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| Global financial ‘war game’ simulates potential disruptive impact of cyber attack |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-16-2021, 08:50 AM - Forum: Global News
- Replies (1)
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Global financial ‘war game’ simulates potential disruptive impact of cyber attack
The United States and the United Kingdom were among 10 countries participating in a simulation
that presented scenarios with the potential to cause major chaos for the monetary system.
![[Image: shutterstock_223094779-810x500.jpg]](https://www.lifesitenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/shutterstock_223094779-810x500.jpg)
Wed Dec 15, 2021 - 6:25 pm EST
JERUSALEM (LifeSiteNews) – Israel led a 10-country initiative earlier this month that simulated a global financial cyber attack aimed at creating a real-life scenario that could ensue from panic and chaos if something like that were to happen.
The exercise was called “Collective Strength” and took place at the beginning of December. The global “war game” included treasury personnel from 10 countries — Israel, United States, United Kingdom, United Arab Emirates, Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Italy, Netherlands and Thailand — as well as representatives from the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and Bank of International Settlements.
Reuters reported that the participants were shown a film as part of the simulation. “These events are creating havoc in the financial markets,” the narrator of the film said, and that governments were under pressure to gauge the impact of the global attack as the world financial system was crippled.
“The banks are appealing for emergency liquidity assistance in a multitude of currencies to put a halt to the chaos as counterparties withdraw their funds and limit access to liquidity, leaving the banks in disarray and ruin,” the narrator said.
The event ran through various attacks that included breaches in foreign exchange and bond markets, and the security of data shared between importers and exporters across the globe.
If an attack like this were to take place, the participants warned that people would be unable to access their electronic funds and assets for a period of time, which would lead to a situation where purchasing was effectively stopped. With most financial transactions being tied to internet technology and involving secured information – such as with credit cards and PayPal – any major breach would cause unmitigated chaos.
As potential solutions to such a scenario, participating officials suggested measures such as a coordinated bank holiday, debt repayment grace periods, and coordinated de-linking from major currencies.
One Israeli financial cyber official said that such an attack could only be done by “sophisticated attackers.”
During the simulation film, the narrator said, “The banks are appealing for emergency liquidity assistance in a multitude of currencies to put a halt to the chaos as counterparts withdraw their funds and limit access to liquidity leaving the banks in disarray and ruin.”
Emergency liquidity assistance in a multitude of currencies would entail significant printing of money. Printing money at high rates can contribute to hyperinflation. As a result of lockdown measures and quantitative easing measures that have taken place since the advent of the declared pandemic, record high inflation has been seen in the United States.
In November, the consumer price index (CPI), an important measure of inflation, climbed to 6.8% year-over-year, and the core CPI, which does not include food and energy, rose to 4.9% year-over-year. These rise in these rates are the fastest to be recorded in 39 years.
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| Top Cardiologist tells of "Intentional Plot" to Suppress Early Covid Treatments |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-16-2021, 08:24 AM - Forum: Pandemic 2020 [Secular]
- Replies (1)
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Top Cardiologist Tells Joe Rogan Of "Intentional Plot" To Suppress Early COVID Treatments
![[Image: peter%20m.PNG?itok=LQSenRR4]](https://assets.zerohedge.com/s3fs-public/styles/inline_image_mobile/public/inline-images/peter%20m.PNG?itok=LQSenRR4)
ZH | DEC 15, 2021
In a recent appearance with Joe Rogan, Dr. Peter McCullough explained that from the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, there was a concerted effort to instill fear and conceal a protocol for early treatment of the disease in order to justify lockdowns and vaccines.
McCullough, former vice chief of internal medicine at Baylor University Medical Center and professor at Texas A&M University is one of the most widely cited authors of research in his field - and testified before the US Senate in Nov. 2020. Since coming out against the official pandemic response, McCullough has come under intense scrutiny from the left for spreading 'medical misinformation' about the pandemic.
He's also shed light on vaccine-related cardiac events in a recent paper co-authored with Dr. Jessica Rose, a virologist and epidemiologist in Canada reviewing data in the US Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, which he discusses here.
Before we get to the Rogan interview, watch McCullough's March 2021 testimony before the Texas Senate Committee on Health & Human Services to understand more about his position:
Which brings us to McCullough's time with Joe Rogan - where he said that there has been a worldwide effort to suppress early Covid-19 treatments.
"It seems to me, early on, there was an intentional, very comprehensive, suppression of early treatment in order to promote fear, suffering, isolation, hospitalization and death," he said. "And it was completely organized and intentional in order to create acceptance for, and then promote mass vaccination."
"In the U.S. only about 500 doctors really understand what’s going on … and there’s about a million," he added.
Watch:
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| The Christmas Child |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-15-2021, 12:07 PM - Forum: Christmas
- Replies (1)
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Beyond all else Christmas means children.
And beyond all children Christmas means especially one Child
Even the sad pagans of a modern day, who have rudely excluded that Divine Child from Christmas, have, because of
Him, kept the day sacred to children.
Where the Christ Child is loved for Himself and is seen in the little children, who are beautifully like Him, Christmas is the day, beyond all other days, when love moves over the earth with lighted tapers, and the virtues of childhood make young once more a weary, aging humanity.
Even where the Christ Child is forgotten or ignored, His little ones for a single day waken in human hearts a new tenderness and unselfish affection. And the innocence of childhood, its unquenchable faith in the goodness of others, curve into smiles even the cynical lips that have drunk deep of sin and grown bitter in sneers.
For Christmas begins and ends with a Child. About the Infant in the manger prophecies are fulfilled, and angels sing, and the poor kneel giftless save for the unpurchasable gift of patient affection, and the rich come gilt-laden, but with a strange humility bringing low their heads, and all mankind is reborn to a new era of grace and hope and God's revelation of love and graciousness. 'A child is born to us and a son is given to us, cried Isaias in ecstatic prophecy. In a vision he saw this Child, born of a Virgin, in God's beautiful promise and sign, and his heart burst forth in the first glad Christmas greeting, 'A child is born to us and a son is given to us. And from that joyful prophecy flowed all the joy and peace and Christmas spirit that coursed hopefully through the Old Law unto glorious fulfilment in the New.
Over the heads of the patiently watchful shepherds the glory of a star ripped the satin curtains of night. Then angel hands thrust back the torn shreds of gold and purple sky, and the uncontrollable joy of heaven itself leaped forth to sing of a Child.
'Glory to God in the highest, because of that Child. 'And on earth peace to men of good will, who from that moment would find themselves kneeling in complete happiness beside that Golden Babe.
Startled, the shepherds looked up at the splendour flung unexpectedly into their drab lives. True peasants, they noted with instinctive relief that their lambs upon the hillside grazed unafraid either of the star, the angel messengers, or the swelling chorus. How could these lambs of the poor (later the favourite subject of the Saviour's parables) be flung into confusion by news that the Lamb of God had come to shepherd all His sheep?
'Today is born to you a Saviour who is Christ the Lord. Their slow minds were not too dull to realise that tonight their beloved Scriptures were fulfilled. This was the expected King of whom the angels sang. Startling as were the signs by which they were to recognise Him, swaddling clothes and a manger, they broke into headlong flight down the hill and flung themselves in adoration before the Child held up to them by the sweetest mother in all human history.
The childlike faith and hope of simple peasants found fulfilment in a Child. Christmas came rushing into their eventless lives on the wings of an infant's smile, and the low-voiced gratitude of a mother welcoming these first Christmas guests who, in a beautiful single gesture, adored her Son and filled her day with the sweet fragrance of their Christmas greeting.
'Where is He that was born King of the Jews?'
The question, repeated a thousand times along their tedious way through the desert and sprawling villages and nomadic tribes and smug, white-roofed cities, was answered with shrugged shoulders and cynically turned backs, with significant touching of foreheads and frankly contemptuous laughter.
Undismayed, the Magi were drawn forward on their quest by the vague hope of finding a Child.
More than likely they dreamed of palace gates swinging wide to welcome them as grooms swept forward to catch their camels by their tinkling bridles and pages helped them to dismount.
Surely the child of a king would rest upon the softest down, under coverlets of purple damask. Hushed attendants might permit them a glimpse of newborn royalty between the crossed lances of sleepless sentinels. Yet even this glimpse would be reward enough, they felt, for their weary desert road, the tireless swaying of their camels and the night-long journeys in pursuit of a forward moving star.
For here was a Child tall enough to light a blaze in the heavens. In the ancient papyri written for a mighty Cyrus by a Jew named Daniel, they were assured that this was no ordinary child who was born under a flaming star.
Were they at first, even for an instant, bitterly taken aback? Did they almost turn away in disappointment from the dark mouth of this unguarded stable? Probably they caught up their silken gowns as they stepped through cattle pens and sheepfolds to the dark hill cave, unlighted except for the now motionless star.
But when they saw the Child, all of Christmas welled up in their souls. What did it matter that He lay, not on orient silk, but on crackling straw; that an exquisite maid and a dignified carpenter (strange contradiction, to their aristocratic minds, a carpenter with such poise and dignity) were His only courtiers; that the bleak walls of the stable, rough-hewn from the black earth of the hill, were bare of heraldic standards or banners of scarlet and gold; that no sentries flashed repelling swords to hold back intruders?
Faith swept them forward in its high tide. A Child they had come to seek. Yet in all the world there was no child like this.
He wore His swaddling clothes as if they were Tyrian purple. He lay in a manger that seemed like a conquered world. He opened His tiny arms, and their circle was vast enough to embrace all humanity. He smiled, and the light of a new era dawned.
They had come to find a child king who was to conquer and save the world. Naturally they had dreamed of a kingship proved by files of palace guards and fluttering choirs of nurses, by carved ebony and beaten gold upon his crib, and breathless statesmen adding his name to the line of royal ancestors-he the heir of their greatness and their petty crimes, their occasional acts of kingliness and their frequent baseness and stupid cruelty and criminal lust. They knew no other kings nor sons of kings than these.
They had not dared dream of a Child whose evident kingship made a palace out of a stable and a throne out of straw heaped for oxen. They had not wildly imagined a sovereign who could conquer because he was without weapons and who won His followers, not by the cold aloofness of power, but by the warm approachableness of His weakness and His love.
Before this Child of the poor these rich men eagerly poured the tribute of their gifts. Before this Infant who contained all that the world needed to save it, these wise men bent submissive knees.
Although the shepherds in their simple ignorance and the Magi in their deep wisdom were unaware of it, around the Child, from the very beginning, vortexed the complete drama of humanity's best and basest emotions.
He had been welcomed, as every great benefactor of humanity is welcomed, with cruel indifference and rudely slammed doors. Yet, if the doors of earth were barred in His face, the gates of heaven broken open to welcome Him.
No child had ever felt, even in the heart of the most unselfish mother, the maternal love that cushioned His little body and wrapped securely His soul against the bitter winds of men's careless ingratitude. But from the neighbouring Bethlehem, though song rose, it was not sung to honour His birthday. The hands that clasped in glad welcome to relatives were hands that had recently waved away the mother of the Son of God. The warm love of a mother was never more pitifully needed than on that night, when the stinging winds blew callously and ungraciously, less from the hills than from every door and window in His own city.
If there was quick faith in the adoration of the shepherds, there was another sort of faith in the cruel planning of the king who ruled in Jerusalem. Even as the Magi knelt to adore Him, swords were being sharpened in expectation of His throat. The last traces of rust disappeared from spear points, and brutal hands, already instructed in murder, and waiting for orders, gripped tighter the hefts.
Herod, paying unconscious tribute to the Child he had never seen, paced the floor of his council chamber, hatred eating at his vitals. Soon, he felt, the triumphant faith of these Magi would place the Child within easy reach of sword blade and spear point and death.
The faith of the Magi brought them to their knees in grateful adoration. The faith of Herod brought him to his feet, thirsting for murder.
If Joseph watched against harm, a Roman emperor, long leagues away, issued his orders that there should be no king but Caesar, and bought up in good round gold the loyalty of high priests, who knew well that a Child must be born in Bethlehem who would override Rome and shake them from their secure positions. Even as Christmas dawned, Good Friday was being prepared.
Maternal love and the simple devotion of a gentleman of noble but reduced circumstances; the love of the world's purest hearts and the hatred of its vilest; a wedding of heaven to earth as angels sang of glorious news, and with it the cold uninterestedness of tight little huts and tighter little souls; the romance of a hurried quest across half the known world; murder stalking from a palace and making the first Christian martyrs in the homes of harmless peasants; spontaneous faith eagerly given and hospitality ignobly denied; the surging of heaven itself in a mighty shout of joy and the resentful stirring of earth asleep in its own ugly apathy-all these were present about this Child at the moment of His birth.
Life in its completeness of virtue and vice, enthusiasm and dark contempt, keenest joy and acutest sorrow, sublime love and blackest hate, high adventuring and bleak doubt, circled the crib of the Christmas Child.
Undoubtedly, as the shepherds returned to their flocks, they remembered only that the Babe was beautiful, the mother unforgettably lovely, and the man wonderfully gracious. And they knew that they felt in their souls a joy that they had never known before.
The Magi, however, travelled back by slow stages. They must take time to reason and reflect. And surely their trained minds marvelled at the singular appropriateness of a Child's being sent to save the sad old world and end the wearisome night.
If they had expected to find a great captain at their journey's end, they now knew how sharp would have been their disappointment.
For history had written the record of all too many captains thundering across continents, their progress marked by collapsing cities and the burning huts of farmers, by children whimpering in the shadow of oak trees, and women hiding their faces from the memory of brutal leers and their own shame.
The old world had been magnificent in the flowering of its conquerors. They had clanked triumphantly along a hundred highways. Resistlessly they had piled new empires on the ruins of those they had crushed. Atop these swaggering tyrannies they had sat, demanding the tribute of gold and lives, while slaves toiled to death beneath dark foundations and women stifled their tears lest coursing hounds, mail-clad and erect as men, might find them to their ruin.
No need of captains now! The world needed, and, happily, the Magi remembered, the world had received, a Child.
Great philosophers had solemnly sat in their quiet groves or among their white marble pillars, and twined grape leaves in the hair of truth. The Magi almost shuddered as they remembered these men who had found truth only to mock it.
They had treated philosophy as a tricky game with which to prove one's glib tongue or to sharpen a bitter eloquence. If today they proved that black was black, they tomorrow felt a perverse joy in proving that black was really dull grey, and the next day that it was blood-red or yellow as the hair of a girl or the skin of a tiger. Even they who had seen truth with clear eyes and had written of it with revealing pen had turned from high thought to base living. They had found the one true God and had left Him to burn incense to the gods of lust and thievery, or worshipped their own animal instincts or the vapid applause of the mob.
Truth had been deserted, even by those who knew it best, for the drinking flagon and the dancing girl, for the groves of Venus and the cellars of Bacchus, for the favour of a ruler who played, drunk or sober, at being divine, or for the smelly shouts of a populace who were bored by any truth that was not flattering or amusing.
Scientists, then, as in every other age, were strangely preoccupied, not with giving life, but with teaching men to deal death more effectively. The very roads along which the Magi travelled had been built by scientific men to hasten the conquering march of armies, not to quicken the advance of culture or the sacred progress of God.
The Magi, knowing history, knew these men had not saved, could not save, the world. Knowing nothing of the future, they could hardly guess that in this Child would be revealed the Captain, Philosopher, Guide of the Scientist, Beneficent Conqueror, King of Kings.
'Out of thee, Bethlehem, had sung the prophet, 'shall come the captain who will rule my people Israel.
Even the priests, who through this prophecy sent the Magi forward to Bethlehem while they turned back to count their money or court their wives, had told them this. This Child would some day be the Captain of the armies of the Most High, leading them out to His peaceful conquest of the world.
Under that Captain white uniformed companies of virgins would march with red-caped squadrons of martyrs, while vanguards of apostles would swing in advance of legions of doctors and confessors. And over all, the conquering standard of the cross!
Here was to be a Captain whose conquered victims loved Him with grateful, devoted love. The more completely they were conquered, the more deeply would they love Him. Here was a Conqueror whose pathway would be lined, not with the prostrate bodies of helpless victims, but with the upright figures of the saints.
Later all thinkers were to lift their heads in astonished acknowledgment as He said calmly, 'I am the truth. And the world would sit as children at His feet.
Incarnate philosophy, revealed theology, the sum and circle of all essential truth, this Child was to give to a truthhungry world a knowledge that was more than human, and a wisdom that was divine. For the first time men would learn of a truth that did not merely feed the mind. His was a truth that made the heart glow and the tongue shout for joy.
And, as wise men had knelt, humbly, learning wisdom from a Babe who lay in a rough-hewn manger, so great philosophers would use as their supremest textbook His carved figure fixed upon two crossed sticks.
