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  Abbot Marmion: Christmastide
Posted by: Stone - 12-21-2021, 08:00 AM - Forum: Christmas - Replies (2)

CHRISTMASTIDE - O ADMIRABILE COMMERCIUM!
by Abbot Marmion, O.S.B.

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SUMMARY. -The mystery of the Incarnation is a wonderful exchange between divinity and humanity.

I. The Eternal Word asks of us a human nature in order to unite it to Himself by a personal union: Creator . . . animatum corpus sumens.
II. In becoming Incarnate, the Word brings us, in return, a share in His Divinity: Largitus est nobis suam deitatem.
III. This exchange appears still more wonderful when we consider the manner in which it is wrought. The Incarnation renders God visible so that we may hear and imitate Him.
IV. It renders God passible, capable of expiating our sins by His sufferings and of healing us by His humiliations.
V. We are to take our part in this exchange by faith: those who receive the Word-made flesh by believing in Him have 'power to be made the sons of God.

The coming of the Son of God upon earth is so great an event that God willed to prepare the way for it during centuries. He made rites and sacrifices, figures and symbols, all converge towards Christ; He foretold Him, announced Him by the mouth of the prophets who succeeded one another from generation to generation.

And now it is the very Son of God Who comes to instruct us:

Multifariam multisque modis olim Deus loquens patribus . . . novissime locutus est nobis in Filio
(Heb 1:1,2). For Christ is not only born for the Jews of Judea who lived in His time. It is for us all, for all mankind, that He came down from Heaven:

Propter nos et propter nostram salutem descendit de caelis. He wills to distribute to every soul the grace that He merited by His Nativity.

This is why the Church, guided by the Holy Spirit, appropriates to herself, in order to place them upon our lips and with them to fill our hearts, the longings of the patriarchs, the aspirations of the just of ancient times, and the desires of the Chosen People. She wills to prepare us for Christ's coming, as if this Nativity was about to be renewed before our eyes.

See how when she commemorates the coming of her Divine Bridegroom upon earth, she displays the splendour of her solemnities, and makes her altars brilliant with lights to celebrate the Birth of the 'Prince of Peace (Is 9:6), the 'Sun of Justice (Mal 4:2), Who rises in the midst of our darkness to enlighten 'every man that cometh into this world (Jn 1:5, 9). She grants her priests the privilege, almost unique in the year, of thrice offering the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

These feasts are magnificent, they are likewise full of charm. The Church evokes the remembrance of the Angels singing in the sky the glory of the new-born Babe; of the Shepherds who come to adore at the manger; of the Magi who hasten from the East to offer Him their adorations and rich presents.

And yet, like every feast here below, this solemnity, even with the prolongation of its octave, is ephemeral: it passes by. Is it for the feast of a day, howsoever splendid it may be, that the Church requires such a long preparation from us? Certainly not! Why then? Because she knows that the contemplation of this mystery contains a special and choice grace for our souls.

I said at the beginning of these conferences that each one of Christ's mysteries constitutes not only a historical fact which takes place in time, but contains a grace proper to itself wherewith our souls are to be nourished so as to live thereby.

Now what is the intimate grace of the mystery of the Nativity? What is the grace for the reception of which the Church takes so much care to dispose us? What is the fruit that we ought to gather from the contemplation of the Christ Child?

The Church herself indicates this at the first Mass, that of midnight. After having offered the bread and wine which, in a few moments, are to be changed, by the consecration, into the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, she sums up her desires in this prayer:

'Grant, O Lord, that the oblation which in we offer today's festival may be acceptable unto Thee, and, by Thy grace, through this most sacred and holy intercourse, may we be found like unto Him in Whom is our substance united to Thee.

(Accepta tibi sit, Domine, quaesumus, hodiernae festivitatis oblatio: ut tua gratia largiente, per haec sacrosancta commercia, in illiusi nveniamur forma, in quo tecum est nostra substantia. Secret of the Midnight Mass.) The word forma is here taken in the sense of 'nature, 'condition natura, as in the text of St Paul: Christus cum in forma Dei esset . . . exinanivit semetipsum formam servi accipiens et habitu inventus ut homo.)

We ask to be partakers of that divinity to which our humanity is united. It is like an exchange. God, in becoming incarnate, takes our human nature and gives us, in return, a participation in His Divine nature.

This thought, so concise in its form, is more explicitly expressed in the secret of the second Mass: 'Grant, O Lord, that our offerings may be conformed to the mysteries of this day's Nativity, that as He Who is born as man is also God made manifest, so this earthly substance (which He unites to Himself) may confer upon us that which is divine. (Munera rostra, quaesumus, Domine, nativitatis hodiernae mysteriis apta proveniant, ut sicut homo genitus idem refulsit et Deus, sic nobis haec terrena substantia conferat quod divinum est. . (Secret of the Mass at Break of Day.)

To be made partakers of the Divinity to which our humanity was united in the Person of Christ, and to receive this Divine gift through this humanity itself,-such is the grace attached to the celebration of today's mystery.

Our offerings will be 'conformed to the mysteries of this day's Nativity, according to the words of the above quoted secret, if-by the contemplation of the Divine work at Bethlehem and the reception of the Eucharistic Sacrament,-we participate in the eternal life that Christ wills to communicate to us by His Humanity.

'O admirable exchange, we shall sing on the octave day, 'the Creator of the human race, taking upon Himself a body and a soul, has vouchsafed to be born of a Virgin, and, appearing here below as man, has made us partakers of His Divinity: O admirabile commercium! CREATOR generis human!, ANIMATUM CORPUS SUMENS, de virgine nasci dignatus est; et procedens homo sine semine, LARGITUS EST NOBIS SUAM DEITATEM (Antiphon of the Octave of Christmas).

Let us, therefore, stay for a few moments to admire, with the Church, this exchange between the creature and the Creator between heaven and earth, an exchange upon which all the mystery of the Nativity is based. Let us consider what are the acts and the matter of it;-under what form it is wrought;-we will afterwards see what fruits are to be derived from it for us;-and to what it engages us.


I

Let us transport ourselves to the stable-cave at Bethlehem; let us behold the Child lying upon the straw. What is He in the sight of the profane, in the sight of an inhabitant of the little city who might happen to come there after the Birth of Jesus?

Only a new-born Babe to Whom a woman of Nazareth had given birth; only a son of Adam like unto us, for His parents have Him inscribed upon the register of enrolment; the details of His genealogy can be followed. There He lies upon the straw, a weak Babe Whose life is sustained by a little milk. Many Jews saw nothing more in Him than this. Later on you will hear His compatriots, astonished at His wisdom, ask themselves where He could have learnt it, for, in their eyes, He had never been anything but 'the son of a carpenter: Nonne hic est fabri filius? . . . (Mt 13:55; cf. Mk 6:3; Lk 4:22).

But to the eyes of faith, a life higher than the human life animates this Child: He possesses Divine life. What does faith, indeed, tell us on this subject? What revelation does it give us?

Faith tells us that this Child is God's own Son. He is the Word, the Second Person of the Adorable Trinity; He is the Son Who receives Divine life from His Father, by an ineffable communication: Sicut Pater habet vitam in semetipso, sic dedit et Filio habere vitam in semetipso (Lk 4:22). He possesses the Divine nature, with all its infinite perfections. In the heavenly splendours, in splendoribus sanctorum (Ps 109:3). God begets this Son by an eternal generation.

It is to this Divine Sonship in the bosom of the Father that our adoration turns first of all; it is this Sonship that we extol in the midnight Mass. At day-break, the Holy Sacrifice will celebrate the Nativity of Christ according to the flesh, His Birth, at Bethlehem, of the Virgin Mary; finally, the third Mass will be in honour of Christ's coming into our souls.

The Mass of the night, all enveloped with mystery, begins with these solemn words: Dominus dixit ad me: Filius meus es tu, ego hodie genui te (Introit of the Mass of Midnight), This cry that escapes from the soul of Christ united to the Person of the Word, reveals to earth for the first time that which the heavens hear from all eternity . 'The Lord hath said to Me: Thou art My Son: this day have I begotten Thee. 'This day is first of all the day of eternity, a day without dawn or decline.

The Heavenly Father now contemplates His Incarnate Son. The Word, although made man, nevertheless remains God. Become the Son of man, He is still the Son of God. The first glance that falls upon Christ, the first love wherewith He is surrounded, is the glance, the love of His Father. Diliget me, Pater (Jn 15:9). What contemplation and what love! Christ is the Only-begotten Son of the Father; therein lies His essential glory. He is equal to and 'consubstantial with the Father, God of God, Light of Light . . . by Whom all things were made, 'and without Him was made nothing that was made. It is of this Son that these words were spoken: 'Thou in the beginning, O Lord, didst found the earth, and the works of Thy hands are the heavens. They shall perish, but Thou shalt continue; and they shall all grow old as a garment; and as a vesture shalt Thou change them, and they shall be changed; but Thou art the selfsame, and Thy years shall not fail! (Epistle for the Mass of Christmas Day.)

And this 'Word was made Flesh: Et Verbum caro factum est.

Let us adore this Word become Incarnate for us: Christus natus est nobis, venite adoremus (Invitatory for Christmas Matins.) . . . A God takes our humanity: conceived by the mysterious operation of the Holy Ghost in Mary's womb, Christ is born of the most pure substance of the blood of the Virgin, and the life that He has from her makes Him like unto us! Creator generis human de virgine nasci dignatus est, et procedens homo sine semine.

This is what faith tells us: this Child is the Incarnate Word of God; He is the Creator of the human race become man. Creator generis human); if He needs a little milk to nourish Him, it is by His hand that the birds of heaven are fed.

Parvoque lacte pastus est Per quem nec ales esurit (Hymn of Christmas Lauds)

Let us contemplate this Infant lying in the manger. His eyes are closed, He sleeps, He does not manifest outwardly what He is. In appearance, He is only like all other infants, and yet, being God, being the Eternal Word, He, at this moment, is judging the souls that appear before Him. 'He lies upon straw, and as God, He sustains the universe and reigns in heaven: Jacet in praesepio et in caelis regnat (12th response at Matins on the Sunday of the Octave of Christmas), This Child, just beginning to grow, Puer crescebat . . . et proficiebat aetate (Lk 2:40, 52), is the Eternal Whose divine nature knows no change: Tu idem ipse es, et anni tui non deficient. He Who is born in time is likewise He Who is before all time; He Who manifests Himself to the shepherds of Bethlehem is He Who, out of nothing, created the nations that, 'are before Him as if they had no being at all (Is 40:17).

Palamque fit pastoribus Pastor creator omnium (Hymn of Christmas Lauds.)

To the eyes of faith there are two lives in this Babe; two lives indissolubly united in an ineffable manner, for the Human Nature belongs to the Word in such wise that there is but a single Person, that of the Word, Who sustains the Human Nature by His own Divine existence.

Undoubtedly, this human nature is perfect: perfectus homo (Creed attributed to St. Athanasius): nothing of that which belongs to its essence is lacking to Him. This Babe has a soul like to ours; He has faculties:-intelligence, will, imagination, sensibility- like ours. He is truly one of our own race Whose existence will be revealed, during thirty three years, as authentically human. Sin, alone, will be unknown to Him. Debuit per omnia fratribus similar) (Heb 2:17) . . . absque peccato (Ibid. 4:15). Perfect in itself, this human nature will keep its own activity, its native splendour. Between these two lives of Christ-the Divine, which He ever possesses by His eternal birth in the bosom of the Father; the human which He has begun to possess by His Incarnation in the bosom of a Virgin-there is neither mingling nor confusion. The Word, in becoming man, remains what He was; that which He was not, He has taken from our race; but the divine in Him does not absorb the human, the human does not lessen the divine. The union is such, as I have often said, that there is however but a single Person-the Divine Person,-and that the human nature belongs to the Word, is the Word's own humanity: Mirabile mysterium declaratur hodie: innovantur naturae, Deus homo factus est; id quod fuit permansit et quod non erat assumpsit, non commixtionem passus neque divisionem (Antiphon of Lauds in the Octave of Christmas.)


II

This then, if I may so express myself, is one of the acts of the contract. God takes our nature so as to unite it to Himself in a personal union.

What is the other act? What is God going to give us in return? Not that He owes us anything: Bonorum meorum non eges (Ps 15:2). But as He does all things with wisdom, He could not take upon Himself our nature without a motive worthy of Him.

What the Word Incarnate gives in return to humanity is an incomprehensible gift; it is a participation, real and intimate, in His Divine nature: Largitus est nobis suam deitatem. In exchange for the humanity which He takes, the Incarnate Word gives us a share in His Divinity; He makes us partakers of His Divine Nature. And thus is accomplished the most wonderful exchange which could be made.

Doubtless, as you know, this participation had already been offered and given, from the creation, to Adam, the first man. The gift of grace, with all its splendid train of privileges, made Adam like to God. But the sin of the first man, the head of the human race, destroyed and rendered this ineffable participation impossible on the part of the creature.

It is to restore this participation that the Word becomes Incarnate; it is to reopen to us the way to heaven that God is made man. For this Child, being God's own Son, has Divine life, like His Father, with His Father. In this Child 'dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead corporeally (Col. 2:9); in Him are laid up all the treasures of the divinity (Cf. Ibid. 3). But He does not possess them for Himself alone. He infinitely desires to communicate to us the Divine life that He Himself is: Ego sum vita (Jn 14:6). It is for this that He comes: Ego vend UT vitam habeant (Ibid. 10:10). It is for us that a Child is born; it is to us that a Son is given: Puer natus est NOBIS et Filius datus est nobis (Introit of the Mass of the day). In making us share in His condition of Son, He will make us children of God. 'When the fulness of time was come, God sent making us share in His condition of Son, He will make us children of God. 'When the fulness of time was come, God sent 5). 'What Christ is by nature, that is to say the Son of God, we are to be by grace; the Incarnate Word, the Son of God made man is to become the author of our divine generation: Natus hodie Salvator mundi DIVINAE NOBIS GENERATIONIS est auctor (Postcommunion of the Mass of Christmas Day). So that, although He be the Only-begotten Son, He will become the First-born of many brethren: UT sit IPSE PRIMOGENITUS in multis fratribus (Rom 8:29).

Such are the two acts of the wonderful 'bargain that God makes with us: He takes our nature in order to communicate to us His divinity; He takes a human life so as to make us partakers of His divine life: He is made man so as to make us gods: Factus est Deus homo, ut homo fieret Deus (Sermon attributed to St. Augustine, number 128 in the appendix to his works). And His human Birth becomes the means of our birth to the divine life.

In us likewise there will be henceforth two lives. The one, natural, which we have by our birth according to the flesh, but which, in God's sight, is not only without merit but, before baptism, is stained in consequence of original sin; which makes us enemies of God, worthy of His wrath: we are born filii irae (Eph 2:3). The other life, supernatural, infinitely above the rights and exigencies of our nature. It is this life that God communicates to us by His grace, since the Incarnate Word merited it for us.

God begets us to this life by His Word and the infusion of His Spirit, in the baptismal font: Genuit nos Verbo veritatis (Jac 1:18) . . . Per lavacrum regenerationis et renovationis Spiritus Sancti (Tit 3); it is a new life that is superadded to our natural life, surpassing and crowning it; In Christo nova creatura (2 Cor 5:17; Gal 6:15). It makes us children of God, brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ, worthy of one day partaking of His beatitude and glory.

Of these two lives, in us as in Christ, it is the divine that ought to dominate, although in the Child Christ it is not as yet manifested, and in us it remains ever veiled under the outward appearance of our ordinary existence. It is the divine life of grace that ought to rule and govern, and make agreeable to our Lord, all our natural activity, thus deified in its root.

Oh! if the contemplation of the Birth of Jesus and participation in this mystery by the reception of the Bread of Life would bring us to free ourselves, once and for all, from everything that destroys and lessens the divine life within us; from sin, wherefrom Christ comes to deliver us: Cujus nativitas humanam repulit vetustatem (Postcommunion for the Mass of Day-break); from all infidelity and all attachment to creatures; from the irregulated care for passing things: Abnegantes saecularia desideria (Tit 2:12; Epistle for the midnight Mass); from the trying preoccupations of our vain self love! . . .

If we could thus be brought to give ourselves entirely to God, according to the promises of our baptism when we were born to the divine life; to yield ourselves up to the accomplishment of His will and good pleasure, as did the Incarnate Word in entering into this world: Ecce venio . . . ut faciam Deus voluntatem tuam (Heb 10:7); to abound in those good works which make us pleasing to God: Populum acceptabilem, sectatorem bonorum operum (Tit 2:14. Epistle for the midnight Mass.)!

Then the divine life brought to us by Jesus would meet with no more obstacles and would freely expand for the glory of our Heavenly Father; then 'we who are bathed in the new light of the Incarnate Word should shew forth in our deeds what by faith shineth in our minds (Da nobis quaesumus omnipotens Deus; ut qui nova incarnati Verbi tui luce perfundimur, hoc in nostro resplendeat opere, quod per fidem fulget in mente. Collect for the Mass at Daybreak); then, 'our offerings would befit the mysteries of this day's Nativity. Munera nostra nativitatis hodiernae mysteriis apta proveniant (Secret for the Mass at Day-break).


III

What further renders this exchange 'admirable is the manner in which it is effected, the form wherein it is accomplished. How is it accomplished? How does this Child, Who is the Incarnate Word, make us partakers of His divine life? By His Humanity. The humanity that the Word takes from us is to serve Him as the instrument for communicating His divine life to us; and this for two reasons wherein eternal wisdom infinitely shines out; the humanity renders God visible; it renders God passible.

It renders Him visible.

The Church, using the words of St. Paul, celebrates with delight this 'appearing of God amongst us: Apparuit gratia Dei Salvatoris nostri omnibus hominibus (Tit 2:11. Epistle for the midnight Mass): 'The grace of God our Saviour hath appeared to all men: Apparuit benignitas et humanitas Salvatoris nostri Dei (Tit 3:4, Epistle for the Mass at Day-break). 'The goodness and kindness of God our Saviour hath appeared.

Lux fulgebit hodie super nos, quia natus est nobis Dominus (Introit of the Mass at Daybreak): 'a light shall shine upon us this day: for our Lord is born to us; Verbum caro factum est et habitavit in nobis:The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.

The Incarnate Word brings about this marvel: men have seen God Himself abiding in the midst of them.

St. John loves to dwell upon this side of the mystery. 'That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled of the Word of life. For the life was manifested; and we have seen and do bear witness and declare unto you the Life Eternal which was with the Father, and hath appeared in us. That which we have seen and have heard, we declare unto you that . . . your joy may be full (1 Jn 1:1-4).

What joy indeed, to see God manifesting Himself to us. not in the dazzling splendour of His omnipotence, nor in the unspeakable glory of His sovereignty, but under the veil of humble, poor, weak humanity, which we can see and touch!

We might have been afraid of the dreadful majesty of God: the Israelites fell on their faces to the ground, full of terror and fear, when God spoke to Moses upon Sinai, in the midst of lightnings. We are drawn by the charms of a God become a Babe. The Babe in the Crib seems to say to us: 'You are afraid of God? You are wrong: Qui videt me, videt et Patrem (Jn 14:9). Do not heed your imagination, do not form yourselves a God from the deductions of philosophy, nor ask of science to make My perfections known to you. The true Almighty God is the God that I am and reveal; the true God is I Who come to you in poverty, humility and infancy, but Who will one day give My life for you. I am 'the brightness of [the Father's] glory, and the figure of His substance (Heb 1:3). His Only-begotten Son, God as He is; in Me you shall learn to know His perfections, His wisdom and His goodness, His love towards men and His mercy in regard to sinners: Illuxit in cordibus nostris . . . in facie Christi Jesu (2 Cor 4:6). Come unto Me, for, God as I am, I have willed to be a man like you, and I do not reject those who draw near to Me with confidence:Sicut homo genitus IDEM refulsit et Deus.

Why did God thus deign to render Himself visible?

First of all so as to instruct us: Apparuit erudiens nos. It is indeed God Who will henceforth speak to us by His own Son: Locutus est nobis in Filio (Heb 1:2); we have but to listen to this beloved Son in order to know what God wills of us. The Heavenly Father Himself tells us so: Hic est Filius meus dilectus: ipsum audite (Mt 17:5); and Jesus delights in repeating to us that His doctrine is that of His Father: Mea doctrina non est mea, sed ejus qui misit me (Jn 7:16).

Next the Word renders Himself visible to our sight so as to become the Example that we are to follow.

We have only to watch this Child grow, only to contemplate Him living in the midst of us, living like us as man, in order to know how we ought to live in the sight of God, as children of God: for all that He does will be pleasing to His Father: Quae placita sunt ei, facto semper (Ibid. 7:29).

Being the Truth Who has come to teach us, He will point out the way by His example; if we live in His light, if we follow this way, we shall have life: Ego sum via, et veritas et vita (Ibid. 14:6). Thus, in knowing God manifested in the midst of us, we shall be drawn by Him to the love of invisible things: Ut dum VISIBILITER Deum cognoscimus, PER HUNC in invisibilium amorem rapiamur (Preface for Christmas).


IV

The humanity of Christ renders God visible, and above all-and it is in this that Divine Wisdom is shown to be 'admirable-it renders God passible.

Sin which destroyed the divine life within us demands a satisfaction, an expiation without which it would be impossible for divine life to be restored to us. Being a mere creature, man cannot give this satisfaction for an offence of infinite malice, and, on the other hand, the Divinity can neither suffer nor expiate. God cannot communicate His life to us unless sin be blotted out; by an immutable decree of Divine Wisdom, sin can only be blotted out if it be expiated in an adequate manner. How is this problem to be solved?

The Incarnation gives us the answer. Consider the Babe of Bethlehem. He is the Word made flesh. The humanity that the Word makes His own is passible; it is this humanity which will suffer, will expiate. These sufferings, these expiations will belong, however, to the Word, as this humanity itself does; they will take from the Divine Person an infinite value which will suffice to redeem the world, to destroy sin, to make grace superabound in souls like an impetuous and fructifying river: Fluminus impetus laetificat civitatem Dei (Ps 65:5).

O admirable exchange! Do not let us stay to wonder by what other means God might have brought it about, but let us contemplate the way wherein He has done so. The word asks of us a human nature to find in it wherewith to suffer, to expiate, to merit, to heap graces upon us. It is through the flesh that man turns away from God: it is in becoming flesh that God delivers man:

Beatus auctor saeculi Servile corpus induit Ut carne carnem liberans Ne perderet quos condidit (Hymn for Lauds at Christmas.)

The flesh that the Word of God takes upon Himself, is to become the instrument of salvation for all flesh. O admirabile commercium!

Doubtless, as you know, it was necessary to await the immolation of Calvary for the expiation to be complete; but, as St. Paul teaches us, it was from the first moment of His Incarnation that Christ accepted to accomplish His Father's will and to offer Himself as Victim for the human race: Ideo ingrediens mundum dicit: Hostiam et oblationem noluisti: CORPUS autem aptasti mihi . . . Et tune dixit: Ecce venio . . . ut faciam Deus voluntatem tuam (Heb 10:5, 7. Cf. Ps 39:8). It is by this oblation that Christ begins to sanctify us: In qua voluntate sanctificati sumus (Heb 10:10). . It is from the Crib that He inaugurates this life of suffering such as He willed to live for our salvation, this life of which the term is at Golgotha, and that, in destroying sin, is to restore to us the friendship of His Father. The Crib is certainly only the first stage, but it radically contains all the others.

This is why, in the Christmas solemnities, the Church attributes our salvation to the temporal Birth itself of the Son of God. 'Grant, we beseech Thee, Almighty God, that the new Birth of Thine Only-begotten Son in the fiesh may deliver us who are held captive by the old bondage under the yoke of sin (Concede quaesumus, omnipotens Deus, ut nos Unigeniti tui nova per carnem nativitas liberet, quos sub peccati jugo vetuita servitus tenet. Collect for the Mass of Christmas Day.). This is why, from that moment, 'deliverance, redemption, salvation, eternal life, will be spoken of constantly. It is by His Humanity that Christ, High Priest and Mediator, binds us to God; but it is at Bethlehem that He appears to us in this Humanity.

See, too, how from the moment of His Birth, He fulfils His mission.

What is it that causes us to lose divine life?

It is pride. Because they believed that they would be like unto God, having the knowledge of good and evil, Adam and Eve lost, for themselves and for their race, the friendship of God. Christ, the new Adam, redeems us, brings us back to God, by the humility of His Incarnation. Although He was God, He annihilated in taking the condition of the creature, in making Himself like unto men; He manifested Himself as man according to all appearances (Phil 2:6-7). . What a humiliation was that! Later, it is true, the Church will exalt to the highest heavens His dazzling glory as the conqueror over sin and death; but now, Christ knows only self-abasement and weakness. When our gaze rests upon this little Child, Who is in no way distinguished from others, when we think that He is God, and that in Him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and of knowledge, we feel our souls deeply moved, and our vain pride is confounded in the face of such abasement.

And what besides pride? Our refusal to obey. See what an example of wonderful obedience the Son of God gives. With the simplicity of little children, He yields Himself up into the hands of His parents; He allows Himself to be touched, taken up and carried about; and all His Childhood, all His Boyhood and Youth are summed up in the Gospel in these few words which tell how He was subject to Mary and Joseph: Et erat subditus illis (Cf. Lk 2:51).

And next there is our covetousness 'the concupiscence of the eyes (1 Jn 2:16), all that appears, glitters, fascinates and seduces; the essential inanity of the passing trifles that we prefer to God. The Word is made flesh; but He is born in poverty and abjection. Propter nos egenus factus est cum esset dives (2 Cor 8:9). 'Being rich, He became poor. Although He is 'the King of ages (1 Tim 1:17), although He is the One Who drew all creation out of nothing by a word, and has only to open His hand to fill 'with blessing every living creature (Ps 144:16), He is not born in a palace; His Mother, finding no room in the inn, had to take refuge in a stable cave: the Son of God, Eternal Wisdom, willed to be born in destitution and laid upon straw.

If with faith and love we contemplate the Child Jesus in His Crib, we shall find in Him the Divine Example of many virtues; if we know how to lend the ear of our hearts to what He says to us, we shall learn many things; if we refiect upon the circumstances of His Birth, we shall see how the Humanity serves the Word as the instrument to instruct us, but likewise to raise us, to quicken us, to make us pleasing to His Father, to detach us from passing things, to lift us up even to Himself.

'Divinity is clad in our mortal flesh . . . and because God humbles Himself to live a human life, man is raised towards divine things: Dum divinitas defectum nostrae carnes suscepit, humanum genus lumen, quod amiserat, recepit. Unde enim Deus humana patitur, inde homo ad divina sublevatur (S. Gregor. Homil. I, in Evangel.)


V

Thus from whatever side our faith contemplates this exchange, and whatever be the details of it that we examine, it appears admirable to us.

Is not this child-bearing of a virgin indeed admirable: Natus ineffabiliter ex virgine? (Antiphon for the Octave of Christmas).

'A young Maiden has brought forth the King Whose name is Eternal: to the honour of virginity she unites the joys of motherhood; before her, the like was never seen, nor shall it ever be so again (Genuit puerpera regem, cui nomen aeternum, et gaudia matris habens cum virginitatis honore, nec priman similem visa est, nec habere sequentem. Antiphon for Lauds at Christmas.) 'Daughters of Jerusalem, why do you admire me? This mystery that you behold in me is truly divine (Filiae Jerusalem, quid me admiramini? Divinum est mysterium hoc quod cernitis. Antiphon for the Feast of the
Expectatio partus virginis, Dec. 18).

Admirable is this indissoluble union, that is yet without confusion, of the divinity with the humanity in the one Person of the Word: Mirabile mysterium: innovantur naturae. Admirable is this exchange, by the contrasts of its realisation: God gives us a share in His divinity, but the humanity that He takes from us in order to communicate His divine life to us is a suffering humanity, 'acquainted with infirmity, homo sciens infirmitatem (Is 53:3), that will undergo death and, by death, will restore life to us.

Admirable is this exchange in its source which is none other than God's infinite love for us. Sic Deus dilexit mundum, ut Filium suum Unigenitum daret(Jn 3:16). 'God so loved the world as to give His Only-begotten Son. Let us, then, yield up our souls to joy and sing with the Church: Parvulus natus est nobis et filius DATUS est NOBIS. And how is He given? 'In the likeness of sinful flesh. This is why the love that thus gives Him to us in our passible humanity, in order to expiate sin, is a measureless love:

Propter NIMIAM caritatem suam, qua dilexit nos Deus, misit Filium suum in similitudinem carnis peccati (Antiphon for the Octave of Christmas).

Admirable, finally, in its fruits and effects. By this exchange, God again gives us His friendship, He restores to us the right of entering into possession of the eternal inheritance; He looks anew upon humanity with love and complacency.

