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Abp. Viganò reflects on Easter 2021 in light of Coronavirus |
Posted by: Stone - 03-23-2021, 07:42 AM - Forum: Archbishop Viganò
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Abp. Viganò reflects on Easter 2021 in light of coronavirus tyranny
If we allow the hateful tyranny of sin and rebellion against Christ to be established, the folly of Covid will be only the beginning of hell on earth.
Si iniquitates observaveris, Domine: Domine, quis sustinebit? Ps 129 : 3
Mors et vita duello conflixere mirando.
Last year, with a decision as incomprehensible as it was wretched, for the first time in the Christian era, the Catholic hierarchy placed limitations on the celebration of Easter, following the mainstream narration of the pandemic. Many of the faithful, constrained by measures of confinement that were as demonstrably useless as they were counter-productive, were able to unite themselves spiritually to the Holy Sacrifice, assisting at the liturgical functions via computer. One year later, nothing has changed with respect to then, and we hear it repeated once again that we ought to prepare ourselves for a further lockdown in order to allow the population to be subjected to an experimental genetic serum, imposed by the pharmaceutical lobby despite their not knowing what long-term side effects there may be. In many nations they are beginning to ban their use, due to the suspicious deaths that are following inoculation; and yet, despite the pounding campaign of media terrorism, basic treatments show themselves to be effective and capable of drastically reducing the number of hospitalizations and, consequently, also the number of deaths.
As Catholics, we are called to understand the scope of how much, for more than a year, all of humanity has been forced to undergo in the name of an emergency that – according to the official data in hand – has caused a number of deaths that is no different from that of preceding years. We are called to understand, even before believing: because if the Lord has endowed us with an intelligence, he has done so in order for us to use it to recognize and judge the reality which surrounds us. In the act of Faith the baptized person does not renounce his own rationality in an acritical fideism, but rather accepts what the Lord reveals to him, bowing before the authority of God, who does not deceive us and who is the Truth itself.
Our capacity to intus legere events preserves us, in the light of Grace, from going down the path of that sort of reckless irrationality which viceversa those display who up until yesterday were celebrating science as the necessary antidote to “religious superstition,” and who today celebrate the self-styled “experts” as new priests of the pandemic, denying the most elementary principles of modern medicine. And if for the Christian a true plague is a salutary call to conversion and penance for the faults of individuals and of nations, for the initiates of the health religion a treatable flu syndrome is said to be the cry of Mother Earth violated by humanity – a step-mother Nature, to which many turn with the words of Leopardi: Why do you not later return that which you promised then? Do you deceive your children so much? We realize that the tribal cruelty, the primitive force like a planetary virus which would like to exterminate us, does not reside in Nature, of which the Creator is the admirable architect, but rather in an elite that is subservient to globalist ideology, which on the one hand wants to impose the tyranny of the New World Order, and on the other, in order to maintain power, generously rewards those who put themselves at its service. The rebels, those who resist, are conversely annihilated in their possessions, deprived of freedom, forced to undergo unreliable testings and ineffective vaccines in the name of a superior good which they must accept without any possibility of dissent or criticism.
A few days ago, a woman, believing that she would appear endowed with common sense, said that it is necessary to submit to the use of the mask and social distancing not only because of their effectiveness, but also to support our political leaders, in hope of a relaxation of the measures adopted so far: “If we put on the mask and get vaccinated, maybe they will stop it and let us live again,” she commented. In response to this observation, an elderly man responded that a Jewish person in Germany in the 1930’s might have thought that wearing the Star of David sewn on his jacket would somehow satisfy Hitler’s delusions, avoiding far worse violations and saving himself from deportation. Faced with this calm objection, the woman who was speaking with him was shaken, understanding the disturbing similarity between the Nazi dictatorship and the pandemic madness of our own time; between the way in which tyranny could be imposed on millions of citizens by leveraging their fear, then as now. The citizens of Germany allowed themselves to be persuaded to obey, to not react against the violation of the rights of the German citizens whose only crime was that they were Jews, and themselves became informants about the “criminals” to the civil authority. And I ask myself: what difference is there between the denunciation of a neighbor who is hiding a Jewish family and the zealous reporting of those who have friends over to their house in violation of an unconstitutional provision that limits the freedom of citizens? In both instances, are the denouncers not respecting the law and observing the norms, while these same norms violate the rights of a part of the population that has been criminalized, yesterday on a racial basis and today on a health basis? Have we learned nothing from the horrors of the past?
The voice of the Church calls upon the Divine Majesty to remove “flagella tuae iracundiae, quae pro peccatis nostris meremur [the scourge of your wrath, which we merit for our sins].” These scourges have been manifested in the course of History by wars, plagues, and famines; today they are manifested by the tyranny of globalism, capable of creating more victims than a world war and destroying national economies more than any earthquake could. We must understand that if the Lord should allow the creators of the Covid emergency to succeed, it will certainly be for our greater good. Because today the little that remains in our society that is still inspired by Christian civilization, and which up until yesterday we considered normal and taken for granted, is now forbidden: exercising our fundamental freedoms, going to church to pray, going out with our friends, having dinner with our loved ones, being able to open a shop or a restaurant and earn our living honestly, going to school or taking a trip.
If this pseudo-pandemic is a scourge, it is not difficult to understand what the sins are for which Heaven is punishing us: crimes, abortions, murders, homicides, divorces, violence, perversions, vices, thefts, deceptions, betrayals, lies, profanations, and cruelty. Both public sins as well as the sins of individuals. The sins of God’s enemies as well as the sins of His friends. The sins of lay people and the sins of clergy, of the lowly as well as the leaders, of the governed as well as those who govern, of the young as well as the old, of men as well as women.
They are mistaken who believe that the violation of our natural rights that we are undergoing has no supernatural significance, and that our share of responsibility in making ourselves complicit in what is happening is irrelevant. Jesus Christ is the Lord of History, and whoever would like to banish the Prince of Peace from the world that He created and redeemed with His Most Precious Blood does not want to accept the inexorable defeat of Satan, the eternal loser. And so, in a delirium that has all the features of hybris, his servants are moving as if the victory of evil was now certain, while in reality it is necessarily ephemeral and momentary. The nemesis that is being prepared for them will remind us of the people of Israel after the crossing of the Red Sea, and that Pharaoh could not have done anything if it were not permitted by God.
Christian Easter, the true Passover of which the Old Testament Passover was only a figure, is accomplished on Golgotha, on the blessed wood of the Cross. Jesus Christ is the perfect Altar, Priest and Victim of that Sacrifice. The Agnus Dei, pointed out by the Forerunner on the banks of the Jordan, took upon himself the sins of the world in order to offer himself as a human and divine victim to the Father, restoring in His Blood the order violated by our first Parent. It is there, on Calvary, that the true Great Reset took place, thanks to which the inextinguishable debt of the children of Adam was cancelled by the infinite merits of the Passion of the Redeemer, ransoming us from the slavery of sin and death.
Without repenting of our sins, without the intention of amending our life and conforming it to the will of God, we cannot hope that the consequences of our sins, which offend the Divine Majesty and can be appeased only by penance, will disappear. Our Lord has shown us the royal way of the Cross: “Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, so you may follow in his footsteps” (1 Pt 2:21). Let us each take up our cross, denying ourselves and following the Divine Master. Let us draw near to Holy Easter with the knowledge that we are always beneath the gaze of the Lord: “You had gone astray like sheep, but now you have returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls” (1 Pt 2:25). And let us remember that on the dies irae we will all certainly have Him as our Judge, but thanks to Baptism we have merited the right to recognize Him as Brother and Friend.
We ask the Supreme Judge, using the words of Sacred Scripture: “Discerne causam meam de gente non sancta, ab homine iniquo et doloso erue me [Distinguish my cause from the nation that is not holy, deliver me from the unjust and deceitful man].” To the Merciful Father who in His Divine Son has made us heirs of eternal glory, we address with humility the words of David: “Amplius lava me ab iniquitate mea, et a peccato meo munda me [Wash me more and more from my iniquity, and cleanse me of my sin].” We ask the Consoler Spirit: “Da virtutis meritum, da salutis exitum, da perenne gaudium [Grant the reward of virtue, grant the deliverance of salvation, grant eternal joy].”
If we really want this so-called pandemic to collapse like a house of cards – as has always happened for far worse scourges, when the Lord decreed their end – let us remember to acknowledge to Him, and Him alone, that universal Lordship which we usurp each time we sin, refusing to obey His holy Law and thus making ourselves slaves of Satan. If we desire the peace of Christ, it is Christ who must reign, and it is His kingdom we must desire, beginning with ourselves, our family, our circle of friends and acquaintances, our religious community. Adveniat regnum tuum. If instead we allow the hateful tyranny of sin and rebellion against Christ to be established, the folly of Covid will be only the beginning of hell on earth.
Let us therefore prepare for Confession and Easter Communion with this spirit of reparation and expiation for our own sins as well as for those of our brothers, of the men of the Church and of those who govern us. The true and holy “new Renaissance” to which we ought to aspire should be the life of Grace, friendship with God, and constancy with His Most Holy Mother and the Saints. The true “nothing will be as it was before” must be the one we say when we rise from the confessional with the resolve to sin no more, offering our heart to the Eucharistic King as a throne where he delights to dwell, consecrating our every action, thought, and breath to Him.
May these be our wishes for the coming Easter of the Resurrection, beneath the kindly gaze of Our Queen and Lady, Co-Redemptrix and Mediatrix of all Graces.
+ Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop
March 9, 2021
[Emphasis mine.]
Source
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April 26th - Our Lady of Good Counsel |
Posted by: Elizabeth - 03-22-2021, 10:24 PM - Forum: April
- Replies (1)
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Our Lady of Good Counsel
(1467)
The apparition of Our Lady of Good Counsel is so celebrated, Her picture so well known and so honored in the Church, that it is very fitting to allot a place to this devotion. The little city of Gennazano, situated on the mountains of the former Sabina province, about ten leagues from Rome, for a thousand years already had honored the Blessed Virgin as Our Lady of Good Counsel. In the 15th century, the church of that city was dilapidated and about to collapse. A pious woman of advanced age named Petruccia desired to provide for its reconstruction, but the gift of her entire fortune, which she made for this purpose, proved insufficient. Petruccia foretold that the Blessed Virgin would Herself finish the work.
Then on April 25, 1467, at the hour of Vespers, a celestial harmony was heard in the air, and the crowd saw a brilliant cloud coming down through the air, which came to rest over the altar in the Chapel of Saint Blaise in the Gennazano Church, where the restoration had begun. At the same time, all the church bells began to ring joyously. The cloud disappeared, and the marveling crowd saw a picture of Mary holding the Child Jesus, painted on a prepared surface, suspended in the air over the altar near the wall, without any natural support. It was duly verified that this picture had been miraculously transported from a church of Scutari, a city of Albania. Providence, wishing to preserve it from profanation by the Turks who were controlling that land, sent it as a reward for the faith of Petruccia and her fellow citizens of Gennazano.
A history of the marvels of all kinds which have been wrought since that time near this miraculous picture, suspended in the air, would require volumes. Often the picture has been seen to change its expression, the eyes of the Blessed Virgin taking on an appearance of joy or sorrow. How many illnesses and infirmities have been cured! How many spiritual graces have been obtained! Gennazano in Italy is still a venerated pilgrimage site, much frequented by the people of that land, and many pious pilgrims from other nations, when time permits it for them, arrange to visit this blessed sanctuary. The Sovereign Pontiffs have granted many indulgences to devotion to Our Lady of Good Counsel, and the title Mother of Good Counsel was included in the Litany of the Blessed Virgin by Pope Leo XIII.
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April 26th - Our Lady of Good Counsel |
Posted by: Elizabeth - 03-22-2021, 10:24 PM - Forum: Our Lady
- Replies (3)
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Our Lady of Good Counsel
(1467)
The apparition of Our Lady of Good Counsel is so celebrated, Her picture so well known and so honored in the Church, that it is very fitting to allot a place to this devotion. The little city of Gennazano, situated on the mountains of the former Sabina province, about ten leagues from Rome, for a thousand years already had honored the Blessed Virgin as Our Lady of Good Counsel. In the 15th century, the church of that city was dilapidated and about to collapse. A pious woman of advanced age named Petruccia desired to provide for its reconstruction, but the gift of her entire fortune, which she made for this purpose, proved insufficient. Petruccia foretold that the Blessed Virgin would Herself finish the work.
Then on April 25, 1467, at the hour of Vespers, a celestial harmony was heard in the air, and the crowd saw a brilliant cloud coming down through the air, which came to rest over the altar in the Chapel of Saint Blaise in the Gennazano Church, where the restoration had begun. At the same time, all the church bells began to ring joyously. The cloud disappeared, and the marveling crowd saw a picture of Mary holding the Child Jesus, painted on a prepared surface, suspended in the air over the altar near the wall, without any natural support. It was duly verified that this picture had been miraculously transported from a church of Scutari, a city of Albania. Providence, wishing to preserve it from profanation by the Turks who were controlling that land, sent it as a reward for the faith of Petruccia and her fellow citizens of Gennazano.
A history of the marvels of all kinds which have been wrought since that time near this miraculous picture, suspended in the air, would require volumes. Often the picture has been seen to change its expression, the eyes of the Blessed Virgin taking on an appearance of joy or sorrow. How many illnesses and infirmities have been cured! How many spiritual graces have been obtained! Gennazano in Italy is still a venerated pilgrimage site, much frequented by the people of that land, and many pious pilgrims from other nations, when time permits it for them, arrange to visit this blessed sanctuary. The Sovereign Pontiffs have granted many indulgences to devotion to Our Lady of Good Counsel, and the title Mother of Good Counsel was included in the Litany of the Blessed Virgin by Pope Leo XIII.
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April 25th - St. Mark |
Posted by: Elizabeth - 03-22-2021, 10:23 PM - Forum: April
- Replies (2)
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Saint Mark
Evangelist
(† 63)
Saint Mark was converted to the Faith by the Prince of the Apostles, whom he later accompanied to Rome, acting there as his secretary or interpreter. When Saint Peter wrote his First Epistle to the churches of Asia, he affectionately joined to his own salutation that of his faithful companion, whom he calls my son Mark. The Roman people entreated Saint Mark to put in writing for them the substance of Saint Peter's frequent discourses on Our Lord's life. This the Evangelist did under the eye and with the express sanction of the Apostle, and every page of his brief but graphic Gospel so bore the impress of Saint Peter's character, that the Fathers used to name it Peter's Gospel.
Saint Mark was then sent to Egypt to found the Church of Alexandria. There his disciples became the wonder of the world for their piety and asceticism; Saint Jerome speaks of Saint Mark as the father of the anchorites who at a later time thronged the Egyptian deserts. There, too, he set up the first Christian school, the fruitful mother of many illustrious doctors and bishops.
After governing his see for many years, Saint Mark was seized one day by the heathen, dragged by ropes over stones, and thrown into prison. On the morrow the torture was repeated, and after receiving the consolation of the sight of Angels and the voice of Jesus, Saint Mark went to his reward.
It is to Saint Mark that we owe the many pictorial touches which often give such vivid color to the Gospel scenes, and help us to visualize the very gestures and appearance of our Blessed Lord. It is he alone who notes that in the temptation Jesus was with the beasts; that He slept in the boat on a pillow; that He embraced the little children. He alone preserves for us the command, Peace, be still! by which the storm was quelled, and even the very Aramaic words He spoke, the Ephpheta and the Talitha, cumi! by which the dumb were made to speak and the dead to rise.
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Si Si No No [1998]: Cardinal Ratzinger |
Posted by: Stone - 03-22-2021, 01:43 PM - Forum: The Architects of Vatican II
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CARDINAL RATZINGER
COMMUNION WITHOUT CONFESSION AND THE 1983 CODE OF CANON LAW
The Fideism of Cardinal Ratzinger, Perfect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith
On Oct. 27, 1996, the Osservatore Romano published Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger's conference given to the "presidents of the Commission for the Doctrine of the Faith of the Latin American Episcopal Conferences (Guadalajara, Mexico, May 1996)." The title of the conference was "Relativism has become today's main problem as far as Faith and Theology are concerned." This conference made it unmistakably clear that the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has a very wide concept of "theology" as well as of "faith." So wide, in fact, that he includes everything: errors, heresies, together with outright apostasies.
Let us now follow him, point by point, at least in the most important passages of his address.
POPE ST. PlUS X WAS ABSOLUTELY RIGHT
In the first part of his conference, Card. Ratzinger refers to "liberation theology" and to "theological relativism," especially those represented by the "American Presbyterian J. Hick" and by "P. Knitter, a former Catholic priest, " as well as by the "New Age" movement.
As is his wont, the Cardinal Prefect shows his considerable ability for synthesis and, in a certain measure, also for critique. Thus, for instance, he writes that in "liberation theology," which he considers as being already out-of-date,
Quote:"redemption became a political process [and therefore - we add - temporal and terrestrial or worldly] to which Marxist philosophy provided its general direction or basic orientation."
Regarding "theological relativism," he tells us that it
Quote:"starts from Kant's distinction between phenomena and noumena: we are not able to attain to ultimate reality in itself, since we can only see it through diverse 'lenses' by our own way of perception." Therefore, "the identification of a singular historical figure, Jesus of Nazareth, with 'reality' itself, that is, with the living God, is rejected out of hand as being a lapse back into myth: Jesus is expressly relativized as just one more religious genius among so many others. That which is absolute, or else He who is absolute, cannot present Himself in history, wherein are to be found only models, only ideal figures which refer us to something utterly different, to that which we cannot apprehend or know as such in history. From this it is clear that the (Catholic) Church also, her dogmas and sacraments, cannot have any value of absolute necessity."
Regarding P. Knitter's (a former Catholic priest) "primacy of orthopraxis over orthodoxy," Card. Ratzinger writes that such a primacy comes as a "logical consequence, once a person abandons metaphysics: if knowledge becomes [more exactly: is erroneously considered] impossible, all that is left is human acts (or behavior)." Then follows Ratzinger's critique:
Quote:"But is this allegation true? From where can I get the impression that an action is just, if l have no idea of what is just…Praxis alone is no light…Knitter...asserts that the criterion allowing him to distinguish between orthopraxy and pseudo-praxy, is man's liberty. But he still must explain, in a practical and persuasive manner, just what is liberty and what it is that leads man to his real liberation."
Conclusion:
Quote:"In the last analysis, Hick's relativism is based upon a rationalism [i.e., the error of those who reject all revelation and give assent to nothing but what can be attained by the natural power of their own reason] which, in the Kantian fashion, pretends that metaphysics [i.e., that branch of philosophy dealing with the first principle of things] cannot be known or grasped by human reason."
Thus, Card. Ratzinger clearly indicates the root of these aberrations, which he later favors with the term "present day theology," that rotten root of all modernism already revealed by Pope St. Pius X in his encyclical Pascendi: the agnostic and immanentist rationalism of Kant, "the philosopher of Protestantism" (Paulsen).
THE RETURN OF PAGANISM, OR "NEW AGE"
Card. Ratzinger has also described remarkably well the neo-paganism of the "New Age," which "seeks to put forth a completely anti-rationalist model of religion - a modern 'mystique': Quote:Man cannot believe in the absolute but he may experience. God is not a Person...but consists in the spiritual energy which propagates itself in the Whole…Man's redemption consists in ridding himself of his I...and returning to the Whole. The (pagan) 'gods' are back. They now appear more believable than God. We must bring up to date those primordial [pre-Christian] rites by which the I is initiated into the mystery of the Whole and liberated of itself."
In brief, the New Age says: "Let us now give up the adventure of Christianity which has proven to be a failure, so let us now return to our pagan gods."
Further on, Card. Ratzinger notes the influence that the "New Age" is having on some Catholic "liturgies": Quote:"Nowadays, we have grown weary of wordy liturgies, [but how can one simply reduce Catholic liturgy to words?] approaching New Age orientations: people are now looking for noisy and ecstatic experiences."
Having completed these remarks, Card. Ratzinger now turns his attention to the present-day "tasks facing theology." And this is where things really begin to spoil!
"CLASSICAL THEOLOGY": PRISONER IN THE DOCK!
At this point, what is the sensus fidei, or even simple common sense entitled to expect from the Cardinal Prefect directly responsible for the doctrine and protection of the Faith? The very least he could do is to refute all of those false "theologies." In point of fact, theology is "the science which, in the light of reason as well as of that of divine revelation, treats of God and of His creatures in their relationships with Him." It therefore comprises Revelation on God's part as well as Faith on the part of men…..As such, it is to be distinguished from "theodicy" [or natural theology], a purely rational science of God. Theology is rooted in fundamental principles drawn, without question, from the sources of Revelation" (Parente-Piolanti-Garofalo, Dizionario di Teologia dogmatica).
It is therefore quite impossible to even consider as "theologies" those heretical ravings of so-called "theologians": they are obviously lacking those essential qualities required by the Faith. Instead of positively drawing from the fundamental principles of divine Revelation, they begin by questioning the very fact of that revelation by denying the divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, and, logically enough, each and every other dogma of the Catholic Faith. But things are such as they are: and it seems that for Card. Ratzinger, any kind of discourse, even uttered and broadcast without faith and against the Faith, indeed happens to be "theology."
Moreover, the Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation for the Faith, far from denouncing those false "theologies," has actually gone so far as to incriminate Catholic theology. In fact, he wonders:
Quote:How come classical theology has proven itself so little prepared to face these (modernist) events and circumstances? And where are its weak points which have robbed it of its strength and efficiency?
Please note well: "classical theology," and not Catholic theology. The Cardinal Prefect avoids, even in his choice of words, any discrimination between the true and false theologies. Why, indeed, did "classical theology" show itself so ill-prepared in facing those events and circumstances? Has not this "classical" theology simply been rejected together with "classical" philosophy by those "new theologians" artisans of Vatican II? These "events," which are nothing but old heresies already condemned in various other epochs in the history of the Church, have they not previously been refuted time and again by "classical theology"?
Or are we to understand that Card. Ratzinger has not sufficiently familiarized himself with Catholic theology?
As to the "ineffectiveness" of "classical theology," it must be realized that theology, in itself, can only be effective from a theoretical point of view. Its practical effectiveness does not depend on theological speculation, but on the sincerity of those who are in error and, in the absence of such sincerity, it actually depends on the opportune as well as efficacious intervention of Catholic authority, and in particular on that dicastery responsible for the protection of the Faith, over which Card. Ratzinger, after the Pope, presides. St. Thomas Aquinas, commenting on St. Paul's directive to Timothy, "...that thou mightest charge some not to teach otherwise" (I Tim. 1:3), points up the fact that the duty of those in authority is a double one: (1) to restrain anyone from teaching error; (2) to prevent the faithful from following anyone teaching error.
