have received has never been lawful, is lawful nowhere, and never will be lawful; and to anathematize those who announce anything besides that which has been once received has always been necessary. This being the case, is there anyone of such audacity as to teach other than that which has already been taught in the Church, or anyone of such levity as to receive anything besides that which he has once received from the Church? St. Paul, the teacher of the Gentiles, cries aloud, and he cries out loud again and again, to all men, to all times, and to all places that, if anyone announces a new dogma, let him be anathematized!

St. Vincent of Lerins

Wherefore, by the authority of Apostolic power, We declare inventors of novel notions, which as the Apostle Paul has said are of no edification, but rather are practiced to beget most foolish questions, are to be deprived of the communion of the Church.

Pope St. Innocent I

I have neither permitted, nor shall I permit, the things which have been settled by the holy fathers to be violated by any innovation.

Pope St. Leo the Great

We do not innovate anything ... How is it that novelties are introduced which were never even thought of by our predecessors?

St. Ambrose

What, then, shall a Catholic Christian do ... if some novel contagion attempt to infect no longer a small part of the Church alone but the whole Church alike? He shall then see to it that he cleave unto antiquity, which is now utterly incapable of being seduced by any craft or novelty.

St. Vincent of Lerins

Teach nothing new, but implant in the hearts of everyone those things which the fathers of venerable memory taught with a uniform preaching ... Whence, we preach nothing except what we have received from our forefathers. In all things, therefore, both in the rule of faith in the observance of discipline, let the pattern of antiquity be observed.

Pope St. Leo the Great

Whosoever you are who introduce new doctrines, I beseech you to spare the ears of Romans! Spare that faith which was commended by the voice of an Apostle. Why should you attempt to teach us, at the end of hundreds of years, that which we never heard before? Why bring forward what Peter and Paul did not will to make known? Until this day, the world was Christian without your doctrine. Thus, I hold as an old man onto that faith wherein I was regenerated as a boy.

St. Jerome

Shake from yourselves these novel doctrines by the force of former authority, these doctrines unheard-of till now; and thus withstand new errors of whatsoever sort they may be, lest the same errors which the Church conquered long ago ... may seem to recover a voice long since squelched.

St. Capreolus of Carthage

All novelty in faith is a sure mark of heresy.

St. Vincent of Lerins

It is impossible that I sanction any novelty against the faith.

St. Germanus of Constantinople

Any innovation in matters of faith is extremely pernicious and utterly damnable!

St. John Eudes

New revelations regarding faith or morals ... have always been abhorred and challenged in the Church ... Hence, the Sovereign Pontiffs, the Councils, and the Fathers have been most careful to reject all novelties or new doctrines on matters of faith which differed from those already received.

St. Alphonsus Maria Liguori

Let nothing new be introduced, but only what has been handed down.

Pope Benedict XV

The true religion has always been one from the beginning, and will always be the same.

St. Augustine


www.catholictradition.org/Saints/papal-quotes1.htm

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  COMMUNISM & WOMAN
Posted by: ThyWillBeDone - 08-25-2022, 08:10 PM - Forum: Socialism & Communism - No Replies

http://www.catholicapologetics.info/mora...cwoman.htm
  COMMUNISM & WOMAN 
by  MSGR. FULTON J. SHEEN of the Catholic University of America  March 2, 1947, by Rt. Rev. Msgr. Fulton J. Sheen of the Catholic University of America, produced by the National Council of Catholic Men in cooperation with the National Broadcasting Company.     COMMUNISM AND WOMAN    