Therefore, joy is one of the most marked characteristics of the celebration of this mystery. The Church constantly invites us to it, remembering the words of the angel to the shepherds: 'Behold, I bring you tidings of great joy . . . for this day is born to you a Saviour (Lk 2:10-11). It is the joy of deliverance, of the inheritance regained, of peace found once again, and, above all, of the vision of God Himself given to men: Et vocabitur nomen ejus Emmanuel (Is 7:14; cf. Mt 1:23).

But this joy will only be assured if we remain firm in the grace that comes to us from the Saviour and makes us His brethren. 'O Christian, exclaims St. Leo, in a sermon that the Church reads during this holy night, 'recognise thy dignity: Agnosce, O Christiane, dignitatem tuam. And made a partaker of the divinity, take care not to fall back from so sublime a state (Sermo I de Nativitate).

'If thou didst know the gift of God (Jn 4:10), said our Lord Himself. If thou didst know all that this Son is Who is given to thee! If, above all, we were to receive Him as we ought to receive Him! Let it not be said of us: In propria venit, et sui eum non receperunt (Gospel for the Mass on Christmas Day). 'He came unto His own, and His own received Him not. By our creation, all of us are 'His own; we belong to God; but there are some who have not received Him upon this earth. How many Jews, how many pagans have rejected Christ, because He has appeared in the humility of passible flesh! Souls sunk in the darkness of pride and sensuality: Lux in tenebris lucet, et tenebrae eam non comprehenderunt.

And how ought we to receive Him ? By faith: His qui credunt in nomine ejus. It is to those who-believing in His Person, in His word, in His works,-have received this Child as God, that it has been given, in return, to become themselves children of God: Ex Deo nati sunt.

Such is, in fact, the fundamental disposition that we must have so that this 'admirable exchange may produce in us all its fruits. Faith alone teaches us how it is brought about; wherein it is realised; faith alone gives us a true knowledge of it and one worthy of God.

For there are many modes and degrees of knowledge.

'The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his Master's Crib, wrote Isaias, in speaking of this mystery (Is 1:3). They saw the Child lying in the crib. But what could they see? As much as an animal could see: the form, the size, the colour, the movement,-an entirely rudimentary knowledge that does not pass the boundary line of sensation. Nothing more.

The passers-by, the curious, who approached the stable-cave saw the Child; but for them He was like all others. They did not go beyond this purely natural knowledge. Perhaps they were struck by the Child's loveliness. Perhaps they pitied His destitution. But this feeling did not last and was soon replaced by indifference.

There were the Shepherds, simple-hearted men, enlightened by a ray from on high: Claritas Dei circumfulsit illos (Lk 2:9), They certainly understood more; they recognised in this Child the promised Messias, long awaited, the Exicctatio gentium (Gen 49:10); they paid Him their homage, and their souls were for a long time full of joy and peace.

The Angels likewise contemplated the New-born Babe, the Word made Flesh. They saw in Him their God; this knowledge threw these pure spirits into awe and wonderment at such incomprehensible self-abasement: for it was not to their nature that He willed to unite Himself: Nusquam angelos, but to human nature, sed semen Abrahae apprehendit (Heb 2:16).

What shall we say of the Blessed Virgin when she looked upon Jesus? Into what depths of the mystery did her gaze penetrate- that gaze so pure, so humble, so tender, so full of bliss? Who shall be able to express with what lights the soul of Jesus inundated His Mother, and what perfect homage Mary rendered to her Son, to her God, to all the states and all the mysteries whereof the Incarnation is the substance and the root.

There is finally-but this is beyond description-the gaze of the Father contemplating His Son made flesh for mankind. The Heavenly Father saw that which never man, nor angel, nor Mary herself could comprehend: the infinite perfections of the Divinity hidden in a Babe . . . And this contemplation was the source of unspeakable rapture: Thou art My Son, My beloved Son, the Son of My direction in Whom I have placed all My delights (Mk 1:2; Lk 3:22) . . .

When we contemplate the Incarnate Word at Bethlehem, let us rise above the things of sense so as to gaze upon Him with the eyes of faith alone. Faith makes us share here below in the knowledge that the Divine Persons have of One Another. There is no exaggeration in this. Sanctifying grace makes us indeed partakers of the divine nature. Now, the activity of the divine nature consists in the knowledge that the Divine Persons have the One of the Other, and the love that they have One for the Other. We participate therefore in this knowledge and in this love. And in the same way as sanctifying grace having its fruition in glory will give us the right of seeing God as He sees Himself, so, upon earth, in the shadows of faith, grace enables us to behold deep down into these mysteries through the eyes of God: Lux tuae claritatis infulsit (Preface for Christmas).

When our faith is intense and perfect, we do not stay to look only at the outside of the mystery, but we go deeply into it; we pass through the Humanity to penetrate as far as the Godhead which the Humanity at the same time hides and reveals; we behold divine mysteries in the divine light.

And ravished, astounded at such prodigious abasement, the soul, vivified by this faith, falls prostrate in adoration and yields herself up entirely to procure the glory of a God Who, from love for His creature, thus veils the native splendour of His unfathomable perfections. She can never rest until she has given all, in return, to fill up her part in the exchange that He desires to contract with her, until she has brought herself wholly into subjection to this 'King of Peace Who comes with so much magnifcence (Antiphon at Vespers on Christmas Day) to save, sanctify and, as it were, to deify her.

Let us then draw near to the Child God with great faith. We may wish to have been at Bethlehem to receive Him. Yet He is here giving Himself to us in Holy Communion with as much reality although our senses are less able to find Him. In the Tabernacle as in the Crib, it is the same God full of power, the same Saviour full of tender mercy.

If we will have it so, the admirable exchange still continues. For it is likewise through His Humanity that Christ infuses divine life into us at the Holy Table. It is in eating His Flesh and drinking His Blood, in uniting ourselves to His Humanity, that we draw at the very wellspring of everlasting life: Qui manducat meam carnem, et bibit meum sanguinem, habet vitam aeternam (Jn 6:55) . . .

Thus, each day, the union established between man and God in the Incarnation, is continued and made closer. In giving Himself in Communion, Christ increases the life of grace in the generous and faithful soul, making this life develop more freely and expand with more strength; He even bestows upon such a soul the pledge of that blessed immortality of which grace is the germ and whereby God will communicate Himself to us fully and unveiled: Ut natus hodie Salvator mundi, sicut divinae nobis generationis est auctor, ita et immortalitatis sit IPSE largitor (Postcommunion of Christmas Day).

This will be the consummation, magnificent and glorious, of the exchange inaugurated at Bethlehem in the poverty and humiliations of the Crib.

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  Pfizer CEO says FDA has approved microchip for pills
Posted by: Stone - 12-20-2021, 02:15 PM - Forum: Health - No Replies

PFIZER CEO ALBERT BOURLA SAYS THAT THE FDA HAS APPROVED THE INSERTION OF A CHIP INTO THE PILL

[Notice the WEF background]


https://www.bitchute.com/video/NkLZxyE350ky/

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  Swedish company showcases microchip that can download COVID-19 passport status
Posted by: Stone - 12-20-2021, 01:58 PM - Forum: COVID Vaccines - No Replies

Swedish company showcases microchip that can download COVID-19 passport status
Firm has showcased implant capable of storing COVID passport that can be read by many devices


FoxBusiness | December 20, 201

A microchip technology introduced in recent years by the Stockholm-based startup Epicenter is being presented as a means to store one's COVID-19 vaccine passport under the skin, according to a video from the South China Post that went viral Friday.

The firm has showcased an implant capable of storing a COVID passport that can then be read by any device using the near-field communication (NFC) protocol, according to the video.

The video featured DSruptive CEO Hannes Sjöblad, who was founder of the Swedish Association of Biohackers.

Sjöblad demonstrated how Epicenter's rice-sized microchip, which has been adapted as a COVID-19 passport, is implanted under the skin either in the arm on between the thumb and forefinger.



Three Square Market, a Wisconsin-based technology company, became the first company in the U.S. to offer its employees similar free microchip implants in August 2017. The chip gives employees access to locked rooms and the ability to pay for food and drinks in the break room.

The microchips were provided to Three Square Market (32M) at the time by Biohax, which was run by Jowan Österlund, a Swedish tattooist and body piercing specialist, according to The Guardian.

"Eventually, this technology will become standardized allowing you to use this as your passport, public transit, all purchasing opportunities, etc.," said Todd Westby, the 32M CEO at the time.

The technology the company uses is called RFID (Radio-Frequency Identification), which uses electromagnetic fields to identify electronically stored information. The chips also use near-field communications (NFC), the same type of technology that is used in most contactless credit cards and mobile payments.

Westby said at the time that these microchips have already become very popular in many European countries and that the companies intended to be ahead of the curve in bringing it to the U.S. Now they could become COVID passports.

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  Global Protests Against Lockdowns - December 18, 2021
Posted by: Stone - 12-19-2021, 10:42 AM - Forum: Socialism & Communism - No Replies













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  A "Revolution of Tenderness", or "The Roche Christmas Massacre": A Farce in Eleven Dubia
Posted by: Stone - 12-18-2021, 10:38 AM - Forum: Pope Francis - Replies (1)

A "Revolution of Tenderness", or "The Roche Christmas Massacre": A Farce in Eleven Dubia
[Official Vatican Press Release follows in next post]


Rorate Caeli | December 18, 2021

As reported by this blog a few days ago, the "clarifications" of Traditionis custodes from the CDWDS, which the Pope has given his assent to, have been published today - relentlessly appalling in their attempted suppression of the traditional rites, yet comically absurd in their claim to be "preserving the gift of ecclesial communion by walking together, with conviction of mind and heart". In this current joke of a pontificate, war truly is peace.

The summary of what the Pope and the CDWDS are attempting to do is as follows:

1. Dispensations from art. 3 § 2 of TC can, in principle, be given for the traditional Mass to be celebrated in parish churches. Of course, under the current regime, "decentralisation" means the opposite of what most people would expect it to mean, so the Bishop is to request permission from the CDWDS, who may then graciously allow him to give permission for this, but "only if it is established that it is impossible to use another [non-parish] church, oratory or chapel." Further, once a non-parish church is available, "this permission will be withdrawn."

Of course, "there is no intention in these provisions to marginalise the faithful who are rooted in the previous form of celebration". No, contrary to all appearances, "this is a concession to provide for their good". Unlike the luminaries currently occupying the CDWDS, we plebs are not practiced in this sort of doublespeak. Why, sometimes Archbishop Roche can believe as many as six impossible things before breakfast!

2. The use of the traditional Rituale Romanum is allowable only for personal parishes, and use of the traditional Pontificale Romanum is absolutely forbidden. Pope Benedict's statement that "What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful" has officially been chucked down the memory-hole.

3. The canonical right of priests to freely choose not to take part in concelebrated Masses (see Canon 902) is now being treated as "a lack of acceptance of the liturgical reform". Perhaps in the fulness of time there will be someone in the CDWDS who this sort of wrongthink can be reported to.

4. To fulfil the conditions of TC art. 3 § 3, only a Bible in an authorised vernacular translation may be used for the proclamation of the readings at the usus antiquior. I have already pointed out the many problems and issues that will result from this, but the CDWDS is insistent that "no vernacular lectionaries may be published that reproduce the cycle of readings of the previous rite". So, we now have a new Index Librorum Prohibitorum for "modern man" - the traditional lectionary!

5. The CDWDS clarifies that TC art. 4 decentralises power by centralising it, requiring the explicit permission of the Apostolic See for priests ordained after 16th July 2021 to celebrate the traditional Latin Mass. This is "intended to assist the diocesan Bishop in evaluating such a request", presumably as long as the answer the Bishop comes to is "permission denied".

6. The granting of fixed-term, temporary permissions for the celebration of the usus antiquior is clearly desired by the CDWDS to be the norm: "the possibility of granting the use of the Missale Romanum of 1962 for a defined period of time... is not only possible but also recommended". And you'd all better be on your best behaviour, boys and girls, as "the outcome of this assessment [at the end of the ad tempus period] can provide grounds for prolonging or suspending the permission". A new Roman Inquisition of tenderness!

7. Papers, please! Every sacred minister now requires authorisation for celebrations of the traditional Mass - not just priests, but deacons, instituted ministers, etc. - no matter the circumstances. If the priest celebrating your Sunday traditional Mass falls sick, but he's the only priest the Bishop has authorised for such celebrations, then tough. If you're a priest who has permission from your own Bishop to celebrate the usus antiquior but find yourself in another diocese for travel, study, etc., then tough.

8. Finally, no bination using the 1962 Missal, for any reason whatsoever. Canon 905 § 2 doesn't apply here, apparently, because we can just attend Mass "in its current ritual form." How very pastoral!


* * * * *


"Peace, peace" they say, when there is no peace (Jer. 8:11). And there can be no peace, or unity, from this irresponsible, ideological and illegitimate attack on the traditional Roman Rite, and the faithful attached to it.

If it wasn't obvious at this point, then it really should be to all by now: this attempted extermination of the usus antiquior demonstrates that everything this papacy claims to be - "merciful", "accompanying", "listening", "synodal", "tender", "decentralising" - is a vicious lie.

Lord, have mercy on your Church!

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  Pope Francis’ new foundation appears to have more in common with French Revolution ...
Posted by: Stone - 12-18-2021, 08:00 AM - Forum: Pope Francis - No Replies

Pope Francis’ new foundation appears to have more in common with French Revolution than with Catholicism
References to God, the Holy Trinity, Our Lord Jesus Christ, and His Beloved Mother are totally absent from this catalogue of the new foundation's politically correct 'values,' among which environmentalist concerns and 'fraternity between believers and non-believers are, of course, paramount.

[Image: shutterstock_72657706-810x500.jpg]


Fri Dec 17, 2021 - 8:07 am EST
VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) — A “Fratelli tutti Foundation” attached to Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome was launched on Wednesday by Pope Francis who signed a decree that officially established the new entity. It aims at encouraging “fraternity and dialogue” among pilgrims and tourists visiting the Vatican.

The document was signed on December 8, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, and released to the Vatican Press office on Wednesday, together with the news of the nomination of its president, Cardinal Mauro Gambetti, archpriest of the Basilica, vicar general for the Vatican State, and president of the Fabric of Saint Peter. It is in this last capacity, as the head of the institution tasked with the conservation and maintenance of the Basilica, that Gambetti has now been given a free hand for the cultural and spiritual animation of the church itself and Saint Peter’s Square, within the “embrace” of the colonnade of Bernini, as the papal decree put it.

Cardinal Gambetti, it should be said, was the initiator of the new Foundation; he presented his brainchild to the world last October, describing it as a “dream” that was born in Assisi even before Fratelli tutti was written, but adding that the Encyclical is “the vision for which we should be striving globally.”

The example of what is afoot at Notre Dame of Paris immediately springs to mind: as LifeSite readers know, plans for a makeover of the Gothic jewel’s interior include creating a “discovery trail” for people of all religions, leading through chapels dedicated to the five continents and messages of the Old and New Testaments and culminating with Laudato si’. The revamping of Notre Dame is set to include benches with modern lighting systems, elements of “contemporary art” and music and light projections in the side-chapels, “creating the conditions for an experience” that would appeal to the cathedral’s many non-Catholic visitors.

The revamping of Notre Dame wants a clear break from traditional liturgy, as the designer of the revamp, Father Gilles Drouin, a staunch promoter of Traditionis custodes, has made clear. In interviews he has rejected what he says is a “Tridentine” conception of the liturgy as a “theater,” instead favoring an “active participation” that blurs the limits between the priest and the faithful attending Mass.

No practical details of upcoming changes or “animations” to St. Peter’s Basilica have been given yet, but a parallel can surely be drawn regarding Cardinal Gambetti, a 52-year-old Franciscan hand-picked by Pope Francis last year to receive the red hat. Gambetti has banned the traditional Latin Mass from the nave and side-chapels of Saint-Peter’s, relegating individual priests and groups to the Crypt and insisting that Masses within the central church of Christendom be in the vernacular, preferably Italian, and concelebrated.

He is certainly a perfect fit for presidency of the new “Fratelli Tutti Foundation” based on Pope Francis’ eponymous Encyclical. Fratelli tutti has already borne fruits such as the relativistic Abu Dhabi Declaration proclaiming that the “diversity of religions” was “willed by God in his wisdom.”

How this will play out in and around the Basilica of Saint Peter, where Catholics venerate the tomb of Saint Peter, the “rock” on whom the Church was built, can already be sensed in the few elements of the Foundation’s statutes that have been quoted by the Italian media. Key words and phrases are “humanism,” “building social alliances,” and, of course, “bridges,” the creating of “events,” “trails,” “experiences” and “spiritual exercises,” and “promoting dialogue with cultures and the other religions based on the themes of the Pope’s last Encyclical.”

In a communiqué published on Wednesday by the Holy See, the language is even more revealing: ten “purposes” are quoted in detail, and they certainly deserve to be reproduced in full. Here is our translation of the statement:

The Foundation’s mission areas are:

1. to support and design pathways of art and faith;
2. to invest in cultural and spiritual formation through events, experiences, paths, and spiritual exercises;
3. to promote dialogue with cultures and other religions on the themes of the Pontiff’s latest encyclicals to build a “social alliance.”


The purposes of the Foundation are included in Article 3 of the Statute:

“The Foundation has purposes of solidarity, training, dissemination of art and particularly sacred art; it promotes synodality, the culture of fraternity and dialogue. To this end, the Foundation:

  1. promotes a holistic formation, attentive to the spiritual and cultural levels, to the community dimension and to the commitment of service in the world;
  2. encourages tourists to live the experience of pilgrims through spiritual, cultural, and artistic itineraries in St. Peter’s Basilica and in the spaces made available bythe Fabric of St. Peter;
  3. organizes itineraries, events, and experiences to promote fraternity and social friendship between Churches, different religions, and between believers and non-believers;
  4. promotes the culture of peace in the various spheres of life, from the personal to the social and political dimensions;
  5. promotes “new encounters” nourished by social dialogue, by the sense of social forgiveness, by the purification of memory, by the promotion of restorative justice as an alternative to social revenge;
  6. nurtures initiatives aimed at fostering the development of fraternal humanism, through the promotion of the principles of liberty, equality and fraternity, conditions for building a “universal love” that recognizes and protects the dignity of persons;
  7. encourages projects for the care of creation, the protection of environmental resources, international solidarity, and social responsibility;
  8. promotes social alliance, responsible entrepreneurship, social investment, human and sustainable forms of work; integral ecology, sustainable development, ecological transition, health and scientific and technological research, in light of the principles of the Social Doctrine of the Church;
  9. supports responsible communication, the truthfulness of sources, and the credibility and reliability of those committed to building bridges;
  10. takes charge of, in the symbolic embrace of the colonnade of St. Peter’s Basilica, the weakest people, the stranger and the foreigner, the different and the marginalized, and the cultural and social frontiers to reinterpret the sufferings of the world and offer solutions in the light of the Gospel and the papal Magisterium”.

To carry out its activities, the Foundation will be chaired by Cardinal Mauro Gambetti, a nine-member Board of Directors, a single Auditor, and a General Secretary. The future guiding bodies of the Foundation will be: the General Council composed of members of the Vatican Dicasteries to which the Foundation’s mission themes pertain, and the Sustainability Committee in which the Foundation’s benefactors are represented.”

References to God, the Holy Trinity, Our Lord Jesus Christ, and His Beloved Mother are totally absent from this catalogue of politically correct “values,” among which environmentalist concerns and “fraternity between believers and non-believers” are, of course, paramount.

For French observers, the mention of “liberty, equality, and fraternity” in objective VI, together with a nod to “fraternal humanism,” has obvious Masonic overtones. A carbon copy of the motto of the French Republic, Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité, the words point to the French Revolution that allowed “no liberty for the enemies of Liberty” and understood the concept as the right to think and do what one wills, without regard for the superior right of truth and divine law.

“Equality” would soon degenerate into collectivism, socialism, or communism, and the overthrowing of natural hierarchies, while “Fraternity” is not so much a desire for true love and friendship among human beings as a rejection of paternity and its God-given authority.

Of course, all these words have their true value but, taken together and made absolute, they contradict each other and, improperly defined, they were the basis for the revolutionary “Terror” of 1792 and the following years when the Vendée region of France underwent a legal genocide as ordered by the Parisian revolutionaries[NB: See here and here for more on the Catholic Vendée - The Catacombs].

The Pope’s chirograph (i.e., papal decree limited to the Roman Curia) was also devoid of any obvious Catholic references, being content to refer to “religion” and “spirituality:”

Quote:I have learned with satisfaction that the Fabric of Saint Peter, together with some of the faithful, wish to join together to establish a Foundation of Religion and Worship intended to collaborate in spreading the principles set forth in my recent encyclical, Fratelli tutti, in order to encourage initiatives linked to spirituality, art, education and dialogue with the world, around Saint Peter’s Basilica and in the embrace of its colonnade.

I therefore gladly accede to the request expressed to me to establish in the State of Vatican City an autonomous foundation for the above-mentioned purposes.

By virtue of my apostolic power in the Church and my sovereignty in Vatican City, I establish the Fratelli tutti Foundation as a public canonical juridical person and as a civil juridical person with its headquarters in Vatican City State.

The Foundation will be governed by the canonical laws, in particular by the special norms that regulate the Bodies of the Holy See, by the civil norms in force in the Vatican City State, and by the attached Statute which I simultaneously approve.

From the Vatican, 8 December 2021

FRANCIS

The Foundation’s first public initiatives are expected to take place early next year. Cardinal Gambetti gave an interview to Vatican News last October in which he said the new Foundation will be a “polyhedron” (one of Pope Francis’ stock words) made up of “formation and dialogue, sacred art and economy, young people, and startups.” All will be welcome there “to find the direction of a common road towards the future… in harmony with the magisterium of Pope Francis,” he said.

Much of his interview is made up of variations and repetitions on this theme of a “common road.” But beyond the glib Newspeak, there is a clear, political objective that smacks of global spirituality and global governance. As Gambetti puts it:

Quote:We already have in mind, probably at the beginning of next year, some initiatives linked to the dual theme of art and spirituality, which are the first, and also the simplest, to activate. But then we are also thinking of something on formation, and it is probable that we will begin with young people, although this is not yet decided because we need to study it well. In any case, the idea is to have a few weeks of residential meetings to allow people to get together, to share, to think about some issues and then try to bring out something new or a new way. For example, if we think of young people, it could be a startup in some segment of the economy, mobility, climate, and environmental issues. Or if we turn to the world of business, putting together people who have managerial roles, or in any case important ones, we could look at the theme of new models of development.


Are we also looking at politics?

We could also think about new ways of doing politics, which are perhaps a bit tired or suffocated by the problems that exist, problems that are obviously real and need to be addressed. But along with this fatigue, we also need to look beyond, to the future. If we do not help each other imagine the future, or a society in which we wish to live, not just see others live it, perhaps politicsin particular will lose a bit of its own vocation.

This all sounds very ambitious for a Foundation centered on a Basilica and a Square – but so much in tone with the objectives of the global “élite” that it can certainly hope for its support.

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  Pfizer is now testing 3 injections of its #COVID19 jab in babies and preschoolers.
Posted by: Stone - 12-18-2021, 07:10 AM - Forum: COVID Vaccines - No Replies




See also here: https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/17/health/pf...index.html

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  The Month of the Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ - Translated from the French, 1848
Posted by: Stone - 12-17-2021, 10:46 AM - Forum: Resources Online - No Replies

The Month of the Nativity
A Series of Devotional Practices Whereby to Honour and Prepare for the Birth of the Holy Infant Saviour

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"We have a Paradise much better, and far more agreeable than that of our first parents," says St. Bernard "and this Paradise is our Lord Jesus Christ." (1 Serm. Nativity.) He is our beatitude in body and soul; His Divinity is the bliss of the latter, his Humanity that of the former. He is then our true Paradise. And He is all ours; all for our use, all for our wants: "Light to our eyes, hearing to our ears, perfume to our smell, bread to our mouth," says Origen. (Hom. 2 in Cant.) How lamentable, then, that faith and hope in, and knowledge and love of, this divine Saviour are so much on the decrease and become daily more diminished! To remedy this evil, in some degree, is the object of the following pages, having for title, "The Month of the Nativity of our Lord," in which are retraced the mysteries of the Incarnation and Nativity of this divine Saviour.

"The daily entertainment for each day, which besides a point of doctrine, includes reflections, &c., is preceded by a practice and aspiration, both to render it more conformable to the devotions appointed for other months, as well as to gratify more fervent souls who never think they can do enough to please their divine Saviour. In order to include all the feasts of Christmas without exceeding the period of a month, this devotion does not commence until the sixth of December. It will by this means terminate on the feast of the Epiphany, and those who have faithfully and fervently practised it, may hope to receive, in presenting it, with the offerings of the holy Magi, to their Infant God in His manger, a share in His choicest graces here, and because they have known and loved, "and confessed Him before men," to be acknowledged by Him before His Father who is in heaven, to whom, in unity of the Holy Ghost be all honour, might, glory, power, for endless ages.


Prayer of Thanksgiving

God of our hearts, while desiring this prodigy, we, the children of the Holy Catholic Church, thank you for having caused us to be born in its bosom, and fed with the milk of pure faith. “You have not done this for every nation,” which vastly enhances the precious gift. We shall never cease to thank You for it, and to praise and bless you for having bestowed upon us such a mark of predilection. May our gratitude be sincere and eternal. Amen.




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  Children's Consecration to the Sacred Heart [1890]
Posted by: Stone - 12-17-2021, 10:23 AM - Forum: In Honor of Our Lord - Replies (1)

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Children's Consecration to the Sacred Heart
by Rev. R. S. Dewey, S.J. 1890


Blessed Margaret Mary exhorted all Christians, even as they value their salvation, to consecrate themselves to the Heart of Jesus. These are her words: "The devil fears above all things else the accomplishment of this good work . . . by the saving of so many souls, through devotion to this loving Heart, of those who shall consecrate themselves wholly to Its love, honor, and glory."

A sure means of having all Christians consecrate themselves to the Divine Heart is to begin with the children. The year 1889 was the year of the reign of the Sacred Heart over society, promoted by the Consecration of Families to the Divine Heart. The year 1890, the 2d Centenary of Blessed Margaret Mary, should be the crowning and completion of the work so well begun. Under the auspices of this blessed seer a special effort will be made to consecrate to the Sacred Heart the "heart of the family"--the children so dear to the Divine Master. A special motive urgently pressing the proposal of this Consecration of Children, is the relentless and unholy warfare against the Christian education of children. A more powerful protection than this Consecration could not be given them.


Form Of Consecration

(To be said by all the children after the priest, or teacher, or one in the family leading.)


Priest or teacher:    Divine Heart of Jesus, behold us prostrate in Thy sight to give Thee our love and consecrate ourselves to Thee for ever. In the name of Mary, our Mother in heaven, sweet Heart of Jesus, have pity on us.

Children:    In the name of Mary, our Mother in heaven, sweet Heart of Jesus, have pity on us.


Priest or teacher:    O good and most loving Jesus, during the days of Thy mortal life, Thou wert pleased to bless little children and didst allow them to press close to Thee, saying to the bystanders: Suffer the little children to come unto Me and forbid them not. "We thank Thee, O good Jesus, for Thy great love toward us and we offer in return our whole heart and all our love.

Children:    We thank Thee, O good Jesus, for Thy great love toward us and we offer in return our whole heart and all our love.


Priest or teacher:    O good and most loving Jesus, Thou delightest in the prayers of children and dost listen to their innocent desires. On this beautiful day, more than ever, give ear to their wishes and grant their requests. Together we will say: Heart of Jesus, bless our father, bless our mother, bless our relatives and our teachers.

Children:    Heart of Jesus, bless our father, bless our mother, bless our relatives and teachers.


Priest or teacher:    Heart of Jesus, bless our companions and pardon poor sinners.

Children:    Heart of Jesus, bless our companions and pardon poor sinners.


Priest or teacher:    Divine Heart of Jesus, we pray Thee, also, for the children of the whole world: guard the cradle of tho new-born, the school of children, the vocation of youth; be Thou Thyself the support of poor children and a father to orphans. But, most of all, O Jesus, Thou fulness of mercy and of love, we beseech Thee to aid us in the hour of death; then, more closely than ever before, unite us to Thy Divine Heart and the Immaculate Heart of Thy gracious Mother; be our shelter and our refuge, and our resting-place; and when, one after the other, we shall have fallen asleep in Thy blessed bosom, O Jesus, may each of us in Paradise find again all his family unbroken in Thy Sacred Heart.

All together:    Divine Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us! Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us! Great Saint Joseph, pray for us! Holy Guardian Angels, intercede for us! Amen.


Note: This consecration may be made by children at any time, either in common in church, or privately at home.