To impute to "classical theology" the ineffectiveness of a defective or faulty (and even worse) authority signifies, on the part of the Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation for the Faith, transferring to Catholic theology the responsibilities of his dicastery in the face of the triumph of heresy actually present in the Catholic world.
"MODERNIST EXEGESIS" IS AT THE ROOT OF "TODAY'S THEOLOGY"
In attempting to find an answer to his own question, "How come classical theology has proven itself so little prepared to face these 'events' and circumstances? Where are its weak points which have rendered it so ineffective?" Card. Ratzinger brings the discussion around to exegesis, and, once again, to Kantian "philosophy." Hick (but what has a "Presbyterian" got to do with Catholic theology?) and Knitter (and what has a defrocked priest got to do with Catholic theology?) "appeal," Ratzinger says..:
Quote:...to exegesis in order to justify their destruction of Christology: according to these two, exegesis would seem to have proven that Jesus never considered Himself to be the Son of God, God Incarnate, but that it was only some while later that His disciples laid claim to and first referred to His divinity [an argument which modernists have borrowed and still borrow from their rationalist "separated brethren"] . Moreover, both of them claim to take their inspiration from philosophical evidence. Hick assures us that Kant has irrefutably demonstrated that the absolute, or He Who is the Absolute [since God, for some of these heretics, is not even a Person] cannot be known in history and cannot, as such, be found therein.
Therefore, at the very basis of "today's theology" as well as at that of neo-modernism, we find an exegesis, or better said, a pseudo-exegesis, taking its origin in the agnostic rationalism of Kant, to whom "today's theologians" have attributed that charism of infallibility which they deny even to the Church. Nothing new here either: At the base of modernism there was Loisy's "exegesis" modeled on Protestant rationalist exegesis, and at the root of neo-modernism, we now have the "new exegesis," yet again springing from Protestant rationalism, and it is for this reason that we consecrate so much of our effort to the problem of exegesis.
Finally, Card. Ratzinger, at the end of his discourse, comes to the following conclusion:
Quote:I believe that the problem of exegesis as well as the limits and possibilities of our reason, that is to say, the philosophical premises of the Faith, actually constitute the painful and grievous weak point of today's theology, through which the Faith - as also, more and more, the faith of ordinary folk - continues to fall victim to the current crisis.
We are now made to understand that "liberation theology," "relativist theologies," with their "abolition of Christology," "New Age," etc., are, for the Cardinal Prefect for the Faith, not heresies nor apostasies, but..."today's theology," different but not incompatible with "classical theology." He seems to consider all of the errors as some normal variant alternative of true Catholic theology.
A little further on, we will see how Card. Ratzinger deals with "the problem of exegesis as well as the limits and possibilities of our reason," which is at the very base of the present crisis of the Faith.
For the moment we simply wish to underline here that Card. Ratzinger is indeed conscious of the fact that "today's theology," without faith or in a crisis of faith, not only "destroys Christology," but is actually in the process of demolishing - again, he is the one who admits it - ''as also, more and more, the faith of ordinary Catholics." And, as for the Cardinal Prefect for the Faith, just what is it that he intends doing about this disastrous state of affairs?
THE "TASK" FACING THE AUTHORITIES
"I would simply like to try to outline here the task now facing us," declares Ratzinger, logically referring that "us" to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith as well as to the president of the Commission for the Doctrine of the Faith of the Episcopal Conferences, to whom his conference was addressed.
And this is where Card. Ratzinger engages in theoretical reflections on "modern-day exegesis." He begins by saying that Hick and Knitter, in order to sustain their assertion that….:
Quote:...exegesis seems to have proven that Jesus never considered Himself to be the Son of God, God Incarnate, but that it was only some while later that His disciples laid claim to and first referred to His divinity, can in no way at all, appeal to exegesis in a global manner, as if all of their suppositions constitute an indubitable result universally recognized by all exegetes….But it is true that if we look at modern exegesis as a whole, we can come away with an impression quite similar to that of Hick and Knitter.
Therefore, even at this point, for Card. Ratzinger, there does exist a "modern-day exegesis" different, to be sure, but not incompatible with "exegesis in a global manner" (which, we hope and suppose, also included the (only) true and authentic exegesis: Catholic exegesis). This so-called "modern exegesis," radically denying as it does the very divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, has obviously "buried" Catholic exegesis. But this does not seem to present a problem for Card. Ratzinger, who now sets out in search of the cornerstone of this "modern exegesis," for which, just as in the case of the older modern exegesis, Jesus is not God nor did He ever claim so to be (cf. St. Pius X, Pascendi).
"My thesis," he explains, "is as follows":
Quote:If many exegetes think as do Hick and Knitter, "reconstructing" in the same way the recorded history of Jesus Christ [that is, by their denial of Jesus Christ's divinity] it is due to the fact that they share their philosophy. It is not exegesis which proves philosophy but it is rather philosophy which brings about exegesis."
A real discovery indeed! Who is not aware that it is rationalism, which denies the supernatural, which has given rise to the ravings of Protestant systems [Formgeschichte, Redaktiong-eschichte, etc.], which it now seeks to pass off as "exegesis"? And who does not know that "modern exegesis," a Catholic copy of Protestant rationalist "exegesis," also shares its presupposed philosophy: that rationalism bent on denying the supernatural? This has always been well known to us. Except that, up until Vatican II, Rome never honored the delirious wanderings of Protestant rationalism with the dignity of "exegesis" and, against such errors, never used to present theses, but would invariably condemn them unequivocally in the most unmistakably clear terms.
Thus did Pope Leo XIII define rationalists as the "sons and heirs" of the Lutheran "reformation" who "have utterly rejected even the last traces of that Faith they had formerly received from their fathers." He especially warned the bishops while reminding them that these errors must touch and give rise to their common pastoral solicitude so that to this new "science which does not even deserve such a title (I Tim. 6:20), they would oppose that ancient truth which the Church received from Jesus Christ through His Apostles" (Leo XIII, Providentissimus).
Nowadays, on the contrary, that "pastoral solicitude" trampled underfoot by the "pastoral" Vatican II Council, is no longer touched and can no longer show and make itself felt, not even in the face of the scandal given to "ordinary Catholics." In fact, the Prefect of the Congregation for the Faith, himself has nothing else to oppose to "modern-day exegesis," save his doctoral theses. And what is still worse: he has clearly declared that since..:
Quote:...the presuppositions welling up from the Kantian theory of conscience are making themselves...felt...like a spontaneous key to hermeneutics guiding the development and progress of critique,...ecclesiastical or Church authority cannot simply impose that we must find in Holy Scriptures a Christology of divine filiation.
So that's it! Now only heretics are able to dictate their views and laws to the Church, and not the other way around, and against such people the Church is not to do what it has always done by divine right from the very beginning by imposing its "rule of Faith" and excommunicating those who obstinately deny it:
And every height (person) that exalteth itself (himself) against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every understanding unto the obedience of Christ. And (we) having in readiness to revenge all disobedience, when your obedience shall be fulfilled ( II Cor. 10:5 - 6; cf. also II Cor.13 : 2 sq.; I Cor. 4:18 - 21; II Cor. 5 : 1 - 5; I Tim 1 : 20; Acts 5:1 - 10).
Of which Church is Card. Ratzinger speaking anyway? Clearly, he is not referring here to the indefectible, unchanging Catholic Church founded by our Lord Jesus Christ almost two thousand years ago. No, Card. Ratzinger is speaking of the "Conciliar Church" which has adopted an erroneous concept of authority, distinctly characteristic of liberalism and solemnly condemned by Pope Leo XIII in his encyclical Libertas:
Quote:Others, in fact, do recognize the Catholic Church...; they do not, however, admit its nature and its rights of a perfect society with its authentic power of legislation, of judging and punishing. They only recognize her faculty of exhortation, of persuasion, and of governing those who spontaneously and willingly make themselves subject to her. (See on "withdrawal" of authority since Vatican Council II, in Iota Unum by Romano Amerio.)
...ecclesiastical authority cannot simply impose that we must find in Holy Scriptures a Christology of divine filiation [i.e., that Jesus Christ is also the Son of God], Church authority can and must, however, make an appeal [it is all in this word! to kindly "appeal"] to critically evaluate the underlying philosophy of the method we choose to adopt.
The Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation for the Faith has made it manifest that he does not believe that our Lord Jesus Christ instituted, within His Church, a true and authentic power of governing all of the faithful. No, he considers, in spite of Holy Scriptures and Church tradition, that our Lord merely instituted a charge of fraternal exhortation. The double task entrusted to Church authorities of "restraining those teaching and spreading error" and of "preventing the faithful from following such false teachers" has "now been sacrificed to the [false] principle of liberty," wrote Romano Amerio in his remarkable work, Iota Unum, (ch. 34, p.546).*
POPE PlUS XII WAS ALSO RIGHT
Card. Ratzinger concludes:
Quote:The problem of exegesis coincides, to a great extent, with the problem of philosophy. Philosophical difficulties - that is to say, those difficulties with which human reason directed in a positivist sense has been struggling - have now become difficulties of our Faith.
Better late than never. Card. Ratzinger is beginning to see not only that truth which Pope St. Pius X pointed out so clearly in Pascendi, as did his predecessor Pope Leo XIII in Providentissimus, but also that which Pope Pius XII denounced equally clearly in Humani Generis, when he condemned the wanton claim of being able to express Catholic dogmas using the categories of modern-day philosophy, "of those products of fevered imagination presently called immanentism, idealism…..or yet again, existentialism" or any other one of such systems.
Theology (and the same can be said regarding exegesis, which applies those norms based on reason and theology known as "hermeneutics"), in truth, does not depend on any philosophical "system"; what it does need is faith together with right reason, and, if the Church agrees with the "philosophy of the Fathers of the Church" and has adopted its terms for the formulation of its doctrine, it is because this philosophy is the expression of right reason as well as of a "true knowledge of that which has been created" (Pope Pius XII, Humani Generis) and that its objectives constitute "stable human notions" (Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., La nouvelle théologie où va-t-elle?).
Pretending to base divinely revealed truth on a sick and unbalanced philosophy continually straying farther and farther away from right reason as well as from good common sense, as in Kantianism, can only end with the destruction of the Faith (that is, personal and not objective, as Ratzinger seems to understand it, even though in this destruction many, many souls are indeed implicated). In order to avert such a disaster, the humble obedience on the part of the sovereign pontiffs to the magisterium would have been quite sufficient:
I thank Thee, O Lord, that thou hast hidden these things from the wise and prudent according to worldly standards and hast revealed them to the humble of heart.
Having completed his diagnosis, what does Card. Ratzinger propose as a remedy in order to cure both exegesis and theology? Maybe a return to that "perpetually good and valid philosophy: and to sound Christian realism? The very thought does not even cross his mind.
Even though Card. Ratzinger's diagnosis coincides with that of Pope St. Pius X as well as with that of Pope Pius XII, the same cannot be said with regard to his therapy. To false modern philosophy St. Pius X and Pius XII both (without mentioning other Roman pontiffs) oppose traditional philosophy, and especially Thomism, which "is based upon a belief in the capacities of human reason, and rejects scepticism both partial and complete" (R Amerio, op. cit., p.537). Card. Ratzinger, on the contrary, in order to liberate human reason, argues in favor of a "new dialogue between faith and philosophy," but, precisely because he seeks such a "new" dialogue, he hastens to block any possible way or path toward any attempt of "restoring" "traditional philosophy." He declares:
Quote:I believe that neo-scholastic rationalism [the sane and sound one that does not fly in the face of Faith, but on the contrary, serves it] has failed in its bid of trying to reconstruct the “preambula fidei" through a purely rational certainty.
And not only that, but, Card. Ratzinger assures us, "all other attempts following this same route will end up with identical results." All of which means, in other words that, for Card. Ratzinger, it is impossible to prove with arguments based on pure reason the two fundamental facts of Christianity: (1) the existence of God, and (2) that God has indeed spoken to us. But why indeed, we wonder, would the "purely rational certainty" of the "preambula fidei" be inaccessible or out of our reach? Is this not tantamount to saying that it is impossible for us to obtain metaphysical knowledge? And is this not precisely that very same Kantian postulate or supposition which he has previously been criticizing up to this point in his conference?
And thus do we find the Card. Ratzinger not only opposing one agnosticism to another, but also declaring the entire Catholic Church to be in error, that same Church which, for almost two thousand years, has on the contrary, defended and taught the possibility of rationally justifying its act of Faith, beginning with its divine Founder, who also appealed to our reason (Jn. 10:38): "But if I do, though you will not believe me, believe the works."
And continuing in the same vein, we have the Apostles (see I Pet. 3:15; Rom. 12:1, etc.) together with the apologists who defended the credibility of Christianity with arguments solidly based on pure reason as well as with the Fathers of the Church (St. Augustine: Ratio antecedit fidem-Reason precedes faith). The dogmatic [i.e., infallible) Vatican Council I (1869-70) also taught that "sound reason proves the foundations of faith" (DB 1799). We should not forget that Pope Pius XII who, it should be mentioned, on the eve of Vatican II, countering the neo-modernists of his day because of their obstinate refusal to admit the rational character of the Christian faith's "credibility" (rationali indoli "credibilitate" fidei Christianae iniuriam inferunt), resolutely reaffirmed that…:
Quote:....it is indeed possible to prove with absolute certainty the divine origin of the Christian religion by means of the sole use of the natural light of human reason (Humani Generis).
It therefore follows that for a Catholic, it is a matter of Faith that the credibility of revelation is proved through arguments based on pure reason. Moreover, if the Church had indeed been in error for almost two thousand years concerning the rational justification of its act of Faith, and if the road of the "preambula fidei' is indeed foredoomed to failure, then the only thing to do is to continue on this fateful "path of skepticism, whim and heresy" which will simply and fatally open on that same modernism solemnly condemned by Pope St. Pius X in the encyclical Pascendi (Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., art. cit. ) Regarding this modernism, St. Pius X wrote:
Quote:[From Kantian agnosticism] they infer two things: that God is not directly subject to scientific study; and that God has never revealed Himself as a Person in history. After all of this, what is there left of natural theology, of the reasons for belief (or credibility) and of outside revelation? ...They [the modernists] have purely and simply suppressed them (Pascendi).
And, as a matter of fact, even though he seems to take some distance from the "premises" or "theses" of modernism, that is, from Kantian agnosticism, Card. Ratzinger continues, nevertheless, sharing in those very same consequences which modernists have understandably drawn and still coherently continue to draw, by setting aside, as they do, the "preambula fidei": natural theology and motives or grounds for credibility. Strangely enough, Ratzinger does accept the principle that "faith protects and frees human reason from errors" (Vatican I, DB 1799). Yet, he does not accept another important principle also professed and approved by Vatican I, that is that "the fundamentals of Faith can indeed be proven by sound human reason" (ibid); thus for him, Faith is based on no rational foundation whatsoever. But then, we wonder, how can human reason be "cured" by a "faith" utterly lacking in any argument to justify itself before the bar of human reason?
FROM AGNOSTICISM TO LATITUDINARIANISM: "SUBSTITUTE FORMS" FOR THE FAITH
Up to the very end of his conference, Card. Ratzinger resolutely continues on this road of agnosticism and now logically comes to the most disastrous of conclusions. He writes:
Quote:In conclusion, as we contemplate our present-day religious situation, of which I have tried to throw some light on some of its elements, we may well marvel at the fact that, after all, people still continue believing in a Christian manner, not only according to Hick's, Knitter's as well as others' substitute ways or forms, but also according to that full and joyous Faith found in the New Testament of the Church of all time.
So, there it is: For Card. Ratzinger, "Hick, Knitter, and others" who deny the divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, His Church, His sacraments, and, in short, all of Christianity, continue "despite everything" "believing in a Christian manner," even though they do so using "substitute forms of belief"! Here, the Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation for the Faith leaves us wondering indeed, just what it is he means by "believing in a Christian manner."
Moreover, once the "preambula fidei" have been eliminated, that "full and joyous Faith of the Church of all time" which seems [for Card. Ratzinger] to be no different from modern-day apostasies other than by its style and total character, is utterly lacking in any rational credibility in comparison with and in relation to what he refers to as "substitute ways or forms" of faith. "How is it," Card. Ratzinger wonders, "in fact, that the Faith [the one of all time] still has a chance of success?" Answer:
Quote:I would say that it is because it finds a correspondence in man's nature…..There is, in man, an insatiable desire for the infinite. None of the answers we have sought is sufficient [but must we take his own word for it, or must we go through the exercise of experiencing all religions?]. God alone [but Whom, according to Card. Ratzinger, human reason cannot prove to be truly God], Who made Himself finite in order to shatter the bonds of our own finitude and bring us to the dimension of His infinity [...and not to redeem us from the slavery of sin?] is able to meet all the needs of our human existence.
According to this, it is therefore not objective motives based on history and reason, and thus the truth of Christianity, but only a subjective appreciation which brings us to "see" that it [Christianity] is able to satisfy the profound needs of human nature and which would explain the "success" [modernists would say the "vitality"] of the "faith" ["of all time" or in its "substitute forms," it is of but little importance]. Such, however, is not at all Catholic doctrine: this is simply modernist apologetics (cf. Pope St. Pius X, Pascendi), based on their affirmed impossibility of grasping metaphysical knowledge (or agnosticism or skepticism), which Card. Ratzinger seemed to want to shun in the first part of his address.
Now we are in a position to better understand why Card. Ratzinger has such a wide-open concept of "theology" and of "faith" that he includes everything: theology as well as heresies, faith and apostasy. On that road of denial of the human reason's ability of attaining metaphysical knowledge, a road which he continues to follow, he lacks the "means of discerning the difference between faith and non-faith" (R. Amerio, op. cit., p.340) and, consequently, theology from pseudo-theology, truth from heresy:
Quote:All theologies are nullified, because all are regarded as equivalent; the heart or kernel of religion is located in feelings or experiences, as the Modernists held at the beginning of this century (Amerio, op. cit., p.542).
We cannot see how this position of Card. Ratzinger can escape that solemn condemnation proclaimed at Vatican I: "If anyone says...that men must be brought to the Faith solely by their own personal interior experience...let him be anathema" (DB 1812).
- Romualdus
(From Courrier de Rome, April 1997.)
[Emphasis mine.]
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WHO insider blows whistle on Gates and GAVI global health dictatorship |
Posted by: Stone - 03-22-2021, 09:24 AM - Forum: General Commentary
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WHO insider blows whistle on Gates and GAVI global health dictatorship
It is now beyond dispute that the WHO is beyond compromised. Because of its funding — a large portion of which comes from the 'one-man nation-state of Gates' — it fails to complete its original mandate. Worse, WHO serves corporate masters and through its dictatorial powers is essentially destroying, not improving, the health of the world.
Story at a glance- The WHO has turned global health security into a dictatorship, where the director general has assumed sole power to make decisions by which member states must abide
- According to a long-term World Health Organization insider, Bill Gates’ vaccine alliance, GAVI, is directing the WHO
- GAVI is headquartered in Switzerland. In 2009, GAVI was recognized as an international institution and granted total blanket immunity, including immunity against criminal sanctions. It is also exempt from paying taxes
- In 2017, Gates asked to be part of the WHO’s executive board — like a member state — because of his funding. While the “one-man nation-state of Gates” was not officially voted in, it appears he may have been granted unofficial power of influence
- Swissmedic, the Food and Drug Administration of Switzerland, has entered into a three-way contract agreement with Gates and the WHO. It appears other WHO member states have entered into this three-way agreement as well
March 20, 2021 (Mercola [adapted]) — OK folks, today you are in for a real treat. We have presented many of the pieces previously, but this will help put them in the proper perspective. That is the phase we are in now. We have the facts, we just need to understand what they mean and interpret them properly.
This is a really important article. It catalyzed my understanding of what the heck is going on. The facts are obvious; the entire response to the global pandemic was facilitated by the World Health Organization. Their recommendations were followed lock-step by virtually every government on Earth.
No one will dispute this fact. The next data point is: Who controls the WHO? Some will dispute this, but the evidence is pretty clear and solid. It is Bill Gates, who became the WHO’s biggest funder when then-President Trump removed U.S. support last year.
What does Gates have to benefit from controlling the WHO? How about the best investment he ever made, with many tens of billions of dollars running through his “nonprofit” GAVI Vaccine Alliance? The maniacal suppression and censorship of any inexpensive natural alternative for COVID-19 makes perfect sense now.
These natural therapies, nebulized hydrogen peroxide being the best example, would be serious competition for the vaccines. If everyone knew that these remedies were readily available, highly effective and practically free, who would risk their life for a vaccine? Virtually no one. It all makes perfect sense.
With that framework, enjoy the information our team has compiled that expands on this general concept. Every day we are putting the pieces of the puzzle together, and the more pieces we fit together, the sooner you will see the bigger picture. More to come in the very near future.
WHO insider speaks out
In July 2020, four German attorneys founded the German Corona Extra-Parliamentary Inquiry Committee (Außerparlamentarischer Corona Untersuchungsausschuss1).2,3 In the video above, the founding members, led by Dr. Reiner Fuellmich,4 interviews Astrid Stuckelberger, Ph.D., a WHO insider, about what she discovered about Bill Gates and GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance.
Stuckelberger has served as deputy director of the Swiss national program of aging since the 1990s, and is the president of the WHO-funded Geneva International Network on Ageing.
According to her bio,5 she “is an internationally recognized expert on issues related to evaluating scientific research for policymakers, in particular in health and innovation assessment, pandemic and emergency management training and in optimizing individual and population health and well-being.”
She’s also a published author, with a dozen books to her credit, as well as more than 180 scientific articles, policy papers and governmental and international reports. Stuckelberger points out that much of the research done was and still is highly politicized and primarily done to support and justify political decisions.
For the past 20 years, since 2000, she’s been involved with public health at the WHO, and was part of their research ethics committee for four years. In 2009, she got involved with the WHO’s international health regulations.
Stuckelberger points out that the whole purpose of WHO’s international health regulations is to prepare member states to be ready for a pandemic, to be able to not only prevent outbreaks but also respond swiftly when an outbreak occurs. However, the WHO has actually been actively preventing and undermining this pandemic preparedness training.
The center of corruption
According to Stuckelberger, Switzerland is at the heart of the corruption, largely thanks to it being the headquarters for GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance, founded by Bill Gates. In 2009, the GAVI Alliance was recognized as an international institution and granted total blanket immunity.6
As explained by Justus Hoffmann, Ph.D., one of the German Corona Extra-Parliamentary Inquiry Committee members, GAVI has “qualified diplomatic immunity,” which is odd, considering the organization has no political power that would warrant diplomatic immunity. Odder still is that GAVI’s immunity clauses go beyond even that of diplomats. GAVI’s immunity covers all aspects of engagement, including criminal business dealings.
