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| St. Gregory Thaumaturgus: A Sectional Confession of the Faith |
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Posted by: Stone - 03-02-2021, 01:40 PM - Forum: Fathers of the Church
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Home > Fathers of the Church > A Sectional Confession of the Faith (St. Gregory Thaumaturgus)
A Sectional Confession of the Faith
1
Most hostile and alien to the Apostolic Confession are those who speak of the Son as assumed to Himself by the Father out of nothing, and from an emanational origin; and those who hold the same sentiments with respect to the Holy Spirit; those who say that the Son is constituted divine by gift and grace, and that the Holy Spirit is made holy; those who regard the name of the Son as one common to servants, and assert that thus He is the first-born of the creature, as becoming, like the creature, existent out of non-existence, and as being first made, and who refuse to admit that He is the only-begotten Son, — the only One that the Father has, and that He has given Himself to be reckoned in the number of mortals, and is thus reckoned first-born; those who circumscribe the generation of the Son by the Father with a measured interval after the fashion of man, and refuse to acknowledge that the aeon of the Begetter and that of the Begotten are without beginning; those who introduce three separate and diverse systems of divine worship, whereas there is but one form of legitimate service which we have received of old from the law and the prophets, and which has been confirmed by the Lord and preached by the apostles. Nor less alienated from the true confession are those who hold not the doctrine of the Trinity according to truth, as a relation consisting of three persons, but impiously conceive it as implying a triple being in a unity (Monad), formed in the way of synthesis and think that the Son is the wisdom in God, in the same manner as the human wisdom subsists in man whereby the man is wise, and represent the Word as being simply like the word which we utter or conceive, without any hypostasis whatever.
2
But the Church's Confession, and the Creed that brings salvation to the world, is that which deals with the incarnation of the Word, and bears that He gave Himself over to the flesh of man which He acquired of Mary, while yet He conserved His own identity, and sustained no divine transposition or mutation, but was brought into conjunction with the flesh after the similitude of man; so that the flesh was made one with the divinity, the divinity having assumed the capacity of receiving the flesh in the fulfilling of the mystery. And after the dissolution of death there remained to the holy flesh a perpetual impassibility and a changeless immortality, man's original glory being taken up into it again by the power of the divinity, and being ministered then to all men by the appropriation of faith.
3
If, then, there are any here, too, who falsify the holy faith, either by attributing to the divinity as its own what belongs to the humanity — progressions, and passions, and a glory coming with accession — or by separating from the divinity the progressive and passible body, as if subsisted of itself apart — these persons also are outside the confession of the Church and of salvation. No one, therefore, can know God unless he apprehends the Son; for the Son is the wisdom by whose instrumentality all things have been created; and these created objects declare this wisdom, and God is recognised in the wisdom. But the wisdom of God is not anything similar to the wisdom which man possesses, but it is the perfect wisdom which proceeds from the perfect God, and abides for ever, not like the thought of man, which passes from him in the word that is spoken and (straightway) ceases to be. Wherefore it is not wisdom only, but also God; nor is it Word only, but also Son. And whether, then, one discerns God through creation, or is taught to know Him by the Holy Scriptures, it is impossible either to apprehend Him or to learn of Him apart from His wisdom. And he who calls upon God rightly, calls on Him through the Son; and he who approaches Him in a true fellowship, comes to Him through Christ. Moreover, the Son Himself cannot be approached apart from the Spirit. For the Spirit is both the life and the holy formation of all things; and God sending forth this Spirit through the Son makes the creature like Himself.
4
One therefore is God the Father, one the Word, one the Spirit, the life, the sanctification of all. And neither is there another God as Father, nor is there another Son as Word of God, nor is there another Spirit as quickening and sanctifying. Further, although the saints are called both gods, and sons, and spirits, they are neither filled with the Spirit, nor are made like the Son and God. And if, then, any one makes this affirmation, that the Son is God, simply as being Himself filled with divinity, and not as being generated of divinity, he has belied the Word, he has belied the Wisdom, he has lost the knowledge of God; he has fallen away into the worship of the creature, he has taken up the impiety of the Greeks, to that he has gone back; and he has become a follower of the unbelief of the Jews, who, supposing the Word of God to be but a human son, have refused to accept Him as God, and have declined to acknowledge Him as the Son of God. But it is impious to think of the Word of God as merely human, and to think of the works which are done by Him as abiding, while He abides not Himself. And if any one says that the Christ works all things only as commanded by the Word, he will both make the Word of God idle, and will change the Lord's order into servitude. For the slave is one altogether under command, and the created is not competent to create; for to suppose that what is itself created may in like manner create other things, would imply that it has ceased to be like the creature.
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Again, when one speaks of the Holy Spirit as an object made holy, he will no longer be able to apprehend all things as being sanctified in (the) Spirit. For he who has sanctified one, sanctifies all things. That man, consequently, belies the fountain of sanctification, the Holy Spirit, who denudes Him of the power of sanctifying, and he will thus be precluded from numbering Him with the Father and the Son; he makes nought, too, of the holy (ordinance of) baptism, and will no more be able to acknowledge the holy and august Trinity. For either we must apprehend the perfect Trinity in its natural and genuine glory, or we shall be under the necessity of speaking no more of a Trinity, but only of a Unity; or else, not numbering created objects with the Creator, nor the creatures with the Lord of all, we mast also not number what is sanctified with what sanctifies; even as no object that is made can be numbered with the Trinity, but in the name of the Holy Trinity baptism and invocation and worship are administered. For if there are three several glories, there must also be three several forms of cultus with those who impiously worship the creature; for if there is a distinction in the nature of the objects worshipped, there ought to be also with these men a distinction in the nature of the worship offered. What is recent surely is not to be worshipped along with what is eternal; for the recent comprehends all that has had a beginning, while mighty and measureless is lie who is before the ages. He, therefore, who supposes some beginning of times in the life of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, therewith also cuts off any possibility of numbering the Son and the Spirit with the Father. For as we acknowledge the glory to be one, so ought we also to acknowledge the substance in the Godhead to be one, and one also the eternity of the Trinity.
6
Moreover, the capital clement of our salvation is the incarnation of the Word. We believe, therefore, that it was without any change in the Divinity that the incarnation of the Word took place with a view to the renewal of humanity. For there took place neither mutation nor transposition, nor any circumscription in will, as regards the holy energy of God; but while that remained in itself the same, it also effected the work of the incarnation with a view to the salvation of the world: and the Word of God, living on earth after man's fashion, maintained likewise in all the divine presence, fulfilling all things, and being united properly and individually with flesh; and while the sensibilities proper to the flesh were there, the divine energy maintained the impassibility proper to itself. Impious, therefore, is the man who introduces the passibility into the energy. For the Lord of glory appeared in fashion as a man when He undertook the economy upon the earth; and He fulfilled the law for men by His deeds, and by His sufferings He did away with man's sufferings, and by His death He abolished death, and by his resurrection He brought life to light; and now we look for His appearing from heaven in glory for the life and judgment of all, when the resurrection of the dead shall take place, to the end that recompense may be made to all according to their desert.
7
But some treat the Holy Trinity in an awful manner, when they confidently assert that there are not three persons, and introduce (the idea of) a person devoid of subsistence. Wherefore we clear ourselves of Sabellius, who says that the Father and the Son are the same. For he holds that the Father is He who speaks, and that the Son is the Word that abides in the Father, and becomes manifest at the time of the creation, and thereafter reverts to God on the fulfilling of all things. The same affirmation he makes also of the Spirit. We forswear this, because we believe that three persons— namely, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit— are declared to possess the one Godhead: for the one divinity showing itself forth according to nature in the Trinity establishes the oneness of the nature; and thus there is a (divinity that is the) property of the Father, according to the word, There is one God the Father; 1 Corinthians 8:6 and there is a divinity hereditary in the Son, as it is written, The Word was God; John 1:1 and there is a divinity present according to nature in the Spirit into wit, what subsists as the Spirit of God— according to Paul's statement, You are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwells in you. 1 Corinthians 3:6
8
Now the person in each declares the independent being and subsistence. But divinity is the property of the Father; and whenever the divinity of these three is spoken of as one, testimony is borne that the property of the Father belongs also to the Son and the Spirit: wherefore, if the divinity may be spoken of as one in three persons, the trinity is established, and the unity is not dissevered; and the oneness Which is naturally the Father's is also acknowledged to be the Son's and the Spirit's. If one, however, speaks of one person as he may speak of one divinity, it cannot be that the two in the one are as one. For Paul addresses the Father as one in respect of divinity, and speaks of the Son as one in respect of lordship: There is one God the Father, of whom are all things, and we for Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by Him. 1 Corinthians 8:6 Wherefore if there is one God, and one Lord, and at the same time one person as one divinity in one lordship, how can credit be given to (this distinction in) the words of whom and by whom, as has been said before? We speak, accordingly, not as if we separated the lordship from the divinity, nor as estranging the one from the other, but as unifying them in the way warranted by actual fact and truth; and we call the Son God with the property of the Father, as being His image and offspring; and we call the Father Lord, addressing Him by the name of the One Lord, as being His Origin and Begettor.
