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| Over 70 bishops warn German bishops that ‘Synodal Path’ will lead to ‘schism’ |
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Posted by: Stone - 04-13-2022, 07:01 AM - Forum: Vatican II and the Fruits of Modernism
- Replies (1)
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N.B. Unfortunately, while one appreciates the efforts of the conservative members of the Catholic hierarchy who are attempting to reign in the much more progressive members and their radical implementation of Vatican II, they are doing so ... by citing Vatican II. They are pleading with the German clergy to not be so liberal in their interpretation of Vatican II. They have not yet realized that it is because of Vatican II, because of the 'time-bomb' tenets of Vatican II, that these are what the progressive clergy are aggressively attempting to implement in a more ultra-modern way.
Over 70 bishops warn German bishops that ‘Synodal Path’ will lead to ‘schism’
The ‘destructive example’ could eventually lead to a sabotage of the Church’s mission of ‘converting and sanctifying the world,’ wrote the signatories.
![[Image: Screen-Shot-2022-04-12-at-10.59.37-AM-810x500.png]](https://www.lifesitenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Screen-Shot-2022-04-12-at-10.59.37-AM-810x500.png)
(L-R) Cardinals Francis Arinze, Raymond Burke, Wilfred Napier, George Pell, all signatories of the open letter.
Tue Apr 12, 2022
(LifeSiteNews) – Over 70 cardinals, archbishops, and bishops have written an open letter to Germany’s Catholic hierarchy, warning that the country’s Synodal Way will “inevitably” lead to “schism.”
The “fraternal open letter,” released April 12 on Catholic News Agency (CNA), is addressed to “our brother bishops in Germany,” and warns that Germany’s “Synodal Path” is not limited to one country, but will have “implications for the Church worldwide.”
Based on this very nature of the Church, the signatories noted that “events in Germany compel us to express our growing concern about the nature of the entire German ‘Synodal Path’ process and the content of its various documents.”
Synodal Path risks leading to a ‘dead end’
Germany’s Synodal Path is a highly controversial movement within the German Catholic Church which was launched by the bishops in 2019. Clear, unchangeable Church teaching on homosexuality and LGBT issues has been consistently ignored by its participants, as well as by Germany’s Bishops’ Conference, and recently an [url=https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/german-synodal-path-calls-for-blessing-of-same-sex-couples-womens-ordination/]overwhelming majority[/url] of participants voted in early February to approve Synodal draft documents calling for “blessing” of same-sex couples and the ordination of women.
A number of high-ranking prelates have spoken out against the Synodal Path, but seemingly to no avail. Now, the 74 signatories of the fraternal letter warn of “the confusion that the Synodal Path has already caused and continues to cause, and the potential for schism in the life of the Church that will inevitably result.”
The prelates – including prominent cardinals including Cardinals Raymond Burke, Francis Arinze, and George Pell (full list below) – noted the ancient need for “reform and renewal.” However, they warned that “Christian history is littered with well-intended efforts that lost their grounding in the Word of God, in a faithful encounter with Jesus Christ, in a true listening to the Holy Spirit, and in the submission of our wills to the will of the Father.”
Such failures “ignored the unity, experience, and accumulated wisdom of the Gospel and the Church,” wrote the signatories.
Rejecting the words of Christ, these efforts “were fruitless and damaged both the unity and the evangelical vitality of the Church.” “Germany’s Synodal Path risks leading to precisely such a dead end,” wrote the 74 prelates.
Seven key problems – ‘submission’ to ‘world’ instead of Christ
While noting that the letter was only a brief summary of the many issues, the signatories highlighted seven key problems with the Synodal Path. First they noted the Synodal Path’s actions “undermine the credibility of Church authority; including that of,” as well as Catholic “sexual morality” and even the “reliability of Scripture.”
Secondly, the prelates condemned the Synodal Path documents as “largely inspired not by Scripture and Tradition,” even though the documents displayed a “patina of religious ideas and vocabulary.” Instead, the documents were guided by “sociological analysis and contemporary political, including gender, ideologies,” stated the prelates. “They look at the Church and her mission through the lens of the world rather than through the lens of the truths revealed in Scripture and the Church’s authoritative Tradition.”
RELATED: Head of Polish bishops urges German counterpart not to ‘yield to the pressures of the world’
Troublesome also to the 74 signatories is the manner in which the Synodal Path “seems to reinterpret, and thus diminish, the meaning of Christian freedom.” Gone is the “Christian” understanding of freedom as the “unhampered ability to do what is right,” which is replaced by a basic notion of “autonomy.”
The Synodal Path “displays more submission and obedience to the world and ideologies than to Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior,” wrote the signatories. It is marked by being “bureaucracy-heavy, obsessively critical, and inward-looking,” and “becomes anti-evangelical in tone.”
Synodal Path’s ‘spirit’ is ‘fundamentally at odds’ with the ‘Christian life’
Continuing their forthright tone, the signatories noted how “the Synodal Path’s focus on ‘power’ in the Church suggests a spirit fundamentally at odds with the real nature of Christian life.”
The members of the Synodal Path appeared to be demanding structural change, rather than “conversion of hearts,” added the letter.
The “destructive example” of the Synodal Path could lead bishops and would certainly lead “many otherwise faithful laypeople, to distrust the very idea of ‘synodality’,” warned the signatories. They added how such an event would prevent the Church’s mission of “converting and sanctifying the world.” “In a time of confusion, the last thing our community of faith needs is more of the same.”
Signatories double down, call for more bishops to join
The majority of the prelates who signed the letter are from the U.S., including figures such as Cardinal Burke; Denver’s Archbishop Samuel Aquila; San Francisco’s Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone; Archbishop Joseph Naumann, recent former chairman of the USCCB Committee on Pro-Life Activities; Bishop Kevin Rhoades, the recent former head of the USCCB Committee on doctrine; and Tyler, Texas’ Bishop Joseph Strickland.
The signatories also numbered bishops from Africa, particularly Tanzania, along with Nigeria’s Cardinal Francis Arinze, the former Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, and the archbishop emeritus of Durban, Cardinal Wilfred Napier.
Bishop Paprocki, himself a signatory, told CNA that “the German Synodal Way has strayed far from the path of authentic synodality and has placed itself in opposition to the truths of our Catholic faith as taught over the centuries from Scripture and Tradition. In fraternal correction and in union with bishops from around the world, I encourage the Bishops of Germany to return to the true deposit of faith as handed on to us by Jesus Christ.”
“As successors of the Apostles, we’ve got something of a duty to bear witness to the truth,” Cardinal Pell told the National Catholic Register. Pell has previously described the Synodal Path as a “rupture, not compatible with the ancient teaching of Scripture and the Magisterium, not compatible with any legitimate doctrinal developments.”
The signatories have provided an email address, episcopimundi2022@gmail.com, for fellow bishops to write regarding adding their name to the open letter.
Meanwhile Bishop Strickland, a well-known name on LifeSiteNews, called for more bishops to join in “calling our German brothers to return to the Truth of Jesus Christ. Let us pray for a renewal of faith during this Holy Week.”
The full text of the open letter and list of signatories is found below:
Quote:A FRATERNAL OPEN LETTER TO OUR BROTHER BISHOPS IN GERMANY
April 11, 2022
In an age of rapid global communication, events in one nation inevitably impact ecclesial life elsewhere. Thus the “Synodal Path” process, as currently pursued by Catholics in Germany, has implications for the Church worldwide. This includes the local Churches which we pastor and the many faithful Catholics for whom we are responsible.
In that light, events in Germany compel us to express our growing concern about the nature of the entire German “Synodal Path” process and the content of its various documents. Our comments here are deliberately brief. They warrant, and we strongly encourage, more elaboration (as, for example, Archbishop Samuel Aquila’s An Open Letter to the Catholic Bishops of the World) from individual bishops. Nonetheless, the urgency of our joint remarks is rooted in Romans 12, and especially Paul’s caution: Do not be conformed to this world. And their seriousness flows from the confusion that the Synodal Path has already caused and continues to cause, and the potential for schism in the life of the Church that will inevitably result.
The need for reform and renewal is as old as the Church herself. At its root, this impulse is admirable and should never be feared. Many of those involved in the Synodal Path process are doubtless people of outstanding character. Yet Christian history is littered with well-intended efforts that lost their grounding in the Word of God, in a faithful encounter with Jesus Christ, in a true listening to the Holy Spirit, and in the submission of our wills to the will of the Father. These failed efforts ignored the unity, experience, and accumulated wisdom of the Gospel and the Church. Because they failed to heed the words of Jesus, “Apart from me you can do nothing” (Jn 15: 5), they were fruitless and damaged both the unity and the evangelical vitality of the Church. Germany’s Synodal Path risks leading to precisely such a dead end.
As your brother bishops, our concerns include but are not limited to the following:
1. Failing to listen to the Holy Spirit and the Gospel, the Synodal Path’s actions undermine the credibility of Church authority, including that of Pope Francis; Christian anthropology and sexual morality; and the reliability of Scripture.
2. While they display a patina of religious ideas and vocabulary, the German Synodal Path documents seem largely inspired not by Scripture and Tradition — which, for the Second Vatican Council, are “a single sacred deposit of the Word of God” — but by sociological analysis and contemporary political, including gender, ideologies. They look at the Church and her mission through the lens of the world rather than through the lens of the truths revealed in Scripture and the Church’s authoritative Tradition.
3. Synodal Path content also seems to reinterpret, and thus diminish, the meaning of Christian freedom. For the Christian, freedom is the knowledge, the willingness, and the unhampered ability to do what is right. Freedom is not “autonomy.” Authentic freedom, as the Church teaches, is tethered to truth and ordered to goodness and, ultimately, beatitude. Conscience does not create truth, nor is conscience a matter of personal preference or self-assertion. A properly formed Christian conscience remains subject to the truth about human nature and the norms of righteous living revealed by God and taught by Christ’s Church. Jesus is the truth, who sets us free (Jn 8).
4. The joy of the Gospel — essential to Christian life, as Pope Francis so often stresses — seems utterly absent from Synodal Path discussions and texts, a telling flaw for an effort that seeks personal and ecclesial renewal.
5. The Synodal Path process, at nearly every step, is the work of experts and committees: bureaucracy-heavy, obsessively critical, and inward-looking. It thus itself reflects a widespread form of Church sclerosis and, ironically, becomes anti-evangelical in tone. In its effect, the Synodal Path displays more submission and obedience to the world and ideologies than to Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.
6. The Synodal Path’s focus on “power” in the Church suggests a spirit fundamentally at odds with the real nature of Christian life. Ultimately the Church is not merely an “institution” but an organic community; not egalitarian but familial, complementary, and hierarchical — a people sealed together by love of Jesus Christ and love for each other in his name. The reform of structures is not at all the same thing as the conversion of hearts. The encounter with Jesus, as seen in the Gospel and in the lives of the saints throughout history, changes hearts and minds, brings healing, turns one away from a life of sin and unhappiness, and demonstrates the power of the Gospel.
7. The last and most distressingly immediate problem with Germany’s Synodal Path is terribly ironic. By its destructive example, it may lead some bishops, and will lead many otherwise faithful laypeople, to distrust the very idea of “synodality,” thus further impeding the Church’s necessary conversation about fulfilling the mission of converting and sanctifying the world.
In a time of confusion, the last thing our community of faith needs is more of the same. As you discern the Lord’s will for the Church in Germany, be assured of our prayers for you.
Cardinal Francis Arinze (Onitsha, Nigeria)
Cardinal Raymond Burke (archbishop emeritus of St. Louis, Missouri, USA)
Cardinal Wilfred Napier (archbishop emeritus of Durban, South Africa)
Cardinal George Pell (archbishop emeritus of Sydney, Australia)
Archbishop Samuel Aquila (Denver, Colorado, USA)
Archbishop Emeritus Charles Chaput (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA)
Archbishop Paul Coakley (Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA)
Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone (San Francisco, California, USA)
Archbishop Damian Dallu (Songea, Tanzania)
Archbishop Emeritus Joseph Kurtz (Louisville, Kentucky, USA)
Archbishop J. Michael Miller (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada)
Archbishop Joseph Naumann (Kansas City, Kansas, USA)
Archbishop Andrew Nkea (Bamenda, Cameroon)
Archbishop Renatus Nkwande (Mwanza, Tanzania)
Archbishop Gervas Nyaisonga (Mbeya, Tanzania)
Archbishop Gabriel Palmer-Buckle (Cape Coast, Ghana)
Archbishop Emeritus Terrence Prendergast (Ottawa-Cornwall, Ontario, Canada)
Archbishop Jude Thaddaeus Ruwaichi (Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania)
Archbishop Alexander Sample (Portland, Oregon, USA)
Bishop Joseph Afrifah-Agyekum (Koforidua, Ghana)
Bishop Michael Barber (Oakland, California, USA)
Bishop Emeritus Herbert Bevard (St. Thomas, American Virgin Islands)
Bishop Earl Boyea (Lansing, Michigan, USA)
Bishop Neal Buckon (Auxiliary, Military Services, USA)
Bishop William Callahan (La Crosse, Wisconsin, USA)
Bishop Emeritus Massimo Camisasca (Reggio Emilia-Guastalla, Italy)
Bishop Liam Cary (Baker, Oregon, USA)
Bishop Peter Christensen (Boise, Idaho, USA)
Bishop Joseph Coffey (Auxiliary, Military Services, USA)
Bishop James Conley (Lincoln, Nebraska, USA)
Bishop Thomas Daly (Spokane, Washington, USA)
Bishop John Doerfler (Marquette, Michigan, USA)
Bishop Timothy Freyer (Auxiliary, Orange, California, USA)
Bishop Donald Hying (Madison, Wisconsin, USA)
Bishop Emeritus Daniel Jenky (Peoria, Illinois, USA)
Bishop Stephen Jensen (Prince George, British Columbia, Canada)
Bishop William Joensen (Des Moines, Iowa, USA)
Bishop James Johnston (Kansas City-St. Joseph, Missouri, USA)
Bishop David Kagan (Bismarck, North Dakota, USA)
Bishop Flavian Kassala (Geita, Tanzania)
Bishop Carl Kemme (Wichita, Kansas, USA)
Bishop Rogatus Kimaryo (Same, Tanzania)
Bishop Anthony Lagwen (Mbulu, Tanzania)
Bishop David Malloy (Rockford, Illinois, USA)
Bishop Gregory Mansour (Eparchy of Saint Maron of Brooklyn, New York, USA)
Bishop Simon Masondole (Bunda, Tanzania)
Bishop Robert McManus (Worcester, Massachusetts, USA)
Bishop Bernadin Mfumbusa (Kondoa, Tanzania)
Bishop Filbert Mhasi (Tunduru-Masasi, Tanzania)
Bishop Lazarus Msimbe (Morogoro, Tanzania)
Bishop Daniel Mueggenborg (Reno, Nevada, USA)
Bishop William Muhm (Auxiliary, Military Services, USA)
Bishop Thanh Thai Nguyen (Auxiliary, Orange, California, USA)
Bishop Walker Nickless (Sioux City, Iowa, USA)
Bishop Eusebius Nzigilwa (Mpanda, Tanzania)
Bishop Thomas Olmsted (Phoenix, Arizona, USA)
Bishop Thomas Paprocki (Springfield, Illinois, USA)
Bishop Kevin Rhoades (Fort Wayne-South Bend, Indiana, USA)
Bishop David Ricken (Green Bay, Wisconsin, USA)
Bishop Almachius Rweyongeza (Kayanga, Tanzania)
Bishop James Scheuerman (Auxiliary, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA)
Bishop Augustine Shao (Zanzibar, Tanzania)
Bishop Joseph Siegel (Evansville, Indiana, USA)
Bishop Frank Spencer (Auxiliary, Military Services, USA)
Bishop Joseph Strickland (Tyler, Texas, USA)
Bishop Paul Terrio (St. Paul in Alberta, Canada)
Bishop Thomas Tobin (Providence, Rhode Island, USA)
Bishop Kevin Vann (Orange, California, USA)
Bishop Robert Vasa (Santa Rosa, California, USA)
Bishop David Walkowiak (Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA)
Bishop James Wall (Gallup, New Mexico, USA)
Bishop William Waltersheid (Auxiliary, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA)
Bishop Michael Warfel (Great Falls-Billings, Montana, USA)
Bishop Chad Zielinski (Fairbanks, Alaska, USA)
RELATED:
Holy See reiterates Pope’s support for ‘synodal way’ after Polish bishop said he’s distancing himself from it
Cdl. Müller endorses Cdl. Pell’s call for Vatican to reprimand ‘open heresy’ of German bishops
Cdl. Brandmüller calls out German bishops ‘openly contradicting the truths of faith’
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| Americans Are "In Charge" Of The War Says French Journalist Who Returned From Ukraine |
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Posted by: Stone - 04-13-2022, 06:43 AM - Forum: Global News
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Americans Are "In Charge" Of The War Says French Journalist Who Returned From Ukraine
ZH | APR 13, 2022
Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,
A French journalist who returned from Ukraine after arriving with volunteer fighters told broadcaster CNews that Americans are directly “in charge” of the war on the ground.