While scientists with painful searching discovered laws in nature, He was the God who had made those laws. His providence had given to these basic elements their powers and the endless combinations on which science mounts to new achievements. 'By Him and in Him were all things made, and without Him was made nothing that was made.
One of the Magi, according to a tradition, lived to see the Child grown to manhood. If this was so, he saw in Him a poet who spoke poetry in beautiful parables, and lived poetry in every kindly gesture and every loving act.
He saw a King who captured by personal fascination and goodness, and held captive by generous love. He saw the very King of Kings, who walked among His people and won His endless kingdom only when the devastating charge of His enemies scattered His friends at the base of Calvary's hill, flung Him in final assault to its height, and there inflicted on Him the apparent defeat of death.
And if he stood near the cross, that Wise Man could read in the dying eyes of the Saviour the same love and tenderness and pitiful searching of the world that he had seen in the eyes of the Child in the crib.
The Magi rode back happy with a peace they had never known before. From the Child they had drunk deep of the happiness that is Christmas. Yet, as they pondered, they realised that in this Child they had really seen the birth of a new world. Not as Captain nor Scientist nor Philosopher nor Poet nor even as King would they remember Him. He was to them the Child, and, as a Child, the symbol of all that the tired, sick, weary old world needed.
Weary with the sickness of sin, the world needed a new birth. Desperate after centuries of deluding dreams and exhausting struggles, the world needed the dawn of a new hope.
And in the Child whom they had seen and worshipped, and to whom all mankind would return with each recurring Christmastide, was the new life that was so badly needed.
'I have come that they may have life, and have it more abundantly. In every child that is born lies new hope for each generation. But in this Child lay hope for all mankind. From His infant weakness was to come the renewal of human strength. His young life was hope for the feeble old world. In His eyes was the prophetic vision of a new-born age that would find a new law of life, pledge itself to a new testament, proclaim to the world the fulfilment of a new gospel, announce the good news for which, in darkness and despair, the nations had sat-wearily waiting.
Strangely enough, within His infant soul were the very virtues out of which the new humanity was to fashion itself and the new age to rise: sinlessness and purity, a trusting faith in the heavenly Father, a simplicity more beautiful than all the elaborate dreams of empire builders and the intricate conceptions of artists.
How desperately old had man grown in his sin! Sin had lined his face and bent his back as it urged him relentlessly onward in its stupid, futile treadmill.
Slaves, under the lash of cruelty, grew feeble and broken though their years were still the years of youth. Women looked out from eyes made old by tears and the searing glare of vice. The souls of little children stared out from sadly old bodies, wise beyond their years with a wisdom taught them by sin-stodgy mothers and vice-warped sires.
Old nations crumbled under the weight, not of years, but of tyrannies and ugly idolatries, greed and debilitating lust.
Even the temple of God seemed very old with its crafty-eyed priests stroking long beards amid their ugly haggling over unimportant forms of worship, while wearisome commerce ran the corridors and bleated before the silken curtain of the Holy of Holies. Impurity, that ages as does no other sin, sent world conquerors to early and filthy graves, set to trembling the legs of athletes and philosophers, carved ugly wrinkles into faces that yesterday were fresh as that of the prodigal still in his father's house, or as those of the ladies of pleasure chosen for their youth to hurry him on his road to the pigsty and ageing disillusionment.
Then came this Child with the ageless youth that is sinlessness. Not until the weight of humanity's sin pressed the blood from His crushed body in the agony of Gethsemane would His years be measured except in growth of body, in wisdom of mind, in grace of soul.
His face would be unlined and unwrinkled till the end. His eyes would glow with the quick enthusiasm of youth. Children would flock to Him, loving His eager, youthful response.
Then, through a death brought about, not by ageing body or exhausted strength,but by the external pressure of others' sin that had not touched His own soul, He would enter upon the ageless youth of the Resurrection, and, Himself immortal, pass down sinless youth throughout all time.
From Him this youth flowed as from an inexhaustible fountain to the weary world. The ageing power of sin was thwarted.
Mary, His mother, moved through life always a virgin, always sinless, always young. John, the Beloved, brought Him the quick love of his youth; loved Him in maturity with the undimmed fire of young enthusiasm; and dreamed the glorious dreams of youth even when a hundred years had, with inverted alchemy, turned to silver his yellow-gold hair.
Peter, mature and venerable when we first meet him, grows young in the company of His Master. Like a young man, he races across Jerusalem at news of the Resurrection. Like a young athlete, he leaps into the sea to swim to Christ, revealing Himself upon the shore. With the optimism of youth he faces the task of conquering a world that defies conquest, and youthfully does his accomplished work. Faced with martyrdom, he youthfully begs that the cross be inverted. He died in youthful love, and, by an almost sacred jest, upside down in what he knew to be a topsy-turvy world.
Saints never grow old. Their ageless life flows from the Child of the Christmastide. And though this life first touches their souls, it is reflected beautifully in their bodies. Like Anthony the hermit, they may pass the century mark, yet their eyes are the eyes of youth and their lips curve easily in prayer, in love, in laughter.
Martyrs laughing at threat of death; virgins singing their way through the age-old assaults of temptation; venerable doctors dropping their pens to burst into love songs to Mary; devoted mothers looking upon their petulant children with eyes young and alert and beautiful; brave men, weary with life's bitter relentlessness, yet smiling ecstatically as they kneel before the Tabernacle; pure young men and women, unspoiled and unaged, moving with steady steps and clear eyes among a generation of young people that are sophisticated, bored, old with impurity and soul-sick with cynicism; nuns whose faces are guiltless of wrinkles as their souls are guiltless of sin; old priests dying with calm faith in humanity and the gaiety of a schoolboy bound homeward for the holidays-all these have drunk deep of the inexhaustible youth that flows from Christ the Child.
Ageless, too, is the Church that was born with Christ in Bethlehem. Its enemies are tirelessly predicting its death. Yet it moves on its way, the youngest organisation in the world. Nations totter to their graves; the Church sings its regretful requiem, and turns toward new nations still fighting up from barbarism. Peoples grow weary with the struggle to survive; the Church lays them in their peaceful graves, and speedily baptizes their successors.
Unending youth flows from the Child of Bethlehem to the Church, to the nations that remain faithful, to the individual man or woman who finds the Fountain of Youth that sprang up in the darkness of a hillside the night Christ was born.
The disillusioned world into which Christ was born had lost the child-like gift of faith. There was no Father in heaven watching over a beloved world.
God seemed to the Jews far less a Father than a wrathful Judge. To the pagans heaven was filled with capricious supermortals, greater in their powers, but greater, too, in their callous selfishness. Men felt themselves the playthings of the mocking Fates, who tossed them about like the toys of spoiled children.
Then Christ the Child was born, and all this was different.
Men suddenly knew that they were God's beloved children, for He loved them well enough to give them His only begotten Son to be their brother and their Saviour.
Faith in a provident God was born again there in the shadowy stable of Bethlehem. It was a faith that lifted a supine world to its feet and raised its eyes to the Father, Who watched hopefully from a hill even when His children ran the prodigal ways of sin; Who, like a shepherd, searched for them among the brambles of the mountain-side; Who rewarded with an infinite love those who freely gave Him their love, and Who repaid the puny efforts of His children as the most doting father had never repaid his favourite child.
Faith is Christian. Cynicism is pagan. Trust in God is born of Christ. Despair of the gods is the hopeless blight of the religions that know not Bethlehem. Cynicism, like sin, wearies the heart of man to death. But the reasons for cynicism died when the world was given its vision of the Father Whose Child was born in Bethlehem for love of His brothers and sisters.
All the mystery of childhood was wrapped in the body of the Child of the Christmastide. All of childhood's unfulfilled promise, all of infancy's limitless expectations, rested upon His tiny head.
As His mother dreamed (far all mothers dream the same precious dreams) over the Child against her breast, she alone knew that the fullness of her expectations could not match the fullness of His completed promise. The undeveloped mystery of His infancy would expand into the radiant mystery of His manhood.
Slowly, as mothers will, she uncurled the petal fingers of her Child. Absurd it seemed that these should be the hands of the One who shaped the suns and planets and, with compelling finger, traced the course of every speeding star.
Hardly less absurd, however, was the vision that these hands, wrapped sleepily about her finger, touching warmingly her breast, should become calloused with the hammer and the plane with which He would earn her food. When the fullness of time came, and they had forever dropped the carpenter's tools, these hands (could she, mother-like, foresee all this?) would lift above a tensely eager people, gesturing to the lovely flow of His sermons and His parables, touching sinridden bodies and lifting them to their feet, stroking sin-scarred foreheads until they became virgin white and calm, multiplying bread and changing water into wine, and then, in stranger miracle, lifting the bread and wine into more precious substances.
Of all the instruments of His carpenter's trade, these hands would at the end cling only to the nails, till in his palms red wounds glowed with the glory of the Resurrection.
Sleepily His baby lips curved in a smile against the warm valley in her throat. Silent now, some day, her mother's heart knew clearly, they would utter words that would echo and re-echo endlessly through time and eternity.
First they would speak her name-lovingly. Then they would honour His Father-prayerfully. Then they would bless humanity-tenderly. Then they would call His apostles-compellingly. Then they would pour forth the revelation of His Father's truth-with authority. Then they would plead from the cross-pitifully. And in glorious climax they would speak welcome to the just and judgment to the wicked-unendingly.
Now His eyes, in the vague focuslessness of infancy, are closed. Yet all the glorious promise of those eyes!-lifted gratefully to her face; raised prayerfully to His Father; scanning the young men of the village and the lake shore for possible disciples; waiting intently for signs of faith and acceptance; pleading voicelessly with sinners; glowing with a love that broke the passionate heart of Magdalen and the repentant heart of Peter; blazing with just anger as the whip of cords rises and falls upon the despoilers of His temple; ecstatic as he speaks of unseen truth; prophetic as He gazes into the future, glorious or bloodstained, of His Church; agonised as He faces sin in the garden and falls beneath its blows; pain-tortured as He looked from the cross to see mankind lusting for His blood; immortal, as through them shines His divinity after the Resurrection.
All these unfulfilled but certain mysteries were wrapped round in the sleeping or waking form of the Child of Bethlehem. If in our hearts we always feel that children seem closest to God (and reverently we kneel as we accept this mystery), this time we know that the Child is not merely close to God. He is God.
He is God, and God in His most appealing, most compelling manifestation. The era of the terrifying Jehovah, thundering above His disobedient people and sending the slim shaft of His lightning and the crawling vengeance of His serpents, is over.
After the sadly adult gods of paganism, old in their wickedness and cynical from their personal familiarity with sin, God comes to man as an innocent babe. After the impure animals before whom knelt Egypt and Babylon and Carthage, God manifests Himself as the one irresistible thing in all the world, a child lifting its arms for love and pity and a welcome embrace.
While God was vast and all-powerful, men often sulked under His reign. Angrily they questioned His right. His laws irked them, and they shrank back resentfully from His commands.
Surely, then, this is a new era of God's dealing with men that begins with God's begging of our love and our welcome. Apparently, here in the crib, He needs us more than we need Him. (Untrue, we know, except that in this lovely chapter we see God's insistent wooing of our hearts through the disguise of infancy.) God, Who had promised to be our host in eternity, Who offered us grandly the hospitality of heaven, now of a sudden begs hospitality and shelter from human homes and hearts.
We stand aghast, as all the believing world has stood aghast, before this mystery of the Child. God has emptied Himself of all save love. His power seems gone; for His arms are weak and helpless and His voice is stilled. No longer does He pass judgment on the world; instead the world walks by the crib, passing judgment of acceptance or rejection upon Him.
His majesty is laid aside; the angels have returned to heaven; the star fades and disappears; shepherds, in their smelly garments, kneel unafraid; and a young maid holds Infinity in her arms.
Here, in the presence of this Child, we know that God has emptied Himself of everything except His overwhelming love. Yet, with the eloquence of silence, with the power of weakness willingly assumed, with the majesty of omnipotence made infancy, and in a language so powerful that it needs no words, God, from the crib of a Child, begs for a love men cannot deny to children, and surely will not deny to the Child Who spanned infinity to reach their hearts.
So Christmas will always belong to children, because Christmas belongs to the Divine Child.
Because of Him the day is made glad with lights and music and gifts and laughter and warmth and the enveloping affection of friends and the happy shelter of homes.
Even the orphaned child finds about him on Christmas an almost yearning love he hardly knows for the rest of the year. Men must be sweet to him, as in him they see some slight image of the dear Child who was God.
Love was appallingly denied to the Child of the Christmastide. It must not be denied to the children who have been since His day. Christmas belongs to children, and yet?
Hopefully the Child, grown to manhood, spoke of His followers, who would 'become as little children. 'Theirs, He cried, in glorious climax, 'is the kingdom of heaven.
More than that; theirs, whether they be six or sixty, stumbling in the first steps of childhood or tottering in their last feeble steps toward the grave, theirs is Christmas.
For souls are ageless, souls that have drawn their life from the crib of the ageless Child. Souls are always young if they are unblemished by sin or unwearied by the weight of evil or rejuvenated in the miraculous spring of penance. To them the Christ Child comes as to His beloved playfellows and dear contemporaries. They are young, and Christmas is for them.
In the hearts of these faithful is a deep faith in their Father. They may know themselves wise with all the wisdom of grave science and world literature; in the light of God's omniscience they know they are His little children, playing with sand piles upon a tide-swept shore. Yet they are glad, for their Father will not forget His children, but with tender eyes will hover over their days, guard through their nights, and lead them home with strong and gracious arms. Happily they face all of life; happily they face Christmas. They have the ageless faith of childhood.
Wearily the pagan world, grown old in sin, staggers to its work and sags after its play. Even its Christmas is drear and meaningless and heavily streaked with sin; for though it may gesture toward its human children, it has forgotten the Divine Child. But to us who are His adorers as well as His adopted brothers and sisters, Christmas comes as the birthday we love best. To us it brings back all the thrilling joy of His childhood and our own.
In the glory of the Mass He is re-born.
In the warm shelter of our souls, He finds His eucharistic Bethlehem, not cold now and repelling, but, we hope, warm, hospitable, fragrant with grace.
In the midst of our children He rests, our unseen, but first-honoured, guest.
In church and convent chapel young-eyed priests and never-aging nuns bend tenderly over the Figure in the crib, and then raise joyful heads to the glad Reality within the crib of the tabernacle.
And bells peal forth, and hearts leap up, and children smile, hardly knowing why they smile, and old people yearn for the re-birth that stupidly we call death, and mothers are wearily glad for the anxieties and joys of the day, and fathers touch their children's heads with new reverence, and old wrongs are forgiven, and old songs are sung, and Christmas reigns and peace is everywhere:
Because of a Child who was born to us and a Son who was given to us.
Because we are children of the Father who is His.
Because in a cave we have found the spring of eternal life.
Because divine love has assumed its most attractive form and reached out to us the compelling arms of infancy.
Because we stand in the light that is the unfading smile of the Child of the Christmastide.
Nihil obstat: J. DONOVAN, Censor Deputatus
lmprimi potest: D. MANNIX, Archiepiscopus Melbournensis. 1937
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| G.K. Chesterton: The God in the Cave |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-15-2021, 12:01 PM - Forum: Advent
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TRADITIONS in art and literature and popular fable have quite sufficiently attested, as has been said, this particular paradox of the divine being in the cradle. Perhaps they have not so clearly emphasised the significance of the divine being in the cave. Curiously enough, indeed, tradition has not very clearly emphasised the cave. It is a familiar fact that the Bethlehem scene has been represented in every possible setting of time and country, of landscape and architecture; and it is a wholly happy and admirable fact that men have conceived it as quite different according to their different individual traditions and tastes. But while all have realised that it was a stable, not so many have realised that it was a cave. Some critics have even been so silly as to suppose that there was some contradiction between the stable and the cave; in which case they cannot know much about caves or stables in Palestine. As they see differences that are not there it is needless to add that they do not see differences that are there. When a well-known critic says, for instance, that Christ being born in a rocky cavern is like Mithras having sprung alive out of a rock, it sounds like a parody upon comparative religion. There is such a thing as the point of a story, even if it is a story in the sense of a lie. And the notion of a hero appearing, like Pallas from the brain of Zeus, mature and without a mother, is obviously the very opposite of the idea of a god being born like an ordinary baby and entirely dependent on a mother. Whichever ideal we might prefer, we should surely see that they are contrary ideals. It is as stupid to connect them because they both contain a substance called stone as to identify the punishment of the Deluge with the baptism in the Jordan because they both contain a substance called water. Whether as a myth or a mystery, Christ was obviously conceived as born in a hole in the rocks primarily because it marked the position of one outcast and homeless . . . .