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  Bishop Challoner: On the Wonders of God in the Incarnation of His Son [1807]
Posted by: Stone - 12-17-2021, 10:18 AM - Forum: Articles by Catholic authors - No Replies

On the Wonders of God in the Incarnation of His Son
by Richard Challoner, 1807

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Infant Jesus, true God and Lord, have mercy on us.


Consider first, how after the blessed Virgin's consent, and offering herself with a profound humility, with an entire obedience and a perfect conformity to the sacred will of God, by those words: 'Behold the handmaid of the lord, be it done to me according to thy word,' Luke i. 38, the greatest of all the wonders of God, and of all His works, was immediately effected: even a Man-God, the miracle of miracles. For a human body perfect in all its parts, was formed in an instant by the Holy Ghost, out of the purest blood of the blessed Virgin, and a most excellent rational soul was at the same time created; and this body and soul were joined with and assumed by the eternal Word, the second person of the most adorable Trinity. Thus God was made man, and man was made God; and the blessed Virgin was made mother of God. Thus in her womb was celebrated that sacred wedding of our human nature with the divine person of the Son of God, to the feast of which we are invited, Matt. xxii. Thus was our humanity exalted to the very highest elevation, by being united with, and subsisting by the person of, the eternal Word, and we all in consequence of this elevation of our human nature, have also been wonderfully dignified and exalted, by being raised up to a kindred with the most high God, who by taking to Himself our nature, has made us all his brothers and sisters; and by assuming our humanity has made us in some measure partakers of His divinity. O my soul, stand thou astonished at these wonders, which will be a subject of the greatest astonishment both to men and angels for all eternity! O admire and adore, praise and love, with all thy power, and with all thy affections, that infinite goodness that has wrought all these wonders out of love to thee!

Consider 2ndly, the wonders of God in all those graces and excellences which He conferred on the soul of Christ and on His sacred humanity, in the first instance of His conception, in consequence of its being united with the divine person--graces and excellences which are all immense and incomprehensible, and which exceed, without any comparison, all the rest of the wondrous works of God, and all whatsoever He has done at any time in favour of any of His saints, or of all of them put together. For God did not give to this His Son His spirit by measure, (John iii. 34,) as to the rest of His saints, but gave all things into His hands, 'and of His fullness we all receive,' John i. 16, even all grace and truth, according to the measure of His giving it to us, Eph. iv. 7. Now these graces and excellences we may reduce under the following heads: 1. An immense purity from all manner of sin or imperfection whatsoever--not as by privilege but in His own right, as being the Lamb of God, who came to take away the sins of the world. 2. The grace of sanctity, incomparable exceeding that of all the angels and saints put together; from whence He is called the holy of holies, Dan. ix., that is, the Saint of all saints--the Spirit of God resting on Him with all His gifts, with an incomprehensible plenitude, Isaias ii. 3. The grace of the beatific vision of the divine essence, and that in the most consummate degree, with proportionable love of the deity and joy in God. 4. All the treasures of the wisdom and knowledge of God. 5. The power of working all kinds of miracle and of raising the dead to life by His own will, with a general command over all the elements and over all nature. 6. The power of excellency in forgiving sins, converting sinners, changing their hearts, ordaining sacraments and sacrifices, and distributing amongst men graces and super-natural gifts. 7. The grace of being the perpetual head of all the church, both of heaven and earth, and the source of all blessings, gifts, and graces that either have been, are at present, or shall at any time be bestowed upon this His mystical body, or any of its members. O what subject have we here, my soul, to bless and praise the eternal Father for all these excellent gifts and graces with which He has enriched His Son, the man Christ Jesus! How ought we also to rejoice and congratulate with the sacred humanity of our Saviour on this occasion, and to give thanks without ceasing for all that share or portion of divine grace we continually derive from this overflowing fountain!

Consider 3rdly, in all these graces and excellences conferred on the humanity of Christ in His incarnation, how that of the prophet was verified, Isaias ix. 6, 'A child is born to us, and a son is given to us, and the government is upon His shoulders, and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, God, the Mighty, the Father of the world to come, the Prince of Peace.' Yes, Christians, these great titles here bestowed on your Saviour by the Spirit of God abundantly declare both the wonders that God wrought for Him and those which, through His incarnation, He has wrought also for you in giving Him to you; that He might be not only your Saviour, your redeemer, and your deliverer, but also your king, your lawgiver, your teacher, your model, your advocate, your physician, your friend, your high priest, and your victim, your father, and your head--in a word, the source of all your good; the way, the truth and the life, in your regard, by whom alone you can go to God. And do not all these great things, effected by the incarnation of the Son of God, show forth the power, the wisdom, the mercy, and goodness of God, with all the other divine attributes, infinitely more than any of the rest of the works of the Almighty!

Conclude to honour by a lively faith, by a serious and frequent meditation, and a sincere devotion, all those wonders of God, wrought, in the incarnation of His Son, both in favour of Him and of us, and to lead henceforward such lives as become those who, by this mystery, have been so highly exalted, and brought so near to the very source of all grace and sanctity.




On the Glory of God in the Incarnation of His Son


Consider first, how the angels, upon occasion of the birth of Christ, sung forth that blessed hymn, recorded Luke ii. 4, 'Glory to God on high, and on earth peace to men of goodwill;' to give us to understand that the incarnation and birth of the Son of God was designed to produce those two principal fruits, the greater glory of God and the peace and reconciliation of man with God. The glory of God shines forth most brightly in the incarnation of His Son by the manifestation of His power, of His wisdom, of His goodness, of His justice, and of His mercy, and by setting all these His divine attributes in their most beautiful light. The almighty power of God is here manifested in all these wonders He wrought in this mystery, and especially in that greatest and most glorious of all His wonderful productions, viz., a God-man--a greater work, without comparison, than the creation of ten thousand worlds. The infinite wisdom of God is here manifested in the contrivance of this wonderful way of uniting God and man, the creator and the creature, which were at an infinite distance from each other, so closely together as to be but one and the same person, and of reconciling by this means man, who was fallen from God by sin, in such manner as that, without his divine majesty departing in the least tittle from what was due to the reparation of His glory, He should continually receive from this one man, for every moment of time and eternity, a homage of adoration, praise, thanksgiving, and love, infinitely more glorious to the deity than all the homages of ten thousand worlds could be, though they were all full of angels and men eternally employed in nothing else but in glorifying God.

Consider 2ndly, with relation to the other attributes of God, viz., His goodness, His mercy, and His justice, how brightly they also shine forth in the incarnation of His Son, in which, according to the psalmist, (Ps. lxxxiv.,) 'Mercy and truth met each other; justice and peace have kissed.' The infinite mercy of God is set in no less clear a light by this mystery, in His here furnishing us, out of pure compassion, without any regard at all to our merits, with such and so great a Redeemer, to be both out priest and our sacrifice, for a propitiation for all our sins. And as to the infinite justice of God, so far from its being set aside in this mystery, or forgetting its right, it never exerted or manifested itself more than when it insisted upon such a satisfaction for sin as could not be paid by any lesser or meaner person than a God made man. So that the justice of God has been in effect more evidently demonstrated by the incarnation of the Son of God, coming down here amongst us to be made a bleeding victim for our sins, than by any other judgments or punishments whatsoever that either have been or ever could be inflicted by the divine majesty, either in time or eternity, for the sins of men.

Consider 3rdly, that the infinite dignity of the person of this God-man, as it gives an infinite dignity and worth to all His performances--even to every thought, word, or action, and every suffering of His--so it is an inexhaustible source from which continually and eternally flows an infinite glory to God from every thought, word, or action, or suffering of his Son, even from the moment of His conception till His expiring upon the cross, as well to all that adoration, praise, glory, thanksgiving, &c., which, as man He shall present to His Father for all eternity. See then, my soul, how very much the incarnation of the Son of God has advanced the glory of His Father; since every motion of the heart of this God made man gives in effect infinitely more glory to the Father, both in time and eternity, than all the adorations and praises of millions of angels and millions of worlds could ever have done, though eternally employed in nothing else but in glorifying God. Besides all that glory which the Son of God incarnate has procured for His Father by His gospel; by His worship which He has established here upon earth; by that great sacrifice of His body and blood, offered up daily on a million of altars, &c., and that kingdom of souls which he has here purchased, to be delivered up hereafter to His Father, to glorify Him for all eternity.

Conclude to rejoice in this great glory which the Son of God has procured both for His Father and for Himself by His incarnation, and sing to Him with the angels hymns of perpetual praise for His having so well associated together in this mystery His own glory with thy peace and salvation.

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  Christmas Novena of St. Alphonsus Liguori
Posted by: Stone - 12-17-2021, 10:13 AM - Forum: Novenas - No Replies

Christmas Novena

This Novena is translated from the Italian of Saint Alphonsus Maria de Liguoiri and was first published in 1758. Although this novena is intended primarily as a preparation for the feast of our Lord's Nativity, it can be used with spiritual profit at any time of the year as a devotion in honor of the Infant Jesus.

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First Day

God's Love Revealed in His Becoming Man.



Because our first parent Adam had rebelled against God, he was driven out of paradise and brought on himself and all his descendants the punishment of eternal death. But the Son of God, seeing man thus lost and wishing to save him from death, offered to take upon Himself our human nature and to suffer death Himself, condemned as a criminal on a cross. "But, My Son," we may imagine the eternal Father saying to Him, "think of what a life of humiliations and sufferings Thou wilt have to lead on earth. Thou wilt have to be born in a cold stable and laid in a manger, the feeding trough of beasts. While still an infant. Thou wilt have to flee into Egypt, to escape the hands of Herod. After Thy return from Egypt, Thou wilt have to live and work in a shop as a lowly servant, poor and despised. And finally, worn out with sufferings. Thou wilt have to give up Thy life on a cross, put to shame and abandoned by everyone." "Father," replies the Son, "all this matters not. I will gladly bear it all, if only I can save man."

What should we say if a prince, out of compassion for a dead worm, were to choose to become a worm himself and give his own life blood in order to restore the worm to life? But the eternal Word has done infinitely more than this for us, though He is the sovereign Lord of the world. He chose to become like us, who are immeasurably more beneath Him than a worm is beneath a prince, and He was willing to die for us, in order to win back for us the life of divine grace that we had lost by sin. When He saw that all the other gifts which He had bestowed on us were not sufficient to induce us to repay His love with love. He became man Himself and gave Himself all to us. "The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us"; "He loved us and delivered Himself up for us."


Prayer

O Great Son of God Thou hast become man in order to make Thyself loved by men. But where is the love that men give Thee in return? Thou hast given Thy life blood to save our souls. Why then are we so unappreciative that, instead of repaying Thee with love, we spurn Thee with ingratitude? And I, Lord, I myself more than others have thus ill treated Thee. But Thy Passion is my hope. For the sake of that love which led Thee to take upon Thyself human nature and to die for me on the cross, forgive me all the offences I have committed against Thee.

I love Thee, O Word incarnate; I love Thee, O infinite goodness. Out of love for Thee, my God, I am so sorry for all the injuries I have done Thee, that I could die of grief for these offences. Give me, O Jesus, Thy love. Let me no longer live in ungrateful forgetfulness of the love Thou bearest me. I wish to love Thee always. Grant that I may always persevere in this holy desire.

O Mary, Mother of God and my Mother, pray for me that Thy Son may give me the grace to love Him always, unto death. Amen.





Second Day

God's Love Revealed in His Being Born an Infant.



When the Son of God became man for our sake. He could have come on earth as an adult man from the first moment of His human existence, as Adam did when he was created. But since the sight of little children draws us with an especial attraction to love them, Jesus chose to make His first appearance on earth as a little infant, and indeed as the poorest and most pitiful infant that was ever born. "God wished to be born as a little babe," wrote Saint Peter Chrysologus, "in order that He might teach us to love and not to fear Him." The prophet Isaias had long before foretold that the Son of God was to be born as an infant and thus give Himself to us on account of the love He bore us: "A child is born to us, a son is given to us."

My Jesus, supreme and true God! What has drawn Thee from heaven to be born in a cold stable, if not the love which Thou bearest us men? What has allured Thee from the bosom of Thy Father, to place Thee in a hard manger? What has brought Thee from Thy throne above the stars, to lay Thee down on a little straw? What has led Thee from the midst of the nine choirs of angels, to set Thee between two animals? Thou, who inflamest the seraphim with holy fire, art now shivering with cold in this stable! Thou, who settest the stars in the sky in motion, canst not now move unless others carry Thee in their arms! Thou, who givest men and beasts their food, hast need now of a little milk to sustain Thy life! Thou, who art the joy of heaven, dost now whimper and cry in suffering! Tell me, who has reduced Thee to such misery; "Love has done it," says Saint Bernard. The love which Thou bearest us men has brought all this on Thee.


Prayer

O Dearest Infant! Tell me, what hast Thou come on earth to do? Tell me, whom art Thou seeking? Yes, I already know. Thou hast come to die for me, in order to save me from hell. Thou hast come to seek me, the lost sheep, so that, instead of fleeing from Thee any more, I may rest in Thy loving arms. Ah my Jesus, my treasure, my life, my love and my all! Whom will I love, if not Thee? Where can I find a father, a friend, a spouse more loving and lovable than Thou art?

I love Thee, my dear God; I love Thee, my only good. I regret the many years when I have not loved Thee, but rather spurned and offended Thee. Forgive me, O my beloved Redeemer; for I am sorry that I have thus treated Thee, and I regret it with all my heart. Pardon me, and give me the grace never more to withdraw from Thee, but constantly to love Thee in all the years that still lie before me in this life. My love, I give myself entirely to Thee; accept me, and do not reject me as I deserve.

O Mary, thou art my advocate. By thy prayers thou dost obtain whatever thou wilt from thy Son. Pray Him then to forgive me, and to grant me holy perseverance until death. Amen.





Third Day

The Life of Poverty which Jesus Led from His Birth.



God so ordained that, at the time when His Son was to be born on this earth, the Roman emperor should issue a decree ordering everyone to go to the place of his origin and there be registered in the census. Thus it came about that, in obedience to this decree, Joseph went to Bethlehem together with his virgin wife when she was soon to have her Child. Finding no lodging either in the poor inn or in the other houses of the town, they were forced to spend the night in a cave that was used as a stable for animals, and it was here that Mary gave birth to the King of heaven. If Jesus had been born in Nazareth, He would also, it is true, have been born in poverty; but there He would at least have had a dry room, a little fire, warm clothes and a more comfortable cradle. Yet He chose to be born in this cold, damp cave, and to have a manger for a cradle, with prickly straw for a mattress, in order that He might suffer for us.

Let us enter in spirit into this cave of Bethlehem, but let us enter in a spirit of lively faith. If we go there without faith, we shall see nothing but a poor infant, and the sight of this lovely child shivering and crying on his rough bed of straw may indeed move us to pity. But if we enter with faith and consider that this Babe is the very Son of God, who for love of us has come down on earth and suffers so much to pay the penalty for our sins, how can we help thanking and loving Him in return?


Prayer

O dear Infant Jesus, how could I be so ungrateful and offend Thee so often, if I realized how much Thou hast suffered for me? But these tears which Thou sheddest, this poverty which Thou embraces! for love of me, make me hope for the pardon of all the offences I have committed against Thee.

My Jesus, I am sorry for having so often turned my back on Thee. But now I love Thee above all else. "My God and my all!" From now on Thou, O my God, shalt be my only treasure and my only good. With Saint Ignatius of Loyola I will say to Thee, "Give me the grace to love Thee; that is enough for me." I long for nothing else; I want nothing else. Thou alone art enough for me, my Jesus, my life, my love.

O Mary, my Mother, obtain for me the grace that I may always love Jesus and always be loved by Him. Amen.






Fourth Day

The Life of Humiliation which Jesus Led from His Birth.



The Sign which the angel gave the shepherds to help them find the new-born Savior, points to His lowliness: "This shall be a sign to you: you will find an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger." No other new-born baby who was wrapped in poor swaddling clothes and lying in a manger, a feeding trough for animals, could be found anywhere else but in a stable. Thus in lowliness the King of heaven, the Son of God, chose to be born, because he came to destroy the pride that had been the cause of man's ruin.

The prophets had already foretold that our Redeemer was to be treated as the vilest of men on earth and that He was to be overwhelmed with insults. How much contempt had not Jesus indeed to suffer from men! He was called a drunkard, a trickster, a blasphemer and a heretic. What ignominies He endured in His Passion! His own disciples abandoned Him; one of them sold Him for thirty pieces of silver, and another denied having ever known Him. He was led in bonds through the streets like a criminal; He was scourged like a slave, ridiculed as a fool, crowned with thorns as a mock king, buffetted and spit upon, and finally left to die, hanging on a cross between two thieves, as the worst criminal in the world. "The noblest of all," says Saint Bernard, "is treated as the vilest of all." But the Saint adds, "The viler Thou art treated, the dearer Thou art to me." The more I see Thee, my Jesus, despised and put to shame, the more dear and worthy of my love dost Thou become to me.


Prayer


O Dearest Savior, Thou hast embraced so many outrages for love of me, yet I have not been able to bear one word of insult without at once being filled with resentful thought--I who have so often deserved to be trodden under foot by the demons in hell! I am ashamed to appear before Thee, sinful and proud as I am. Yet do not drive me from Thy presence, O Lord, even though that is what I deserve. Thou hast said that Thou wilt not spurn a contrite and humbled heart. I am sorry for the offences I have committed against Thee. Forgive me, O Jesus. I will not offend Thee again.

For love of me Thou hast borne so many injuries; for love of Thee I will bear all the injuries that art done to me. I love Thee, Jesus, who wast despised for love of me. I love Thee above every other good. Give me the grace to love Thee always and to bear every insult for love of Thee.

O Mary, recommend me to Thy Son; pray to Jesus for me. Amen.






Fifth Day

The Life of Sorrow which Jesus Led from His Birth.



Jesus Christ could have saved mankind without suffering and dying. Yet, in order to prove to us how much He loved us, He chose for Himself a life full of tribulations. Therefore the prophet Isaias called Him "a man of sorrows," His whole life was filled with suffering. His Passion began, not merely a few hours before His death, but from the first moment of His birth. He was born in a stable where everything served to torment Him. His sense of sight was hurt by seeing nothing but the rough, black walls of the cave; His sense of smell was hurt by the stench of the dung from the beasts in the stable; His sense of touch was hurt by the prickling straw on which He lay. Shortly after His birth He was forced to flee into Egypt, where He spent several years of His childhood in poverty and misery. His boyhood and early manhood in Nazareth were passed in hard work and obscurity. And finally, in Jerusalem, He died on a cross, exhausted with pain and anguish.

Thus, then, was the life of Jesus but one unbroken series of sufferings, which were doubly painful because He had ever before His eyes all the sufferings He would have to endure till His death. Yet, since our Lord had voluntarily chosen to bear these tribulations for our sake, they did not afflict Him as much as did the sight of our sins, by which we have so ungratefully repaid Him for His love towards us. When the confessor of Saint Margaret of Cortona saw that she never seemed satisfied with all the tears she had already shed for her past sins, he said to her, "Margaret, stop crying and cease your lamenting, for God has surely forgiven you your offences against Him." But she replied, "Father, how can I cease to weep, since I know that my sins kept my Lord Jesus in pain and suffering during all His life?"


Prayer

O Jesus, my sweet Love! I too have kept Thee suffering through all Thy life. Tell me, then, what I must do in order to win Thy forgiveness. I am ready to do all Thou askest of me. I am sorry, O sovereign Good, for all the offences I have committed against Thee. I love Thee more than myself, or at least I feel a great desire to love Thee. Since it is Thou who hast given me this desire, do Thou also give me the strength to love Thee exceedingly.

It is only right that I, who have offended Thee so much, should love Thee very much. Always remind me of the love Thou hast borne me, in order that my soul may ever burn with love of Thee and long to please Thee alone. O God of love, I, who was once a slave of hell, now give myself all to Thee. Graciously accept me and bind me to Thee with the bonds of Thy love. My Jesus, from this day and forever in loving Thee will I live, and in loving Thee will I die.

O Mary, my Mother and my hope, help me to love Thy dear God and mine. This is the only favor I ask of thee, and through thee I hope to receive it. Amen.





Sixth Day

God's Mercy revealed in His Coming Down from Heaven to Save us.



Saint Paul says, "The goodness and kindness of God, our Savior, has appeared." When the Son of God made Man appeared on earth, then was it seen how great is God's goodness towards us. Saint Bernard says that first God's power was manifested in the creation of the world and His wisdom in its conservation, but His merciful goodness was especially manifested later in His taking human nature on Himself, in order to save fallen mankind by His sufferings and death. For what greater proof of His kindness towards us could the Son of God show us than in taking on Himself the punishment we had deserved?

See Him as a weak, new/born infant, wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. Unable to move or feed Himself, He has need of Mary to give Him a little milk to sustain His life. Or see Him again in Pilate's courtyard, tied with fast bonds to a column and there scourged from head to foot. Behold Him on the way to Calvary, falling down from weakness under weight of the cross that He must carry. Finally behold Him nailed to this tree of shame, on which He breathes His last amid pain and anguish. Because Jesus Christ wished that His love for us should win all the love of our hearts for Himself, He would not send an angel to redeem us, but chose to come Himself, to save us by His Passion and death. Had an angel been our redeemer, men would have had to divide their hearts in loving God as their Creator and an angel as their redeemer; but God, who desires men's whole hearts, as He was already their Creator, wished also to be their Redeemer.


Prayer

O my dear Redeemer! Where should I be now, if Thou hadst not borne with me so patiently, but hadst called me from life while I was in the state of sin? Since Thou hast waited for me till now, forgive me quickly, O my Jesus, before death finds me still guilty of so many offences that I have committed against Thee. I am so sorry for having vilely despised Thee, my sovereign Good, that I could die of grief. But Thou canst not abandon a soul that seeks Thee.

If hitherto I have forsaken Thee, I now seek Thee and love Thee. Yes, my God, I love Thee above all else; I love Thee more than myself. Help me. Lord, to love Thee always during the rest of my life. Nothing else do I seek of Thee. But this I beg of Thee, this I hope to receive from Thee.

Mary, my hope, do thou pray for me. If thou prayest for me, I am sure of grace. Amen.






Seventh Day

The Flight of the Infant Jesus into Egypt.



Although the Son of God came from heaven to save men, scarcely was He born when men began to persecute Him to death. Herod, fearing that this Child would deprive Him of his kingdom, seeks to destroy His life. But St. Joseph is warned by an angel in a dream to take the Infant and His Mother and flee into Egypt. Joseph obeys at once, and tells Mary about it. He takes the few tools of his trade, that he may use them to gain a livelihood in Egypt for himself and his poor family. Mary wraps up a small bundle of clothes for the use of her little Son, and then, going to the crib, she says with tears in her eyes to her sleeping Child, "O my Son and my God! Thou hast come from heaven to save men; but hardly art Thou born when they seek to take Thy life." Lifting Him meanwhile in her arms and continuing to weep, she sets out that same night with Joseph on the road to Egypt.

Let us consider how much these holy wanderers must have suffered in making so long a journey, deprived of every comfort. The divine Child was not yet able to walk, and so Mary and Joseph had to take turns in carrying Him in their arms. During their journey through the desert towards Egypt they had to spend several nights in the open air, with the bare ground for their bed. The cold makes the Infant cry, and Mary and Joseph weep in pity for Him. And who would not weep at thus seeing the Son of God poor and persecuted, a fugitive on earth, that He might not be killed by His enemies!


Prayer

Dear Infant Jesus, crying so bitterly! Well hast Thou reason to weep in seeing Thyself persecuted by men whom Thou lovest so much. I, too, O God, have once persecuted Thee by my sins. But Thou knowest that now I love Thee more than myself, and that nothing pains me more than the thought that I have so often spurned Thee, my sovereign Good.

Forgive me, O Jesus, and let me bear Thee with me in my heart on all the rest of the journey that I have still to make through life, so that together with Thee I may enter into eternity. So often have I driven Thee from my soul by my sins. But now I love Thee above all things, and I regret above other misfortunes that I have offended Thee. I wish to leave Thee no more, my beloved Lord. But do Thou give me the strength to resist temptations. Never permit me to be separated from Thee again. Let me rather die than ever again lose Thy good grace.

O Mary, my hope, make me always live in God's love and then die in loving Him. Amen.






Eighth Day

The Life of the Child Jesus in Egypt and in Nazareth.



Our Blessed Redeemer spent the first part of His childhood in Egypt, leading there for several years a life of poverty and humiliation. In that land Joseph and Mary were foreigners and strangers, having there neither relatives nor friends. Only with difficulty could they earn their daily bread by the labor of their hands. Their home was poor, their bed was poor, their food was poor. Here Mary weaned Jesus; dipping a piece of bread in water, she would put it in the sacred mouth of her Son. Here she made His first little garments and clothed Him with them. Here the Child Jesus took His first steps, stumbling and falling as other children first do. Here too He spoke His first words, but stammeringly. O wonder of wonders! To what has not God lowered Himself for love of us! A God stumbling and falling as He walks! A God stammering in His speech!

Not unlike this was the poor and humble life that Jesus led in Nazareth after His return from Egypt. There, until He was thirty years old. He lived as a, simple servant or workman in a carpenter shop, taking orders from Joseph and Mary. "And He was subject to them." Jesus went to fetch the water; He opened and closed the shop; He swept the house, gathered the fragments of wood for the fire, and toiled all day long, helping Joseph in his work. Yet who is this? God Himself, serving as a apprentice! The omnipotent God, who with less than a flick of His finger created the whole universe, here sweating at the task of planing a piece of work! Should not the mere thought of this move us to love Him?


Prayer

O Jesus, my Savior! When I consider how, for love of me. Thou didst spend thirty years of Thy life hidden and unknown in a poor workshop, how can I desire the pleasures and honors and riches of the world? Gladly do I renounce all these things, since I wish to be Thy companion on this earth, poor as Thou wast, mortified and humble as Thou wast, so that I may hope to be able one day to enjoy Thy companionship in heaven. What are all the treasures and kingdoms of this world" Thou, O Jesus, art my only treasure, my only Good!

I keenly regret the many times in the past when I spurned Thy friendship in order to satisfy my foolish whims. I am sorry for them with all my heart. For the future I would rather lose my life a thousand times than lose Thy grace by sin. I wish never to offend Thee again, but always to love Thee. Help me to remain faithful to Thee until death.

O Mary, thou art the refuge of sinners, thou art my hope. Amen.






Ninth Day

The Birth of Jesus in the Stable of Bethlehem.



When the edict was issued by the emperor of Rome that everyone should go to his own Joseph and Mary went to be enrolled in Bethlehem. How much the holy Virgin must have suffered on this journey of four days, over mountainous road and in the wintertime, with its cold rain and wind! When they arrived in Bethlehem, the time of Mary's delivery was near. Joseph, therefore, sought some lodging where she might give birth to her Child. But because they were so poor, they were driven away from the houses and even from the public inn, where other poor people had found shelter. So in that night they went a short way out of the town and there found a cave that was used as a stable, and here Mary entered. But Joseph said to his virgin wife, "Mary, how can you spend the night in this cold, damp cave and here give birth to your Child?" Mary however replied, "Dear Joseph, this cave is the royal palace in which the King of kings, the Son of God, wishes to be born."

When the hour of her delivery had arrived, the holy Virgin, as she knelt in prayer, all at once saw the cave illumined with a dazzling light. She lowered her eyes to the ground and there saw before her the Son of God now born on earth, a poor little Babe, crying and shivering in the cold. Adoring Him as her God, she took Him to her breast and fondled Him. Then she wrapped Him in swaddling clothes and laid Him on the straw of the manger that stood in the cave. Thus did the Son of God choose to be born among us to prove His infinite love for us.


Prayers

O Adorable Infant Jesus! I should not have the boldness to cast myself at Thy feet, if I did not know that Thou Thyself invitest me to draw near Thee. It is I who by my sins have made Thee shed so many tears in the stable of Bethlehem. But since Thou hast come on earth to pardon repentant sinners, forgive me also, now that I am heartily sorry for having spurned Thee, my Savior and my God, who art so good and who hast loved me so much.

In this night, in which Thou bestowest great graces on so many souls, grant Thy heavenly consolation to this poor soul of mine also. All that I ask of Thee is the grace to love Thee always, from this day forward, with all my heart. Set me all on fire with Thy holy love. I love Thee, O my God, who hast become a Babe for love of me. Never let me cease from loving Thee evermore.

O Mary, Mother of Jesus and my Mother, thou canst obtain everything from thy Son by thy prayers. This is the only favor I ask of Thee. Do thou pray to Jesus for me. Amen.

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  Big Pharma, Gates, Fauci, UK officials accused of crimes against humanity in complaint to IC
Posted by: Stone - 12-17-2021, 08:00 AM - Forum: Pandemic 2020 [Secular] - No Replies

Big Pharma, Gates, Fauci, UK officials accused of crimes against humanity in complaint to International court
Activists are charging UK officials and the world’s most powerful health figures with genocide,
citing a range of statistics on the effects of COVID “vaccines” and policies.