The assertion was made by Le Figaro senior international correspondent Georges Malbrunot.
Malbrunot said he had accompanied French volunteer fighters, two of whom had previously fought against ISIS.
“I had the surprise, and so did they, to discover that to be able to enter the Ukrainian army, well it’s the Americans who are in charge,” said Malbrunot.
Adding that he and the volunteers “almost got arrested” by the Americans, who asserted they were in charge, the journalist then revealed that they were forced to sign a contract “until the end of the war.”
“And who is in charge? It’s the Americans, I saw it with my own eyes,” said Malbrunot, adding, “I thought I was with the international brigades, and I found myself facing the Pentagon.”
Malbrunot also mentioned America providing Ukraine with switchblade suicide drones, something highlighted by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in a tweet that revealed Ukrainian soldiers were being trained to use the devices in Biloxi, Mississippi.
Citing a French intelligence source, Malbrunot also tweeted that British SAS units “have been present in Ukraine since the beginning of the war, as did the American Deltas.”
Russia is apparently well aware of the “secret war” being waged in Ukraine by foreign commandos who have been in the region since February.
Both the United States and the UK have publicly asserted that there won’t be “boots on the ground” in Ukraine, but apparently there has been a US-UK military presence since the start of the war.
“Polls showed in the run up to the war the overwhelming majority of Americans wanted our government to stay out of it but our leaders know best and are more than happy to risk World War III in defense of Ukraine’s puppet regime,” writes Chris Menahan.
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| The Traditional Understanding of the Mandatum |
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Posted by: SAguide - 04-12-2022, 11:05 PM - Forum: In Defense of Tradition
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Taken from the Carol Byrne series: https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?...11#pid3811
The Mandatum or Foot-Washing Ceremony
Now, we come to a reform which did not arise spontaneously from the devotion of the people, and which nobody except the progressivists wanted and, certainly, no one requested or needed. Pius XII introduced a ceremony that had no precedent in the History of the Church: the washing of the feet of laymen during the Mass of Holy Thursday.
The mandatum was traditionally for clerics, a reflection of Christ washing the feet of the Apostles.
After many abuses we see, below, Francis washing the feet of Muslim & Hindu male & female refugees
![[Image: F127_refugee.jpg]](https://www.traditioninaction.org/HotTopics/HTimages_b-f/F127_refugee.jpg)
What is most disturbing about this innovation is that it originated from the most extreme wing of the Liturgical Movement, as Fr. Hermann Schmidt S.J., Professor of Liturgy at the Gregorianum, Rome, candidly admitted:
“It was during the Liturgical Congress at Lugano in 1953 that we proposed, not without opposition, putting the foot washing after the chanting of the Gospel at Mass. … It is a new evolution in the history of the mandatum. (3) [emphasis in the original]
The rubrics state that this can take place in the sanctuary (“in medio presbyterii”) after the homily. This is in marked contrast to the rubrics of the pre-1955 Missale Romanum, which stipulated that after the stripping of the altars, the clergy gathered together for the foot washing ceremony (conveniunt Clerici ad faciendum Mandatum). This was to take place in a specially designated area (in loco ad id deputato), which was usually a chapter house or a priest’s residence or a different part of the church building where the ceremony could be performed in privacy and without the participation of laymen.
The first point to note about Pius XII’s innovation is the cacophony of symbols it presents. In fact, when viewed against the backdrop of liturgical tradition, the whole ceremony abounds in anomaly.
This was the first papally sanctioned use of the sanctuary for the purposes of “active participation” by the laity. It may have seemed a small concession in 1955 and few people, then, realized the threat such an innovation posed to the priesthood. But History has shown that it acted as a snowball that gathered an unstoppable momentum until, with the proliferation of lay ministries in the liturgy in the 1970s, it completely submerged the uniqueness of the priesthood.
Clericalizing the Laity
Theologically, there ensued some adverse results, which could have been foreseen and avoided. By giving lay people privileges to enter the sanctuary and therein perform liturgical functions hitherto reserved for the clergy, Pius XII opened the way to undermining the role of the ordained ministers.
It was inevitable that the effect of this radical innovation would not only blur the distinction between the priest and the non-ordained members of the Church, but also create confusion over the architectural expression of that distinction: the sanctuary for the clergy and the nave for the people. And it is equally obvious that this weakened concept of the priesthood would, in turn, lead to the re-ordering of churches or the building of new ones to express the “new theology” that exalted the laity and diminished the role of the priest.
In short, the reformed Holy Thursday rite fails to invoke the spiritual connections that were inherent in the traditional liturgy and its supporting architecture, both of which helped reinforce what the priesthood means. It is also clear that this particular reform went hand in hand with the progressivists’ revolutionary ideas of what a church is, how it should function and what message it should proclaim: the democratization of the People of God.
Continued
Dr. Carol Byrne: A Series on the History of the Dialogue Mass
Laymen Introduced in the Foot Washing
Taken from here [slightly adapted - emphasis mine].
Before looking further into the phenomenon of lay people having their feet washed in the sanctuary, it would be useful to keep in mind the sort of thinking among the progressivists that led up to it.
Ever since Beauduin launched his famous dictum at the Malines Conference in 1909 about “active participation” as the right of the laity, his slanderous accusation gained ground through the Liturgical Movement that a dominating clergy had been for centuries unjustly depriving lay people of their rightful role in the liturgy.
When Pius XII came to the defense of the so-called lay “victims” by granting them more active roles in the liturgy, he was not only lending support to the reformers’ clerical-lay conflict theory, but also unwittingly creating conflict among the clergy. There were voices raised not only among the clergy, but also the laity against the various reforms of Holy Week. Where all this was leading to was the perfect Marxist-style bellum omnium contra omnes (war of all against all), which would be played out at Vatican II.
The Traditional Understanding of the Mandatum
As part of the liturgy of Holy Thursday, the Mandatum was, according to longstanding tradition, a ritual performed among priests, based on Christ’s example of washing the feet of the 12 Apostles at the Last Supper. It is not to be confused with the so-called “Mandatum of the Poor,” (1) an entirely separate ceremony that existed alongside its clerical counterpart. Whereas the latter included laymen, the former was a discreet service performed by clerics and for clerics away from the public gaze. Up to 1955, there was no official approval for either form of ablution to take place in the sanctuary or during the Mass of Holy Thursday.
The Pope washing the feet of other clergymen in the late 19th century
Here we are considering only the ancient tradition whereby a religious Superior (Pope, Bishop or Abbot) would wash the feet of clerics under his charge. It was always understood to be a ritual re-enactment of the actions of Christ when He washed the feet of the 12 Apostles to make them worthy of priestly service at the altar. (2)
The theological symbolism of the traditional ceremony spoke volumes about its meaning: it was a commemoration of the priesthood on the anniversary of its institution and, thus, intimately related to the Sacrament of Holy Orders. We will need to keep this in mind when we come to consider the inclusion of laymen in 1955 (and later lay women) into the ceremony.
The history of the Liturgical Movement has shown how the harmful nature of the reforms is never more sharply exposed than over the issue of lay “active participation” and the consequent steady diminution of the priesthood. The 1955 reform of the Mandatum is a good example of this baneful process, as it illustrates the reformers’ strategy of deconstructing a liturgical ritual and subverting its principles.
Bypassing the Mandatum’s Significance
In this they were aided by the Instruction issued by the Sacred Congregation of Rites, which accompanied Pius XII’s Decree Maxima Redemptionis introducing the Holy Week reforms in 1955.
At first the change allowed only laymen on the altar for the Mandatum on Holy Thursday
This Instruction, together with the rubrics of the new Ordo of Holy Week, acted as a sort of “game-changer” by introducing a new element into the Mandatum that would produce a significant change in its meaning. All the Instruction says about the foot washing is that it is a demonstration of Christ’s “fraternal love” and an example for the faithful to engage in acts of “Christian charity.” (3)
The inclusion of laymen (“viri selecti”) in what had hitherto been an all-clerical ceremony completely changed the way future generations of Catholics thought about Christ’s actions at the Last Supper when He washed the feet of His Apostles.
Small wonder that so many have lost sight of the fact that the original Mandatum was not intended for Christ’s followers in general, but only those whom He had personally called to the priesthood. How, then, could laymen be said to represent the Apostles in a ceremony that was meant to commemorate the institution of Holy Orders and the exercise of the priestly ministry?
Ratcheting up the Reform
To bestow this privilege upon laymen could only threaten to undermine the identity by which the priesthood is defined. This was an early phase of the reformers’ end-game strategy.
Before long, every abuse entered. Above, Card. Bergoglio washing the feet of an unwed mother;
below, with drug abusers
With it they turned the ratchet of liturgical confusion another notch. Having first stigmatized all priests as “elitist” who said the Mass in its entirety while the congregation remained silent, they turned the ratchet by promoting vocal participation as a “right” of the laity to say Mass with the priest. They turned it again when they persuaded Pius XII to allow laymen to enter the sanctuary and stand in the place of priests.
Thus, a precedent was set in 1955 for the post-Vatican II introduction of “lay ministries” to supplant the traditional role of the priest. Pius XII’s promotion of the foot washing of the laity became the emblem of the liturgical chaos that undermined the role of the priest. It matters not that the ceremony was only optional; its consequences were far reaching.
Once the principle had been breached and the essential meaning lost, secularism has made its way into the ranks of the priesthood and even into the sanctuary where priests always exercised their exclusive ministry. That which is supernatural and transcendent was made to yield to the democratic spirit of the modern age and adapt itself to an earthly end.
Hence the liturgical free-for-all we see today where literally everyone and anyone can have their feet washed in the name of equality, diversity and inclusiveness. As a result, the Mandatum has now turned into a political platform for immigration and other fashionable shibboleths, making a mockery of liturgical law, spirituality and tradition.
Absurd though it may be, this is just the logical conclusion of having reinvented the Mandatum as community service, (4) with the priest as social worker. Thus, we have arrived at a point where the priesthood is no longer honored in this rite as a supernatural benefit to the Church – as it had been honored since the early Middle Ages – but only insofar as it furthers the ideology of “equality” for all.
Continued
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| G.K. Chesterton: The Donkey |
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Posted by: Stone - 04-11-2022, 06:33 AM - Forum: Resources Online
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When fishes flew and forests walked
And figs grew upon thorn,
Some moment when the moon was blood
Then surely I was born.
With monstrous head and sickening cry
And ears like errant wings,
The devil’s walking parody
On all four-footed things.
The tattered outlaw of the earth,
Of ancient crooked will;
Starve, scourge, deride me: I am dumb,
I keep my secret still.
Fools! For I also had my hour;
One far fierce hour and sweet:
There was a shout about my ears,
And palms before my feet.
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| Pope calls for Easter truce in Ukraine leading to peace negotiations |
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Posted by: Stone - 04-11-2022, 06:23 AM - Forum: Pope Francis
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Pope calls for Easter truce in Ukraine leading to peace negotiations
![[Image: O4NLSQP7NFMZJFLGLAUPGGKBKQ.jpg]](https://www.reuters.com/resizer/NCuk_c178x8DFSKcBleYZjq53gc=/960x0/filters:quality(80)/cloudfront-us-east-2.images.arcpublishing.com/reuters/O4NLSQP7NFMZJFLGLAUPGGKBKQ.jpg)
Pope Francis leads the Palm Sunday Mass in Saint Peter's Square at the Vatican, April 10, 2022
VATICAN CITY, April 10 (Reuters) - Pope Francis on Sunday called for an Easter truce in Ukraine, leading to negotiations and peace. "Put the weapons down!" he said at the end of a Palm Sunday service for tens of thousands of people in St. Peter's Square.
"Let An Easter truce start. But not to rearm and resume combat but a truce to reach peace through real negotiations," he said.
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| Moderna recalls over three quarters of a million vaccine doses over contaminants |
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Posted by: Stone - 04-09-2022, 01:02 PM - Forum: Pandemic 2020 [Secular]
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Moderna recalls thousands of vaccine doses
A contaminated vial has prompted Moderna to recall more than 750,000 doses of its COVID-19 vaccine.
7news.com.au | April 8, 2022
Moderna is recalling more than 700,000 doses of its COVID-19 vaccine over a contaminated vial.
Moderna Inc is recalling 764,900 doses of its COVID-19 vaccine after a vial, made by its contract manufacturer Rovi, was found contaminated by a foreign body.
The doses were distributed in Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, and Sweden in January.
Moderna said the contamination was found in just one vial, and it was recalling the whole out of "an abundance of caution".
Moderna said it did not believe the contamination posed a risk to other vials in the lot.
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| Father Hewko's 30th Ordination Anniversary |
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Posted by: Stone - 04-09-2022, 11:19 AM - Forum: The Catacombs: News
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Deo Gratias!
April 21, 2022 will be the 30th Ordination Anniversary of Father David Hewko!
The faithful of the Our Lady of Fatima Chapel in Massachusetts are hosting a celebratory dinner for Father on
April 30th immediately following a 12:00PM Holy Mass in the Gardner, Massachusetts area.
If anyone is interested in joining them, please write to contact@thecatacombs.org by April 22nd to be added to the list of guests.