It would be vain to attempt to say anything adequate, or anything new, about the change which this conception of a deity born like an outcast or even an outlaw had upon the whole conception of law and its duties to the poor and outcast. It is profoundly true to say that after that moment there could be no slaves. There could be and were people bearing that legal title, until the Church was strong enough to weed them out, but there could be no more of the pagan repose in the mere advantage to the state of keeping it a servile state. Individuals became important, in a sense in which no instruments can be important. A man could not be a means to an end, at any rate to any other man's end. All this popular and fraternal element in the story has been rightly attached by tradition to the episode of the Shepherds, who found themselves talking face to face with the princes of heaven. But there is another aspect of the popular element as represented by the shepherds which has not perhaps been so fully developed; and which is more directly relevant here.
Men of the people, like the shepherds, men of the popular tradition, had everywhere been the makers of the mythologies. It was they who had felt most directly, with least check or chill from philosophy or the corrupt cults of civilisation, the need we have already considered; the images that were adventures of the imagination; the mythology that was a sort of search; the tempting and tantalising hints of something half-human in nature; the dumb significance of seasons and special places. They had best understood that the soul of a landscape is a story, and the soul of a story is a personality. But rationalism had already begun to rot away these really irrational though imaginative treasures of the peasant; even as a systematic slavery had eaten the peasant out of house and home. Upon all such peasantries everywhere there was descending a dusk and twilight of disappointment, in the hour when these few men discovered what they sought. Everywhere else Arcadia was fading from the forest. Pan was dead and the shepherds were scattered like sheep. And though no man knew it, the hour was near which was to end and to fulfil all things; and, though no man heard it, there was one far-off cry in an unknown tongue upon the heaving wilderness of the mountains. The shepherds had found their Shepherd.
And the thing they found was of a kind with the things they sought. The populace had been wrong in many things; but they had not been wrong in believing that holy things could have a habitation and that divinity need not disdain the limits of time and space. And the barbarian who conceived the crudest fancy about the sun being stolen and hidden in a box, or the wildest myth about the god being rescued and his enemy deceived with a stone, was nearer to the secret of the cave and knew more about the crisis of the world, than all those in the circle of cities round the Mediterranean who had become content with cold abstractions or cosmopolitan generalisations; than all those who were spinning thinner and thinner threads of thought out of the transcendentalism of Plato or the orientalism of Pythagoras. The place that the shepherds found was not an academy or an abstract republic; it was not a place of myths allegorised or dissected or explained or explained away. It was a place of dreams come true. Since that hour no mythologies have been made in the world. Mythology is a search . . . .
The philosophers had also heard. It is still a strange story, though an old one, how they came out of orient lands, crowned with the majesty of kings and clothed with something of the mystery of magicians. That truth that is tradition has wisely remembered them almost as unknown quantities, as mysterious as their mysterious and melodious names; Melchior, Caspar, Balthazar. But there came with them all that world of wisdom that had watched the stars in Chaldea and the sun in Persia; and we shall not be wrong if we see in them the same curiosity that moves all the sages. They would stand for the same human ideal if their names had really been Confucius or Pythagoras or Plato. They were those who sought not tales but the truth of things; and since their thirst for truth was itself a thirst for God, they also have had their reward. But even in order to understand that reward, we must understand that for philosophy as much as mythology, that reward was the completion of the incomplete.
Such learned men would doubtless have come, as these learned men did come, to find themselves confirmed in much that was true in their own traditions and right in their own reasoning. Confucius would have found anew foundation for the family in the very reversal of the Holy Family; Buddha would have looked upon a new renunciation, of stars rather than jewels and divinity than royalty. These learned men would still have the right to say, or rather a new right to say, that there was truth in their old teaching. But after all these learned men would have come to learn. They would have come to complete their conceptions with something they had not yet conceived; even to balance their imperfect universe with something they might once have contradicted. Buddha would have come from his impersonal paradise to worship a person. Confucius would have come from his temples of ancestor-worship to worship a child . . . .
The Magi, who stand for mysticism and philosophy, are truly conceived as seeking something new and even as finding something unexpected. That tense sense of crisis which still tingles in the Christmas story and even in every Christmas celebration, accentuates the idea of a search and a discovery. For the other mystical figures in the miracle play; for the angel and the mother, the shepherds and the soldiers of Herod, there may be aspects both simpler and more supernatural, more elemental or more emotional. But the Wise Men must be seeking wisdom; and for them there must be a light also in the intellect. And this is the light; that the Catholic creed is catholic and that nothing else is catholic. The philosophy of the Church is universal. The philosophy of the philosophers was not universal. Had Plato and Pythagoras and Aristotle stood for an instant in the light that came out of that little cave, they would have known that their own light was not universal. It is far from certain, indeed, that they did not know it already. Philosophy also, like mythology, had very much the air of a search. It is the realisation of this truth that gives its traditional majesty and mystery to the figures of the Three Kings; the discovery that religion is broader than philosophy and that this is the broadest of religions, contained within this narrow space . . . .
We might well be content to say that mythology had come with the shepherds and philosophy with the philosophers; and that it only remained for them to combine in the recognition of religion. But there was a third element that must not be ignored and one which that religion for ever refuses to ignore, in any revel or reconciliation. There was present in the primary scenes of the drama that Enemy that had rotted the legend with lust and frozen the theories into atheism, but which answered the direct challenge with something of that more direct method which we have seen in the conscious cult of the demons. In the description of that demon-worship, of the devouring detestation of innocence shown in the works of its witchcraft and the most inhuman of its human sacrifice, I have said less of its indirect and secret penetration of the saner paganism; the soaking of mythological imagination with sex; the rise of imperial pride into insanity. But both the indirect and the direct influence make themselves felt in the drama of Bethlehem. A ruler under the Roman suzerainty, probably equipped and surrounded with the Roman ornament and order though himself of eastern blood, seems in that hour to have felt stirring within him the spirit of strange things. We all know the story of how Herod, alarmed at some rumour of a mysterious rival, remembered the wild gesture of the capricious despots of Asia and ordered a massacre of suspects of the new generation of the populace. Everyone knows the story; but not everyone has perhaps noted its place in the story of the strange religions of men. Not everybody has seen the significance even of its very contrast with the Corinthian columns and Roman pavement of that conquered and superficially civilised world. Only, as the purpose in his dark spirit began to show and shine in the eyes of the Idumean, a seer might perhaps have seen something like a great grey ghost that looked over his shoulder; have seen behind him filling the dome of night and hovering for the last time over history, that vast and fearful fact that was Moloch of the Carthaginians; awaiting his last tribute from a ruler of the races of Shem. The demons, in that first festival of Christmas, feasted also in their own fashion.
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| The World into which Christ was Born |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-15-2021, 11:34 AM - Forum: Advent
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The Gospels: Their Message and Credibility-I.
The main purpose of this series of booklets is to examine two points of particular interest which arise from the study of the four canonical Gospels, or, as they are usually called, the Gospels according to SS. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. What is the specific story or message concerning Christ and His teaching which the Gospels have left us? Are we to accept that story as a trustworthy account of actual events of history, or, on the contrary, to reject it as a fiction and a fraud? It is with these two questions that we shall be chiefly concerned in these booklets.
The importance of determining the correct answer to these questions can scarcely be exaggerated. If, as the Gospels tell us, Christ is the divine Saviour of mankind, no one may adopt an attitude of indifference or neutrality to Him or to His teaching. No event of history is even remotely comparable in significance with the coming of Christ, and upon the attitude which men adopt towards Him depend issues which can be measured only in terms of eternity. For person's who are groping for the light, or for Catholics who are liable to be brought into contact with such people, a general knowledge of the evidence which goes to show that the Gospels are reliable records, is of very considerable importance. Such knowledge will enable Catholics to show the reasonableness of their own position. As St. Peter has it, they will the 'always ready to give an answer to everyone who demands an account of the hope which is in them.' (I Peter. c. 3. v. 15.) If unbelievers, who are seriously engaged in the search for the truth, can be brought to see the reasonableness of the claim that, on purely scientific, literary and historical evidence, apart from other considerations, the Gospels have a solid title to be regarded as trustworthy documents, they will have made a notable advance in the solution of their difficulties.
In the series of booklets here introduced the discussion of the various relevant topics will be necessarily brief. It is hoped, however, that it will be adequate for the immediate purpose of showing that the case for the truth of the Gospels is a strong one; that it is based on tangible scientific evidence of the kind which satisfies scholars in the examination of other ancient documents; that, in fact, the rejection of the Gospels cannot be justified by any allegation of insufficiency, either in the quantity or quality of the evidence, but is due to philosophical prejudice which, from the outset, refuses to admit the possibility of the supernatural and, consequently, rejects as unhistorical the Gospel account of miracles and of the Incarnation of the Son of God.
In order to avoid confusion, it should be noted carefully that we are not here concerned with the general doctrine of biblical Inspiration, nor with its application to the Gospels. We consider the Gospels as documents which have come down to us from antiquity, liable to be subjected to the same rigorous scientific examination as other ancient documents, e.g., The Annals of Tacitus, The Histories of Thucydides, which claim to deal with historical facts rather than with legend, myth or poetic fancy. We claim, however, that the same scientific standards, which are adopted to distinguish fact from legend and myth in other ancient documents, should be applied with equal impartiality in the case of the Gospels. The issue in which we are principally interested, viz., the truth or falsehood of the Gospels, is one which can be discussed quite independently of any theological doctrine concerning the sacred character of these books. All that is needed is an unprejudiced attitude, and a willingness to accept, in the case of the Gospels, evidence which would be considered entirely satisfactory in the case of other historical documents. While no special favour is sought for the Gospels, it must be insisted that they should not be subjected to purely a priori criticism of a kind which finds no place in the examination of other ancient documents which purport to give a narrative of fact.
Most readers will be familiar with the broad outlines of the Gospel story, and will also have some acquaintance with the actual text of the Gospels themselves. Considered as literature they come under the heading of biography. Although they may not conform precisely to the definition of biography as we use that term in modern times, they are definitely biographical in character. They tell much of the Story of the life and teaching of the figure known to history as Christ or Jesus of Nazareth. They do not give a complete, nor a strictly chronological account, but they do give an outline of what may be regarded as the items of greatest significance from that life and history.
This narrative concerning Christ is set against the background of life in Palestine at a time when that country had come under the dominion of Rome. Our knowledge of the general conditions of life, as well as the great figures and events of that age, is extensive, and is constantly being added to as a result of the thorough-going studies of modern scholars. Assuming for the moment the historicity of the Gospels, we can place all the events which they record within the limits of the period 10 a.d. Between these two extremes there is ample room: for some differences of opinion about the exact dates to be assigned for the birth and the death of Christ. The Gospels, therefore, have as historical setting that period of Roman history when Augustus and Tiberius ruled. Both Emperors are mentioned in the Gospels. (Luke c.2. v.1; c.3. v.1.) The same is true of members of the Herodian dynasty of Palestine, rulers whose history is well known to us from the writings of Josephus. The high priests, Annas and Caiaphas, and the parties of the Sadducees and Pharisees who figure so prominently in the Gospel account of the opposition to Our Lord, are also well known to us from contemporary records. In fact, there is scarcely a page of the Gospels which does not reflect in some way the political conditions, or the prevalent social, ethical and religious ideas within the Roman Empire, and more particularly within Palestine and among the Jewish people, at the period to which the Gospel narrative belongs. Time and again, we find that a knowledge of the historical background enables us to understand more fully portions of the narrative, or passages from the teaching of Our Lord, the full implications of which would otherwise escape us, e.g., the question put to Our Lord: 'Is it lawful to pay tribute to Caesar?,' the teaching of Christ on marriage and divorce, the account of the trial and crucifixion of Our Lord. These are but a few of the very many instances which might be cited to show how closely the Gospels bring us into contact with the laws, customs and beliefs of the world in which their story has its setting. There can be no doubt, therefore, of the value of a knowledge of the historical background for a thorough understanding of the Gospels. It may be added that belief in the reliability of the Gospels receives no slight confirmation from the accuracy with which they reflect contemporary conditions, as these are known to us from independent historical research.
Some writers, of course, under the influence of the theory of progressive evolution in religious ideas and practices, have ought to show that Christianity is nothing more than an easy natural development from the conditions prevailing at the beginning of the Christian era. This development, they say, would have been accelerated somewhat by the high ethical teaching and personal qualities of Christ, Who is looked upon merely as a man, a distinguished prophet or teacher of a high code of morality, but not the Messiah or the Son of God. According to these writers, the picture of Christ and His teaching which the Gospels give us must be regarded as the result of a period of pious speculation and hero-worship whereby Jesus of Nazareth was transformed (in the minds of his followers) from a mere man into the promised Messiah and eventually into a divine person incarnate. According to this theory, the Gospels are not so much a record of fact as a reflection of popular belief in the period 50-100 a.d.
In order to put the problem in proper perspective, and provide a suitable background for our discussion of the Message and Credibility of the Gospels, the first booklets of this series will be devoted mainly to an outline of conditions in the political, social and religious spheres within the Roman Empire, and particularly in Palestine and among the Jews at the the beginning of the Christian era. This sketch of The World into which Christ was born will pay special attention to those elements which have, or might be considered to have, a particular bearing on the origin of Christianity, or are of interest for the question of the credibility of the Gospels.
At the outset, it may be necessary to rid our minds of some misconceptions. The period to which the story of the Gospels belongs is so far removed from our own age, that we may be disposed to regard it as culturally and intellectually backward as well as historically remote. But the detailed knowledge now available of the Augustan age, and of the men and women who lived in it, tends to show that the Roman Empire bears striking resemblances to some empires of our own day. In fact, it is often helpful to visualize modern imperial methods when we wish to bring home more vividly the conditions of life within the empire of the Caesars. Imperial Rome was distinguished by a unified political administration and an ease of communication which was really remarkable for those days; the educated classes took a deep interest in philosophical speculation; writing flourished; humanitarianism, of a kind, was not unknown; between the upper and lower classes there was a veritable chasm in social conditions. All of these things have a familiar, even modern, ring, and go to show that conditions in imperial Rome are not too remote, nor too primitive, to have any interest for men of the twentieth century.
Political Conditions. -At the period in which we are interested the Roman Empire extended from France to Egypt, and from Spain to the borders of Persia. That great empire had been formed over a long period of time, mainly by wars of conquest. And now, at the beginning of the Christian era, after a long succession of civil wars which had ravaged Italy itself, this vast territory was settling down to enjoy, under the Emperor Augustus, the blessings of a period of calm, in which constructive ideas of order, justice and peace were very definitely to the fore. It was the most brilliant period of Roman history up to that time, an age of really outstanding achievement. Clear proof that the greatness of the political achievement of Augustus and the benefits his rule conferred on the subject territories were recognised and appreciated, is found in that emperor-worship which began during his lifetime and led ultimately to his apotheosis.
The administration of the imperial territories was unified under the supreme power of the Emperor. The personal financial independence of Augustus, combined with the immense power concentrated in his hands, made it possible for him to legislate for the benefit of the empire as a whole. No longer were the subject territories considered merely as convenient places for pillage by Roman officials, or merely as granaries to meet the needs of Rome and Italy. In all subject territories, whether imperial or senatorial provinces, as well as in districts where allied or subject kings were left in control, the power of the Emperor was supreme. Palestine, at the time of Christ, was ruled partially as a protectorate with members of the Herodian family in immediate control, partially as a district of the province of Syria with a Governor to represent the Emperor. The city of Rome was the chief centre of political, administrative and flourishing commercial life. Closely allied with this unity of administration was the excellent system of communication both, by road and by sea. To illustrate the point, there is the story of the merchant from Phrygia in Asia Minor who made no less than 70 business journeys to Rome. This relative ease of communication helps us to understand how St. Paul, later on, was able to cover so much ground on his missionary journeys in a comparatively short space of time.
It is generally agreed that the administrative unity and ease of communication in the Roman Empire had a certain importance by way of preparation for Christianity. The conquests of Alexander, and the Hellenistic movement which he had inaugurated, had broken down the local patriotism and narrow nationalism of an earlier age. The idea of a common culture, a unified civilization with the Greek tongue spoken everywhere as a lingua franca, had been largely translated into reality over the districts conquered by Alexander and ruled by his successors. While this idea of a universal culture is rightly regarded as something distinctively Greek, unified political administration can be regarded as a Roman contribution. Both elements had their importance in the preparation of the world for Christianity. The notion that humanity consisted of isolated groups, with little in common and much to keep them separated and at enmity, had begun to yield to a wider outlook wherein all men were capable of being brought under a single culture and a single governmnent. In this way the world was being prepared for the doctrine of the universal brotherhood of men, a contribution which is, of course, distinctively Christian.