GAVI is a nongovernmental organization that is allowed to operate without paying any taxes, while also having total immunity for anything they do wrong.
“They can do whatever they want,” Stuckelberger says, without repercussions. The police, for example, are barred from conducting an investigation and collecting evidence if GAVI were to be implicated in a criminal investigation. “It’s shocking,” she says. GAVI is also completely tax exempt, which Stuckelberger notes is “very strange.”
Essentially, GAVI is a nongovernmental organization (NGO) that is allowed to operate without paying any taxes, while also having total immunity for anything they do wrong, willfully or otherwise. This is rather unprecedented, and raises a whole host of questions. It’s particularly disturbing in light of evidence Stuckelberger claims to have found showing that GAVI is “directing, as a corporate entity, the WHO.”
Furthermore, documents cited by Stuckelberger show the WHO has assumed what amounts to dictatorial power over the whole world. The director general has the sole power to make decisions — including decisions about which tests or pandemic medications to use — that all member states must then obey.
The nation-state of Gates
What’s more, Stuckelberger discovered that, in 2017, Gates actually requested to be part of the WHO’s executive board — like a member state — ostensibly because he gives them so much money. Indeed, his funding exceeds that of many individual member states.
Like Stuckelberger says, this is truly incredible — the idea that a single man would have the same power and influence over the WHO as that of an entire nation. It’s a brazen power grab, to say the least. While there’s no evidence that Gates was ever officially granted the status of a member state, one wonders whether he doesn’t have it unofficially.
One thing that raises Stuckelberger’s suspicion is the fact that Swissmedic, the Food and Drug Administration of Switzerland, has entered into a three-way contract agreement with Gates and the WHO. “This is abnormal,” she says.
Essentially, in summary, it appears that when he did not get voted in as a one-man nation state, Gates created three-party contracts with member states and the WHO, essentially placing him on par with the WHO. As mentioned earlier, whatever the director general of the WHO says, goes. They’ve effectively turned global health security into a dictatorship.
The question is, is Gates the real power behind the curtain? Does he tell the director general what to do? When you look back over the past year, it seems Gates has often been the first to announce what the world needs to do to address the pandemic, and then the WHO comes out with an identical message, which is then parroted by world leaders, more or less verbatim.
As noted by Fuellmich, it’s becoming clear that many private-public partnerships have been hijacked by the private side — and they’re immune from liability. “This has got to stop,” he says.
A complete review and overhaul of the United Nations, which established the WHO, is also required as the U.N. has done nothing to prevent or rein in undemocratic and illegal activity. As noted by Fuellmich, we probably need to reconsider whether we even need them.
Changed definition of pandemic allowed health dictatorship
In the interview, they also highlight the WHO’s role in setting the stage for a global health dictatorship by changing the definition of “pandemic.” The WHO’s original definition, pre-2009, of a pandemic was:7,8
Quote:… when a new influenza virus appears against which the human population has no immunity, resulting in several, simultaneous epidemics worldwide with enormous numbers of deaths and illness.
The key portion of that definition is “enormous numbers of deaths and illness.” This definition was changed in the month leading up to the 2009 swine flu pandemic.
The change was a simple but substantial one: They merely removed the severity and high mortality criteria, leaving the definition of a pandemic as “a worldwide epidemic of a disease.”9
This switch in definition is why COVID-19 was and still is promoted as a pandemic even though it, at no point, has caused any excess mortality.10,11,12
We now have plenty of data showing the lethality of COVID-19 is on par with the seasonal flu.13,14,15,16,17 It may be different in terms of symptoms and complications, but the actual lethality is about the same. Yet we’re told the price we must all pay to keep ourselves and others safe from this virus is the relinquishing of our civil rights and liberties.
In short, by removing the criteria of severe illness causing high morbidity, leaving geographically widespread infection as the only criteria for a pandemic, the WHO and technocratic leaders of the world were able to bamboozle the global population into giving up our lives and livelihoods.
WHO rewrites science by changing definition of herd immunity
The WHO has also radically altered the definition of “herd immunity.” Herd immunity occurs when enough people acquire immunity to an infectious disease such that it can no longer spread widely in the community. When the number susceptible is low enough to prevent epidemic growth, herd immunity is said to have been reached.
Prior to the introduction of vaccines, all herd immunity was achieved via exposure to and recovery from an infectious disease. Eventually, as vaccination became widespread, the concept of herd immunity evolved to include not only the naturally acquired immunity that comes from prior illness, but also the temporary vaccine-acquired immunity that can occur after vaccination.
However, in October 2020, the WHO upended science as we know it, revising this well-established concept in an Orwellian move that totally removes natural infection from the equation.
As late as June 2020, the WHO’s definition of herd immunity, posted on one of their COVID-19 Q&A pages, was in line with the widely-accepted concept that has been the standard for infectious diseases for decades. Here’s what it originally said:18
Quote:Herd immunity is the indirect protection from an infectious disease that happens when a population is immune either through vaccination or immunity developed through previous infection.
The updated definition of herd immunity, which appeared in October 2020, read as follows:19
Quote:‘Herd immunity’, also known as ‘population immunity’, is a concept used for vaccination, in which a population can be protected from a certain virus if a threshold of vaccination is reached. Herd immunity is achieved by protecting people from a virus, not by exposing them to it.
Vaccines train our immune systems to create proteins that fight disease, known as ‘antibodies’, just as would happen when we are exposed to a disease but — crucially — vaccines work without making us sick.
Vaccinated people are protected from getting the disease in question and passing it on, breaking any chains of transmission. With herd immunity, the vast majority of a population are vaccinated, lowering the overall amount of virus able to spread in the whole population.
After public — and no doubt embarrassing — backlash, the WHO revised its definition again December 31, 2020, to again include the mention of natural infection, while still emphasizing vaccine-acquired immunity. It now reads:20
'
Quote:Herd immunity', also known as 'population immunity,' is the indirect protection from an infectious disease that happens when a population is immune either through vaccination or immunity developed through previous infection.
WHO supports achieving 'herd immunity' through vaccination, not by allowing a disease to spread through any segment of the population, as this would result in unnecessary cases and deaths.
Herd immunity against COVID-19 should be achieved by protecting people through vaccination, not by exposing them to the pathogen that causes the disease.
WHO’s recommendation of PCR test ‘intentionally criminal’
Stuckelberger also shocks the Corona Extra-Parliamentary Inquiry Committee by pointing out that twice — December 7, 2020,21,22 and January 13, 202123 — the WHO issued medical alerts for PCR testing, warning that use of high cycle thresholds (CT) will produce high rates of false positives, that the CT value should be reported to the health care provider and that test results be considered in combination with clinical observations, health history and other epidemiological information.
Yet since the beginning of the pandemic, it has pushed PCR testing as the best way to detect and diagnose infection. This, she says, makes it intentionally criminal. The January 13, 202124,25 medical product alert was, incidentally, posted online January 20, 2021, mere hours after Joe Biden’s inauguration as the President of the United States.
In this alert, the WHO stressed that the “CT needed to detect virus is inversely proportional to the patient’s viral load,” and that “Where test results do not correspond with the clinical presentation, a new specimen should be taken and retested.”
It also reminds users that “disease prevalence alters the predictive value of test results,” so that “as disease prevalence decreases, the risk of false positive increases.” The alert goes on to explain:26
Quote:This means that the probability that a person who has a positive result (SARS-CoV-2 detected) is truly infected with SARS-CoV-2 decreases as prevalence decreases, irrespective of the claimed specificity.
Most PCR assays are indicated as an aid for diagnosis, therefore, health care providers must consider any result in combination with timing of sampling, specimen type, assay specifics, clinical observations, patient history, confirmed status of any contacts, and epidemiological information.
Taking a patient’s symptoms into account and using a scientifically defensible CT count should have been routine practice from the beginning. It just didn’t fit the geopolitical narrative. Since the start of the pandemic, the WHO has recommended using a CT of 45,27,28,29 which guarantees an enormous number of false positives, and therefore “cases.” This alone is how they kept the pandemic fearmongering going.
The scientific consensus has long been that anything over 35 CTs renders the PCR test useless,30,31,32 as the accuracy will be a measly 3% — 97% are false positives.33 By finally recommending lower CTs and more precise criteria for diagnosis, the WHO engineered an assured end to the caseload at a desired time. Coincidentally, the next day, January 21, 2021, President Biden announced he would reinstate the U.S.’ financial support for the WHO.34
Time to put an end to the global health mafia
The WHO was created as a specialized agency of the U.N., established in 1948 to further international cooperation for improved public health conditions. It was given a broad mandate under its constitution to promote the attainment of “the highest possible level of health” by all peoples.
It is now beyond dispute that the WHO is beyond compromised. Because of its funding — a large portion of which comes from the “one-man nation-state of Gates” — it fails to complete its original mandate. Worse, WHO serves corporate masters and through its dictatorial powers is essentially destroying, not improving, the health of the world.
In June 2010, the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) issued a report35 on the WHO’s handling of the 2009 pandemic of novel influenza A (H1N1), which included the recommendation to use a fast-tracked vaccine that ended up causing disability and death around the world.
PACE concluded “the handling of the pandemic by the WHO, EU health agencies and national governments led to a waste of large sums of public money, and unjustified scares and fears about the health risks faced by the European public.”36
Specifically, PACE found “overwhelming evidence that the seriousness of the pandemic was vastly overrated by WHO,” and that the drug industry had influenced the organization’s decision-making — a claim echoed by other investigators as well.37,38,39,40,41
The Assembly made a number of recommendations, including greater transparency, better governance of public health, safeguards against undue influence by vested interests, public funding of independent research, and last but not least, for the media to “avoid sensationalism and scaremongering in the public health domain.”42
None of those recommendations were followed and, if anything, the WHO’s mismanagement of public health, thanks to private-public partnerships with NGOs such as GAVI, has only worsened. Other reports, two published in 201543,44 and one in 2017,45 also highlighted the WHO’s failures and lack of appropriate leadership during the 2013 through 2015 Ebola outbreak in West Africa.
While the WHO is recognized as being uniquely suited to carry out key functions necessary in a global pandemic, experts at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and the Harvard Global Health Institute, have pointed out, years ago, that the WHO has eroded so much trust that radical reforms would be required before it can assume an authoritative role.
Yet here we are, still, and no reforms ever took place. Instead, the corruption festered and metastasized, and the WHO turned into a power hub for the technocratic deep state that seeks to assume power and control over all nations.
As noted by Fuellmich, we probably need to take a long hard look at the WHO and the U.N., and decide whether they’re even worth saving. At bare minimum, the disproportionate influence by private vested interests, disguised as NGOs such as GAVI, must be thoroughly investigated and routed out.
Sources and References
1 Acu2020.org Außerparlamentarischer Corona Untersuchungsausschuss
2 Acu2020.org Corona Extra-Parliamentary Inquiry Committee, English
3 Algora October 4, 2020
4 Fuellmich.com, Dr. Reiner Fuellmich Bio (German)
5 AstridStuckelberger.com Bio
6 GAVI.org June 23, 2009
7 The BMJ 2010;340:c2912
8 Wayback Machine, WHO Pandemic Preparedness May 1, 2009 (PDF)
9 Wayback Machine, WHO Pandemic Preparedness September 2, 2009 (PDF)
10 Bitchute, SARS-CoV-2 and the rise of medical technocracy, Lee Merritt, MD, aprox 8 minutes in (Lie No. 1: Death Risk)
11 Technical Report June 2020 DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.24350.77125
12 Johns Hopkins Newsletter November 26, 2020 (Archived)
13 The Mercury News May 20, 2020 (Archived)
14 Annals of Internal Medicine September 2, 2020 DOI: 10.7326/M20-5352
15 Breitbart May 7, 2020
16 Scott Atlas US Senate Testimony May 6, 2020 (PDF)
17 John Ioannidis US Senate Testimony May 6, 2020 (PDF)
18 WHO, Coronavirus disease (COVID-19): Serology June 9, 2020, What Is Herd Immunity section
19 WHO, Coronavirus disease (COVID-19): Herd immunity, lockdowns and COVID-19, October 2020 (Archived)
20 WHO, Coronavirus disease (COVID-19): Herd immunity, lockdowns and COVID-19, December 31, 2020
21 WHO Information Notice December 7, 2020 (Archived)
22 Off-Guardian December 18, 2020
23, 24, 26 WHO Information Notice January 20, 2021
25 The Defender January 21, 2021
27 WHO.int Diagnostic detection of Wuhan Coronavirus 2019 by real-time RT-PCR, January 13, 2020 (PDF)
28 WHO.int Diagnostic detection of 2019-nCOV by real-time RT-PCR, January 17, 2020 (PDF)
29 Eurosurveillance 2020 Jan 23; 25(3): 2000045
30 The Vaccine Reaction September 29, 2020
31 Jon Rappoport’s Blog November 6, 2020
32 YouTube TWiV 641 July 16, 2020
33 Clinical Infectious Diseases September 28, 2020; ciaa1491
34 AP January 21, 2021
35, 36, 42 Assembly.coe.int June 24, 2010
37 Engineering Evil February 10, 2014
38 Wikileaks December 9, 2009
39 Wikileaks December 10, 2009
40 Prevent Disease December 10, 2009
41 Forbes December 23, 2019
43 WHO.int Report of the Ebola Interim Assessment Panel July 2015
44 The Lancet November 22, 2015; 386(10009): 2204-2221
45 Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2017 May 26; 372(1721): 20160307
Reprinted with permission from Mercola.
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Passion Week [Monday - Saturday] |
Posted by: Stone - 03-22-2021, 06:54 AM - Forum: Lent
- Replies (6)
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Monday in Passion Week
The Station, at Rome, is in the church of Saint Chrysogonus, one of the most celebrated Martyrs of the Church of Rome. His name is inserted in the Canon of the Mass.
Collect
Sanctifica, quæsumus, Domine, nostra jejunia: et cunctarum nobis indulgentiam propitius largire culparum. Per Christum Dominum nostrum. Amen.
Sanctify, O Lord, we beseech thee, our fasts, and mercifully grant us the pardon of all our sins. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Epistle
Lesson from Jonas the Prophet. Ch. III.
In those days: The word of the Lord came to Jonas the second time, saying: Arise and go to Ninive, the great city: and preach in it the preaching that I bid thee. And Jonas arose, and went to Ninive, according to the word of the Lord. Now Ninive was a great city of three days’ journey. And Jonas began to enter into the city one day’s journey: and he cried and said: Yet forty days and Ninive shall be destroyed. And the men of Ninive believed in God: and they proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth from the greatest to the least. And the word came to the king of Ninive: and he rose up out of his throne, and cast away his robe from him, and was clothed with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. And he caused it to be proclaimed and published in Ninive, from the mouth of the king and of his princes, saying: Let neither men nor beasts, oxen nor sheep, taste any thing: let them not feed, nor drink water. And let men and bests be covered with sackcloth, and cry to the Lord with all their strength, and let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the iniquity that is in their hands. Who can tell if God will turn and forgive: and will turn away from his fierce anger, and we shall not perish? And God saw their works, that they were turned from their evil way: and the Lord our God had mercy on his people.
Quote:The Church’s intention in this day’s lesson is to encourage us to earnestness and perseverance in our penance. Here we have an idolatrous city, a haughty and debauched capital, whose crimes have merited the anger of heaven. God threatens it with his vengeance: yet forty days, and Ninive and its inhabitants shall be destroyed. How came it that this threat was not carried into effect? What was it that caused Ninive to be spared? Its people returned to the God they had left; they sued for mercy; they humbled themselves and fasted; and the Church concludes the Prophet’s account by these touching words of her own: “And the Lord our God had mercy on his people.” They were Gentiles, but they became his people because they did penance at the preaching of the Prophet. God had made a covenant with one only nation—the Jews; but he rejected not the Gentiles, as often as they renounced their false Gods, confessed his holy name, and desired to serve him. We are here taught the efficacy of corporal mortification; when united with spiritual penance, that is, with the repentance of the heart, it has power to appease God’s anger. How highly, then, should we not prize the holy exercises of penance put upon us by the Church during this holy Season! Let us also learn to dread that false spirituality which tells us that exterior mortification is of little value: such doctrine is the result of rationalism and cowardice.
This passage from the Prophet Jonas is also intended for the Catechumens, whose baptism is so close at hand. It teaches them to have confidence in this merciful God of the Christians, whose threats are so terrible, but who, notwithstanding, turns from his threats to forgive the repentant sinner. These Catechumens, who had hitherto lived in the Ninive of paganism, were here taught that God, even before sending his Son into the world, invited all men to become his people. Seeing the immense obstacles their Gentile ancestors had to surmount in order to receive and persevere in the grace offered them, they would bless God their Savior for having, by his Incarnation, his Sacrifice, his Sacraments, and his Church, facilitated salvation for us who live under the New Testament. True, he was the source of salvation to all preceding generations: but with what incomparable richness is he the source of ours? The Public Penitents, too, had their instructions in this Epistle. What an encouragement for them to hope for pardon! God had shown mercy to Ninive, sinful as it was, and sentenced to destruction: he would, therefore, accept their repentance and penance, he would stay his justice, and show them mercy and pardon.
Gospel
Sequel of the Holy Gospel according to John. Ch. VIII.
At that time: The Rulers and Pharisees sent ministers to apprehend Jesus. Jesus therefore said to them: Yet a little while I am with you: and then I go to him that sent me. You shall seek me, and shall not find me: and where I am, thither you cannot come. The Jews, therefore, said among themselves: Whither will he go, that we shall not find him? Will he go to the dispersed among the Gentiles, and teach the Gentiles? What is this saying that he hath said: You shall seek me, and shall not find me; and where I am, you cannot come? And on the last and great day of the festival, Jesus stood and cried, saying: If any man thirst, let him come to me, and drink. He that believeth in me, as the Scripture saith, “Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.” Now this he said of the Spirit which they should receive who believed in him.
Quote:The enemies of Jesus sought to stone him to death, as we were told in yesterday’s Gospel; today they are bent on making him a prisoner, and send soldiers to seize him. This time, Jesus does not hide himself; but how awful are the words he speaks: I go to Him that sent me: you shall seek me, and shall not find me! The sinner, then, who has long abused the grace of God, may have his ingratitude and contempt punished in this just but terrific way—that he shall not be able to find the Jesus he has despised; he shall seek and shall not find. Antiochus, when humbled under the hand of God, prayed, yet obtained not mercy. After the Death and Resurrection of Jesus, while the Church was casting her roots in the world, the Jews, who had crucified the Just One, were seeking in each of the many impostors, who were then rising up in Judea, and fomenting rebellions, which led to the destruction of Jerusalem. Surrounded on all sides by the Roman legions, with their temple and palaces a prey to flames, they sent up their cries to heaven, and besought the God of their fathers to send, as he had promised, the Deliverer! It never occurred to them that this Deliverer had shown himself to their fathers, to many even of themselves; that they had put him to death, and that the Apostles had already carried his name to the ends of the earth. They went on looking for him even to the very day when the deicide city fell, burying beneath its ruins them that the sword had spared. Had they been asked what it was they were awaiting, they would have replied that they were expecting their Messias! He had come and gone. You shall seek me, and shall not find me! Let them, too, think of these terrible words of Jesus, who intend to neglect the graces offered them during this Easter. Let us pray, let us make intercession for them, lest they fall into that awful threat of a repentance that seeks mercy when it is too late to find aught save an inexorable Justice.
But what consoling thoughts are suggested by the concluding words of our Gospel! Faithful souls, and you that have repented! listen to what your Jesus says, for it is to you that he speaks: If any man thirst, let him come to me and drink. Remember the prayer of the Samaritan woman: Give me, O Lord, to drink of this water! This water is divine grace: come and drink your fill at the fountains of your Savior, as the Prophet Isaias bids you. This water gives purity to the soul that is defiled, strength to them that are weak, and love to them that have no fervor. Nay, our Savior assures us, that he who believes in Him shall himself become as a fountain of living water, for the Holy Ghost will come upon him, and this soul shall pour out upon others of the fulness that she herself has received. With what joy must not the Catechumen have listened to these words, which promised him that his thirst should soon be quenched at the holy Font! Jesus has made himself everything to the world he has come to save: Light to guide us, Bread to nourish us, a Vine to gladden our hearts with its fruit, and lastly, a Fountain of Living Water to quench our thirst.
Humiliate capita vestra Deo.
Bow down your heads to God.
Da, quæsumus, Domine, populo tuo salutem mentis et corporis: ut bonis operibus inhærendo, tua semper mereatur protectione defendi. Per Christum Dominum nostrum. Amen.
Grant, O Lord, we beseech thee, to thy people, health both of body and mind, that being constant in the practice of good works, they may always be safe under thy protection. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
This being the day on which the Church offers to our meditations the history of the Prophet Jonas preaching to Ninive, we subjoin a new fragment from the Hymn of Prudentius on Fasting. It is the passage where he relates the life of this Prophet, and the repentance of the wicked City.
Hymn
Referre prisei stemma nunc jejunii
Libet, fideli proditum volumine,
Ut diruende civitatis incolis
Fulmen benigni mansuefactum Patris,
Pie repressis ignibus, pepercerit.
I fain would now, in holy Fasting’s praise, tell, from the book of truth, how God our Father, with his wonted love, repressed the fire and thunder of his wrath, and spared the city doomed to be destroyed.
Gens insolenti præpotens jactantia
Pollebat olim: quam fluentem requiter
Corrupta vulgo solverat lascivia;
Et inde bruto contumax fastidio
Cultum superni negligebat Numinis.
In ancient days, a city flourished, whose mighty power drove her into haughtiness extreme. Criminal indulgence and lewd corruption had destroyed the morals of her people, so brutalizing them, that they left the worship of the God of heaven.
Offensa tandem jugis indulgentiæ
Censura, justis excitatur motibus,
Dextram perarmat rhomphæali incendio,
Nimbos crepantes, et fragosos turbines
Vibrans tonantum nube flammarum quatit.
At length, the tired patience of God’s long-suffering gave way to justice, which moves his hand to prepare his arrowed lightnings, and storm-voiced clouds, and jarring whirlwinds, and thunderbolts that shake the vault of heaven.
Sed pœnitendi dum datur diecula,
Si forte volient improbam libidinem
Veteresque nugas condomare, ac frangere.
Suspendit ictum terror exorabilis,
Paulumque dicta substitit sententia.
Yet does he grant them time for penitence, wherein to tame and break the wickedness of their lust and wonted follies. Mercy, that waits for prayer, holds back the blow of anger; a brief delay puts off the day of doom.
Jonam prophetam mitis ultor excitat,
Pœnæ imminentis iret ut prænuncius;
Sed nosset ille quum minacem judicem
Servare malle, quam ferire ac plectere,
Tectam latenter vertit in Tharsos fugam.