Please anticipate a $20-$25 price per plate
✠ ✠ ✠
From Pope St. Pius X's Apostolic Exhortation Haerent Animo (To the Catholic Clergy on Priestly Sanctity)
Quote: ... we exercise the priestly ministry not in our own name, but in the name of Jesus Christ. The Apostle said: "Let man so consider us as the ministers of Christ and the dispensers of the mysteries of God; for Christ, therefore, we are ambassadors." This is the reason that Christ has numbered us not among his servants but as his friends. "I will not now call you servants; . . . but I have called you friends, because all things whatsoever I have heard from my Father I have made known to you; . . . I have chosen you and appointed you that you should go and bring forth fruit."
... The admonition addressed to those who are about to be ordained priests is even more moving: "It is with great fear that one must approach this high dignity, and care must be taken that those chosen for it are recommended by heavenly wisdom, blameless life and sustained observance of justice . . . Let the fragrance of your life be a joy to the Church of Christ, so that by your preaching and example you may build up the house, that is, the family of God." Above all the Church stresses the solemn words: "Imitate that which you handle", an injunction which fully agrees with the command of St. Paul: "That we may present every man perfect in Jesus Christ."
![[Image: snip-Fr-H-pic-ordination.jpg]](https://sspxmc.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/snip-Fr-H-pic-ordination.jpg) Fr. Hewko's Ordination in 1992
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| Pope St. Pius X: Haerent Animo - To the Catholic Clergy on Priestly Sanctity |
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Posted by: Stone - 04-09-2022, 09:01 AM - Forum: Papal Documents and Bulls
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Apostolic Exhortation of Pope St. Pius X: Haerent Animo
To the Catholic Clergy on Priestly Sanctity
Given August 4, 1908
This Exhortation, which the Holy Father addressed to the Catholic clergy on the occasion of the Golden jubilee of his priesthood, was written entirety in his own hand in the space of some weeks. It is a document which truly comes from the heart of the Pontiff. In it he presents his ideal of the priesthood, and reveals the serious anxieties which he experienced at a time when the modernist crisis was still a source of perturbation to the clergy;[1] the Exhortation rounds off the numerous earlier instructions of the Holy Father. Saint Pius X was fond of recommending this Exhortation to the members of the episcopate: "This document, in which we opened our heart to all sacred ministers, make it your business to recall it and explain it for the benefit of the clerics for whom you are responsible. Besides, realize thoroughly and hold fast to this truth: when you have a body of clergy who conform to the ideal outlined in that Exhortation, you will certainly find your pastoral care greatly lightened, and the fruits of your apostolate will be much more abundant."[2]
Deeply imprinted upon our mind are those dread words which the Apostle of the gentiles wrote to the Hebrews to remind them of the obedience which they owed to their superiors: They keep watch as having to render an account of your souls.[3]
These grave words apply, no doubt, to all who have authority in the Church, but they apply in a special way to us who, despite our unworthiness, by the grace of God exercise supreme power within the Church. Therefore, with unceasing solicitude, our thoughts and endeavors are constantly directed to the promotion of the well-being and growth of the flock of the Lord.
Our first and chief concern is that all who are invested with the priestly ministry should be in every way fitted for the discharge of their responsibilities. For we are fully convinced that it is here that hope lies for the welfare and progress of religious life.
Hence it is that, ever since our elevation to the office of supreme Pontiff, we have felt it a duty, notwithstanding the manifest and numerous proofs of the high quality of the clergy as a whole, to urge with all earnestness our venerable brethren the bishops of the whole Catholic world, to devote themselves unceasingly and efficaciously to the formation of Christ in those who, by their calling, have the responsibility of forming Christ in others.[4]
We are well aware of the eagerness with which the episcopate have carried out this task. We know the watchful care and unwearied energy with which they seek to form the clergy in the ways of virtue, and for this we wish not so much to praise them as to render them public thanks.
But though it is a matter for congratulation that, as a result of the diligence of the bishops, so many priests are animated by heavenly fervor to rekindle or strengthen in their souls the flame of divine grace which they received by the imposition of hands, we must deplore the fact that there are others in different countries who do not show themselves worthy to be taken as models by the Christian people who rightly look to them for a genuine model of Christian virtue.[5]
It is to these priests that we wish to open our heart in this Letter; it is a father's loving heart which beats anxiously as he looks upon an ailing child. Our love for them inspires us to add our own appeal to the appeals of their own bishops. And while our appeal is intended above all to recall the erring to the right path and to spur the lukewarm to fresh endeavor, we would wish it to serve as an encouragement to others also. We point out the path which each one must strive to follow with constantly growing fervor, so that he may become truly a <man of God>,[6] as the Apostle so concisely expresses it, and fulfill the legitimate expectations of the Church.
We have nothing to say which you have not already heard, no doctrine to propound that is new to anyone; but we treat of matters which it is necessary for everyone to bear in mind, and God inspires us with the hope that our message will not fail to bear abundant fruit.
Our earnest appeal to you is this: <Be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new man, who according to God is created in justice and sanctity of truth;[7] that will be the most excellent and most acceptable gift which you could offer to us on this fiftieth anniversary of our ordination.
For our own part, when we review before God <with a contrite heart and in a spirit of humility>[8] the years passed in the priesthood, we will feel that we are making reparation in some measure for the human frailties which we have cause to regret, by thus admonishing and exhorting you to <walk worthily of God, in all things pleasing.>[9]
In this exhortation, it is not your personal welfare alone that we are striving to secure, but the common welfare of Catholic peoples; the one cannot be separated from the other. For the priest cannot be good or bad for himself alone; his conduct and way of life have far-reaching consequences for the people. A truly good priest is an immense gift wherever he may be.
I. THE OBLIGATION OF PRIESTLY SANCTITY
Therefore, beloved sons, we will begin this exhortation by stimulating you to that sanctity of life which the dignity of your office demands.
Anyone who exercises the priestly ministry exercises it not for himself alone, but for others. <For every high priest taken from among men is appointed for men in the things that pertain to God.>[10] Christ himself taught that lesson when he compared the priest to salt and to light, in order to show the nature of the priestly ministry. The priest then is the light of the world and the salt of the earth. Everyone knows that he fulfills this function chiefly by the teaching of Christian truth; and who can be unaware that this ministry of teaching is practically useless if the priest fails to confirm by the example of his life the truths which he teaches? Those who hear him might say, insultingly it is true, but not without justification: <They profess that they know God but in their works they deny him;>[11] they will refuse to accept his teaching and will derive no benefit from the light of the priest.
Christ himself, the model of priests, taught first by the example of his deeds and then by his words: <Jesus began to do and then to teach.>[12]
Likewise, a priest who neglects his own sanctification can never be the salt of the earth; what is corrupt and contaminated is utterly incapable of preserving from corruption; where sanctity is lacking, there corruption will inevitably find its way. Hence Christ, continuing this comparison, calls such priests salt that has lost its savor, <which is good for nothing any more, but to be cast out and to be trodden on by men.>[13]
These truths are all the more evident inasmuch as we exercise the priestly ministry not in our own name, but in the name of Jesus Christ. The Apostle said: <Let man so consider us as the ministers of Christ and the dispensers of the mysteries of God;[14] for Christ, therefore, we are ambassadors.>[15] This is the reason that Christ has numbered us not among his servants but as his friends. <I will not now call you servants; . . . but I have called you friends, because all things whatsoever I have heard from my Father I have made known to you; . . . I have chosen you and appointed you that you should go and bring forth fruit.>[16]
We have, therefore, to take the place of Christ: the mission which he has given to us we must fulfill with that same purpose that he intended. True friendship consists in unity of mind and will, identity of likes and dislikes; therefore, as friends of Jesus Christ, we are bound to have that mind in us which was in Jesus Christ who is <holy, innocent, undefiled.>[17] As his envoys, we must win the minds of men for his doctrine and his law by first observing them ourselves; sharing as we do in his power to deliver souls from the bondage of sin, we must strive by every means to avoid becoming entangled in these toils of sin.
But it is particularly as the ministers of Jesus Christ in the great sacrifice which is constantly renewed with abiding power for the salvation of the world, that we have the duty of conforming our minds to that spirit in which he offered himself as an unspotted victim to God on the altar of the Cross. In the Old Law, though victims were only shadowy figures and symbols, sanctity of a high degree was demanded of the priest; what then of us, now that the victim is Christ himself? "How pure should not he be who shares in this sacrifice! More resplendent than the sun must be the hand that divides this Flesh, the mouth that is filled with spiritual fire, the tongue that is reddened by this Blood!"[18]
Saint Charles Borromeo gave apt expression to this thought when, in his discourses to the clergy, he declared: "If we would only bear in mind, dearly beloved brethren, the exalted character of the things that the Lord God has placed in our hands, what unbounded influence would not this have in impelling us to lead lives worthy of ecclesiastics! Has not the Lord placed everything in my hand, when he put there his only-begotten Son, co-eternal and co-equal with himself? In my hand he has placed all his treasures, his sacraments, his graces; he has placed there souls, than whom nothing can be dearer to him; in his love he has preferred them to himself, and redeemed them by his Blood; he has placed heaven in my hand, and it is in my power to open and close it to others . . . How, then, can I be so ungrateful for such condescension and love as to sin against him, to offend his honor, to pollute this body which is his? How can I come to defile this high dignity, this life consecrated to his service?"
It is well to speak at greater length on this holiness of life, which is the object of the unfailing solicitude of the Church. This is the purpose for which seminaries have been founded; within their walls young men who hope to be priests are trained in letters and other branches of learning, but even more important is the training in piety which they also receive there from their tender years. And then, when the Church gradually and at long intervals promotes candidates to Orders, like a watchful parent she never fails to exhort them to sanctity.
It is a source of joy to recall her words on these occasions.
When we were first enrolled in the army of the Church, she sought from us the formal declaration: <The Lord is the portion of my inheritance and of my cup: it is thou that wilt restore my inheritance to me.>[19] St. Jerome tells us that with these words "the cleric is reminded that one who is the portion of the Lord, or who has the Lord as his portion, must show himself to be such a one as possesses the Lord and is possessed by him."[20]
How solemnly the Church addresses those who are about to be promoted sub-deacons! "You must consider repeatedly and with all attention the office which of your own volition you seek to-day . . . if you receive this Order, you cannot afterwards revoke your decision, you must remain always in the service of God and, with his help, observe chastity." And finally: "If up to now you have been negligent in relation to the Church, henceforth you must be diligent; if hitherto you have been somnolent, henceforth you must be vigilant . . . if up to now your life has been unseemly, henceforth you must be chaste; . . . Consider the ministry which is entrusted to you!" For those who are about to be raised to the diaconate, the Church prays to God through the mouth of the bishop: "May they have in abundance the pattern of every virtue, authority that is unassuming, constancy in chastity, the purity of innocence, and the observance of spiritual discipline. May thy commands shine forth through their conduct, and may the people find a saintly model in their exemplary chastity."
The admonition addressed to those who are about to be ordained priests is even more moving: "It is with great fear that one must approach this high dignity, and care must be taken that those chosen for it are recommended by heavenly wisdom, blameless life and sustained observance of justice . . . Let the fragrance of your life be a joy to the Church of Christ, so that by your preaching and example you may build up the house, that is, the family of God." Above all the Church stresses the solemn words: <Imitate that which you handle>, an injunction which fully agrees with the command of St. Paul: <That we may present every man perfect in Jesus Christ.>[21]
Since this is the mind of the Church on the life of a priest, one cannot be surprised at the complete unanimity of the Fathers and Doctors on this matter; it might indeed be thought that they are guilty of exaggeration, but a careful examination will lead to the conclusion that they taught nothing that was not entirely true and correct. Their teaching can be summarized thus: there should be as much difference between the priest and any other upright man as there is between heaven and earth; consequently, the priest must see to it that his life is free not merely from grave faults but even from the slightest faults.[22] The Council of Trent made the teaching of these venerable men its own when it warned clerics to avoid" even venial faults which in their case would be very grave."[23] These faults are grave, not in themselves, but in relation to the one who commits them; for to him, even more than to the sacred edifice, are applicable the words: <Holiness becometh thy house>.[23]a
II. NATURE OF PRIESTLY HOLINESS
We must now consider what is the nature of this sanctity, which the priest cannot lack without being culpable; ignorance or misunderstanding of it leaves one exposed to grave peril.
There are some who think, and even declare openly, that the true measure of the merits of a priest is his dedication to the service of others; consequently, with an almost complete disregard for the cultivation of the virtues which lead to the personal sanctification of the priest (these they describe as passive virtues), they assert that all his energies and fervor should be directed to the development and practice of what they call the active virtues. One can only be astonished by this gravely erroneous and pernicious teaching.
Our predecessor of happy memory in his wisdom spoke as follows of this teaching:[24] "To maintain that some Christian virtues are more suited to one period than to another is to forget the words of the Apostle: <Those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son>.[25] Christ is the teacher and the model of all sanctity; all who desire to take their place in the abode of the blessed must adapt their conduct to the standard which he has laid down. Now Christ does not change with the passing of the centuries: <He is the same yesterday and to-day and forever.>[26] The words: <Learn of me because I am meek and humble of heart,>[27] apply to men of every age; at all times Christ reveals himself <obedient unto death>;[28] true for every age are the words of the Apostle: <They that are Christ's have crucified the flesh, with the vices and concupiscences."[29]
These passages apply, no doubt, to all the faithful, but they apply more especially to priests. Let priests take as directed particularly to themselves the further words which were spoken by our predecessor in his apostolic zeal: "Would that at the present day there were many more who cultivated these virtues as did the saints of former times, who by their humility, their obedience, their abstinence, were mighty in work and word, to the great benefit not only of religion but also of public and civil life."[30]
It is not irrelevant to note here that Leo XIII in his wisdom made special mention of the virtue of abstinence, which we call self-denial, in the words of the Gospel. He was quite right to do so, for it is from self-denial chiefly that the strength and power and fruit of every priestly function derive; it is when this virtue is neglected that there appears in the priest's conduct whatever may be of a nature to cause offense to the eyes and hearts of the faithful. If one acts for the sake of filthy lucre, or becomes involved in worldly affairs,[31] or seeks for the highest places and despises others, or follows merely human counsel, or seeks to please men, or trusts in the persuasive words of human wisdom, this is the result of neglect of the command of Christ and of the refusal to accept the condition laid down by him: <If anyone will come after me, let him deny himself.>[32]
While insisting on these truths, we would likewise admonish the priest that in the last analysis, it is not for himself alone that he has to sanctify himself, for he is the workman whom Christ <went out . . . to hire into his vineyard.>[33] Therefore, it is his duty to uproot unfruitful plants and to sow useful ones, to water the crop and to guard lest the enemy sow cockle among it. Consequently, the priest must be careful not to allow an unbalanced concern for personal perfection to lead him to overlook any part of the duties of his office which are conducive to the welfare of others. These duties include the preaching of the word of God, the hearing of confessions, assisting the sick, especially the dying, the instruction of those who are ignorant of the faith, the consolation of the sorrowing, leading back the erring, in a word, the imitation in every respect of Christ <who went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed by the devil.>[34]
In the midst of all these duties, the priest shall have ever present to his mind the striking admonition given by St. Paul: <Neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase.>[35] It may be that we go and sow the seed with tears; it may be that we tend its growth at the cost of heavy labor; but to make it germinate and yield the hoped for fruit, that depends on God alone and his powerful assistance. This further point also is worthy of profound consideration, namely that men are but the instruments whom God employs for the salvation of souls; they must, therefore, be instruments fit to be employed by God. And how is this to be achieved? Do we imagine that God is influenced by any inborn or acquired excellence of ours, to make use of our help for the extension of his glory? By no means; for it is written: <God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, and the weak things of the world God has chosen to confound the strong, and the humble and contemptible things of the world God has chosen, the things that are not, in order to bring to nought the things that are.>[36]
There is, indeed, only one thing that unites man to God, one thing that makes him pleasing to God and a not unworthy dispenser of his mercy; and that one thing is holiness of life and conduct. If this holiness, which is the true super-eminent knowledge of Jesus Christ, is wanting in the priest, then everything is wanting. Without this, even the resources of profound learning (which we strive to promote among the clergy), or exceptional competence in practical affairs, though they may bring some benefit to the Church or to individuals, are not infrequently the cause of deplorable damage to them.