9
The same position we hold respecting the Spirit, who has that unity with the Son which the Son has with the Father. Wherefore let the hypostasis of the Father be discriminated by the appellation of God; but let not the Son be cut off from this appellation, for He is of God. Again, let the person of the Son also be discriminated by the appellation of Lord; only let not God be dissociated from that, for He is Lord as being the Father of the Lord. And as it is proper to the Son to exercise lordship, for He it is that made (all things) by Himself, and now rules the things that were made, while at the same time the Father has a prior possession of that property, inasmuch as He is the Father of Him who is Lord; so we speak of the Trinity as One God, and yet not as if we made the one by a synthesis of three: for the subsistence that is constituted by synthesis is something altogether partitive and imperfect. But just as the designation Father is the expression of originality and generation, so the designation Son is the expression of the image and offspring of the Father. Hence, if one were to ask how there is but One God, if there is also a God of God, we would reply that that is a term proper to the idea of original causation, so far as the Father is the one First Cause. And if one were also to put the question, how there is but One Lord, if the Father also is Lord, we might answer that again by saying that He is so in so far as He is the Father of the Lord; and this difficulty shall meet us no longer.
10
And again, if the impious say, How will there not be three Gods and three Persons, on the supposition that they have one and the same divinity? — we shall reply: Just because God is the Cause and Father of the Son; and this Son is the image and offspring of the Father, and not His brother; and the Spirit in like manner is the Spirit of God, as it is written, God is a Spirit. John 4:24 And in earlier times we have this declaration from the prophet David: By the word of the Lord were the heavens established, and all the power of them by the breath (spirit) of His mouth. And in the beginning of the book of the creation it is written thus: And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. Genesis 1:2 And Paul in his Epistle to the Romans says But you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Romans 8:9 And again he says: But if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwells in you. Romans 8:11 And again: As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For you have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but you have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. Romans 8:14-15 And again: I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost. Romans 9:1 And again: Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope, by the power of the Holy Ghost. Romans 15:13
11
And again, writing to those same Romans, he says: But I have written the more boldly unto you in some sort, as putting you in mind, because of the grace that is given to me of God, that I should be the minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, ministering the Gospel of God, that the offering up of the Gentiles might be acceptable, being sanctified by the Holy Ghost. I have therefore whereof I may glory through Jesus Christ in those things which pertain to God. For I dare not to speak of any of those things which Christ has not wrought by me, to make the Gentiles obedient, by word and deed, through mighty signs and wonders, by the power of the Holy Spirit. And again: Now I beseech you, brethren, for our Lord Jesus Christ's sake, and by the love of the Spirit. Romans 15:30 And these things, indeed, are written in the Epistle to the Romans.
12
Again, in the Epistle to the Corinthians he says: For my speech and my preaching was not in the enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power; that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. 1 Corinthians 2:4-5 And again he says: As it is written, Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God has prepared for them that love Him. But God has revealed them unto us by His Spirit: for the Spirit searches all things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? Even so the things of God knows no man, but the Spirit of God. 1 Corinthians 2:9-11 And again he says: But the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God. 1 Corinthians 2:14
13
Do you see that all through Scripture the Spirit is preached, and yet nowhere named a creature? And what can the impious have to say if the Lord sends forth His disciples to baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit?Matthew 28:19 Without contradiction, that implies a communion and unity between them, according to which there are neither three divinities nor (three) lordships; but, while there remain truly and certainly the three persons, the real unity of the three must be acknowledged. And in this way proper credit will be given to the sending and the being sent (in the Godhead), according to which the Father has sent forth the Son, and the Son in like manner sends forth the Spirit. For one of the persons surely could not (be said to) send Himself; and one could not speak of the Father as incarnate. For the articles of our faith will not concur with the vicious tenets of the heresies; and it is right that our conceptions should follow the inspired and apostolic doctrines, and not that our impotent fancies should coerce the articles of our divine faith.
14
But if they say, How can there be three Persons, and how but one Divinity? — we shall make this reply: That there are indeed three persons, inasmuch as there is one person of God the Father, and one of the Lord the Son, and one of the Holy Spirit; and yet that there is but one divinity, inasmuch as the Son is the Image of God the Father, who is One — that is, He is God of God; and in like manner the Spirit is called the Spirit of God, and that, too, of nature according to the very substance, and not according to simple participation of God. And there is one substance in the Trinity, which does not subsist also in the case of objects that are made; for there is not one substance in God and in the things that are made, because none of these is in substance God. Nor, indeed, is the Lord one of these according to substance, but there is one Lord the Son, and one Holy Spirit; and we speak also of one Divinity, and one Lordship, and one Sanctity in the Trinity; because the Father is the Cause of the Lord, having begotten Him eternally, and the Lord is the Prototype of the Spirit. For thus the Father is Lord, and the Son also is God; and of God it is said that God is a Spirit. John 4:24
15
We therefore acknowledge one true God, the one First Cause, and one Son, very God of very God, possessing of nature the Father's divinity, — that is to say, being the same in substance with the Father; and one Holy Spirit, who by nature and in truth sanctifies all, and makes divine, as being of the substance of God. Those who speak either of the Son or of the Holy Spirit as a creature we anathematize. All other things we hold to be objects made, and in subjection, created by God through the Son, (and) sanctified in the Holy Spirit. Further, we acknowledge that the Son of God was made a Son of man, having taken to Himself the flesh from the Virgin Mary, not in name, but in reality; and that He is both the perfect Son of God, and the (perfect) Son of man — that the Person is but one, and that there is one worship for the Word and the flesh that He assumed. And we anathematize those who constitute different worships, one for the divine and another for the human, and who worship the man born of Mary as though He were another than the God of God. For we know that in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. John 1:1 And we worship Him who was made man on account of our salvation, not indeed as made perfectly like in the like body, but as the Lord who has taken to Himself the form of the servant. We acknowledge the passion of the Lord in the flesh, the resurrection in the power of His divinity, the ascension to heaven, and His glorious appearing when He comes for the judgment of the living and the dead, and for the eternal life of the saints.
16
And since some have given us trouble by attempting to subvert our faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, and by affirming of Him that He was not God incarnated, but a man linked with God; for this reason we present our confession on the subject of the aforementioned matters of faith, and reject the faithless dogmas opposed thereto. For God, having been incarnated in the flesh of man, retains also His proper energy pure, possessing a mind unsubjected by the natural and fleshly affections, and holding the flesh and the fleshly motions divinely and sinlessly, and not only unmastered by the power of death, but even destroying death. And it is the true God unincarnate that has appeared incarnate, the perfect One with the genuine and divine perfection; and in Him there are not two persons. Nor do we affirm that there are four to worship, viz., God and the Son of God, and man and the Holy Spirit. Wherefore we also anathematize those who show their impiety in this, and who thus give the man a place in the divine doxology. For we hold that the Word of God was made man on account of our salvation, in order that we might receive the likeness of the heavenly, and be made divine after the likeness of Him who is the true Son of God by nature, and the Son of man according to the flesh, our Lord Jesus Christ.
17
We believe therefore in one God, that is, in one First Cause, the God of the law and of the Gospel, the just and good; and in one Lord Jesus Christ, true God, that is, Image of the true God, Maker of all things seen and unseen, Son of God and only-begotten Offspring, and Eternal Word, living and self-subsistent and active. always being with the Father; and in one Holy Spirit; and in the glorious advent of the Son of God, who of the Virgin Mary took flesh, and endured sufferings and death in our stead, and came to resurrection on the third day, and was taken up to heaven; and in His glorious appearing yet to come; and in one holy Church, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the flesh, and life eternal.
18
We acknowledge that the Son and the Spirit are consubstantial with the Father, and that the substance of the Trinity is one — that is, that there is one divinity according to nature, the Father remaining unbegotten, and the Son being begotten of the Father in a true generation, and not in a formation by will, and the Spirit being sent forth eternally from the substance of the Father through the Son, with power to sanctify the whole creation. And we further acknowledge that the Word was made flesh, and was manifested in the flesh-movement received of a virgin, and did not simply energize in a man. And those who have fellowship with men that reject the consubstantiality as a doctrine foreign to the Scriptures, and speak of any of the persons in the Trinity as created, and separate that person from the one natural divinity, we hold as aliens, and have fellowship with none such. There is one God the Father, and there is only one divinity. But the Son also is God, as being the true image of the one and only divinity, according to generation and the nature which He has from the Father. There is one Lord the Son; but in like manner there is the Spirit, who bears over the Son's lordship to the creature that is sanctified. The Son sojourned in the world, having of the Virgin received flesh, which He filled with the Holy Spirit for the sanctification of us all; and having given up the flesh to death, He destroyed death through the resurrection that had in view the resurrection of us all; and He ascended to heaven, exalting and glorifying men in Himself; and He comes the second time to bring us again eternal life.