The meek Avenger sends a herald of the coming woe: it is Jonas the Prophet. But he, well knowing that the threatening Judge is prone to save, rather than to strike and punish, stealthily to Tharsis flees.
Celsam paratis pontibus scandit ratem:
Udo revincta fune puppis solvitur.
Itur per altum: fit procellosum mare:
Tum causa tanti quæritur periculi:
Sors in fugacem missa vatem decidit.
A noble vessel was prepared for sail, whereon he takes his place. The anchor weighed, the vessel puts from shore. She ploughs the deep, when lo! a storm. Endangered thus, the crew would know the cause, and casting lots, it falls upon the fugitive, the Prophet.
Jussus perire solus e cunctis reus,
Cujus voluta crimen urna expresserat,
Præceps rotatur, et profundo immergitur:
Exceptus inde belluinis faucibus,
Alvi capacis vivus hauritur specu.
Of all, the only one in fault is he. His guilt is clear, the lot has told the tale. Headlong is he cast, and buried in the deep: and as he falls, a whale’s huge jaw receives the Prophet, burying him alive in the sepulcher of his capacious womb.
Intactus exin teriæ noctis vice
Monstri vomentis pellitur singultibus,
Qua murmuranti fine fluctus frangitur,
Salsosque candens spuma tundit pumices,
Ructatus exit, seque servatum stupet.
There, for three nights, does Jonas, he unhurt; which passed, the sick monster heaves him from his womb, just where the murmuring billows break upon the shore, and whiten the salty rocks with foam. The Prophet comes forth,—wondering, but safe.
In Ninivitas se coactus percito
Gressu reflectit; quos ut increpaverat,
Pudenda censor imputans opprobria.
Impendet, inquit, ira summi vindicis,
Urbemque flamma mox cremabit: credite.
Compelled, to Ninive he turns his hurried steps. He chides, he censures, he charges her with all her shameless crimes, saying: “The anger of the great Avenger shall fall upon you, and speedily your City shall be made a prey to fire. Believe the prophecy I speak.”
Apicem deinceps ardui montis petit,
Visurus inde conglobatum turbidæ
Fumum ruinæ, cladis et diræ struem,
Tectus flagellis multimodi germinis,
Nato et repente perfruens umbraculo.
Then to the summit of a lofty hill he goes, from whence to see the thickened clouds of smoke rising from the ruined heap, and gaze upon the pile of unpitied dead. Suddenly there grows upon the spot an ivy-tree, whose knotted branches yield a shaded cover.
Sed mœsta postquam civitas vulnus novi
Hausit doloris, heu! spremum palpitat.
Cursant per ampla congregatim mœnia
Plebs, et senatus, omnia ætas civium,
Pallens juventus, ejulantes feminæ.
But scarce had the mournful City felt the wound of her coming grief, than deathly fear possesses her. Her people and her senate, her young and old, youths pale with panic, and women wailing loud, scamper in groups along the spacious walls.
Placet frementem publicis jejuniis
Placare Christum: mos edendi spernitur.
Glaucos amictus induit monilibus
Matrona demptis, proque gemma, et serico
Crinem fluentem sordidus spargit cinis.
It is decreed—the anger of Christ shall by fasting be appeased. Henceforth, they spurn to eat. Matrons doff their trinkets, and vest in dingy garbs, and, for their wreaths of pearls and silks, sprinkle ashes on their hair.
Squalent recincta veste pullati patres,
Setasque plangens turba sumit textiles,
Impexa villis virgo bestialibus,
Nigrante vultum contegit velamine,
Jacens arenis et puer provolvitur.
Patricians put on robes of somber hue; the people, weeping, take hair-shirts for their dress; disheveled maidens clad in skins of beasts, and hide their faces in veils of black. Children, too, make the dust of earth their bed.
Rex ipse Coos æstuantem murices
Lænam revulsa dissipabat fibula,
Gemmas virentes, et lapillos sutiles,
Insigne frontis exuebat vinculum
Turpi capillos impeditus pulvere.
The king himself from his shoulders tears the Cossian purple robe, and for the diadem that decks his brow with emeralds and gems, strews grim ashes on his head.
Nullus bibendi, nemo voscendi memor:
Jejuna mensas pubes omnis liquerat:
Quin et negato lacte vagientium
Fletu madescunt parvulorum cunulæ:
Succum papillæ parca nutrix derogat.
None think of drink or meat. Among the youths, not one would touch the food prepared. Nay, babes are kept from their mothers’ breasts, and in their cradles, wet with tears, these little fasters lie.
Greges et ipsos claudit armentalium
Solers virorum cura, ne vagum pecus
Contingat ore rorulenta gramina,
Potum strepentis neve fontis hauriat;
Vacuis querelæ personant præsepibus.
The herdsman, too, pens up his flock with care, lest, left to roam, the dewy grass or rippling fount should tempt them to transgress the universal fast; but now, pent up, their moans rebellow through their prison-cave.
Mollitus his, et talibus, brevem Deus
Iram refrænat, temperans oraculum
Prosper sinistrum: prona nam clementia
Haud difficulter supplicum mortalium
Solvit reatum, fitque fautrix flentium.
Thus is God appeased, his anger brief restrained, and threatened evil yields to proffered love: for mercy leans to pardon men their sins, if they but humbly pray; and when they weep, she makes herself their friend.
Let us close the day with these stanzas in honor of the holy Cross. We have taken them from the Triodion of the Greek Church.
Hymn
(Feria VI. mediæ Septimanæ.)
Sanctissimum lignum, in quo Christus manibus extensis adversarias potestates devicit, adoremus jejunio nitidi, ad laudem et gloriam Omnipotentis.
Purified by our fast, let us, to the praise and glory of the Omnipotent God, venerate that most holy Cross, whereon Christ, with his arms stretched forth, overcame the power of our enemy.
Crux salutifera sanctificationem suppeditans proposita cernitur. Accedamus, cor et corpus emundantes.
The saving Cross, that sanctifies us, is now exposed before our eyes. Let us draw nigh, having purified our body and our soul.
Igne mandatorum tuorum munda me, benigne, et da, ut salutiferam Passionem tuam intuear, et cum desiderio adorem, Cruce vallatus et conservatus.
Cleanse me, O merciful Savior, by the fire of thy commandments, and grant that I may contemplate thy saving Passion, and lovingly adore it, having the Cross for my protection and defense.
Aquis jejunii pectora purgati, lignum Crucis fideliter amplectamur, in quo Christus crucifixus aquam immortalitatis nobis emisit.
Having our hearts purified by the waters of our fast, let us, with faith, embrace the wood of the Cross, on which Christ was crucified, and gave us the water of immortality.
Crucis velut velo alati, salutarem jejunii navigationem jam mediam emensi sumus, Jesu Salvator, per quam deduc nos ad Passionis tuæ portum.
Having thy Cross as our sail, we have already winged our way half through the saving voyage of our fast. Lead us by the same, O Jesus our Savior, into the haven of thy Passion.
Præmonstrabat te Moyses in monte, o Crux, in gentium interitum. Nos vero efformantes te, et corde intuentes et adorantes, hostes carpis expertes virtute tua profligamus.
Moses on the mount was a figure of thee, O holy Cross (when he prayed with his outstretched arms), unto the destruction of the Amalekites. Grant that we, who sign thee on ourselves, and lovingly gaze on and venerate thee, may, by thy power, put our spiritual enemies to flight.
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New Visual Compares the World’s Deadliest Pandemics by Population Impact |
Posted by: Stone - 03-22-2021, 06:38 AM - Forum: Pandemic 2020 [Secular]
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New Visual Compares the World’s Deadliest Pandemics by Population Impact – And COVID’s Placement May Surprise You
Gateway Pundit | March 21, 2021
After a year of the China Virus and the mayhem it caused across the globe we now have a better picture of just how deadly the coronavirus was compared to other great pandemics in the past.
And, it’s not even close.
Via Visual Capitalist
The Visual Capitalist also put together a visual last year on the history of pandemics.
According to the number of global deaths at that time the coronavirus was one of the smallest pandemics in modern history.
Since that time the numbers have escalated for the coronavirus but still don’t compare to the great pandemics of the past.
Via The Visual Capitalist:
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April 24th - St. Mary Euphrasia Pelletier and St. Fidelis of Sigmaringen |
Posted by: Elizabeth - 03-21-2021, 02:20 PM - Forum: April
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Saint Mary Euphrasia Pelletier
Foundress
(1796-1868)
On May 2, 1940, Pope Pius XII raised to the ultimate honors of the altar a most remarkable woman, Mother Mary Euphrasia Pelletier. As the solemn Te Deum swelled in gladness through the Vatican Basilica, its joyous strains were echoed and reechoed in quiet chapels found in virtually all the large cities of the world. Almost a hundred thousand women and girls and over ten thousand white-robed Sisters, in three hundred and fifty homes of charity, rejoiced with their Mother, the new Saint. For Saint Mary Euphrasia Pelletier is the Foundress and first General Superior of the large Congregation of Our Lady of Charity of the Good Shepherd of Angers, and one of the great sociologists of the ages.
Rose Virginia Pelletier was born of pious parents on July 31, 1796 on the island of Noirmoutiers, during the terrible period of the French Revolution. So it was that her life began as a daughter of the suffering faith of her beloved France. Because of the suppression and expulsion of religious Orders, the education of the little girl had to be undertaken by her busy mother. At her knees Rose Virginia learned of God and His service.
In 1814 she entered the Order of Our Lady of Charity of the Refuge at Tours. After ten months as a postulant in this historic community at Tours, Rose Virginia received the habit and entered upon her life as a novice in September, 1815. For two years she remained in the novitiate, being formed to the religious life, studying and absorbing the history and work of her Order. Listening to the life of a Saint one day, she heard that he quickly attained sanctity by his perfect obedience. Obedience, then, reflected the young novice, must be the best means to become holy. If only I might take the vow of obedience at once! Sister Mary Euphrasia consulted her superiors, and was permitted to take a private vow of obedience. In 1817 she was professed, making then her first public vows.
In a few years her exceptional qualifications became so apparent to all that after having been Mistress of penitents, she was elected Superior of the house. A project which had been in her mind for a long time was then made a reality. She had found in many of the penitents a real attraction for the religious life, with no desire to return to the world after their conversion. Where could they go? It was very difficult, virtually impossible, to find a congregation suitable for them or willing to accept them. So Mother Euphrasia inaugurated a community called the Magdalene Sisters. She adapted the rule of Saint Teresa, drew up a set of Constitutions, and erected the first community of Magdalenes in the house at Tours. One of the greatest consolations Mother Euphrasia enjoyed in life was the sanctity attained by so many of these religious, bound by vows to a life of prayer and penance.
During the thirty years she was Superior General, Mother Euphrasia sent out her Sisters from their mother house at Angers to found one hundred and ten houses in every land beneath the sun — Sisters inflamed with her own zeal, trained at her hands. She died at Angers in her seventy-second year, having welcomed death with the faith and serenity which marked her entire life.
Saint Fidelis of Sigmaringen
Martyr
(1577-1622)
Saint Fidelis was born of noble parents at Sigmaringen in what is now Prussia, in 1577. In his youth he frequently approached the Sacraments, visited the sick and the poor, and spent many hours before the altar. For a time he followed the legal profession and was remarkable for his advocacy of the poor and his respectful language towards his opponents.
Finding it difficult to be both a rich lawyer and a good Christian, Fidelis entered the Capuchin Order and embraced a life of austerity and prayer. Hair shirts, iron-pointed girdles, and disciplines were penances too light for his fervor. At Weltkirchen, where he was Superior of the convent during an outbreak of the plague, he devoted himself indefatigably to the care of the sick soldiers and citizens. Animated by a desire for martyrdom, he rejoiced at being sent with several fellow Capuchins on a mission to Switzerland, which the newly-founded Congregation of the Propaganda named him to preside. There he braved every peril to rescue souls from the errors of Calvin.
When preaching one day at Sevis he was fired at by a Calvinist, but fear of death could not deter him from proclaiming divine truth. After his sermon, when leaving the city he was waylaid by a body of his enemies, who attacked him and tried to force him to embrace their so-called reform. But he said, I came to refute your errors, not to embrace them; I will never renounce Catholic doctrine, which is the truth of all ages, and I fear not death. On this they fell upon him with their daggers; and the first martyr of the Propaganda, losing his life for Christ, went to find in heaven the veritable life his Master promised to all who are losers for His sake.
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The Ottaviani Intervention |
Posted by: Stone - 03-21-2021, 06:26 AM - Forum: In Defense of Tradition
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A Brief Critical Study of the New Order of Mass
Also known as “ The Ottaviani Intervention,” this study is one of the most important critiques made of the New Mass.
Background to the study
On September 25, 1969, Alfredo Cardinal Ottaviani, prefect-emeritus of the Sacred Congregation for the Faith, sent a letter to Pope Paul VI. Accompanying the letter was a theological “Study of the New Order of the Mass” (Novus Ordo Missae), written by a group of Roman theologians. Cardinal Ottaviani’s letter was a plea to His Holiness
Quote:“not to deprive us of the possibility of continuing to have recourse to the fruitful integrity of that Missale Romanum of St. Pius V so highly praised by Your Holiness and so deeply loved and venerated by the whole Catholic world.”
It was apparently in response to the Ottaviani Intervention that Pope Paul subsequently ordered a delay of two years in the deadline for mandatory implementation of the new Ordo.
A little known fact about the creation of this study was that Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre chaired the working committee that drafted it. Historical details about this important event can be found in Marcel Lefebvre: The Biography by Bishop Bernard Tissier de Mallerais.[1]
As briefly related by Fr. Ramon Angles in his transcribed conference, “A Short History of the Society of St. Pius X”:[2]
Quote:On April 3, 1969, the apostolic constitution Missale Romanum presented a new order of the Mass. Archbishop Lefebvre gathered together a group of 12 theologians who wrote under his direction, "A Short Critical Study of the Novus Ordo Missae" often called the "Ottaviani Intervention". Cardinals Ottaviani and Bacci wrote indeed an introduction and presented the study to Paul VI. Since no response came from the Vatican, the archbishop announces to his small group of seminarians, June 10, 1971, that he refuses to accept this new protestantized liturgy:
Quote:'How can I agree to abandon the Mass of All Time or to admit to place it at the same level as the Novus Ordo, created by Annibal Bugnini, with the participation of Protestants to make of it an equivocal supper that eliminates totally the Offertory, and touches the very words of the Consecration.'"
Translation notes
The document and accompanying letter which Cardinal Ottaviani submitted to the Holy Father, which has also been submitted to the bishops of Italy, is printed in the following pages. It is the work of a group of theologians and liturgists in Rome, of different nationalities and differing tendencies.
Because the document was submitted as evidence in support of points made in the cardinal’s letter, the Italian original has been faithfully translated, which explains why it is not entirely suited to the English language. It does however, raise so many questions of such profound importance, some of considerable complexity, that it would be wrong to depart from the Italian text.
The evidence is cumulative and does not stand or fall on any single part. A brief summary is however provided to direct the attention of the reader to what may be of particular interest to him.
The translation of the study and letter was first made available by the Lumen Gentium Foundation in 1969 and reprinted several times, including by Angelus Press. This version has been slightly edited and corrected from the original by the Society of St. Pius X’s United States of America District Headquarters.
✠ ✠ ✠
Letter from Cardinal Ottaviani to His Holiness Pope Paul VI
Rome
September 25, 1969
Most Holy Father,
Having carefully examined, and presented for the scrutiny of others, the Novus Ordo Missae prepared by the experts of the Consilium ad exequdam Constitutionem de Sacra Liturgia, and after lengthy prayer and reflection, we feel it to be our bounden duty in the sight of God and towards Your Holiness, to put before you the following considerations:
1. The accompanying critical study of the Novus Ordo Missae, the work of a group of theologians, liturgists and pastors of souls, shows quite clearly in spite of its brevity that if we consider the innovations implied or taken for granted, which may of course be evaluated in different ways, the Novus Ordo represents, both as a whole and in its details, a striking departure from the Catholic theology of the Mass as it was formulated in Session XXII of the Council of Trent. The “canons” of the rite definitively fixed at that time provided an insurmountable barrier to any heresy directed against the integrity of the Mystery.
2. The pastoral reasons adduced to support such a grave break with tradition, even if such reasons could be regarded as holding good in the face of doctrinal considerations, do not seem to us sufficient. The innovations in the Novus Ordo and the fact that all that is of perennial value finds only a minor place, if it subsists at all, could well turn into a certainty the suspicion, already prevalent, alas, in many circles, that truths which have always been believed by the Christian people, can be changed or ignored without infidelity to that sacred deposit of doctrine to which the Catholic faith is bound for ever. Recent reforms have amply demonstrated that fresh changes in the liturgy could lead to nothing but complete bewilderment on the part of the faithful who are already showing signs of restiveness and of an indubitable lessening of faith. Amongst the best of the clergy the practical result is an agonizing crisis of conscience of which innumerable instances come to our notice daily.
3. We are certain that these considerations. which can only reach Your Holiness by the living voice of both shepherds and flock, cannot but find an echo in Your paternal heart, always so profoundly solicitous for the spiritual needs of the children of the Church. It has always been the case that when a law meant for the good of subjects proves to be on the contrary harmful, those subjects have the right, nay the duty of asking with filial trust for the abrogation of that law. Therefore we most earnestly beseech Your Holiness, at a time of such painful divisions and ever-increasing perils for the purity of the Faith and the unity of the Church, lamented by You our common Father. not to deprive us of the possibility of continuing to have recourse to the fruitful integrity of that Missale Romanum of St. Pius V, so highly praised by Your Holiness and so deeply loved and venerated by the whole Catholic World.
A. Card. Ottaviani
A. Card. Bacci
Feast of St. Pius X
✠ ✠ ✠
A Brief Critical Study of the Novus Ordo Missae by a group of Roman Theologians
I.
In October 1967, the Episcopal Synod called in Rome was requested to pass a judgment on the experimental celebration of a so-called “normative Mass,” devised by the Consilium for implementing the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy. This Mass aroused the most serious misgivings. The voting showed considerable opposition (43 non placet), very many substantial reservations (62 juxta modum), and 4 abstentions out of 187 voters. The international press spoke of a “refusal” on the proposed “normative Mass” on the part of the Synod. Progressively-inclined papers made no mention of this.
In the Novus Ordo Missae lately promulgated by the Apostolic Constitution Missale Romanum, we once again find this “normative Mass,” identical in substance, nor does it appear that in the intervening period, the Episcopal Conferences, at least as such, were ever asked to give their views about it.
In the Apostolic Constitution, it is stated that the ancient Missal promulgated by St. Pius V, July 13, 1570, but going back in great part to St. Gregory the Great and to still remoter antiquity,[3] was for four centuries the norm for the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice for priests of the Latin rite, and that, taken to every part of the world, “it has moreover been an abundant source of spiritual nourishment to may holy people in their devotion to God.”
Yet, the present reform, putting it definitely out of use, was claimed to be necessary since “from that time the study of the Sacred Liturgy has become more widespread and intensive amongst Christians.”
This assertion seems to us to embody a serious equivocation. For the desire of the people was expressed, if at all, when—thanks to St. Pius X—they began to discover the true and everlasting treasures of the liturgy. The people never on any account asked for the liturgy to be changed or mutilated so as to understand it better. They asked for a better understanding of a changeless liturgy, and one which they would never have wanted changed.
The Roman Missal of St. Pius V was religiously venerated and most dear to Catholics, both priests and laity. One fails to see how its use, together with suitable catechesis, should have hindered a fuller participation in, and greater knowledge of, the Sacred Liturgy, nor why, when its many outstanding virtues are recognized, this should not have been considered worthy to continue to foster the liturgical piety of Christians.
Since the “normative Mass,” now reintroduced and imposed as the Novus Ordo Missae, was in substance rejected by the Synod of Bishops, was never submitted to the collegial judgment of the Episcopal Conference, nor have the people—least of all in mission lands—ever asked for any reform of Holy Mass whatsoever, one fails to comprehend the motives behind the new legislation which overthrows a tradition unchanged in the Church since the fourth and fifth centuries, as the Apostolic Constitution itself acknowledges. As no poplar demand exists to support this reform, it appears devoid of any logical grounds to justify it and make it acceptable to the Catholic people.
The Vatican Council did indeed express a desire (para. 50, Constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium) for the various parts of the Mass to be reordered “so that the distinctive character of each single part and its relationship to the other part may appear more clearly.” We shall now see how the Ordo recently promulgated corresponds with this original intention.
An attentive examination of the Novus Ordo reveals changes of such magnitude as to justify in themselves the judgment already made with regard to the “normative Mass.” Both have in many points every possibility of satisfying the most modernistic of Protestants.
II.
Let us begin with the definition of the Mass given in n. 7 of the Institutio Generalis at the beginning of the second chapter of the Novus Ordo: De structura Missae:
Quote:The Lord’s Supper or Mass is a sacred meeting or assembly of the People of God, met together under the presidency of the priest, to celebrate the memorial of the Lord.[4] Thus the promise of Christ, “where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them,” is eminently true of the local community in the Church" (Mt. 18, 20).
The definition of the Mass is thus limited to that of a “supper,” and this term is found constantly repeated (nos. 8, 48, 55d, 56). This “supper” is further characterized as an assembly presided over by the priest and held as a memorial of the Lord, recalling what He did on the first Maundy Thursday. None of this in the very least implies either the Real Presence, or the reality of the sacrifice, or the Sacramental function of the consecrating priest, or the intrinsic value of the Eucharistic Sacrifice independently of the people’s presence.[5] It does not, in a word, imply any of the essential dogmatic values of the Mass which together provide its true definition. Here the deliberate omission of these dogmatic values amounts to their having been superseded and therefore, at least in practice, to their denial.[6]
In the second part of this paragraph 7 it is asserted, aggravating the already serious equivocation, that there holds good, “eminenter,” for this assembly Christ’s promise that “Ubi sunt duo vel tres congregati in nomine meo; ibi sum in medio eorum” (Mt. 18, 20). This promise, which refers only to the spiritual presence of Christ with His grace, is thus put on the same qualitative plane, save for the greater intensity, as the substantial and physical reality of the Sacramental Eucharistic Presence.
In no. 8 a subdivision of the Mass into “liturgy of the word” and Eucharistic liturgy immediately follows, with the affirmation that in the Mass is made ready “the table of God’s word” as of “the Body of Christ,” so that the faithful “may be built up and refreshed”—an altogether improper assimilation of the two parts of the liturgy, as though between two points of equal symbolic value. More will be said about this point later.