Social and Ethical Conditions. -While the value of the Roman contribution, through its administrative system, to the progress of humanity generally, and also by way of preparation for Christianity, is recognised universally, a survey of social and ethical conditions gives us a picture of more sombre hues. Historians, as a rule, give a very dismal account of the prevailing standards in social and moral matters. There were, undoubtedly, abuses of the gravest character, some of them widespread, others confined mostly to the upper classes and to the wealthy. But there is evidence also that many of the natural virtues were appreciated and practised by that section of the community whieh rarely achieves notoriety or fame in any age. Both sides of the question must be kept in mind if we are to form a balanced picture of the situation as a whole.
In any account of social conditions in the Roman Empire the institution of slavery must hold a prominent place. The population was divided into ‘free' and ‘slave.' The slave, from the legal point of view, was scarcely a person or human being at all. He was a mere chattel or piece of property, just like the irrational animals owned by his master, and was often treated with much less consideration. The greatest rigour and cruelty were permitted in the treatment of slaves. If a master were murdered, all of his slaves could be put to death. In Rome itself slaves outnumbered the free population. Many slaves were persons of culture and education, unfortunate victims of war or piracy sold to masters who, judged by any decent human standards, were, frequently, their inferiors in everything except the possession of wealth and power. It is true that, from time to time, voices were raised against the cruelty of this institution, and that some masters treated their slaves with kindness. Slaves were sometimes granted their freedom, and of those set free some attained the highest posts in civil administration. But it is unquestionable that the system was a degrading one, that it had the most deplorable consequences for morality, and that it contributed in some degree to the disintegration of the empire itself.
Among that section of the population which was classed as free, there were many distinctions based on wealth and social rank. The privilege of Roman citizenship was not enjoyed by all the free population. It was a highly prized and jealously guarded right, which was extended outside Rome and Italy only as a special reward or favour to individuals or communities. Not until the year 212 a.d., by a decree of the Emperor Carcalla, was this right extended to all free subjects of the Empire. St. Paul, a native of Tarsus, had the good fortune to possess this privilege. His citizenship saved him more than once from indignities at the hands of Roman officials, and from the fury of the Jews who sought his death by any means at their disposal.
Next to slavery, possibly the most inhuman and debasing element of life under Roman rule was to be found in the so-called games of the amphitheatre. These gladiatorial shows, in which men fought to the death with beasts or with one another, tended, with the passage of time, to become more and more colossal displays of savagery and inhumanity.
The fact that the passion for these spectacles pervaded every class of society, and that they were one of the recognized methods of keeping the populace contented, gives us an insight into the appallingly low ethical standards of those who provided and enjoyed the shows of the amphitheatre. It is a curious irony of history that among the most tangible remains of an age that was, in many ways, one of great achievement, should be those very amphitheatres, e.g., The Colosseum in Rome, where such senseless carnage often lasted for days. Leaky has said that the continuance for centuries, almost without protest, of these games, is one of the most striking facts in moral history.
Slavery and the amphitheatre are dark blots on Roman history and remind us of the depths to which even a cultured people are capable of descending. They do not, however, exhaust the list of vices and defects which can be placed in the scale against the mighty achievements in practically every field of human endeavour, which have made the name of Rome immortal. Rome had a full quota of the faults which are liable to manifest themselves in a state, flushed with conquest, which is passing from the hard period of establishing its power to the peaceful enjoyment of the fruits of victory. The marriage bond was not universally respected nor adequately protected by law. Divorce was easy and resorted to frequently. With this instability of marriage went a host of other evils. The efforts of the Emperor to secure reform by legal enactments of various kinds are an indication of the extent to which abuses in connection with marriage and family life had begun to undermine society. Unwanted shildren, even those born in wedlock, were often exposed to death. There were frequent instances of other, and even more shameful, crimes. The theatre of the day contributed its quota to the demoralizing influences at work. Secular history thus confirms that account of pagan immorality which St. Paul has left us in his letter to the Romans, c.1. v.32. 'God abandoned them to a reprobate mind so as to do what is unbecoming; being filled with all wickedness, malice, greed, badness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malignity; tale-bearers, slanderers; haters of God, insolent, haughty; pretentious, inventors of vices, disobedience to parents; senseless, perfidious, heartless, merciless;-.'
As a contributory cause to this loss of moral sense, we must attach some importance to the widespread lack of belief in any real survival of man after death. Cicero, Horace, Sallusat, Catullus and other writers give evidence of fairly widely disseminated scepticism on this point. The inscriptions on the tombs of the dead also add their testimony to the fact that many lived for this life and cared but little for the hereafter, e.g., 'I was not, I became, I am not, I care not.' 'While I lived, I lived well; now my little play is ended, soon shall yours be.' 'While I lived, I drank as I pleased; you who live, drink.' 'What I have eaten and drank, that I take with me; what I have left behind, that I have forfeited.' Here we are brought into close touch with one of the reasons for the decline in morality; and we also get an insight into the causes of that feeling of hopelessness and aimlessness which some writers consider to be characteristic of the period in question. Historians also draw attention to the depressing sense of sin and guilt, of which the reflecting minds of the period became increasingly conscious. Seneca, one of the most attractive figures from the pagan world of the first century, has the following striking passage in a work written about the year 60 a.d. : 'We have all sinned: the fashion in vice may change, its reign is as powerful as ever : we are wicked, have been wicked and shall continue to be wicked.' These are the reflections of an enquiring and philosophic mind, the thoughts of a man whose moral sense had not been completely dulled by contract with a corrupt world. The concise expression used by St. Paul to describe the pagan world-'they were men without hope and without God in the world' (Ephesians c.2. v.12)-sums up their condition.
On the credit side, there is considerable evidence of practical civic pride and patriotic devotion to the welfare of city or state. We know also that marital and family affection and loyalty still influenced many lives, and that other natural virtues were esteemed and put into practice. In this connection, it has been noted that the Stoic philosophy, with its insistence on the need for the practice of the virtues and the duty of self-control, had exercised a genuinely beneficial influence, even though Stoicism was, in the last analysis, a philosophy of despair which approved of suicide. The protests made from time to time against the social and moral evils which were undermining society and destroying what was best in the Roman Character, and the various attempts to secure reform, also deserve mention. They show that, despite widespread corruption, there were still some who were neither completely insensitive to moral values, nor blind to the fact that the prestige and continued welfare of Rome were gravely imperilled by the serious disorders in social and individual life.
The last century of the pre-Christian era was one of flourishing activity, a period in which the Roman genius reached a high level of achievemenit in law, administration, literature, architecture and engineering. It is generally recognized that, in these spheres, Rome made contributions of permanent value which have placed the whole civilized world in its debt. The value of the literary and cultural legacy bequeathed to the world by Roman writers of that century is too well known to need extensive treatment here. Virgil and Horace, chief ornaments of the Augustan age of literature, are still, as Mackail notes, 'the schoolbooks and the companions of the whole world; forming the mind of youth, and yielding more and more of their secret to prolonged study and inveterate acquaintance.' The writings of Virgil, 'the noblest poet of the Roman tongue,' give striking expressions to the hopes aroused by the establishment of peace and order. Virgil deserves, in a special way, the title 'poet of Imperial Rome,' because, more than any other writer of the age, he manifests a sense of the high dignity of the Roman state and of the role which Rome should play in the world. It was for Rome 'to rule the nations,' 'to establish the settled ways of peace, to deal gently with subject peoples, to vanquish the proud.' The rule of Augustus marked the return of the golden age, and the beginning of an era of universal peace under the dominion of Rome. A well-known passage from the fourth Eclogue of Virgil, sometimes referred to as the messianic Eclogue, contains a remarkable expression of the poet's hopes, and of his exalted conception of the part which the Roman state was called upon to play in world history.- ‘Now is come the last age of the song of Cumae; the great line of the centuries begins anew. Now the virgin (Justice) returns, the reign of Saturn returns; now a new generation descends from heaven on high . . . And in thy consulship, Pollio, shall this glorious age begin, and the mighty months begin their march; under thy sway, any lingering traces of our guilt shall become void, and release the earth from its continual dread.' (Trans. Fairclough). The optimism of Virgil is a refreshing change from the prevailing cynicism and depression, and sharp contrast to the verdict which, one hundred years later, the historian Tacous passed upon the Imperial rule-'The wrath of the gods upon the Roman State.'
Virgil and Horace stand out from their contemporaries, but they are not the only distinguished authors of an age which produced numerous writers catering in prose and verse for the varied literary tastes of the public. Nor did the cultured and educated classes confine their interest to a merely aesthetic appreciation of literature. From the middle of the second century b.c., philosophy had been enjoying increasing attention. Greece, of course, had been the home of philosophy for centuries, and her thinkers had made a contribution of outstanding merit to philosophical enquiry, showing a capacity for original and profound speculation which the Romans never equalled. The Romans were content, on the whole, to accept their philosophy at second-hand, and in this sphere, more than any other, they remained the disciples and imitators of the conquered Greeks who had become their teachers. With the progressive decline of polytheistic religion, and its manifest inability to give satisfactory answers to vital questions concerning the meaning of life, the regulation of human conduct, the fate of man after death etc., reflecting minds naturally turned to philosophy in search of the light and guidance of which they felt the need. All the well-known schools of philosophy had their advocates and won some measure of support; but it was the Stoic philosophy which had the greatest influence and the largest following. This is not altogether surprising, because the ideal of conduct propounded by the Stoics was one which appeared to be particularly suited to Roman temperament and tradition. The picture of the true Stoic, practising the virtues and capable of rising superior to external changes of fortune, was bound to make a strong appeal to those who revered the traditional Roman virtues of gravity, dignified restraint in adversity as in prosperity, and piety, due discharge of duties to families, kindred, state and the gods. It is not to be supposed that the general body of the population was deeply interested in the teaching of the different schools of thought. While some attempt was made to reach the common people. it was mainly within the fairly narrow limits of cultured Roman society that persons were to be found with the capacity to take an enlightened interest in philosophical discussion. The majority, apart from those who had lapsed into practical atheism or scepticism, held on to the ancient beliefs, or were won over to newer and more seductive forms of religious belief and worship.
This brief sketch is sufficient to indicate that Roman society at the end of the pre-Christian era presented some remarkable contrasts. High ideals and notable achievement in many spheres were to be found side by side with moral degradation and social disorder. But even taking into account every element of good which historians have been able to detect, and making full allowance for the abiding worth of the Roman contribution to human progress, the general picture is not bright. The prevailing standards in ethical and social matters were law, and neither appeals to ancient tradition nor legislative reforms were able to check the steady moral decline and corruption of society.
Religious Ideals and Practices. -The religious conditions which obtained within the Roman empire at this time might be regarded as the root-cause of the widespread corruption of society. In the absence of a firm conviction of the existence of a Supreme Being who sanctions the moral law, it is vain to hope for the general maintenance of high moral standards. Rome was now in a transition period when the traditional beliefs were going by the board. At an earlier stage, religious duties centred mainly on the worship of the domestic gods and the cult of those deities who were looked upon as the founders or protecting patrons of the city or state. But this narrow concept of the deities, as mere domestic or local patrons and guardians, broke down before the philosophy of the Greeks; and the consequent tendency towards scepticism increased with the ever widening horizons opened up by the conquests of Alexander the Great and of Rome.
In the New Testament period the official attitude of the ruling power in Rome was one of tolerance for all religions of subject peoples, provided that these religions were prepared, in turn, to extend similar toleration to other religions. This official recognition of a whole pantheon of deities, however admirable as a political expedient designed to avoid clashes with subject races, inevitably drew attention to the irrational basis of polytheistic religion, and this accelerated still further the disintegrating process which had set in. Moreover, the stories of the exploits of pagan gods, which had become part of mythology and the stock-in-trade of poets, were frequently of a character not calculated to edify. It is true that Stoicism had done something to introduce a purer and more elevated concept of the deity; but it is hardly surprising that, once the essential weakness of polytheism had been brought to light, men tended to atheism and scepticism rather than to the formation of a more correct idea of a Supreme Being who ruled the whole world. There were some, of course, who still clung to the beliefs and rites of their fathers and were encouraged in that attitude by official attempts to give a now lease of life to the ancient religion of Rome. This loyalty, however, and the respect for ancient tradition which inspired it, proved unequal to the task of maintaining the prestige and influence of the ancient cults against the attacks of philosophy and the attractions of newer forms of worship.
As a result of the general policy of tolerance, many new religions found their way to Rome itself. Most notable of these were the mystery religions of the East, e.g., the mysteries of Isis, Cybele, Orpheus and Eleusis. There is considerable uncertainty about the exact history of these cults and the precise nature of their rites; but it would appear that they began as 'fertility rites,' which were concerned with the constantly recurring cycle of death and re-birth in nature. At a later stage of their history they held out to those who had been duly initiated, the prospect of some kind of purification and the hope of happiness after death. This probably goes a long way towards explaining the popularity which they achieved-they provided a way of escape from the depression and sense of guilt which appear to have weighed heavily on many minds of the age. The rites of the mystery religions had, moreover, an emotional appeal not found in the traditional forms of worship. But it is to be remembered that the celebration of the mysteries was often merely a cloak for wild orgiastic ceremonies of an utterly immoral kind. The mystery religions were alien to the Roman character, and their harmful influence was recognised by Augustus, who made a vain attempt to check their growth.
Another factor to note in this rather complicated religious situation is the development of 'emperor-worship.' The first movements appear to have come from the population of certain of the eastern provinces who had long been accustomed to some form of ruler-worship. In Greece, it had long been the custom to speak of men of distinction, or great public benefactors, as somehow equal to the gods. In Rome itself there was a strong tradition of veneration for ancestors and a tendency to exalt the memory of the great heroes of the past. The benefits conferred on the imperial territories by the rule of Augustus were so unmistakeable that it was an easy step to bestow upon him titles such as ‘saviour' and ‘god,' and to found temples and institute worship in his honour. Allowance must, of course, be made for some element of exaggeration and flattery in all this. But it is clear that, in origin at least, the cult of the emperor, far from being mere adulation, was a sincere manifestation of the feelings of hope and gratitude aroused by the restoration of order and peace. Augustus was quick to see the political advantages that might be expected to accrue to the Empire and to himself from this worship. It would serve as a new bond letween the different parts of the Empire; and, when associated with the worship of the goddess Rama, promote the interests of the imperial house. Emperor-worship was at all times largely political in its significance, even though it took on the usual external formalities of religious worship. Many Christians were destined to suffer for their refusal to participate in the usual sacrifices to the divinity of the emperor.
By way of conclusion to this outline it may be appropriate to touch upon the general question of the relation of the Roman Empire to Christianity. Was the empire in any sense a preparation for Christianity? Were conditions in the Roman world such that the Christian economy could have developed naturally from them? What was the attitude of the Roman power to the Christian religion? The thesis that the Roman empire, by its very existence and organization, facilitated the preaching of the Gospel and the growth of the Church is one which few will be disposed to question. Rome had done much to break down national barriers. The system of communications which had been built up within the limits of Roman rule made travel comparatively easy and secure. The widespread knowledge of the Greek tongue was a further advantage to those whose message was for men of every race and nation. In brief, the Roman empire had removed a number of material obstacles to the spread of Christianity; and, moreover, in its political, social and administrative structure, it provided a unique framework for the building up of a supranational Church. It is not surprising that Christian writers have always been attracted by the contention first put forward by Melito of Sardis in the second century, in an apologia directed to the emperor, Marcus Aurelius that it was Divine Providence which had arranged that such a system should have come into existence precisely at the time when the Christian religion was about to be preached.
To what extent was the Roman world mentally prepared for the Christian message? Roman dominion would, no doutht, have suggested to some the notion of a world-wide kingdom, and have strengthened the concept of common bonds between men. Philosophy had shown the weakness of polytheism and of the traditional beliefs, but as an alternative to some form of religious belief and worship, had failed to satisfy men's minds and hearts. Conditions in the ethical sphere served only to show the weakness of men whose only moral guidance comes from tradition and reason. Possibly all this should be regarded as a negative preparation for a religion which would give clear teaching concerning One true God and His relations to men, together with guidance and strength to observe the moral law. Obviously, the Roman world was not one which would take easily to the high moral standards of Christianity. For certain classes, e.g., slaves, the Gospel brought a message of hope, not by proclaiming the immediate abolition of slavery, but by the promise of eternal life, and by teaching that all men, bond and free, are equal as sons of God and brothers of Christ. The Christian doctrine of One God Who lays down and sanctions the moral law would be a light to thinkers who had failed to find in the schools of philosophy a satisfactory answer to any of the great problems of life. The doctrine of the forgiveness of sin was bound to make a wide appeal; and the prospect of eternal happiness would compensate in some measure for the woes of this present life. But the history of the early Church shows that the transition from paganism to Christianity was anything but easy. The fundamental doctrine of spiritual salvation through the death of Christ upon the cross was, as St. Paul tells us, 'a folly to the pagans.' The moral code of Christianity made very serious demands upon persons accustomed to an almost unbridled reign of vice; and the power of Rome was, from an early date, directed to the repression of the new religion. Neither as a system of philosophy, nor as a code of high moral teaching, would Christianity have sufficed to convert the world from paganism. In that process the finger of God, manifested in miracles, and the blood of the martyrs, had to play their part.