19
One is the Son, both before the incarnation and after the incarnation. The same (Son) is both man and God, both these together as though one; and the God the Word is not one person, and the man Jesus another person, but the same who subsisted as Son before was made one with flesh by Mary, so constituting Himself a perfect, and holy, and sinless man, and using that economical position for the renewal of mankind and the salvation of all the world. God the Father, being Himself the perfect Person, has thus the perfect Word begotten of Him truly, not as a word that is spoken, nor yet again as a son by adoption, in the sense in which angels and men are called sons of God, but as a Son who is in nature God. And there is also the perfect Holy Spirit supplied of God through the Son to the sons of adoption, living and life-giving, holy and imparting holiness to those who partake of Him — not like an unsubstantial breath breathed into them by man, but as the living Breath proceeding from God. Wherefore the Trinity is to be adored, to be glorified, to be honoured, and to be reverenced; the Father being apprehended in the Son even as the Son is of Him, and the Son being glorified in the Father, inasmuch as He is of the Father, and being manifested in the Holy Spirit to the sanctified.
20
And that the holy Trinity is to be worshipped without either separation or alienation, is taught us by Paul, who says in his Second Epistle to the Corinthians: The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all. 2 Corinthians 13:13 And again, in that epistle he makes this explanation: Now He which establishes us with you in Christ, and has anointed us, is God, who has also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts. 2 Corinthians 1:21-22 And still more clearly he writes thus in the same epistle: When Moses is read, the veil is upon their heart. Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away. Now the Lord is that Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. 2 Corinthians 3:15-18
21
And again Paul says: That mortality might be swallowed up of life. Now He that has wrought us for the selfsame thing is God, who also has given unto us the earnest of the Spirit. 2 Corinthians 5:4-5 And again he says: Approving ourselves as the ministers of God, in much patience, in afflictions, in necessities. 2 Corinthians 6:4 and so forth. Then he adds these words: By kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned, by the word of truth, by the power of God. 2 Corinthians 6:6-7 Behold here again the saint has defined the holy Trinity, naming God, and the Word, and the Holy Ghost. And again he says: Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy. 1 Corinthians 3:16-17 And again: But you are washed, but you are justified in the name of our Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God. 1 Corinthians 6:11 And again: What! Do you not know that your bodies are the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which you have of God? 1 Corinthians 6:19 And I think also that I have the Spirit of God. 1 Corinthians 7:40
22
And again, speaking also of the children of Israel as baptized in the cloud and in the sea, he says: And they all drank of the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ. 1 Corinthians 10:4 And again he says: Wherefore I give you to understand, that no man speaking by the Spirit of God calls Jesus accursed: and that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost. Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are differences of administrations, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which works all in all. But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal. For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit; to another faith by the sane Spirit; to another the gifts of healing by the same Spirit; to another the working of miracles; to another prophecy; to another discerning of spirits; to another various kinds of tongues; to another the interpretation of tongues: but all these works that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as He will. For as the body is one, and has many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body; so also is Christ. For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body. 1 Corinthians 12:3-13 And again he says: For if he who comes preaches another Christ whom we have not preached, or if you receive another spirit that you have received not, or another gospel which you have not obtained, you will rightly be kept back.
23
Do you see that the Spirit is inseparable from the divinity? And no one with pious apprehensions could fancy that He is a creature. Moreover, in the Epistle to the Hebrews he writes again thus: How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard Him; God also bearing them witness, both with signs and wonders, and with various miracles, and gifts of the Holy Ghost? Hebrews 2:3-4 And again he says in the same epistle: Wherefore, as the Holy Ghost says, Today, if you will hear His voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness; when your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my works forty years. Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, They do always err in their heart; for they have not known my ways: as I swore in my wrath, that they should not enter into my rest. Hebrews 3:7-11 And there, too, they ought to give ear to Paul, for he by no means separates the Holy Spirit from the divinity of the Father and the Son, but clearly sets forth the discourse of the Holy Ghost as one from the person of the Father, and thus as given expression to by God, just as it has been represented in the before-mentioned sayings. Wherefore the holy Trinity is believed to be one God, in accordance with these testimonies of Holy Scripture; albeit all through the inspired Scriptures numberless announcements are supplied us, all confirmatory of the apostolic and ecclesiastical faith.
A fragment of the same Declaration of Faith, accompanied by glosses. From Gregory Thaumaturgus, as they say, in his Sectional Confession of Faith.
To maintain two natures in the one Christ, makes a Tetrad of the Trinity, says he; for he expressed himself thus: And it is the true God, the unincarnate, that was manifested in the flesh, perfect with the true and divine perfection, not with two natures; nor do we speak of worshipping four (persons), viz., God, and the Son of God, and man, and the Holy Spirit. First, however, this passage is misapprehended, and is of very doubtful import. Nevertheless it bears that we should not speak of two persons in Christ, lest, by thus acknowledging Him as God, and as in the perfect divinity, and yet speaking of two persons, we should make a Tetrad of the divine persons, counting that of God the Father as one, and that of the Son of God as one, and that of the man as one, and that of the Holy Spirit as one. But, again, it bears also against recognising two divine natures, and rather for acknowledging Him to be perfect God in one natural divine perfection, and not in two; for his object is to show that He became incarnate without change, and that He retains the divinity without duplication. Accordingly he says shortly: And while the affections of the flesh spring, the energy retains the impassibility proper to it. He, therefore, who introduces the (idea of) passion into the energy is impious; for it was the Lord of glory that appeared in human form, having taken to Himself the human economy.
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| Pope Emeritus Benedict’s new scandalous comments on Joe Biden |
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Posted by: Stone - 03-02-2021, 10:22 AM - Forum: Vatican II and the Fruits of Modernism
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Pope Emeritus Benedict’s new scandalous comments on Joe Biden
Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI speaks about Joe Biden’s 'observant' Catholicism.
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March 1, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) – Wow, just wow. Some unbelievable comments today from Pope Benedict XVI in a new interview with an Italian newspaper where he speaks of Joe Biden’s Catholicism. And if you missed the attack on the Holy Mother of God from Biden’s pick for the head of HHS, you need to see this. In this show I’m going to give you both the reason for all this insanity and the solution to it.
In a new interview released today by the Italian newspaper Corriere Della Serra, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI said of President Joe Biden, “It is true, he is Catholic and observant.” Benedict XVI added that Biden “is personally against abortion.” Further demonstrating his misinformation about US political realities, the pope emeritus said of Biden “on gender politics we have not yet fully understood what his position is.”
The only caveat Pope Benedict mentioned was what seemed like a lament. “But as a president he tends to present himself in continuity with the line of the Democratic Party,” said the former pope.
What is Pope Benedict watching in terms of media or news that leads him to believing or worse yet parrot that Biden is personally opposed to abortion?
In his first two weeks in office, Biden has pledged to make abortion available to “everyone” by “codifying” the Supreme Court’s 1973 pro-abortion decision Roe v. Wade, and has revoked the Mexico City policy that blocks federal funds from going to non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that provide abortions in developing countries.
And even if he saw none of that, he would surely have seen the letter from the US bishops conference that called out Biden on inauguration day for pushing abortion. A Jan. 20 Inauguration Day letter written by Archbishop José Gomez, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), warned that Biden’s pledge to pursue anti-life and anti-family policies would advance “moral evils” in the areas of “abortion, contraception, marriage, and gender.”
But another thing Pope Benedict is quoted in the paper as saying is just as troubling. Benedict said he didn’t fully understand Biden’s stance on gender.
You know, I used to joke about ‘Catholic’ politicians like Biden saying he’d have to marry a homosexual couple himself and make it public for people to believe. But that’s no joke, Biden did exactly that! He personally officiated at a wedding ceremony for two men, making sure to photograph it and boast of it.
Moreover, on the very first day of his presidency Biden issued an executive order to force gender-confused men into women’s sports. And if all that is not evidence enough the so-called Equality Act Biden is pushing now is the death-knell for pro-family, pro-life and religious rights in America. It would force Catholic institutions to hire transgenders, female “priests” — or face sanctions. It would force Christian doctors and hospitals to perform transgender mutilation surgeries, abortions leaving no room for conscientious objection. And it would would increase girls’ risk of sexual assault and eliminate women’s sports by forcing the acceptance of biologically male athletes to compete in women’s sports and use women’s changerooms.
You know what underlies this thinking? It is the thinking of so many prelates in the Church about Catholicism. How can they act as if well, yes, there are all these sticky political issues on which we differ, but we are all brothers, everything is fine and we should all be polite and supportive of one another and dialogue and never stray into accusations or god forbid question someone’s sincerity of faith.