The proudest boast of Communism is that it has finally emancipated the woman. Marx writes: "Differences of age and sex have no longer any distinctive social validity. All are instruments of labor." The key word here is instrument which reduces a human being to the dignity of a monkey wrench. The assumption was that woman was free as soon as she became available for production. One of the paradoxes of our irrational world is that woman today is glorified when she produces an Atomic Bomb, but not when she can produce life. It is like praising violinists for producing sewer pipes instead of melodies.      At the very beginning of the Communist Revolution in Russia a decree was passed declaring that all women between the ages of seventeen and thirty-two became the property of the State, and that the rights of husbands were abolished. (Novaia Zhizn, No. 54, 1918 p. 2.) In keeping with the idea that liberation means working in a factory rather than in a home, we read in a Soviet book published in 1935: "Women's labor has become one of the main sources from which industry could draw fresh supplies of workers. During the earlier years of the first Five Year Plan, there were about six million housewives in the towns. All the local Communist organizations received orders to call up these reserves and attach them to production." (Shaburova, Woman is a Great Power, 1935 edition, p. 32) The women refused to accept what the Communists called "the emancipation for women from depressing domestic atmosphere" but they were ultimately forced into "emancipation" and began working in mines, sewers, and in the manipulation of pneumatic drills. A few years ago twenty-three percent of the miners were women. The Soviet poets composed ballads for the women to sing as they were "released from socially unprofitable and exhausting domestic toil." (Shaburova, Ibid, p. 36)   "Formerly women only knew how to cook soup and porridge, Now they go to the foundry — At the foundry it is nicer." (Ibid, p. 38)     This idea of the emancipation of women through industrialization is not altogether a Communist idea, but like many others has been derived from Western bourgeois capitalistic civilization which thought of the liberation of woman in terms of equality with men. The only difference is that the Communist merely carried the idea to its logical extreme, and if it scandalizes us now it is because our bourgeois world never understood the full implication of its error.      The two basic errors of both Communism and a capitalistic liberal civilization on this subject were: 1) Women were never emancipated until modern times. Religion particularly kept them in servitude; 2) Equality means the right of a woman to do a man's work.      First, it is not true that women began to be emancipated in modern times and in direct proportion to the decline of religion. The fact is that woman's subjection began in the seventeenth century with the break-up of Christendom and took on a positive form at the time of the Industrial Revolution. Under the Christian civilization women enjoyed rights, privileges, honors and dignities which have since been swallowed up by the machine age.      In eighty-five Guilds in England during the Middle Ages, seventy-two had women members on an equal basis with men in such professions as barbers and sailors. They were probably just as outspoken as men because one of the rules of the Guilds was that "the sistern as well as the brethren" may not engage in disorderly or contumacious debates. In Paris there were fifteen guilds reserved exclusively for women, while eighty of the Parisian guilds were mixed. Nothing is more erroneous historically than the belief that it was our modern age which recognized women in the professions. The records of these Christian times reveal the names of thousands upon thousands of women who influenced society and whose names are now enrolled in the catalogue of saints, Catherine of Sienna alone leaving eleven large volumes of her writings. Up until the seventeenth century in England, women functioned in business perhaps even more than today. In fact, so many were in business that it was provided by law that the husband should not be responsible for her debts. Between 1553 and 1640 ten percent of the publishing in England was done by women. Because the homes did their own weaving, cooking and laundry it has been estimated that women in pre-industrial days were producing half the goods required by society. In the Middle Ages women were as well educated as men and it was not until the seventeenth century that women were barred from education. Then at the time of the Industrial Revolution all the activities and freedom of women were curtailed as the machine took over the business of production and men moved into the factory. Then came a loss of legal rights by women which reached its fulness in Blackstone who pronounced woman's "civil death" in law.      As these disabilities continued woman felt the loss of her freedom, and rightly so, because she felt she had been hurt by man who robbed her of her legal rights, and she fell into the error of believing that she ought to proclaim herself the equal of man, forgetful that a certain superiority was already hers because of her functional difference from man. Equality then came to mean negatively, the destruction of all privileges enjoyed by specific persons or classes, and positively, as absolute and unconditioned sex equality with all men. These ideas were incorporated into the first resolution for sex equality passed in Seneca Falls, New York in 1848: "Resolved that woman is man's equal, was intended to be so by the Creator,1 and the highest good of the race demands that she be recognized as such."      