It is useful to keep this outline of Roman conditions in mind. The full significance of the Message of the Gospels will be all the more evident when contrasted with the confusion of ideas and the low moral standards, which characterized this great empire, great in its own right and heir to all the glory and achievement of the Greeks.
Nihil Obstat : RECCAREDUS FLEMING, Censor Theol. Deput,
Imprimi Potest: IOANNES CAROLUS. Hiberniae Primas. Dublini, dieº 22 Nov., anno° 1945.
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| Thoughts for the Sundays of Advent |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-15-2021, 11:15 AM - Forum: Advent
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FIRST SUNDAY OF ADVENT - ON THE GENERAL JUDGMENT
"And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, by reason of the confusion of the roaring of the sea and of the waves; men withering away for fear and expectation of what shall come upon the whole world. For the powers of the heavens shall be moved." (Luke xxi. 25, 26.)
THESE are some of the signs which are to precede the last day, and to indicate its approach. Now, if the mere signs of that day will be so alarming, as even to make 'men wither away for fear of what shall come upon the whole world; what must be that fearful account which is to follow? It is to this account that our Lord alludes, when, speaking of these signs, that 'they are but the beginnings of sorrows. And it is to the same account that I intend now to call your attention.
POINT I. All mankind most strictly examined
'Oh! terrible hour! exclaims St. Ephrem; 'who shall relate, or who shall bear to hear, this last and fearful rehearsal? For we shall then have to account for our whole life- for every thought, word, and deed; for every omission of duty; for every sin we have criminally caused in others; and even for our very virtues, on account of the imperfections accompanying them.
1. THOUGHTS.- Then will be brought against you all the evil thoughts, which you have wilfully entertained; all those thoughts of pride, by which, like the proud Pharisee, you have raised yourselves above what you are, and despised others; those thoughts of envy, hatred, and revenge, which you have cherished in your mind; those thoughts of groundless suspicion, and of rash judgment, whereby you have put a bad construction even on the innocent actions of others; and those thoughts of impurity, which have been indulged with pleasure, with desire, and perhaps even with the intention of accomplishing what you desired. All these will be strictly examined.
2. WORDS.- Your words also must be accounted for- they will be brought to judgment, all those words of lying by which you have spoken against the truth; of rash judgment, detraction, and calumny, whereby, your neighbouur's character has been destroyed or lessened; those words of injustice, by which you have been guilty of deception in your dealings with your neighbour; those words of contention, quarrelling, and contumely, which have created animosities, disturbed peace amongst neighbours, and been the cause of many other evils; those words of cursing and blasphemy, which you have uttered to the injury of yourselves, and the disedification of others; and those words of indecency and double meaning, whereby you have defiled not only your own soul, but also the souls of them that listened to you. All these will be examined, and set against you.
3. ACTIONS.- Then come your actions: all the thefts and injustices, by which you have taken to yourselves what did not belong to you, or in any other way wronged your neighbour; all the excesses in drinking, whereby you have degraded yourselves, scandalised your neighbour, and grieved and injured your family; and all the improper liberties, and shameful acts of which St. Paul ,says, that they 'ought not to be so much as even named among you, as becometh Saints. (Eph. v. 3.) All these will be brought against you, and put to your account.
4. OMISSIONS.- And not only will you have to account for the evils done, but for the good you have left undone- for all your omissions of duty; for all your omissions of deeds of charity, by refusing alms to the poor, when you ought to have given them; your omissions of prayer, meditation and spiritual reading, and of assisting at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, through negligence, sloth, tepidity, or indifference; your omissions of the means of grace provided for you in the Sacraments by having seldom or never received them, from those like sloth, or tepidity; your omissions of the duties of your state of life, to the disedification and prejudice of your family, or your employers; you neglect of religious instruction, which, by causing you to live in ignorance of your religion, has produced many other omissions and transgressions of duty. All these, with their consequences, will be examined, and added to your account.
5. SINS OF OTHERS.- And you will not only have to account for the evils which you have done yourself, and for your own omissions of duty; but moreover, for all those sins of commission and omission, which you have criminally caused in others. 'Soul for soul will be required from those parents, through whose neglect, or bad example their children have become wicked; heads of families will have many sins of their domestics to answer for, on account of having exposed them to the occasions of those sins, or for not having removed such occasions, when they ought to have done; and those who have withdrawn others from their duty, and seduced them by leading them into evil, will have to answer to their Judge for the long habits of sin, of which they have been the guilty cause. Oh! what an account! Such, indeed, is the perversity of human nature, that scandals will come; and therefore our blessed Lord says: 'Woe to the world because of scandals; for it must needs be that scandals come; but nevertheless, woe to that man by whom the scandal cometh. (Mt. xviii. 7.)
6. DEFECTIVE VIRTUES.- But have you not at least some good works'some virtues, to be put in the scale against so much evil? Alas! even these are to be closely examined'to be nicely weighed; and in how many instances will they be 'found wanting? You have prayed, and, perhaps, frequently; but how? with what attention? with what disposition of heart? You have abstained and fasted; but in what spirit? You have approached the Sacraments; but was it from a pure intention? with due preparation? with proper dispositions? 'And it shall come to pass at that time (saith the Lord), that I will search Jerusalem with lamps. (Soph. i. 12.) What, then, will become of the wicked Babylon? 'If the just man shall scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear? (I Peter iv. 18.) And after this fearful examination, where, my Brethren, shall we appear?
POINT 2. Every sin is publicly exposed.
But there is another circumstance in this examination, which will add very much to our distress; for the conscience of each individual will be known, not only to himself and God; but, moreover, to all his relatives, friends, and acquaintances'to the entire world! Oh! what will be the sinner's shame and confusion, at seeing himself thus publicly exposed? You may judge of this by what your feelings would be if an Angel were to descend now into this temple and reveal all your secret sins to the rest of the congregation. What then will be your feelings at the last day, when all those secret sins will be revealed to the whole world? Overwhelmed with confusion, will you not 'call upon the mountains and rocks to fall upon you, and to hide you? (Apoc. vi. 16.) But there is no escape.
POINT 3. The sentence is pronounced.
All mankind having been thus strictly examined, and every conscience exposed to public view, the Judge will pronounce theirrevocable sentence. To the just He will say 'Come, ye blessed of my Father, possess the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. But to the wicked: 'Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, which was prepared for the devil andhis angels. 'And these shall go into everlasting punishment, but the just into life everlasting. (Mt. xxv.)
Thus will terminate the last and fearful day. By these two sentences, the lot of each individual of the human race will be finally and eternally fixed. But oh! what a difference between the lot of the saint, and that of the sinner! The saint in heaven, the sinner in hell; the one perpetually happy, the other perpetually miserable; the one with God in eternal glory, the other with the devils in everlasting flames.
And where will you be, my Brethren? where is it your wish to be? Make now your choice, for you can do so- it is at present in your power; because this life is the time of mercy and grace: 'Now is the acceptable time; now is the day of salvation. (2 Cor. vi. 2.) But if you defer your repentance and amendment of life, and die in the state of mortal sin, then, at the last day, you will receive 'judgment without mercy. (James ii. 13.)
Judge yourselves now, my Brethren, by making a due preparation for the Sacrament of Penance, and you will not then be judged; repent now, and you will not have to repent then. Enter now upon a new life, and you will deprive that day of all its terrors. For then, instead of being banished from God eternally with the reprobate, you will be found worthy to hear from your Judge that consoling sentence: 'Come, ye blessed of My Father, possess the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. (Mt. xxv. 34.)
SECOND SUNDAY OF ADVENT - ON THE VIRTUE OF HOPE
"Now the God of Hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in Hope, and in the power of the Holy Ghost." (Rom. xv. 13.)
DURING the time of Advent, we have to prepare ourselves for worthily and profitably celebrating the approaching Festival of Christmas, wherein we commemorate the first coming of our blessed Lord, when, in quality of our Redeemer, He came 'to seek and to save the sheep that are lost of the house of Israel.
POINT I. We must fear God.
To guide and assist us in this preparation, the Church directs our attention, on the First Sunday of Advent, to the terrible judgments of God, which, at the last day, or the second coming of Christ, will be executed severely and eternally upon impenitent sinners: 'Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire. (Mt. xxv. 41.) And thus we are led to the fear of God, which, according to the Council of Trent, is the first step in the sinner's conversion to God. (Sess. 6, c. 6.) And it is the first step also in his preparation for Christmas.
POINT II. We must also hope in God.
But, on this Second Sunday of Advent, it would seem to be the intention of the Church to lead you on, through this salutary fear of God's judgments, to the consideration of His Mercy and Goodness; that so you may be raised to a firm hope that He will be propitious to you for the sake of Jesus Christ, your Redeemer. This hope, according to the same Council, is the second step in the sinner's conversion to God; and it is the second also in his preparation for Christmas.
God has revealed to us, in the book of Ecclesiasticus (ii. 9), that this is the sure way of escaping His severe judgments, and of drawingdown upon us the consoling effects of His mercy: 'Ye that fear the Lord, He says, 'hope in Him, and mercy shall come to you for your delight. May 'the God of hope, therefore, from the riches of His mercy and goodness infuse bountifully into your souls this necessary, this saving virtue; 'that you may abound in hope, and in the power of the Holy Ghost.
We will consider now the powerful motives, which urge us to place all our hope in God; and also the qualities, which our hope should have.
POINT III. Why we must hope in God.
Hope is a theological virtue, which 'helps us to expect, with confidence, that God will give us all things necessary for our salvation, if, on our part, we do what He requires of us. (Catec.) This virtue is of strict obligation'it is absolutely necessary for us, as a means of salvation, and it is grounded on the most solid foundation.
For we have every motive to induce us to hope in God- to place an unlimited confidence in His mercy and goodness.
1. We have the pressing Exhortations, or rather, Commands of God: 'Trust in Him, all ye congregation of people: . . . . God is our helper for ever. (Ps. lxi. 9.) 'Have confidence in the Lord with all thy heart; and lean not upon thine own prudence. (Prov. iii. 5.) 'And hope in God always. (Osee xii. 6.) 'Casting all your care upon Him, for He hath care of you. (1 Pet. v. 7.)
2. We have also the infallible promises of God, whereby He has pledged Himself to reward those who 'cast all their care upon Him. For He says 'Because he hath hoped in Me, I will deliver him; I will protect him, because he hath known My Name. (Ps. xc. 14.) And consequently He declares, that 'Blessed is the man whose trust is in the Name of the Lord. (Ps. xxxix. 5.) 'Do not, therefore, lose confidence, He says, 'which hath a great reward, (Heb. x. 35.)
We read in the Gospel, that our Lord attributed many of the miracles which He wrought, solely to the great confidencewith which the petition for cure was presented to Him. Thus, He said to the centurion: 'As thou hast believed, so be it done to thee. (Mt. viii. 13.) In like manner, to the blind men, He said: 'According to your faith (that is, your confidence), 'be it done unto you. (Mt. ix. 29.) . The woman, who, for twelve years, had been labouring under an infirmity, which, during that period, had been incurable, 'said within herself: If I shall touch only the hem of His garment, I shall be healed. But Jesus seeing her, said: Be of good heart, daughter; thy faith (that is, thy confidence) hath made thee whole. (Mt. ix. 20.)
3. Other motives of confidence are the great Love of God towards us,- His infinite goodness and mercy in our regard,- and (lest our past sins should weaken our hope) the infinite merits of Christ, which more than supply for our unworthiness.
These are the powerful and solid motives, which should excite our confidence in God'the sure grounds whereon our hope is founded.
POINT IV. How we must hope in God.
And resting, as it does, on sure grounds, it follows, that our hope should be firm and unlimited. FIRM.- It should be firm, because the goodness, power, and promises of God leave no room for the least
diffidence. And hence St. Paul calls this virtue: 'The anchor of the soul, sure and firm (Heb. vi. 19); it being impossible that God should want either the power, or the will, to assist them that trust in Him; or, that He should be untrue to His promises.
2. UNLIMITED.'Our hope must also be unlimited; that is, we should hope for ALL that we need, both for soul and body- we should hope for eternal happiness, and for all the means necessary for obtaining it, if only, on our part, we will do what God requires from us. And nothingshould make us lose our confidence in God. 'For He hath said: I will not leave thee; neither will I forsakethee: So that we may confidently say The Lord is my helper. (Heb. xiii. 5, 6.) And He positively assures us that 'He will not suffer us to be tempted above that which we are able (to resist); 'but that He will make with temptation issue, that we may be able to bear it. (1 Cor. x. 13.) He declares, indeed, that 'the hope of the wicked shall perish ' (Prov. x. 28); but this is to be understood of such only, as will not have recourse to His mercy.
Examine now, my Brethren, whether your hope is such as it ought to be. Is it not weak and languishing? When attacked by temptations, or oppressed with misfortunes, do you not immediately, 'lose confidence, and become dejected and 'sorrowful, even as others who have no hope? (1 Thes. iv. 12.)
By commanding you to pray for salvation, for help in temptations, for pardon, for daily bread, and for all that you stand in need of, God thereby engages Himself to grant these things; and He will grant them, according to His repeated promises, if you pray with an entire confidence in Him, grounding that confidence on His infinite goodness and promises, through the infinite merits of Jesus Christ.
Never fail, therefore, to have immediate recourse to God, with a firm and unlimited hope, in your difficulties, dangers, and temptations, and in all your necessities.
On all occasions, cast yourselves confidently upon Him, for He will not withdraw that you may be left to fall. And let it not weaken or diminish your hope, when He appears to defer the help you crave, or if it should seem to you that He even positively refuses your requests. For He is then only trying your faith, as He tried the Chananean woman, whose faith, or firm, unlimited hope, He afterwards admired and rewarded: 'O woman, great is thy faith: be it done unto thee as thou wilt. (Mt. xv. 28.) 'Do not therefore lose your confidence, which hath a great reward (Heb. x. 35); but 'hope in your God always (Osee xii. 6); because 'mercy shall encompass him that hopeth in the Lord (Ps. xxxi. 10); for 'no one hath hoped in Him, and been confounded. (Eccli. ii. 11.)
THIRD SUNDAY OF ADVENT - ON PRAYER
"In everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your petitions be made known to God." (Philip. iv. 6.)
AT the commencement of the time of Advent, we were led to a fear of God, by the consideration of those eternal judgments, which, at the last day, are to be executed upon all impenitent sinners: 'Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire. (Mt. xxv.) And in the Epistle of the Second Sunday, we were cheered with the consoling prospect, which hope holds out to us: 'The God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing. (Rom. xv. 13.) For it is the consoling effect of hope, that it gives us an assured confidence of God's being willing, and even desirous, to pardon our sins; through Jesus Christ; and so to avert from us those heavy judgments, to which our sins have exposed us; and that it encourages us, moreover, to apply to Him confidently for these happy effects of His mercy. And hence we see the reason of that tender solicitude and anxious desire of the Apostle, as expressed in the concluding words of last Sunday's Epistle: 'That you may abound in hope, and (also thereby) in the power of the Holy Ghost. (Rom. xv. 13.)
On the present Sunday we are directed to consider, not so much in the feelings of fear as of hope, the destitute state of our souls to which sin has reduced us; to look to our wants and necessities, and to exercise our hope in God, by having recourse to His mercy and goodness for relief. 'In everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your petitions be made known to God.
It is on prayer, therefore, that I intend now to address you'on its Necessity, and its Advantages, and on the Conditions that are required for rendering it effectual in obtaining for us the grant of our petitions.
POINT I. Necessity of Prayer.
WE MUST NECESSARILY PRAY.- And this necessity of prayer arises from our relation to God, from His absolute dominion over us, and our entire dependence on Him for everything. It is from Him that we received and still bold our being; for He created us, and is continually preserving us. We must therefore pay Him the homage of our adoration, praise, thanksgiving, and supplication.
Having created us, God placed us in this world between two extremes; for we must either serve Him while we are here, and thereby come to possess and enjoy him eternally, or else we must neglect His service, and thereby lose that supreme happiness, and be condemned to perpetual banishment from Him in the flames of hell. We have to escape the one by gaining the other. This is a work which every one of us has to accomplish; and no work can be of greater importance to us. But, of ourselves, we can do nothing towards it; at every step, we need God's assisting and protecting grace; but that needed grace cannot be obtained without prayer. Without prayer then we must perish eternally.