The [New] Mass is designated by a great many different expressions, all acceptable relatively, all unacceptable if employed, as they are, separately and in an absolute sense. We cite a few:
- the Action of Christ and of the People of God;
- the Lord’s Supper or Mass;
- the Paschal Banquet;
- the Common participation in the Lord’s Table;
- the memorial of the Lord;
- the Eucharistic Prayer;
- the Liturgy of the Word and the Eucharistic Liturgy;
- etc.
As is only too evident, the emphasis is obsessively placed upon the supper and the memorial instead of upon the unbloody renewal of the Sacrifice of Calvary. The formula “the Memorial of the Passion and Resurrection of the Lord” is, besides, inexact, the Mass being the memorial or the Sacrifice alone, in itself redemptive whilst the Resurrection is the consequent fruit of it.[7]
We shall later see how, in the same consecratory formula, and throughout the Novus Ordo such equivocations are renewed and reiterated.
III.
We come now to the ends of the Mass.
1. Ultimate end. This is that of the Sacrifice of praise to the Most Holy Trinity according to the explicit declaration of Christ in the primary purpose of His very Incarnation: “Coming into the world he saith: sacrifice and oblation thou wouldst not but a body thou has fitted me” (Ps. 34, 7-9 in Heb. 10, 5).
This end has disappeared from the Offertory, with the disappearance of the prayer Suscipe, Sancta Trinitas; from the end of the Mass with the omission of the Placet tibi Sancta Trinitas; and from the Preface, which on Sunday will no longer be that of the Most Holy Trinity, as this Preface will be reserved only to the Feast of the Trinity, and so in future will be heard but once a year.
2. Ordinary end. This is the propitiatory Sacrifice. It too has been deviated from; for instead of putting the stress on the remission of sins of the living and the dead it lays emphasis on the nourishment and sanctification of the present (no. 54). Christ certainly instituted the Sacrament of the Last Supper putting Himself in the state of Victim in order that we might be united to Him in this state but this self-immolation precedes the eating of the Victim, and has an antecedent and full redemptive value (the application of the bloody immolation). This is borne out by the fact that the faithful present are not bound to communicate, sacramentally.[8]
3. Immanent end. Whatever the nature of the Sacrifice, it is absolutely necessary that it be pleasing and acceptable to God. After the Fall no sacrifice can claim to be acceptable in its own right other than the Sacrifice of Christ. The Novus Ordo changes the nature of the offering, turning it into a sort or exchange of gifts between man and God: man brings the bread, and God turns it into the “bread of life”; man brings the wine, and God turns it into a “spiritual drink.”
Thou art blessed Lord, God of the Universe, because from Thy generosity we have received the bread [or “wine”] which we offer Thee the fruit of the earth [or “vine”] and of man’s labor. May it become for us the bread of life [or “spiritual drink.”]."[9]
There is no need to comment on the utter indeterminateness of the formulae “panis vitae” and “potus spiritualis,” which might mean anything. The same capital equivocation is repeated here, as in the definition of the Mass: there, Christ is present only spiritually among His own: here, bread and wine are only “spiritually” (not substantially) changed.[10]
In the preparation of the offering, a similar equivocation results from the suppression of two great prayers. The “Deus qui humanae substantiae dignitatem mirabiliter condidisti et mirabilius reformasti” was a reference to man’s former condition of innocence and to his present one of being ransomed by the Blood of Christ: a recapitulation of the whole economy of the Sacrifice, from Adam to the present moment. The final propitiatory offering of the chalice, that it might ascend “cum odore suavitatis,” into the presence of the divine majesty, Whose clemency was implored, admirably reaffirmed this plan. By suppressing the continual reference to God in the Eucharistic prayers, there is no longer any clear distinction between divine and human sacrifice.
Having removed the keystone, the reformers have had to put up scaffolding; suppressing real ends, they have had to substitute fictitious ends of their own: leading to gestures intended to stress the union of priest and faithful, and of the faithful among themselves; offerings for the poor and for the Church superimposed upon the offerings of the Host to be immolated. There is a danger that the uniqueness of this offering will become blurred, so that participation in the immolation of the Victim comes to resemble a philanthropical meeting, or a charity banquet.
IV.
We now pass on to the essence of the Sacrifice.
The mystery of the Cross is no longer explicitly expressed. It is only there obscurely, veiled, imperceptible for the people.[11] And for these reasons:
1. The sense given in the Novus Ordo to the so-called prex eucharistica[12] is: “that the whole congregation of the faithful may be united to Christ in proclaiming the great wonders of God and in offering sacrifice” (no. 54, the end).
Which sacrifice is referred to? Who is the offerer? No answer is given to either of these questions. The initial definition of the prex eucharistica is as follows:
Quote:“The center and culminating point of the whole celebration now has a beginning, namely the Eucharistic Prayer, a prayer of thanksgiving and of sanctification” (no. 54, pr.).
The effects thus replace the causes, of which not one single word is said. The explicit mention of the object of the offering, which was found in the Suscipe, has not been replaced by anything. The change in formulation reveals the change in doctrine.
2. The reason for this non-explicitness concerning the Sacrifice is quite simply that the Real Presence has been removed from the central position which it occupied so resplendently in the former Eucharistic liturgy. There is but a single reference to the Real Presence (a quotation—in a footnote—from the Council of Trent), and again the context is that of “nourishment” (no. 241, note 63).
The Real and permanent Presence of Christ, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity, in the transubstantiated Species is never alluded to. The very word transubstantiation is totally ignored.
The suppression of the invocation to the Third Person of the Most Holy Trinity (Veni Sanctificator) that He may descend upon the oblations, as once before into the womb of the Most Blessed Virgin to accomplish the miracle of the divine Presence, is yet one more instance of the systematic and tacit negation of the Real Presence.
Note, too, the eliminations:
- of the genuflections (no more than three remain to the priest, and one, with certain exceptions, to the people, at the Consecration);
- of the purification of the priest’s fingers in the chalice; of the preservation from all profane contact of the priest’s fingers after the Consecration;
- of the purification of the vessels, which need not be immediate, nor made on the corporal;
- of the pall protecting the chalice;
- of the internal gilding of sacred vessels;
- of the consecration of movable altars;
- of the sacred stone and relics in the movable altar or upon the mensa—when celebration does not occur in sacred precincts (this distinction leads straight to “eucharistic suppers” in private houses);
- of the three altar cloths, reduced to one only;
- of thanksgiving kneeling (replaced by a thanksgiving, seated, on the part of priest and people, a logical enough complement to Communion standing);
- of all the ancient prescriptions in the case of the consecrated Host falling, which are now reduced to a single, casual direction: “reverenter accipiatur” (no. 239);
- all these things only serve to emphasize how outrageously faith in the dogma of the Real Presence is implicitly repudiated.
3. The function assigned to the altar (no. 262). The altar is almost always called mensa.[1]
Quote:“The altar or table of the Lord, which is the center of the whole Eucharistic liturgy” (no. 49, cf. 262).
It is laid down that the altar must be detached from the walls so that it is possible to walk round it and celebration may be facing the people (no. 262);
Quote:also that the altar must be the center of the assembly of the faithful so that their attention is drawn spontaneously toward it"(ibid).
But a comparison of nos. 262 and 276 would seem to suggest that the reservation of the Blessed Sacrament on this altar is excluded. This will mark an irreparable dichotomy between the presence, in the celebrant, of the eternal High Priest and that same Presence brought about sacramentally. Before, they were one and the same presence.[14]
Now it is recommended that the Blessed Sacrament be kept in a place apart for the private devotion of the people (almost as though it were a question of devotion to a relic of some kind) so that, on going into a church, attention will no longer be focused upon the tabernacle but upon a stripped bare table. Once again the contrast is made between private piety and liturgical piety: altar is set up against altar.
In the insistent recommendation to distribute in Communion the Species consecrated during the same Mass, indeed to consecrate a loaf[15] for the priest to distribute to at least some of the faithful, we find reasserted a disparaging attitude toward the tabernacle, as toward every form of Eucharistic piety outside of the Mass. This constitutes yet another violent blow to faith in the Real Presence as long as the consecrated Species remain.[16]
4. The formulae of consecration. The ancient formula of consecration was properly a sacramental, not a narrative one. This was shown above all by three things:
a. The Scriptural text not taken up word for word: the Pauline insertion “mysterium fidei” was an immediate confession of the priest’s faith in the mystery realized by the Church through the hierarchical priesthood.
b. The punctuation and typographical lettering: the full stop and new paragraph marking the passage from the narrative mode to the sacramental and affirmative one, the sacramental words in larger characters at the center of the page and often in a different color, clearly detached from the historical context. All combined to give the formula a proper and autonomous value.
c. The anamnesis (“Haec quotiescumque feceritis in mei memoriam facietis”), which in Greek is “eis tén emèu anàmnesin” (directed to my memory). This referred to Christ operating and not to the mere memory of Him, or of the event: an invitation to recall what He did (“haec... in mei memoriam facietis”) in the way He did it, not only His Person, or the Supper. The Pauline [Paul VI] formula (“Hoc facite in meam commemorationem”) which will now take the place of the old—proclaimed as it will be daily in vernacular languages—will irremediably cause the hearers to concentrate on the memory of Christ as the end of the Eucharistic action, whilst it is really the beginning. The concluding idea of commemoration will certainly once again take the place of the idea of sacramental action.”[17]
The narrative mode is now emphasized by the formula “narratio institutionis” (no. 55d) and repeated by the definition of the anamnesis, in which it is said that “The Church recalls the memory of Christ Himself” (no. 556).
In short: the theory put forward by the epiclesis, the modification of the words of Consecration and of the anamnesis, have the effect of modifying the modus significandi of the words of Consecration. The consecratory formulae are here pronounced by the priest as the constituents of a historical narrative and no longer enunciated as expressing the categorical and affirmative judgment uttered by Him in whose Person the priest acts: “Hoc est Corpus Meum” (not, “Hoc est Corpus Christi”).[18]
Furthermore the acclamation assigned to the people immediately after the Consecration: (“we announce Thy death, O Lord, until Thou comest”) introduces yet again, under cover of eschatology, the same ambiguity concerning the Real Presence. Without interval or distinction, the expectation of Christ’s Second Coming at the end of time is proclaimed just as the moment when He is substantially present on the altar, almost as though the former, and not the latter, were the true Coming.
This is brought out even more strongly in the formula of optional acclamation no. 2 (Appendix): “As often as we eat of this bread and drink of this chalice we announce Thy death, O Lord, until Thou comest,” where the juxtaposition of the different realities of immolation and eating, of the Real Presence and of Christ’s Second Coming, reaches the height of ambiguity.[19]
V.
We now come to the realization of the Sacrifice, the four elements of which were:
- Christ,
- the priest,
- the Church,
- the faithful present.
In the Novus Ordo, the position attributed to the faithful is autonomous (absoluta), hence totally false from the opening definition—“Missa est sacra synaxis seu congregatio populi”—to the priest’s salutation to the people which is meant to convey to the assembled community the “presence” of the Lord (no. 28). “Qua salutatione et populi responsione manifestatur ecclesiae congregatae mysterium.”
A true presence, certainly, of Christ but only spiritual, and a mystery of the Church, but solely as assembly manifesting and soliciting such a presence.
This interpretation is constantly underlined: by the obsessive references to the communal character of the Mass (nos. 74-152); by the unheard of distinction between “missa cum populo” and “missa sine populo” (nos. 203-231); by the definition of the “oratio universalis seu fidelium” (DO. 45), where once more we find stressed the “sacerdotal office” of the people (“populus sui sacerdotii munus excercens”) presented in an equivocal way because its subordination to that of the priest is not mentioned, and all the more since the priest, as consecrated mediator, makes himself the interpreter of all the intentions of the people in the Te igitur and the two Memento.
In Prex Eucharistica III (Vere sanctus, p. 123) the following words are addressed to the Lord: “from age to age you gather a people to Thyself, in order that from east to west a perfect offering may be made to the glory of Thy name,” the in order that making it appear that the people, rather than the priest[20] are the indispensable element in the celebration; and since not even here is it made clear who the offerer is, the people themselves appear to be invested with autonomous priestly powers. From this step it would not be surprising if, before long, the people were authorized to join the priest in pronouncing the consecrating formulae (which actually seems here and there to have already occurred).
The priest’s position is minimized, changed and falsified. Firstly in relation to the people for whom he is, for the most part, a mere president, or brother, instead of the consecrated minister celebrating in persona Christi. Secondly in relation to the Church, as a “quidam de populo.” In the definition of the epiclesis (no. 55), the invocations are attributed anonymously to the Church: the part of the priest has vanished.
In the Confiteor which has now become collective, he is no longer judge, witness and intercessor with God; so it is logical that he is no longer empowered to give the absolution, which has been suppressed. He is integrated with the fratres. Even the server addresses him as much in the Confiteor of the “Missa sine populo.”
Already, prior to this latest reform, the significant distinction between the Communion of the priest—the moment in which the Eternal High Priest and the one acting in His Person were brought together in closest union—and the Communion of the faithful had been suppressed.
Not a word do we now find as to the priest’s power to sacrifice, or about his act of consecration, the bringing about through him of the Eucharistic Presence. He now appears as nothing more than a Protestant minister.
The disappearance, or optional use, of many sacred vestments (in certain cases the alb and stole are sufficient—n. 298) obliterates even more the original conformity with Christ: the priest is no more clothed with all His virtues, becoming merely a “graduate” whom one or two signs may distinguish from the mass of people:[21] “a little more a man than the rest” to quote the involuntarily humorous definition by a Dominican preacher.[22] Again, as with the “table” and the altar, there is separated what God has united: the sole Priesthood of the Word of God.
Finally, there is the Church’s position in relation to Christ. In one case, namely the “missa sine populo” is the Mass acknowledged to be “Actio Christi et Ecclesiae” (no. 4, cf. Presb. Ord. no. 13), whereas in the case of the “missa cum populo” this is not referred to except for the purpose of “remembering Christ” and sanctifying those present. The words used are: “In offering the sacrifice through Christ in the Holy Ghost to God the Father, the priest associates the people with himself.” (no. 60), instead of words which would associate the people with Christ Who offers Himself “per Spiritum Sanctum Deo Patri...”
In this context the following are to be noted:
- the very serious omission of the phrase “Per Christum Dominum Nostrum,” the guarantee of being heard given to the Church in every age (John 14, 13-14; 15; 16; 23; 24;
- the all-pervading “paschalism,” almost as though there were no other, quite different and equally important aspects of the communication of grace;
- the very strange and dubious eschatologism whereby the communication of supernatural grace, a reality which is permanent and eternal, is brought down to the dimensions of time: we hear of a people on the march, a pilgrim Church—no longer militant against the Potestas tenebrarum — looking toward a future which having lost its link with eternity is conceived in purely temporal terms.
The Church—One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic—is diminished as such in the formula that, in the Prex Eucharistica IV, has taken the place of the prayer of the Roman Canon “on behalf of all orthodox believers of the Catholic and apostolic faith.” Now they are no more nor less than: “all who seek you with a sincere heart.”
Again, in the Memento of the dead, these have no longer passed on “with the sign of faith and sleep the sleep of peace,” but only “who have died in the peace of Thy Christ,” and to them are added, with further obvious detriment to the concept of visible unity, the host of all the dead “whose faith is known to Thee alone.”
Furthermore, in none of the three new Eucharistic Prayers is there any reference, as has already been said, to the state of suffering of those who have died, in none the possibility of a particular Memento: all of this, again, must undermine faith in the propitiatory and redemptive nature of the Sacrifice.[23]
Desacralizing omissions everywhere debase the mystery of the Church. She is not presented above all as a sacred hierarchy: angels and saints are reduced to anonymity in the second part of the collective Confiteor: they have disappeared, as witnesses and judges, in the person of St. Michael, from the first.[24] The various hierarchies of angels have also disappeared (and this is without precedent) from the new Preface of Prex II. In the Communicantes the reminder of the pontiffs and holy martyrs on whom the Church of Rome is founded and who were, without doubt, the transmitters of the apostolic traditions, destined to be completed in what became, with St. Gregory, the Roman Mass, has been suppressed. In the Libera nos the Blessed Virgin, the Apostles and all the Saints are no longer mentioned: her and their intercession is thus no longer asked, even in time of peril.
The unity of the Church is gravely compromised by the wholly intolerable omission from the entire Ordo, including the three new Eucharistic Prayers, of the names of the Apostles Peter and Paul, Founders of the Church of Rome, and the names of the other Apostles, foundation and mark of the one and universal Church, the only remaining mention being in the Communicantes of the Roman Canon.
A clear attack upon the dogma of the Communion of Saints is the omission, when the priest is celebrating without a server, of all the salutations, and the final blessing, not to speak of the Ite missa est[25] now not even said in Masses celebrated with a server.
The double Confiteor showed how the priest—in his capacity of Christ’s Minister, bowing downplay and acknowledging himself unworthy of his sublime mission, of the “tremendum mysterium” about to be accomplished by him and of even (in the Aufer a nobis) entering into the Holy of Holies—invoked the intercession (in the Oramus te, Domine) of the merits of the martyrs whose relics were sealed in the altar. Both these prayers have been suppressed; what has been said previously in respect of the double Confiteor and the double Communion is equally relevant here.
The outward setting of the Sacrifice, evidence of its sacred character, has been profaned. See, for example, what is laid down for celebration outside sacred precincts, in which the altar may be replaced by a simple mensa without consecrated stone or relic, and with a single cloth (nos. 260, 265). Here too all that has been previously said with regard to the Real Presence applies, the disassociation of the convivium and of the sacrifice of the supper from the Real Presence Itself.
The process of desacralization is completed thanks to the new procedures for the offering: the reference to ordinary not unleavened bread; altar servers (and lay people at Communion sub utraque specie) being allowed to handle sacred vessels (no. 244d); the distracting atmosphere created by the ceaseless coming and going of priest, deacon, subdeacon, psalmist, commentator (the priest becomes a commentator himself from his constantly being required to “explain” what he is about to accomplish)—of readers (men and women), of servers or laymen welcoming people at the door and escorting them to their places whilst other carry and sort offerings. And in the midst of all this prescribed activity, the “mulier idonea”[26] (anti-scriptural and anti-Pauline) who for the first time in the tradition of the Church will be authorized to read the lesson and also perform other “ministeria quae extra presbyterium peraguntur” (no. 70). Finally, there is the concelebration mania, which will end by destroying Eucharistic piety in the priest, by overshadowing the central figure of Christ, sole Priest and Victim, in a collective presence of concelebrants.[27]
VI.
We have limited ourselves to a summary evaluation of the new Ordo where it deviates most seriously from the theology of the Catholic Mass and our observations touch only those deviations that are typical. A complete evaluation of all the pitfalls, the dangers, the spiritually and psychologically destructive elements contained in the document—whether in text, rubrics or instructions—would be a vast undertaking.
No more than a passing glance has been taken at the three new Canons, since these have already come in for repeated and authoritative criticism, both as to form and substance. The second of them[28] gave immediate scandal to the faithful on account of its brevity. Of Canon II it has been well said, amongst other things, that it could be recited with perfect tranquility of conscience by a priest who no longer believes either in transubstantiation or in the sacrificial character of the Mass—hence even by a Protestant minister.
The new missal was introduced in Rome as “a text of ample pastoral matter” and “more pastoral than juridical” which the Episcopal Conferences would be able to utilize according to the varying circumstances and genius of different peoples. In this same Apostolic Constitution we read: “we have introduced into the new missal legitimate variations and adaptations.” Besides, Section I of the new Congregation for Divine Worship will be responsible “for the publication and constant revision of the liturgical books.” The last official bulletin of the Liturgical Institutes of Germany, Switzerland and Austria[29] says:
Quote:The Latin texts will now have to be translated into the languages of the various peoples: the "Roman" style will have to be adopted to the individuality of the local Churches: that which was conceived beyond time must he transposed into the changing context of concrete situations in the constant flux of the Universal Church and of its myriad congregations.
The Apostolic Constitution itself gives the coup de grace to the Church’s universal language (contrary to the express will of Vatican Council II) with the bland affirmation that “in such a variety of tongues one [?] and the same prayer of all... may ascend more fragrant than any incense.”
The demise of Latin may therefore be taken for granted; that of Gregorian chant—which even the Council recognized as “liturgiae romanae proprium” (Sacros. Conc., no. 116), ordering that “principem locum obtineat” (ibid.)—will logically follow, with the freedom of choice, amongst other things, of the texts of Introit and Gradual.
From the outset therefore the new rite is launched as pluralistic and experimental, bound to time and place. Unity of worship, thus swept away for good and all, what will now become of the unity of faith that went with it, and which, we were always told, was to be defended without compromise?
It is evident that the Novus Ordo has no intention of presenting the Faith as taught by the Council of Trent, to which, nonetheless, the Catholic conscience is bound forever. With the promulgation of the Novus Ordo, the loyal Catholic is thus faced with a most tragic alternative.
VII.
The Apostolic Constitution makes explicit reference to a wealth of piety and teaching in the Novus Ordo borrowed from the Eastern Churches. The result—utterly remote from and even opposed to the inspiration of the oriental Liturgies—can only repel the faithful of the Eastern Rites. What, in truth, do these ecumenical options amount to? Basically to the multiplicity of anaphora (but nothing approaching their beauty and complexity), to the presence of the deacons, to Communion sub utraque specie. Against this the Ordo would appear to have been deliberately shorn of everything which in the Liturgy of Rome came close to those of the East.[30] Moreover, in abandoning its unmistakable and immemorial Roman character, the Ordo lost what was spiritually precious of its own. Its place has been taken by elements which bring it closer only to certain other reformed liturgies (not even to those closest to Catholicism) and which debase it at the same time. The East will be ever more alienated, as it already has been by the preceding liturgical reforms.
By way of compensation the new Liturgy will be the delight of the various groups who, hovering on the verge of apostasy, are wreaking havoc in the Church of God, poisoning her organism and undermining her unity of doctrine, worship, morals and discipline in a spiritual crisis without precedent.
VIII.
St. Pius V had the Roman Missal drawn up (as the present Apostolic Constitution itself recalls) so that it might he an instrument of unity among Catholics. In conformity with the injunctions of the Council of Trent it was to exclude all danger, in liturgical worship of errors against the Faith, then threatened by the Protestant Reformation. The gravity of the situation fully justified, and even rendered prophetic, the saintly pontiff’s solemn warning given at the end of the bull promulgating his missal:
Quote:“Should anyone presume to tamper with this, let him know that he shall incur the wrath of God Almighty and of his Blessed Apostles, Peter and Paul” (Quo Primum, July 13, 1570).[31]
When the Novus Ordo was presented at the Vatican Press Office, it was asserted with great audacity that the reasons which prompted the Tridentine decrees are no longer valid. Not only do they still apply, but there also exist, as we do not hesitate to affirm, very much more serious ones today. It was precisely in order to ward off the dangers which in every century threaten the purity of the deposit of faith (“depositum custodi, devitans profanas vocum novitates.”—I Tim. 6:20) that the Church has had to erect under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost the defenses of her dogmatic definitions and doctrinal pronouncements. These were immediately reflected in her worship, which became the most complete monument of her faith. To try and bring the Church’s worship back at all cost to the ancient practice by refashioning, artificially and with that “unhealthy archeologism” so roundly condemned by Pius XII,[32] what in earlier times had the grace of original spontaneity means—as we see today only too clearly—to dismantle all the theological ramparts erected for the protection of the Rite and to take away all the beauty by which it was enriched over the centuries.