This brings us to the second error in the bourgeois-capitalistic theory of women, namely, the failure to make distinction between mathematical and proportional equality. Mathematical equality implies exactness of remuneration; for example, two men who work at the same job at the same factory should receive equal pay. Proportional equality means that each should receive his pay according to his function. In a family, for example, all children should be cared for by the parents, but it does not mean that because sixteen year old Mary gets an evening gown with an organdy trim the parents should give seventeen year old Johnnie the same thing. Women in seeking to regain some of the rights and privileges they had in Christian civilization thought of equality in mathematical terms or in terms of sex. Feeling themselves overcome by a monster called "man" they identified freedom and equality with the right to do a man's job. All the psychological, social and other advantages which were peculiar to women were ignored until the inanities of the bourgeois world reached their climax in Communism where a woman was emancipated the moment she went to work in a mine. The result has been that woman's imitation of man and her flight from motherhood has developed neuroses and psychoses which have reached alarming proportions.      The Christian civilization never stressed equality in a mathematical sense, but only in the proportional sense, for equality is wrong when it makes the woman a poor imitation of man. Once she became man's mathematical equal, he no longer stood when she came into a room, no longer gave her a seat in a bus, and no longer took off his hat in an elevator. The other day in a New York subway a man gave a woman his seat and she fainted. When she was revived she thanked him, and he fainted.      Modern woman has been made equal with man, but she has not been made happy. She has been emancipated from a clock and thereby no longer free to swing, or as a flower has been emancipated from its roots, only to wither and die. She has been cheapened in her search for mathematical equality in two ways: by becoming a victim to man by becoming only the instrument of his pleasure, ministering to his needs in a sterile exchange of egotism. A victim to the machine by subordinating the creative principle of life to the production of non-living things, which is the essence of Communism.      This is not a condemnation of a professional woman, because the important question is not whether a woman finds favor in the eyes of a man, but whether she can satisfy the basic instincts of womanhood. If it were the man that made a difference to a woman and all that wifehood and motherhood entail, then the least womanly of all women would be found in convents. The fact is, however, that nowhere else are more normal, and certainly more happy women to be found on this earth. One might add also, that nowhere else are there so many young women,2 for a peculiar quality about the spiritual life is that it keeps a woman young. Cosmetics, mud baths, sneezeless soaps are lacking, but they manage to keep young and unwrinkled because they are at peace.      What makes the difference in woman is not therefore a man, but whether a certain God-given qualities which are specifically hers are given adequate and full expression. These qualities are principally, devotion, sacrifice and love. They need not necessarily be expressed in a family, nor even in a convent. They can find an outlet in the social world, in the care of the sick, the poor, the ignorant —in a word— in the seven corporal works of mercy. It is sometimes said that the professional woman is hard. This may in a few instances be true, but it is not because she is in a profession, but because she has alienated her profession from contact with human beings in a way to satisfy the deeper cravings of her heart. It may very well be that the revolt against morality, and the exaltation of sensuous pleasure as the purpose of life, are due to the loss of the spiritual fulfillment of existence. Having been frustrated and disillusioned, such souls first become bored, then cynical, and finally, suicidal. Wherein lies the solution? In a return to the Christian concept wherein stress is placed not on equality but equity.      Equality is law. It is mathematical, abstract, universal, indifferent to conditions, circumstances and differences. Equity is love, mercy, understanding, sympathy — consideration of details, appeals, and departures from the fixed rules of courts which law has not yet embraced. In particular, it is the a application of law to an individual person. It places its reliance on moral principles and is guided by an understanding of the motives of individual families which fall outside the scope of the rigors of law. In the old English law of Christian days the subjects in petitioning the court for extraordinary privileges, asked for them "for the love of God and in the way of charity." For that reason the heads of courts of equity were the clergy who drew their decisions from Canon Law. In vain did the civil lawyers with their exact prescriptions argue against their opinions. The iron ring outside a Cathedral door, which a pursued criminal might grasp, gave him what is known as the "right of sanctuary" and while giving him immunity from the prescriptions of civil law, made him subject to the more merciful law of the Church.      