We see the reason, therefore, why St. Paul so earnestlyadmonishes us to pray on all occasions 'In everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your petitions be made known to God.
The same Apostle also says: 'Be instant in prayer. (Col. iv. 2.) 'Pray without ceasing. (1 Thess. v. 17.) And our blessed Lord repeatedly commands us to pray: 'Watch and pray, that you enter not into temptation. (Mt. xxvi. 41.) 'You ought always to pray and not to faint. (Lk. xviii. 1.) 'Ask, and you shall receive. (John xvi. 24.)
It is clear from these, and from many other considerations, that it is necessary for us to pray, and to pray continually; that prayer is the first and most necessary thing for us to learn and make use of; that it is both the key which must unlock for us the treasury of God's graces, and also the channel through which those graces are to be conveyed to our souls. The treasury of graces cannot be unlocked and opened to us, without the proper key; nor will the graces be conveyed to us otherwise than through the appointed channel.
POINT II. Advantages to be gained by prayer.
What has been already said on the necessity of prayer, serves, in a great measure, to show also its advantages, as being the effectual means of obtaining the necessary wants, and of saving our souls. No supply of our employment, therefore, can be more profitable; nor, at the same time, more consoling.
1. PROFITABLE.- For how can we be more profitably employed, than in drawing down upon ourselves the graces and blessings of heaven? and these we can obtain, and do obtain, by prayer. For the truth of this, we have the positive assurance of our blessed Lord Himself: 'Amen, Amen I say to you: if you ask the Father anything in My name, He will give it you. Ask, and you shall receive; that your joy may be full. (John xvi. 23.) 'For every one that asketh, receiveth; and he that seeketh, findeth; and to him that knocketh, it shall be opened. (Mt. vii. 8.)
2. CONSOLING.- What, therefore, can be a source of greater consolation than prayer? St. Chrysostom calls it, 'an angelic occupation; and St. Gregory, 'an anticipation of the joys of heaven. What sweet consolations have not the Saints drawn from prayer? And when God, for their greater good, withdrew those consolations from them for a time, their persevering fidelity to prayer did not fail to afford comfort to their souls.
POINT III. Conditions which must accompany our prayer.
But, in order that prayer may be effectual in drawing down these advantages, it must be accompanied with certain Conditions; it must be offered to God with such dispositions of soul as He requires.
1. We must pray, therefore, with humility- with a deep sense of our nothingness, of our unworthiness, and sinfulness: 'To whom shall I have respect, says Almighty God, 'but to him that is poor and little, and of a contrite heart, and that trembleth at My words? (Is. lxvi. 2.) 'He hath had regard to the prayer of the humble, and He hath not despised their petition. (Ps. ci. 18.) 'The prayer of him that humbleth himself, shall pierce the clouds; and he will not depart till the Most High behold. (Eccli. xxxv. 21.) 'To the humble He giveth grace. (1 Pet. v. 5.) In King Achab, we have a striking example of the advantage of humbling ourselves before God in prayer. For, as soon as he had done so, God said to Elias: 'Hast thou not seen Achab humbled before Me? , Therefore, because he hath humbled himself for My sake, I will not bring the evil in his days. (3 Kings xxi. 29.)
2. We must pray also all with confidence in God. Nothing honours God more- nothing is more pleasing to Him, nor more effectual in drawing down His blessings, than praying to Him with an humble, but entire confidence in Him: 'And Jesus saith to them: Have the faith of God. Amen I say, to you, that whosoever shall say to this mountain, be thou removed, and be cast into the sea; and shall not stagger in his heart, but believe, that whatsoever he saith shall be done; it shall be done unto him. Therefore I say unto you, all things WHATSOEVER you ask when you pray, believe that you shall receive and they shall come unto you. (Mk. xi. 23.) When Mary Magdalen, with an humble confidence, prostrated herself at our Lord's feet, He said to her: 'Thy sins are forgiven thee; thy faith (that is thy confidence) hath made thee safe; go in peace. (Lk. vii. 48, 50.) 'If any of you want wisdom, says St. James, 'let him ask of God, who giveth to all men abundantly; . . . . and it shall be given him: but let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea, which is carried about by the wind. Therefore, let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord. (James i. 5.)
3. We must pray, likewise, with perseverance- we must continue knocking at the door of God's mercy, till it be opened to us: For 'we ought always to pray, and not to faint. (Lk. xviii. 1.)
We must 'be instant in prayer. For God wishes us to constrain Him, as it were, to show mercy: 'The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away. (Mt. xi. 12.)
4. God requires, moreover, that we should pray with attention and fervour; for He looks to heart more than to the lips. 'Prayer is the raising up of the mind and heartto God; and not merely the raising up of the voice to Him. In order that you may pray with attention, put yourselves in the presence of God at the beginning of your prayers. St. Ignatius says you should do so before every prayer, however short. And this is the direction which God Himself gives us, when He says: 'Before prayer prepare thy soul; and be not a man that tempteth God. (Eccli. xvi. 23.)
Humble yourselves, my Brethren, at the thought of not having profited more by this powerful means of grace. Look back, and examine what it is that has rendered your prayers ineffectual. Is it not attachment of your heart to creatures'to some passion, which, producing a want of fervour and attention, has hindered the effect of your prayer or has there not been a neglect of preparation which has produced the same effect? has there not been spiritual sloth; and consequently a want of perseverance? or has not your confidence in God been deficient? Whatever you may find to have been the defect, it must be corrected in future. Resolve therefore to begin, from this present moment, to take the necessary means of correcting it. 'He lives well, says St. Augustine, 'who prays well.
THE FOURTH SUNDAY OF ADVENT - ON PREPARING FOR CHRIST'S COMING
"A voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare ye the way of the Lord; make straight His paths. Every valley shall be filled; and every mountain and hill shall be brought low; and the crooked shall be made straight; and the rough ways plain; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God." (Luke iii. 4, 5, 6.)
THE Prophet Isaias, foreseeing the coming of the promised Redeemer, and unable to contain his joy, breaks forth into these fervid exclamations: 'Be comforted, be comforted, my people, saith your God. Speak ye to the heart of Jerusalem; . . for her evil is come to an end'her iniquity is forgiven. Get thee up into a high mountain, thou that bringest good tidings to Sion; . . . say to the cities of Juda: Behold your God. (Is. xl. 1, 2, 9.) Yes, my Brethren, the time is at hand, when we are to celebrate the birth of our Redeemer- of our Saviour- of our God! That happy day approaches, which the ancient Saints so ardently longed for- that happy day, at the prospect of seeing which Abraham rejoiced; and, when he saw it in spirit only, he was glad; that happy day is fast approaching; and the Church now calls upon us to prepare our hearts for celebrating it in a propel manner. Let us do so, my Brethren, by considering, in the first place, why Jesus Christ came on earth; and, secondly, how we are to prepare our hearts to profit by His coming.
POINT I. Why Jesus Christ came upon earth.
Jesus Christ came 'to seek and to save that which was lost. (Lk. xix. 10.) To be convinced of this we need only follow Him from the manger to the Cross. The slightest attention to His life will be a sufficient proof.
1. For, why was He born in poverty, in humiliations, and sufferings? It was to teach us how to avoid and expiate sin. Why did He receive the Name of JESUS, at the same time shedding His blood? An Angel from heaven tells us the reason 'Thou shalt call His Name JESUS, for He shall save His people from their sins. (Mt. i. 21.)
2. How clearly, how forcibly, does His ardent desire for our salvation shine forth in those tender parables, which He delivered to the Jews, during the three years of His public ministry? At one time, He represents Himself as the Good Shepherd going in search of the lost sheep, and coutinuing His search till He has found it (Lk. xv.); at another time, as the kind and compassionate Samaritan, soothing and healing the wounds of one that had fallen amongst robbers (Lk. x.); and again, as the loving and forgiving Father, receiving back His prodigal but repentant son, and restoring him to favour. (Lk. xv.) These parables are so evident in their meaning and object, that they need no explanation. For how clearly, and how forcibly do they show, that 'the Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost! (Lk. xix. 10.) And more especially when we consider that the parable of the lost sheep, and that of the prodigal son, were intended by our Lord to answer the objection which the Jews had made against Him: 'This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them.) (Lk. xv. 2.)
3. If we still further consider those tender and pressing invitations, whereby He urges sinners to return to Him, how plainly again does he manifest the same earnest desire of our salvation? 'Come to Me, all you that labour and are burdened; and I will refresh you. (Mt. xi. 28.) 'Go and learn what this meaneth: I will have mercy and not sacrifice . . . For I am not come to call the just but sinners. (Mt. ix. 13.) 'Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered together thy children, as the hen doth gather her chickens under her wings, and thou wouldst not? (Mt. xxiii. 37.)
4. How powerfully, and with what complete conviction, does He still further prove the ardour of His desire of procuring our eternal happiness, by the constant labours which He underwent in teaching us the truths of salvation? 'And Jesus went about all the cities, and towns; teaching in their synagogues; and preaching the Gospel of the kingdom; and healing every disease, and every infirmity; and seeing the multitudes, He had compassion on them, because they were . . . . lying like sheep that have no shepherd. (Mt. ix. 35.) Thus did He go about from place to place, 'to enlighten them that sit in darkness, and in the shadow of death, to direct our feet into the way of peace. (Lk. i. 79.)
5. How vividly, moreover, and how strikingly has He exemplified this same earnest desire to save sinners, in the mercy by which He receive and pardoned Magdalen (Lk. vii. 48), and Zaccheus (Lk. xix. 9), the humble publican (Lk. xviii. 13) and the penitent thief? (Lk. xxiii. 43.)
Indeed, so much did He show His tender mercy towards sinners, that the Jews accused Him of being 'a friend of publicans and sinners. (Lk vii. 34.) But, in answer to them, He said: 'They that are whole need not the physician, but they that are sick: I am not come to call the just, but sinners to penance. (Lk. v. 31, 3c.)
6. Only follow Him, my Brethren, through the different stages of His Passion. Contemplate Him, agonizing in the Garden; seized by His own chosen people, and dragged by them from one tribunal to another, amidst insults, injuries, and ill-treatment of every kind; most inhumanly scourged at a pillar, and barbarously crowned with thorns; falsely accused, and unjustly condemned, and thus allowing Himself to be 'reputed with the wicked. (Is. liii. 12.)
Contemplate Him on the Cross, dying the most cruel and humiliating death; and shedding the last drop of His Sacred Blood for our Redemption; at the same time praying for His enemies, that is for sinners. Now, why did He suffer all this, but to atone for our sins, and enable us to obtain forgiveness? Why did He shed the last drop of His Blood upon the Cross, but to wash away the sins of the world, and reconcile lost man to his offended God?
7. If further proof be necessary, consider what takes place on our altars. Why does He daily renew the Adorable Sacrifice of the Mass till the end of the world? Why does He thus continue His presence amongst us; and even feed and nourish our souls with His own Body and Blood, in the Holy Communion? Could He give us stronger testimonies of the tenderest love? of the most ardent desire to save our souls?
8. And, that our sins might not prevent Him from visiting us in the Holy Communion, and enriching our souls with His strengthening graces, He has still further manifested His desire of our salvation, by instituting in His Church a means of pardon- the Sacrament of Penance.
You see, then, His great goodness and mercy towards us. His sincere desire to save, not only the just, but also sinners who return to Him by repentance.
POINT II. How we are to prepare for the coming of Jesus Christ.
Go to Him, therefore, with confidence; be not disheartened at the thought of difficulties; for His mercy will assist you. You see the means of pardon provided for you, in the Sacrament of Penance; and of future advancement and perseverance, in the Holy Communion. It is by preparing for these Sacraments, that you are to 'prepare the way of the Lord, to make straight His paths. For, by taking a review of your past sins, and by the humiliation of confession, 'every mountain and hill shall be brought low; that is, your pride will be humbled. By your contrition and resolutions of amendment 'the crooked shall be made straight; that is, your vicious habits will be corrected; divine grace, obtained by these Sacraments, will make 'the rough ways plain; that is, will smooth down every difficulty.
But you must not only bring down the mountain of pride and make your crooked ways straight by renouncing your evil habits; but you must also 'fill up every valley, that is, your want of virtue must be supplied by religious exercises by good works.
To 'fill up every valley, then, practise 'The Christian's Daily Exercise, which you find at the end of the Catechism. As you are there taught, give the first moments, when you awake, to prayer; adoring God, and offering to him your heart, with all the actions of the day. Reflect, at least for a short time, on some pious subject; resolving to conquer some vice, and to labour for some particular virtue. During the day bear in mind the presence of God; making to Him frequent aspirations of love, conformity, contrition, and patience. Be always intent upon mortifying your passions, receiving, in the spirit of penance, all the crosses, contradictions, and troubles with which you may meet.
At night, make your general and particular examination of conscience; thanking God for the blessings you have received; lamenting your sins, and craving pardon; resolving to avoid them in future, and imploring the graces necessary for that purpose.
Sanctify the Sundays and Holidays; and be regular in approaching to the Sacraments.
Practise these duties, my Brethren; then all your days will be full days'full of merit and good works; for it is by practising these duties, that 'every valley will be filled up-that every vacancy or deficiency of your past life will be supplied; that your souls will be adorned with virtue, and fitted, not only for worthily celebrating our Saviour's coming amongst us, but also for enjoying Him eternally in the Kingdom of His glory.
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| Traditional Catholics Sound Alarm As Rome Suppresses Most Old Rite Sacraments |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-15-2021, 10:42 AM - Forum: Vatican II and the Fruits of Modernism
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Traditional Catholics Sound Alarm As Rome Suppresses Most Old Rite Sacraments
They contend the Oct. 7 pastoral instruction forbidding six of the seven sacraments celebrated according to the extraordinary form is a violation of canon law and will cause spiritual harm.
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Basilica of St. John Lateran, home to the Vicariate of Rome
NCR | December 14, 2021
ROME — Canon lawyers and experts in the traditional liturgy have warned that a pastoral instruction issued by the Diocese of Rome that bans traditional communities and priests from celebrating all the sacraments with the exception of the Eucharist according to the traditional form of the Roman Rite is unlawful and will harm souls if allowed to continue.
The guidelines, issued in an Oct. 7 letter signed by Cardinal Angelo De Donatis, the Vicar of Rome, stated that in light of Pope Francis’ July 16 motu proprio Traditionis Custodes (Guardians of Tradition), it is “no longer possible to use the Roman Ritual and other liturgical books of the ‘ancient rite’ for the celebration of sacraments and sacramentals (e.g. not even the Ritual for Reconciliation of Penitents according to the ancient form).”
These sacraments, he continued, are “expressly forbidden and only the use of the Missale Romanum of 1962 [the form of the Mass celebrated before the Second Vatican Council] remains permitted.” Furthermore, he said those priests — diocesan or religious — who wished to celebrate the old Mass must have written authorization from a bishop of the diocese.
By way of the cardinal’s letter, the diocese has therefore prohibited all traditional sacramental forms of baptism, matrimony, ordination, penance, confirmation, and extreme unction (anointing of the sick) being celebrated in Rome, allowing only the Eucharist in the traditional form. The instruction also stated that the Easter Triduum could no longer be celebrated according to the Roman Missal of 1962 anywhere in the diocese.
Cardinal De Donatis, who as the Pope’s vicar general runs the diocese on the Pope’s behalf, wrote that he was issuing the instruction in order to provide “precise guidelines” for implementing Traditionis Custodes and “for the spiritual good of the faithful.”
Traditionis Custodes, an apostolic letter issued motu proprio (on the Pope’s own volition), aimed to place sweeping restrictions on the old Mass, also known as the extraordinary form of the Roman Rite, the Tridentine Mass, or the Traditional Latin Mass, that was celebrated before Pope St. Paul VI’s liturgical reforms of 1970.
The motu proprio abrogated previous papal decrees of the past 35 years that had liberalized this old form of the Mass, most notably Benedict XVI’s 2007 landmark apostolic letter Summorum Pontificum which acknowledged the right of all priests to celebrate Mass using the Roman Missal of 1962.
One of the main elements of Traditionis Custodes is the stipulation that all priests in a diocese wishing to celebrate the traditional rites must now seek authorization in writing from the diocesan bishop. It also ended the right for groups to have the Mass celebrated in parish churches among other changes.
Francis said he wanted a “return in due time” to the liturgy instituted after the Second Vatican Council, and that he had imposed the decree because some traditional faithful reject Vatican II and claim the reformed liturgy betrays “Tradition and the ‘true Church.’” He therefore said he felt impelled to take such a drastic step “in defense of the unity of the Body of Christ” after previous liberalizations of the old rite had, he believed, been exploited to expose the Church “to the peril of division.”
Exceeding Traditionis Custodes?
But critics say the Rome instruction goes far beyond the Pope’s decree, which did not mention prohibiting the old liturgical rites.