On the other hand, there is abundant evidence from every age that even the humblest priest, provided his life has the adornment of overflowing sanctity, can undertake and accomplish marvelous works for the spiritual welfare of the people of God; an outstanding example in recent times is John Baptist Vianney, a model pastor of souls, to whom we are happy to have decreed the honors of the Blessed in heaven.[37]
Sanctity alone makes us what our divine vocation demands, men crucified to the world and to whom the world has been crucified, men walking in newness of life who, in the words of St. Paul, show themselves as ministers of God <in labors, in vigils, in fasting, in chastity, in knowledge, in long-suffering, in kindness, in the Holy Spirit, in sincere charity, in the word of truth;>[38] men who seek only heavenly things and strive by every means to lead others to them.
III. MEANS OF ACQUIRING PRIESTLY SANCTITY
1. PRAYER, AN ESSENTIAL CONDITION OF SANCTITY.
Since, as everyone realizes, holiness of life is the fruit of the exercise of the will inasmuch as it is strengthened by the aid of divine grace, God has made abundant provision lest we should at any time lack the gift of grace, if we desire it. We can obtain it, in the first place, by constant prayer.
There is, in fact, such a necessary link between holiness and prayer that the one cannot exist without the other.
The words of Chrysostom on this matter are an exact expression of the truth: "I consider that it is obvious to everyone that it is impossible to live virtuously without the aid of prayer;"[39] and Augustine sums up shrewdly: "He truly knows how to live rightly, who rightly knows how to pray."[40]
Christ himself, by his constant exhortations and especially by his example, has even more firmly inculcated these truths. To pray he withdrew into desert places or climbed the mountain alone; he spent whole nights absorbed in prayer; he paid many visits to the temple; even when the crowds thronged around him, he raised his eyes to heaven and prayed openly before them; when nailed to the Cross, in the agony of death, he supplicated the Father with a strong cry and tears.
Let us be convinced, therefore, that a priest must be specially devoted to the practice of prayer if he is to maintain worthily his dignity and to fulfill his duty. All too frequently one must deplore the fact that prayer is a matter of routine rather than of genuine fervor; the Psalms are recited at the appointed times[41] in a negligent manner, a few short prayers are said in between; there is no further thought of consecrating part of the day to speaking with God, with pious aspirations to him. And it is the priest, more than any other, who is bound to obey scrupulously the command of Christ: <We ought always pray,>[42] a command which Paul so insistently inculcated: <Be instant in prayer, watching in it with thanksgiving;[43] pray without ceasing.>[44]
How numerous are the opportunities of turning to God in prayer which present themselves daily to the soul which is eager for its own sanctification and the salvation of others! Anguish of soul, the persistent onslaught of temptation, our lack of virtue, slackness and failure in our works, our many offenses and negligences, fear of the divine judgment, all these should move us to approach the Lord with tears, in order to obtain help from him and also to increase without difficulty the treasure of our merit in his eyes.
Nor should our tearful supplication be for ourselves alone. In the deluge of crime, which spreads far and wide, we especially should implore and pray for divine clemency; we should appeal insistently to Christ who in his infinite mercy lavishes his graces in his wonderful Sacrament: <Spare, O Lord, spare thy people>.
2. THE OBLIGATION OF DAILY MEDITATION
A point of capital importance is that a certain time should be given daily to meditation on the eternal truths. No priest can neglect this practice without incurring a grave charge of negligence and without detriment to his soul. The saintly abbot, Bernard, when writing to Eugene III, his former pupil who had become Roman Pontiff, frankly and emphatically admonished him never to omit daily divine meditation; he would not admit as an excusing cause even the many weighty cares which the supreme pontificate involves. In justification of this advice he enumerated with great prudence the benefits of the practice of meditation: "Meditation purifies the source from which it comes, the mind. It controls affections, guides our acts, corrects excesses, rules our conduct, introduces order and dignity into our lives; it bestows understanding of things divine and human. It brings clarity where there is confusion, binds what is torn apart, gathers what is scattered, investigates what is hidden, seeks out the truth, weighs what has the appearance of truth, and shows up what is pretense and falsehood. It plans future action and reviews the past, so that nothing remains in the mind that has not been corrected or that stands in need of correction. When affairs are prospering it anticipates the onset of adversity, and when adversity comes it seems not to feel it, in this it displays in turn prudence and fortitude."[45]
This summary of the benefits which meditation is calculated to bring is an instructive reminder not only of its salutary effect in every department, but also of its absolute necessity.
Despite the high dignity of the various functions of the priestly office and the veneration which they deserve, frequent exercise of these functions may lead those who discharge them to treat them with less respect than is their due. From a gradual decline in fervor it is an easy step to carelessness and even to distaste for the most sacred things. In addition, a priest cannot avoid daily contact with a corrupt society; frequently, in the very exercise of pastoral charity, he must fear the insidious attacks of the infernal serpent. Is it not all too easy even for religious souls to be tarnished by contact with the world?[46]
It is evident, therefore, that there is a grave and urgent need for the priest to turn daily to the contemplation of the eternal truths, so that his mind and will may gain new strength to stand firm against every enticement to evil.
Moreover, it is the strict duty of the priest to have a mind for heavenly things, to teach them, to inculcate them; in the regulation of his whole life he must be so much superior to human considerations that whatever he does in the discharge of his sacred office will be done in accordance with God, under the impulse and guidance of faith; it is fitting then that he should possess a certain aptitude to rise above earthly considerations and strive for heavenly things. Nothing is more conducive to the acquisition and strengthening of this disposition of soul, this quasi-natural union with God, than daily meditation; it is unnecessary to dwell upon this truth which every prudent person clearly realizes.
The life of a priest who underestimates the value of meditation, or has lost all taste for it, provides a sad confirmation of what we have been saying. Let your eyes dwell on the spectacle of men in whom the <mind of Christ>, that supremely precious gift, has grown weak; their thoughts are all on earthly things, they are engaged in vain pursuits, their words are so much unimportant chatter; in the performance of their sacred functions they are careless, cold, perhaps even unworthy. Formerly, these same men, with the oil of priestly ordination still fresh upon them, diligently prepared themselves for the recitation of the Psalms, lest they should be like men who tempt God; they sought a time and place free from disturbance; they endeavored to grasp the divine meaning; in union with the psalmist they poured forth their soul in songs of praise, sorrow and rejoicing. But now, what a change has taken place!
In like manner, little now remains of that lively devotion which they felt towards the divine mysteries. Formerly, how beloved were those tabernacles![47] It was their delight to be present at the table of the Lord, to invite more and more pious souls to that banquet! Before Mass, what purity, what earnestness in the prayers of a loving heart! How great reverence in the celebration of Mass, with complete observance of the august rites in all their beauty! What sincerity in thanksgiving! And the sweet perfume of Christ was diffused over their people! We beg of you, beloved sons: <Call to mind . . . the former days>;[48] for then your soul was burning with zeal, being nourished by holy meditation.
Some of those who find <recollection of the heart>[49] a burden, or entirely neglect it, do not seek to disguise the impoverishment of soul which results from their attitude, but they try to excuse themselves on the pretext that they are completely occupied by the activity of their ministry, to the manifold benefit of others.
They are gravely mistaken. For as they are unaccustomed to converse with God, their words completely lack the inspiration which comes from God when they speak to men about God or inculcate the counsels of the Christian life; it is as if the message of the Gospel were practically dead in them. However distinguished for prudence and eloquence, their speech does not echo the voice of the good Shepherd which the sheep hear to their spiritual profit; it is mere sound which goes forth without fruit, and sometimes gives a pernicious example to the disgrace of religion and the scandal of the good.
It is the same in other spheres of their activity; there can be no solid achievement, nothing of lasting benefit, in the absence of the heavenly dew which is brought down in abundance by the <prayer of the man who humbles himself.>[50]
At this point we cannot refrain from referring with sorrow to those who, carried away by pernicious novelties, dare to maintain a contrary opinion, and to hold that time devoted to meditation and prayer is wasted. What calamitous blindness! Would that such people would take thought seriously with themselves and realize whither this neglect and contempt of prayer leads. From it have sprung pride and stubbornness; and these have produced those bitter fruits which in our paternal love we hesitate to mention and most earnestly desire to remove completely.[51]
May God answer this our prayer: may he look down with kindness on those who have strayed, and pour forth on them the "spirit of grace and of prayer" in such abundance that they may repent of their error and, of their own will and to the joy of all, return to the path which they wrongly abandoned, and henceforth follow it with greater care. God himself be witness, as he was to the Apostle, of how we long for them all with the love of Jesus Christ.[52]
Beloved sons, may this our exhortation, which is none other than the exhortation of Christ our Lord: <Be watchful, be vigilant and pray,>[53] be deeply engraven in their hearts and in yours. Let each one diligently apply himself above all to the practice of pious meditation; let him do so with sincere confidence, constantly repeating the words: <Lord teach us to pray.>[54] There is a special, very important reason which should urge us to meditation; it is that meditation is a rich source of the wisdom and virtue which are so useful in the supremely difficult task of caring for souls.
The pastoral address of St. Charles Borromeo is relevant here and is worth recalling: "Realize, my brethren, that nothing is so necessary to an ecclesiastic as mental prayer before, during and after all our actions. <I will sing>, said the prophet, <and I will understand>.[55] If administering the sacraments, my brother, meditate on what you are doing; if celebrating Mass, ponder on what you are offering; in reciting the Psalms, reflect on what you are saying and to whom you are speaking; if directing souls, reflect on the Blood with which they were washed."[56]
Therefore, it is with good reason that the Church commends us to repeat frequently the sentiments of David: <Blessed is the man who meditates in the law of the Lord, whose desire is upon it night and day; everything that he does shall prosper.>[57]
There is one final motive which can be regarded as comprising all the others. If the priest is called "another Christ" and is truly such by reason of his sharing in Christ's power, should he not also become and be recognized as another Christ through imitation of Christ's deeds? "Let it be our principal study to meditate upon the life of Jesus Christ."[58]
3. SPIRITUAL READING
It is of great importance that the priest should combine his daily divine meditation with the constant reading of pious books, especially the inspired books. That was the command that Paul gave to Timothy: <Attend unto reading.>[59] The same lesson was taught by St. Jerome when instructing Nepotianus on the priestly life: "Never let the sacred book leave your hands"; and he gave the following reason for his advice: "Learn that which you are to teach; holding to that faithful word which conforms to doctrine, that you may be able to exhort with sound doctrine, and refute the opponents." What great advantages are gained by priests who are faithful to this practice! With what unction they preach Christ! Far from flattering and soothing the hearts and minds of their audience, they stimulate them to better things, and arouse in them the desire of heavenly things.
The command of St. Jerome: "Let the sacred books be always in your hands,"[60] is important for another reason also, a reason which concerns your own personal welfare.
Everyone knows the great influence that is exerted by the voice of a friend who gives candid advice, assists by his counsel, corrects, encourages and leads one away from error. <Blessed is the man who has found a true friend;[61] he that has found him has found a treasure.>[62] We should, then, count pious books among our true friends. They solemnly remind us of our duties and of the prescriptions of legitimate discipline; they arouse the heavenly voices that were stifled in our souls; they rid our resolutions of listlessness; they disturb our deceitful complacency; they show the true nature of less worthy affections to which we have sought to close our eyes; they bring to light the many dangers which beset the path of the imprudent. They render all these services with such kindly discretion that they prove themselves to be not only our friends, but the very best of friends. They are always at hand, constantly beside us to assist us in the needs of our souls; their voice is never harsh, their advice is never self-seeking, their words are never timid or deceitful.
There are many striking examples of the salutary effects of the reading of pious books. Outstanding is the case of Augustine whose great services to the Church had their origin in such reading: "Take, read; take, read; I took (the epistles of Paul the Apostle), I opened, I read in silence; it was as though the darkness of all my doubting was driven away by the light of peace which had entered my soul."[63]
In our own day, alas! it is the contrary that happens all too frequently. Members of the clergy allow their minds to be overcome gradually by the darkness of doubt and turn aside to worldly pursuits; the chief reason for this is that they prefer to read a variety of other works and newspapers, which are full of cunningly propounded errors and corruption, rather than the divine books and other pious literature.
Be on your guard, beloved sons; do not trust in your experience and mature years, do not be deluded by the vain hope that you can thus better serve the general good. Do not transgress the limits which are determined by the laws of the Church, nor go beyond what is suggested by prudence and charity towards oneself. Anyone who admits this poison into his soul will rarely escape the disastrous consequences of the evil thus introduced.
4. EXAMINATION OF CONSCIENCE
The benefits to be derived from spiritual reading and meditation will certainly be more abundant if the priest supplements them by an examination which will enable him to discern whether he is striving conscientiously to put into practice what he has learned in his reading and meditation.
Particularly relevant in this context is the excellent advice of Chrysostom which was intended especially for priests. Every night before going to sleep, "make your conscience appear in judgment; demand of it an account, and having thoroughly probed and dissected whatever evil purposes you formed during the day, repent for them."[64]
The excellence of this practice and its fruitfulness for Christian virtue are clearly established by the teaching of the great masters of the spiritual life. We are pleased to quote that remarkable passage from the rule of St. Bernard: "As a searching investigator of the integrity of your own conduct, submit your life to a daily examination. Consider carefully what progress you have made or what ground you have lost . . . Strive to know yourself . . . Place all your faults before your eyes. Come face to face with yourself, as though you were another person, and then weep for your faults."[65]
It would be shameful, indeed, were we to see verified in this matter the words of Christ: <The children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of light.>[66] You know with what assiduity the children of this world manage their affairs, how often they compare income with expenses, how carefully and strictly they balance their accounts, how they grieve over their losses, and drive themselves on to make them good.[67] We, on the other hand, though perhaps our hearts are eager for gaining honors, for increasing our wealth, or for the mere winning of renown and glory by our learning, are listless and without inclination for the supremely important and difficult task of achieving our own sanctification. Rarely do we take time for recollection and submit our souls to scrutiny; our soul has become overgrown like the vineyard of the slothful man, of which it is written: <I passed by the field of the slothful man and by the vineyard of the foolish man; and behold with nettles it was all filled, and thorns had covered the face thereof, and the stone wall was broken down.>[68]
The situation is aggravated by the fact that all round us we see the multiplication of evil example which is a menace to priestly virtue itself every day calls for even greater vigilance and fresh endeavor.