How? How can this be? How in the face of promoting the slaughter of a million American babies in their mother’s wombs every single year? How? I’ll tell you how. The false notion of universal salvation underpins this whole mess. If everyone is going to heaven, then really everything doesn’t matter that much. We can go along to get along. Because in the end it really doesn’t matter all that much. Thankfully, there are some priests who still get it, like Fr. Mark Goring.
But there is more.
Do you remember when in 2008 while running for office, Biden famously said: “I will shove my rosary beads down the throat of any Republican who says I am not a Catholic.” Well we got to know what he meant when he kept mentioning his rosary on TV, and using it to tout his faith in order both to attract Catholic votes and ward off Catholic criticism of his anti-Catholic positions.
Well he evidently likes to see the M.O. in his collaborators. Check this out. Did you catch the questioning of Xavier Beccera in his confirmation hearings for his nomination by President Biden to head up the US Dept of HHS? It was enraging. He was asked over and over again if he had even a single reason where there could be any single limit on abortion. And what did he respond? By talking about his grandmother praying the rosary and blessing him.
Are they insane?
It’s bad enough to be pro-abortion. But to invoke the Mother of God in the midst of excusing your advocacy of the killing of God’s children?
Xavier Beccera is another of these self-professed Catholics who is massively pro-abortion.
Lifesite’s Calvin Freiburger reports that as Attorney General of the Golden State, Becerra has shown a marked hostility to Americans who follow Judeo-Christian teaching on matters such as abortion and homosexuality, from forcing churches to subsidize elective abortions and nuns to subsidize contraceptives, to forcing pro-life pregnancy centers to advertise abortion resources, to refusing to fund state employees’ travel to South Carolina in protest of its law protecting adoption agencies that insist on giving children both a mother and a father.
But being pro-abortion and then invoking the Mother of God and the Holy Rosary. Have they lost their minds? Do they not fear God in the slightest?
Perhaps the blame though should not rest with them but on the priests and bishops who fail to strenuously warn them of the eternal punishment awaiting them for such blasphemies against the Mother of God.
I’m going to tell you how serious this is. Do you know that one of the main reasons God permitted the most stupendous miracles apart from the resurrection itself - the miracle at Fatima in 1917? It was because of the sins and outrages committed against the Blessed Virgin Mary. Jesus Himself spoke to Sr. Lucia about this in 1930.
In Matthew 12:32 Our Lord expresses a sentiment common to men of honour when someone would insult his family. He said “And whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but he that shall speak against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, nor in the world to come.”
Men of honour often warn their adversaries that harm to themselves can be forgiven but to mess with his family will garner a terrible retribution.
Jesus, being a perfect son to Mary guards Her honour and thus the incomprehensible abusing of the rosary to excuse the killing of the innocent is beyond imagination.
Where are the prophets among the bishops who will warn Biden and Beccera of the terrible justice of the Son of God they will face for having dared to blaspheme His Holy Mother?
Thank God for prophets such as Fr. Mark Goring who are not afraid to warn people of impending hell, and implore them to turn from their wicked ways and repent.
But I told you at the beginning that I would also be giving you the solution to this mess. And here it is. It goes back to the message of Fatima of course.
On December 10, 1925, the Mother of God with the Infant Jesus appeared to Sister Lucia. The Blessed Virgin put Her hand on Lucia’s shoulder and showed Lucia a heart encircled by thorns which she was holding in her hand. The Child Jesus said: “
And let me quote from Sister Lucia directly from her book Lucia Speaks, Memoirs and Letters of Sister Lucia (taken from Guido del Rose)
“Have compassion on the Heart of your most holy Mother, covered with thorns, with which ungrateful men pierce it at every moment, and there is no one to make an act of reparation to remove them.” Then the most holy Virgin said: “Look, my daughter, at my Heart, surrounded with thorns with which ungrateful men pierce me at every moment by their blasphemies and ingratitude. You at least try to console me and say that I promise to assist, at the hour of death, with the graces necessary for salvation, all those who, on the first Saturday of five consecutive months, shall confess, receive Holy Communion, recite five decades of the Rosary, and keep me company for fifteen minutes while meditating on the fifteen mysteries of the Rosary, with the intention of making reparation to me.”
And there it is. There is our solution to the mess we are in. That is our task, the task of the laity. The bishops and the Pope, they have another role, namely the consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart, but we must do our part and that is the First Saturdays Devotion. This coming Saturday is the first Saturday of the month. So will you start with me here and do this for at least 5 first Saturday’s of the month. Confession – within 8 days, Holy Mass, Communion, a single rosary and then a meditation of 15 minutes on all the 15 mysteries of the rosary. All offered for the intention of reparation to Our Lady.
We can do this. And with it we can pray for the conversion not only of Biden and Beccera but also of the prelates who fail in their prophetic mission to warn Catholics who abuse Our Lady of the need to repent before the wrath of God falls on them.
[Emphasis mine.]
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| Dr. Scott Atlas Explains How Public Health Officials Have Damaged the American Psyche |
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Posted by: Stone - 03-02-2021, 10:09 AM - Forum: Pandemic 2020 [Secular]
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'Very Frightening': Dr. Scott Atlas Explains How Public Health Officials Have Damaged the American Psyche
TownHallNews |Feb 24, 2021
Many Americans don’t know what to believe about COVID-19 because public health officials like Dr. Anthony Fauci have flip-flopped so many times on so many issues it’s hard to keep track. Turning on the news isn’t helpful either, as viewers will likely be met with doom and gloom stories about the pandemic, including death tracker chyrons (thanks, CNN) that seemed to stay on screen no matter what topic is being discussed (at least under Trump). Finally, when vaccines got the green light many breathed a sigh of relief, hoping it meant that soon this pandemic would be over. No more social distancing, no more isolation, no more lockdowns, no more Zoom school, no more masks…or double masks. But then the “experts” said not so fast—you still have to do all those things even if you get inoculated. After all, the pandemic response is about control, and as Matt wrote Tuesday, that’s not something the COVID Nazis and Democrats want to give up.
Eventually, however, when the pandemic is over, and things do go back to normal, public health officials have done so much harm to the American psyche that many people will have a difficult time moving forward, said Dr. Scott Atlas, former White House COVID adviser and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.
“If you look at the data from the National Bureau of Economic Research, over 90 percent of American stories [about COVID-19] were negative and therefore fear invoking whereas in Europe it’s just over 50 percent,” he told Fox News’s Laura Ingraham.
“That has an impact, and at this point when you have people that keep repeating that kind of stuff, misinformation, totally ignoring the science on the masks, actually, completely ignoring and therefore pushing false information—they’re instilling fear and that’s what’s worrisome here, because when you look at the data on the surveys, over 70 percent of Americans say they will wear a mask after the pandemic is over. That’s very frightening,” he continued. “We have a damaged American psyche, and it's due to these public health officials that are just really not saying the real data, probably because they don't want to admit they were so wrong."
Other voices challenging public health orthodoxy on COVID-19, like Dr. Marty Makary, a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and Bloomberg School of Public Health, are bringing more optimistic outlooks on the pandemic to the American people. In a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed, he predicted COVID-19 will be "mostly gone" by April thanks in large part to herd immunity.
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| Fauci: Those Vaccinated Must Continue to Wear Masks to Protect Others |
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Posted by: Stone - 03-02-2021, 09:47 AM - Forum: Pandemic 2020 [Secular]
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Fauci: Those Vaccinated Must Continue to Wear Masks to Protect Others
Breitbart | 28 Feb 20210
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases head Dr. Anthony Fauci said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” that Americans who have been vaccinated need to continue wearing masks to protect others from spreading coronavirus.
Anchor George Stephanopoulos said, “We don’t know a lot about how vaccines affect transmission, whether they truly prevent transmission. For people who have been vaccinated, what can they do?”
Fauci said, “Well, you should still be careful, George, that you could conceivably have, because the endpoint of the vaccine efficacy trial is preventing symptomatic disease, which means that potentially theoretically, and maybe, in reality, you’re going to have infection that you don’t get any clinical manifestation, you could be protected from disease and still have the virus, and if that’s the case that’s the reason why you hear all the public health officials say, wear a mask. The reason is, essentially, to protect other people, you may inadvertently infect someone else even though you’re protected. That’s the reason.”
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| Transhumanism and The Spiritual Battle For Humanity |
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Posted by: Stone - 03-02-2021, 09:02 AM - Forum: General Commentary
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This little article was published by the founder of a social media site called Gab. The founder and CEO, Andrew Torba, has been harassed and persecuted by Big Tech and Big Money for a long time. He is a Protestant but what he has written here is an interesting perspective on the push toward transhumanism:
Transhumanism and The Spiritual Battle For Humanity
![[Image: sensing-the-universe-3-1200x675.jpg]](https://news.gab.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/sensing-the-universe-3-1200x675.jpg)
Andrew Torba | February 27, 2021
Earlier this month I appeared on Steve Bannon’s War Room to discuss the topic of transhumanism. In the simplest terms transhumanists believe in using technology to transcend beyond the limitations of human biology into a post-human existence.