Father Gerald Murray, canonist at Holy Family Church in New York, drew attention to Article 1 of Traditionis Custodes which states that the liturgical books of the new Roman Missal “are the unique expression of the lex orandi [law of prayer] of the Roman Rite,” phrasing that he contends “does not in itself canonically establish that every other sacramental rite in use at the time of the issuance of Traditionis Custodes is prohibited.”
As examples, he highlighted other parts of the Roman Rite (for example the Anglican Ordinariate and the Ambrosian, Gallican, Dominican rites) and yet these are “plainly distinct from the ‘unique expression of the lex orandi’ found in the revised Roman rites.”
Said Father Murray, “Since the prohibition of the more ancient sacramental rites is not expressly stated in Traditionis Custodes, it should not be asserted that this supposed prohibition is, in fact, now in effect by virtue of an identification of what constitutes the ‘unique expression of the lex orandi.’”
Peter Kwasniewski, an author and expert on the traditional liturgy, noted that this absence of a clear prohibition in Traditionis Custodes means that the Rome instruction violates Canon 18 which demands that any law, penalty or restriction of free exercise of rights must be subject to “strict interpretation.”
“In other words, if a sacrament is to be canceled — clearly either a penalty, or a restriction of free exercise of rights — then it must have been expressly canceled. But Traditionis Custodes did no such thing,” Kwasniewski said.
He also said the instruction has other violations, notably Canon 17 which says that if a law’s meaning is “doubtful and obscure,” one should refer to the mind of the legislator. Kwasniewski recalled that in informal comments in September, the Pope has said the motu proprio did not suggest “abolish[ing] the old rites or the Triduum” but established “limits.”
“So either the Vicariate is departing from the mind of the legislator, or there is no clarity we can have about what exactly that mind is, in which case Canon 14 comes fully into play,” Kwasniewski argued. Canon 14 stipulates that regulations “do not oblige when there is a doubt about the law.”
Father Murray agreed, saying that by prohibiting six of the seven sacraments in the old form, the vicariate of Rome has acted “beyond the words of Traditionis Custodes and the intent of the legislator.” He added, “Thus a doubt of law exists and thus the prohibition of such celebrations lacks the force of law until such time that the doubt of law has been resolved.” He also agreed with Kwasniewski on the application of Canons 17 and 18 with respect to the Rome instruction exceeding Traditionis Custodes.
A further violation, traditional Catholics have observed, is that, as with Traditionis Custodes and its banning of creating new traditional rite parishes, the Rome prohibitions threaten to breach the Holy See-approved constitutions of traditional communities such as the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter, the Institute of Christ the King, and the Institute of the Good Shepherd — all of which have a presence in Rome.
Father Murray stressed that those constitutions “remain in effect and cannot be overridden by a pastoral letter of the Vicariate of Rome which lacks specific approval by the Pope.”
Priests Express Alarm
Three traditional priests contacted by the Register, but who did not wish to be named due to the current climate of suppression, expressed their alarm at the vicariate’s decision.
Referring to the traditional rite of baptism as an example, they contended that the old rite conveys more clearly truths of the faith such as the reality of Satan, the need to be cleansed of original sin, and the call to holiness (it has stronger and more repeated exorcisms, they argued, and the use of exorcised salt). They also said it imparts additional graces as its extra prayers each call down graces from God and the entire rite is more sacred and solemn.
Father Claude Barthe, an expert author on the traditional liturgy and priest of the Diocese of Fréjus-Toulon in France, said he believed the doctrinal message conveyed by the modern baptismal rite is “clearly weaker in at least one respect: the aspect of fighting the devil, which so strongly characterizes the traditional form of baptism, and is practically blurred.”
As for the other sacraments in the old form, the traditional priests said the spiritual battle is clearly present in them as well, as is the reality of sin, and that they act as good catechetical tools. For these and other reasons, they believe a ban would be harmful for souls.
Msgr. Charles Pope, dean and pastor in the Archdiocese of Washington, DC and a Register contributor, agreed “to some degree” with the priests and Father Barthe on the baptismal rite. But he hesitated to describe the new baptismal rite as “weaker” as the Sacraments have power ex opere operato (“from the work performed”). He preferred to speak, as St. Thomas Aquinas did, of the “fruitfulness” of the rite.
Msgr. Pope added that he favors speaking of a “mutual respect” between the older and newer forms and likes both for different reasons. The old ones, he said, are “more theologically precise and emphasize the mystery and glory of what is taking place and that we are worshipping and encountering God.” The newer rites, meanwhile, “emphasize an accessibility, are more inclusive of the faithful in the celebration of the rites and are rich in scripture.”
But he supports “reinvigorating the new rite of baptism with a more vigorous exorcism,” saying the current rite is written “more as a suggestion” whereas demons “reply to the voice of command.” The exorcisms of the old form “surely did that,” he said.
Going Underground
As a consequence of the Diocese of Rome’s prohibitions, Kwasniewski believes that adherents to receiving the sacraments in the traditional form will travel to where they can receive them, possibly a parish run by the traditional Society of St. Pius X which is not in full communion with Rome (a move that bishops have cautioned against for a variety of reasons), or watch it on television or online or defy their bishop “surreptitiously.”
Father Barthe said he believed the Rome instruction has “all the appearance of a trial balloon,” and that attempts “will be made to impose this elsewhere.” So far very few other dioceses have followed suit (Le Havre in France is one other), and no bishop is reported to have followed Cardinal De Donatis’ line in the United States.
One major concern, noted Dec. 12 by the French traditional website Paix Liturgique, is that if the prohibitions are extended to traditional communities, it would have a “devastating effect on the vocations that these communities attract.” Father Barthe said if the Rome instruction is repeated elsewhere, “we will have to risk some kind of refusal.”
Msgr. Pope said he “deeply” regretted the vicariate’s decision and feared many bishops “may view it as a model to follow” despite the instruction departing from Traditionis Custodes. He believes both forms of the rite should live peacefully alongside one another, permitting the “diversity and inclusion so often hailed by many.”
“Edging people to the margins does not seem to foster the unity Francis seeks,” Msgr. Pope said. “Holding people close to the heart of the Church who desire only what the Church has done for centuries seems far more unitive.”
The Vicariate of Rome did not respond by press time to these criticisms of the instruction, including the accusation that prohibiting the Triduum in the old rite exceeded Traditionis Custodes.
The Register also contacted for comment Archbishop Arthur Roche, prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, and Cardinal João Braz de Aviz, prefect of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life. Both are handling the application of Traditionis Custodes, in dioceses and in traditional communities respectively.
Cardinal Braz de Aviz declined to comment, while Archbishop Roche directed us to a short Nov. 14 interview with an Italian-speaking Swiss television network, in which he said Traditionis Custodes was issued because the “experiment” to liberalize the traditional rites had “not been entirely successful” and so it was necessary to return to what the Second Vatican Council “required of the Church.” In the comments aired by the station, he did not discuss prohibiting the traditional sacraments.
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| The Roche Christmas Massacre: CDW Instruction on Traditionis Custodes to be issued next week |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-15-2021, 09:00 AM - Forum: Pope Francis
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“The Roche Christmas Massacre”: CDW Instruction on Traditionis Custodes to be issued next week
Rorate Caeli | December 14, 2021
RORATE has learned, and can confirm, that the instruction of the Congregation for Divine Worship (Prefect: Archbishop Arthur Roche) on the application of the motu proprio Traditionis Custodes is to be published next week. (Unless some extraordinary measure prevents the publication of the already approved text.)
The instruction will try (among other things) to impose over the global Church, by violent and illegitimate will of the legislator, the blueprint established for the Diocese of Rome by its Cardinal Vicar months ago regarding all Sacraments other than the Holy Eucharist.
If we gather more details before publication, we will let you know.
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PRAY FOR THE PROMPT END OF THIS DARK AND SOMBER PERIOD IN CHURCH HISTORY.
RESIST.
SUPPORT ALL CLERGYMEN WHO DARE TO RESIST.
Mater Dolorosa, ora pro nobis!
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| Senior Cardinal Warns Elites Ushering In "Total Control Surveillance State" Through COVID |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-15-2021, 08:48 AM - Forum: Great Reset
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Senior Cardinal Warns Elites Ushering In "Total Control Surveillance State" Through COVID
![[Image: Screenshot-2021-12-14-at-12.52.56.png?itok=3oR1q8pf]](https://assets.zerohedge.com/s3fs-public/styles/inline_image_mobile/public/inline-images/Screenshot-2021-12-14-at-12.52.56.png?itok=3oR1q8pf)
ZH | DEC 15, 2021
Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,
A senior German Cardinal has warned that the likes of Bill Gates, George Soros and Davos Economic Forum head Klaus Schwab are using the coronavirus pandemic to force the world under “total control” of globalist “super-rich elites.”
Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Mueller, who also serves as a high ranking judge at the Vatican court, made the comments during an interview with Austria’s St. Boniface Institute.
Mueller urged that “People, who sit on the throne of their wealth,” are seizing an “opportunity to push through their agenda.”
The Cardinal added that the pandemic has led to “chaos” and “turmoil” in part due to elites wanting to “snatch an opportunity to bring people in line” via a global “surveillance state”.
Mueller also stated that globalists are making efforts to bring “a new man” into the world, created “in their own image and likeness,” warning “That has nothing to do with democracy.”
Watch (In German):
The German media immediately dismissed the Cardinal’s comments as “conspiracy theories,” with Der Spiegel magazine also suggesting that his comments could be anti-semitic.
Mueller responded to the German news agency DPA in an email stating that it is wrong to suggest that anyone who “criticizes the financial elite … is automatically on the wrong side,” and further urged that “super-rich elites in various countries” are exerting an “illegitimate influence” over the people of the planet.
Mueller is not the first prominent figure in the Catholic Church to warn about the dark objectives behind the Great Reset.
Cardinal Raymond Burke, one of the most powerful Catholics in the United States, gave a homily in which he savaged “secular forces” who want to “make us slaves to their godless and murderous agenda.”
Quote:“Then there is the mysterious Wuhan virus about whose nature and prevention the mass media daily give us conflicting information,” said Burke.
“What is clear, however, is that it has been used by certain forces, inimical to families and to the freedom of nations, to advance their evil agenda. These forces tell us that we are now the subjects of the so-called ‘Great Reset,’ the ‘new normal,’ which is dictated to us by their manipulation of citizens and nations through ignorance and fear.”
The Cardinal, who sits on the Church’s Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, the highest judicial authority in the Catholic Church, also slammed the United States’ fealty to China as a dangerous threat to Christian identity in America.
Quote:“To attain economic gains, we as a nation have permitted ourselves to become dependent upon the Chinese Communist Party, an ideology totally opposed to the Christian foundations upon which families and our nation remain safe and prosper,” he said.
Furthermore, we highlighted last November, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò wrote an open letter to President Trump claiming that the COVID-19 pandemic is part of a plot to impose a “health dictatorship.”
“We see heads of nations and religious leaders pandering to this suicide of Western culture and its Christian soul, while the fundamental rights of citizens and believers are denied in the name of a health emergency that is revealing itself more and more fully as instrumental to the establishment of an inhuman faceless tyranny,” wrote Viganò.
He added that The Great Reset sought to inflict “the imposition of liberticidal measures, hidden behind tempting promises of ensuring a universal income and cancelling individual debt.”
Catholic Cardinal Robert Sarah also recently warned that Christianity is on the decline and western society is “lost” because “if we are cut from God, we are lost and God is silent.”
The Cardinal also cautioned that “western civilization is in a profound state of decadence and ruin” due to people’s obsession with materialism and that the situation is similar to right before the collapse of the Roman Empire.
Quote:“The elites care for nothing but increasing the luxury of their daily lives, and the people have been anaesthetized by every more vulgar entertainments,” said Sarah.
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| Excerpts from the Prophecies of Ven. Bartholomew Holzhauser (1613-1658) |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-14-2021, 02:30 PM - Forum: Catholic Prophecy
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Ven. Bartholomew Holzhauser (1613-1658) - On the Great Monarch and the Angelic Pontiff
Taken from here [adapted].
![[Image: Ven%2BBatholomew%2BHolzhauser.jpg]](https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KXqe8q5CyuU/XM3_wVHuxEI/AAAAAAAACFQ/VhlfheqqVRQ7NQ-xy7cywg4KbB5zKZYMgCLcBGAs/s400/Ven%2BBatholomew%2BHolzhauser.jpg)
VEN. BARTHOLOMEW HOLZHAUSER (1613-1658) was born in Laugna, into the family of Leonard and Catherine Holzhauser, who were poor, pious, and honest people. Leonard and Catherine had eleven children, including Bartholomew. Ven. Holzhauser's father made his living as a shoemaker. Young Bartholomew developed a great love for books and an earnest desire to enter the sacred ministry. At Augsburg, he was admitted to a free school for poor boys, earning his living by going from door to door singing and begging. He fell sick of an epidemic raging at that time. After his recovery, Ven. Bartholomew went home and for a time helped his father at work.
He then continued his studies at Neuburg an der Donau and Ingolstadt, with the aid of kind friends and the Jesuits in particular. His teachers were unanimous in praising his talents, his piety, and his modesty. On July 9, 1636, he received the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, and then studied theology, in which he merited the baccalaureate on May 11, 1639. He was ordained into the priesthood by the Bishop of Eichstätt, and said his first Holy Mass on Pentecost Sunday, June 12, 1639 in the Church of Our Lady of Victory, at Ingolstadt.
He exercised his priestly functions at this place for some time and was soon much sought after as a confessor. In the meantime, he attended lectures at the university and was declared licentiate of theology on June 14, 1640. On August 1 of the same year, he came into the Archdiocese of Salzburg, and was made dean and pastor of Tittmoning. On February 2, 1642, he became pastor of St John's at Leoggenthal, in the county of Tyrol, at the behest of the Bishop of Chiemsee. In the spring of 1655, at the invitation of Archbishop Johann Philipp von Schönborn, he went to Mainz where he was soon appointed pastor at Bingen on the Rhine, and in 1657, dean of the district of Algesheim.
Because the faithful had become lukewarm, and morals and discipline had relaxed not only in the laity but also in the clergy in the aftermath of the Thirty Years War in Europe, Ven. Holzhauser founded an order called the Bartholomites to counteract the moral decline of times. It also became known as the Apostolic Union of Secular Priests promoting an apostolic life in the community and forming models of priestly perfection and zealous leaders of the people. Their principal task was to educate in the seminaries. The members of the secular congregation were expected to live in the seminaries, or in groups of two or three in the parishes, and to follow a set routine of daily prayers and exercises. Funds were to be in common, and all female servants were to be dismissed. No vows were taken, but a simple promise of obedience to the superior was made, confirmed by an oath.
Holzhauser died, aged 45, at Bingen. At the time of his death, the community had members at Chiemsee, Salzburg, Freising, Eichstätt, Würzburg, and Mainz. The institute, however, made many enemies. Unfortunately, at the end of the eighteenth century the community he founded became extinct. On the occasion of the second centenary of his death, a celebration was held at Bingen in the presence of the Bishop of Mainz. The location of his remains was again found and in 1880, a new monument was erected over his grave at the parish church, and Bartholomew was declared Venerable by the Roman Catholic Church.
THE GREAT MONARCH AND ANGELIC PONTIFF
Ven. Holzhauser was a visionary and made several predictions, which he presented 1646 to Emperor Ferdinand III and to Duke Maximilian I, Elector of Bavaria. Ludwig Clarus published these visions, along with a commentary showing their partial fulfilment, in German, in 1849. One of the predictions was that England would not have the Mass for 120 years, priest would not be able to say it under pain of death, after which England would convert and help to spread the Faith after its conversion, this seems to have been partially fulfilled for the prohibition of the Mass under penalty of capital punishment was enacted in 1658 and partially recalled in 1778.
He also wrote extensive personal commentaries on the Apocalypse, which include the Great Monarch and Angelic Pontiff prophecies. Although they appear to be a personal interpretation, his commentaries were held in great esteem by his contemporaries. Having once been asked where he could have received such extraordinary insight for the interpretation of so difficult a book, with tears in his eyes Ven. Holzhauser answered, “I am nothing but a little child, whose hand and pen his teacher holds and guides to make him write.”
THE SEVEN AGES OF THE CHURCH
Ven. Holzhauser divides the periods and the duration of the Church from Jesus Christ until the end of the world into seven ages or seven different epochs. He founds this seven-fold division on the seven churches of Asia, the seven candlesticks, the seven stars, the seven seals, seven spirits, seven trumpets, seven plagues of the Apocalypse, and also on the seven days of creation mentioned in the first chapter of Genesis. According to him,
1) The first age or special epoch of the Church begins with Jesus Christ and lasts until the first persecution under the pagan emperor, Nero.