[Image: shutterstock_1102794638-810x500.jpg]

Thu Dec 16, 2021 - 9:29 pm EST
(LifeSiteNews) – A group that includes former Pfizer vice president Dr. Michael Yeadon filed a complaint with the International Criminal Court (ICC) on behalf of UK citizens against Boris Johnson and UK officials, Bill and Melinda Gates, chief executives of Big Pharma companies, World Economic Forum executive chairman Klaus Schwab, and others for crimes against humanity.

The UK group, including an astrophysicist and a funeral director, additionally charged Dr. Anthony Fauci; Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO);  June Raine, chief executive of Medicines and Healthcare products regulatory agency (MHRA); Dr. Radiv Shah, president of the Rockefeller Foundation; and Dr. Peter Daszak, president of EcoHealth Alliance,  as “responsible for numerous violations of the Nuremberg Code … war crimes and crimes of aggression” in the UK and other countries.

After repeated unsuccessful attempts to raise a case with the English Court system, the applicants resorted to calling with “the utmost urgency” for the ICC “to stop the rollout of COVID vaccinations, introduction of unlawful vaccination passports and all other types of illegal warfare … being waged against the people of the UK.”

In the group’s complaint filed December 6, they present evidence that COVID-19 “vaccines” are in fact experimental gene therapies engineered with gain-of-function research from bat coronaviruses, arguing that these “vaccines” have caused massive death and injury and that the UK government has failed to investigate such reported deaths and injuries; that COVID case and death numbers have been artificially inflated; that face masks are harmful due to hypoxia, hypercapnia and other causes; and PCR tests are “completely unreliable” and “contain carcinogenic ethylene oxide.”

They furthermore argued that effective treatments for COVID-19 such as hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin, were suppressed, leading to a greater death toll from COVID-19 than what should have occurred.

They make the case that the lockdowns were enacted under the pretext of artificially inflated infection and death numbers from an engineered virus, as well as the experimental “vaccines” have resulted in:

Massive short-term damage and death, with at least 395,049 reported adverse reactions to COVID “vaccines” in the UK alone; a sharp uptick in ChildLine calls from vulnerable children during lockdowns; “destruction of wealth and businesses” through imposed lockdowns;” “severe deprivation of physical liberty in violation of fundamental rules of international law,” including bans on travel and gatherings, and forced quarantine and self-isolation; apartheid due to segregation by vaccine passport possession; and “expected reduction in fertility” after “vaccination,” among other harmful physical and psychological effects.

In addition, the applicants maintain that “the suppression of safe and effective alternative treatments for Covid-19 amounts to murder and warrants a full investigation by the court.” They noted that besides censorship of online information on and promotion of these alternative treatments, “some academic journals are blocking the publication of studies showing the effectiveness of drugs such as ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine.”

The applicants also cited quotes from Holocaust survivors who have drawn “stark parallels between Covid restrictions and the beginning of the Holocaust.” In an open letter, the Holocaust survivors have asked medical regulatory authorities  to “stop this ungodly medical experiment on humankind immediately,” which they maintain violates the Nuremberg Code.

They even allege that “another holocaust of greater magnitude is taking place before our eyes.” One survivor, Vera Sharav, noted in an interview cited in the complaint,

“The stark lesson of the Holocaust is that whenever doctors join forces with government and deviate from their personal, professional, clinical commitment to do no harm to the individual, medicine can then be perverted from a healing, humanitarian profession to a murderous apparatus.”

What sets the Holocaust apart from all other mass genocides is the pivotal role played by the medical establishment, the entire medical establishment. Every step of the murderous process was endorsed by the academic, professional medical establishment. Medical doctors and prestigious medical societies and institutions lent the veneer of legitimacy to infanticide, mass murder of civilians.

According to the applicants, all of the damaging consequences of the “vaccines,” lockdown and virus meet the criteria for genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes against the people of the UK, because the guilty “members of the UK government and world leaders have both knowledge and intent with respect to these alleged crimes.”

In fact, they argue that the destructive consequences of the “vaccines,” lockdowns and engineered virus are deliberate attempts at depopulation and societal destabilization as part of a globally coordinated plan to consolidate wealth and power in the hands of a few.

They argue that these measures therefore also constitute a “crime of aggression,” that is, the effort “effectively to exercise control over or to direct the political or military action of a State.” In this case, they claim, the goal is to “dismantl[e] all the Democratic Nation States, step by step,” and to “destroy small and medium sized businesses, moving the market shares to the largest corporations,” owned by the ultra-rich, to give this “elite” group greater political and monetary control.

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  Fr. Daniel Lord: Revolt Against Heaven [1936]
Posted by: Stone - 12-17-2021, 07:51 AM - Forum: Articles by Catholic authors - No Replies

REVOLT AGAINST HEAVEN
By DANIEL A. LORD, S.J.

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SHARP commotion ran through the streets of heaven. The calmness of eternal day was broken by alarms and shouts, the gathering of angels in excited, hurried knots, the rushing to and fro of mighty-winged seraphs.

Two names were spoken in hushed and terrified voices, the name of the Most High and the name of His fairest and strongest angel, Lucifer. Glorious beyond all the other angels of heaven, endowed with brilliant intellect and compelling will, Lucifer had deserved his name and wore it proudly, Bearer-of-the-Light.

But where heaven yesterday had known peace, today excitement drew angels together in troubled groups and filled the very air with dread and wonder. A new problem, filled with fearsome possibilities, agitated their intellects and disturbed their wills.

For from the White Throne had gone forth word of a new Leader. He was, rumour said, to be chosen from the ranks of a race as yet untreated. Mankind was to be the race's name. The Most High had announced that the Second Person of the Divine Trinity would pass by the nine orders of heavenly knighthood and unite Himself with this inferior nature of an inferior race. Uniformed in this lower rank, He would still claim place as God of heaven and commander of the celestial armies.


What of Lucifer?

Wonder that grew into consternation, questions that rose like the swift swelling of a hurricane, swept the far reaches of the Heavenly City. In every mind was one piercing doubt. What of Lucifer?

Would the mighty warrior of God take his commands from one who wore a uniform less splendid than his own? Would Lucifer drop his proud head in obedience to a being of inferior race? If sometimes with a glint of rising resentment he accepted the orders even of the Most High, what would he do when the orders fell from the lips of a man lower in human nature than the weakest and least noble angel among Lucifer's subordinates?

Though there was doubt in the minds of all, the passing of the day brought to Lucifer's friends a frightening certainty. God Himself might command Lucifer and be obeyed; but were the command sounded by a lesser voice than that of Omnipotence, Lucifer, his followers felt, would lift his head in proud refusal. He was not likely to recognise a substitute commander for the Almighty.

Suppose, ran the terrifying speculation, he refused to acknowledge this new commander in chief. Would God bow before his haughty resentment? Would God yield to His glorious favourite? And if God did not yield, that might mean war in heaven. Dared Lucifer make war upon the Almighty?

Was he-and here his followers felt a strange exultant thrill-strong enough to wrest to himself the sovereignty even of the Heavenly city?

'He would not dare rebel,' was the voiceless whisper that swept through heaven.

'He will keep his plume unbowed to any save the All-Highest, even if this means war,' his closest followers answered; and there was pride in their reply.


The Summons

Across the measureless distances of heaven the ringing blasts of trumpets were flung from battlement to battlement. Excited knots instantly slipped into disciplined companies. The disorderly rushing to and fro became the steady flow of marshalled spirits toward the Throne from which radiated the white, vibrant light that filled heaven. Silence quickly chained the doubts and questions that still thrashed about in angelic minds, for the wordless voice of Omnipotence sounded above the trumpets and the wind-like rush of forward-moving legions.

Before the Throne the long lines halted. Light leaped from spear to spear and flashed back in brilliant repercussion from starlike shields. Great, massed choirs, whose voices were like the swell of an organ built by no human hands, now stood silent and waiting.

God from His throne looked upon the angels of His creation, and loved them as an artist loves the supreme work of his hands, and then loved them with the deeper love of a father for the brilliant, glorious sons of his begetting.

A wide, hollow square of angels framed the reviewing ground before the Throne. Into this square, his glory like the glory of a thousand suns, his strength anal beauty involuntary tribute to God's great craftsmanship, stepped Lucifer. His sword flashed in a salute that had in it as much pride as reverence-flashed and was quickly buried once more in its scabbard. His head, unbowed, was lifted toward the face of the All-Beautiful.


A New Captain

Then, above them all rolled the words of divine prophecy and command. In the fulness of time a man should be born, Jesus who is the Christ. He was to be the Second Divine Person, emptying Himself and taking the form of a slave to serve and redeem a fallen race. Clad in perishable flesh and human mortality, he was still to be King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Commander in Chief of the armies of earth and heaven. Now in vision they will see their new Leader. In vision they are free to accept or reject His divinely appointed leadership.

The glorious, haughty form of Lucifer stiffened. An almost imperceptible tremor ran through the serried ranks, quickening the light that broke in glinting sparks from spear tips and swaying the shields to the involuntary tautening of angelic arms.

Suddenly darkness, heaven's first and only darkness, flung its quenching cone over all. Then, like a powerful spotlight, a circle of radiance splashed the steps of the now hidden throne, and in the exact centre of the circle stood the figure of a Man.


The Man

A long, seamless garment robed Him from throat to instep. Above the robe, His dignified head was crowned with the strangest crown-blood-red thorns matted into the gold of His hair. He carried, not in His hand, but against His shoulder, a terrifying standard: two heavy, crossed beams that He held with difficulty. And with the slow lifting of His head His eyes swept the angel ranks, not commandingly, but in tender, pitiful beseeching.

Again the voice of the, Almighty rolled and shook in power and majesty.

'Your Commander and your King!'

Tense, almost tangible, silence as the humble, beseeching eyes of the Man swept their lines hungrily. Then the vision was gone. Like the lash of a whip withdrawn, the circle of light was snapped away. Again the city was flooded with the light from the great White Throne. And in its searching brilliance the angels stood revealed.

Half of them knelt or stood with lifted spears offering royal salute. But myriads stood hesitant, shocked by the command to bend their proud strength to one of inferior nature. Still others had drawn back in instinctive repugnance and proud resentment. This weak, tortured man with thorns for a crown and crossed sticks for a standard, could he be the Commander in Chief of their strength and beauty and magnificence? It could not, must not be! What would Lucifer think or do or bid them do?


'Non Serviam'

To him swung every eye. Would he kneel, raise his sword in salute to royalty, turn cold back on inferiority, or . . . Like lightning on a summer's evening, Lucifer whirled. His sword leaped from its scabbard and the flame of its blade cut like a sulphurous flash through heaven.

Instantly the resentful and the wavering angels knew. That flashing sword was their rallying signal. His angry, black look swept the ranks, searching for and singling out his followers. Then back he whirled toward the Throne, knowing that with him was half of heaven's army, and his voice, was dashed with all his power into the very face of God.

'I will not serve!' he shouted.

And from the hosts of his followers came the answering cry, 'Nor will we serve!'


War Breaks Out

Instantly heaven seemed chaos. From their knees or from their exalted gestures of salute leaped the obedient angels. The banner of Michael, chosen, in one of God's instants, captain of His faithful warriors, cracked in the wind of conflict. Pure white, it bore for the first time the purple symbol of the Cross.

Over the swiftly marshalled hosts of Lucifer leaped like a tongue of devouring flame the red banner of defiance. Trumpet answered trumpet in angry screams as the two armies rushed with the force of a tempest through a narrow canyon into fierce embrace. The shock of that meeting seemed to rock the foundations of heaven.

It was war the more terrible because the issue was not death-death could not touch immortal spirits-but ruin of power and beauty and spiritual dignity.

Lines swung back and charged again like breakers against a rocky cliff. Angels, a moment before brothers, rushed at each other with levelled spears. But in the hands of Lucifer and his army these spears melted as candles melt in the hottest flame; while the spears of Michael's followers dug deep wounds that all eternity would never heal.

Back were flung the lines of the rebellious angels. A moment they hesitated on the brink of God's city. One final charge of loyal lances against dishonoured shields, and Michael saw his opponents fall like lightning from the clouds, and the gates of hell, shell-hole of this battle of immortals, swung open and swung shut to cut off the last repetition of that cry, despairing now and crazed in agony, but shrill and bitter in its defiance. 'I will not serve.' And the echoes of the universe flung it back and then far beyond the reaches of obedient space.

The armies of God and evil had met in their first deadly conflict. Creatures for the first time had dared defy their Creator. They had dreamed of driving Him out of His own creation?


Free Choice

Sin with quick fingers fashioned the blood-red banner of rebellion. The first sad army of the proud and rebellious had looked upon the leadership of Christ and had cried defiantly, 'Him we will not serve.' And the battle cry and the rebellion had initiated a war that never yet has ended.

From the very start God placed no compulsion upon His creatures. He wanted only free service. He preferred to be served by willing spirits. Beautifully, He despised the service of slaves.

So for the angels there was a perfectly free choice. They could accept Him or reject Him, lift their swords in allegiance to His divinely appointed Leader or turn their swords against His Sacred Heart. They could league themselves with their Creator or join forces with the rebellious Lucifer. They could stand under the standard marked with the purple cross or under the red flag of rebellion.


Retribution

They made the choice. Those who chose the leadership of Christ were assured of eternal happiness. Michael and Raphael and Gabriel, the angels who later were to be men's guardians, the mighty spirits of the Apocalypse, were given an eternity of God's friendship and glory and of faithful devotion to the interests of man. The very moment that saw the rebellious angels draw their swords against Christ, saw them transformed by the ugliness and destructive power of their own malice into the devils of hell.

From that day to this the rival banners have flown: the pure white banner bearing the purple cross, and the flaming red flag of revolt. Around each has gathered an eager army. One accepts gladly as captain and leader the crucified Christ. The other picks up and echoes in each new age the battle cry of the fallen angels, 'We will not serve!' Christ or Lucifer, there are no other leaders, only subordinates. God's cause or the cause of evil; the choice is inevitable.


The Captain Comes

He came, that Commander of the angelic vision, and Lucifer watched Him with hatred and tricky plotting. Thrice they met face to face in the insult of Christ's triple temptation. Conquered from that moment, Lucifer worked, as Lucifer has cleverly learned to work, through and behind his willing lieutenants.

Christ's first call to His followers was the cry of the Babe of Bethlehem swept through the world on a wintry wind. Then from His hidden life He walked out into the rough highway, searching for followers. He entered fearlessly the bloody battlefield of Calvary, and for a moment Lucifer must have exulted in the thought that perhaps at last his red banner was floating in victory.

During those three years of searching and struggling, success and failure fought for apparent mastery. Men and women flocked to Christ's side, loving His humility and humanity. But far more turned from Him, contemptuous of His work-hardened hands and the ragged followers He drew after Him. His stalwart courage and tender heart, the divine power that manifested itself in His miracles and the human and divine pity that dropped those miracles upon mankind's bent shoulders won Him deep and passionate love. But it won Him enmities in high places, and suspicion where suspicion quickly bred hate and hate bred death.

For every twelve who hailed Him as King on Palm Sunday, a hundred gathered in dark corners of temple or pretorium to league themselves in ugly plots against His life. They hated the thought of a king born in a manger. They could yield no throne to Him except the cross on which they meant to exalt Him. They resented His talk of the pure of heart and His denunciation of divorce. They were furious that He wasted time on fishermen and peasants, while they waited vainly in palaces for a sight of His miracles or the recital of one of His parables. They wanted a king who would smash their enemies, not one who preached love even for those who had wronged them.


Again the Armies

His very first appearance on earth was the signal for the gathering of those two rival armies as the first vision of Him in heaven had split the heavenly hosts into relentless civil war. Lucifer was not ready now to let the Captain gain an easy victory. He had his army ready to fight every step of the way. And that army rose quickly at his command.

If Magi came from afar seeking Christ, the filthy Herod sent his soldiers seeking Him too. One group came bearing gifts to a Child; the others came with bared swords for the throats of infants. And Lucifer exulted when the first brush with the armies of evil sent Christ into apparent retreat to Egypt.


The World is Split

High was the purpose that flamed in the heart of Christ the Saviour. He had from the moment of the Incarnation one multiple purpose: to drive sin and its sad consequences from the world, to bring happiness to human hearts, to restore to our race the lost sonship of God and the heavenly inheritance which Adam lost when for a moment he rejoined the rebellious forces of Lucifer. His divine mission was to bring to the world the blessed peace of His Beatitudes.

Yet He foresaw mankind split into hot enmities because of Him. The army of Lucifer lay solidly entrenched throughout a world that had gone over in rank treason to idolatry and sin. Glorious armies of white-clad virgins would follow Him singing; but armies of martyrs would grow red under the swords of His enemies or in the midst of torturing flames.

He visioned the cross carried before peaceful armies led by Paul and Patrick and Augustine and Boniface as they marched to conquer new lands. But he saw hairy hands clasping the handles of Asiatic lances and Mohammedan swords to cut through Christian civilisations a path for oriental barbarism or the rising Crescent.

He watched golden pens racing across vellum to write His praise, but the harsh scratch of other pens reached His ears, pens dipped in acid and venom as they attacked His personality, His doctrines, His Church, His truth, and corroded with their poison the minds of His followers.


No Coercion

He was, He well knew, the storm centre of the world, a sign to be contradicted, a person set for the rise and fall of many in Israel and in the whole world. Lucifer had refused Him homage; Lucifer would struggle with all his subtle, if sin-twisted, intellect to turn mankind from His service and His praise.

At any moment Christ could have wrested from the world a slave service. But this He would not do. He wanted free men and women to follow Him. He had not wanted the angels to be slaves; He would not allow mankind to be slaves, either. They must answer His quiet 'Follow Me' as John did or Magdalen. He would bind no one to His service except with the chains of love and devoted loyalty.

Force would have been easy. His was the power that struck the raging waves into cowering tranquillity. He spoke quiet words to the thundering tempest, and it shrank back to its mountains, cowed and frightened. Once, in the garden, when His enemies leaped forward at the signal kiss to bind Him, He spoke gently and they fell back upon the ground helpless to touch Him. Even then, however, He released them and stood patiently for the beginning of the bloody work on which they were obstinately bent.

He could have forced men to follow Him, broken their wills to His commands, and dragged them after Him by the same divine force that commanded demons, sent swine thundering into the sea, shook free the grip of disease, changed the very nature of water by bidding it be wine, and forced a few loaves and fishes to feed a multitude.

Instead, almost humbly, He asked men to follow Him. 'Come,' He said gently again and again as He walked along the road or skirted a lake. A handful of fishermen, out of all the fishing fleets of Galilee, heard the invitation and accepted. One taxgatherer from Rome's multitudes forsook his money table for a place in the apostolate. And of those who did accept, one sold out to His enemies as a spy, preferring thirty pieces of silver to the riches of a spiritual kingdom.

Lucifer, self-confessed lord of the world, had won the vast majority to his side. With gold he held them, or with the laughter of dancing girls, or the promise of kingdoms bounded only by the limits of civilisation, or with cleverness calling itself wisdom and drugging the mind, or the sweet insistence of wine. Men gladly fought the wars of evil, lured on, as warriors all too often are lured, by Lucifer's promise of the spoils that belong to the conquerors of earth.


The Crest of the Conflict

Never did the eyes of Christ so clearly see the rival armies as He did from the lookout of the Cross. Embattled Rome was there, guarding with its world-conquering legionaries this spiritual world conqueror from possible rescue by His tattered followers. Embattled Israel stood at alert attention, the soldiers of the high priests with swords and clubs ready to smite down any disciple who dared to slink back in the futile hope of saving his Master.

In the blackness that covered Calvary, Lucifer brooded over his suspiciously easy victory and wondered why he had been allowed to win. He had gloated in quiet confidence as he saw his work taken completely from his hands by able lieutenants. His war against Christ was safely carried on without his personal care as long as he trusted one regiment to Herod, wedded to incestuous lust, and another to Pilate, cynical of anything except a place in the good graces of Caesar, and a third to the high priests, who had grown to prefer power to the truth, the wealth and revenue of the temples to religion, the certain luxuries and eminences of this life to the doubtful blessings of eternity. Never, and he knew it, had Lucifer seen his army more adequately commanded. Yet, even so, he was puzzled by the swiftness and apparent completeness of his victory.

The twin powers of the world, political Rome and religious Israel, had looked upon the leadership of Christ and rejected it. Like Lucifer, they would have none of a king born in a stable, nurtured in a cottage, trained in a carpenter shop, sun-browned by foot-journeys through the hill country, companioned by illiterate fishermen, acclaimed by women and children, leading the life of a poor, itinerant preacher, pitiful toward the poor whom they despised, and pitiless toward their transparent hypocrisy.


Rejection

So, when Christ turned toward them and said, 'Come, follow Me,' Lucifer knew that their answer would be the same as his own.

'We will not serve,' they shouted. But Lucifer must have seen the irony of their further cry, 'We have no king but Caesar,' when he knew how vigorously and tirelessly they were fighting for him.

Never was a leader rejected with such relentless finality. They levelled against Him Roman short swords and heartpiercing lances. They beat Him down with Jewish clubs and scourges. No consecrating oil of royalty anointed His head or filled His palms. They had only one anointing for Him, the purple blood spilled from His own body. Before Him they bowed indeed, but in the taunting homage of mockery and the jeers of unbelief as they substituted for grateful praise their laughter and obscene ridicule.

A vast armed host, led by a Roman Governor, and blessed by outstretched priestly hands, sprang up to repel Him just as the legions of Lucifer had rallied against Him in that first heavenly vision. He asked for followers, and they willingly followed Him along the Via Crucis. He pleaded for companionship, and they crowded about Him only when He was safely fastened to a cross. His divine eloquence was directed against the horrible effects of sin, and sin achieved its masterpiece, the murder of a God-man.


His Defeated Army

Lucifer stood by in panting approval as Christ's mercy actually inflamed hatred and His gentleness aroused force. Dying, He saw for His bodyguard the coldly indifferent executioners and priests who, like fox hunters, had tracked their quarry to the death. Did He see the sinister smile of Lucifer, proudof this day's work as his revenge for the defeat of heaven?

Yet, from the Cross Christ saw what Lucifer could not possibly see nor guess, the rising of another army that would pick up this blood-stained cross and carry it to triumphant victory. Strangely impotent in appearance, but wonderfully potent in the powers o£ their soul, the nucleus of that army was near Him as He died: Mary the Mother; John, His young captain; the Holy Woman, who loved Him unselfishly, and a centurion whose spear through His side opened the way to his own faith and the world's way to the Sacred Heart.

Lucifer would have, had he so much as noticed them, despised that pitiful handful. Lucifer has a way of missing the strength of God's saints.

But the rest of Christ's army was in apparent rout. His bodyguard of apostles had been scattered in the first sharp brush of conflict. The disciples, his skeleton regiment, were flung back into complete disorder. Hopelessly outnumbered, they crouched in their hiding places as the conquering armies of Lucifer's lieutenants swept to and fro unchallenged.

In heaven the conflict between His faithful angels and the insurgent forces of Lucifer had been sharp but quickly decisive. Michael's army, in an irresistible charge, had swept Lucifer's proud regiments over the brink to utter defeat. From Calvary He saw His army beaten not so much by their vigorous foes as by the terrors and cowardice of their own hearts.

Never had an army been so hopelessly outnumbered and outfought. Never had a victory so completely shattered the vanquished while it carried the defeated commander, not to a noble death under fire, but to a slave's death by torture.


Victory Beyond Defeat

Yet Christ, as He looked from the Cross upon the world's most decisive battlefield, must have smiled through His pain and shame. He must have smiled at the puzzled gloating of Lucifer, the open exultation of the priests, and the cold assurance of the legionaries. For beyond the defeat He saw the slow reforming of His scattered bodyguard, the regathering of His skeleton regiment, augmented by the first converts of Pentecost, and the counter-attack that was to sweep across the world.

He foresaw that tiny army starting off with high hearts and His own noble purposes. He saw it attack Israel in its temple and Rome in its impregnable citadels. He saw that army turning aside sword stroke with uplifted crucifix, sapping in the dark tunnels of the catacombs under the very centre of Roman dominion, matching the naked bodies of martyrs against the tridents of steel-clad gladiators, pitting virgins in victorious conflict against the lions of the arena and the beasts in men's hearts, beating the imperial legions with an army of slaves released from the slave marts by the freedom of Christ.

He saw, as Lucifer could not possibly see, how one morning Rome would wake to find its emperor kneeling before the Pope, His personal representative on earth, and asking for baptism. He saw the Roman eagles disappearing from the standards of the Empire to give place to the Labarum of the Cross. Israel He saw as it hurled its power against the Rock of Calvary and then against the Rock of Peter, breaking into a thousand scattered, exiled groups without temple or priesthood or fatherland.

Lucifer, puzzled as he was by his too easy conquest, could not see this, but he was soon to feel that counter-attack upon his allies.


The Victorious March

The fishermen Christ had chosen soon became the inspired preachers and writers of His Gospel. John of the rower's bench became the lofty eagle of God, and Peter from the helm of a fishing craft became Peter guiding the destinies of His Church. The scattered handful of His fighting men and women, broken by the victorious plotters of Good Friday, reformed into the irresistible Church marching through history, attacked and persecuted, outnumbered and outshouted always, yet moving from victory to victory.

The peaceful regiments of His priests and religious, His devoted fathers and mothers, His high-minded young men and pure young women took up His victorious war. They made relentless battle upon sin; they hated from their hearts the forces of evil; they struggled with undimmed hopes for the conquest of the world. And when they conquered, they imposed upon the vanquished, not the chains of the oppressor, but the reign of Christ's beatitudes and the kingdom of His peace.

All this is history. History, too, is the brilliant way in which after each defeat Lucifer musters new armies and initiates a new campaign. Seldom, though, does he announce his war in terms of loyalty to himself. Instead, he makes the war centre, as spiritual war will always centre, around the figure of Christ. He did not say, as he rallied to his side Nero and the persecuting emperors, Julian the Apostate and the cynical philosophers of his court, all the powers of pagan lust and pagan cynicism, 'Here is my banner; follow it.' Instead, he cried, 'There is His Cross; attack it.'

So, since Calvary, there has been a warfare against Christ to which there is neither truce nor armistice. Always Lucifer, seen or unseen, acknowledged or lurking behind some chosen subaltern, has been the leader of the attack on Christ, which is really an attack upon all that is best in humanity.


New Armies

Often the war was bloody. More often it was fought with subtler weapons than swords or lances. Arianism made war on the divinity of Christ and carried forward that war on the rugged war ponies of Teutonic barbarians. But a thousand other heresies, all directed against the person of Christ, used brilliant books and scholarly-sounding lectures, political intrigue and polished rhetoric.

Mohammed might rouse wild Arab tribesmen to a holy war against the Cross and Christ; his far more potent weapon was the lust of the harem and the promise of an earthly paradise followed by an eternity of unending sense of gratification.

There have been armies like that of Genghis Khan, marching forward under oath to stable their horses on the altar steps of St. Peter's. Lucifer surely approved that oath. But there have been the far more deadly armies of a pagan renaissance, attacking the love of Christ by offering instead the love of decadent Greek and Roman gods and goddesses, proposing the rotten novels of Petronius Arbiter for the Gospel according to St. John, and the brilliant smut of the Decameron for the parables of Christ. The perverted brilliance of Lucifer surely approved all that with much more enthusiasm.


The War Goes On

Today, however much humanitarianism may soften the hearts of men and pacifism outlaw armies and navies and beat swords and guns into pen points, the war between good and evil, between Christ and Lucifer, between those who accept the Saviour's leadership and those who reject it, goes on unendingly. Around the person of Christ still gather His faithful armies. Against Him are directed, not crude spears or ten-inch guns, but the crafty dislike and resentment and far subtler warfare of clever minds and rotten morals, by men who hate His law and refuse to permit His intrusion into their lives or loves.

They may scarcely know His name or recognise His face. They may violently deny or contemptuously laugh at the idea that there is or ever was a Lucifer. They are none the less making war upon Christ and carrying on the warfare begun in heaven. They are fighting the things which He came to bring to the world: purity and charity and faith and the love of realities beyond this world. They are fighting for the things by which Lucifer conquers men for himself: pride and sin and lust and power and dominance and gold and pleasure and the things of the immediate Now rather than the things of the ultimate Then.


With or Against

Christ stated the fact of this unending war in one clear phrase: 'He that is not with Me is against Me.' There is no middle ground. We can no more be on the side of Christ today and at the same time on the side of His enemies than we could, in the year 33, have been a disciple of Christ and approved the treachery of the priests and the death sentence passed by Pilate.