This is something we are all familiar with on a surface level thanks to many different movies and TV shows over the years, but it’s time to start taking it seriously as a threat to humanity itself.
The march towards transhumanism isn’t a conspiracy theory or some outlandish science fiction movie, it’s a very real and dire situation unfolding before our eyes.
The oligarchs in the American regime, in particular the ones in Silicon Valley, are obsessed with eternal life and the topic of transhumanism. Peter Thiel wants to inject himself with young people’s blood as a method of “radical life extension.” Elon Musk put a computer chip in a pig’s brain with the hopes of one day soon putting one in yours.
Facebook is working on “brain tech” that can read your mind. Google’s Ray Kurzweil is obsessed with progressing towards the “singularity,” a moment where artificial intelligence overtakes human thinking, on his quest to become “immortal.”
The goal of the Silicon Valley oligarchs, and of the globalists in general, is transhumanism. They aren’t hiding this, in fact they are flaunting it in front of our faces. While we are all too busy bickering about what AOC tweeted this week, the oligarchs are spending billions of dollars to become immoral “gods.”
Their strategy is two-fold.
First, they perfect the transhumanist technology behind closed doors and become among the first human beings to “transcend” beyond the limitations of human biology to become “gods” with eternal life and access to all of the knowledge and information available in the cloud.
Second, they will get the rest of us to adopt a form of this technology that they own and control by selling us on “progress” and convenience. If you doubt they will be successful with this approach, just look at the phone in the palm of your hand as a wildly successful beta test of this strategy.
In many ways the smartphone was the first iteration of this grand vision. We are now witnessing the consequences of giving them the power to control the flow of information and access to basic online services in the form of censorship, deplatforming, and outright unpersoning of individuals, businesses, and any threat to their system of control. What do you think will happen when they build, own, and control the chip they plant in your brain at birth?
In order to fully understand this you need to understand the mindset of the Silicon Valley elite and the American Oligarch Regime. These people believe that they are superior to the rest of us in every way. They went to the “best” schools. They built the “best” companies. They consolidated all of the wealth into their hands. They know what is “best.” This is why they project their supremacy on the rest of us with terms like “white supremacist.” We are but mere cattle to them. Digital serfs.
This may all sound outlandish now, but this technology is being developed as we speak and it is something that people under 50 will witness in their lifetime. We need to be prepared to fight for our humanity and to resist the literal dehumanization of the entire human race itself.
Ultimately, this is a spiritual war. They are targeting our very humanity. This is evidenced by everything that these people promote. Their “values” are inherently anti-human. Abortion. Moral decay. The destruction of sovereign nations and people. The persecution of everything and anything related to God Almighty our Creator.
We need to prepare ourselves for what is coming by exiting their entire system and raising up our children to value and cherish human life. We need to build our own economy. We need to return to tradition and get right with God right now, because the judgement day of singularity is upon us.
Andrew Torba
CEO, Gab.com
February 27th, 2021
Jesus is King
[Emphasis mine.]
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| April 12th - Blessed Catherine of St. Augustine and St. Julius I |
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Posted by: Elizabeth - 03-01-2021, 10:46 PM - Forum: April
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Blessed Catherine of St. Augustine
Virgin
(1632-1668)
A young future missionary to New France, Catherine de Longpré, in religion Sister Marie-Catherine of Saint Augustine, was a nursing nun in the community of the Hospitaler Sisters of Saint Augustine in Evreux. Born in France in 1632, she went to Quebec at the age of sixteen. Having offered her life for the sick and the sanctification of souls, she found in Quebec City a newly-established and very poor hospital, where she would labor for twenty years with unfailing devotion and courage.
Blessed Catherine's physical and moral sufferings increased to a measure which few Saints have surpassed; she was chosen as a victim by God for the expiation of sins, in this territory which He destined for Himself in a particular way. To sustain her in the terrible obsessions which she endured, to preserve other souls who could not have withstood hell's assaults, she was given for her heavenly spiritual director, Saint John de Brebeuf, the North American martyr who had died not long before, in what is now Ontario. The entire history of her interior life was written by her confessor, the Jesuit Paul Ragueneau, who had been a friend of the great Martyr and had labored with him. Father Ragueneau recognized as authentic his fellow Jesuit's spiritual role in the life of this remarkable religious.
The sale of alcoholic beverages to the Indians in exchange for furs was a grievous abuse which the saintly first bishop of Quebec, Monsignor Francis Montmorency de Laval, was striving to abolish; sins of the tongue, immodesty and impiety were rampant in the city and surroundings. Monsignor de Laval recognized in Sister Catherine a soul of predilection, and he often asked her intercession for particular persons, for the colony and the Indians, whose souls were his great concern, as they were also of his clergy and missionaries. She, for her part, complied by her prayers and sacrifices, and saw in vision how the demons of hell were working for the ruin of the colony, in various places and in various ways. A spiritual battle of great proportions was underway, to win Canada for Christ.
Blessed Catherine died at the age of 36, saying shortly before she expired: My God, I adore Your divine perfections; I adore Your divine Justice; I abandon myself to it with my whole heart. One of the great mystics of the Church, her life remains a prodigy of sacrifice and love, a gold mine of doctrine for those who seek understanding of God's ways with His Saints and His people.
Saint Julius I
Pope
(† 352)
Saint Julius was by birth a Roman; he was chosen Pope on the 6th of February in 337, and was remarkable for the sanctity of his life and his zeal in strengthening the Christian faith.
The impious heresy of Arius was progressing dangerously everywhere in the East, and many holy bishops were obliged to leave their sees. Saint Julius received them warmly in Rome, Saint Athanasius in particular, and he defended them to the end against their adversaries. He condemned the synods which the Arians had assembled in Tyre and in Antioch, with the intention of abolishing the faith of Nicea. He assembled two councils in Rome, where he heard the exiled bishops and proclaimed their innocence.
By his counsel, the Emperor Constans, the pious prince of the West, influenced his brother Constantius to recall Saint Athanasius from exile.
Saint Julius rejected a deceptive formula of faith, imagined by the Eusebians, who were partisans of Arius at the second council of Antioch. He assembled the second Council of Sardica, composed of both Western and Oriental bishops. His legates presided there, and he saw to it that useful measures for the maintenance of the Catholic faith and the re-establishment of ecclesiastical discipline were drafted and implemented.
He built two basilicas in Rome and adorned them with sacred paintings. He had three cemeteries constructed, on the Flaminian and Aurelian ways, and at Porto. He regulated legal questions concerning the clergy, ordaining that they would plead nowhere but in ecclesiastical courts.
Saint Julius reigned for fifteen years, and died on the 12th of April, 352.
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| To Jesus nailed to the Cross - Devotion to the Passion |
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Posted by: Hildegard of Bingen - 03-01-2021, 02:22 PM - Forum: In Honor of Our Lord
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(Taken from St. Alphonsus’ Prayer-Book – pages 451)
DEVOTION TO THE PASSION
To Jesus nailed to the Cross.
The wounds of Jesus are wounds which soften the hardest hearts and inflame the most frozen souls.
Ah, my Jesus, what was it that nailed Thy Hands and Thy Feet to this wood but the love Thou didst beat to men? Thou, by the pain of Thy pierced Hands, wast willing to pay the penalty due to all the sins of touch that men have committed; and, by the pain of Thy Feet, Thou wast willing to pay for all the steps by which we have gone our way to offend Thee. O my crucified Love, with these pierced Hands give me Thy benediction! Oh, nail this ungrateful heart of mine to Thy Feet, that so I may no more depart from Thee, and that this will of mine, which has so often rebelled against. Thee, may remain ever steadily fixed in Thy love. Grant that nothing else but Thy love, and the desire of pleasing Thee, may move me. Although I behold Thee suspended upon this gibbet, I believe Thee to be the Lord of the world, the true Son of God, and the Saviour of mankind. For pity’s sake, O my Jesus, never abandon me again at any period of my life, and more especially at the hour of my death, in those last agonies and struggles with hell, do Thou assist me, and strengthen me to die in Thy love. I love Thee, my crucified Love, I love Thee with all my heart. Amen.
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| The Miraculous Novena of Grace of St. Francis Xavier |
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Posted by: Hildegard of Bingen - 03-01-2021, 02:03 PM - Forum: Novenas
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The Miraculous Novena of Grace
March 4 -March 12
Origins of the Novena of Grace to St. Francis Xavier
In Naples in 1633 there lived Fr. Marcello Mastrilli, S.J. He had taken the vow to ask to be assigned to the Japan Mission, then the most difficult; for at that time the Buddhist persecution was most cruel against the Catholic religion and the new form of martyrdom introduced was most excruciating. It was known as the "Pit" for the martyrs were kept hung, head downwards over a volcanic pit from which sulphurous gases and waters welled up. At times the martyrdom was protracted for several days before the victim expired.