2) The second, from Nero to Constantine the Great
3) The third, from Constantine till Charlemagne
4) The fourth, from Charlemagne to Charles V, the pontificate of Leo X., and the heresy of Martin Luther
5) The fifth age, from Luther up until ….
6) The sixth age, which begin with the arrival of the Great Monarch and Angelic Pontiff – this will be the Age of Concolation for the Church, the promised Age of Peace. The Age of Peace of the Sixth Age will end with the rise of the Antichrist, but the Sixth Age itself won't end until the Second Coming of Christ.
7) The seventh will introduce the elect to the 'eternal sabbath' – i.e. The Second Coming of Christ when the Last Day occurs, the Last Judgement takes place and Eternity begins with the New Heaven and the New Earth.
Therefore, according to Ven. Holzhauser we are yet in the Fifth Age of the Church and awaiting the Sixth, and we seem very close to it.
Here are his prophecies concerning this era:
“The fifth period of the Church, which began circa 1520, will end with the arrival of the holy Pope and of the powerful Monarch who is called "Help From God" because he will restore everything [in Christ]…”
“The fifth period is one of affliction, desolation, humiliation, and poverty for the Church. Jesus Christ will purify His people through cruel wars, famines, plagues, epidemics, and other horrible calamities. He will also afflict and weaken the Latin Church with many heresies. It is a period of defections, calamities and exterminations. Those Christians who survive the sword, plague and famines, will be few on earth. Nations will fight against nations and will be desolated by internecine dissensions…”
“During this period the Wisdom of God guides the Church in. several ways: 1) by chastising the Church so that riches may not corrupt her completely; 2) by interposing the Council of Trent like a light in the darkness, so that the Christians who see the light may know what to believe, 3) by setting St. Ignatius and his Society in opposition to Luther and other heretics (i.e note the Jesuits were a force to be reckoned with in opposing the Lutheran heresies at the time, hence it is no wonder they came under such attack later) ; 4) by carrying to remote lands the Faith which has been banned in most of Europe…”
(NOTE: while this interpretation starts with the beginning of the Fifth period which means the rise of Luther, Ven. Holzhauser obviously predicted that the heresies Luther started would continue to wreak havoc and grow until the Great Monarch and Angelic Pontiff bring about the restoration of the Church hence - the COUNCIL OF TRENT not only was but will continue to be a guiding light in the time of darkness of the Church. According to Ven. Holzhuaser then, those who stay true to the declarations of the Council of Trent will not be led astray from the true Faith. Of interest, Bl. Catherine of Racconigi predicted that the aims of the Council of Trent would be fully accomplished with the arrival of Great Monarch and Angelic Pontiff.)
“Are we not to fear during this period that the Mohamedans (i.e. Muslims and the rise of Islam) will come again working out their sinister schemes against the Latin church…?”
“During this period, many men will abuse the freedom of conscience conceded to them. It is of such men that Jude the Apostle spoke when he said, ‘These men blaspheme whatever they do not understand; and they corrupt whatever they know naturally as irrational animals do… They feast together without restraint, feeding themselves, grumbling murmurers, walking according to their lusts; their mouth speaketh proud things, they admire people for the sake of gain; they bring about division, sensual men, having not the spirit.’”
“During this unhappy period, there will be laxity in divine and human precepts. Discipline will suffer. The Holy Canons will be completely disregarded, and the Clergy will not respect the laws of the Church. Everyone will be carried away and led to believe and to do what he fancies, according to the manner of the flesh…”
“They will ridicule Christian simplicity; they will call it folly and nonsense, but they will have the highest regard for advanced knowledge, and for the skill by which the axioms of the law, the precepts of morality, the Holy Canons and religious dogmas are clouded by senseless questions and elaborate arguments. As a result, no principle at all, however holy, authentic, ancient, and certain it may be, will remain free of censure, criticism, false interpretation, modification, and delimitation by man…”
(NOTE: apparently, Ven. Holzhausuer's comments on the time of corruption before the renewal of the Church. The world will grow corrupt and the Church will also fall into decay as it turns on its ancient Traditions and twists it to suit the times. Note the word 'modification'.)
“These are evil times, a century full of dangers and calamities. Heresy is everywhere, and the followers of heresy are in power almost everywhere. Bishops, prelates, and priests say that they are doing their duty, that they are vigilant, and that they live as befits their state in life. In like manner, therefore, they all seek excuses. But God will permit a great evil against His Church: Heretics and tyrants will come suddenly and unexpectedly; they will break into the Church while bishops, prelates and priests are asleep. They will enter Italy and lay Rome waste; they will burn down the churches and destroy everything.…”
(OBSERVATION: Ven. Holzhauser notes this period of degradation will LAST A CENTURY. He predicts this century of heretical intrusions and moral laxity in the Church will apparently be nearing its climax or basically reaching its end when ROME IS BURNED AND LAID WASTE. In another prediction, Ven. Holzhauser says Satan will be bound for a time when the Great Monarch comes, which means SATAN will be given liberty BEFORE ROME BURNS AND THE RENEWAL BEGINS. So, could this be another prediction of 'SATAN's CENTURY' as foreseen by Pope Leo XIII? If so, re will be nearing the end of Satan's Century when Rome burns and is laid waste.)
“The Sixth Age of the Spirit commences with the powerful Monarch and the Holy Pontiff as previously mentioned and will last until the appearance of the Antichrist. This sixth epoch of the church – “the time of consolation” begins with the Holy Pope and the Powerful Emperor and terminates with the reign of Antichrist. This will be an age of solace wherein God will console His church after the many mortifications and afflictions she has endured in the Fifth period, for all nations will be brought to the unity of the True catholic faith. The sacerdocy will flower more than ever, and men will seek the kingdom of God in all solicitude. The Lord will give good pastors to the Church. Vocations will be abundant as never before and all men will seek only the kingdom of God and His justice. Men will live in peace and this will be granted because people will make their peace with God. They will live under the protection of the Great Monarch and his successors….”
“The Great Monarch will come when the Latin Church is desolated, humiliated, and afflicted with many heresies….”
(NOTE: the one strange contradiction here is he says the Great Monarch will have successors, therefore, possible heirs, but that cannot be possible according to the rest of his predictions, which says the Monarch will reign until the Antichrist appears after which there is the Second Coming, and then, in another prediction by Ven. Holzhauser, the Great Monarch he will continue to rule his kingdom even after the Second Coming with Christ, which is an interesting hint that Ven. Holzhauser believed that Christ will delegate kingdoms of the New Earth to deserving chosen saints. So, it is difficult to know what he means by 'successors' in this instance. It cannot mean an 'heir'.
“The Sixth Epoch of the World, which commences with the emancipation of the people of Israel and the restoration of the Temple and of the city of Jerusalem, will endure until the advent of Jesus Christ…For likewise, in this epoch, the people of Israel will be consoled to a very high degree by the Lord, our God, who will deliver them from the captivity of Babylon. The kingdoms, the nations, and the people will submit to the Roman Empire, furiously vanquished by the very powerful and very illustrious monarch who will govern during fifty-six years, rendering the peace of the universe and reigning alone until the advent of Jesus Christ and even after him. Thus, in the Sixth Age, God will delight his Church with the greatest prosperity…”
Apparently, this is Ven. Holzhauser's interpretation of Chapter 10 of the Apocalypse featuring the great Angel who gives St. John a book to eat:
“The “angel” is the Great Monarch: “from heaven” means he will be a catholic: “clothed in clouds” implies he will be humble and modest; “rainbow” he will bring peace to the world; “sunshine” refers to his wisdom, talents and title; “feet” refers to his power and zeal; “Open book” he will rule with justice “Right and left foot” he will exercise power over all the world; “Lion Voice” he will put fear into the wicked. The “Golden Crown” refers to his Holy Roman Empire; “Cutlass” means his victorious army; the other “angel” refers to the pope (Angelic pastor). “Other angels” are the other helpers of the Great Monarch who will help him crush the Turks…”
“During the fifth period we saw only calamities and devastation, oppression of Catholics by tyrants and heretics, executions of kings and conspiracies to set up republics but by the hand of God almighty there occurs so wonderful a change during the sixth period that no one can humanly visualize it. The powerful Monarch, who is sent from God, will uproot every Republic. He will submit everything to this authority and he will show great zeal for the true church of Christ. The empire of the Mohamedans will be broken up and the monarch will reign in the east as well as in the west. All nations will come to worship God in the true and Catholic Roman faith. There will be many saints and doctors of the church on earth. Peace will reign over the whole earth because God will bind Satan for a number of years before the days of the Son of Perdition. No one will be able to pervert the word of God since during the sixth period there will be an ecumenical council which will be the greatest of all councils. By the grace of God, by the power of the great Monarch, by the authority of the holy pontiff and by union of all the most devout princes atheism and every heresy will be banished from the earth. The council will define the true sense of Holy Scripture and this will be beloved and accepted by everyone.”
“When everything has been ruined by war; when Catholics are hard pressed by traitorous co-religionists and heretics, then the Hand of Almighty God will work a marvellous change, something apparently impossible according to human understanding. There will rise a valiant monarch anointed by God. He will be a Catholic, a descendant of Louis IX, yet a descendant of an ancient imperial German family, born in exile. He will rule supreme in temporal matters. The Pope will rule supreme in spiritual matters at the same time. Persecution will cease and justice shall rule. Religion seems to be suppressed, but by the changes of entire kingdoms it will be made more firm….He will root out false doctrines and destroy the rule of Moslemism. His dominion will extend from the East to the West. All nations will adore God their Lord according to the Catholic teaching. There will be many wise and just men. The people will love justice, and peace will reign over the whole earth, for divine power will bind Satan for many years until the coming of the Son of Perdition.”
“The reign of the Great Ruler may be compared with that of Caesar Augustus who became Emperor after his victory over his enemies, thereby giving peace to the world, also with the reign of Constantine the Great, who was sent by God, after severe persecution, to deliver both the Church and State. By his victories on water and land he brought the Roman Empire under subjection which
he then ruled in peace”
"On account of a terrible war Germany will wail, France will be the cause of all the woe, Germany will be miserably wounded, all will be impoverished. England shall suffer much. The King shall be killed.
"After desolation has reached its peak in England peace will be restored and England will return to the Catholic faith with greater fervor than ever before.
“[After a world war] will come a new period, in which two mighty ones will face each other. The wrangle between these two will begin in the second half of the twentieth century. It will overthrow mountains and silt up rivers. A great change will come to pass, such as no mortal man will have expected; Heaven and Hell will confront each other in this struggle, old states will perish and light and darkness will be pitted against each other with swords, but it will be swords of a different fashion. With these swords it will be possible to cut up the skies and split the earth. A great lament will come over all mankind and only a small batch will survive the storm, the pestilence and the horror. And neither of the two adversaries will conquer nor be vanquished. Both mighty ones will lie on the ground, and a new mankind will come into existence. God possesses the key to everything. Blessed is he who will then be able to praise him, having obeyed all his commandments. And the great monarch of the world will create new laws for the new mankind and will cause a new age to begin, in which there will be only one flock and one shepherd, and peace will be of long, long duration, for the glory of God in heaven and on earth…”
“Now the Great Monarch also will dominate over all the beasts of the earth, that is to say over the barbarian nations, over the rebellious peoples, over the heretic republics and over all men dominated by their evil passions…”
“It is in that age that the relation of the sixth Spirit of the Lord will be known, that is to say the Spirit of Wisdom that God diffuses over all the surfaces of the globes in those times. For men will fear the Lord their God, they will observe the law and serve it with all their heart. The sciences will be multiplied and complete on the earth. The Holy Scriptures will be unanimously understood, without controversy and without the errors of heresies. Men will be enlightened, so much as in the natural sciences and in the celestial sciences…”
“Finally, the Sixth Church, the Church of Philadelphia, is the type of this sixth age, for Philadelphia signifies friendship of brothers, and again guarding the heritage in union with the Lord. Now all these characters convene perfectly in the sixth age, in which they will have love, concord and perfect peace and in which the powerful Monarch will have to consider almost the entire world as his heritage. He will deliver up the earth, with the aid of the Lord his God from all his enemies, of ruin and of all evil…”
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| The Catholic Family Handbook by Rev. George Kelly |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-14-2021, 10:52 AM - Forum: Resources Online
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The Catholic Family Handbook
Foreword by FRANCIS CARDINAL SPELLMAN Archbishop of New York
Copyright, 1959, by Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 59-10826
NIHIL OBSTAT: John A. Goodwine, J.C.D., Censor Librorum
IMPRIMATUR: Francis Cardinal Spellman, Archbishop of New York
August 22, 1959
This book is a memorial to eleven wonderful and happy years in Saint Monica's Parish, New York City, and to people I will always cherish with fond affection.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many good people have made the writing of this book a pleasure and have contributed much to the finished product. Our Regional Family Life Directors in New York have organized the family apostolate from which has been drawn some of the viewpoints and experiences recorded herein. The writer wishes publicly to acknowledge the work of the Reverends John Mulroy, James Keating, William Shelley, William McManus, John Hawes, John Hynes, John Scanlon, and Raymond Hill, and to thank them for their enthusiastic support and co-operation. The important part played by Dr. Bernard Pisani, in the success of "The Catholic Marriage Manual," both as friend and collaborator, is belatedly recognized. To John Springer is owed a special debt of gratitude. Mr. Springer was a constant source of help in assisting the author finish this work. His time, intelligence, and energy were always at my disposal. I am sincerely appreciative of his unselfishness and that of Paul Lapolla of Random House, whose personal concern and criticism helped us progress. Last and certainly not least, the author wishes to thank his Archbishop, Francis Cardinal Spellman, not only for the Foreword to the book, which sums up so well its purpose and spirit, but also for his interest and encouragement during the year of writing.
FOREWORD
By His Eminence, Francis Cardinal Spellman
Archbishop of New York
There is no art or profession more difficult and more strenuous than that of molding the bodies, minds, and souls of children. Because these are tender creatures, easily influenced by wrong guidance, God made parents the first and most important educators of children. When God confides a child to the care of Christian parents, He seems to say to them what Pharoah's daughter said to the mother of the infant Moses: "Take this child and rear him for Me."
The family, then, in God's plan is the nursery school in which the man of tomorrow matures and is formed--for life and eternity. The foundations of Christian living are established in the home, where minds are opened to God's Presence in the Universe and virtue is nurtured and strengthened. Children are eager pupils following the examples their father and mother give--learning from their words, their actions, and their attitudes.
How serious then, is their obligation to be good teachers. How tragic when they neglect their duties or perform them carelessly or indifferently!
In the training of children for effective Christian living, none can fully take the place of parents. If the home fails to measure up to divine ideals, the Church and school labor with impaired fruitfulness.
But it is not enough to be conscious of an obligation and to have the desire of discharging it. Parents must have besides, the competency to render them capable of fulfilling their responsibilities. Hence Catholic parents should deem it a sacred duty to prepare themselves properly for the arduous work of educating citizens of heaven and earth.
"The Catholic Family Handbook" performs a real service for parents. It helps fathers and mothers realize the full meaning of their sacred calling and offers them practical directives for dealing with the problems of educating modern youth; and they will find in its pages ways and means to perfect their relationship with their children.
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| The “Everything Was Tested on HEK” Lie |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-14-2021, 10:19 AM - Forum: Abortion
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Excerpt:
Quote:The “Everything Was Tested on HEK” Lie
![[Image: Fr.-Schneider-Beware-of-False-Claims-108...db0&189db0]](https://catholicfamilynews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Fr.-Schneider-Beware-of-False-Claims-1084x500.jpg?189db0&189db0)
Catholic Family News - Paul Casey, M.D. | December 9, 2021
On September 24, 2021, a Catholic Airman in United States Air Force, who graduated from the Academy with Military, Academic, and Athletic honors, was denied a religious exemption from receiving a COVID vaccine because she was told her objection did not constitute a “sincerely held belief”[1] after she admitted taking Tylenol, ibuprofen, and other over-the-counter medications. She was told that those medications, too, had been “tested” on the HEK-293 cell line. When she asked on what basis this testing claim was being made, her superior officer provided her with a single source[2] — an article by Fr. Matthew Schneider, LC, entitled, “If Any Drug Tested on HEK-293 is Immoral, Goodbye Modern Medicine.”
Her denial was based on a lie.
Note: Merriam-Webster’s dictionary defines a “lie” as “an untrue or inaccurate statement that may or may not be believed true by the speaker or writer.” So does Webster’s. So do others. For the purpose of this article, there will be no distinction made between what some insist on calling an “untruth” and what will be referred to hereafter as a “lie”, or, more precisely, lies, as per the definition above, referring to the statements as they exist on paper.
Read the entire article here.
Download the PDF here.
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