Pacifists in this war between good and evil are monstrosities . Either we accept the standard of His Cross or we are really under the red banner of Lucifer. We promote His kingdom upon earth or we make war upon it. With Him or against Him. There is no third choice.


The Fight is Fiercest

Never was the fight as fierce or as bitter as it is today. War against God has reached incredible heights of intensity and hatred. Organised atheism captures Russia, walks in doctor's hood into college classrooms, and shoots the poisoned bullets of its propaganda from behind the shelter of newspapers, pamphlets, books and magazines.

Defiant of all laws of civilised warfare, it carries its war to women and children and organises them into battalions of death. Lucifer admitted God even when he fought Him. The foes of Christ had first to lay their hands upon Him before they could put Him to death. Atheism, by a supreme contradiction, makes war upon a God whose existence it denies. It says there is no God and then, with personal venom and fury, attacks Him.

Surely Lucifer must gloat over this magnificent re-inforcement of his army. War was never fought more unscrupulously.


The War of Contempt

Where God is not flatly denied, war is made upon Him by a much more subtle method. His presence in the world is ignored. His rights over His own creation are emphatically questioned. That He has anything to say about His own creatures is regarded as a relic of obsolete superstitions. Whether he made the world or not is of little importance; it is important that He have no right to rule it. He may have redeemed the world, but the world has no desire for that redemption.


Cashiering Christ

Lucifer, who once cast his glance covetously on the control of heaven, must have a sneaking admiration for those who have tried to grasp the control of earth by the simple expedient of asking God to mind His own affairs and let mankind alone.

One reads much of modern literature wondering if the authors ever heard of God or Christ. Clearly they know there is a fight between the issues of Christ and the issues of evil, but just as clearly theyare not interested in Christ's side. He is thrust aside as carelessly is if He were a myth like William Tell or an outmoded philosopher like Philo the Greek. Man is encouraged to trace his relationship with the orangutan; his relationship with His Elder Brother, Jesus Christ, is regarded almost as a blot on the escutcheon.

Lucifer tried by the magnificently conceived and executed conspiracy of Calvary to drive Christ from the world. He failed. Modern society has taken up his task most willingly.


Frankly Ignored

Christ spoke very clear words on a great many subjects. He expected, apparently, those words to be heard, accepted, and obeyed by His followers. Otherwise they could hardly call themselves His followers. Are they heard?

With almost brutal frankness He called marriage following divorce adultery. Almost every so-called Christian country has written divorce into its laws. Most of them have speeded up their divorce courts to the point of vying in efficiency with a modern automobile factory.


Millstones

Christ talked beautifully of personal purity and laid down strict laws for its preservation. A thousand writers of the day regard His views as childish and amusingly out of date. The hero of your modern novel changes his mistress when he changes his tie. The heroine of your best seller kicks purity under her party slippers or mules and tears it into ribbons as something less important than the favour of a New Year's party.

Christ recommended millstones for the necks of those who scandalised little children. Today little children, when they are graciously' permitted entrance into this modern world, are in a million cases deprived of any knowledge of God their Father or of their eternal destiny, and are subjected to the most insidious and disheartening attacks upon their innocence. It is not hard to imagine the approval which Lucifer gives to all this.

Christ demanded faith. Faith is widely regarded as the refuge of cowardly minds and a survival of stale superstition. He praised the poor in spirit; our monuments rise and our incense is burned to honour those who have built fortunes by the doubtful methods and brash buccaneering of modern business. Lucifer would hardly disapprove of that.

Christ is not admitted to the public schools or State universities of Christian lands. His image may not appear on the walls of our State institutions. He is permitted no place at the council tables of the nations, and His presence in diplomatic circles would be often, to put it mildly, embarrassing for all concerned.


Or Disliked

Lust, that tore Christ's back with scourges, is no longer regarded as very terrible. In fact, it is treated as distinctly amusing and undoubtedly delightful. (Let lust make war upon Him if it will. Perhaps Herod was right when he treated the pure Christ as a fool.) Pride, that crowned His head with thorns, is a modern sign of bravery and courage. (The soldiers may not have been far wrong when they laughed at the meek Christ and struck His bowed and thorn-crowned head with reeds.)

Doubt, that led the callous Pilate to let an innocent man go out to die, is now regarded as a sign of broadmindedness and an enlightened attitude toward life. (Perhaps Pilate knew what he was doing when he sent this man who taught an embarrassing and annoying sort of truth to crucifixion.)

Honesty is good enough for underlings. One does not rob a news-stand, but one may without qualms of conscience pillage the stock market. (Clearly the real crime of Judas was not that he sold Christ, but that he failed to demand a decent price for his sale.)

State worship, which once placed a statue of the emperor in Roman temples, has become the religion of millions, and the State rises supreme over all things, Church, conscience, the right of mothers and fathers to their own children, property, the natural right of a sick man or an imbecile to life. (Can it be that we have no king but Caesar?)

If the French Revolutionists took a courtesan and placed her upon the altar of Notre Dame, we have seen notorious courtesans placed in the electric lights of Broadway, honoured by the admiration and adulation of millions of men and women, and held up on stage and screen for the delighted admiration of the young. (It may be possible that God made a mistake in selecting His Mother.)


Worship of Self

Most of all, Christ has seen Himself supplanted in modern life, not by the service of even so brilliant a leader as Lucifer. When the angels turned from God to Lucifer, they were picking a bad second choice, yet a second choice of brilliance and beauty and power. Today Lucifer has cleverly substituted for himself and God the contemptible service of self, the debasing worship of self.

'Why should you serve the Creator?' Lucifer insinuates into receptive ears. 'Serve your own interests, and only your own interests. What right has God to give you commandments? Make your own laws. What right has Christ to lay down hard laws for you? Decide for yourself which of His commands you will accept and which you will reject. The Church pretendsto speak with an infallible voice. Don't allow your life to be governed by so thoroughly mediae- val an institution.'

And his suggestions, accepted and repeated by thousands of brilliant subordinates, ring through modern life and modern literature. Lucifer is content gracefully to appear to step aside, provided that the service of self means the thrusting of God into second place.


For His Defence

This is the black picture of the warfare, the presentation of just one side of the conflict. Fortunately there is another side, too, the ever-growing army sworn to stand at the side of Christ and fight His war to the death. There are the modern successors, millions of them, of the good angels and of those faithful few who loved and clung to Him when the whole world was conspiring for His death.

For, if every sin is a blow struck at Christ, every good action is a blow struck in His defence. If impurity, by rotting bodies, brutalising souls, destroying homes, and spoiling the future of little children, drags down the work He came to do, every pure man or woman is an intimate associate of the pure Christ and places a pure body between the wolves of the world and the future generation.

Dishonesty takes sides with the lying witnesses who swore away the life of Christ; honesty cries out in His defence. Doubt wags its head and walks no more with Him; faith says staunchly, 'To whom else shall we go? for Thou hast the words of eternal life.' If the grafting politician and the tricky statesman ape the betrayal of Judas, the honourable man of affairs stands with John near the Cross, admitting his part with Christ crucified.


High Stakes

Men and women are prone to forget the tremendous issues at stake in this warfare. Christ is the concrete expression of what is finest and best in humanity. We cannot make war upon Him without attacking human purity, unselfishness, love of neighbour, high honour, service of country, gratitude for favours, the desire to benefit mankind, tenderness of heart, strength of purpose, respect for women, gentleness to the unfortunate, comradeship among men, reverence for little children, loyalty to friends, forgiveness of enemies, all that He Himself expressed in the idea of the fatherhood of God, and the brotherhood of men.

Nor can we make war on any of these things without making war on Him.

The man who betrays a woman betrays Christ's reverent love of womankind. A man who tricks his neighbour, tricks the Christ who bade us love our neighbour. No man closes his heart to the cries of the unfortunate or to the needs of little children without closing his heart to the Christ who comforted the unfortunate and loved little children. If a man refuses forgiveness to his enemies, he dare not ask forgiveness of the Christ from whom he himself so desperately needs forgiveness.

'As long as you did it to one of these My least brethren, you did it to Me.' Christ's statement is unequivocal and inclusive. For the good it should be the highest joy; for the evil, a frightening consideration.

So, if one adopts the side of Christ, one stands for all that is best in human conduct.

If one takes any low standard, at that moment he has turned against Christ and taken his place with the lustful Herod, the tricky Judas, the sceptical Pilate, the ambitious priests; and Lucifer the proud holds out welcoming arms to another recruit.

Christ's army is not battling merely to scale the heights of heaven. It is fighting with all its magnificent strength to bring decency to earth, and honour and cleanness of body and soul. It is warring for the protection of children and women and homes, of the weak and defenceless, of the precious things on which the happiness of the world is grounded and without which the earth becomes a pigsty and a terrifying cage of lawless wild animals.


Again the Vision

So, before the world today appears, as it appeared in that first vision of heaven, the calm, strong, beautiful, appealing figure of Jesus Christ. He looks straight into the heart of every man and woman in the world. Each heart hears Him say, 'Come, follow Me.'

No invitation could be clearer than this royal invitation to enlist as the saints have done, under the standard that signifies happiness for the world and the conquest of .that world for the Heavenly Father. Strange1y enough, that invitation sounds in the hearts of millions who never knew the name of Jesus Christ and other millions who know Him only imperfectly. It is the rallying cry of all the good and fine throughout the world.


Invitation and Response

Yet it is, we must remember, an invitation. No coercion is exercised here. No force binds or compels. No chain drags any soul to slavery. All must join Him freely. He invites men and women to accept His captaincy. He offers them His comradeship as well as His leadership. But they must answer spontaneously, moved by the charm of the Leader and the glory of His cause.

And from a million loyal followers goes up the answer, in rousing shout, in quietly whispered prayer, in gallant gesture, in the quick bending of the knee: 'Lead on, for we will follow You.'


Dominance

From another million go up low rumbles of protest, wild shouts of indignant refusal, sneering laughter tinged with contempt, indignant repudiation of all the invitation implies. Cowards turn away afraid of the conflict. Laggards glance back over their shoulders at the beautiful things of the world (made in that moment especially fascinating by command of Lucifer) and sigh, 'Must I give up all these to follow You?' Proud heads are flung upwards as Lucifer's was flung, and the cry, 'I will not serve!' is hurled in the face of Christ.

Now, as in every age, Christ's is the dominant figure. In love or hatred men look up at Him, see Him, and lift their hands flung high in royal salute or clenched in threatening fist. Cowards may run away, but there is no place for them to run except into the ranks of His enemies. Men may seek to avoid the conflict; they find themselves in the end leagued, by their destructive apathy, with His enemies.

Now and always 'He that is not with Me is against Me.'


New Weapons

Day after day the din of battle rises all about the modern man and woman. From filthy news stands the poison gas of rotten literature floats in deadly green clouds. Sharpshooters from a decadent stage snipe virtue, innocence, and the decencies. Scholarly professors fire deadly shrapnel into crowded classrooms, with deadly effect upon the souls of youth.

Dishonest business enlists the brains and brilliance of men in a war that makes might right and sees in success the supreme justification for any method of attack. Dark conspiracies hurl mobs against personal property. The hobnailed armies of Communism march steadily on against State and Church and the home and the commonest rights of humanity.

With Michael and His Hosts. With masterly generalship Lucifer enlists on his side great forces of cleverness and wit and beauty and wealth and envy and passion and discontent and pride. He knows that even with them he can never ultimately defeat God or His chosen Leader, Jesus Christ. But he also knows that they canhurt God's best beloved sons and daughters. They can impede the work of His Church. They can spoil the peace and happiness of earth. They can drive men into the mad charge of battle, until, blinded by the smoke and deafened by the din, they regain full consciousness only as the gates of hell clang to behind them. Recruiting his army on earth, Lucifer knows he is recruiting his slaves for eternity.

But that side which was powerful enough to attract God's warrior, Michael, and the best of the angelic hosts is daily augmented by the best of earth. New missionaries, cross aloft, advance steadily to the conquest of fresh lands. Each morning, at a million altars, the priests bring down the Commander in Chief for an early council before the day's battle. Religious priests and brothers train young men to fight the battle of life with high courage.

Brave, splendid men fire a decisive no into the teeth of temptation. Young men face the hot rebellion within their own souls, curb it with strong, pure hands, and turn what might have been ruinous passion into the devoted service of God and humanity. The same emotional strength which, perverted, would have made them rakes and roués and despoilers of innocence makes them, enlisted in the cause of Christ, tender husbands, sympathetic fathers, sincere lovers of their fellow-men.

And though they may not wear silver armour or stride a white horse, young women and older women, like modern Joans of Arc, do mighty battle for God's cause. Devoted, unselfish mothers, they guard courageously and vigilantly the little fortresses that are their homes. Tenderly they bind the wounds that sin has made in human souls.

Purity with them is the golden shield protecting their bodies for the sake of the man they will love and the children they will give to the Lover of little children. Charity for them is the daily walking at the side of the Divine Physician, touching with cool, healing hands the aching heads and sick hearts of humanity, bringing to sin-sodden mankind the tenderness that lies in the soul only of good women.

Stainless nuns hold the far outposts of Christ's far-flung battle line in hospitals, orphanages, refuges, schools, contemplative convents. Splendid mothers stand protectingly between their children and the soldiers of a modern Herod come to slay them. Young women walk into the world, and their shining purity and intelligent faith strike victoriously for Christ with wounds that bring life, not death, safety, not ruin, to the future.


Defence by Attack

In this war, as in all wars, the best defence is fearless attack. The army of Christ does not merely stand its ground in safe entrenchments. It carries the fight to the enemy. It even wins from the side of Lucifer new recruits for the army of God.

Sterling example carried into business and social life by those who stand by the side of the perhaps invisible Christ captures where arguments might be fired without results. Bad literature is met with the return barrage of good literature. Deeds of charity compel an acknowledgment of the love of God and of humanity that inspired them. Faltering souls are strengthened by theexample of heroic courage that they see in Christ's followers. Hesitant souls are swayed to the army that is Christ's.


Through History

Through the ages brave men and women have responded with all the high enthusiasm of their hearts to this war that throws them into the companionship and under the captaincy of Christ. Paul rose from the dust to turn the sword of persecution with which he had been smiting the Christians into the gloriously sweeping sword of world-conquest. Lucifer knew he had lost one of his brilliant allies when he heard the changed voice of Saul crying, 'Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?'

The martyrs went out into the battlefield glad to shed their blood in so glorious a cause. Missionaries walked fearlessly into savage lands where Lucifer was worshipped under a thousand hideous shapes and with a thousand vile rites, to fling down his obscene images from the temples and put in their place the symbol of Redemption.

Husbands and fathers, coming from their homes beautifully like the house of Nazareth, preached to the world by example and by deed the beauty of the faith that inspired their conduct.

And the glorious army of women, from those first brave souls on Calvary to the last courageous girl entering religious life or the modern Madonna accepting the children God sends her, have carried on the fight with a strength that cannot be resisted. Agnes and Cecilia and Theresa and Catherine, Jane Frances and Frances of Rome, Joan of Arc and Catherine of Siena, the nun who trained you in third grade, the mother whose devoted self-sacrifice made your youth safe and happy, are Christ's willing warriors on the only important battlefield in the world.


A Reconnoitre of the Enemy

But before us, more truly now than ever, the army of Lucifer gathers in restless energy and skilled plans of attack. Brilliantly the light gleams from their armour, though that armour covers hearts filled with hatred of God and His law, and with open purposes that mean the destruction of the human race through an attack on faith, on charity, on innocence, on marriage, on the home.

Scarcely less beautiful and strong do they seem than were the angels who rallied to the side of Lucifer when he began his war upon God. They bear a strong resemblance to those haughty priests who held fast the rich corridors and sanctuaries of the Temple of Jerusalem and to those clever, cynical, magnificently strong Romans who looked upon the figure of a Carpenter-King and thought Him more than a little absurd. And like the priests and the governors, these moderns are leagued together in a frank conspiracy to destroy the Christ who still has the temerity to speak to a morally emancipated world of purity and faith and the humble acceptance of His law.

What right-minded man or woman cares that the handle of the sword is beautifully carved and its blade of Toledo steel if its blows are directed toward the heart of Christ and of humanity? What matters it that tongues are clever if they sneer at the Saviour? What does literary brilliance avail, the almost diabolic cleverness of many a modern book, if that brilliance is used to attack God and ridicule the honest man and the pure woman?

What ultimately does it profit a business man to build his fortune to the clouds and fill his nights with pleasure, when in the end he' must give a strict balance-sheet of his life to the God whose accounting takes exact reckoning only of good and evil deeds? What will it avail the famous beauty to have her name written in the lights of Broadway if it is not also written in the Book of Life?


The Modern Challenge

The call to modern battle rings out in t he challenge of Christ's chief of staff, the Holy Father. 'Catholic Action!' he cries, and the followers of Christ respond.

This is no vague and mysteriously ambiguous call. It is simply the ringing challenge to be ashamed of sloth and apathy, when the army of Lucifer moves with restless energy and resourcefulness. It is the call to a life of active service, whatever one's vocation may be, service dedicated to Christ and His cause.

And the challenge has drawn to the side of Christ great new armies of warriors. Their own lives are the clear expression of the faith that is in their souls and of the love of God that dominates that faith. They are active in their campaign for souls, whether it be by supporting the missions, working for their parish church, taking part in great Catholic movements, spreading Catholic literature, talking of their faith to others, learning to know it better so that they may better explain it to inquirers, doing charity work among God's poor, or any of the thousand aggressive things by which new fields are won for Christ.


Ultimate Decision

When the soul faces its Judge it will not want to say in trembling admission, 'I waged war against You.' It will want to say, humbly but confidently, 'Christ, my Leader, to the best of my ability I fought at Your side.

This is no deathbed decision. One does not become a fighter as the last grim warrior known as Death grapples the body for a final throw. It is a decision for youth, for full maturity, for vigorously alive manhood and glowing womanhood. And it is a decision that must be made with perfect freedom.

Christ will not force your decision. You make it freely, without coercion. Now as always He wants willing service. Now as always He will accept no other. Christ wants brothers in arms, sisters in service, not slaves nor driven mercenaries.

The whole conquest of the world might have been accomplished by Christ alone. Christ was omnipotent, He was God made man; He might have crushed His enemies with a gesture, won the whole kingdom during his lifetime, marched into heaven in proud and complete triumph.

That, however, was not His purpose. He determined to share the glory with us, His creatures. He permitted us to take part in the conflict, to bear honourable scars, to win sectors of the battlefield for Him. He unfurled the banner of the Cross as a signal for volunteers. He wanted free companions. He asked for brave souls loyal to His Father and devoted to their fellow men.


My Captain

And with a thrill of pride I realise my high privilege. I may stand at the very side of Christ Himself. I may make His cause my cause, His glorious purposes my objectives. I may claim as my commander no selfish general bent on looting the world, nor harsh dictator whose eyes are aflame with lust of power and whose hand rises in mail-clad power above a crushed world. I follow no philosopher groping for truth nor scientist piddling about till he grasps some infinitesimal fraction of the universe and weighs it in inaccurate scales.

I follow the glorious Son of God, whose eyes are filled with tender pity, whose hands are scarred with the wounds of His sacrifice for mankind, whose feet are tireless in the pursuit of the world's needy, whose back is loaded with the weight of the world's ills, whose mind fountains divine truth, whose heart glows with burning love for all the children of His Heavenly Father.

I follow the Leader who hates only evil and makes war only upon those things that will ruin mankind. I give my loyalty to the world's most illustrious man. I follow Him, perhaps through the dangers and terrors of Gethsemane and the apparent defeat of Calvary, but to a victory as certain as Easter's and as glorious as the Resurrection.

Not the most beautiful or clever or brilliant or persuasive or powerful of Lucifer's modern lieutenants can turn me aside from that Leader. No eloquent tongue can seduce me. No enthralling book can persuade my treason. For those who fight Christ hardly knowing Him I feel deep and prayerful pity. For those who fight Him with hatred in their heart I have the firm resolve to meet war with war, their relentless attack upon Christ with my tireless defence of Him.


Your Choice

My captain is Christ. Let those follow Lucifer who do not know the Saviour or who, knowing Him, reject Him. So the choice must be made, and made by you. This is no allegory or flight of fancy or dramatic unreality. It is stern and terrifying fact.

As truly as in that vision of heaven, you must choose either Christ or Lucifer.

Then, where do you stand? Whom do you choose?

Lucifer and his followers? Those rebellious and ungrateful angels? Cain, the first murderer? The builders of the

Tower of Babel? The loathsome sinners of Sodom? The priests of occult and filthy cults? Pilate and Judas? Herod and Nero? Arius and the early heretics? Voltaire and the unhappy Christ-haters and God-baiters of literature? The donothing kings and their lustful courts? Henry of England, faithful neither to wives nor to Church? The brilliant modern writers who make their hatred of morality dominate their hatred of truth, and who lead young men and women deliberately astray? The murderers, convicted or unconvicted. whose hands are soiled with the blood of bodies and the invisible death of souls? Surely they do not appear attractive.

Or shall it be the army of Christ? Michael the Archangel, and the faithful band of warrior angels? The Patriarchs struggling against a world grovelling at the feet of idols and offering Lucifer the sweet incense of their sacrificed children and their raped virgins? Peter and the Apostles marching out to reconstruct the world? Sebastian and Lawrence? Anastasia and Philomena? Xavier and Aloysius? The Little Flower and young Gabriel? The worldconquering missionaries and the fathers happy in their children? The great abbesses of mediaeval days and the splendid mothers of holy families? The writers who loved truth better than cleverness, and true beauty more than the daintiest smut? The scholars who could see beyond the atom under their microscope to the God who sent the atom's particles spinning in a tiny solar system? Saints and poets and the vast army of the pure and strong and good?

Mary is there. So are the great and virtuous who perhaps never heard the name of Christ, but who loved their fellow-men and worshipped truth and beauty with disinterested service.

Both groups ask you to join their ranks.

There is no escaping.

It is war to the death.

Which army is yours?

Which leader claims your allegiance?




Nihil Obstat:J. DONOVAN, Censor Deputatus.

Imprimatur:  D. Mannix, Archiepiscopus Melbournensis. 1 May 30, 1936. (No. 64.)



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  Archbishop Viganò defends Cardinal Müller and his Great Reset critique
Posted by: Stone - 12-16-2021, 04:14 PM - Forum: Archbishop Viganò - No Replies

Archbishop Viganò defends Cardinal Müller and his Great Reset critique
Vigano comments on those considered by the 'globalist Sanhedrin' to be heretics,
'unworthy to ask questions about the new dogmas of the health religion defined ex cathedra by the experts in the pay of BigPharma.'

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


Thu Dec 16, 2021
(LifeSiteNews - slightly adapted) – After Cardinal Gerhard Müller gave Catholic activist Alexander Tschugguel a thoughtful and good interview concerning the coronavirus lockdowns, vaccine mandates, and especially the dangerous and anti-democratic agenda of the Great Reset, he came under strong attacks in Germany. Both state and faith leaders rebuked him for purportedly spreading “conspiracy theories” and even “anti-semitic codes,” because he mentioned George Soros as one of the globalists whose worldview he is rejecting.

LifeSite reached out to Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, whose strong position against the Great Reset is well-known, asking him whether he would like to comment on the strong reaction against Cardinal Müller’s reasonable critic of the current political developments which seem to use the health crisis in order to establish an anti-democratic, globalist order.

We thank Archbishop Viganò for his immediate response and help.

Please see here the full statement by the Italian prelate (here is the English translation):



Ephpheta, quod est, Adaperire!

“Ephphatha!”, which means: “Be opened!” - Mk 7:34


The virologist who affirms the ineffectiveness of the vaccine and highlights the serious conflicts of interest in the officials responsible for the authorization of drugs or therapies; the member of the Parliament who objects to the advisability of imposing lockdowns after they have proved useless to contain the pandemic and disastrous for the nation’s economy; the jurist who criticizes the rules imposed by the Government in violation of the Constitution; the parish priest who from the pulpit questions the morality of an experimental serum produced with abortive fetuses; the intellectual who points out how the criminal plan of the Great Reset promoted by the World Economic Forum and the United Nations Agenda 2030 find timely and disturbing realization precisely following that pandemic emergency hoped for since 2009 by Jacques Attali in the French weekly L’Express are considered by the globalist Sanhedrin as heretics, unworthy to ask questions about the new dogmas of the health religion defined ex cathedra by the experts in the pay of BigPharma. We can imagine what honesty and impartiality can be ensured by controllers paid by the controlled. am not surprised that the truth provokes mixed reactions in those who propagate the error that opposes it. The reactions of the Pharisees to the words of Our Lord – starting with the theatrical gestures of Caiaphas to the proclamation of His divinity by the Messiah – always betray the anger of liars and people in bad faith in the face of the affirmation of truth and intellectual honesty. And this indignation as forced as it is unmotivated, having no arguments to counter the refutation, often moves to the interlocutor, in an attempt to ridicule him, make him pass for mad or a dangerous criminal: the examples we have been able to witness to those who have put in any of the cornerstones of the official narrative on Covid are the confirmation of an intolerant attitude on the part of those who lie, and at the same time the accusation of intolerance towards those who limit themselves to saying a clear evidence of truth.

There is no point in citing the writings and the statements of the exponents of the deep state in which they brazenly confess their criminal project. Let’s take for example the quote from Jacques Attali:

Quote:«History teaches us that humanity evolves significantly only when it is really afraid: then it initially develops defense mechanisms; sometimes intolerable (of scapegoats and totalitarianisms); sometimes useless (of distraction); sometimes effective (therapies that deny all previous moral principles if necessary). Then, once the crisis is over, fear transforms these mechanisms to make them compatible with individual freedom and enroll them in a democratic health policy» (https://scenarieconomici.it/jacques-atta...permettera- to-establish-a-world-government/).

These words were spoken in 2009, in the imminence of the swine flu for which the WHO was then denounced. In them we can have confirmation of an exact picture of the methods of managing the health emergency, indeed even of the planning of the emergency itself, with the provision of possible responses from citizens. Just a few days ago Attali was interviewed without wearing a mask by two prone journalists, whom he scolded because they were holding the mask under their noses. The anecdote – which you can find in a video on the Internet – is proven proof of the absurdity of the pandemic narrative, which applies to the subjects and slaves of the system, but not to those in charge. Biden, Johnson, Merkel, Draghi, Bergoglio and all the “greats of the world” flaunt contempt for the masses, imposing on them absurd rules that they are the first to break precisely to demonstrate that adherence to this pandemic cult requires fideistic assent, and not it has nothing scientific.

His Eminence Müller, who is an intellectually honest person, said things already denounced by Cardinal Burke, by Msgr. Schneider and myself, among others; things that Klaus Schwab, George Soros, Bill Gates and all the followers of the Great Reset have always publicly declared, even producing official documents and printing books in which they explain in detail the different scenarios that can be predicted, from pandemic to climatic emergency. And the words of the Cardinal are the confirmation that his name affixed to my Appeal for the Church and for the World of last May 2020 was meditated and desired. I thank Eminence of him for that gesture in some respects courageous.

And I regret that in Germany the mainstream media have accused Cardinal Müller of anti-Semitism, for the simple fact that George Soros and Klaus Schwab have Jewish origins, while they have scrupulously avoided entering into the merits of the matter. Yet similar denunciations against the globalist elite and in particular against Schwab, Gates, Soros, the Rothschilds and the Rockefellers are made by orthodox rabbis and Jews who survived the Nazi concentration camps: are they anti-Semites too? But, again: asking reasonable questions to those who are biased is useless. As in Aesop’s tale, the wolf at the top of the waterway believes he has the right not to let the water be polluted by the lamb downstream.

I can imagine that, for a Cardinal who was also Prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, it is somehow challenging and not so easy to take a stand on an issue that sees Bergoglio on the opposite side of propagating Pfizer vaccines and supporting the green economy and inclusive capitalism with the Rothschilds and Rockefellers. But I also think that, if His Eminence had the honesty to denounce the anti-human conspiracy of the New World Order and the interference of the billionaires Gates and Soros in the destiny of nations based on the evidence and the consent of their statements, he will recognize with equal clarity of analysis the same consent to the globalist ideology in the tenant of Santa Marta, who just recently blessed an inter-religious park in Argentina and approved the Foundation Fratelli tutti and its “holistic training” for dialogue with religions. If the interference of Soros and Gates in the government of nations is evident, Bergoglio’s responsibility in giving dignity and legitimacy to the accomplices of the WEF and the UN, to their plans and to those who cooperate with them is undeniable; because ecumenism, the divinization of Mother Earth, the “Amazonian” dimension of the Church, the synodal path, the transhumanism of the Foundation for Artificial Intelligence and all the unfortunate innovations of this pontificate are perfectly consistent with this framework, are instrumental to it and pursue the same end, namely the establishment of the Religion of Humanity which is the necessary goal of the New World Order.