The torture was so horrible that in 1633 the Provincial of the Japan Mission Fr. Ferrara after five days of agony over the "Pit" apostatized. But hundreds of others, priests and laymen, Europeans and Japanese in holy emulation reached the martyr's crown through the terrible "Pit".
When the news of the unfortunate Ferrara's apostasy reached Europe, many Jesuits vowed themselves to the Japan Mission to replace their martyred brethren and to atone for the apostate. Marcello Mastrilli was one of them. (Fr. Ferrara was subsequently reconverted and atoned for his fall by dying a martyr's death over the "Pit" in 1652.)
In December 1633, while waiting for the passage to Japan, Fr. Mastrilli organized on a grand scale the feast of the Immaculate Conception in the College of Naples, putting up for the occasion an elaborate structure that drew the admiration of the whole town. The feast was a stupendous success that helped so much to bring home to the faithful the great privilege of Our Lady, which then was not yet defined as a dogma of the Faith.
The feast over, Fr. Mastrilli was supervising the removal of the temporary structure when a heavy hammer slipped from the hands of a worker and fell with deadly precision on Fr. Mastrilli's head. The injury caused thereby was severe, and Fr. Mastrilli was on the verge of death.
Just when the crisis was on, St. Francis Xavier appeared to Fr.Mastrilli and, bidding him renew the vow to go to Japan, said to him: "All those who implore my help daily for nine consecutive days, from the 4th to the 12th of March included, and worthily receive the Sacraments of Penance and the Holy Eucharist on one of the nine days, will experience my protection and may hope with entire assurance to obtain from God any Grace they ask for the good of their souls and the glory of God."
The Father arose, instantly cured. So well has the Saint kept this promise that this devotion in his honor became universally known as the Novena of Grace. Its efficacy is not restricted to the dates mentioned. It may be made very appropriately from November 25 -December 3, the Feast of St. Francis Xavier.
HISTORY: The Novena of Grace, which begins March 4th and ends on the 12th, the day of the canonization of St. Francis Xavier, owes its origin to the Saint himself.
PRAYERS FOR NOVENA
PRAYER TO ST. FRANCIS XAVIER
Attributed to Father Marcello Mastrilli, S.J. (17th century)
O SAINT Francis Xavier, well beloved and full of charity, in union with thee, I reverently adore the Majesty of God; and since I rejoice with exceeding joy in the singular gifts of grace bestowed upon thee during thy life, and thy gifts of glory after death, I give Him hearty thanks therefore; I beseech thee with all my heart's devotion to be pleased to obtain for me, by thy effectual intercession, above all things, the grace of a holy life and a happy death. Moreover, I beg of thee to obtain for me (here mention the spiritual or temporal favor to be prayed for). But if what I ask of thee so earnestly doth not tend to the glory of God and the greater good of my soul, do thou, I pray, obtain for me what is more profitable to both these ends. Amen. Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be.
If, for any reason, the above prayer cannot be said, it will suffice to say five times Our Father, Hail Mary and Glory Be.-----S.C. Ind., March 23, 1904.
PRAYER OF ST. FRANCIS XAVIER FOR THE CONVERSION OF INFIDELS
ETERNAL God, Creator of all things, remember that Thou Alone didst create the souls of infidels, framing them to Thine Own image and likeness; behold, O Lord! how, to Thy dishonor, Hell is daily replenished with them. Remember, O Lord! Thine Only Son, Jesus Christ, Who suffered for them, most bountifully shedding His Precious Blood: suffer not, O Lord Thy Son and Our Lord to be any longer despised by infidels; but rather, being appeased by the entreaties and prayers of the elect, the Saints, and of the Church, the most blessed spouse of Thy Son, vouchsafe to be mindful of Thy mercy, and forgetting their idolatry and infidelity, cause them also to know Him Whom Thou didst send, Jesus Christ Thy Son, Our Lord, Who is our health, life, and resurrection, through Whom we are freed and saved, to Whom be all glory forever. Amen.
ST. FRANCIS XAVIER'S HYMN OF LOVE
O GOD, I love Thee for Thyself, and not that I may Heaven gain,
Nor because those who love Thee not, must suffer Hell's eternal pain.
Thou, O my Jesus! Thou didst me upon the Cross embrace;
For me didst bear the nails and spear and manifold disgrace;
And griefs and torments numberless, and sweat of agony;
E'en death itself-----and all for one who was Thine enemy.
Then why, O blessed Jesus Christ, Should I not love Thee well:
Not for the sake of winning Heaven, or of escaping Hell;
Not with the hope of gaining aught, not seeking a reward;
But, as Thyself hast loved me, O ever-loving Lord?
E'en so, I love Thee, and will love, and in Thy praise will sing;
Solely because Thou art my God and my Eternal King.
(From My Prayerbook, by Fr. Lasance)
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| Prayer to St. Joseph |
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Posted by: Hildegard of Bingen - 03-01-2021, 12:17 PM - Forum: Prayers and Devotionals
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Prayer taken from the book "Mother Love - A Manual for Christian Mothers"
PRAYER TO ST. JOSEPH
St. Joseph, faithful companion of the holy Mother of God, Thy Virgin-spouse,
whom together with her Divine Child thou hast guarded with such great care and
devotion, and to whom thou hast sacrificed thy whole life, I entreat thee to be
also my guardian and intercessor with Jesus, thy most noble foster-son.
Obtain for me the grace that I may fulfill my duties to my children as thou
with thy holy spouse didst fulfill thy duties toward Jesus.
Blessed Joseph, pray for me! Amen.
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| Every Day with Saint Francis de Sales - March |
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Posted by: Hildegard of Bingen - 03-01-2021, 12:10 PM - Forum: Doctors of the Church
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Teachings and Examples from the Life of the Saintby Salesiana Publishers
Every Day with Saint Francis de Sales
THE TITLE: Every Day with Saint Francis de Sales (changed from the Italian Buon Giorno . . . Teachings and Examples from the Life of Saint Francis de Sales). This replaced
the previous title and subtitle: Saint Francis de Sales in Teachings and Example . . . A sacred Diary Extracted from His Life and Works by the Vistandines of Rome. This title was
taken from the first edition (Ferrari, Rome, 1953).
CONTENT AND STRUCTURE: Every page contains a thought from the works of Saint Francis de Sales and a brief account of some event of his life which took place on that date.
The first taken from the Oeuvres d'Annecy with an indication of volume and page and then the work form which the passage has been taken (e.g. Sermons, Treatises, Letters). As
far as the two major woks are concerned, the book or part and chapter have been added, for further clarification. This will allow the reader to refer to the passages for personal
consultation or greater understanding. The anecdotes have been taken from the work Anne Sainte, with an indication of both volume and page. Because of the brevity of the
selections chosen, we have added a maxim taken froma book by an anonymous author, Massime di S. Francesco di Sales (Salesian Press, Milan, 1929).
TEXT AND FORMAT: The Italian revision of the book made necessary the rereading of the selections chosen and a comparison with the original French. Every effort has been made
to keep the gentle tone of Saint Francis de Sales.
ABBREVIATIONS AND REFERENCES:
A.S. Annee Sainte des Religieuse de la Visitation Sainte Marie, (12 vol. ed.)
D.S. Diario Sacre extracted from his life and works, compiled by the Visitandines of Rome. (Ed. Ferrari, Rome 1953)
INT. Francis de Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life
Hamon P. Hamon, Vie de St. Francois de Sales, (2 vol., Paris 1854)
O. Oeuvres de St. Francois de Sales, publiees par lessouis des Religieuses de la Visitation du Premier Monastere d'Annecy (26 vol. , Annecy 1892-1932)
SOL. Francis de Sales, Meditazioni per la Solitudine
T.L.G. Francis de Sales, Treatise on the Love of God
Please note: If you buy the book, the bible quotes are not from the Douay Reims, in putting these meditations online for The Catacombs, I have changed the Bible Quotes to reflect the Douay Reims Bible.
Every Day with Saint Francis de Sales
Teachings and Examples from the Life of the Saint by Salesiana Publishers
March 1st (page 61)
The obligations that we have toward the Eternal Father for creation, we have likewise toward Jesus Christ, Who, by the redemption, has acquired every right of sovereignty over all redeemed creatures. Let us, therefore, exclaim and say to Jesus, “Yes, my God and my King, reign over my soul, my heart and my will; possess all my faculties and submit them entirely to the scepter of obedience.”