Applying this distinction to women, we are saying that equity rather than equality should be the basis of all the claims of women. It goes beyond equality by claiming superiority in certain aspects of life. Equity is the perfection of equality, not a substitute. It has the advantages of recognizing the specific difference between man and woman, which equality does not have. As a matter of fact, they are not equal in sex; they are quite unequal, and it is only because they are unequal that they complement one another. The violin and the bow are not equal. Each has a superiority of function. Man and woman are equal inasmuch as they have the same rights and liberties,3 the same final goal of life and both have been redeemed by the Blood of Our Divine Saviour — but they are different in function. It is that truth which solves the problem. One of the greatest of the Old Testament stories reveals this difference. While the Jews were under Persian captivity, Aman, the prime minister of King Assuerus, asked his master to slay the Jews because they obeyed the law of God rather than the Persian law. When the order went out that the Jews were to be massacred, Esther was asked to approach the wicked King and plead for her people. There was a law that no one should enter the King's presence under the penalty of death, unless the King extended his scepter as a permission to approach the throne. That was the law. But Esther said: "I will go in to the King, against the law, not being called, and expose myself to death and to danger." (Esther 4: 6) Esther fasted an prayed and then approached the throne. Would the scepter be lowered? The King held tout the golden scepter, and Esther drew near and kissed the top of it, and the King said to her: "What wilt thou, Queen Esther? What is thy request? (Esther 5:3)      This story has been interpreted through the Christian ages as meaning that God will reserve to Himself the reign of justice and law, but to Mary, His Mother will be given the reign of mercy. During the Christian ages, Our Blessed Mother bore a title which has been forgotten, but it is revived in two modern non-Catholic writers, Henry Adams and Mary R. Beard. Adams described the Lady of Equity in the Cathedral of Chartres. Stretching through the nave of the Church are two sets of priceless stained glass windows, the one given by Blanche of Castile, the other by Pierre de Dreux which seems to "carry across the very heart of the cathedral" a kind of civil war. Over the main altar however sits the Virgin Mary, the Lady of Equity, with the Holy Child on her knees, presiding over the courts, listening serenely to pleas for mercy in behalf of their sins. As Mary Beard beautifully put it: "The Virgin signified to the people moral, human or humane power, as against the stern mandates of God's law." And we might add, this is the woman's special glory — mercy, pity, understanding, intuition of human needs, call it anything you please. When women step down from the role of the Lady of Equity and her prototype Esther, and insist only on equality, they lose their greatest opportunity to change the world. Law has broken down today. Jurists no longer believe in a Divine Judge behind Law. Obligations are no longer sacred. Even peace is based upon the power of Three Nations rather than on the Justice of God. Shall women, in this day of the collapse of justice equate themselves with men in rigid exactness, or shall they rally to Equity, to mercy and love and give to a cruel and lawless world some something that equality cannot give? Whence shall come a devotion to causes, if women who are capable of greater devotion then men, insist on a cold equality? How shall wars be stopped and the taking of young life, if women, like men, trust only in law?      But if women, in the full consciousness of their creativeness say to the world: "It takes us twenty years to make a man, and we rebel against wars every generation snuffing out that manhood in war." Such an attitude would do more for the peace of the world than all the covenants and pacts that have no other basis than expediency and deceit. Did women but recognize the truth hidden in the Lady of Equity, love might be restored to homes and families. The reason there is little love now is because in the human order there is never any love between equals. There may be justice, but no affection. If man is the equal of woman, then she has rights, but what heart ever lived on rights. All love demands inequality or superiority. The lover is always on his knees, the beloved must always be on a pedestal. Whether it be man or woman, the one must always consider himself or herself as undeserving of the other. Even God humbled Himself in His Love to win man, saying He came not to be ministered unto, but to minister. And man, in his turn approaches that loving Saviour in Communion with the words: "Lord, I am not worthy."      