And all this at one of the most critical moments—if not the most critical moment—of the Church’s history! Today, division and schism are officially acknowledged to exist not only outside of but within the Church.[33] Her unity is not only threatened but already tragically compromised.[34] Errors against the Faith are not merely insinuated but positively imposed by means of liturgical abuses and aberrations which have been equally acknowledged.[35] To abandon a liturgical tradition which for four centuries was both the sign and the pledge of unity of worship[36] (and to replace it with another which cannot but be a sign of division by virtue of the countless liberties implicitly authorized, and which teems with insinuations or manifest errors against the integrity of the Catholic religion) is, we feel in conscience bound to proclaim, an incalculable error.
Footnotes
1. Available from Angelus Press.
2. A presentation given in Kansas City, Missouri, on the 25th anniversary of the founding of the Society of St. Pius X and reprinted from the January 1996 issue of The Angelus.
3. The Prayers of our Canon are found in the treatise De Sacramentis (4th-5th centuries)… Our Mass goes back, without essential change, to the epoch in which it developed for the first time from the most ancient common liturgy. It still preserves the fragrance of that primitive liturgy, in times when Caesar governed the world and hoped to extinguish the Christian faith: times when our forefathers would gather together before dawn to sing a hymn to Christ as to their God… (cf. Pl. Jr., Ep. 96)… There is not, in all Christendom, a rite so venerable as that of the Roman Missal. (Dr. Adrian Fortescue; The Mass: A Study of the Roman Liturgy)
The Roman Canon, such as it is today, goes back to St. Gregory the Great. Neither in the East nor West is there any Eucharistic prayer remaining in use today that can boast such antiquity. For the Roman Church to throw it overboard would be tantamount, in the eyes not only of the Orthodox, but also Anglicans and even Protestants having still to some extent a sense of tradition, to a denial of all claim any more to be the true Catholic Church." (Rev. Louis Bouyer).
4. For such a definition, the Novus Ordo refers one in a note to two texts of Vatican II. But rereading these texts one finds nothing to justify the definition.
The first text referred to (Decree Presbyterorum Ordinis, no. 51 runs as follows:
…through the ministry of the Bishop, God consecrates priests so that they can share by a special title in the priesthood of Christ. Thus, in performing sacred functions they can act as ministers of Him who in the liturgy continually exercises His priestly office on behalf by the action of His Spirit… And especially by the celebration of Mass, men offer sacramentally the sacrifice of Christ." (Documents of Vatican II, Ed. Walter M. Abbot, S.J.)
The second text runs thus, and is from the Constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium, no. 33:
“…in the liturgy God speaks to His people and Christ is still proclaiming His Gospel. And the people reply to God both by song and by prayer.”
“Moreover, the prayers addressed to God by the priest presiding over the assembly in the person of Christ are said in the name of the entire holy people as well as of all present.” (Ibid.—our emphasis)
One is at a loss to explain how, from such texts as these, the above definition could have been drawn.
We note, too, the radical alteration, in this definition of the Mass, of that laid down by Vatican II (Presbyterorum Ordinis, 1254): “The Eucharist is therefore the very heart of the Christian Community.” The centrum having been spirited away, in the Novus Ordo the congregatio itself has usurped its place.
5. The Council of Trent reaffirms the Real Presence in the following words:
Principio docet Sancta Synodus et aperte et simpliciter profitetur in almo Sanctae Eucharistiae sacramento post panis et vini, consacrationem Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum verum Deum atque hominem vere, realiter ac substantialiter (can. I) sub specie illarum rerum sensibilium contineri." (Dz, no. 874)
In session XXII, which interests us directly (De sanctissimo Missae Sacrificio), the approved doctrine (Dz [Denzinger, The Sources of Catholic Dogma], nos. 937a-956) is clearly synthesized in nine canons:
1. The Mass is a true and visible Sacrifice—not a symbolic representation—“quo cruentum illud semel in cruce peragendum repraesentaretur atque illius salutaris virtus in remissionem eorum, quae a nobis quotidie committuntur peccatorum applicaretur.” (Dz, no. 938)
2. Jesus Christ Our Lord:
sacerdotem secundum ordinem Melchisedech ac in aeternum (Ps. 109, 4) constitutum declarans, corpus et sanguinem suum sub specibus panis et vini Deo Patri obtulit ac sub earundem rerum symbolis Apostolis (quos tunc Novi Testamenti sacerdotes constituebat), ut sumerent tradidit, et eisdem eorumque in sacredotio successoribus, ut offernt, praecaepit per haec verba: "Hoc facite in meam commemorationem" (Lk. 22, 19; I Cor. 11, 24) ut semper catholica Ecclesia intellexit et docuit." (Dz, ibid.).
The celebrant, the offerer, the sacrificer is the priest consecrated for this, not the people of God, the assembly. “Si quis dixerit, illis verbis: ‘Hoc facite’ etc. Christum non istituisse Apostolos sacerdotes, aut non ordinasse, ut ipsi alique sacerdotes offerent corpus et sanguinem suum: anathema sit.” (Can. 2, Dz, 949)
3. The Sacrifice of the Mass is a true propitiatory Sacrifice and not a “bare commemoration of the sacrifice accomplished on the Cross.”
Si quis dixerit: Missae sacrificium tantum esse laudis et gratiarum actiones aut nudam commemoratinem sacrificii in cruce peracti, non autem prpitiatorum; vel soli prodesse sumenti, neque pro vivis et defunctis, pro peccatis, poenis, satisfactionibus et aliis necessitatibus offeri debere, anathema sit." (Can. 3: Dz, 95)
Can. 6 will also be recalled: “Si quis dixerit Canon Missae errores continere ideoque abrongandum esse, anathema sit.” (Dz, 953); and Can. 8: “Si quis dixerit Missae, in quibus solus sacerdos sacramentaliter communicat, illicitas esse, ideoque abrogandas, anathema sit.” (Dz, 955)
6. It is superfluous to assert that, if a single defined dogma were denied, all dogma would ipso facto fall, insofar as the very principle of infallibility of the supreme hierarchical Magisterium, whether papal or conciliar, would thereby be destroyed.
7. The Ascension should be added if one wished to recall the Unde et memores which furthermore does not associate but clearly and finely distinguishes: “…tam beatae Passioni, nec non ab inferis Resurrectionis, sed et in caelum gloriosae Ascensionis.”
8. This shift of emphasis is met with also in the surprising elimination, in the new Canons, of the Memento of the dead and of any mention of the sufferings of the souls in Purgatory, to whom the propitiatory Sacrifice was applied.
9. Cf. Mysterium Fidei in which Paul VI condemns the errors of symbolism together with the new theories of “transignification” and “transfinalization”:
…Nor is it right to be so preoccupied with considering the nature of the sacramental sign that the impression is repeated that the symbolism—and no one denies its existence in the most Holy Eucharist—expresses and exhausts the whole meaning of Christ’s presence in this sacrament. Nor is it right to treat of the mystery of transubstantiation without mentioning the marvelous change of the whole of the bread’s substance into Christ’s body, and the whole of the wine’s substance into His blood, of which the Council of Trent speaks, and thereby make these changes consist of nothing but a ‘transignification’ or a ‘transfinalization,’ to use these terms." (Catholic Truth Society translation of Mysterium Fidei, art. II)
10. The introduction of new formulae, or expressions, which, though occurring in texts of the Fathers and Councils, and of the Church’s magisterium, are used in a univocal sense, not subordinated to the substance of doctrine with which they form an inseparable whole (e.g., “spiritualis alimonia,” “cibus spiritualis,” “potus spiritualis,” etc.) is amply denounced and condemned in Mysterium Fidei. Paul VI states that:
“When the integrity of faith has been preserved, a suitable manner of expression has to be preserved as well. Otherwise our use of careless language may, though it is to be hoped that it will not, give rise to false opinions on belief in very deep matters,” and quotes St. Augustine:
There is a claim on us to speak according to a fixed rule so that unchecked words do not give rise also to an impious view of the matters which we express. (He continues) This rule of speech has been introduced by the Church in the long work of centuries with the protection of the Holy Spirit. She has confirmed it with the authority of the Councils. It has become more than once the token and standard of orthodox faith. It must be observed religiously. No one may presume to alter it at will, or on the pretext of new knowledge… it is equally intolerable that anyone on his own initiative should want to modify the formulae with which the Council of Trent has proposed the eucharistic doctrine of belief." (Idem, art. 23).
11. Contradicting what is prescribed by Vatican II. (Sacros. Conc., no. 48)
12. “Eucharistic Prayer”—Ed.
13. The altar’s primary function is recognized once (no. 259): “the altar on which the sacrifice of the Cross is renewed under the sacramental signs.” This single reference does not seem to remove to any extent the equivocations of the other repeated designation.
14. “To separate the tabernacle from the altar is tantamount to separating two things which of their very nature must remain together.” (Pius XII, Allocution to the International Liturgy Congress. Assisi-Rome, Sept. 18-23, 1956) Cf. also Mediator Dei, I, 5, note 28.
15. Rarely in the Novus Ordo is the word “hostia” used, a traditional one in liturgical books with its precise significance of “victim.” This needless to say is part of the reformers’ plan to emphasize only the aspects “supper,” “food.”
16. In accordance with the customary habit of the reformers of substituting and exchanging one thing for another, the Real Presence is made equivalent to the Presence in the word (no. 7, 54). But this latter presence is really of quite another nature, having no reality except in usu: whilst the former is, in a stable manner, objective and independent of the communication that is made of it in the Sacrament. The formulae “God speaks to His people… By His word Christ is present in the midst of the faithful” (no. 33, cf. Sacros. Conc. no. 33 and 7), are typically Protestant ones, which strictly speaking, have no meaning, as the presence of God in the word is mediated, bound to an act of the spirit, to the spiritual condition of the individual and limited in time. This error has the most serious consequences; the affirmation (or insinuation) that the Real Presence is bound to the usus, and ends together with it.
17. The sacramental action of the institution is emphasized as having come about in Our Lord’s giving the Apostles His Body and Blood “to eat” under the species of bread and wine, not in the act of consecration and in the mystical separation therein accomplished of the Body from the Blood, essence of the Eucharistic Sacrifice. (Cf. the whole of chapter I, part II, “The cult of the Eucharist” in Mediator Dei)
18. The words of Consecration as inserted in the context or the Novus Ordo can be valid by virtue of the minister’s intention. They could also not be valid because they are no longer so ex vi verborum, or, more precisely, by virtue of the modus signifcandi they had in the Mass up to the present time.
Will priests of the near future who have not received the traditional formation, and who rely on the Novus Ordo with the intention of “doing what the Church does” consecrate validly? One may be allowed to doubt it.
19. Let it not be said, according to the well-known Protestant critical procedure, that these phrases belong to the same scriptural context. The Church has always avoided their juxtaposition and superimposition precisely in order to avoid any confusion of the different realities here expressed.
20. As against the Lutherans who affirmed that all Christians are priests and hence offerers of the Supper, see A. Tanquerey: Synopsis theologiae dogmaticae, vol. III, Desclee, 1930:
“Each and every priest is strictly speaking, a secondary minister of the sacrifice of the Mass. Christ Himself is the principal minister. The faithful offer through the intermediary of the priest but not in the strict sense.” (Cf. Conc. Trid. XXII, Can. 2)
21. We note in passing an incredible innovation which is sure to have the most serious psychological effects: the Good Friday liturgy in red vestments instead of black (no. 308b)—the commemoration, that is of any martyr, instead of the mourning of the whole Church for her Founder. (Cf. Mediator Dei, I, 5, note 28)
22. Fr. Roquet, O.P., to the Dominicans of Bethany, at Plesschenet.
23. In some translations of the Roman Canon, the “locus refrigerii lucis et pacis” was rendered as a simple state (“blessedness, light, peace”). What is to be said then of the disappearance of every explicit reference to the Church Suffering?
24. In all this welter of curtailment a single enrichment only: the mention of omission in the accusation of sins at the Confiteor.
25. At the press conference introducing the Ordo, Fr. Lecuyer, in what appears to be, objectively speaking, a profession of purely rationalistic faith, spoke of converting the salutationes in the “Missa sine populo” into “Dominus tecum,” “Ora, frater,” etc., “so that there should be nothing which does not correspond with the truth.”
26. Meaning in Latin: “suitable woman”—Ed.
27. We note in this connection that it seems lawful for priests obliged to celebrate alone either before or after concelebration to communicate again sub utraque specie during concelebration.
28. It has been presented as “The Canon of Hippolytus” but in fact nothing remains of this but a few remembered words.
29. Gottesdiesnt, no. 9, May 14, 1969.
30. One has only to think of the Byzantine liturgy, for example, with its reiterated and lengthy penitential prayers; the solemn rites of vesting of the celebrant and deacon: the preparation of the offerings at the proscomidia, a complete rite in itself: the continual presence in the prayers, even those of the offerings, of the Blessed Virgin, the Saints and Choirs of Angels (who are actually invoked, at the entrance with the Gospel, as “invisibly celebrating,” the choir identifying itself with them in the Cherubicon): the iconostasis which divides the sanctuary from the rest of the church, the clergy from the people; the hidden Consecration, symbolizing the divine mystery to which the entire liturgy alludes; the celebrant’s position versus ad Deum, never versus ad populum; Communion given always and only by the celebrant; the continual marks of profound adoration shown to the Sacred Species; the essentially contemplative attitude of the people. The fact that these liturgies, even in their less solemn forms, last for over an hour, and are constantly defined as “tremendous and unutterable… celestial, life-giving mysteries…” need no elaborating. It is finally worth noting how in the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, and in that of St. Basil, the concept of “supper” or “banquet” appears clearly subordinate to that of sacrifice, as it did in the Roman Mass.
31. In Session XXIII (decree on the Most Holy Eucharist), the Council of Trent manifested its intention:
ut stirpitus convelleret zizania execrabilium errorum et schismalum, quae inimicus homo... in doctrina fidei usu et cultu Sacrosanctae Eucharistiae superseminavit (Mt. 13, 25 et seq.) quam alioqui Salvator noster in Ecclesia sua tamquam symbolum reliquit eius unitatis et caritatis, qua Christianos omnes inter se coniunctos et copulatos, esse voluit." (Dz, 873)
32. To go back in mind and heart to the sources of the sacred liturgy is wise and praiseworthy. The study of liturgical origins enables us to understand better the significance of festivals and the meanings of liturgical formulas and ceremonies. But the desire to restore everything indiscriminately to its ancient condition is neither wise nor praiseworthy. It would be wrong. for example, to want the altar restored to its ancient form of table, to want black eliminated from liturgical colors, and pictures and statues excluded from our churches, to require crucifixes that do not represent the bitter suffering of the Divine Redeemer… This attitude is to attempt to revive the “archeologism” [i.e., the error of “antiquarianism”—Ed.] to which the pseudo-synod of Pistoia gave rise; it seeks also to reintroduce the many pernicious errors which to that synod and resulted from it and which the Church in her capacity of watchful guardian of the “deposit of faith” entrusted to her by her Divine Founder, has rightly condemned." (Mediator Dei, CTS trans., arts. 66 and 68)
33. “A practically schismatic ferment divides, subdivides, splits the Church...” (Paul VI, Homily, Holy Thursday 1969)
34. “There are also amongst us those ‘schismata,’ those ‘scissurae’ which St. Paul in I Corinthians sadly denounces.” (Cf. Paul VI, ibid.)
35. It is well-known how Vatican II is today being “contested” by the very men who gloried in being its leaders, those who—whilst the Pope in closing the Council declared that it had changed nothing—came away determined to “explode” the content in the process of actual application. Alas that the Holy See, with a haste that is really unexplainable, should appear to have given approval and even encouragement, through the Consilium ad exequendam Constitutionem de Sacra Litugia, to an ever increasing infidelity to the Council, from such apparently formal aspects as Latin, Gregorian, the suppression of venerable rites and ritual, to the substantial ones now sanctioned by the Novus Ordo, To the disastrous consequences, which we have endeavored to set out, must be added those which, with psychologically even greater effect, will make themselves felt in the fields of discipline and of the Church’s teaching authority, by undermining, with the standing of the Holy See, the docility due to its rulings.
36. "…Do not let us deceive ourselves with the suggestion that the Church, which has become great and majestic for the glory of God, as a magnificent temple of His, must be brought back to its original and smallest proportions, as though they were the only true ones, the only good ones..." (Paul VI, Ecclesiam suam)
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Passion Sunday |
Posted by: Stone - 03-21-2021, 04:33 AM - Forum: Lent
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INSTRUCTION ON THE FIFTH SUNDAY IN LENT [PASSION SUNDAY]. (JUDICA.)
Taken from Fr. Goffine's Explanations of the Epistles and Gospels for the Sundays, Holydays, and Festivals throughout the Ecclesiastical Year, 36th edition, 1880
THIS Sunday, called Judica from the first word of the Introit, is also called Passion Sunday, because from this day the Church occupies herself exclusively with the contemplation of the passion and death of Christ. The pictures of Christ crucified are covered today in memory of His having hidden Himself from the Jews until His entrance into Jerusalem, no longer showing Himself in public. (John xi. 54.) In the Mass the Glory be to the Father, &c. is omitted, because in the person of Christ the Holy Trinity was dishonored. The psalm Judica is not said to-day, because on this day the high priests held council about our Lord, for which reason the Church in the name of the suffering Saviour uses these words at the Introit: Judge me, O God, and distinguish my cause from the nation that is not holy: deliver me from the Unjust and deceitful man, for Thou art my God and my strength. Send forth thy light and thy truth: they have con- ducted me, and brought me unto thy holy hill, and into thy tabernacles. (Ps. xlii. i. 3.)
PRAYER OF THE CHURCH. We beseech Thee, Almighty God, graciously to look upon Thy family; that by Thy bounty it may be governed in body, and by Thy protection be guarded in mind. Through.&c.
Quote:EPISTLE. (Heb. ix. 11 — 15.) Brethren, Christ being come, a high-priest of the good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is. not of this creation, neither by the blood of goats or of calves, but by his own blood, entered once into the Holies, having obtained eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and of oxen, and the ashes of a heifer being sprinkled, sanctify such as are denied, to the cleansing of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who, by the Holy Ghost, offered himself without spot to God, cleanse our conscience from dead works, to serve the living God? And therefore he is the Mediator of the new testament; that by means of his death, for the redemption of those transgressions which were under the former testament; they that are called may receive the promise of eternal inheritance.
EXPLANATION. St. Paul here teaches, that Christ as the true high-priest of the New Testament, through His Precious Blood on the altar of the cross, has indeed made perfect satisfaction for sins, but that the sinner must also do his own part, by cooperating with Christ to make himself less unworthy of participating in His passion and merits, and to appropriate to himself its fruits. This is done when he diligently and devoutly assists at the unbloody Sacrifice of the Mass by which the fruits of the death on the cross are attributed to us; when, according to the will of the Church, he purifies his conscience by true contrition and confession; and when he seeks by trust in Christ's merits to render some satisfaction for his sins through voluntary penance and faithful following of Christ.
ASPIRATION. Grant us; O meek Jesus, Thy grace, that through perfect sorrow for our sine and the exercise of good works we may become participators in the merits of Thy bitter passion.
GOSPEL. (John viii. 46 — 59.) At that time, Jesus said to the multitudes of the Jews: Which of you shall convince me of sin? If I say the truth to you, why do you not believe me? He that is of God, heareth the words of God. Therefore you hear them not, because you are not of God. The Jews therefore answered, and said to him: Do not we say well, that thou art a Samaritan, and hast a devil? Jesus answered: I have not a devil; but I honor my Father, and you have dishonored me. But I seek not my own glory; there is one that seeketh and judgeth. Amen, amen, I say to you, if any man keep my word, he shall not see death for ever. The Jews therefore said: Now we know that thou hast a devil. Abraham is dead, and the prophets; and thou sayest: If any man keep my word, he shall not taste death for ever. Art thou greater than our Father Abraham, who is dead? and the prophets are dead. Whom dost thou make thyself? Jesus answered: If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father that glorifieth me, of whom you say that he is your God. And you have not known him; but I know him. And if I shall say that I know him not, I shall be like to you, a liar. But I do know him, and do keep his word. Abraham your father rejoiced that he might see my day: he saw it, and was glad. The Jews therefore said to him: Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham? Jesus said to them: Amen, amen, I say to you, before Abraham was made, I am. They took up stones therefore to cast at him: but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple.
Why did Christ ask the Jews, which of them should convince Him of sin?
To show us that he who would teach and punish others, should strive to be irreproachable himself; and to prove that He, being free from sin, was more than mere man, and therefore, the Messiah, the Son of God, as He repeatedly told the Jews, especially in this day's gospel, and substantiated by His great and numerous miracles.
Why did He say: He that is of God, heareth the words of God?
To prove that the Jews on account of their stubbornness and unbelief were not the children of God, but of the devil. "Therefore," St. Gregory says, "let every one when he hears the word of God, ask himself, of whom he is. Eternal truth demands that we be desirous of the heavenly fatherland, that we tame the desires of the flesh, be indifferent to the praises of the world, covet not our neighbor's goods, and give alms according to our means. Therefore examine yourself, and if you find in your heart this voice of God, then you will know that you are of God."
CONSOLATION UNDER CALUMNY
WHEN Christ told the Jews the truth, He received insults and calumny; they called Him a Samaritan, that is, an unbeliever, a heretic, one possessed of a devil. This was a terrible slander, and it must have pained Him exceedingly, but at the same time it is a great consolation to those who are innocently calumniated, when they consider that Christ Himself received nothing better. St. Augustine consoles such by saying: "O friend, what is there that can happen to you that your Saviour did not suffer before you? Is it slander? He heard it, when He was called a glutton, a drunkard, a heretic, and a rebel, a companion of sinners, one possessed of a devil; He even heard, when casting out devils, that He did so by Beelzebub, prince of devils." (Matt. ix. 34.) He therefore comforts His apostles, saying, If they have called the good man of the house Beelzebub, how much more them of his household? (Matt. x. 25.) Are the pains bitter? There is no pain so bitter that He has not endured it; for what is more painful, and at the same time more ignominious, than the death of the cross? For think, says St. Paul, diligently upon him who endured such opposition from sinners against himself: that you be not wearied (by all contempt and calumny), fainting in your minds. (Heb. xii. 3.)