Experience shows that the man who frequently subjects his thoughts, words and actions to a strict examination, gains new strength of soul both to detest and fly from evil and to desire and strive for the good.
It is also shown by experience that one who refuses to appear before the tribunal where justice sits in judgment, and conscience appears at once as the accused and the accuser, usually suffers grave loss and disadvantage thereby. Vainly too will one seek in the conduct of such a person for that circumspection, so highly prized in the Christian, that tries to avoid even venial faults, or that sense of reverence, so becoming in a priest, which shudders at even the slightest offense to God.
This carelessness and indifference to one's own welfare sometimes go so far as to lead to neglect even of the sacrament of Penance, which Christ, in his great mercy, has given us as a most timely aid to human weakness.
It cannot be denied, and it is bitterly to be deplored, that not infrequently one finds priests who use the thunders of their eloquence to frighten others from sin, but seem to have no such fear for themselves and become hardened in their faults; a priest who exhorts and arouses others to wash away without delay the stains from their souls by due religious acts, is himself so sluggish in doing this that he delays even for months; he who knows how to pour the health-giving oil and wine into the wounds of others is himself content to lie wounded by the wayside, and lacks the prudence to call for the saving hand of a brother which is almost within his grasp. In the past and even to-day, in different places, what great evils have resulted from this, bringing dishonor to God and the Church, injuring the Christian flock and disgracing the priesthood!
For our own part, beloved sons, when we reflect upon these matters, as is our bounden duty, we are overcome with grief and our voice breaks into lamentation.
Woe to the priest who fails to respect his high dignity, and defiles by his infidelities the name of the holy God for whom he is bound to be holy. <Corruptio optimi pessima>. "Sublime is the dignity of the priest, but great is his fall, if he is guilty of sin; let us rejoice for the high honor, but let us fear for them lest they fall; great is the joy that they have scaled the heights, but it is insignificant compared with the sorrow of their fall from on high."[69]
Woe then to the priest who so far forgets himself that he abandons the practice of prayer, rejects the nourishment of spiritual reading and never turns his attention inwards upon himself to hear the accusing voice of conscience. Neither the festering wounds on his conscience, nor even the tearful pleas of his mother the Church, will move such an unfortunate priest until those fearsome threats come upon him: <Blind the heart of this people, make dull their ears, and close their eyes, lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart and be converted and I should heal them.>[70]
May God in his bounteous mercy grant that these ominous words may never be true of any of you, beloved sons; he knows what is in our heart, he sees that it is free from rancor towards anyone, and that it is inflamed with pastoral zeal and paternal love for all: <For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of glory? Is it not you, in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ?>[71]
IV. PRIESTLY VIRTUES
You all know very well, wherever you may be, the difficult period through which, in the mysterious design of God, the Church is now passing. Consider likewise and ponder on the sacred duty which is yours to stand by and to assist in her struggles the Church which has bestowed upon you an office of such exalted dignity.
Now more than ever the clergy need to be men of more than ordinary virtue, virtue that is a shining example, eager, active, ever ready to do great things for Christ and to suffer much. There is nothing that we more ardently ask from God and desire for each and everyone of you.
May chastity, the choicest ornament of our priesthood, flourish undimmed amongst you; through the splendor of this virtue, by which the priest is made like the angels, the priest wins greater veneration among the Christian flock, and his ministry yields an even greater harvest of holiness.
May the reverence and obedience which you solemnly pledged to those whom the Holy Spirit has appointed to rule the Church, increase and gain strength; and especially, may your minds and hearts be linked by ever closer ties of loyalty to this Apostolic See which justly claims your respectful homage.
May all of you excel in charity-a charity that never seeks what is its own; when you have mastered the human incentives of jealous rivalry and self-seeking ambition, let all together in fraternal emulation strive for the glory of God.
<A great multitude of sick, blind, lame and paralytics,>[72] in abject misery, awaits the benefits of your charity; the youth above all, those countless young people who are the dearest hope of society and religion, it is they, menaced as they are by error and corrupting influences, who especially stand in need of your charitable activity.
Strive eagerly not only by means of catechetical instruction-which once more with even greater earnestness we commend to you-but by unsparing use of all the resources of wisdom and skill at your command, to deserve well of all. Whether your immediate task be to assist, to protect, to heal, to make peace, let your one aim and most ardent desire be to win or to secure souls for Christ. How unwearied, how industrious, how fearless are Christ's enemies in their activities, to the immeasurable loss of souls!
The Catholic Church rejoices in and is proud of the charity beyond praise which inspires the clergy to proclaim the Gospel of Christian peace and to bring the blessings of salvation and civilization even to barbarous races; through their unsparing labor, sometimes consecrated by their blood, the kingdom of Christ is expanding constantly and the Christian faith gains added splendor from these new triumphs.
If, beloved sons, the unsparing charity of your efforts is met by jealousy, reproaches and calumnies as frequently happens, do not allow yourselves to be overcome with sadness: <Do not tire in doing good.>[73]
Let your mind dwell on those countless great figures who, following the example of the Apostles, even in the midst of cruel insults borne for the name of Christ, <went rejoicing, blessing those who cursed them.>[74]
For we are the children and the brethren of the saints, whose names shine in the book of life, and whose praises the Church proclaims: <Let us not stain our glory.>[75]
COUNSELS OF PRIESTLY PERFECTION
When the spirit of the grace of the priesthood has been restored and strengthened in the ranks of the clergy, our other proposals for reform, of whatever kind they may be, will with God's help prove much more successful.
For this reason we have thought it well to supplement what we have already said by some points of practical advice which will give you timely aid to preserve and nourish the grace of your priesthood.
First, there is the pious retreat during which the soul devotes itself to spiritual exercises, as they are called. These exercises are known and approved by all, though not everyone puts them into practice; there should, if possible, be a yearly retreat, performed either alone or, preferably, in common with others, the second method being usually more productive of good results, without prejudice to episcopal regulations. We ourselves have already spoken in praise of the advantages to be derived from a retreat, on the occasion when we issued certain decrees on this subject bearing on the discipline of the clergy of Rome.[76]
It will be no less profitable for souls, if a similar retreat lasting a few hours is performed each month either privately or with others. We are happy to note that in many places a custom of this kind has already been introduced, with the encouragement of the bishops who sometimes preside over the group assembled for retreat.
Another suggestion which we warmly recommend is that priests, as befits brothers, should form a closer union among themselves, with the approval and under the direction of the bishop. It is strongly to be recommended that they should form an association in order to help one another in adversity, to defend the honor of their name and office against attack, and for other similar objects. But it is even more important that they should form an association with a view to the cultivation of sacred learning, particularly in order to apply themselves with greater solicitude to the object of their vocation and to promote the welfare of souls by concerting their ideas and their efforts. The annals of the Church show that at times when priests generally lived in a form of common life, this association produced many good results. Why might not one re-establish in our own day something of the kind, with due attention to differences of country and priestly duties? Might not one justifiably hope, and the Church would rejoice at it, that such an institution would yield the same good results as formerly?
There are, indeed, associations of this kind which enjoy episcopal approval; and the advantages they confer are all the greater if one becomes a member early in life, in the very first years of the priesthood. We ourselves have had practical experience of the worth of one such association and fostered it during our episcopate; even still we continue to show special consideration to it and others.[77]
Beloved sons, it is your duty to value highly and to apply these aids to priestly grace and such other means as the watchful prudence of your bishops may suggest from time to time; thus with each passing day you will walk more <worthily of the vocation in which you are called,>[78] honoring your ministry and accomplishing in yourselves the will of God, that is, <your sanctification>.
FINAL EXHORTATION
Your sanctification has, indeed, first place in our thoughts and in our cares; therefore, with our eyes raised to heaven, we frequently pray for the whole clergy, repeating the words of Christ, our Lord: <Holy Father . . . sanctify them.>[79]
It is a source of joy to us that we are joined in that prayer by very many from among the faithful of every condition who are gravely concerned for your welfare and that of the Church; it is no less a source of joy that there are many generous souls, not only within the cloister but in the midst of the busy world, who offer themselves continuously as victims to God for the same object.
May the Lord graciously deign to accept, as a sweet perfume, their pure and sublime prayers, and may he not refuse our own humble supplication; we implore him, in his merciful providence, to come to our aid, and may he pour forth upon all the clergy the riches of grace, charity and virtue which repose in the most pure Heart of his beloved Son.
Finally, beloved sons, we are happy to express our heartfelt thanks for the manifold expressions of good wishes, inspired by filial piety, which were offered by you on the approach of the fiftieth anniversary of our ordination. The good wishes which we convey to you in return, we entrust to the care of the great Virgin Mother, Queen of Apostles, in order that they may be fulfilled even more abundantly.[80]
It was she who by her example showed the Apostles, who were the first to share the blessing of the priesthood, how they should persevere with one mind in prayer until they were clothed with power from on high; by her prayers she secured that power for them in more abundant measure, she increased and strengthened it by her counsel, so that their labors were abundantly blessed.
Beloved sons, we pray that the peace of Christ may reign in your hearts with the joy of the Holy Spirit; as a pledge of this we bestow on all with the deepest affection the Apostolic benediction.
Given in Rome, at St. Peter's, 4 August 1908, at the beginning of the sixth year of our pontificate.
ENDNOTES
1 The Exhortation <Haerent Animo> (4 August 1908. ASS XLI, p. 555-557) takes its place between the Encyclical <Pascendi> (8 September 1907) and the Motu Proprio <Sacrorum Antistitum> (1 September 1910); cf. nn. 108, 192.
2 Letter to the episcopate of Brazil (18 December 1910. AAS III (1911), p. 312).
3 Hebr. 13:17.
4 Encyclical <Supremi Apostolatus>: cf. supra n. 24.
5 The same thought had been expressed by St. Pius X in the Letter concerning clerical discipline addressed to Cardinal Respighi (5 May 1904) "The restoration of all things in Christ which, with God's help, we have made it our purpose to achieve in the government of the Church, demands-as we have more than once shown-proper formation of the clergy, testing of vocations, examination of the integrity of life of the candidates, and prudence lest there be excessive leniency in opening to them the doors of the sanctuary. To bring about the reign of Jesus Christ in the world, nothing is more essential than a saintly clergy who, by their example, their preaching and their learning will be the guides of the faithful; an old proverb says that the people will always be like their priests: <Sicut sacerdos, sic populus>. Indeed we read in the Council of Trent.
Nothing is more effective in training to piety and the worship of God than the life and example of those who are consecrated to the divine ministry; cut off from the world and its affairs, clerics are on a pedestal where they can be seen, and men look into their lives as into a mirror in which they may see what they are to imitate'" (Sess. XXII, c. I, <de Reform.> ASS XXXVI, p. 655); cf. <supra,> n. 7.
6. I Tim. 6:11.
7 Ephes. 4: 23-24.
8 Dan. 3:39.
9 Col. 1:10.
10 Hebr. 5:1.
11 Tit. 1:16.
12 Acts 1:1.
13 Mt. 5:13.
14 I Cor. 4:1.
15 I. Cor. 5:20.
16 Jn. 15:15-16.
17 Hebr. 7:26.
18 S. John Chrysostom, Hom. LXXXII <in Matth.,> n. 5: cf. <supra,> n. 68.
19 Ps. 15:5.
20 Ep. LII, <ad Nepotianum>, n. 5.
21 Col. 1:28.
22 Cf. <supra,> n. 70.
23 Sess. XXII, <de Reform.>, c. I.
23a Ps. 92:5.
24 Letter <Testem Benevolentiae> to the Archbishop of Baltimore (22 January 1899. ASS XXXI, p. 476) condemning "Americanism."
25 Rom. 8:29.
26 Hebr. 13:8.
27 Mt. 11:29.
28 Phil. 2:8.
29 Gal. 5:24.
30 Leo XIII, <loc. cit.>
31 Cf. Decree of Sacred Cong. Consistory (18 November 1910) forbidding priests to take over the temporal administration of profane societies or institutions: "In our own day, by God's grace many institutions have been founded in the Catholic world with the object of assisting the faithful in their temporal needs, notably banks, credit unions, rural banks, savings banks. The clergy should entirely approve and show favor to these various undertakings. But it is not right that they should divert clerics from the duties of their state and office, involve them in material affairs and leave them exposed to the cares, anxieties and dangers which are inseparable from these occupations.
For this reason our Holy Father, Pius X, while recommending the clergy not to spare their efforts and advice in the foundation, support and development of these institutions, forbids absolutely by the present decree that clerics, whether secular or regular, should assume positions which involve administrative charges and obligations with their consequent dangers: for example, the function of president, director, secretary, treasurer and similar posts" (AAS II (1910), p. 910).
32 Mt. 16:24.
33 Mt. 20:1.
34 Acts 10:38.
35 1 Cor. 3:7.
36 I Cor. 1:27-28.
37 Cf. <supra,> n. 32.
38 II Cor. 6:5-6.
39 <De precatione, orat.> I.
40 <Hom.> IV.
41 Cf. Apostolic Constitution <Divino Afflatu,> 1 November 1911, on the new arrangement of the Psalter in the Roman breviary (AAS III (1911), pp. 633-638). The same pastoral and spiritual concern is evident in that document.
42 Lk. 18:1.
43 Col. 4:2.
44 1 Thess. 5:17.
45 <De Consid.> L. I, ch. vii.
46 Cf. <supra>, n. 61.
47 Cf. Ps. 83:2.
48 Hebr. 10:32.
49 Jer. 12:11.
50 Ecclus. 35:21.
51 Cf. <supra>, n. 112.
52 Cf. Phil. 1 8.
53 Mk. 13:33.
54 Lk. 11:1.
55 Ps. 100:1-2.
56 St. Charles Borromeo, <ex orationibus ad clerum>.
57 Ps. 1:1 ff.
58 <Imitation of Christ>, 1:1.
59 1 Tim. 4:13.
60 <Ep.> LVIII <ad Paulinum>, n. 6.
61 Ecclus. 25:12.
62 Ecclus. 6:14.
63 <Confessions>, L. VIII, C. 12.
64 <Exposit. in Ps.> 4, n. 8.
65 <Meditationes piissimae>, c. V, <de Quotid. sui ipsius exam>.
66 Lk. 16:8.
67 Cf. <supra>, n. 63.
68 Prov. 24:30-31.
69 St. Jerome, <in Ezech.>, L. xiii, 44, v. 30.
70 Is. 6:10.
71 Thess. 2:19.
72 Jn. 5:3.
73 II Thess. 3:13
74 Cf. I Cor. 4:12. The Pope had written in similar terms to the French episcopate immediately after the Law of Separation: "The clergy of France will understand that in this difficult situation they must make their own the sentiments of the Apostles who rejoiced that they were thought worthy to suffer insults for the name of Jesus (Acts 5:41). They will, therefore, courageously assert the rights and liberty of the Church, but without giving offense to anyone. Nay more, in their concern for the law of charity, to which they are particularly bound as ministers of Jesus Christ, they will meet injustice with justice, counter insults by gentleness, and answer ill-usage by kindness" (Encyclical <Vehementer Nos.> 11 February 1906. ASS XXXIX, p. 14).