If the health emergency has caused incalculable damage, it has nevertheless the merit of having opened the eyes of so many blind people, of having healed so many deaf and dumb, who return to listen and speak. This grace must be an opportunity for all of us to be able to evaluate with a supernatural gaze what is happening before our eyes, to perceive the inspiring principles and the undeclared purposes, to denounce those responsible and to warn the simple, who rightly expect let their Pastors be the ones to give them healthy indications, and not to push them into the abyss. And to understand how true are the words of the Lord: «Without me you can do nothing» (Jn 15: 5).

+ Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop
December 16, 2021

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  Rev. Fr. Clement Crock: Morality [1939]
Posted by: Stone - 12-16-2021, 09:52 AM - Forum: Articles by Catholic authors - No Replies

MORALITY
By Rev. Clement Crock



I. THE VIRTUES OF CHASTITY, PURITY, MODESTY AND VIRGINITY

'Blessed are the clean of heart; for they shall see God' (Matt., v. 8). -'I beseech you therefore, brethren, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing unto God, your reasonable service' (Rom., xii. 1).

Of all the disquieting moments human flesh is heir to, my friends, there is nothing that seems to disturb the conscience of us mortals more than the sins against the Sixth and Ninth Commandments. Due to ignorance or misinformation many people worry when there is no cause for worry. Others again do not worry when they should, and arouse their dormant conscience from slumber. Those who worry unnecessarily are usually those who confuse concupiscence and temptation with sin itself. Temptation in itself is no sin. Since the fall of Adam man is prone to evil. Concupiscence is but the aftermath of original sin.

Therefore, everybody should remember this: concupiscence in itself, like temptation, is not a sin. It is the mere tendency, the inclination, to sin. St. Paul speaks of this in his own members. He calls it a 'sting of the flesh,' which warreth against the spirit and keepeth a man humble. 'And lest the greatness of the revelations should exalt me,' he says, 'there was given me a sting of my flesh, an angel of Satan, to buffet me. For which thing thrice I besought the Lord that it might depart from me. And He said to me: 'My grace is sufficient for thee'' (II Cor., xii. 7-9). It is only when this concupiscence is given free rein and left uncontrolled that it becomes sinful. It is then called the sin of lust. But when we retain control, or self-mastery, over our thoughts, words, and actions, we possess the beautiful virtue known as chastity.

Today, we shall first of all consider this key virtue, chastity, which is so necessary to make our daily conduct-our every thought, word and deed-pleasing to and meritorious before God.

Meaning of Chastity-Most people have heard the words, chastity, purity, modesty, virginity and continency; but few Catholics even know the correct meaning of all these terms. Let us define them briefly:

(a) Chastity or purity is a moral virtue or habit, which excludes or moderates the inordinate appetite of venereal pleasures, or concupiscence, according to the norm of right reason. Just as temperance and sobriety determine the proper use of food or drink, so chastity determines the proper control of our lower appetites.

(b) Modesty differs again from chastity or purity. Modesty is that blush, that shame, that instinct, to be found in all people who are not utterly depraved, which prompts them to abstain from improper words or actions, from unbecoming dress or conduct, to repress the curiosity of the eyes and the other senses, lest their chastity be violated. In German it is called 'Schamgefuhl,' the nearest to which is our word 'shamefulness.' For example, after their sin of disobedience, Adam and Eve realized for the first time that they were without clothes. Their instinct of modesty was awakened.

We might call modesty, therefore, the forerunner, the companion, the guardian, the teacher and protector, or the outpost of chastity. Whatever, then, is against chastity or purity, is also against modesty; but not vice versa.

© Lastly, chastity differs from continency. Although continency is ordinarily understood to mean only the restraint of all venereal appetites (because these are the hardest and most necessary to bring under control), in reality continency is that virtue by which we bridle all concupiscence and every other immoderation, even in eating and drinking or whatever it be.

Under the word chastity, we should also mention the terms of 'virginity, virginal chastity,' and 'conjugal chastity.' (i) Conjugal chastity avoids every thought, word, or deed that is not permitted in holy wedlock. It is that virtue which makes every Christian home so lovely, so happy, so sweet; and manifests itself so beautifully on the mellowed and chaste countenance of married people, who possess this domestic tranquility. (2) Virginal chastity, again, differs from virginity. Virginal chastity restrains from all forbidden sensual pleasures. It is the virtue so highly cherished by every good man and woman outside of holy wedlock. (3) Virginity, on the other hand, is that special jewel, that unspotted lily, that immaculate white garment, possessed by every man or woman who through life has preserved his or her body inviolate, unspotted by any willful Sin against holy purity.

Highly Cherished Virtue.-This, then, my friends, gives us a comprehensive idea of the virtue of chastity, no matter under what term we speak of it, be it purity, modesty, continency, virginity, and so on. To learn how dear to the pure Heart of Jesus this virtue is, especially in the lives o£ the young people, we need but to turn to Christ's associates in His own early childhood. Both in childhood and adolescence Jesus associated Himself mainly with those whom He knew to be absolutely pure and beyond suspicion. His Mother was the spotless and most pure Virgin, even in her divine motherhood. His foster-father, St. Joseph, was and remained a virgin. His precursor, St. John the Baptist, who prepared the way for His coming, was and remained a virgin. His favorite Apostle was the virgin John, who later took care of His Virgin Mother, Mary.

His enemies accused Jesus of being a law-breaker; but He would never permit even His enemies to accuse Him of violating the virtue of chastity. Why this insistence on holy virginity, holy purity, in His own behalf and for His intimate companions in the very beginning of His life? Undoubtedly, to impress upon all His followers the high value and urgent necessity of the virtue of chastity, particularly in the beginning of our career on earth. For Jesus knew that, once self-mastery has been acquired, all other virtues follow readily; and with them peace of heart and mind, which are the safe anchors for temporal and spiritual happiness. This Jesus confirmed once more in His Sermon on the Mount, when He addressed the multitude, saying 'Blessed are the clean of heart: for they shall see God' (Matt., v. 8).

St. Anthony, who loved this virtue so dearly, was visibly rewarded one day when the Blessed Mother herself presented her Divine Infant into his arms. St. Agnes, Philomena, Cecilia, Lucy-all young girls-offered their lives in martyrdom rather than violate this holy virtue. In the Lives of other Martyrs we read that not only brutal men, but even savage beasts maddened with hunger and turned loose upon the helpless Christians who awaited their martyrdom in the arena, lost their ferocity, and were subdued unto gentleness and meekness by the sight of pure and innocent manhood and maidenhood.

Even the ancient pagan Greeks and Romans, who were noted for their lust, had their vestal virgins in testimony of the human instinct to reverence and prize whatever makes for purity and chastity. So great was their reverence for these vestal virgins, even though only outwardly so, that if a conquering hero returning from glorious victories was having a triumphal procession through the streets of the city and a vestal virgin came his way, the procession was halted in reverence to her, and the conqueror paid her public homage.

Considered even from a merely natural standpoint, it is far sweeter and more profitable to lead a chaste life than to be in the thralls of impurity. How often do we not read of a young man or woman committing suicide, after having lead an immoral life! But you never read of a young person ending his or her life through misery of mind and wretchedness of heart brought on through the practice of purity and self-control. Hence, for physiological and psychic reasons alone, a sensible young person will keep the mind clean, the heart pure, and the imagination away, as much as possible, from matters of sex.

Many non-Catholics, who have not the religious training that we have, from a mere interest in their personal comfort and wellbeing, from an instinctive appreciation of modesty, and as a strong factor towards self-control and self-possession and towards ensuring future happiness, ease and contentment, aim to keep their minds pure and their hearts chaste. Their native good sense tells them that this cannot be attained, except through a rigid check, a severe and unrelenting guard, over their sensuous leanings and sexual appetites. In consideration of all these motives, both and unrelenting guard, over their sensuous leanings and sexual appetites. In consideration of all these motives, both 2) could rightfully cry out: 'O how beautiful is the chaste generation with glory for the memory thereof is immortal: because it is known both with God and with men. When it is present, they imitate it: and they desire it when it hath withdrawn itself, and it triumpheth crowned forever, winning the reward of undefiled conflicts.'

Virginal Chastity Regained.-Many of my listeners are doing so perhaps with a heavy heart. Already, their many past transgressions against this virtue may lead them to cry out with St. Paul: 'Unhappy man (or woman) that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?' (Rom., vii. 24). In consequence, there may be such who are wondering if, through their past lapses, they have forfeited the dignity and honor of virginal chastity forever; or if lost, can it ever be recovered somehow? And if so, in what manner?

The answer is contained in the same Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans: 'The grace of God, by Jesus Christ, our Lord' (Rom., vii. 25). It is true that the Church has made no explicit pronouncement upon this point. But St. Augustine, one of the greatest Doctors of the Church who in his youth and before his conversion had been guilty of shameful excesses of impurity, says a comforting word, when he declares, that 'virginity, which has been lost, may be recovered by a long practice of chastity' (see Meyer's 'Youth's Pathfinder,' p. 122). Added strength to this view of St. Augustine is found in the life of St. Margaret of Cortona. She is known as the St. Mary Magdalen of the Order of St. Francis. After her conversion from a scandalous life of immorality, Our Lord drew her closer and closer to Himself by the bonds of divine love. The stronger their holy friendship and union grew, the more tender and endearing were the names with which Jesus addressed Margaret. At first He called her His 'dear little sheep,' which He had found again. Then, in loving gradation He called her His 'child, His daughter, His beloved, and finally, His spouse,' assuring her at the same time that her place in Heaven would be among the virgins, whose glory she would share. No matter what be the theological value or non-value of this legend, there is at least a great deal of real comfort and genuine encouragement here for every God-loving soul who has been unfortunate after the manner of St. Margaret, but who, like her, wants to give whatever remains of her love and devotion entirely and forever to Jesus, the pure Lover of penitents, as well as of innocent virgins. In addition to St. Margaret and St. Augustine, there is another consoling fact. It is this: beneath the Cross of Jesus, as He was dying upon it, as His Precious Blood oozed forth from His sacred members, not only was Mary the spotless one, but immediately next to her stood also Mary, the penitent one. Following, therefore, the example of Christ, no position or vocation in the Church established by the same forgiving Lord should be closed to a repentant soul, be it honorable wedlock, or holy priesthood-just as St. Augustine was not barred from the priesthood, nor St. Margaret of Cortona from a religious sisterhood.

Conclusion: Never to Have Sinned Is Sweetest.-But sweet as is the forgiveness of sin on the part of God after the fall, the consciousness of never having seriously violated holy chastity and virginity, thanks to the grace of God, is a joy infinitely more soothing and delicious. Mary Magdalen was indeed happy at having been pardoned by Jesus after her fall. But Mary, the Mother of Jesus, must have been unspeakably more happy for never having sullied her innocence and purity with the least shadow of guilt.

But if it is too late for us to be happy after the manner of Mary Immaculate, then we must strive earnestly to be happy after the manner of Mary, the Penitent. If our innocence is still unsullied, then let our one ambition in life be to merit the eulogy pronounced by God upon Mary, namely: 'Thou art all fair, O my love, and there is not a spot in thee' (Cant., iv. 7). At all events, either for innocence preserved or for innocence regained through penance, let us cultivate an ardent love and tender devotion to Mary, who invites all sincere lovers of purity, saying: 'Come to me, all ye that desire me. I am the Mother offair love. . . . In me is all grace, . . . all hope of life, and of virtue' (Ecclus., xxiv. 24 sq.). Amen.


II. THE SIN OF LUST

'Know ye this and understand, that no fornicator nor unclean person hath inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God' (Eph., v. 5).

From the moment of our conception, my friends, we have the germ of good and evil implanted within us. When we attain the use of reason, the battles of life begin. From then on until our dying day there is a dual struggle going on within our being, each inclination striving to gain the mastery over us. The one aims at the higher, the nobler things of life-the chaste, the pure, and the beautiful. Opposed to this is that other power which Sacred Scripture calls 'the beast' the animal nature within us, ever-striving to overpower our spiritual nature. This lower element of our nature constantly tends to the unholy things of life, and craves to satisfy those baser appetites.

These struggles become more violent as we grow into adolescence until the closing years of our teens, especially. Usually, after the age of twenty or thereabouts, one or the other of these dual powers will predominate. The stronger of the two will determine most of our thoughts, words and actions thereafter. Should the evil predominate, only a miracle of God's grace can liberate us from its meshes. Yes, any person so ensnared can truly cry out with St. Paul: 'O unhappy man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? The grace of God, by Jesus Christ, our Lord' (Rom., vii. 24 sq.),.

Proposition.-Under the Sixth and Ninth Commandments, we call this dual struggle within us between the good or bad, virtue or vice. The virtue we call chastity, the vice we call lust. In our previous sermon we have already considered the virtue of chastity under its different aspects. Today we turn to the unpleasant phase of this dual struggle. In other sermons to follow we shall consider the sins of the flesh and the occasions thereof, more in detail; but today we will speak of them under the one common term, namely, lust.

Definition.-What do we mean by the word, lust? It is defined as an inordinate, unnatural love of the pleasures of the flesh and of the senses. Contrary to the opinions of some, not all pleasures of the senses are forbidden. Divine Providence has prepared many pure and innocent pleasures for us-pleasures that are necessary to entertain us, to repair our strength, to preserve our health, to sustain us in our weakness, and to relieve our ills. For example, we have the sensible pleasure that goes with well-prepared food or drink; the sweetness of sleep in a cozy bed; the exhilarating sensation after a good bath; the beautiful aspects which nature and God's creatures present to our eyes; the sweet and harmonious strains of music, etc. Any such pleasures, when they are not excessive and are enjoyed with a proper motive, are praiseworthy and legitimate.

But it is different with the pleasures of the flesh and of the senses, in relation to the organs of sex, when they are contrary to the purpose for which God created them. We then call these pleasures 'sins of the sense,' or sensuality. There are other terms by which we designate these sins, due to their peculiar malice, with which all intelligent Catholics should be familiar. There is, for example, the sin of immodesty, the sin of impurity. (a) If the complete sexual satisfaction is sought by oneself alone, it is called self-abuse. (b) If it is an intercourse of sexes between single or celibate people, it is called fornication. © If one or both are married, the sin is called adultery. (d) If they are closely related, though not married to each other, it is incest. (e) Unnatural sexual relation between persons of the same sex, or of the opposite sex, is called sodomy-after the biblical city of Sodom, which was destroyed by fire and brimstone on account of these unnatural sins. (f) Finally, sexual transgression with an animal is called bestiality. But all these sins, by whatever name you call them, are classified under the one term, lust, of which Holy Scripture says 'that they who do such things shall not obtain the kingdom of God' (Gal., v. 21).

Nature and Gravity of Lust.-St. Jerome and St. Alphonsus give it as their opinion that nine out of every ten persons in hell owe their damnation to the sins of lust. Be that as it may, it seems probable that about that proportion of sacrilegious confessions are reducible to the sins of the flesh-either on account of lack of proper contrition or on account of failure to confess sins properly through false shame or pride. The reason why so many are lost on account of this sin, is because this sin so completely overpowers its victim that the unfortunate soul clings to its charms and pleasures to the last. Thus, dying unrepentant, it becomes for him the unpardonable sin.

The Dignity of Man.-It is only after we understand the dignity of man that we realize fully the gravity of these sins. (1) 'We are, first of all, creatures made to the image and likeness of God, endowed with understanding and free will. Through Baptism, Confirmation, Holy Communion, and the other Sacraments, our bodies, says St. Paul (I Con, vi. 15), become 'members of Christ,' nay, 'one with Christ.' 'Know you not,' says St. Paul (I Con, iii. 16-sq.), 'that you are the temple of God, and that the spirit of God dwelleth in you? But if any man violate the temple of God, him shall God destroy. For the temple of God is holy, which you are.' This body is one day to arise again from the grave, either in glory or in shame. What, therefore, can be more degrading, more debasing, than to pollute this body with the sins of lust and sensuality?

What would you say if a man should come here before God's sanctuary and profane this temple with shameful crimes and abuses? But what of these crimes in comparison to those who profane the living temples of the Holy Ghost-their bodies, the dwelling places of their souls for whom Christ shed His Precious Blood, and died the ignominious death on the Cross?

(2) Secondly, to ascertain how displeasing to God the sins of lust are, we need but to look at the terrible punishments He has sent to those who have committed this sin. Was it not this vice that caused the deluge? Was it not the sins of lust that brought down fire and brimstone upon the infamous cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and destroyed all the inhabitants thereof? Was it not lust that caused the death, through the sword of Phinees, of 24,000 Israelites in one day, that effected the extermination of almost the entire tribe of Benjamin, and which drew so many evils upon the house of David (Num., xxv. 6-9)?

In our own day, whence arise the many plagues and misfortunes that afflict us? Pestilences and contagious diseases; so many sudden deaths, bloody wars, tempests and storms, floods and drought; so many disasters, as fires and earthquakes, which ravage cities and provinces. In all of these can be seen the hand of an angry God, who strikes and chastises us. 'Believe me,' says St. Thomas of Villanova, 'they are also in punishment of intemperance and the frightful lust of mankind.' God's mills grind slowly, but surely; and severe chastisements of this nature God employs only as a last resort, in order to draw His wayward children from evil and sin.

Fatal Consequences to the Individual.-Furthermore, the individual addicted to the sin of lust brings both spiritual and physical ruin upon himself. I quote from a doctor of authority: 'The entire nervous system, the emotional and religious life become deranged. The body loses its vigor and resistive powers, while the mind forfeits its robustness, alertness and resourcefulness. Many a youthful and beautiful complexion, florid appearance, sprightly gait, graceful carriage, and easy manner, are hopelessly ruined by this unnatural practice; many a brilliant mind is shorn of its power of initiative, spirit of enterprise, glow of originality, fire of enthusiasm, by the same suicidal habits. It sickens the imagination, deadens the emotions, and brings on depression of spirits, melancholy, despondency and despair, and extinguishes every spark of religious enthusiasm.' There is no crime too low to which a man of lust will not stoop. Hardly had the wise Solomon become unchaste, when he offered incense to idols and became an apostate. King David, from an adulterer, became a homicide. What about Martin Luther, King Henry VIII of England, and Napoleon of France? It was lust that started them all on their career of apostasy, infidelity, murder and ruin. Why so many infidels in the world today, who mock everything holy, everything pure, if not because they are steeped in the sins of lust? O frightful plague of religion, of society, of so many individuals!

Conclusion.-Realizing the evil consequences, may I exhort you to fly from and to detest every avenue of approach to this sin? Every pastor knows, and God knows, the many temptations that are flaunted before us at every turn in the world today. For this reason, holy Mother Church is most generous in dispensing the graces of God to fortify us from being drawn into this maelstrom of lust which surrounds us on every side. In turn, there is something refreshing, amidst the present whirlpool of filth, to see those untold numbers of beautiful souls, young men and women as well as elders, in every walk of life, who in spite of evil surroundings still retain the beautiful virtue of purity and chastity.

These realize that we are never sure from an unexpected attack. Hence they combat these powers of evil by practising the virtue opposed to lust, namely, chastity-that most beautiful of all virtues, the flower of good morals, the honor of the body, the glory of both sexes, the foundation of all sanctity. Chastity elevates man above the angels, and renders him, so to say, similar to God. Let us pray often to God for this holy virtue; then rest assured that He will never refuse us the graces necessary to fulfill what He commands. Fortified thus, we can say with St. Paul: 'I can do all things in Him that strengtheneth me.' Amen.


III. OCCASIONS OF SINS OF LUST: THOUGHTS AND LOOKS

(Newspapers, Pictures, Movies, etc.)

'Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh' (Matt., xii. 34).-'I fear lest, as the serpent seduced Eve by his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted, and fall from the simplicity which is in Christ' (II Cor., xi. 3).

Man, my friends, is made up of body and soul. Unlike all other creatures, he is endowed with intellect and free will. Through his soul, he becomes reasonable and free, master of his own actions.

It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate,

I am the captain of my soul. (Wm. E. Hanley).

Yes, endowed with intellect, immortal and allied to the Angels is man! For, as the Psalmist declares: 'Thou hast made him a little less than the Angels.' On the other hand, through his body, man is related to inferior creatures, and even to the very dust of the earth. Hence these two elements, the material and the spiritual, body and soul united, forms man. But there must be one head, one master, that must dominate and rule. Which shall it be? You will say that it is the soul and reason, of course. And what is to be the subject of this rule? You answer that it is the body. It is the body that must obey.

But now take a glance at those steeped in lust and impurity. In such, the soul is degraded to the position of a servant and slave of the body and of the flesh. The right order is inverted. Passion controls, and reason obeys. To avoid this inverse order in our lives, of the body domineering over the soul, God has given us the Sixth and Ninth Commandments as guides. In these He forbids not only the sinful act itself, but also all those factors that may lead up to the sinful act, or prepare the way for it. The latter group, we shall begin to consider today. We may call them the avenues of the enemy's approach, or the occasions for the sins of impurity. Our Catechism groups them under the following heads, namely: thoughts, desires, looks, words, and deeds. Today we shall take up thoughts, desires and looks.

Thoughts and Desires. -Our enemy's first avenue of approach is through the intellect, by placing before us thoughts and images against holy purity. These thoughts and images, however bad they may be, are not sinful if not followed by bad and wilfully entertained desires. St. Paul and others of the greatest Saints had violent temptations of this nature.

These thoughts may even be accompanied by a certain sensation of pleasure without becoming sinful. Concupiscence is an effect of original sin; and it is in us, in spite of ourselves. But it is in our power not to give consent, either to the thought or to the sensation of pleasure. It is in our power to reject both as soon as we are conscious of them. In case we do, these thoughts are not only not sinful, but may be even meritorious. Such, for example, are the thoughts that so frequently confront us, like a mist, like a cloud, passing over a clear sky.

Therefore, before we should be disturbed over evil thoughts or desires, we must be certain of three things: (a) the thought or image must be intrinsically immodest or impure; (b) we must be conscious of its presence and take pleasure therein; © we must give our free consent to the thought or pleasure. If one or other of these conditions is missing, there can be no grievous sin. But when all three conditions are present, then our thoughts are sinful, and very often grievously sinful. For, says Christ, such a one has already committed the sin 'in his heart.' This important fact is frequently overlooked, when people examine their conscience for confession and neglect to mention the sin of thought.

Sins of Looks. -Next to our thought, come our sight and hearing and our other senses. Our eyes are frequently called the 'mirror of the soul.' For, it is through the eyes that objects from without are mirrored in our minds. Also our eyes may reveal to others the thoughts that are entertained within the mind. Frequently, without a warning, our eyes may fall upon an object that is indecent. If we immediately turn away from that object, we may incur no guilt. Even willful looks of curiosity may not in themselves be sinful; but they readily expose one to the danger of sin. For example, a curious and indiscreet look led David to fall (II Kings, xi. 2), the chief of Sichem to outrage Dina, the daughter of Jacob (Gen., xxiv. 2), the two men who threatened to attack the chaste Susanna, and so on. So grievous, therefore, may the sin of sight become that it is equal to the act itself. For, says Our Lord, 'whosoever shall look on a woman to lust after her, has already committed adultery with her in his heart' (Matt., v. 28). And St. Augustine tells us that he knew persons of such eminent sanctity that he would have been less surprised to see an Angel fall than these holy persons; and yet they fell and were lost on account of immodest looks.

Bad Books and Pictures. -Most people's actions, and this is especially true with the young, are mere repetitions of what they see others do. For that reason, there used to be a popular saying: 'As the parent, so the child. As the father, so the son. As mother, so the daughter.' But in our day, when the fireside is no longer the place where children gather for their recreation and social hours, when the home is rather a place to eat and to sleep in when there is no other place to go, there are other outside influences that are equally as great as, if not greater than, the influence parents exercise in moulding the physical, mental, and moral future of their children. And of all the unbridled commercialized influences that have been instrumental in bringing morality, especially amongst the young, to such a low ebb as we find it today, there is nothing more destructive than the immoral picture magazines, cheap books, and the moving picture traffic, as we find them at present.

To confirm these statements, I visited one of our local 'respectable' newsstands, similar to those that are commonly found in every community all over the land. On its shelves I discovered more than 15 pornographic magazines, that reek with lewdness, filth, and immorality from cover to cover. In the same newsstands, you find circulating libraries of books, amongst which cannot be found one out of a hundred that is fit reading matter for respectable people. And yet, we find that our own Catholic people frequent and patronize these places without qualms of conscience.

Next to these magazines and books, which lead people to sin against the Sixth and Ninth Commandments through the sense of sight, we must mention in particular, our modern moving picture theatres. There, lewdness and sex have been depicted upon the screen in such a manner that the movie colony at Hollywood has fallen into ill-repute the world over. Even the players themselves there fell so low in their morals that one writer describes the colony 'as so rotten that it stinks.' In some foreign countries, as in Ireland, as high as 80% of American movies are banned from the country because of their obscenity and indecencies.

As advocates of the Legion of Decency, we do not condemn all movie pictures. Every new discovery in art or science can be used for good or evil. Visual education, too, can be productive of much good. But the evil lies rather in the industry itself, as it has been conducted, than with the individual movie houses. The reason is this: in this country four or six motion picture producing companies control, not only the production, but the distribution of nearly all movie films as well. Through their 'block' and 'blind' booking, these companies oblige the distributor to buy blindly in a block, without previous inspection and without any right of selection or discretion, whatever is sent to him locally. Those too in control of production are commonly people without any religion, and are frequently opposed to all positive religion.

And lest we be accused of exaggerating the physical, mental and moral harm that moving pictures are doing, let us hear from a nationally recognized authority. His name is Henry James Forman, who published his findings in 1929 after an exhaustive study. He entitled his book: 'Our Movie-Mad Children.' He estimates that the movies touch the lives of 250,000,000 people every week. The average weekly attendance in our own country is nearly 80 millions, of which 23 millions are young people under 21 years of age. These 23 millions of children spend at least two hours each week in movie theaters. Twelve millions of these children are 14 years or younger, while 6 millions are seven years or younger. Seventy per cent of the pictures reviewed had for a dominant theme crime, sex love, violence, or horror, with 449 crimes being noted in 115 films taken at random.

Effects on Children. -Here are the results upon the minds and bodies of these children.

(i) First, after attending such pictures, scientific tests were made of a group of children selected at random. The physical disturbances, indicated by increased restlessness in sleep, averaged 4% in girls and 26% in boys; while individuals registered as high as 90%. In all cases, the increased restlessness lingered over a period of several nights, while the normal work at school was disturbed for days after attending the movies.

(2) The emotional reactions were found equally as great, registering five times as great in children as in adults. Due to the excitement caused, it was found that the pulse had jumped to 140, instead of the normal pulse rate of 8o; in individual cases it reached 192. In the opinion of a noted neurologist, the scenes of horror and tense excitement produce an 'effect similar to shell-shock,' which eventually 'amounts to an emotional debauch, sowing the seeds for future neuroses and psychoses'-which, in our language, are forms of insanity.

(3) The moral harm can scarcely be estimated. The sex appeal; the racketeers, the flaming passion and high-power emotionalism so featured in the movies, may easily nullify every standard of life and conduct set up at home and at school for the child. What a crime this 'greed for profits on the bodies and souls of little children!' No wonder the Manchester Guardian of England, referring to our American movies, should suggest: 'The United States has agitated against the trade of opiates in the Far East. Would it not be well for her to act as vigorously against the corrupting influence that comes from her own shores (through her moving pictures)? No wonder, then, that according to a conservative estimate (Commonweal, May 5, 1933) there are at least 55 millions of intelligent people in this country, who never go to a movie theatre, because the pictures are 'below the level of their intelligence.'

Likewise with reason, therefore, did a group of Catholic women, under the National Council of Catholic Women, condemn the movies in the following caustic terms: 'We find the average film reeking with vulgarity, crammed with lewd dialogue, disguised under the term of 'wisecracking.' We find immorality exalted; gross spectacles presented in the form of realism. Divorce is upheld as an ideal condition; faithfulness between husband and wife is looked upon as something unusual. Films deal with the lives of morons, rather than of decent men and women. The gangster and horror pictures have given place to the production of the most immoral films of all time.'

The Legion of Decency.-Justified, therefore, was the Catholic Church as a whole, unitedly to organize her 'Legion of Decency,' under the capable leadership of the Most Rev. Archbishop McNicholas, O. P. Everyone knows the nature and intent of this organization now. Other religious bodies and organizations have united with us in this campaign. A good beginning has been made, but only a beginning. The producers in Hollywood have promised a reform. There are signs of improvement from that source. But we cannot stop there. This is only one angle of the work of the Legion of Decency. Our campaign must go on until all sources of corrupting influence are checked. We must go on until our news-stands with their bookshelves and magazine counters are cleared of filth and corruption; until our schools, colleges and universities remove from their teaching staffs those whose doctrines are demoralizing and corrupting the minds of their pupils.