How and why did Christ defend Himself against those who slandered Him?
Only by denying with the greatest modesty the things with which they reproached Him, saying that He had not a devil, that He was not a Samaritan, because He honored His Father not in their manner, but in His own. In repelling this calumny while He left the rest unanswered, Christ removed all doubt in regard to His divine mission, thus Vindicating the honor of God, and securing the salvation of man. Christ thus teaches us by His own conduct to defend ourselves only against those detractions and insults which endanger the honor' of God and the salvation of man, and then to defend ourselves with all modesty; by no means however to do it, if they injure only our own good name, for we should leave the restoration of that to God, as exemplified by Christ, who knows better than we how to preserve and restore it.
How had Abraham seen Christ's day?
In spirit, that is, by divine revelation he foresaw the coming of Christ and rejoiced; also, he heard, by revelation from God, with the other just in Limbo, that Christ's coming had taken place, and derived the greatest comfort from it.
Why did Christ withdraw Himself from the Jews, instead of taking vengeance?
Because the time of His death had not come; because He would show His meekness and patience and teach us that we should avoid our enemies rather than resist them or take vengeance on them; Christ wished to instruct us to avoid passionate and quarrelsome people, for it is an honor for a man, to separate from quarrels: but all fools are meddling with reproaches. (Prov. xx. 3.)
PETITION. When Thine enemies calumniated Thee, most meek Jesus, Thou didst answer them with tender words, and when they were about to stone Thee, Thou didst depart from them, whilst we can scarcely bear a hard word, and far from yielding to our neighbor, defend and avenge ourselves most passionately. Ah! pardon us our impatience, and grant us the grace to bear patiently the wrongs done us, and when necessary, answer with gentleness for Thy glory and the salvation of our neighbor.
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Which Bible should you read? by Thomas A. Nelson |
Posted by: Hildegard of Bingen - 03-20-2021, 08:18 PM - Forum: Church Doctrine & Teaching
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This booklet was available at TAN Books, the only Bible they had for sale was the Douay-Rheims that is no longer the case. Needless to say this booklet is no longer available at TAN Books.
WHICH BIBLE SHOULD YOU READ?
“You shall not add to the word that I speak to you, neither shall you take away from it:
keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you.” —Deuteronomy 4:2
By Thomas A. Nelson
“Every word of God is fire tried: he is a buckler to them that hope in him. Add not any thing to
his words, lest thou be reproved, and found a liar.” —Proverbs 30:5-6
Dedicated to The Blessed Virgin Mary, “full of grace,”
“Mother of fair love, and of fear, and of knowledge, and of holy hope,”
Who shall crush the head of Satan.
Contents
Preface
Abbreviations of the Bibles Used
Introduction
Which Bible should you read?
The Importance of the Latin Vulgate Bible
The Stature of the Vulgate and Douay-Rheims Bibles
The Method of Translating Employed in the New Bibles
Three Fundamental Mistakes
1. Which Authoritative “Original” To Use
2. Incorrect Choice of Words
3. Interpreting Rather than Translating
Sample Problem Passages
“She Shall Crush Thy Head . . .”
“I Am the Mother of Fair Love . . .”
“Wheresoever the Body Shall Be . . .”
“Let All Your Things Be Done in Charity”
“Amen, Amen, I Say to You . . .”
“Being of One Mind One Towards Another”
“And the Gates of Hell Shall Not Prevail against It”
“How Shall This Be Done . . .?”
Judas’ Betrayal
Peace on Earth . . .”
“What Does It Profit . . .?”
“Power to Be Made the Sons of God”
“I Will Begin To Vomit Thee out of My Mouth”
Conclusion
A Synopsis
PREFACE
Which Bible should you read? That is an important question everyone should ask himself. For version differs from version of Sacred Scripture by so much that one has to recognize that they cannot all be accurate— if indeed, logically speaking, any one of them is. Therefore, which one should a person choose to use for his own personal study of God’s Holy Word?
In order to shed some light on this question the reader is asked initially to consider a most unusual letter that was mailed to this publisher in 1985, a letter which describes one person’s singular, prayerful quest to discover that one Bible translation which is the best version to read in English. It was written by a nun who gave us permission to reprint it, and it is given here in toto, just as it came to us. It is addressed to the Publisher as a result of her reading a promotional sales letter the company mailed out in 1985, which outlined briefly the chief reasons for employing the traditional English Catholic Bible, called the Douay-Rheims. Here is her unusual story.
A Testimony
October 20, 1985
Dear Mr. Nelson:
Your Letter in regard to the Douay- Rheims Version of the Bible was absolutely fascinating. And after I finished, I wished that I could read more. Have you thought of doing a full length work on the subject? You write so beautifully.
But on the mystical side, I thought I might share my own story with you:
I grew up in the Methodist Church, but was hungry for a deeper spirituality, particularly contemplative. In 1962 I studied with a Hindu guru and later also studied other areas of Eastern contemplation. I was fascinated with Eastern mysticism and contemplation and never would have thought of leaving it. But Jesus just scooped me up like a little lamb about his shoulders, and I converted to Catholicism in 1972. So that was ten years in which I was immersed in “New Age” circles and Eastern mysticism. (In fact, my guru gave me the name of Shiva Kumari, and I’d had it changed legally, which is why Cardinal O’Connor left it as it was when he pronounced my vows as a hermit nun.)
When I first converted to Catholicism 14 years ago, I was so lost! I had no idea there was such a thing as “left wing” and “right wing” [in the Catholic Church]. I just wanted to learn the teachings of the Faith. But one priest said one thing; someone else said the opposite; and I became terribly confused. So I turned back to prayer.
Then I went to bookstores, but since I had no concept of that which was orthodox and that which was not, I bought books indiscriminately and became even more confused! So I turned back to prayer.
Through prayer and continually throwing myself upon the Lord, depending wholly upon Him, looking to Him in all my need and confusion, He has led me out of the darkness into the Light. I look back now over those many years and am absolutely amazed at how He has led me! But I think the Douay-Rheims story is most awesome:
When I first converted and was going from one Catholic bookstore to another, I picked up different versions of the Bible, not having the foggiest notion as to which would be the best. I finally concluded that they must all be good, so I got copies of each. And I already had the King James Version from my Protestant days.
(I’m sitting here trying to think how I can capsulize 20 years of spiritual growth and transformation which enabled me to be able to listen to the Lord on that mystical level and allow Him to guide me—most of it is grace though—all glory and honor to Him!)
What happened was odd indeed—when I picked up the New American Version, it was dry like sawdust. There was no life in it; I mean mystical life. (I’m having such a difficult time verbalizing this, since it was all interior guidance on a mystical level.) So I stopped trying to read the New American. Then I tried another version, and the words literally swam on the page. I thought I might be suffering from some sort of eye strain, so I stopped reading that version.
Finally, someone suggested the Douay- Rheims. I’d never even heard of such a thing, but wrote down the words and went immediately to a bookstore that carried it. (I guess this was about 10 years ago.) The minute I touched the Douay-Rheims, I knew this was it! I stood there in the bookstore, turning it about in my hand (without ever opening it) just feeling that wonderful sensation of life which seemed to be coursing through it. (I’ve never told this story to xii Which Bible Should You Read? anyone! They would think I was completely “off-the-wall”!)
I got my Douay-Rheims home, and oh, what a happy day! I’ve loved that book as though it were not a book at all, because that sensation of life has never left it. Whenever I touch it, and certainly when I read it, everything comes alive with God’s light, love and guidance.
A couple of years ago, a man said I ought to read the St. Joseph’s version, and I said I intended to stick to my Douay-Rheims— with a tone that sounded as though I were defending my best friend—and I couldn’t give any rational explanation as to why I felt that way. I never doubted that it was the hand of the Lord; it’s just that I hadn’t really given it any thought until I read your letter. Then all these incidents flooded back into my memory, and I was struck with wonder!
God bless you,
Sister Shiva Kumari
Abbreviations of the Bible - Versions Used in this Tract
Catholic
DRB Douay-Rheims Bible
NAB New American Bible
CRSV Catholic Revised Standard Version
JB Jerusalem Bible
Protestant
KJV King James Version
NKJV New King James Version
NIV New International Version
NRSV New Revised Standard Version
NASV New American Standard Version
NEB New English Bible
INTRODUCTION
The present little book is an unabashed apologia* for the traditional Catholic Bible in English, called the Douay-Rheims. The first edition of this present little work was actually a sales letter promoting the Douay-Rheims Bible by explaining to readers why the Douay-Rheims is the most accurate and most reliable version of the Bible in English.
This version of Sacred Scripture was first published in the New Testament at Rheims in Northern France in 1582 and at Douay in Flanders (Northwestern France) in 1609-1610 in its entirety. (These were the times of the penal laws in England under Elizabeth I, when it was a capital crime to practice the Catholic faith. Thus, the work of rendering into English a proper Bible translation had to be carried out on the Continent.) It was later revised (1749- 1751) by Bishop Richard Challoner (1691- 1781), Coadjutor Roman Catholic Bishop of London from 1741 and Vicar Apostolic from 1758. A slight revision was made in 1859 by Mgr. F. P. Kenrick, Archbishop of Baltimore, which is commonly used in the United States, though other Douay-Rheims versions have been in use. The current edition in print by TAN was issued in 1899 by the John Murphy Co. of Baltimore, Maryland, under the official approbation of His Eminence, James Cardinal Gibbons, dated September 1, 1899, wherein he stated: “We hereby approve of the publication by Messrs. John Murphy Co. of the Catholic Bible, which is an accurate reprint of the Rheims and Douay edition with Dr. Challoner’s notes.”
* “Apologia” is used here in the sense of “a defense.”
From the first edition of the Douay-Rheims Bible in 1609-1610 until 1941, there was no other English Catholic Bible in use, and even until approximately 1960 the readings from the pulpit in most Catholic churches in the U.S. continued to be from the Douay-Rheims because there existed a popular, large-print lectionary of the Epistles and Gospels for each Sunday of the year that was in common use in most Catholic parishes in this country; it used the Douay-Rheims translation. Therefore, one might say that the universal use of the Douay-Rheims Bible lasted from Bishop Challoner’s revisions in 1749-51 until approximately 1960, roughly some 210 years. But, if one were to begin from the original issue date of the first edition of the Douay-Rheims in 1610 until 1960, the time span of the effective, universal life of this version is 350 years.
Thus, the only Catholic version of the Bible in use in the English-speaking world for 330 years (c. 1610-1940) was the Douay-Rheims, which continued to be used for pulpit readings for about 20 years more. There was a hiatus of its availability for about 10 years, until 1971, when the Douay-Rheims was first issued by TAN. Even during this period (1960-1971), however, there were other English editions of the Douay-Rheims available here and there from older inventories.
The important point to consider from this brief historical sketch is that for 330 years (1610-1940), English-speaking Catholics had no other English Catholic Bible than the Douay-Rheims, and therefore, if this version is not accurate, then all the many millions of Catholics who used it since 1610—as of this writing a time span now of 390 years—have been deceived in their study of Scripture. They have not, in effect, had an accurate version of God’s Holy Word. The Holy Ghost, in other words, had let them down, had failed them Introduction xvii in their Scripture study; they have been, to a fairly large degree, deluded by a “bad” bible.
The above is also a correct line of reasoning if we compare the Douay-Rheims version with the three modern Catholic Bibles currently in use, namely, The New American Bible (1970, which was partially revised and reissued in 1986), The Catholic Revised Standard Version (1966, originally a Protestant Version dating from 1946 and 1952) and the Jerusalem Bible (1966). If any one of these three translations of Scripture is correct (and they all differ among themselves), then the Douay-Rheims is simply inaccurate. But, if the Douay- Rheims is accurate, then these new Catholic versions contain many inaccurate passages and should not be used. A number of comparisons between the Douay- Rheims and these newer Catholic versions shall be made further along in this work. These comparisons shall also include several popular Protestant versions.
In this little tract we shall study in depth 11 famous passages from the New Testament and mention two from the Old Testament. The rationale for this approach in using mainly New Testament passages is to eliminate any objections based on the original Hebrew texts of the Old Testament, the reasoning being this: If the translators of these new Bibles cannot translate correctly even the extant “original” Greek text of the New Testament—for the New Testament was written in that language*—then how are we to trust them to translate accurately the ancient Hebrew texts, which by reason of age and antiquity are far more arcane and often are far more poetic and filled with double and triple entendre?
Here a word needs to be said about the use of Hebrew in the Old Testament of the Bible. The ancient Hebrew in which most of the Old Testament was written is an ancient Semitic language that has come down to us from time immemorial. Some think Hebrew was the language spoken by man at the time of the multiplication of languages, caused by God as a curse on mankind because of man’s trying to build the Tower of Babel. (Genesis 11:1-9).
In the course of the centuries, Hebrew was discontinued as a spoken language— about the time of the Babylonian Captivity in the 6th century B.C. (599-536)—when it was superseded by Aramaic. Thereafter, Hebrew was only written. Nonetheless, the Hebrew of the Old Testament texts displays a great fixity over a number of centuries that is admirable and quite unparalleled in most other languages— which tend to mutate more. This relative stability of Hebrew was inspired, no doubt, by Almighty God to preserve the integrity of the Old Testament’s original language.
*It has been commonly held that St. Matthew’s Gospel was written in Aramaic. However, no copy of the Aramaic has survived. Current thinking holds that it is not certain that he did not in fact write his Gospel in Greek.
As a result of Alexander the Great’s 4thcentury conquest (334-323 B.C.) of the land of Israel, Egypt and Mesopotamia, among other areas, the spread of Greek influence and language by the 3rd century B.C. caused Ptolemy II Philadelphus, King of Egypt (284-247 B.C.), to bring to Alexandria, Egypt, 72 Hebrew scholars to translate “the Law”—presumably the Pentateuch, or first five books of the Bible—into Greek (284 B.C.). This version became known as the “Septuagint” (from the seventy-two scholars) and is one of the basic versions of Scripture; the entire Greek text of Old Testament Scripture is presumed not to have been the work of the original 72 men, but to have been completed during many following years. Nonetheless, the Greek of the Septuagint—called koine (pronounced koinay)—is the Greek spoken at that time by the Jews of Alexandria, Egypt, and the Greek Septuagint text of the Old Testament is one of the most venerable and accurate texts of the Old Testament we have.
Most of the Old Testament’s 45 books were originally written in Hebrew, and it is generally thought all of the New Testament’s 27 books were written in Greek, save for St. Matthew’s Gospel, which was thought for many years to have been originally written in Aramaic, though the Aramaic text has been lost to history, even if this is so.
Approximately 150 A.D., a version of the entire Bible in Latin was assembled, called the Old Itala (Vetus Itala). It was in general use until St. Jerome translated the Bible into Latin (390-405), this latter being called the Latin Vulgate, which was written in the “vulgar” or common Latin tongue. This version soon superseded the Old Itala version and is now considered an august, sacred translation in its own right, having received the approbation, not only of nearly 16 centuries of continuous use, but also formally by the Council of Trent (1545-1563), which means, as Pope Pius XII has stated, that it is free from doctrinal error. The Vulgate has served the Western Catholic Church ever since and was used exclusively until modern vernacular translations began to appear in the 15th and 16th centuries.
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April 23rd - St. Peter Chanel and St. George |
Posted by: Elizabeth - 03-20-2021, 07:23 PM - Forum: April
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Saint Peter Chanel
Missionary and Martyr
(1803-1841)
Born in 1803 in the diocese of Belley in France, Peter was the fifth child of his parents; with his older brothers and sisters he was consecrated to the Blessed Virgin at his birth. They were all pious children who prayed and tried to help one another to serve God ever more faithfully. In 1814 the parish priest, seeing Peter's good dispositions, arranged for him to study in the town of Cras, and to reside there with his aunt. During the summer the young Christian returned to watch the sheep and continue reading his cherished books in the fields. He began to serve Mass and learned the elements of Latin, and accompanied the priest when he went to take the Blessed Sacrament to the sick and dying. At the age of fifteen Peter passed through a temptation to abandon his studies and return home; a prayer to the Blessed Virgin saved his future vocation. The following year he was sent to the diocesan seminary; three years there left with his fellow candidates unforgettable memories of the pious seminarian.
He was ordained in 1827 and named assistant in the parish of Amberieu; at the end of a year there his delicate health caused the bishop to send him as parish priest to a more favorable climate in the mountains of Switzerland, where he hoped the young priest would also reform the parish. Saint Peter manifested great solicitude for the poor and the small children, for their instruction making an appeal to his younger sister Mary Frances, then twenty years old. While at Crozet he heard of the newly founded missionary Society of Mary at Lyons. He had always wanted to be a missionary, and believed the call he felt to join this Society was from God. He left his parish, keeping his parishioners in his heart forever, as he said, and at 28 years of age went to Father Colin, Founder of the Marists, and asked permission to enter the Society. Many and varied duties followed for him; in 1834 he became director of the Seminary of Belley. Resigned to remaining in France if God so willed, he nonetheless cherished a hope he would be sent to Oceania, the special mission field entrusted to the Society of Mary by Gregory XVI when he approved the Society in 1836.
In September of that year he was among the first twenty Marists to depart for the Pacific Ocean by way of the Cape of South America, for the Panama Canal did not yet exist. The ship and passengers were severely tried by more than one violent tempest, and saved, it seemed, only by prayer to the Star of the Sea, Mary, refuge of sailors. Damage to their ship occasioned long delays.
When they reached the Wallis Islands several missionaries were received kindly at the first debarkation. Others, among them Peter Chanel, continued on to Futuna, a volcanic island. There Father Chanel and Brother Marie-Nizier remained, welcomed by the local king of the Polynesian race. The natives already believed in a future immortal life, and the king Niouliki had forbidden cannibalism, but many superstitions still reigned. The two missionaries soon gained the confidence of the natives, learned the language and undertook serious labors to catechize them. The king came to Mass one day, and others followed.
One day the king allowed his idols to be thrown into the fire, and the entire population seemed about to become Christian; however, this tribal chief was still under the empire of the father of lies. During a war with an enemy faction, he found a reason to claim that his gods had battled with him to win the victory. An undercover persecution was brewing for the missionaries, with the pretext they were hindering the influence of the king. One day his envoys arrived at the mission, and it was not long before they had slain the Saint with rude instruments. Brother Marie-Nizier escaped the fate of his superior, having been absent that day. Later it was said that the sky immediately grew dark and a luminous cross was seen amid the thunderclaps that followed. Saint Peter's frightened enemies buried his body in haste.
The sacred remains of the martyr were later exhumed and taken to New Zealand, and from there sent in 1851 to Lyons, to the Marist mother house. The entire island of Futuna converted to the faith; Saint Peter Chanel was canonized in 1954 by Pope Pius XII.
Saint George
Martyr, Patron of Soldiers
(† 303)
Saint George was born in Palestine of Christian parents, towards the close of the third century. In early youth he chose a soldier's life, and soon obtained the favor of Diocletian, who advanced him to the grade of tribune. But when the emperor began to persecute the Christians, George rebuked him at once for his cruelty, sternly and openly, and announced his resignation. Having foreseen that the words he would say might bring about his death, he had first distributed his wealth and clothing to the poor.
Young man, Diocletian said to him, think of your future! I am a Christian, George replied, and nothing in this world is the object either of my ambition or my regret. Nothing can shake my faith. He was subjected to a long series of torments, and finally beheaded.
There was something so heartening in the defiant cheerfulness of the young soldier, that every Christian felt a personal share in this triumph of Christian fortitude. Devotion to Saint George is very ancient and widespread in the Church. A fourth-century church dedicated to him at Constantinople is believed to have been built by Constantine, and his name is invoked in the most ancient liturgies. In Europe, Malta, Barcelona, Valencia, Aragon, Genoa, and England have chosen him as their patron. Even beyond the circle of Christendom he was held in honor, and invading Saracens learned to exempt from desecration the image of the one they hailed as the White-horsed Knight.
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The Masonic Plan for the Destruction of the Catholic Church |
Posted by: Stone - 03-20-2021, 09:50 AM - Forum: General Commentary
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The Masonic Plan for the Destruction of the Catholic Church
From the column «Storia» of the magazine:«Teologica» n. 14 – March/April 1998 - pages 22-25
Edition Segno – Udine - Italia
A French priest who has renounced his membership of Freemasonry, announced this Masonic plan that he followed when he was part of the sect. As we have received this document so we publish it, asking our readers to offer on this point, a contribution of discernment and further documentation.
Directives of the Grand Master of the Masons to the Catholic Bishops, effective since 1962. (Updating of Vatican II). All mason brethren will have to report on the progress of these crucial provisions. Revised in October 1993 as a progressive plan for the final stage. All Masons employed in the Church must welcome them and carry them out.
1. Remove once and for all St. Michael, the protector of the Catholic Church, from all the prayers within the Mass and outside of the Mass. Remove the statues, saying that they distract from the Adoration of Christ.
2. Remove the Penitential Exercises of Lent such as abstinence from meat on Fridays or even fasting; impede every act of self-sacrifice. In their place should be favored acts of joy, happiness and love of neighbor. You say, "Christ has already won for us Paradise" and "every human effort is useless." Tell everyone that they must be seriously concerned about their health. Encourage the consumption of meat, especially pork.
3. Assign the Protestant ministers to reconsider the Holy Mass and to desecrate it. Sown doubts about the Real Presence in the Eucharist and confirm that the Eucharist - with greater proximity to the Protestant faith - is only bread and wine and is intended as a pure symbol. Spread Protestants in seminaries and schools. Encourage ecumenism as the path towards unity. Accuse anyone who believes in the Real Presence as subversive and disobedient to the Church.
4. Prohibited the Latin liturgy of the Mass, adoration and songs, because they communicate a sense of mystery and deference. Present them as spells of soothsayers. People will stop considering the priests as men of superior intelligence, to be respected as bearers of the Divine Mysteries.
5. Encourage women not to cover their heads with a veil in church. The hair is sexy. Demand woman readers and women priests. Present the idea as democracy. Found a movement of women's liberation. Those who enter the church should dressed badly in order to feel at home. This will reduce the importance of the Mass.
6. Prevent the faithful from taking Holy Communion kneeling. Tell the nuns that they must dissuade the children from keeping their hands together before and after Communion. Tell them that God loves them as they are and that they should feel completely at ease. Eliminate in the church kneeling and any genuflection. Remove the pews. Tell people that during the Mass they must show their faith in an upright position.