75 1 Macc. 9:10.
76 Letter <Experiendo> to the Cardinal Vicar of Rome, 27 December 1904 (cf. <supra>, n. 58). St. Pius X frequently gave the practice of retreats first place among the means of perseverance and sanctification which he recommended to the clergy (cf. Letter to the bishops of Brazil, 18 December 1910. AAS III (1911), pp. 311-312).
77 The reference is to the <Apostolic Union>. At the very beginning of his pontificate, in the Brief <Cum Nobis> (28 December 1903), St. Pius X had recommended it and enriched it with numerous spiritual favors: "We ourselves were at one time attached to this Institute: we have had practical experience of its utility and excellence and have made a point of continuing to share in its benefits, even after our elevation to the dignity of the episcopate. By offering to all associates a uniform rule of life, with monthly meetings and spiritual conferences, a regular account of one's personal life to be submitted to superiors and a number of other charitable and beneficial relations, the Apostolic Union secures and strengthens the unity of the clergy and links in spiritual brotherhood priests who are widely separated.... In these conditions, each priest applies himself to the welfare and perfection of all and, though the cares of his ministry do not allow him to enjoy the advantages of living in common, he does not feel deprived of the benefit of a spiritual family and he does not want either for advice or the assistance of his brethren" (ASS XXXVI, p. 596).
78 Eph. 4:1.
79 Jn. 17:11 and 17.
80 Cf. Apostolic Letter <Plane Compertum est>. 21 May 1912, erecting the Arch-confraternity of Mary, Queen of the Clergy, in the church of St. Nicholas du Chardonnet, Paris (AAS IV (1912), p. 439).
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| Hospital Refuses Father-To-Son Kidney Transplant Over COVID Jab |
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Posted by: Stone - 04-08-2022, 06:35 AM - Forum: General Commentary
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Hospital Refuses Father-To-Son Kidney Transplant Over COVID Jab
![[Image: kidney.jpeg?itok=pOS9UW8I]](https://assets.zerohedge.com/s3fs-public/styles/inline_image_mobile/public/inline-images/kidney.jpeg?itok=pOS9UW8I)
Dane Donaldson ®, with his wife Jenn and sons Ryder and Tanner, who is 9 years old and requires a kidney transplant. (Courtesy of Dane Donaldson)
ZH | APR 07, 2022
Authored by Alice Giordano via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
A 9-year-old boy is being denied a life-saving kidney transplant because his father is not vaccinated against COVID-19.
Dane Donaldson was found to be a perfect match for his son Tanner back in early 2018 by the Cleveland Clinic Children’s Hospital before the outbreak of the pandemic.
The family decided to wait a little longer before having Tanner undergo the transplant since transplanted kidneys from a live donor only lasted about 20 years.
Then COVID-19 hit and put a freeze on the procedure.
Now the hospital is refusing to perform the life-saving father-to-son kidney transplant it agreed to do nearly four years ago over the senior Donaldson’s unvaccinated status.
In a statement released to The Epoch Times, the Cleveland Clinic cited a 2021 policy it adopted requiring all donors and candidates for organ transplants to be fully vaccinated against the virus.
“Individuals who are actively infected with COVID-19 have a much higher rate of complications during and after surgery, even if the infection is asymptomatic,” the hospital stated.
Donaldson, who is in the insurance business, told The Epoch Times he is opposed to the COVID-19 vaccine for religious reasons, but also because he has seen a rising number of clients get critically ill after receiving it.
He believes the hospital is contradicting itself by requiring a living donor to be vaccinated, but not a deceased one.
“I asked them in that car accident victim, would you vaccinate him on the way to the hospital to rip his kidney out and they said ‘no’,” Donaldson told The Epoch Times.
Donaldson said he even offered to sign a waiver freeing the hospital from any liability should either himself or his son develop COVID-19. At the same time, the hospital has refused to agree to take any responsibility for any side effects that he or his son experienced from the vaccine.
The hospital, he said, is blowing the chance of a lifetime for his son.
“A live donor is the best donor for kidneys,” said Donaldson, “but they’ll take a kidney from a deceased person not vaccinated, it makes no sense.”
The Cleveland hospital agreed that live donors are the best source for kidney transplant recipients, but emphasized that they were “not without risks”—noting that there is medication kidney transplant patients must take that compromises the immune system.
“We continually strive to minimize risk to our living donors, and vaccination is an important component to ensure the safest approach and optimal outcomes for donors,” it stated.
Donaldson said he and his wife Jenn are now in the process of finding another hospital to perform the transplant. They had wanted to stay with the children’s hospital because it has been treating his son since birth.
Tanner was born with compromised kidneys due to a rare birth defect that caused irreversible kidney damage in utero and resulted in stage 4 chronic kidney disease as well as bladder and urinary dysfunctions.
He now has only 18 percent function left of his kidneys, according to Donaldson.
The Donaldsons join a number of other publicized cases of U.S. hospitals that have refused to perform organ transplants because either the donor or recipient was not vaccinated.
Last month, The Epoch Times covered the story of an Air Force veteran who was denied a kidney transplant because he was refusing the vaccine.
Chad Carswell had only 4 percent kidney function left when the Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, refused to keep him on their candidate list for a donated kidney.
Fortunately, after his story went public the Medical City Fort Worth Transplant Institute in Texas offered to put Carswell on their recipient list for a kidney. His attorney Adam Draper said that as of April 3, Carswell was still in need of a match for the transplant.
In January, attorneys for the conservative organization Informed Consent Action Network (ICAN) wrote a seven-page letter to the Cleveland Center requesting it reconsider the decision, and also the science behind it.
“Presently, it appears the hospital is operating under a psychosis of flawed morality in choosing to sacrifice the health and wellness of its 9-year-old patient in exchange for what it perceives to be the ‘greater good,'” ICAN’s lawyers Aaron Siri and Elizabeth Brehm wrote.
ICAN also called the hospital irrational because the entire family, including Tanner and his older brother, all had COVID-19 and recovered from it, meaning they have natural immunity.
In its letter to the hospital, ICAN cited a number of international studies that showed that re-infection of COVID-19 after recovering from the virus was rare.
Of the studies it cited was one performed by Cleveland Clinic itself.
In the study, the hospital looked at SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) infections in 52,238 vaccinated and unvaccinated health care workers over a five-month period.
It found that none of the previously infected healthcare workers who remained unvaccinated contracted SARS-CoV-2 over the course of the research despite a high background rate of COVID-19 in the hospital.
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| Young Adults Gathering 2022 |
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Posted by: Stone - 04-08-2022, 06:27 AM - Forum: Event Schedule
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Fr. David Hewko - Sorrowful Heart of Mary, SSPX-MC
Young Adults Gathering 2022
For Catholic Singles aged 18 - 35
Friday, July 22nd - Monday July 25th
Atlanta, GA area
Registration is Necessary
Deo Gratias!
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| On the Other Considerations to Excite in the Soul the Love of the Suffering Jesus |
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Posted by: Stone - 04-07-2022, 07:44 AM - Forum: Articles by Catholic authors
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On the Other Considerations to Excite in the Soul the Love of the Suffering Jesus
by Richard Challoner, 1807
![[Image: Challoner_Week3_Lent_Part2.jpg]](https://www.catholicharboroffaithandmorals.com/Challoner_Week3_Lent_Part2.jpg)
" He was wounded for our iniquities, and bruised for our sins." --Isaias 53: 5
Consider first, how affectionate is the love that Christ bears us in His passion. It is stronger than deaths; He loves us more than His own life, since He parts with His life for the love of us. It is more tender than the love of the tenderest mother, since He voluntarily embraces the pangs of death to give us life; He sheds His blood to cleanse our souls from sin; He offers His own body in sacrifice to be our victim, our ransom, and our food. At the very time He is suffering amid dying for us, He has every one of us in His heart; He embraces each with an incomparable affection; weeps over each one, prays for each one, and pours out His blood for each one, no less than if he had suffered for that one alone. O my soul, had we then a place in the heart of our Jesus, when He was hanging upon the cross? and shall we ever refuse Him a place in our heart? No, dear Saviour, my heart is thine; it desires nothing better than to be for ever a servant of thy love.
Consider 2ndly, how effectual is the love that Christ shows us in His passion; it contents not itself with words or professions of affection, nor with such passing sentiments of tenderness as we imagine we have for Him in certain fits of devotion, at times when nothing occurs for us to suffer for His sake; but it shows itself by its effects, by His taking upon Himself all our evils, to procure effectually all good for us. His love has made Him divest Himself of all His beauty and comeliness, and hide all His glory and majesty, that He might become for us, 'despised and the most abject of men, a man of sorrow and acquainted with infirmity.' Isaia iii. 'He hath borne our infirmities and carried our sorrows' out of pure love. He has made Himself for the love of us, 'as it were a leper, and as one struck by God and afflicted. He was wounded for our iniquities, and bruised for our sins. For we like sheep have gone astray, and the Lord laid on Him the iniquity of us all. He was offered because it was His own will.' And it was His own will, because He loved us, and desired to transfer to Himself the punishment due to us, that he might deliver us from the wrath to come, and open to us the fountains of mercy, grace, and life. This was an effectual love indeed. Does our love for Him show itself by the like effects? Are we willing to renounce our own will, to mortify our inclinations and passions, to suffer and to bear our crosses for Him? A generous lover is as willing to be with Him on mount Calvary, as on mount Thabor. Is this our disposition?
Consider 3rdly, how disinterested is the love that Christ shows us in His passion. He loves us without any merit on our side; we deserved nothing from Him but hell. He loves us without any prospect of gain to Himself from us, or any return that we can make to Him; we can give Him nothing but what He must first give us; we can offer Him no good thing but what His love has purchased for us; we can have nothing but what is His. He stands in no need at all of us, or our goods. O how truly generous is this love of our Redeemer in His passion! How bountiful is He to us! He makes over to us the infinite treasures of His merits; He wants them not for Himself, but bequeaths them all to us. His love for us knows no bounds. It hath possessed His heart from the first instant of His conception: it burned there for every moment of His life; it carried Him through all His sufferings, even to death. It is without beginning or end; it endures from eternity to eternity. O bright fire, mayest thou take possession of my soul, for time and eternity!
Conclude, since thou canst make no better return, to offer at least daily thy heart with all its affections to thy loving Saviour. But that it may be worthy of His acceptance, beg that He would cleanse it by His precious blood, and inflame it with His love.
On the Sufferings of Our Saviour, Before His Passion
Consider first, how truly did the devout author of the 'Following of Christ,' say: 'The whole life of Christ was a Cross and a Martyrdom. He came into this world to be a victim for our sins; and from the first instant of His conception in His mother�s womb, He offered Himself for all the sufferings He was to undergo in life and death.' Hear how He then addresses Himself to His Father, Ps. xxxiv. 7, 'sacrifice and oblation Thou didst not desire, but Thou hast pierced ears for me. Burnt-offering and sin-offering Thou didst not require: then said I, behold I come. In the head of the book it is written of me, that I should do Thy will. O my God, I have desired it, and Thy name is in the midst of my heart.' And what was this will and this law, which from His first conception He embraced in the midst of His heart; but that instead of all other sacrifices he should become Himself both our priest and victim, and through His sufferings should mediate our peace, and reconcile us to His Father? Thus He accepted beforehand all that He was afterwards to endure; and by the clear and distinct foresight, which He had all along of His whole passion, suffered in some measure all His lifetime, what afterwards He endured at His death. O how early did my Jesus embrace His cross for the love of me! O how early did I prefer my pleasures before His love!
Consider 2ndly, divers other sufferings which our Lord went through in the course of His mortal life. His nine months confinement in His mother�s womb, most sensible to Him, who from His first conception had the perfect use of reason, and who by a violence which He offered to His zeal and love, was kept so long from action. The hardships He endured at His birth, from the rigour of the season and the poverty of His accommodations; His circumcision; His flight into Egypt; the sense that He had of the murder of the Innocents; the austerity of His life; His frequent hunger, thirst, and want of necessaries; His labours and fatigues. But all this was nothing to what his boundless charity and His zeal for the honour of His Father and the salvation of souls, made Him continually suffer, from the sight and knowledge of the sins of men. He had all the sins of the world always before His eyes, for the whole time of His life, with all their enormity and opposition to the infinite majesty and sanctity of God, and His divine honour and glory, and the dreadful havoc they did, and would make in the souls of men, with all the dismal consequences of them both in time and eternity; and this sight which was always present to Him, was infinitely more grievous to His soul than the very pangs of death. For if St. Paul had such a sense of the evil of sin, as to be quite on fire when He saw any one fall into sin, 2 Cor. xi. 29, how much more did this fire devour our Saviour?
Consider 3rdly, how much our Lord suffered from being obliged to live and converse amongst men, whose manners were so widely different from and so infinitely opposite to His; how sensibly He was touched with the crying disorders of the people of the Jews, amongst whom He lived; with their malice, their violences, their injustices, their deceits, their blasphemies, and the licentiousness of their lives; the pride, ambition, covetousness, and hypocrisy of their priests, scribes, and Pharisees; their oppressions of the poor; their contempt of virtue and of truth; and their general forgetfulness of God and their salvation. Add to this, how sensibly He must have been afflicted with the hardness of their hearts, with which they resisted His graces; their obstinacy in their evil ways; their ingratitude; the opposition they made to His heavenly Gospel; their blasphemous judgments of His person and miracles; their slanders and murmurings against Him; and their continually laying snares for Him, and persecuting Him even unto death. O, who can sufficiently apprehend how much our Saviour's soul was affected by all these evils; with this reception and treatment He met with from his chosen people, and with those dreadful judgments they were thereby drawing down upon their own heads, instead of that mercy, which He came to purchase for them by His blood! Death itself was not so sensible to Him.
Conclude, if thou wouldst be a true disciple of Jesus Christ, to conform thyself to a life of crosses and sufferings: thus shalt thou wear His livery, and shalt be entitled to a share in His heavenly kingdom.
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| On Devotion to the Passion of Christ [1807] |
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Posted by: Stone - 04-07-2022, 07:41 AM - Forum: Articles by Catholic authors
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"Who was delivered up for our sins" --Romans 4:25
Consider first, that meditating on the sufferings and death of our Redeemer ought to be a principal part of the Christian's devotion during the time of Lent. For the season approaches in which we celebrate the yearly memory of our Lord's passion, and therefore the Church, which at no time can forget the sufferings and death of her heavenly Spouse, at this time particularly recommends to her children to set before their eyes their crucified Saviour, and to make him the great object of their devotion. His passion is the ever-flowing source of all mercy, grace, and salvation to us; all our good must be derived from His cross; therefore, the more we approach to Him in His sufferings, and station ourselves near the cross, by pious meditations on His passion, the more plentifully shall we partake of the mercy and grace which flow continually from those fountains of life, His precious wounds. The great design of Lent is that the sinner should now return to God, and sue for pardon and mercy; and what better means can he have for this, than by taking along with him to the throne of mercy the blood of Christ, by daily meditating on His passion.