This is your work and mission, you fathers and mothers, you older men and women! It is not the youth of the land that is seeking a lower standard of morals than our forbears. It is their elders that are preparing and pointing the way. It is true that thirty years ago the average criminal's age was forty. Today, those who glut our penal institutions are nearer twenty years of age, or even less. But where must we look for the causes of the youthful criminal? Is it not in our lewd advertisements in our daily newspapers, books and magazines, placed there for profit? In our theatres where crime and racketeering, where vice and immorality, are extolled and virtue flaunted? Is it not in our many schools of learning, where teachers are deliberately misleading youth from the high principles of living, offering in their stead unbridled license as the guiding principle of life, self-indulgence and self- gratification as its goal? These teachers of youth declare, that neither the criminal nor the ordinary citizen has any freedom to determine his own acts but that everything is predestined by his heredity and experiences. What respect can the pupils have for religion, what reverence for authority, human or divine, when their teachers sneer at the 'myth and outworn superstition,' as they call it, of a personal God? When the young are told that the Ten Commandments are only a man-made code of etiquette, the crystallized will of a group, and not the revealed law of God, binding upon the conscience of man? Are we forgetting George Washington's wise warning, that 'reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle'? Have we forgotten the proverb: 'It is hard to take out of the oak the twist that grewin the sapling'? Here lies our responsibility.

And our cause is not entirely hopeless. There are signs of an awakening in many quarters. 'The very presence of a widespread alarm and concern for youth is a sign of health. When public men and women are voicing the need of safeguarding the youth of the land, it is an indication that the Nation is becoming aroused to the evil influences threatening the young. When business and professional men, clergymen, parents and teachers are beginning to give thought to the problem, that fact alone begets the well-founded hope that youth, with 'its illusions, aspirations, and dreams,' will come through the perils of the new age victorious' ('Nation's Youth Problem,' by J. I. Corrigan, S. J.).

If we elders will not protect youth against this modern exhibition of 'greed for profits' which preys 'on the bodies and souls of little children,' there are signs that youth will soon refuse to follow us. They will set out to chart their own future course. The heart of American youth is still sound. 'Our young are fired with stronger idealism, higher ambitions to climb greater heights than ever before. They are charged with a courage to dare, with ambition to achieve, with nobility to strive, with inspiration to win, what their forefathers could not achieve.' What hopes for America, with her 40 and more millions of children and adolescents! 'What a picture they make as they troop off to school, day after day, 231/2 millions strong to our elementary schools, 5 millions to our high schools, and 1 million to our colleges and universities.' There is yet hope for the future-if not in our elders, then in our youth. We still retain confidence in modern youth, whose heart and mind are moulded after God's own plan. In the words of the poet, let us close with a tribute to youth:

How beautiful is youth! How bright its gleams,

With its illusions, aspirations, dreams!

Books of beginnings, story without end,

Each maid a heroine, and each man a friend!

All possibilities are in its hands,

No danger daunts it, and no fee withstands; In its sublime audacity of faith,

'Be thou removed,' it to the mountain saith. And with ambitious feet, secure and proud, Ascends the ladder, leaning on the cloud. Amen.


IV. OCCASIONS OF SINS OF LUST: WORDS AND ACTIONS

'Out of the abundance o f the heart the mouth speaketh' (Matt., xii. 34).-'Uncleanness, let it not so much as be named among you, as becometh saints' (Eph., v. 3).

Everything that is necessary for the proper care of the body, so that it remain clean and healthy, is allowed, and is no sin. Everything that is done for wicked pleasure, is forbidden, and is a sin; be it in thought or desire, in looks, in words, or in action. These are mostly known as the sins of the senses-the 'avenues of approach,' as we called them in our last discourse, or the occasions for sins against the Sixth and Ninth Commandments. First of all, since the soul or mind should control the actions of the body in rational creatures, the evil one begins by directing his attack upon our thought-life. Evil thoughts may arise like a sudden mist, and try to disturb us. But, as we said, these thoughts are not sinful unless they are wilfully entertained. And by prayer and determination of will we can control these thoughts and dispel them before they become sinful.

Next to thought, Satan plans his approach through the eyes. Jeremias calls the eyes the 'windows through which death enters.' Salvian calls them the 'mines of the soul.' For, as the strongest rocks and walls are blasted by mines, so, by fixing the eyes upon dangerous objects, the soul is instantly confronted with impure thoughts and desires that cause the destruction of holy virtue. St. Bernard, therefore, says: 'A true sign of chastity is caution in looks, and he who is dissolute in looks, you must conclude, is also unchaste.'

Proposition.-From sinful objects or looks follow evil thoughts and desires; and from these proceed also evil words and actions. For, as St. Matthew wistfully says: 'Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh' (Matt., xii. 34). What these sinful words and actions are in relation to chastity, we shall discuss today.

Immodest Words.-St. Paul in his Epistle to the Ephesians (v. 3) tells us: 'Uncleanness, let it not so much as be named among you, as becometh saints.' Elsewhere (1 Cor. xv. 33), he further warns: 'Evil companionships (communications) corrupt good morals.' For, once the eye has grown evil and thoughts become corrupt, the sense of speech is not slow to express in words what is in the minds of people with whom we associate. Who has not heard the saying: 'Like begets like'? Or: 'Tell me with whom you go, and I will tell you what you are.' In other words, he that sees alike, will think alike; and they that think alike, will speak alike; and from thinking and speaking there is but one step to doing alike.

No one knows human nature better than Jesus, our Saviour, knew it. And for the question under discussion He left us the parable of the prodigal son. This wayward son had become impregnated with evil thoughts and desires through bad companionship. Through his conversation with others he had heard of the liberties he might enjoy away from home. His home surroundings became distasteful, and he became restless. He asked his father for his inheritance- something he was not entitled to until after his father's death. 'He went abroad,' says Scripture, 'and wasted his substance, living riotously' (Luke, xv. 13). Upon his return, his brother states it more explicitly, by saying he 'devoured his substance with harlots' (ibid., 30).

Here Our Lord points out every step that is taken by one who falls into grievous sins against the Sixth and Ninth Commandments. Had this young man not listened to the evil conversation of his wicked and corrupt companions with whom he associated, his downfall would have been averted. And yet, there are those who think lightly of the immodest conversation that is carried on daily by and around them. You frequently hear them say: 'Oh, we don't mean any harm by it. It is just in fun.' But not all those who hear that filthy talk, will go away and believe 'it was all in fun.' In their quiet moments, the things they have heard will recur again and again to their minds. It becomes a scandal to them; and like the prodigal son, it may be the beginning of a coming downfall, a life of sin. Hence, without making any distinction, whether any harm is meant or not, Sacred Scripture, through the mouth of the Apostle, forbids all immodest language, saying: 'Let no evil speech proceed from your mouth' (Eph., iv. 29). 'Put away filthy speech out of your mouth' (Col., iii. 8).

Bad Actions.-Speak no evil, do no evil! Or the reverse: speak about immodest things, and there is but one step to doing impure things! This brings us to another question which a Catholic priest would rather not speak about, but would prefer to pass over unnoticed. But were I, from false delicacy, to leave some of you entrusted to my care in dangerous ignorance of or in doubt concerning certain sinful acts, I might incur blame for serious injury to your souls and one day hear from God the awful sentence: 'If thou dost not announce My word to man and make it known, I will require his blood (his soul) at thy hand' (Ezech., iii. 18).

First of all, we must proceed to answer some of our objectors, who do not agree with us on what we call forbidden or sinful actions.

Objection 1-'Why,' they say, 'insist upon an impossibility? Nobody keeps quite chaste. You don't understand what life is, until you've tasted life. Give me a man who has had experience, and then he can talk, if he wants.'

Answer.-As to the impossibility, we know that there is a large group of clean men and women composed of Catholics and non-Catholics alike, who conduct themselves quite as they should. They come to marriage, or even live out their whole life of single blessedness, without their purity ever losing its lustre. There is still another group larger than the first, who, either through ignorance or through human frailty, have done wrong once perhaps, but never again. These quickly regain their friendship with God, and lead pure and noble lives the rest of their days.

Again, it is quite true that keeping oneself chaste involves the sacrifice of one experience, but it means the gaining of a better experience. For example, if I never had smallpox, I miss the experience of the infection of smallpox. Yet, is it not better to have experienced good health without the experience and marks of smallpox? Hence, you may answer the impure: 'I agree that I have sacrificed one experience; but I have also gained one. And so have you. But the one I have gained is by far better than the one you have had. I have got nearer to true manhood, you nearer to animalhood.'

Objection 2-Another fallacy you often hear is this: 'A certain amount of indulgence is good for you. It quiets your nerves.' In reply we say: go and ask any reputable doctor whether it 'is good for you.' He will tell you that our social diseases and nervous exhaustion, about which we hear a great deal today, are due to sexual debauchery. As to 'quieting your nerves,' he will tell you that just the contrary is true. Why does every instructor for prize fights and athletics advocate the very opposite, namely, complete abstinence? The fact of the matter is that sexual indulgence is a short, acute shock to the nerves, leaving its scars and searing the conscience. But virtue's experience 'is like a glow, not a flash; an experience of happiness, not of mere pleasure.'

In every age there have been those who held that ever so often it was good, nay, evennecessary, to ease one's concupiscence, either through pollution, self-abuse, or intercourse with others. This is one of the trump charges which the lecherous and impure love to make, especially against the chastity of priests and Sisters.

Here is a story to the point. A certain anti-Catholic speaker was making these very charges against priests and Sisters. Amongst other charges he made this statement: 'It is impossible for any man to remain pure for six months at a time.' A man in the audience arose, and asked the speaker this question: 'You are a married man with a family, are you not?' 'Yes,' was the speaker's reply. 'You just told us you recently spent nine months abroad on business, while your family was here at home, did you not?' 'Yes,' was again the reply. 'Then,' said the man in the audience, 'I pity your wife and your children.' The audience caught the point, and booed the speaker from the platform.

These people deny the possibility or the advisability of continency. Do you know the meaning of that word? Continency means the positive abstention from all carnal pleasures under all circumstances. This does not include those nocturnal or periodical emissions, which are natural for a healthy, normal person of either sex. We affirm that physicians are in almost unanimous agreement with the statement of Dr. Henry Stanton, a recognized authority, who says: 'Strict continence is neither injurious to health, nor does it produce impotence [as some contend]. While self- denial is difficult, since the promptings of nature often seem imperious, it is not impossible. It is certain that no youth will suffer physically by remaining sexually pure. The demands which occur during adolescence are mainly abnormal, due to the excitements of an over-stimulating diet, pornographic literature and art, and the temptations of impure association.' Of our own strength, yes, it might be physically impossible. But, says Our Lord 'My grace is sufficient for thee' (II Cor., xii. 9). 'The grace of God, by Jesus Christ, Our Lord' (Rom., vii. 25). And so counsels the Wise Man: 'As I knew that I could not otherwise be continent, except God gave it, I went to the Lord, and besought Him with my whole heart' (Wis., viii. 21). Prayer, then, gives us the added strength needed.

Objection 3.-But our adversaries are persistent. Their next reply is: 'Well, after all, these actions are but natural.' But this is only a half-truth, and that is why it sounds so plausible. In man, endowed with intellect and freewill, such actions uncontrolled are only partly natural. They correspond to instinct, which we have in common with the animal, the brute. But if they are duly controlled and properly governed by reason, they are fully natural. For actions through instinct go all the way in an animal, but only part of the way in man. Hence, to follow instinct and not reason would be to cut away the very part that makes man human-that which makes our acts human acts. Therefore, continency, or control of sensual appetites by reason and instinct combined, is natural, and self-indulgence is not.

Even aside from a supernatural standpoint, let us not be misled by these false prophets of self-indulgence. Listen to this remarkable document. In accordance with the best medical opinion of the world, the following Bulletin (known as 'General Headquarters Bulletin, No. 54') was issued from the American Army Staff in France, on August 7, 1918: 'Sexual continence is the plain duty of members of the American Expeditionary Forces, both for the vigorous conduct of the war, and for the clean health of the American people after the war. Sexual intercourse is not necessary for good health, and complete continence is wholly possible. . . . Commanding officers will urge continence on all men of their commands, as their duty as soldiers, and the best training for the enforced sexual abstinence at the front. Instruction, work, drill, athletics, and amusements will be used to the fullest extent in furthering the practice of continence. By command' of General Pershing. Official: Signed: Robert C. Davis, Adjutant General, James W. McAndrew, Chief of Staff.'

Finally, if 'it is but natural,' then why the feeling of remorse that follows every abnormal sensual satisfaction? Why call it a temptation or sin at all, if it is but natural? Why call 'each maid a heroine, and each man a friend,' who overcomes that evil propensity, if it is but natural? Why, if the opposite is but natural, does Tennyson cry out in Sir Galahad:

My strength is as the strength of ten,

Because my heart is pure.

Nay, rather 'blessed is the man that endureth temptation,' says St. James, 'for when he hath been proved, he shall receive the crown of life.' Amen.


V. OCCASIONS OF SINS OF LUST: DRESS AND DANCING.

'Evil communications corrupt good manners' (I Cor., XV. 33)

In childhood we acquire most of our knowledge by imitating what we see and hear our elders do and say. Even

after our mental faculties are properly developed, it is estimated that less than five percent of the people think for themselves. The other ninety-five per cent continue, as in childhood, to accept what they see others propose, or do, for them. You can readily understand, therefore, what an influence for good or for evil our modern newspapers, magazines, books, theatres, school and daily associates exercise in moulding the thoughts and habits of the majority of our people. It is estimated that the eighty millions of people who frequent our theaters every week spend more money on this form of amusement alone than is spent in and for all the churches in the country taken together.

As stated before, these external forces are frequently occasions for grievous sins against the Sixth and Ninth Commandments. Bad example, then, is a fruitful source of many of our social evils of today. Even our recreation, our mode of dress, have come under their spell. I have, therefore, selected for our discussion today two other avenues of approach not heretofore mentioned, which Satan frequently employs as occasions that may lead to grave sins against the Sixth and Ninth Commandments. They are two popular subjects, namely: dress and dancing.

Dress or Styles of Dress .-Frequently, when an audience hears a speaker mention the subject of styles and dress, a certain resentment arises in the minds of many, who murmur to themselves: 'Now, why should he bring up that subject again? Are not the styles determined by the designers of clothes? And must we not dress according to the time and the country in which we live?' Rather, would I ask you not to prejudge me as a radical on this matter. As intelligent Catholics and Christians, we should sooner ask: 'Why do we wear clothes at all? Where do styles originate? Who determines styles, and for what purpose?' After these facts have been determined, we may perhaps have cause for censure or for praise.

Origin of Dress. -The origin of dress dates back to the Garden of Eden. After Adam and Eve had sinned, their concupiscence was aroused; and they, for the first time, realized that they were naked.

In the Book of Genesis (iii. 7), the first Book of the Bible, we read: 'And when they perceived themselves to be naked, they sewed together fig leaves, and made themselves aprons. . . . And the Lord God made for Adam and his wife, garments of skins, and clothed them' (Gen., iii. 7, 21). It was God Himself, therefore, who dictated the first styles of clothing, and gave them to man. And it was modesty on man's part that prompted him to adopt clothing to cover his body.

Later on, clothing was worn, as it is today, for protection against heat and cold, to preserve health, and to ward off disease. Styles were further adopted to distinguish the sexes, to mark the difference in office, occupation or social rank, and so on. Thus, we find the different uniforms for general, captain, sergeant and common soldier, and for the police in cities all over the world; also different church vestments for the different festivals.

But early in the history of the human race women were known to clothe themselves for the sake of adornment, also using jewels and cosmetics to enhance their appearance. Nowhere do we find the Church condemning this practice as long as it is done with proper decorum and in moderation. But in the course of time these adornments were used for vanity's sake, and for other baser motives. Already we find St. Paul, for example (1 Tim., ii. 9), refer to improper styles of dress amongst his converts to Christianity, over whom Timothy was to preside as bishop. In his final instructions to Timothy, St. Paul says this: 'In like manner, women also, in decent apparel adorning themselves with modesty and sobriety, not with plaited hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly attire (for vanity's sake).' In other words, he asked his convert women to dress becomingly and modestly. For 'after this manner,' says St. Peter, the head of the Apostles, 'heretofore the holy women also, who trusted in God, adorned themselves' (I Pet., iii. 5). Hence, ever obeying the mind of the Church, good Christian women clothe themselves with virtue; and virtue has always determined the styles or modes of dress for decent people.

However, on account of the constant contact with pagan nations, with their immoral principles and practices, the Church has been forced again and again to remind Christians in the words of St. Paul: 'Evil communications corrupt good manners' (1 Cor, xv. 33). And corrupt morals invariably manifest themselves m the mode or style of dress that is adopted, especially in feminine apparel. It is easily seen, therefore, how our designers of modern styles of dress are governed by the same pagan immoral influences, unless checked by our open protests. The impelling motives behind modern styles are no longer modesty, protection against weather, or becoming adornment, but principally sex appeal. And the sad part of it is, that so many of our modern Christian women and girls often have no idea what a factor their dress (which to the wearer may seem harmless) is in arousing the sex urge of others who must associate with them.

It is for this reason that especially the last three Pontiffs, Pius X, Benedict XV, and Pius XI, have deplored the modern styles of feminine apparel. Only recently, Pope Pius XI deplored the modern trend of fashion in the following terms: 'The unfortunate mania for fashion causes even honorable women to forget every sentiment of dignity and modesty. The decrease of womanly reserve has always been a sign of social decadence. The vanity of woman causes the disintegration of the family. An immodest mother will have shameless children. A shameless girl cannot be a good wife. It is possible to dress with ladylike decorum, without imitating monastic severity.'

On January 12, 1930, the same Holy Father of Christendom instructed the bishops throughout the world to take active measures in behalf of decency of dress. He requests them to report to him on this matter every three years. The note of instruction enjoins not only bishops, but also parish priests, fathers and mothers, directors of schools and institutions, and nuns conducting these schools, to remember their serious duty in giving all necessary instruction, and 'insisting' on modesty in feminine attire.

It is, therefore, vanity of dress that the Church condemns. For, says Lavater: 'She who studies her glass, neglects her heart.' And, continues Shakespeare: 'The soul of the vain man is in his clothes.' Hence, no matter how innocent the girl's intentions, no matter how good her motives, common decency forbids her parading before others to display the beauty of her form, instead of the 'beauty of her soul and the loveliness of her virtue.' For, as Father Scott, S.J., expresses it: 'God put the instinct of attractiveness in women, in order to induce honest love and marriage. The way some women dress induces only dishonorable love. . . . It implies no esteem, no honest purpose, no idea whatever of true affection. Nothing fades so fast as the attraction founded on animal passion. The scandalous dress of some women exposes them to lustful eyes, generates false love, and lays the foundations of lifelong misery.'

Dancing.-From improper styles in dress, we go to improper dancing. The one, as we readily see, is the natural supplement to, or outgrowth of, the other. The vain person is not content with self-adornment, but wants to display this vanity before others. Social gatherings and amusements afford the best opportunities for this. Hence, those whose vanity centers in the sex appeal, find no better outlet than in our dance halls, where participants may be observed at close range.

Here again the doctrine of the Catholic Church on dancing holds fast to the principle: 'Is it right, or is it wrong?' Unlike the puritanical attitude of those who condemn all forms of diversion and recreation-be it smoking, chewing, drinking, playing cards, games, theatricals, etc., even though practised in moderation-the Catholic Church condemns no pastime as long as there is no sin connected with it. Many pastimes can be directly or indirectly utilized for healthbuilding purposes. But, like in dress, so in dancing it is not the use, but the abuse, to which a thing is put that we condemn.

We know, for example, that in the Old Testament the Jewish people were accustomed on festival days to dance around the Ark. Even to-day, on great feasts in some countries, it is customary for children to dance before the Blessed Sacrament in the sanctuary. So, now we do not condemn respectable dances, where the participants are properly clad, proper decorum is observed, and the evening is spent together for recreation and innocent enjoyment. In fact, in most of our schools, we find instructors in this art, teaching the children rhythmical movements of their bodies and cultivating grace and proper bearing, all of which are conducive to health and happiness.

But what the Church does condemn is every form of sin and abuse in dancing. And today, as in the past, experience teaches that most of the public dance halls are hotbeds for sin and cesspools of vice. Hence, the Church forbids all public dances, where there is no restriction as to who attends. Whenever the advertisement reads, 'Everybody welcome,' that should be a sufficient warning in itself. Secondly, the Church condemns certain forms of dancing, no matter whether conducted in public or in private. This includes such types as the 'bunny-hug,' the 'tango,' certain 'foxtrots,' certain 'round dances,' which, on account of the position and proximity of the participants, are considered immoral, and are therefore forbidden. Individuals again are forbidden every form of dance which they themselves find a proximate occasion of sin.

Against sinful dances we are warned already in the Old Testament, where we read: 'Use not much the company of her that is a dancer, and hearken not to her, lest thou perish by the force of her charms' (Ecclus., ix. 4). And even though we sin at such dances only in thought, St. Paul tells us that 'he that lusteth after her in his mind, has already committed the sin before God.'

Even though one should not believe in the inspired word of God, we still have many other proofs from many other sources that confirm our attitude towards indecent dances. For example, Demosthenes, the greatest orator of pagan Greece, wishing to cast odium upon persons belonging to the army of King Philip of Macedon, accuses them of participating in public dances. In pagan Rome, to describe a woman without morals it was enough to say that 'she dances more elegantly than becomes an honest woman.' Ovid, Aristotle, Plato, Seneca and Scipio, all profane writers, describe public dances in their times in a manner that cannot even be quoted here. Tertullian represents the public dance hall as a 'temple of Venus, or a sink of obscenity.'

St. Ambrose calls them 'a choir of iniquity, the rock of innocence, the grave of shame.' And St. Charles Borromeo adds: 'The worldly dance is nothing else than a circle of which the devil is the centre and his slaves the circumference; whence it hardly ever happens that a person dances without sin.'

Just listen to these two quotations of our own times from the Hobart College Herald and the New York University News, representing two non-Catholic schools for women in this country.

From the Hobart College Herald, I quote: 'The outstanding objection to the modern dance is that it is immodest and lacking in grace. It is not based on the natural and harmless instinct for rhythm, but on a craving for abnormal excitement. And what is it leading to? The dance in the process of its degradation has passed from slight impropriety to indecency, and now threatens to become brazenly shameless. From graceful coordination of movement it has become a syncopated embrace. Even the most callous devotee of modern dancing cannot think with unconcern of the danger involved in any further excess. For American morals have undoubtedly degenerated with the dance. It cannot be denied that many who indulge in modern dancing do not realize the nature of the incentive which leads them to do so. They like to dance; it becomes a habit, a fascinating obsession. . Were this thoughtless immodesty restricted to the ballroom, the danger would be great enough, but it is unconsciously carried into everyday life. Truly, then, it is imperative that a remedy be sought to arrest the development of the modern dance before this perilous state gets beyond control.'

Now, briefly from the New York University News: 'Overlooking the physiological aspects of women's clothing, there is a strong moral aspect to this laxity of dress. When every dancing step discloses the entire contour of the dancer, it is small wonder that moralists are becoming alarmed. The materials, also, from which women's evening dresses are made, are generally of transparent cobweb. There is a minimum of clothes and a maximum of cosmetics, head-decorations, fans, and jewelry. It is, indeed, an alarming situation when our twentieth century debutant comes out arrayed like a South Sea island savage.' These, my friends, are words, not from a Catholic Priest, but from two groups of non-Catholic women, who still believe in decency and proper decorum.

Conclusion.-With such an array of indictments, then, surely no normal-minded Catholic or Christian can refrain from vigorously censuring such forms of amusement. What surprises us so often is the fact that all upright and cleanliving women do not rebel, and rise up in open revolt against the degradation that is being heaped upon pure womanhood everywhere around us. Why permit those enticing posters of nudity and unbecoming posture which we see upon display so frequently in front of present-day moving picture houses? Why permit the indecent display of their sex upon the shelves of our public newsstands? Shall we continue to tolerate such abuses, solely for lucre's sake, and the demoralization of our youth? It is said that if our Catholic people alone would unite and rise up in rebellion against these organized powers of evil, we could force every industry of vice into bankruptcy, and close the doors of our salacious haunts of vice and corruption. Once the start is made, all decent people will rally their forces behind us. Pray to God to give us strength and courage to marshal our forces against this present debauchery, and preserve for posterity holy purity, that anchor of all other virtues for which Christ Jesus came to earth, bled and died. Amen.



VI. OCCASIONS OF SINS OF LUST: UNDUE FAMILIARITIES, PETTING

'He that loveth danger shall perish in it' (Eccles., iii. 27).

A religious survey conducted in 1926 at Villanova College, a Catholic boys' school, disclosed a surprising need of more explicit instruction upon the specific dangers confronting young people of our day. In reply to the question, 'On what points of Catholic Doctrine do you feel you need more instruction?' purity and matrimony were mentioned more than any other point of doctrine. A similar questionnaire was given to my own high school pupils, and the same reply was received from both our boys and girls. Another similar questionnaire was submitted to 186 college graduates concerning their attitude on mixing socially with the better class of girls at dances, parties, etc., their attitude on minor love-making, their reaction from reading modern fiction containing realistic love scenes, from attendance at the average musical comedy and movies. Nearly all of these 186 men reported something disquieting in their conscience upon one or all of these points.

My friends -and especially you, my dear young men and women-the expressions of concern on the part of so many who answered these questionnaires, prove that, in spite of what others might think about these matters, a conscientious person is not entirely satisfied with the decorum observed by so many of our people today. It proves to us all that we see so frequently in modern fiction, on the screen, in our movies-the love scenes, those prolonged kisses, the undue familiarities between the sexes, the petting parties, and so on-do not prove to be innocent when put to an actual test. Our subject then for today will be as follows: 'Undue Familiarities and Petting Parties,' as two more means by which Satan leads people to sin against the Sixth and Ninth Commandments of the Decalogue.

Upon this subject I would love to speak to you as a friend to a true friend. And I trust you will accept my words in this spirit. Many parents and teachers are often ignorant of what actually goes on in the minds of young people. In like manner, upright young men are often ignorant of what is really transpiring in the minds of ideal young women with whom they associate, and vice versa. I refer to the fact that boys and girls, and parents too, are generally ignorant of the essential difference of the sex instinct, as found in man and woman. The common notion is that it is about the same in all people, and that it differs only in intensity. But biologists and psychologists have done well in exposing this wrong notion. They distinguish two factors in the sex urge which all should know. First, we have the psychic factor, that is, the craving of the soul for companionship, understanding and response. The second is the physical factor, which is inherent in the body, and which craves the sensuous phase of sex. It is well for all to know and remember this distinction.

In the boy it is usually the physical factor that predominates, while in the girl it is the psychic factor; and this not infrequently continues throughout life. Dr. Maurice A. Bigelow expresses it in this way: 'The sexual instincts of young men are characteristically active, aggressive, spontaneous, and automatic; while those of the girl, as a rule, are passive, and subject to awakening by external stimuli, especially in connection with affection.'

These facts should be of particular interest, especially to our young people. So often a good girl has no idea of the vehemence of the boy's passion. As a pure girl, she is conscious only of her love, and her desire to be loved in return. She often censures the parent or confessor for being too severe. She believes that the boy has the same innocent intentions as herself. And so she cannot understand what harm there could be in kissing and embracing. She knows that she has no evil intentions. She wishes merely to display her affection. She wishes nothing more, and expects nothing more. This is usually the average experience of the normal girl, who is so eager to have a boy friend and to go out with him. And thus she 'makes dates with him,' as she calls it.

On the other hand, the boy has no knowledge of th e girl's attitude. He does not know or realize that the girl is different from himself. And when the girl is affectionate, he immediately concludes that she is just as passionate as he himself; that she is feeling the same physical urge as he. How many a pitfall, how many a fatal step, might have been avoided, if every boy and girl had known these differences in their sex urge earlier in life! Hence, Pope Pius XI, in his Encyclical on the 'Christian Education of Youth,' warns parents and teachers in these striking words: 'It is no less necessary to direct and watch the education of the adolescent, 'soft as wax to be moulded into vice,' in whatever environment he may happen to be, removing occasions of evil and providing occasions for good in his recreations and social intercourse; for 'evil communications corrupt good manners.'

I trust you will pardon me for my frequent quotations. I am doing this in order to drive home my point more forcibly, by giving you the opinions of other recognized authorities, besides my own. Twenty Catholic doctors, a few years ago, were asked their opinions on various topics in the PeckWell's inquiry. I shall quote them only in part. They declare, that 'love-making, petting and kissing ordinarily arouse passion, few are immune; some get disgusted when the girl makes too ardent advances; extreme liberties cause the height of sexual excitement, in perhaps 15% or 20% of the cases. . . . Mixing socially with the better class of people disturbs the sexual emotion only with particularly sensitive boys; public dances cause much more trouble, both because of loose conversation, and because the girls frequently encourage close hugging, and the like; and the immoral dances, so common today, are nothing more nor less than sensuality set to music.'