(Meditations for Solitude, p. 50)
On March 1st, 1610, Francis de Sales lost his virtuous mother, Francoise de Sionnaz de Boisy. In her final days she was assisted by her saintly so, who was both her confessor and her bishop. He gave her the last blessing just as she breathed forth her soul to God, and then he had the strength to close her eyes and her mouth. “After that,” he wrote, “my heart got the better of me and I cried for such a good mother more than I had ever done since I became a man of the church; but, thanks be to God, there was no bitterness of heart. It was a quiet pouring forth of my grief, although very deeply felt, while I repeated the words of David, “But I am like a deaf man, hearing not, like a dumb man who opens not his mouth.” [Ps 38:14} Without this strength I would certainly have lamented loudly under such a blow, although it seemed to me that I would not have dared to resent her death, nor show discontent for the blows of the fatherly hand of God, Who by His grace had taught me to love her tenderly right from my youth.”
(A.S. III, p. 2)
Since Christ accepted death with love and held it up before us to be loved,
I cannot begrudge the death of anyone, so long as he or she dies in the grace
Of His most holy death.
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| Pfizer CEO: ‘Every year you will have to get your annual shot for COVID’ |
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Posted by: Stone - 03-01-2021, 11:35 AM - Forum: Pandemic 2020 [Secular]
- No Replies
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Pfizer CEO: ‘Every year you will have to get your annual shot for COVID’
Pfizer said this week it’s begun testing a third dose of its COVID vaccine and a new modified version to address variants for years to come.
March 1, 2021 (Children’s Health Defense) — Despite the purported 95% effectiveness of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla announced Thursday that the vaccine maker is testing a third dose of its vaccine in anticipation of annual booster shots.
In a press release, Pfizer stated its goal was to understand the effect of a booster on immunity against COVID caused by the circulating and newly emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants and to engage in ongoing discussions with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and European Medicines Agency regarding a clinical trial to test a modified mRNA vaccine.
Pfizer director and board member Scott Gottlieb, who also served as former FDA commissioner in charge of vaccine approval, told CNBC the vaccine maker is exploring two paths to boost effectiveness of the COVID vaccine.
The first study will give 144 participants from the phase 1 clinical trial conducted last May a third lower-dosage of the current two-dose formulation. The second study involves testing a modified version of the existing vaccine designed to provide broad defense against a range of COVID mutations.
Pfizer hopes to prepare for a potential rapid adoption of the vaccine to address new variants that will allow for the development of booster vaccines within weeks. This “regulatory pathway” is already established for other infectious diseases like influenza, said the vaccine maker.
Pfizer’s CEO hopes a third dose will boost the immune response even higher or will offer protection against COVID variants.
“Every year, you need to go to get your flu vaccine,” Bourla said. “It’s going to be the same with COVID. In a year, you will have to go and get your annual shot for Covid to be protected,” Bourla told NBC News.
The Pfizer-BioNTech COVID vaccine is not yet licensed by the FDA but has obtained Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) to prevent COVID-19 for use in ages 16 years and older. The emergency use of this vaccine is only authorized as long as “circumstances exist justifying the authorization of emergency use.”
The FDA has said it is willing to authorize booster shots based on small clinical trials, accepting data on how well vaccines prime the immune system rather than holding out for long-term safety and efficacy results on protecting against COVID-19.
Moderna is also bolstering its worldwide manufacturing capacity in anticipation of a sustained demand for COVID-19 boosters in the coming years. The company plans to test additional doses of their vaccine, booster shots and a new shot combined with its current vaccine as soon as regulators give the green light.
As The Defender reported last week, Bill Gates is also on record suggesting a “third shot” could be required to combat COVID.
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| Pope Francis Warns of Second ‘Great Flood’ from Global Warming |
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Posted by: Stone - 03-01-2021, 11:23 AM - Forum: Pope Francis
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Pope Francis Warns of Second ‘Great Flood’ from Global Warming
Breitbart | 1 Mar 20210
ROME — Pope Francis has warned of the possibility of a second great flood, like that of Noah’s time, if humanity fails to address global warming.
“God’s wrath is directed against injustice, against Satan,” the pope states in a book titled Of Vices and Virtues due for release Tuesday. “It is directed against evil, not that which derives from human weakness, but evil of Satanic inspiration: the corruption generated by Satan.”
“God’s wrath is meant to bring justice, to ‘clean up,’” the pontiff declares in an advance excerpt of the book published by the Italian daily Corriere della Sera Sunday.
“The Bible says that the flood is the result of God’s wrath,” Francis continues. “It is a figure of God’s wrath, who according to the Bible has seen too many bad things and decides to obliterate humanity.”
“The biblical flood, according to experts, is a mythical tale,” the pope states, parenthetically adding his hope that no one writes that “the pope says the Bible is a myth.”
“But myth is a form of knowledge,” he says. “The flood is a historical tale, archaeologists say, because they found traces of a flood in their excavations.”
“A great flood, perhaps due to a rise in temperature and the melting of the glaciers, is what will happen now if we continue along the same path,” the pope warns.
“God unleashed his wrath, but he saw a righteous one, took him and saved him,” he says. “The story of Noah demonstrates that God’s wrath is also salvific.”
The pope’s new book recounts conversations between the pontiff and Father Marco Pozza, chaplain of the prison of Padua in the north of Italy.
Francis has made care for the environment and opposition to climate change a hallmark of his almost eight-year pontificate, taking to task world leaders who have shown too little resolve in their battle against global warming.
He said last year that it is “evident” that climate change is to blame for a number of humanity’s social ills, as well as disrupting the balance of nature.
“It is evident that climate change not only upsets the balance of nature, but causes poverty and hunger, affects the most vulnerable, and sometimes forces them to leave their land,” the pope told a group gathered in the Vatican.
The pope’s audience consisted of participants in a meeting of members of the Laudato Sì community, named after the pontiff’s 2015 encyclical letter on the environment, which bears the same name.
“We need a real will to tackle the root causes of the ongoing climate upheavals,” Francis insisted. “Generic commitments are not enough — words, words.”
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| ‘Everyone Agreed’ on Vaccine Passports, Says Merkel at EU Coronavirus Summit |
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Posted by: Stone - 03-01-2021, 10:57 AM - Forum: Pandemic 2020 [Secular]
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‘Everyone Agreed’ on Vaccine Passports, Says Merkel at EU Coronavirus Summit
Breitbart | Feb 20210
German Chancellor Angela Merkel claimed that there is a unanimous agreement within the European Union on implementing a coronavirus vaccine passport,
during a virtual meeting of EU member states on Thursday.
The German leader said that “everyone agreed that we need a digital vaccination certificate,” following the meeting of European leaders.
Merkel said that such a system could be implemented as soon as the summer, but claimed that the introduction of a vaccine passport “does not mean that only those who have a vaccination passport are allowed to travel,” according to the German broadcaster DW.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen praised Israel’s implementation of ‘Green Passes’, a system in which the government tracks and documents an individual’s vaccination history in order to facilitate travel or to attend synagogues, theatres, concerts, or to go to the gym.
While there has so far been no agreement within the EU as far as a standardised system, von der Leyen said that the Commission is working to craft a “gateway for interoperability between nations.”
The embattled EU president did note that member states will “have to act fast” in order to implement a vaccine passport before the summer. To date, the European Union has only inoculated eight per cent of its population, compared to nearly 30 per cent in Brexit Britain.
The failure to vaccinate a significant portion of the population has led to concerns that vaccine passports would be discriminatory. Angela Merkel admitted as much this week, saying: “As long as the number of those who have been vaccinated is still so much smaller than the number who are waiting for vaccination, the state should not treat the two groups differently.”
Southern EU member states, such as Spain, Italy, and Greece have been pushing for the adoption of a COVID pass, in order to facilitate travel and prop up their fledgeling tourism industries. For countries like Greece in particular, tourism is a major part of their domestic economies and the Corona lockdowns have been devastating.
Other countries, such as France, have expressed concerns about discrimination as well as the lack of evidence over whether vaccinated people can still transmit the Wuhan virus.
Greek Deputy Prime Minister Akis Skertsos said that a vaccine passport system is “not discriminatory at all,” claiming that unvaccinated people could still visit Greece, but would face tougher restrictions such as being forced to be tested and self-isolate upon arrival.
Greece, which has already signed an agreement with Israel to open up travel for those with ‘Green Passes’, is reportedly in talks with the UK to sign a similar agreement.
There is a growing push within Britain’s notionally conservative government for the adoption of a vaccine passport, with Prime Minister Boris Johnson suggesting earlier this week that Brits might be required to carry health passes to even do make simple domestic visits like going to the pub or the theatre.
“I know the fervent libertarians will object but other people will think that there is case for it,” Johnson said, going on to say that many countries will make vaccine passports a requirement.
Education Secretary Gavin Williamson backed up the plan to carry passports to go to restaurants, cinemas, and theatres, telling LBC Radio on Wendesday: “I think I would probably do pretty much sort of anything to be able to enjoy all those lovely things.’
“I think the idea of going to a restaurant with your family or going to the theatre is something we all really want to see,” Williamson added.