Consider 2ndly, that the passion of Christ has been always from the beginning of the world, the great object of the devotion of the children of God: in all their bloody sacrifices of old, of oxen and sheep, they celebrated beforehand the death of the Lamb of God, slain in figure from the beginning of the world. And as, from the time of the fall of Adam, no grace could ever be derived to any man, but through the channel of the merits of the death and passion of our Redeemer, whose future coming was revealed to man immediately after his fall; so no sacrifices could ever be acceptable to God, but such as had relation to Him, and through faith in Him. Much more now under the new law, are all the faithful obliged to make the passion of Christ the great object of their devotion, since He has instituted the eucharistical sacrifice and sacrament, and left us therein the sacred mysteries of His body and blood; for this very end, that in our most solemn worship, we should have always before our eyes His passion and death. See, my soul, how much thy God desires thou shouldest remember what He has suffered for thee! And why? Doubtless that by this means thou mightest be confirmed in His love. O blessed be His goodness for ever!
Consider 3rdly, how ungrateful all such Christians are, as forget the suffering and death of their Redeemer; may they not all be reckoned in the number of those of whom he complained of old, by the Royal Prophet, that they left him alone in His passion, and took no notice of Him. 'I looked on my right hand, and beheld, and there was no one that would know me,' Ps. cxli. 5. Had the meanest man upon earth suffered but the tenth part of what our Lord has suffered for the love of one of us, we should be basely ungrateful if we ever forgot his sufferings and his love. What then must we think of ourselves, if we forget the unspeakable sufferings and infinite love of the Son of God Himself, nailed to a cross, to deliver us by His death from the eternal torments of hell? Ah, Christians, let us never be so ungrateful.
Conclude, O my soul, at this holy time at least, daily to accompany thy crucified Jesus by meditations on His sufferings. 'With Christ I am nailed to the cross,' said St. Paul, Gal. ii. 12. 'My love is nailed to the cross," said St. Ignatius, the martyr. O that like these generous lovers, we could always adhere to our crucified God.
On the Great Advantages of Devotion to the Passion of Christ
Consider first, that the consideration of the passion of Christ is the sovereign means of all good to Christian souls. 'As Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of man be lifted up,' saith our Lord to Nicodemus, John iii. 14, 15, 'that whosoever believeth in him may not perish, but may have everlasting life.' As then the looking at the brazen serpent, (which was a figure of the death of Christ,) was the means of divine appointment to heal the Israelites, who were bitten by the fiery serpents sent among them for their sins, and to rescue them from temporal death; so the contemplation of the passion of Christ, is the great means to heal Christian souls from the bites of the infernal serpent, and to deliver them from everlasting death. Every sinner that looks for mercy, must return to God with his whole heart, and that by faith, hope, love, and repentance. Now it is in meditating on the passion of Christ we contemplate the great object of our faith the chiefest ground of our hope; the most pressing motive of divine love; and the strongest and most effectual inducement to repentance for our sins. O! let us embrace then this great means of bringing us to God, and to all good.
Consider 2ndly, that as the belief of Christ crucified is the most fundamental article of the Christian's faith, so it has the greatest influence of all other articles on our justification; according to that of the Apostle, Rom. iii. 23, 24, 25, 'that we all have sinned and need the glory of God; being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God had proposed to be A PROPITIATION THROUGH FAITH IN HIS BLOOD,' &c. 'Tis then through faith in His blood we are to be introduced to the divine mercy and 'tis by meditation on His passion we are to be introduced to a lively faith in His blood. So that the devotion to the passion of Christ is the shortest way to come at justifying faith. It has no less influence on our hope, by setting before our eyes how much God has loved us in giving his only Son, and the great grounds we have to look for all good through him. For as the Apostle writes, Rom. viii. 32, 'He that spared not even His own Son, but delivered him up for us all, hath He not also with Him given us all things.' O what an earnest indeed has God given us of all mercy, grace, and salvation in the blood of His Son! O what may not poor sinners hope for from such and so great a Redeemer, if they apply to this sacred passion by daily meditations, and offer up their humble supplications to His Father, through Him, and His infinite merits.
Consider 3rdly, that as nothing contributes so effectually to our justification and sanctification as the love of God; so nothing contributes more effectually to excite this heavenly love in our souls than the devotion to the passion of Christ. For there he must clearly discover the incomprehensible goodness of God, and the inexhaustible treasures of His divine love for us. This excites in us a desire of returning love for love; life for life. This attracts us, like Magdalene, to the feet of our crucified Saviour, with an earnest desire to wash them with penitential tears, flowing from, and enlivened by, divine love. This makes us grieve for our past ingratitude, in having had hitherto so little sense of His goodness and love; this makes us lament the share our sins have had in nailing Him to the cross; this teaches us to offer our whole hearts to Him, in order to make Him the best amends we are capable of by loving Him henceforward, both in time and eternity. Thus the devotion to the passion of Christ introduces that penitential love to which our Lord attributes the remission of sins, when he says of Magdalene, Luke vii. 47, 'Many sins are forgiven her, because she hath loved much.'
Conclude to station thyself at the foot of the cross, and by the daily contemplation of the sufferings of thy Redeemer, so to exercise thy soul in faith, hope, love, and repentance, as to secure to thyself mercy, grace, and salvation.
On the Lessons Christ Teaches in His Passion
Consider first, that the devotion to the passion of our Lord brings with it other great advantages to the soul, inasmuch as it teaches us many excellent lessons for the regulating our lives according to his blessed example. The Son of God came down from heaven, not only to shed his blood for us to pay our ransom, but also to give himself to us as a perfect pattern of all virtues for us to follow in the practice of our lives; that so the image of God in man, which had been disfigured by sin, might be repaired and reformed according to this great original. Now, although the whole life of Christ was full of admirable examples of all Christian virtues, yet they nowhere shine forth more brightly than in his passion, in which he has drawn, as it were, under one view, all the great lessons of virtue he had taught in his life, both by his words and his works. So that the passion of Christ is the great school that the Christian must frequent by devout meditations, if he desire to learn the virtues of his Redeemer. He must look on by contemplation, and execute in work what he sees in this devout pattern, which his Lord here shows him, on Mount Calvary, if he desire to make his soul a living tabernacle for the living God. And it was said to Moses when he was to make the tabernacle of the covenant:- 'See that thou make all things according to the pattern which was shown thee on the Mount,' Heb. viii. 5.
Consider 2ndly, what the lessons are that Christ more particularly desires to teach us in his passion. The Apostle informs us, Phil. ii. 5, 8, that they are principally his obedience and his humility. 'He humbled himself, become obedient unto death, even to the death of the cross;' and this, that we might learn to be of the like mind. O let us study well these great lessons. Adam fell from God by disobedience; to gratify himself, he transgressed the holy law of God; and so entailed both sin and death upon all his offspring. By the obedience of the second Adam, Jesus Christ, we are delivered from sin and death, but upon articles of learning and practising his obedience, and that also unto death; by a constant and perpetual will of sticking close to the commandments of God at all events, and of rather dying than transgressing his holy law. This is the obedience that Christ expects we should learn from his cross, so as to be ever willing to part even with our dearest affections, rather than offend our God; and to submit to any sufferings whatsoever rather than to disobey. This is true Christian obedience, and nothing less will bring us to God. My soul, thou must learn this lesson at the foot of the cross.
Consider 3rdly, what a lesson of humility Christ has given us in the whole course of his passion; becoming therein, 'as a worm and no man; the reproach of men and the outcast of the people,' Ps. xxi. 7. See how he humbled himself, under the malediction of our sins, in his prayer in the garden. How he humbled himself, in suffering with silence, all manner of calumnies, affronts, and disgraces. How he humbled himself under those ignominious and infamous torments of scourging at the pillar, crowning with thorns, and his carriage of the cross. In fine, how he humbled himself, in his being crucified between two thieves, and in dying that most disgraceful death of the cross. But who is this, my soul, that thus humbles himself, and makes himself thus mean and contemptible for thee? Why it is the Lord of Glory; it is the Most High; it is the great King of heaven and earth. And why does he thus debase himself? It is to teach thee his humility; a lesson so necessary, that without learning it thou canst never please God, nor have any part with him.
Conclude to study well these necessary lessons, by a daily attendance upon our Lord in his passion. He came down from heaven to be our teacher; and his cross is the pulpit from which he most feelingly and effectually preaches to our souls.
On Other Lessons to be Learned from Christ in His Passion
Consider first, that in the passion of Christ His meekness is no less admirable than His humility. These two He jointly recommended in life to be learned of Him, Matt. xi. 29. And these two He jointly taught in death by His great example. 'He was led as a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb before the shearer He opened not His mouth.' Isai liii. 7. 'The Lord God hath opened my ear,' saith he, Isai l. 5, 6, 'and I do not resist--I have given my body to the strikers, and my cheeks to them that plucked them; I have turned not away my face from them that rebuke me, and spit upon me.' And why all this? But 'to leave us an example that we should follow His steps,' 1 Pet. ii. 21, 23. 'Who when He was reviled did not revile; when He suffered He threatened not; but delivered Himself to them that judged Him unjustly.' O let us learn from the consideration of the behaviour of our Lord in His sufferings to suppress all the risings of our passion and pride, and to imitate His meekness and silence; who in the midst of affronts and injuries of all kinds, 'became as a man that heareth not, and as a dumb man not opening his mouth.'
Consider 2ndly, that the devotion to the passion of Christ is the great means to teach a Christian patience under all the crosses and sufferings we are exposed to during our mortal pilgrimage. We cannot live without crosses and sufferings; and 'in our patience' under them, 'we are to possess our souls.' Luke xxi. 19. Patience both sweetens and sanctifies all our sufferings; 'patience is necessary for us, that doing the will of God, we may receive the promise.' Heb. x. 36. 'Patience hath a perfect work; that we may be perfect and entire, failing in nothing.' James i. 4. As none hath ever gone to heaven but by the way of the cross, so none can ever come thither without patience. Now, this all-necessary virtue of patience is best learned in the school of the passion of Christ by the consideration of the multitude and variety of His sufferings; and the manner in which He endures all for the love of us. How shall a sinner (who has deserved hell for his crimes) pretend to complain, or think much of any sufferings in life or death, when by a serious meditation he sets before his eyes the far greater sufferings of the innocent Lamb of God, endured with an unwearied patience, for his sins?
Consider 3rdly, what further lessons are to be learned from the contemplation of the passion of Christ. 1. Of charity for our enemies; by considering the Son of God, praying for them that crucified Him, and dying for His enemies. 2. Of perfect resignation, and conformity in all things to the holy will of God; by the great example of the prayer of our Lord in His agony, 'not my will but thine be done;' and the consideration of the great sacrifice that He made of Himself to His Father upon the cross, without the least reserve. 3. Of the spirit of voluntary mortification and self-denial; by seeing how the Son of God allows Himself no ease or comfort in His sufferings; but both in life and death makes choice of what is most disagreeable to natural inclination. O my soul, these are necessary lessons indeed. See thou study them well at the foot of the cross, sitting under the shadow of thy beloved. O dear Jesus, do Thou, by Thy eternal grace, teach me effectually these virtues, by that mercy and love that nailed Thee to the cross.
Conclude by loving and blessing thy God for having sent thee so excellent a master from heaven to teach thee the way thither by His sufferings and death. Let these be always before thy eyes, and thou shalt never miss thy way.
To Jesus Agonizing in Honour of His Sweat of Blood in the Garden of Olives
Remember, O my Divine Saviour, Thine anguish and fear, when being in an agony, Thou didst prolong Thy prayer; and Martyr to suffering, desire, and love, didst water the ground with a sweat of blood. O tender Lamb, let me, with the deepest reverence and love, gather up each drop of Thy Precious Blood, and offer them all to Thee for my salvation and that of the dying. Deign to apply Its merits to us, and having purified us by Its virtue from all our stains, bring us to the dwelling of eternal joy. Amen.
Prayer to Jesus in Agony on the Cross
O my beloved Jesus, on the Cross for love of me, enduring with infinite patience sufferings upon sufferings, not only bodily pains, but the most grievous affliction of soul, in being forsaken by Thy Heavenly Father; have compassion on all who are in their agony, and upon me, when I shall be in this extremity. And grant us, by the merits of Thy Precious Blood, grace to bear all the pains and anguish of our agony with true patience, so that, uniting our sufferings to Thine, we may be made partakers of Thy glory in Heaven. Amen.
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| The Necessity of Mortification - from the Catholic Pulpit 1855 |
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Posted by: Stone - 04-07-2022, 07:37 AM - Forum: Resources Online
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The Necessity of Mortification
from the Catholic Pulpit, 1855
![[Image: Sermon%20Mortification.jpg]](https://www.catholicharboroffaithandmorals.com/Sermon%20Mortification.jpg)
And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterwards hungry--MATT. iv. 2.
Every Portion of the history of our Divine Redeemer was intended to convey important lessons to His followers. The Church continually points at His example, and so distributes and adapts in her office the several incidents of His life, as to make them bear, as her instructions vary, on the particular lesson, which she is desirous of teaching. At the commencement of the present holy season, when penance is her theme, she selects for our contemplation, the penitential exercise, which He underwent, previously to the opening of His mission; when retiring, as you have just heard in the gospel, to a distance from the society of men, He subjected Himself to a severe and uninterrupted fast, during the space of forty days. At the conclusion of this protracted abstinence, exhausted nature demanded support, and this was the moment, which he selected for confounding the insidious tempter of man. Entering then into the views of the Church, we cannot do better, on the present, occasion, than fix our eyes on the instructive spectacle, with which we are presented, and endeavour to learn, in this great example, what the obligation is, what the titles are, by which we ourselves are bound to the practice of penance.
Our Saviour fasts as man. In the long privation of sustinance which he endured, a miraculous power preserved indeed his existence, but did not prevent him from feeling the pains and inconvenience arising from His austerities. And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, He was afterwards hungry. He fasts as our model and our head. Being about to inculcate the necessity of works of mortification, he would excite and animate His followers to the performance of this duty, by His own sacred example. He fasts as one charged with the expiation of the sins of men. Having come from heaven in quality of our Redeemer, He offers up to His eternal Father this long and severe maceration of His flesh as part of His atonement. On an attentive consideration of these three characters, which our Lord here assumes, we shall find ample matter for instruction; inasmuch as they point out the triple obligation, which we all incur, of practising the virtue of mortification, as men, as christians, and as sinners. A few reflections on this three-fold obligation shall form the matter of my present discourse.