These, my friends, are the words of twenty experienced physicians; men who, in view of their profession, certainly cannot be accused of bias or undue sentimentality on the subjects. And yet, there are those girls who persist that they see nothing wrongin kissing and petting, with prolonged embraces in one another's arms. They belong to that class who, in the words of Dr. George W. Sandt (Lutheran), 'paint and powder and drink and smoke, and become an easy prey to a certain class of well-groomed and wellfed high livers, whose chief business is 'to pluck the blush of innocence from off the cheek of maidenhood and put a blister there.' ' It is from this type of girls that the startling evidence came to light a few years ago through judge Fred E. Bale, of Columbus, Ohio, who estimated that in one year 68,000 girls were reported missing in the United States. The majority of these girls, he says, were from good families and had 'got in trouble,' and rather than face their parents or embarrass their families they simply 'dropped from sight.'

And the young boy, too, who boasts of the number of girls he can kiss and fondle, is far from being a gentleman. Dr. Exner sets forth the true character of such a young man, addicted to petting. 'The real lover,' he says, 'aspires to personal development and perfection, in order that he may the more readily contribute to the happiness of his mate in love. The petter, on the other hand, seeks chiefly his own pleasure and uses other persons to that end as he would use a thing, each to be cast aside when it has served his purpose.'

This, my friends, is the sleek sheik who will dash to the curb in his auto and offer to take an innocent, unsuspecting girl for that fatal auto ride. Imagine a girl from a good home, coming to you withthe question: 'Father, is a girl allowed to give up her virtue before marrying the boy she is going with?' These are the scoundrels who try to make a girl believe anything just to attain their evil end. This is the dangerous type of young man, who cannot feel comfortable, or at ease, when he must keep company with his girl friend in the presence of her parents and other members of her family. Of such the poet writes:

Is there, in human form, that bears a heart,

A wretch! a villain! lost to love and truth!

That can, with studied, sly, ensnaring art,

Betray sweet jenny's unsuspecting youth?

Curse on his perjured arts! dissembling smooth!

Are honor, virtue, conscience, all exiled?

Is there no pity, no relenting ruth?

(Cotter's Saturday Night).

Now comes a fair question many a good girl is tempted to ask. It is this: 'Father, can't we girls have any friends at all then? Must we remain 'wall flowers' all our lives?' Our answer is that every good boy and girl should have their friends. In the world of today, as in past ages, as well as in time to come, all good people look for friendship. They pine for lack of it. The pagans held friendship as the very end and purpose of life. They declared it the most perfect gift of God to man. There is nothing else which gives so great joy in life as true friendship. Our Perfect Model had His friends. Jesus has His chosen twelve, including a special three; and of the three, an especial one, John, who is called the 'Beloved Disciple.'

But what is true friendship? It is openness between friends, confidence, the absence of all reserve. Between friends there can hardly be any secrets. With each other, by silence as well as by the spoken word, they exchange their inmost thoughts. Unconsciously, they are allowing each other to enter into the depths of the heart, that is hidden by a thick veil from all others. And, to be genuine, friendship must reveal certain qualities. First, it must be loyal-no fairweather friendship, nor such as allows an attack on one's friend to go unchallenged. Secondly, it must be constant. Those who are always changing friends, one friend today, another tomorrow, know not what true friendship is. They have many acquaintances-yes; many friends-no! Thirdly, it must be frank. It must be based on sincere confidence and trust. Constant correction is not frankness in friendship, but rather an overzealous attempt to reach the results of friendship. Next, it must be ideal friendship; that is, I must see my friend as he is and as I would like that he should be. Lastly, it must be respectful, that is, decent and modest. For passion destroys friendship by destroying respect, and debases the precious signs of love.

Conclusion. -My friends, with these words I conclude my series of discourses on the occasions of sins of lust- or, as another has called them, 'the Devil's methods of approach' in leading people into the sins of impurity. These, we said, were principally through our senses-our thoughts, our desires, our eyes, our speech, and our actions. We included bad literature, theaters and the movies, bad companionship, sinful styles of dress, sinful dancing, and lastly petting parties, or undue familiarities with others. How well Satan succeeds in all these various methods of approach was revealed to St. Teresa, who, in a vision, was permitted by God to get a glimpse of hell. In this vision she saw impure souls fall into hell like flakes of snow in a wintry storm.

Yes, with such an overwhelming flood of temptations surrounding us, with false maxims and false principles of a pagan world confronting us, we may well be induced to cry out: 'Lord help us!' And our loving Saviour replies in the words He addressed to St. Paul, namely: 'My grace is sufficient for thee.' Yes, prayer and the Sacraments are our weapons to safeguard holy purity.

Speaking in the name of every priest, let me close with one more word of advice -never forget it! It is this: no matter what be your temptations, what your difficulties, never be afraid to go to your pastor, your priest, with your difficulties. To run away from our problems, to try to hide them, only makes matters worse. Let us face them together; and you will always find your priest a sympathetic friend. I still have great confidence in our young men and women of today. They have not lost their courage. In fact, they possess a refreshing absence of hypocrisy, unparalleled in earlier times. We admire their frankness and their sense of humor. When confronted with difficult problems, they would rather face and conquer them than try and avoid them. Therefore, when temptations against our holy virtue cross our paths, let us have a like courage, and exclaim with the Patriarch Joseph of old: 'How then can I do this wicked thing, and sin against my God l' (Gen., xxxix. 9). And with St. Paul: 'I can do all things in Him who strengtheneth me.' Amen.



VII. SAFEGUARDS TO HOLY PURITY: MEANS OF PRESERVING IT.

'Wherefore, he that thinketh himself to stand, let him take heed, lest he fall' (1 Cor., x. 12).

Most people are self-centered to a greater or lesser degree. To the extremist, the world appears much like a largespider web. Everything gravitates towards him. He stands in the center, with every pleasure, every comfort, every other creature forming the various strands which constitute the web around him. With him, self and not God is the ultimate end of his ambitions. His law-not God's law-is supreme. For such there is but one law, and that is selfgratification, be it in wealth, in pleasure, in lust, orin any other violation of God's Commandments. In fact, he does not believe in the existence of a Supreme Being. Untold numbers follow these principles, this doctrine.

To the true Christian, on the other hand, God and not the individual is the center of attraction. All other creatures form the various strands of this web, which is world-wide, and everything gravitates toward the center, which is God, the Creator of us all. To hold fast these various strands, God has given us certain laws to follow- to irrational creatures the natural law, and to His rational creatures His positive laws, contained in the Ten Commandments. To safeguard our honor and the honor of our neighbor in relation to God, we have the Sixth and Ninth Commandments. We call this virtue chastity or purity-purity of intention, purity of thought, word and action.

Keeping the two schools of present-day philosophy in mind, one centering everything in self and the other centering everything in God, we can better understand, according to our Christian ideals, the gravity of every sin-and especially of impurity, as we have demonstrated in our preceding sermons. Every Christian and Catholic, then, should desire to know what are the safeguards, what the means, of preserving purity or chastity in thought and deed. This shall be our subject to-day.

With purity all other virtues thrive: without it no others can. Purity is such a beautiful virtue, so delicate in nature, that it precludes any and every tampering with it, lest the lily fade and die.

Knowing this to be true, we must look for all the safeguards with which we may enshroud it and protect it. To discover these safeguards, God has given us understanding and free will.

But there is another modern school of thought which has a large following. Their doctrine originated with the socalled Reformation of the sixteenth century. They deny the freedom of the human will, our freedom to do or not to do a thing. With them there is no such thing as 'safeguards' for holy purity. Reason and free will are mere myths, in their estimation. Martin Luther called reason the 'Devil's Harlot.' Denying the freedom of the will, he wrote to Erasmus: 'The human will is like a beast of burden; if God mounts it, it goes and wishes as God wills; if Satan mounts it, it goes and wishes as Satan wills. Nor can it choose the rider it prefers.' In other words, man is not responsible for his actions, be they good or bad. Therefore, there is nothing we can do about it when temptations come.

We, on the other hand, say that we are responsible for our actions. God has given us understanding and free will. He has also given us the Commandments to guide us. When our reason and will act in conformity with these Commands, we say our actions are good. If not, we say they are bad. In regard to holy purity, then, we have two classes of safeguards to preserve it. The first class comprises those means to be used before temptation, or when we are free from temptation; the second comprises those to be used when we are actually tempted.

Before Temptation.-While we are free from temptation, we must prepare and gird ourselves for possible and unexpected attacks. Before Colonel Lindbergh and his wife set out together on their 29,000 miles of perilous journey over land and sea from July to December of 1933, they did not say: 'Everything depends on God or Satan for the success or failure of that flight.' They did not wait until dangers and difficulties confronted them. On every lap of that journey, before setting out, they checked their airplane, every instrument and detail; they prepared to meet any and every crisis.

Over the sea of life, despite the unexpected and dangerous storms and squalls surrounding us, God has given us certain means by which we may secure a safe passage. To safeguard the lily of holy purity before the attack, He has given us four means to ward off the assault: two of these we hold in our own hands; the other two are supernatural. The first two are the avoidance of bad company or occasions of sin and the custody of our senses, especially the eyes. The second two are prayer and the Sacraments.

(1) Avoidance of Bad Company.-We have already seen how easily bad company can lead us into sin; how lack of restraint of the senses, especially of the eyes, gives rise to impure thoughts and desires. Some may say: 'Oh, I'll be careful! God will protect me.' But this is not sufficient. There is something peculiar about temptations against holy purity, which allows no halfway measures. We cannot hesitate. For, 'he who hesitates will perish.' 'He who loves danger will perish therein' (EccIus., iii. 27). Immediate flight is the only alternative. And in this flight, we must-like the aviator-watch every instrument; that is, our senses, so that none fail us.

This is the advice one holy man gave to a boy who came to him for advice after having yielded to temptations against holy innocence. 'There are three things,' he said, 'you must do, if you really desire to overcome these temptations. First, you must fly away; secondly, you must fly at once; and thirdly, you must fly away quickly.' The young man followed this advice and his efforts were crowned with success.

Self-denial or mortification is also a powerful help. This means to deny ourselves some pleasure, some particular dish at table, some tit-bits, and the like, which we might legitimately enjoy, and are allowed. This strengthens our wills so that when the time comes we may deny ourselves the things that are not allowed.

(2) Prayer and the Sacraments.-Secondly, the helps from above, which enable us to overcome temptation, are prayer and the Sacraments.

(a) For the virtue of purity, earnest prayer to God and His Blessed Mother, our Guardian Angel and the Saints, is a notable means of overcoming temptations. We find this promise recorded in the Book of Wisdom(viii. 21): 'And as I knew that I could not otherwise be continent except God gave it, I went to the Lord and besought Him.' And St. Augustine, who was a great sinner before his conversion, confirms this, saying: 'I thought that I could lead a pure life bymy own strength; but soon I felt that I was too weak. Then I began to pray.'

Let us mention a few of the prayers we might use. The making of the sign of the Cross, with the word 'Jesus' said three times, is sufficient to ward off ordinary temptations. Then we have the beautiful prayer to our Guardian Angel, which we learnt at our mother's knee, and which should be repeated mornings and evenings, namely:

Angel of the Lord, my Guardian dear,

To whom His love commits me here,

Ever this day be at my side,

To light and rule, to guard and guide.

For the Blessed Virgin, we have the beautiful 'Hail Mary,' and St. Bernard's prayer of consecration, beginning with the words: 'Remember, O most gracious and Blessed Virgin Mary, that never was it known, that anyone who fled to thy protection was left unaided,' etc. Then again, most of you know this little prayer: 'O Mary, my Queen and my Mother, remember I am thine own. Keep me and guard me as thy property and possession. To thee, this day, I consecrate my eyes, my ears, my mouth, my heart, and myself and my whole being.' Then you can add any other prayer you may know.

The Blessed Virgin once said to St. Bridget: 'As a mother who sees her child in danger of being put to death by an enemy, runs forward and does all in her power to save that child; so do I also run to help my children, even those among them who have already yielded to impure temptations, just as soon as they call upon me for help.'

(b) The other helps from above are the Sacraments of Penance and Holy Eucharist. The more we polish a jewel, the brighter its lustre, and the less chance is there for dust to gather. The Sacrament of Penance does a similar thing to the soul, in protecting it from any tarnish against holy purity. And what food is to the body, that Holy Communion is to the soul. Hence, these two Sacraments support us in temptation, raise us when we have fallen, and strengthen us when we are weak. If we cling with all our hearts to the Blessed Sacrament, 'the bread of the strong, the wine of virgins,' then purity is safe.

Thousands of books have recommended these two remedies. The Saints have used Penance and Holy Eucharist as their panacea. Millions through the centuries have tried the same, and with constant success. And today, when men and women, exposed to the allurements of the world and beset at the most dangerous age with temptations of all kinds, have succeeded not only in leading pure lives outwardly, but also in keeping their hearts and their thoughts pure, it is because they have gone regularly to Confession, and received often the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar. Such persons, and these only, triumph. And, if even they sometimes fall, what can those expect who without watchfulness, without prayer, without the Sacraments, try to conquer temptations? St. Don Bosco, a holy confessor, says: 'To confess only once every three months, is for young people as little as a drop of water upon a redhot iron.' And St. Francis de Sales advises us: 'You ought not to wait longer than a month, you who love your innocence.'

Means Used When Actually Tempted .-But supposing Satan, with his temptations, has broken through the first line of defense, and the storms of temptation are already upon us, what is to be done then? First of all, resort to flight, if that is possible. If not, then again, turn immediately to prayer: 'Lord, save me, or I perish!' 'O my God, rather let me die than sin!' 'O Mary, help me; do not desert me.' 'How can I do this wicked thing and sin before my God!' Other similar short ejaculations, accompanied by a sign of the Cross upon your forehead, your lips and your breast, will surely help. For the Cross is the sword for all Christians.

Secondly, remember what you sacrifice by a few moments of sensual pleasure.

My strength is as the strength of ten,

Because my heart is pure.

Thus cries out Sir Galahad. When the morning sun shines into the little dewdrops, we can see some of the glory and splendor of the heavens reflected there. So in chastity. Some of God's glory and beauty is reflected in my soul, for the soul is the image and likeness of God. 'Chastity gives me a memory, prompt and tenacious; thought, quick and abundant; a will, strong and persevering; a character, tempered with a vigor unknown to libertines.'

All this I will sacrifice for a sin that will cover me with shame. My conscience becomes disturbed; my countenance grows pale and wan; the voice grows feeble and hoarse; my memory grows dull; intellectual exertion becomes difficult; and ills without number haunt me as old age creeps over my dissipated and polluted body. What an exchange for so little in return!

Conclusion. -Before closing, let me tell you the story of a beautiful picture. Once described, you may profitably recall it in times of temptation. It is a group-picture, with the Blessed Virgin Mary occupying the center. She is seated upon a throne, wearing a lovely crown, the symbol of royalty. In her arms she holds the Child Jesus, who is distributing four lilies to four Saints. The lilies are symbols of innocence of heart-that virtue which makes a soul especially, dear to Jesus and His purest Mother. On this picture, to the right of Mary, are two figures of the protectors of innocent youth, namely, St. Aloysius and St. John Berchmans. To her left are the two virgins, St. Cecilia and St. Agnes. Immediately in front of these four Saints are four little children, who are stretching out their hands to the Infant Jesus. The four Saints in the picture urge them to do this. For these little children, too, want to receive the lily of purity. Their favor is granted, because they prayed to Mary with Jesus in her arms. Yes, my friends, when temptations come, we are not alone.

SOMEBODY KNOWS

Somebody knows when your heart aches, And everything seems to go wrong; Somebody knows when the shadows Need chasing away with a song;

Somebody knows when you're lonely, Tired, discouraged, and blue;

Somebody wants you to know Him, And know that He dearly loves you.

Somebody cares when you're tempted And the world grows dizzy and dim; Somebody cares when you're weakest, And farthest away from Him;

Somebody grieves when you've fallen, Tho' you are not lost from His sight: Somebody waits for your coming, Taking the gloom from your night.

Somebody loves you when weary; Somebody loves you when strong; Always is waiting to help you, Watches you, one of the throng,

Needing His friendship so holy,

Needing His watch-care so true.

His name? We call His name Jesus.

His people? Just I and just you.

(Fanny Edna Stafford.)

O, how beautiful and pleasing, then, must the virtue of purity be, since it makes a soul the favorite one with Jesus

and Mary! 'O, how beautiful,' says Holy Writ, 'is the chaste generation with glory; for the memory thereof is known both with God and with men. . . . It triumpheth crowned forever, winning the reward of undefiled conflicts' (Wis., iv. i sq.). Amen.


VIII. DUTIES OF PARENTS TOWARDS CHILDREN: INSTRUCTING THEM IN MATTERS OF SEX.

'All things are clean to the clean; but to them that are defiled, and to unbelievers, nothing is clean; but both their mind and their conscience are defiled' (Titus, i. 15).

On April 10, 1907, Pope Pius X gave to the Catholic world a message which at the time seemed strange and startling to many of the older folks of that day. It was that memorable Decree, in which this Holy Pontiff directed pastors and parents to encourage early and frequent Communion. Instead of waiting until the boy or girl had reached the age of 12 or 14 (as had been the custom), he advised that children at the age of seven, or when they have attained the use of reason, should be instructed in the rudiments of our holy religion, and then be permitted to receive their First Holy Communion. The reason this Pope, a great lover of children, gave was that this had been the practice of the early Christians; and that, on account of our times, when the young people are exposed to so many temptations against their holy innocence, Holy Communion is to be the antidote which is to preserve them in their virtue and innocence.

In like manner, in recent years, the thinking minds of the Church have perceptibly changed their attitude in favor of more direct and explicit instructions on the Commandments, and of the Sixth and Ninth Commandments in particular. On account of the many new channels through which a child of today may acquire false ideas on sex matters, the Church counsels especially parents and teachers to be mindful of their sacred duties in these matters. Primarily, however, the duty rests upon parents to impart to their children this necessary instruction on the sacred mysteries of life. This duty of parents is the subject for our discussion to-day.

A few years ago, an experienced missionary (see 'Sex Education,' by Fr. Felix Kirsch, O.M.Cap., p. 146), sent the following questionnaire to 500 pastors in various parts of the country. 'Is it,' he asks, 'your impression that Catholic parents give the necessary sex instruction early enough to their children? If not, why not?' From these 500 pastors, 320 replied 'No,' and only 43 replied in the affirmative,. The principal reasons given by these pastors, for the parents' neglect of their duty, were these: (i) parents do not know how to instruct their children; (2) they do not realize the need of the instruction; (3) they are too timid about discussing the subject with their children; (4) they think that the priest should take care of the matter in the confessional; (5) some parents believe that teachers might give sufficient information in a general way in school; (6) too many parents believe that children may be left to themselves in the matter; that somehow or other they will find a way out of the difficulty themselves.

One old pastor in the East added the following note: 'You will render a much needed service, if you will do something that will make our Catholic parents bestir themselves. Not all parents seem to realize to what frightful dangers their children are exposed at the present time. Children are seduced at an early age, whereas they could be saved if they were instructed betimes at home. They contract the habits of impurity before they are aware of what is happening to them. The confessor cannot do everything.'

In recent years, a number of our public schools introduced in their curriculum a special course in sex hygiene and eugenics, trying to supplement the instructions the child should receive from his parents. But, on account of the unfitness and divided opinions of the teachers themselves, experience has proved that these public school instructions have done more harm than good. These subjects cannot be taught independently of religion. And yet, so many of these teachers begin with the principle: 'Sex and morals have nothing to do with one another.'

Besides, these instructions should begin long before a child is sufficiently advanced in school to receive instructions there. Tennyson was correct in saying that 'we are a part of all we meet.' Other scholars say that the character of a child is formed from birth until he reaches the age of reason, at about the seventh year. Then also, on account of our environment, curiosity about the mysteries of life is aroused at a much earlier age than in the past. Imagine a child of five or six years old coming to his parent or teacher, as has happened, and asking without blush or shame: 'Where do babies come from?' Imagine the statement of Miss Tracy, a policewoman of Worcester, Mass. (October, 1928), where she admits that nine-year-old children have told her things about sex which she did not know at forty.

And just because the age at which the legitimate curiosity of children may be aroused varies so greatly, it becomes all the more difficult for teacher or pastor to give class instructions on this subject. Hence, it becomes evident that father and mother, who are in daily contact with their sons and daughters from birth, have the sacred duty to instruct the child when the opportune time arrives. This is what Pope Pius XI restates in his Encyclical on the 'Christian Education of Youth' when he writes: 'It is no less necessary to direct and watch the education of the adolescent, 'soft as wax to be moulded into vice,' in whatever environment he may happen to be, removing occasions of evil and providing occasions for good in his recreations and social intercourse; for 'evil communications corrupt good manners.' '

But many a father or mother will ask the questions: 'When should I begin with these instructions? How shall I go about it?' The time to begin is when you see that the child grows curious to know what it has a right to know. Our principle is: 'Rather a year too soon than one hour too late.'

When and How to Proceed.-Age and circumstances must determine this to a great extent. Take the little boy or girl, for example, who asks the question: 'Mamma, where do babies come from?' There was a time when the question was answered with a curt reply 'The stork (or the doctor) brings the babies.' Or: 'Little children like you should not ask such questions.' But these answers do not satisfy the mind of the child. They only arouse the curiosity of the child still further. They create a mistrust in the mind of a child towards his parent; and the child quietly awaits the opportunity when he may obtain that information from other sources. Hence the Church discourages-in fact, condemns-such vague and unsatisfactory answers. Alban Stoltz, the writer and author, calls such replies 'lies.' And 'a lie never brings a blessing.'

The same author (Fr. Felix Kirsch, 'Education to Purity,' p. 188) suggests that parents should answer such a child in a more direct manner; yet, with proper delicacy and reserve. For example, when the child is old enough to understand, parents might well begin with the beautiful narrative of the Incarnation and Birth of our Divine Saviour. The Scriptural story of the first Christmas at Bethlehem appeals to the mind of every child. And the part Mary and Joseph played in the birth of the Baby Jesus can be beautifully and effectively retold. As children grow older, more details might be added. Following this, the mother can proceed to tell her boy or girl how they too were formed.

Let us cite an example how other parents proceeded to impart this information. One mother informs us that she found the following method, taken from Good Housekeeping (September, 1911), quite satisfactory and helpful. To the child she spoke somewhat as follows: 'Mother and father love each other very much. Where God is, there is love, and God wants little ones to be. Children are the special proof that God is love. When God wants to send a little child into a home, He fits up, just beneath the mother's heart, a snug nest, not unlike the nests the birds live in. Then out of two tiny eggs the father and mother bring together, in the nest, a little child is hatched just like a little bird. But for months and months helives in his nest in the mother's body. The mother knows the little one is there and loves him dearly. A part of all the food she eats goes to his nourishment. At last when the little one is too big to stay longer in the nest, the doctor comes and helps to bring him out into the world.'

One little boy who fearfully had asked his mother the question, and had received the above reply, hastened to ask: 'That must hurt, mamma, does it not?' 'Sure, my darling,' replied the mother. 'Are you still mad at me?' 'Mad?' replied the mother, as she warmly clasped the boy to her heart. 'No, my dear, that was not your fault.

All mothers, except the mother of Jesus, suffer when their children are born. But they forget all their pains the moment they see their little ones. Now, darling, don't look so sad. Smile and laugh again like mamma.'

The little boy did not laugh for a while. The thought that he had caused his mother pain, made him serious, and haunted him for hours. Later, when mamma kissed him good-night, the little chap flung his arms around mamma's neck, saying: 'Oh mamma, I love you so much more now than ever before.' 'Yes, my boy,' she added, 'these are holy things we talked about. Anything else you wish to know, do not go to anyone else, but come right to your papa or mamma, and we shall gladly tell you anything you wish to know.'

Such parents have won the undying love and complete confidence of their children forever. Such children usually grow up to be good sons and daughters; and nothing could ever shake their reverential love and their unlimited filial confidence in the future. Children from such homes will not come later in life, like the girl who was kept in total ignorance about sex matters, asking the question: 'Father, does a girl become pregnant if she kisses the boy whom she loves?' Or: 'Father, is it all right for a girl to give up her virtue to a boy she loves before she marries him?' and many other similar questions. Nay, but rather will good parents, who know their duties towards their children, inform them still further, as they enter their teens, of the fact that the knowledge of sex matters is not wrong. Only the abuse of such knowledge is bad.

Again, they will take the story of the Incarnation as their guide. When the Angel appeared to the Immaculate Virgin Mary, and told her she should become the Mother of God, she showed clearly from her answer, 'I know not man' (that is: 'I have not done what is necessary to become a mother'), that she was well informed on sex matters. And she was, no doubt, very young at the time when her parents, Joachim and Anna, imparted this knowledge to her. For she was probably only about 16 years old when the Angel appeared. And we do know that this knowledge did not cast the least shadow on her incomparable, spotless chastity.

Often when young people present themselves for holy matrimony, during the preliminary instruction preceding the ceremony, I frequently ask the question: 'Did your parents or anyone else instruct you on the things young people should know before entering holy wedlock?' Repeatedly, the reply is: 'No, neither our parents nor anyone else told us anything about our duties in this regard.' Such young people have never had explained to them the real meaning of the words repeated daily in the Hail Mary: 'Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.'

Such parents are guilty of grave neglect. Following the example of Joachim and Anna, the parents of the Blessed Mother, it is the sacred duty of every parent to call son and daughter aside before they have reached the ages of twelve or fourteen, and especially before marriage, and explain to them the nature and purpose of the various organs of the body. Beginning with the various appetites of the senses, as they develop, the appetite we call 'sex instinct' should be properly explained. And it should be made clear that this sex instinct is good in itself; that God has given it for a noble and definite purpose; but that it must be used only according to God's plan and design.

Hence, it would be wrong to speak of it as being 'bad pleasure,' or certain parts of our body as being 'forbidden.' Jesus, when He became man, took to Himself a complete body, with all the organs of man. His Blessed Mother, too, had a complete body, with all the organs of a woman. Hence, no part of our body is 'forbidden' or 'bad.' God made them all. I should rather say, that certain parts of the body are 'too sacred' to be trifled with-to be abused or to be talked about lightly. God could have created the bodies of every one of us, just as He creates every soul-as He created out of nothing our first parents, Adam and Eve, or as He created the Angels. But, by giving man these organs of the body, God made every man and woman a potential co-partner in His work of creating new human beings- creatures who are one day to fill the spaces made vacant by the fallen angels.

Here lies the tremendous responsibility of marriage. It is a partnership, not only between man and woman, but between a man and a woman and God. God is not mocked. Parents cannot leave Him out of the picture of married life. A terrible judgment awaits those who try to cheat God of His share in this partnership. And whoever assumes the responsibility of parenthood, must preserve the life of that child, both for time and for eternity. Parents have a sacred duty to teach that child how to preserve both body and soul pure and undefiled.

Conclusion:-And the easiest way to accomplish this is by leading the way through good example. Remember this point well: in parental teaching it is not so much what parents say, but what they are and do. There is a wise saying: 'Parents may say what they please, but they thunder what they are.' What parents are may speak so loudly that children cannot hear what they say. Therefore, the best parents for training children in chastity, are the chaste parents who set the example first.'Verba docent, exempla trahunt.' 'Words teach, but example draws.' Children see through their parents much quicker and better than parents see through their children. 'Actions speak louder than words.' Hence, the father who says to his son 'Come,' has some influence. But the father who says to his son 'Go,' has much less influence.

I have the greatest sympathy for any boy or girl who may have made a mistake. For we never know how much of the guilt is due to the child and how much to the parent of that child. We know that Scripture tells us that the sins of parents shall pass on to the third and fourth generations. In like manner, we might say, the blessings of good parents pass on to their children and children's children, even to the third and fourth and fifth generations. What tremendous powers and responsibilities, therefore, has God placed in the hands of fathers and mothers, for good or for evil! Truly, then, may every good father and mother address his or her children in the words of the noble Machabean mother, who spoke to her seven sons, about to be martyred, in the following terms: 'I know not how you were formed in my womb; for I neither gave you breath nor soul nor life, neither did I frame the limbs of every one of you. But the Creator of the world, who formed the nativity of man' (11 Mach., vii. 22 sq.). Amen.

Nihil Obstat: Artheu J. Scanlan, S.T.D. Censor Librorum.

Imprimatur: Patrick Cardinal Hayes, Archbishop of New York, New York, September 28, 1935.

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