Cabinet Minister Michael Gove will be heading up the government’s research into adopting a vaccine passport system, despite definitively stating in December that Brits would not be required to provide proof of vaccination to go to the pub.
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| Prudentius: Hymn For Those Who Fast |
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Posted by: Stone - 03-01-2021, 10:22 AM - Forum: Lenten Devotions
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Hymn For Those Who Fast
O Jesus, Light of Bethlehem,
True Son of God, Incarnate Word;
Thou offspring of a Virgin's womb,
Be present at our frugal board;
Accept our fast, our sacrifice,
And smile upon us, gracious Lord.
For by this holiest mystery
The inward parts are cleansed from stain,
And, taming all the unbridled lusts,
Our sinful flesh we thus restrain,
Lest gluttony and drunkenness
Should choke the soul and cloud the brain.
Hence appetite and luxury
Are forced their empire to resign;
The wanton sport, the jest obscene,
The ignoble sway of sleep and wine,
And all the plagues of languid sense
Feel the strict bonds of discipline.
For if, full fed with meat and drink,
The flesh thou ne'er dost mortify,
The mind, that spark of sacred flame,
By pleasure dulled, must fail and die,
And pent in its gross prison-house
The soul in shameful torpor lie.
So be thy carnal lusts controlled,
So be thy judgment clear and bright;
Then shall thy spirit, swift and free,
Be gifted with a keener sight,
And breathing in an ampler air
To the All-Father pray aright.
Elias by such abstinence,
Seer of the desert, grew in grace,
Who left the madding haunts of men
And found a peaceful resting-place,
Where, far from sinful crowds, he trod
The pure and silent wilderness.
Till by those fiery coursers drawn
The swift car bore him through the air,
Lest earth's defiling touch should mar
The holiness it might not share,
Or some polluting breath disturb
The peace attained by fast and prayer.
Moses, through whom from His dread throne
The will of God to man was told,
No food might touch till through the sky
The sun full forty times had rolled,
Ere God before him stood revealed,
Lord of the heavens sevenfold.
Tears were his meat, while bent in prayer
Through the long night he bowed his head
E'en to the thirsty dust, that drank
The drops in bitter weeping shed;
Till, at God's call, he saw the flame
No eye may bear, and was afraid.
The Baptist, too, was strong in fast --
Forerunner in a later day
Of God's Eternal Son -- who made
The byepaths plain, the crooked way
A road direct, wherein His feet
Might travel on without delay.
This was the messenger's great task
Who for God's advent zealously
Prepared the way, the rough made smooth,
The mountain levelled to the sea;
That, when Truth came from heaven to earth,
All fair and straight His path should be.
He was not born in common wise,
For dry and wrinkled was the breast
Of her that bare him late in years,
Nor found she from her labour rest,
Till she had hailed with lips inspired
The Maid with unborn Godhead blest.
For him the hairy skins of beasts
Furnished a raiment rude and wild,
As forth into the lonely waste
He fared, an unbefriended child,
Who dwelt apart, lest he should be
By evil city-life defiled.
There, vowed to abstinence, he grew
To manhood, and with stern disdain
He turned from meat and drink, until
He saw night's shadow fall again;
And locusts and the wild bees' store
Sufficed his vigour to sustain.
The first was he to testify
Of that new life which man might win;
In Jordan's consecrating stream
He purged the stains of ancient sin,
And, as he made the body clean,
The radiant Spirit entered in.
Forth from the holy tide they came
Reborn, from guilt's pollution free,
As bright from out the cleansing fire
Flows the rough gold, or as we see
The glittering silver, purged of dross,
Flash into polished purity.
Now let us tell, from Holy Writ,
Of olden fasts the fairest crown;
How God in pity stayed His hand,
And spared a doomed and guilty town,
In clemency the flames withheld
And laid His vengeful lightnings down.
A mighty race of ancient time
Waxed arrogant in boastful pride;
Debauched were they, and borne along
On foul corruption's loathsome tide,
Till in their stiff-necked self-conceit
They e'en the God of Heaven denied.
At last Eternal Mercy turns
To righteous judgment, swift and dire;
He shakes the clouds; the mighty sword
Flames in His hand, and in His ire
He wields the roaring hurricane
'Mid murky gloom and flashing fire.
Yet in His clemency He grants
To penitence a brief delay,
That they might burst the bonds of lust
And put their vanities away;
His sentence given, He waits awhile
And stays the hand upraised to slay.
To warn them of the wrath to come
The Avenger in His mercy sent
Jonah the seer; but, -- though he knew
The threatening Judge would fain relent
Nor wished to strike, -- towards Tarshish town
The prophet's furtive course was bent.
As up the galley's side he climbed,
They loosed the dripping rope, and passed
The harbour bar: then on them burst
The sudden fury of the blast;
And when their peril's cause they sought,
The lot was on the recreant cast.
The man whose guilt the urn declares
Alone must die, the rest to save;
Hurled headlong from the deck, he falls
And sinks beneath the engulfing wave,
Then, seized by monstrous jaws, is plunged
Into a vast and living grave.
* * * * *
At last the monster hurls him forth,
As the third night had rolled away;
Before its roar the billows break
And lash the cliffs with briny spray;
Unhurt the wondering prophet stands
And hails the unexpected day.
Thus turned again to duty's path
To Nineveh he swiftly came,
Their lusts rebuked and boldly preached
God's judgment on their sin and shame;
"Believe!" he cried, "the Judge draws nigh
Whose wrath shall wrap your streets in flame."
Thence to the lofty mount withdrew,
Where he might watch the smoke-cloud lower
O'er blasted homes and ruined halls,
And rest beneath the shady bower
Upspringing in swift luxury
Of twining tendril, leaf and flower.
But when the guilty burghers heard
The impending doom, a dull despair
Possessed their souls; proud senators,
Poor craftsmen, throng the highways fair;
Pale youth with tottering age unites,
And women's wailing rends the air.
A public fast they now decree,
If they may thus Christ's anger stay:
No food they touch: each haughty dame
Puts silken robes and gems away,
In sable garbed, and ashes casts
Upon her tresses' disarray.
In dark and squalid vesture clad
The Fathers go: the mourning crowd
Dons rough attire: in shaggy skins
Enwrapped, fair maids their faces shroud
With dusky veils, and boyish heads
E'en to the very dust are bowed.
The King tears off his jewelled brooch
And rends the robe of Coan hue;
Bright emeralds and lustrous pearls
Are flung aside, and ashes strew
The royal head, discrowned and bent,
As low he kneels God's grace to sue.
None thought to drink, none thought to eat;
All from the table turned aside,
And in their cradles wet with tears
Starved babes in bitter anguish cried,
For e'en the foster-mother stern
To little lips the breast denied.
The very flocks are closely penned
By careful hands, lest they should gain
Sweet water from the babbling stream
Or wandering crop the dewy plain;
And bleating sheep and lowing kine
Within their barren stalls complain.
Moved by such penitence, full soon
God's grace repealed the stern decree
And curbed His righteous wrath; for aye,
When man repents, His clemency
Is swift to pardon and to hear
His children weeping bitterly.
Yet wherefore of that bygone race
Should we anew the story tell?
For Christ's pure soul by fasting long
The clogging bonds of flesh did quell;
He Whom the prophet's voice foretold
As GOD WITH US, Emmanuel.
Man's body -- frail by nature's law
And bound by pleasure's easy chain --
He freed by virtue's strong restraint,
And gave it liberty again:
He broke the bonds of flesh, and Lust
Was driven from his old domain.
Deep in the inhospitable wild
For forty days He dwelt alone
Nor tasted food, till, thus prepared,
All human weakness overthrown
By fasting's power, His mortal frame
Rejoiced the spirit's sway to own.
The Adversary, marvelling
To see this creature of a day
Endure such toil, spent all his guile
To learn if God in human clay
Had come indeed; but soon rebuked
Behind His back fled shamed away.
Therefore let each with all his might
Follow the way the Master taught,
The law of consecrated life
Which Christ unto His servants brought;
Till, with the lusts of flesh subdued,
The spirit reigns o'er act and thought.
'Tis this our jealous foe abhors,
'Tis this the Lord of earth and sky
Approves; by this the soul is made
Thy holy altar, God Most High:
Faith stirs within the slumbering heart
And sin's corroding power must fly.
Swifter than water quenches fire,
Swifter than sunshine melts the snow,
Crushed out by soul-restoring fast
Vanish the sins that rankly grow,
If hand in hand with Abstinence
Sweet Charity doth ever go.
This too is Virtue's noble task,
To clothe the naked, and to feed
The destitute, with kindly care
To visit sufferers in their need;
For king and beggar each must bear
The lot by changeless Fate decreed.
Happy the man whose good right hand
Seeks but God's praise, and flings his gold
Broadcast, nor lets his left hand know
The gracious deed; for wealth untold
Shall crown him through eternal years
With usury an hundredfold.
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