In the first place, then, my brethren, as men, as the offspring of a corrupted stock, self-denial is indispensably necessary for us. No sooner did our first parents transgress the divine command than labours and sufferings were declared to be their inseparable lot. Their descendants, born in pangs and in sorrow, were to eat their bread in the sweat of their brow: the earth was to yield them thorns and briars; and all nature was in some measure to disclaim the sovereignty of its fallen lord. But, if the effects of man's disobedience were thus widely felt in the objects around him, it was in his own breast, that his transgression occasioned the most baneful revolution. From that moment, a furious and interminable war arose within him. His inferior appetites, rebellious to reason, incessantly demanded gratification at the expence of duty. All the powers of his soul were corrupted and brutalized. His will became perverse, sluggish to good, impetuous to evil: his understanding was overclouded with error, his heart was elated with pride, his affections were either fixed and centered on himself, or chained and enslaved to the objects around him; virtue from that moment assumed, in his jaundiced eye, a repulsive aspect, and the service of his Creator, which in innocence had been his sweetest occupation, became in guilt an employment of toil and restraint.
From this unhappy train of evils no one, of all the children of Adam, could in justice claim exemption. And it is not necessary for any one to go farther than his own heart, to witness these sad consequences of that first transgression. All have felt desires, which their better reason forbade them to gratify ; all have felt within themselves that domestic warfare, described by St. Paul; all have experienced the rebellion of the flesh, which lusteth against the spirit, and all might, with truth, apply to themselves those words of the Apostle, The good which I will, I do not, but the evil which I will not, that I do.
Here, then, my brethren, from this fatal propensity to evil, we learn the necessity of the unsavoury doctrine of mortification. Here it is, that we meet with the apology for that holy anger, with which the saints of God have mortified the deeds of the flesh, by giving their bodies to fasting and austerities, their will to unreserved obedience, their whole lives to the severest exercise of penance. Here, in fine, we read the condemnation of the world, and of all its voluptuous maxims; the condemnation of its pleasures and its pastimes, its vanities and its excesses. Man, by sin, brought on himself all the miseries under which he groans; and as the inordinate propensities, to which he is subject, are the punishment of criminal indulgence, it is a duty incumbent on him in his fallen state, to meet and combat them by salutary restraints. God, the sovereign Physician, in undertaking to cure, by His suffering, the deep-struck malady of original sin, has pointed out the antidote which He would have us employ, the means which we should make use of, if we would be enabled to counteract the pernicious consequences which sin has entailed. Reason herself declares the exercise of mortification to be that, by which the dignity of man's nature is best supported and secured; and to suffer and endure is a precept, in the practice of which, a celebrated sage of antiquity has placed the perfection of virtue.
Indeed, my brethren, little will it avail you to have been restored to the dignity of children of God, if, by sensual gratifications, by a life of pleasure, softness and effeminacy you oppose the triumphs of divine grace, and keep an understanding with the mortal enemies of your souls. Believe me, every concession which you make to an inordinate appetite, adds to the clamours and impetuosity of the passions, lessens your power of resistance, and prepares the way to greater and more dangerous concessions.
The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, can reign only in an unmortified soul. As a proof, examine for a moment the progress of depravity: interrogate the sinner, who has plunged the deepest into the sink of vice;--was it by some sudden revolution, by any instantaneous impulse of his passions, that he was hurried at once into all the lengths of criminal excess? Did the same day see him watchful, mortified, restraining all his irregular appetites, and then behold him sunk in guilty voluptuousness, a slave to all the base inclinations of his nature! Or was not his depravation rather the fruit of repeated concessions made to his sensual appetites? Did he not first enervate his heart, gradually weaken and undermine his own virtue by an unmortified life? Did he not, by habitual indulgence, add strength to his passions, and, by gratifying them in their less sinful demands, at length render them irresistible in those which were more criminal? Should such, unfortunately, be the line of conduct, which you have pursued, attempt not, when you fall, to palliate your enormities, under the plea of the weakness of nature, the strength of your passions, the fascinating power of that which seduced you; rather attribute your calamity to its real cause, to your neglect of the wholesome exercises of penance. By neglecting these, you have neglected the means of salvation, which God had placed within your reach; and if you have received death, it is from the venom of a serpent, which would not have harmed you, had you not fostered it within your bosom.
But, alas! the generality of men consider these observances as duties incumbent indeed on persons in a retired or religious state, but wholly inapplicable to those, who take an active part on the theatre of the world. In opposition to this so fatal an error, I assert, that the practice of penance is, to persons in the world, above all others, of the most imperative obligation. The man of contemplation might possibly find, in the constant meditation of the truths of eternity, in the undisturbed application of his mind to prayer and celestial things, in the sacred and sublime occupations of his state, wherewith to combat his inordinate appetites. In the world, on the contrary, all things tend to excite and augment their violence. In the world, besides the evil propensities of nature, you have to struggle against the force of general example, against the seductions of pleasure, artfully decked out in its most attractive garb to enchant and captivate. There the passions are soothed and flattered; there virtue is without honour; there vicious indulgence, in almost all its shapes, is excused, in many is even applauded. In the world, then, the practice of self-denial is of the first necessity; there, if you are not mortified, your ruin is inevitable.
And here, my brethren, allow me to mention an objection, not unfrequently brought forward against the duty, which we are now considering. Does God, it is urged, delight in the sufferings of His creatures? has He gifted us with a thirst for pleasure, which He intended never to be gratified? and is He, like some of the sanguinary idols of paganism, to be appeased by the blood and torments of his adorers? To obviate the futile and impious objection, we have only to recur to the origin of the duty of mortification, such as I have described it, to that domestic war, in which the sin of Adam has engaged all his posterity. Know, then, O man, that, if thou art subject to corrupt appetites, God is not the author of thy corruption: that He created thee for a happiness more real, more pure, and more exalted: that thy progenitor, by an abuse of his free-will, depraved and degraded that nature which he has transmitted to thee; that God, in imposing upon thee the duty of mortification, is but withholding thee from that, which would enslave, but would not content thee, is but elevating thy desires thither, where only thou canst find satisfaction and repose. After thy probation here, a new state of being awaits thee. There all thy desires, directed at length to their proper object, shall be satiated, thy longings for happiness completely gratified. I shall be satiated, says holy David, when Thy glory shall appear.
From mortification, as the duty of men, we will next proceed to consider it as the duty of christians.
A christian is defined by Tertullian, "one born to penance," and indeed, if, by assuming the name of christians, we rank ourselves as followers and imitators of Christ, no duty can be deemed of stricter obligation. The life of Christ, from its commencement to its close, was a continued series of privation and suffering. Poverty, exile, toil, abstinence, contempt, persecution; such are the prominent features in the history of this Man-God. But, not content with setting the example, he has enforced the doctrine of the cross by repeated precepts: He that would come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me. Take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts be overcome with gluttony and drunkenness. Unless you do penance, you shall all perish. The Church, the, faithful interpretress of the will of her divine Spouse, has in like manner always considered mortification as a duty incumbent on all her children. When, in baptism, she ranked us among the faithful, she signed us with the cross, as if to point out the standard, under which we engaged to combat. On that solemn occasion, before we were admitted to the benefits of redemption, we were required to declare perpetual war on satan and his auxiliaries. From that moment the mortification of the flesh, the subjugation of our passions, and the denial of our own will, became a duty from which we could not depart, without breaking the faith, which we then solemnly pledged to the Most High. From that moment, we engaged to follow Christ in the rugged path, which He had chosen; nor could we quit it, without leaving and dishonouring our model and our head.
Yet, among those who make profession of christianity, how rarely do we meet with one, who properly acquits himself of this important duty. How many, on the contrary, are there, who might be classed with those, whom the Apostle designates with tears, as enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction: whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame. How many are there, who, though again and again admonished, by their repeated falls, of the necessity of employing violence in subduing their inordinate inclinations, still shudder at the name of penance; still make the gratification of their appetites, the enjoyment of ease and of pleasure, the whole study of their lives? How many are there, who feel sad and sorrowful at the commencement of this holy time, for no other reason, but because it opposes a slight check to their accustomed round of diversions and enjoyments? Oh! my brethren, the heavenly kingdom, for which you are candidates, is not to be attained by the way of earthly gratifications. From the days of John the Baptist until now, says our divine Redeemer, the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away. Every one, says St. Paul, taking allusion from the wrestlers and those that ran in the race, every one, that striveth for the mastery, refraineth himself from all things; and they indeed, that they may receive a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible one. I therefore, continues the Apostle, so run, not as at an uncertainty; I so fight, not as one beating the air; but I chastise my body and bring it into subjection. If your conduct be in opposition to these sacred admonitions, pretend not to assume the name of christian. You have dishonoured the badge, deserted the standard of your chief: you have co-operated with His enemies, and have betrayed to them again the soul, which, at the price of His own blood, He had rescued from their yoke. You have, like Esau, bartered your birth-right for a sensual gratification. Act, then, no longer, the hypocritical part of marking your forehead with the emblem of Christ; rather throw off the mask, and at once openly declare, that you follow the party of his enemies. If the Lord be your God, follow him; but, Baal, then follow him.
The third character, which I pointed out as rendering the severities of penance indispensable to us, was that of sinners. And here it is, my brethren, that this duty appears in all its weight and importance. On a certain occasion, when the disciples told our blessed Redeemer of the massacre of some Galileans, whom Pilate had ordered to be slain, whilst performing sacrifice,--an event which happened about the same time that a tower in Jerusalem fell down, and crushed to death eighteen persons,--our Saviour, who turned every circumstance to the advantage and instruction of his hearers, took occasion from these two incidents to call their attention to the just judgments of God, which were impending over them for their sins, and hence inferred the need, which they all had, of penance, in order to be saved.
The individuals, he argued, who were thus suddenly cut off, were not greater sinners, than others who survived them; and if, by an inscrutable judgment of God, they were selected for punishment, their fate ought to serve as a warning to those who were in a state of equal, if not of greater, guilt. Think you, says he, that those Galileans were sinners above all the men of Galilee, because they suflered such things? I say to you no. But unless you do penance, you shall all likewise perish. Or those eighteen upon whom the tower fell in Siloe and slew them : think you that they also were debtors above all the men that dwell in Jerusalem? I tell you no. But unless you do penance, you shall all likewise perish.
Applying, then, to yourselves, my dear brethren, this important instruction, delivered from the mouth of truth itself, and which was doubtless intended for you no less than for the Jews, consider, for a moment, what is passing around you. Every where do you witness the effects of God's inscrutable judgments. On every side do you behold your fellow-creatures pining in misery, affliction, sickness, and want. Here an unexpected stroke prostrates one from the number of your intimate acquaintances; there you see another long struggling under the severest sufferings, and finally falling under the hand of death. Yet are these, who by the severity of their lot seem marked and devoted in the decrees of an inscrutable but just providence, greater sinners than yourselves? Let your own consciences answer the question.
Again; descend in imagination to the verge of the bottomless abyss, and view, in that place of indescribable woe, the punishments, with which an avenging God visits the violators of His law: then, if mortal sin ever defiled your soul, if in that abode of torments you can descry one, whose guilt is less heinous than your own, then, oh then, apply to yourselves in all their force, those words of our Divine Redeemer: unless you do penance, you likewise shall perish.
In the order of God's justice, sin must be punished. Into heaven nothing defiled can enter. By sin your soul hath contracted a defilement, which can be cleansed only in the crucible of penitential suffering. Say not that your transgression has been forgiven in the sacrament of penance. You have, it is true, deposited your crime at the feet of your ghostly father; yet how can we believe it to have been with the perfect or even with the necessary dispositions? The sinner, who has truly repented, regards himself as his own greatest enemy; he rages with a holy indignation againt his own flesh; he treats it as a rebellious slave. He acts towards it as he would towards a domestic traitor, whom he cannot put away. Such is the true penitent. But as for you, does not that dread, that horror, that flight of mortification, and of everything that puts a restraint upon your appetites, seem to indicate, that you never really hated sin, that the enemy still holds you enslaved and shackled? But, let us suppose, that you have confessed as you ought; do you imagine, that, because you are freed from the eternal punishment of sin, you are freed also from the temporal punishment, which sin has entailed? That, while Christ is expiating your offences by a life of suffering and a death of ignominy, you may lead a life of ease and voluptuousness? Ah! let the severe rules, the penitential exercises imposed upon sin in in primitive fever convince you of the truth. Let the example of thousands of holy penitents, who punished slight offences by years spent in sighs and tears, and self-maceration, convince you of your error. So far from considering the pardon which they had received, as an exemption from penitential rigours, they only saw in it a stronger motive to punish and mortify that flesh, which had impelled them to offend so good and merciful a God.
From this view of the subject, my brethren, it follows, that, if mortification be a duty incumbent upon all, it is more imperatively so on those, who have offended God by wilful sin. The moment that worst of evils gained entrance into your breast, from that moment a penitential life was the only means of securing your salvation. In vain, then, do you attempt to shelter yourselves from the severe precept, by alleging excuses of inconvenience, of necessity, of business, of health. The law of penance is as general as sin. The precept is universal. Unless you do penance, you shall all perish. Think not, therefore, that, because a peculiar combination of circumstances may exempt you from the specific observance of the law of fasting, you are thereby exempted from the obligation of penance. No! Your director may, for prudential reasons, have exonerated you from keeping to the letter of the church precept; but he has not, he cannot exonerate you from the obligation of punishing yourself for sin. In the hand of the Lord there is a cup of strong wine, full of mixture, the dregs thereof are not emptied: all the sinners of the earth shall drink.
My brethren, from all that has been said, it follows, that the observance, to which you are now called, is not one of supererogation; it may not be practised or omitted at pleasure; it is an observance of absolute precept: one, on your fulfilment or neglect of which, nothing less than your eternal lot depends. Without the grace of God, no one can attain eternal life: in neglecting the practice of mortification, in giving way to sensual indulgence, in leading a life of softness, of pleasure and dissipation, you are directly opposing the influence of divine grace; you are throwing down the arms, which were given you for combat, and are placing yourselves defenceless in the power of your mortal enemies. As you value, then, your salvation, my dear friends, let your notions and conduct on this vital subject be, from this moment, reformed. Resolutely undertake the mortification of your sensual appetites, the conquest of your rebellious will, the destruction of the empire of self-love. Undertake it as men, lest indulgence should strengthen, and render irresistible those evil propensities, of which you are the inheritors. Undertake it as christians, lest you degrade that sacred character which you bear, and break the solemn engagements, into which you have entered. Undertake it as sinners, lest, by failing to satisfy the injured justice of God in the present life, you come to feel the weight of His indignation in the life to come.
Let the holy season, on which we are entering, be to you the commencement of a new life. Courageously join with all the true children of the Church of God in declaring war upon the flesh and its concupiscences. If you are terrified at the prospect of privations and restraints, know, that God Himself will render the rough way of penance smooth and agreeable, in proportion as you advance.
To animate yourself to the task, often extend your views beyond the present order of things. Often, in imagination, anticipate the moment, when you are to stand before the awful tribunal of an omniscient God: then, if you shall have deserved a favourable sentence, how pleasing will be the retrospect of the little crosses and momentary tribulations, by which you have purchased for yourselves above measure an exceeding weight of glory: but, should you unfortunately be cast at that momentous trial, how bitter the reflection, that for a few, fleeting, base, and deceitful gratifications, you have lost your title to eternal happiness, and incurred a condemnation to eternal woe.
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