7. Eliminate the sacred music of the organ. Introduce the guitar, jew's harps, drums, trampling and holy laughter in the churches. This distracts people from their personal prayer and conversations with Jesus. Do not give Jesus the time to call children to the religious life. Perform liturgical dances around the altar in exciting clothes, theaters and concerts.
8. Remove the sacred character from the songs to the Mother of God and of St. Joseph. Indicate their veneration as idolatry. Render ridiculous those who persist. Introduce Protestant songs. This will give the impression that the Catholic Church finally admits that Protestantism is the true religion, or at least that it is equal to the Catholic Church.
9 Eliminate all the hymns even those to Jesus because they make the people think of happiness and serenity that comes from the life of mortification and penance for God already from childhood. Introduce new songs only to convince people that the previous rites were somehow false. Make sure that in every Mass that there is at least one in which Jesus is not mentioned and instead speaks only of love for men. The youth will be thrilled to hear about the love of neighbor. Preach love, tolerance and unity. Do not mention Jesus, prohibit any announcements of the Eucharist.
10. Remove all the relics of saints and later also from the Altars themselves. Replace them with pagan tables not consecrated which can be used to offer human sacrifices during satanic masses. Eliminate the Ecclesiastical law which wants the celebration of the Holy Mass only on Altars containing relics.
11. Discontinue the practice of celebrating the Holy Mass in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament in the Tabernacle. Do not admit any Tabernacle on the Altars that are used for the celebration of the Holy Mass. The board should have the appearance of a kitchen table. It must be transportable to express that it is not at all sacred but must serve a dual purpose as, for example, a table for conferences or for play cards on it. Later place a chair at that table. The priest must take that position to indicate that after the Communion he rests as after a meal. The priest must never kneel during the Mass or do genuflections. At meals, in fact, no one ever kneels. The chair of the Priest must be placed in the place of the Tabernacle. Encourage the people to worship and also to adore the priest instead of the Eucharist, to obey him instead of the Eucharist. Tell the people that the priest is Christ, their leader. Place the Tabernacle in a separate room, out of sight.
12. Let the saints disappear from the Ecclesiastical calendar, leaving always some at fixed times. Prohibit the priests from preaching about the Saints, except for those that are mentioned in the Gospel. Tell the people that any Protestants, probably in the church, could be scandalized. Avoid anything that disturbs the Protestants.
13. In the Gospel reading omit the word "holy", for example, instead of "the Gospel according to St. John," simply say: "Gospel according to John." This will make the people think that they should not venerate the saints anymore. Continuously write new bibles so that they will identical to the Protestant ones. Omit the adjective "Holy" in the expression "Holy Spirit". This will pave the way. Emphasize the feminine nature of God as a mother full of tenderness. Eliminate the use of the term "Father."
14. Try to get all the personal books of piety to disappear and destroy them. As a consequence of this the Litanies of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, of the Mother of God, of St. Joseph will cease also as the preparation for Holy Communion. The thanksgiving after Communion will become superfluous as well.
15. Cause to disappear also all of the statues and images of the Angels. Why should the statues of our enemies get in the way? Define them as myths or good night stories. Do not let the talk on the Angels since this perturbs our Protestant friends.
16. Repeal minor exorcisms to expel demons: work on this, announcing that the devils do not exist. Explain that this is the method adopted in the Bible to describe evil and that without a wicked one there cannot exist interesting stories. As a result people will not believe in the existence of hell nor will they be afraid to ever fall into hell. Repeat that hell is nothing more than the distance from God and that there is nothing terrible in that if we are basically speaking about the same life as here on earth.
17. Teach that Jesus was only a man who had brothers and sisters and who hated the holders of power. Explain that he loved the company of prostitutes, especially of Mary Magdalene, who did not know what to do with churches and synagogues. Tell them that he advised not to obey the leaders of the Clergy, explained that he was a great teacher but deviated from the correct path when he neglected to obey the leaders of the church. Discourage the discussion on the cross as a victory, on the contrary present it as a failure.
18. Remember that you can induce the sisters to the betrayal of their vocation if you will concentrate on their vanity, charm and beauty. Have them change their Ecclesiastical habit and that will naturally lead them throw away their rosaries in disapproval. This will dry up their vocations. Tell the nuns that they will not be accepted if they do not renounce their habit. Favor the discredit of the ecclesiastical habit also among the people.
19. Burn all catechisms. Tell the teachers of religion to teach to love God's creatures instead of God Himself. To love openly is a testimony of maturity. Let the term "sex" become a household word in your daily religion classes. Make sex a new religion. Introduce images of sex in religious lessons to teach children the reality. Make sure that the images are clear. Encourage schools to become progressive thinkers in the field of sex education. Introduce sex education through the Bishop's authority so parents will have nothing against it.
20. Suffocate the Catholic schools, preventing the vocations of the nuns. Reveal to the nuns that they are underpaid social workers and that the Church is about to eliminate them. Insist that the lay Catholic teacher receive the same wage as those of government schools. Use non catholic teachers. The Priests must receive the same salary as the corresponding secular employees. All priests must put away their Clerical Robe and their crosses so as to be accepted by everyone. Render ridiculous those who do not conform.
21. Annihilate the Pope, destroying his Universities. Detach the Universities from the Pope, saying that in this way the government might subsidize them. Replace the names of religious institutes with profane names, in order to favor of ecumenism. For example, instead of "School of the Immaculate Conception," you say, "New High School". Establish departments of ecumenism in all the dioceses and take that they be controlled by the protestant side. Prohibited prayers for the Pope and for Mary because they discourage ecumenism. Announced that the local bishops are the competent authorities. Uphold that the Pope is merely a figurehead. Explain to the people that the Papal Teaching is useful only for conversation but which is otherwise unimportant.
22. Fight Papal Authority, putting an age limit on his activity. Reduce the age limit gradually, explaining that you want to preserve him from excessive work.
23. Be bold. Weaken the Pope by introducing Episcopal synods. The Pope will then become only a figurehead as in England where the High chamber and the Low chamber reign and from them the queen receives orders. Then weaken the authority of the Bishop, giving rise to a concurrent institution at the level of the priests. Say that in this way the priests receive the attention they deserve. Finally weaken the authority of the priest with the formation of groups of lay people who dominate the Priests. In this way you will give rise to such a hatred that even Cardinals will abandon the Church and then the Church will be democratic ... the New Church ...
24. Reduce the vocations to the priesthood, making the laymen lose their awe of it. The public scandal of a Priest will destroy thousands of vocations. Praise priests who for the love of a woman abandoned everything, defining them as heroes. Honor Priests reduced to the lay state as true martyrs, the oppressed to the point of not being able to endure anymore. Also condemned as a scandal that our mason brethren in the priesthood must be made known and their names published. Be tolerant with homosexuality within the Clergy. Tell the people that priests suffer from loneliness.
25. Begin to close the churches due to the shortage of clergy. Defined as good and economical this practice. Explain that God hears prayers everywhere. In this manner the churches become an extravagant waste of money. Close above all the churches in which they practice traditional piety.
26. Use committees of lay people and priests weak in faith who might condemn and reprehend without difficulty every apparition of Mary and apparent miracle especially of the Archangel St. Michael. Make sure that nothing of this, in no measure, will receive approval according to Vatican II. Call it disobedience to authority if anyone obeys the Revelations or even if someone reflects on them. Indicate the Seers as disobedient against Ecclesiastical Authority. Bring down their good name in the mud, so that no one will hold in consideration their Message.
27. Elect an Antipope. Affirm that he will bring back the Protestants in the Church and perhaps even the Jews. An Antipope will be able to be elected if the Bishops might be given the right to vote. In this way many Antipopes will receive votes so that an Antipope will be installed in office as a compromise. Affirm that the true Pope is dead.
28. Remove Confession before Holy Communion for the students of the second and third grade so that they do not care anything about Confession when they will go to the fourth or fifth grades and then the upper classes. Confession then will disappear. Introduce (in silence) communal confession with absolution as a group. Explain to the people that this happens due to the shortage of clergy.
29. Have the distributing of Communion done by women and lay people. You say that this is the time of the laity. Begin with giving Communion in the hand, as do the Protestants, rather than on the tongue. Explain that Christ did it the same way. Collect some hosts for "black masses" in our temples. Afterwards distribute instead of the personal Communion a cup of unconsecrated hosts that one can bring home with them. Explain to them that in this way they one can take the divine gifts into everyday life. Place automatic dispensers of hosts for communions and name these Tabernacles. Tell them that they must be exchanged peace signs. Encourage people to move into the church to interrupt devotion and prayer. Do not make Signs of the Cross; in place of it instead a sign of peace. Explain that also Christ got up to greet the Disciples. Do not allow any concentration in such moments. The Priests must turn their back to the Eucharist and honor the people.
30. After the Antipope has been elected, dissolve the synod of bishops as well as the associations of priests and parish councils. Forbid all religious to question, without permission, these new provisions. Explain that God loves humility and hates those who aspire to glory. Accuse of disobedience against Ecclesiastical authority all those who raise questions. Discourage obedience to God. Tell the people that they must obey these higher ecclesiastics.
31. Give the Pope (= Antipope) the maximum power to choose their successors. Order under pain of excommunication all those who love God, to bear the mark of the beast. Do not call it though the "sign of the beast." The Sign of the Cross should not be done nor used on people or through them (you should not bless anymore). To make the Sign of the Cross will be designated as idolatry and disobedience.
32. Declare previous dogmas as false, except Papal Infallibility. Proclaim Jesus Christ as a failed revolutionary. Announce that the true Christ will soon come. Only the elected Antipope must be obeyed. Tell the people that they must bow when his name is uttered.
33. Order all the subjects of the Pope to fight in holy crusade to extend the one-world religion. Satan knows where one finds all the lost gold. Conquer the world without pity! All this will bring to humanity all that it has always craved: "the golden age of peace."
Sources:
www.scribd.com/doc/183050904/The-Masonic-Plan-For-The-Destruction-Of-The-Catholic-Church
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Instruction on Passiontide |
Posted by: Stone - 03-20-2021, 08:30 AM - Forum: Lent
- Replies (3)
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THE HISTORY OF PASSIONTIDE AND HOLY WEEK
After having proposed the forty-days’ fast of Jesus in the desert to the meditation of the faithful during the first four weeks of Lent, the holy Church gives the two weeks which still remain before Easter to the commemoration of the Passion. She would not have her children come to that great day of the immolation of the Lamb, without having prepared for it by compassionating with Him in the sufferings He endured in their stead.
The most ancient sacramentaries and antiphonaries of the several Churches attest, by the prayers, the lessons, and the whole liturgy of these two weeks, that the Passion of our Lord is now the one sole thought of the Christian world. During Passion-week, a saint’s feast, if it occur, will be kept; but Passion Sunday admits no feast, however solemn it may be; and even on those which are kept during the days intervening between Passion and Palm Sunday, there is always made a commemoration of the Passion, and the holy images are not allowed to be uncovered.
We cannot give any historical details upon the first of these two weeks; its ceremonies and rites have always been the same as those of the four preceding ones. [It would be out of place to enter here on a discussion with regard to the name Mediana under which title we find Passion Sunday mentioned both in ancient liturgies and in Canon Law.] We, therefore, refer the reader to the following chapter, in which we treat of the mysteries peculiar to Passiontide. The second week, on the contrary, furnishes us with abundant historical details; for there is no portion of the liturgical year which has interested the Christian world so much as this, or which has given rise to such fervent manifestations of piety.
This week was held in great veneration even as early as the third century, as we learn from St. Denis, bishop of Alexandria, who lived at that time [Epist. ad Basilidem, Canon i]. In the following century, we find St. John Chrysostom, calling it the great week [Hom. xxx in Genes.]:- ‘Not,’ says the holy doctor, ‘that it has more days in it than other weeks, or that its days are made up of more hours than other days; but we call it great, because of the great mysteries which are then celebrated.’ We find it called also by other names: the painful week (hebdomada poenosa), on account of the sufferings of our Lord Jesus Christ, and of the fatigue required from us in celebrating them; the week of indulgence, because sinners are then received to penance; and, lastly, Holy Week, in allusion to the holiness of the mysteries which are commemorated during these seven days. This last name is the one under which it most generally goes with us; and the very days themselves are, in many countries, called by the same name, Holy Monday, Holy Tuesday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday.
The severity of the lenten fast is increased during these its last days; the whole energy of the spirit of penance is now brought out. Even with us, the dispensation which allows the use of eggs ceases towards the middle of this week. The eastern Churches, faithful to their ancient traditions, have kept up a most rigorous abstinence ever since the Monday of Quinquagesima week. During the whole of this long period, which they call Xerophagia, they have been allowed nothing but dry food. In the early ages, fasting during Holy Week was carried to the utmost limits that human nature could endure. We learn from St. Epiphanius [Expositio fidei, ix Haeres. xxii.], that there were some of the Christians who observed a strict fast from Monday morning to cock-crow of Easter Sunday. Of course it must have been very few of the faithful who could go so far as this. Many passed two, three, and even four consecutive days, without tasting any food; but the general practice was to fast from Maundy Thursday evening to Easter morning. Many Christians in the east, and in Russia, observe this fast even in these times. Would that such severe penance were always accompanied by a firm faith and union with the Church, out of which the merit of such penitential works is of no avail for salvation!
Another of the ancient practices of Holy Week were the long hours spent, during the night, in the churches. On Maundy Thursday, after having celebrated the divine mysteries in remembrance of the Last Supper, the faithful continued a long time in prayer [St. John Chrysostom, Hom. xxx in Genes.]. The night between Friday and Saturday was spent in almost uninterrupted vigil, in honour of our Lord’s burial [St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catech. xviii.]. But the longest of all these vigils was that of Saturday, which was kept up till Easter Sunday morning. The whole congregation joined in it: they assisted at the final preparation of the catechumens, as also at the administration of Baptism; nor did they leave the church until after the celebration of the holy Sacrifice, which was not over till sunrise [Const. Apost. lib. 1. cap. xviii.].
Cessation from servile work was, for a long time, an obligation during Holy Week. The civil law united with that of the Church in order to bring about this solemn rest from toil and business, which so eloquently expresses the state of mourning of the Christian world. The thought of the sufferings and death of Jesus was the one pervading thought: the Divine Offices and prayer were the sole occupation of the people: and, indeed, all the strength of the body was needed for the support of the austerities of fasting and abstinence. We can readily understand what an impression was made upon men’s minds, during the whole of the rest of the year, by this universal suspension of the ordinary routine of life. Moreover, when we call to mind how, for five full weeks, the severity of Lent had waged war on the sensual appetites, we can imagine the simple and honest joy wherewith was welcomed the feast of Easter, which brought both the regeneration of the soul, and respite to the body.
In the preceding volume, we mentioned the laws of the Theodosian Code, which forbade all law business during the forty days preceding Easter. This law of Gratian and Theodosius, which was published in 380, was extended by Theodosius in 389; this new decree forbade all pleadings during the seven days before, and the seven days after, Easter. We meet with several allusions to this then recent law, in the homilies of St. John Chrysostom, and in the sermons of St. Augustine. In virtue of this decree, each of these fifteen days was considered, as far as the courts of law were concerned, as a Sunday.
But Christian princes were not satisfied with the mere suspension of human justice during these days, which are so emphatically days of mercy: they would, moreover, pay homage, by an external act, to the fatherly goodness of God, who has deigned to pardon a guilty world, through the merits of the death of His Son. The Church was on the point of giving reconciliation to repentant sinners, who had broken the chains of sin whereby they were held captives; Christian princes were ambitious to imitate this their mother, and they ordered that prisoners should be loosened from their chains, that the prisons should be thrown open, and that freedom should be restored to those who had fallen under the sentence of human tribunals. The only exception made was that of criminals whose freedom would have exposed their families or society to great danger. The name of Theodosius stands prominent in these acts of mercy. We are told by St John Chrysostom [Homil. in magn. Hebdom. Homil. xxx. in Genes. Homil. vi ad popul. Antioch.] that this emperor sent letters of pardon to the several cities, ordering the release of prisoners, and granting life to those that had been condemned to death, and all this in order to sanctify the days preceding the Easter feast. The last emperors made a law of this custom, as we find in one of St. Leo’s sermons, where he thus speaks of their clemency: ‘The Roman emperors have long observed this holy practice. In honour of our Lord’s Passion and Resurrection, they humbly withhold the exercise of their sovereign justice, and, laying aside the severity of their laws, they grant pardon to a great number of criminals. Their intention in this is to imitate the divine goodness by their own exercise of clemency during these days, when the world owes its salvation to the divine mercy. Let, then, the Christian people imitate their princes, and let the example of kings induce subjects to forgive each other their private wrongs; for, surely it is absurd that private laws should be less unrelenting than those which are public. Let trespasses be forgiven, let bonds be taken off, let offences be forgotten, let revenge be stifled; that thus the sacred feast may, by both divine and human favours, find us all happy and innocent.’ [Sermon xl. de Quadragesima, ii].
This Christian amnesty was not confined to the Theodosian Code; we find traces of it in the laws of several of our western countries. We may mention France as an example. Under the first race of its kings, St. Eligius bishop of Noyon, in a sermon for Maundy Thursday, thus expresses himself: ‘On this day, when the Church grants indulgence to penitents and absolution to sinners, magistrates, also, relent in their severity and grant pardon to the guilty. Throughout the whole world prisons are thrown open; princes show clemency to criminals; masters forgive their slaves.’ [Sermon x]. Under the second race, we learn from the Capitularia of Charlemagne, that bishops had a right to exact from the judges, for the love of Jesus Christ (as it is expressed), that prisoners should be set free on the days preceding Easter [We learn from the same capitularia, that this privilege was also extended to Christmas and Pentecost]; and should the magistrates refuse to obey, the bishops could refuse them admission into the church [Capitular. lib. vi.]. And lastly, under the third race, we find Charles VI, after quelling the rebellion at Rouen, giving orders, later on, that the prisoners should be set at liberty, because it was Painful Week, and very near to the Easter feast [Joan Juvénal des Ursins, year 1382].
A last vestige of this merciful legislation was a custom observed by the parliament of Paris. The ancient Christian practice of suspending its sessions during the whole of Lent, had long been abolished: it was not till the Wednesday of Holy Week that the house was closed, which it continued to be from that day until after Low Sunday. On the Tuesday of Holy Week, which was the last day granted for audiences, the parliament repaired to the palace prisons, and there one of the grand presidents, generally the last installed, held a session of the house. The prisoners were questioned; but, without any formal judgment, all those whose case seemed favourable, or who were not guilty of some capital offence, were set at liberty.
The revolutions of the last eighty years have produced in every country in Europe the secularization of society, that is to say, the effacing from our national customs and legislation of everything which had been introduced by the supernatural element of Christianity. The favourite theory of the last half century or more, has been that all men are equal. The people of the ages of faith had something far more convincing than theory, of the sacredness of their rights. At the approach of those solemn anniversaries which so forcibly remind us of the justice and mercy of God, they beheld princes abdicating, as it were, their sceptre, leaving in God’s hands the punishment of the guilty, and assisting at the holy Table of Paschal Communion side by side with those very men, whom, a few days before, they had been keeping chained in prison for the good of society. There was one thought, which, during these days, was strongly brought before all nations: it was the thought of God, in whose eyes all men are sinners; of God, from whom alone proceed justice and pardon. It was in consequence of this deep Christian feeling, that we find so many diplomas and charts of the ages of faith speaking of the days of Holy Week as being the reign of Christ: such an event, they say, happened on such a day, ‘under the reign of our Lord Jesus Christ:’ regnante Domino nostro Jesu Christo.
When these days of holy and Christian equality were over, did subjects refuse submission to their sovereigns? Did they abuse the humility of their princes, and take occasion for drawing up what modern times call the rights of man? No: that same thought which had inspired human justice to humble itself before the cross of Jesus, taught the people their duty of obeying the powers established by God. The exercise of power, and submission to that power, both had God for their motive. They who wielded the sceptre might be of various dynasties: the respect for authority was ever the same. Now-a-days, the liturgy has none of her ancient influence on society; religion has been driven from the world at large, and her only life and power is now with the consciences of individuals; and as to political institutions, they are but the expression of human pride, seeking to command, or refusing to obey.
And yet the fourth century, which, in virtue of the Christian spirit, produced the laws we have been alluding to, was still rife with the pagan element. How comes it that we, who live in the full light of Christianity, can give the name of progress to a system which tends to separate society from every thing that is supernatural? Men may talk as they please, there is but one way to secure order, peace, morality, and security to the world; and that is God’s way, the way of faith, of living in accordance with the teachings and the spirit of faith. All other systems can, at best, but flatter those human passions, which are so strongly at variance with the mysteries of our Lord Jesus Christ, which we are now celebrating.
We must mention another law made by the Christian emperors in reference to Holy Week. If the spirit of charity, and a desire to imitate divine mercy, led them to decree the liberation of prisoners; it was but acting consistently with these principles, that, during these days when our Saviour shed His Blood for the emancipation of the human race, they should interest themselves in what regards slaves. Slavery, a consequence of sin, and the fundamental institution of the pagan world, had received its death-blow by the preaching of the Gospel; but its gradual abolition was left to individuals, and to their practical exercise of the principle of Christian fraternity. As our Lord and His apostles had not exacted the immediate abolition of slavery, so, in like manner, the Christian emperors limited themselves to passing such laws as would give encouragement to its gradual abolition. We have an example of this in the Justinian Code, where this prince, after having forbidden all law-proceedings during Holy Week and the week following, lays down the following exception: ‘It shall, nevertheless, be permitted to give slaves their liberty; in such manner, that the legal acts necessary for their emancipation shall not be counted as contravening this present enactment.’ [Cod. lib. iii. tit. xii. de feriis. Leg. 8.]. This charitable law of Justinian was but applying to the fifteen days of Easter the decree passed by Constantine, which forbade all legal proceedings on the Sundays throughout the year, excepting only such acts as had for their object the emancipation of slaves.
But long before the peace given her by Constantine, the Church had made provision for slaves, during these days when the mysteries of the world’s redemption were accomplished. Christian masters were obliged to grant them total rest from labour during this holy fortnight. Such is the law laid down in the apostolic constitutions, which were compiled previously to the fourth century. ‘During the great week preceding the day of Easter, and during the week that follows, slaves rest from labour, inasmuch as the first is the week of our Lord’s Passion, and the second is that of His Resurrection; and the slaves require to be instructed upon these mysteries.’ [Constit. Apost. lib. viii. cap. xxxiii].
Another characteristic of the two weeks, upon which we are now entering, is that of giving more abundant alms, and of greater fervour in the exercise of works of mercy. St. John Chrysostom assures us that such was the practice of his times; he passes an encomium on the faithful, many of whom redoubled, at this period, their charities to the poor, which they did out of this motive: that they might, in some slight measure, imitate the divine generosity, which is now so unreservedly pouring out its graces on sinners.
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