Not then because women enter professions do some harden and become frustrated. Professional careers do not of themselves defeminize women, otherwise the Church would not have raised political women to sainthood, as was the case with St. Elizabeth and St. Clotilde. The cause of tragedy in woman today is that by stressing equality, they have lost those specifically feminine qualities which have given her superiority of function. These qualities are devotedness and creativeness. No woman is happy unless she has someone for whom she can sacrifice herself, not in a servile way but in the way of love. Added to the devotedness is her love of creativeness. A man is afraid of dying, but a woman is afraid of not living. Life to a man is personal; life to a woman is otherness. She thinks less in terms of perpetuation of self and more in terms of perpetuation of others — so much so that in devotedness she is willing to sacrifice herself for others. To the extent that a career gives no opportunity for either she becomes de-feminized. If these qualities cannot be given an outlet in a home and a family, they can nevertheless find other substitutions in works of charity, in the defense of virtuous living, in the defense of right as other Claudias when their political husbands as Pilates rely only on expediency, Then her work as a money earner becomes a prelude and a condition for the display of equity which is her greatest gory.      The level of any civilization is the level of its womanhood. This is because there is a basic difference between knowing and loving. In knowing something you bring it down to the level of your understanding. An abstract principle of physics can be understood by an ordinary mind only by examples. But in loving we always go up to meet the demand of the one loved. If you love music you have to submit to its laws and disciplines. When man loves woman, it follows the nobler the woman the nobler the love, the higher the demands by the woman, the more worthy a man must be. That is why a woman is the measure of the level of our civilization. It is for our age to decide whether woman shall claim equality in sex and the right to work at the same lathe, or whether she will claim equity and give to the world that which no man can give. In these pagan days when women want to be only equal with men, they have lost respect. In Christian days when men were strongest, woman was respected. As the author of Mont. St. Michel puts it: "The twelfth and thirteenth centuries were a period when men were at their strongest; never before or since have they shown equal energy in such varied directions, or such intelligence in the direction of their energy; yet these marvels of history — these Plantagenets; these Scholastic philosophers; these architects of Rheims and Amiens; these Innocents, and Robin Hoods, and Marco Polos; these crusaders who planted their enormous fortresses all over the Levant; these monks who made the wastes and barrens yield harvests — all, without apparent exception, bowed down before the woman. Explain it how you will! Men rushed like sheep to escape the butcher, and were driven to Mary; only too happy in finding protection and hope in a being who could understand the language they talked, and the excuses they had to offer . . . Society has invested in her care nearly its whole capital, spiritual, artistic, intellectual and economical, even to the bulk of its real and personal estate." As Abelard said of her: "After the Trinity you are our only hope . . . you are placed there as our advocate; all of us who fear the wrath of the Judge, fly to the Judge's mother who is logically compelled to intercede for us and stands in the place of a mother to the guilty." To the Lady of Equity once again modern women must look, as even those who have the Faith must see fulfilled in her those spiritual functions which no priest can perform; queen, mother and woman. Christianity does not ask the modern woman to be exclusively a Martha or a Mary; the choice is not between a professional career and contemplation, for the Church on the Feast of the Assumption of the Lady of Equity read the Gospel of Martha and Mary to symbolize that she combines both the speculative and the practical, the serving the Lord and the sitting at His Feet. If woman wants to be ever a revolutionist , then the Lady is her guide for she sang the most revolutionary song ever written — The Magnificat, the burden of which was the abolition of principalities and powers, and the exaltation of the humble. She breaks the shell of woman's isolation from the world and puts woman back into the wide ocean of humanity as she who is the Cosmopolitan Woman gives the Cosmopolitan Man, for which giving all generations shall call her blessed.      But she was the inspiration to womanhood, not because she claimed there was equality in sex, for peculiarly enough this was the one equality she ignored, but because of a transcendence in function which made her superior to a man inasmuch as she could encompass a man, as Isaias foretold. Great men we need like Paul with a two-edged sword to cut away the bonds that tie down the energies of the world, and men like Peter who will let the broad stroke of their challenge ring out on the shield of the world's hypocrisy, and great men like John who with a loud voice will arouse men from the sleek dream of unheroic repose. But we need woman still more; women like Mary of Cleophas who will raise sons to lift up white hosts to a Heavenly Father; women like Magdalen who will take hold of the tangled skeins of a seemingly wrecked and ruined life and weave out of them the beautiful tapestry of saintliness and holiness; and women, above all, like Mary, the Lady of Equity, who will leave the lights and glamours of the world for the shades and shadows of the Cross where saints are made. When women of this kind return to save a world with equity, then we shall toast them, we shall salute them not as the modern woman, once our superior now our equal, but as the Christian woman — closest to the Cross on Good Friday, and first at the tomb on Easter Morn.   God love you!

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