The Angelus -November 2007

• The first degree: to possess it in order to manage it honestly, in all justice, in the light of the natural virtue of a reason rectified according to duty,
  

• The second degree is to manage it under the influence of an habitual supernatural virtue inspiring its management in view of detaching oneself from it morally by the benefit that the poor can draw from it, thanks to the many alms which already underline a human detachment from the goods of the earth.
  

• The third degree is "Go, sell all that you have and follow Me." This is the infused virtue inciting the rich child to give up the exploitation of his goods in order to affirm himself super-reasonable with regard to the command of Jesus, asking him to leave everything in order to save his own soul and the souls of others.
  

Quote:“You it is, whom God hath allotted to be the chief actors in this contest. From your veins He means to derive the streams that shall water His Church. He hath made choice of you to delight His friends and confound His enemies, with the beauty and grace of your virtuous life and patient constancy. Now is the time come for the light of the world to blaze out; for the salt of the earth to season weak souls tending to corruption; yea, for the good shepherd to spend his life for the defense of his silly flock. The pruning-time is come, and in order that the tree of the Church may sprout out more abundantly, the branches and boughs of full growth are lopped off.  Now is the time come of which Christ forewarned us: ‘It shall come to pass that he who killeth you shall think he doth God a service.’ Lo, the things that were said are now done; and now, since that is fulfilled which was foretold, that which was promised will also be performed; our Lord himself assuring us: ‘When you see all these things come to pass, then know you that the kingdom of heaven is at hand.’”

Quote:“First, it must needs be a great comfort to those that, either reclaimed from schism or heresy, or from a dissolute life to the constant profession of the Catholic faith, are for that cause persecuted by Satan and his instruments: for it is a very great sign that they are delivered out of his power and accounted by him as sheep of God’s flock, seeing that otherwise he would never so heavily pursue them. . . . It is not for us to regard the slanders of men, or to desert the service of God for them, seeing that it is but a very slender excuse to allege the fear of words of a vassal as a just impediment for not performing our duty towards our Sovereign. The friendship of this world is an enemy to God. . . .

“Secondly, we should willingly undergo persecution also because ‘whom God loveth He chastiseth, and scourgeth every child He receiveth. . . .’  The vanities of this world cast the soul into so delightsome a frenzy, and lull it so dangerously asleep, that many in a fit of licentiousness run  headlong to perdition, and while they rejoice they rave; and others, in a careless and remiss kind of life, sleep themselves to death. . . . To wean us from an unnatural nurse, God anointeth her breast with the bitterness of tribulation.

“And in the third place, one . . . cannot but think that it is a most comfortable thing to suffer adversity for a good cause; seeing that it is not only the livery and cognizance of Christ, but the very garment of royalty which He chose to wear in this life. . . . And surely now is the time that we are called by Christ through fire and water, and now with loud voice doth He renew His old proclamation: ‘Whoever loveth father, mother, wife, children, house or living more than Me, is not worthy of Me; and he that taketh not up his cross and follow Me, cannot be My disciple. . . .’ What comfort can a man reap in a place that is governed by the Prince of darkness and peopled with our enemies and the enemies of God; where vice is advanced, virtue scorned, the bad rewarded and the good oppressed?

“But in the fourth place, to come to the principal drift of my discourse, what more forcible things can I set before your eyes as motives to comfort you in your tribulation, than the cause of your persecution, the honor of your present estate and the future reward of your patient and constant sufferance? And first, as to the cause that you defend – which is no less than the only true and Catholic religion. You defend that Church which is avouched by all antiquity; confirmed by the blood of martyrs; gainsaid by the heretics of all ages and most undoubtedly approved by all concurring testimonies. You defend that Church of Rome to which, as St. Cyprian says, ‘misbelief can have no access, and which can receive no forgery.’

“But, on the other side, two hundred founders of new sects that have been since Christ’s time, though they have for a season flourished and prevailed, having emperors and potentates to defend them, infinite books and writings to divulge their doctrines and all temporal aids to set them forward; yet we see that their memory is quite abolished, their names commonly unknown and no more mention of them than the condemnation and disproof of their errors recorded by Catholic writers. The same doubtless will be the end of the novelties of our days, which being only parts of their corruptions, revived and raked out of oblivion, as heretofore they vanished with their devisers, so will they now with their revivers. More than other things under the sun, heresy is never new!

“Yet, so ripe is heresy grown, so infinite the sects and divisions into which it has spread, besides new ones daily uprising, that the variety of religions and the uncertainty which among so many is truest, hath made the greater part of our country to believe none at all. And this, in truth, is the end and last step to which heresy bringeth a man. Seeing therefore that the ship of St. Peter now saileth, not against the wind of one evil spirit, or against the stress of one flood of heresy, but against a tide of all the pestilent spirits of former ages, and against the mainstream of all heresy; it is no less necessary than glorious for us to employ our last endeavors in the defense thereof; and think our limbs happily lost, our blood blessedly bestowed, our lives most honorably spent in this so noble and important a cause.”

Quote:“Your adversaries are mighty, their forces very great, their vantage not unknown, their malice experienced: but your Captain has always conquered, your cause has in the end always advanced, your predecessors never lost the field; wherefore then should you have less hope of the victory? Christianity is a warfare, and Christians spiritual soldiers. . . . Now cometh the winnower with his fan to see who is blown away like light chaff and who resists the blasts like massy wheat. . . . Many may seem faithful in the calm of the Church, but when the blasts of diversity bluster against them, few are found in the fruit of martyrdom.”

Quote:“I wish not to expose your contempt of the canon of the Apostles, of the Council of Laodicea and others forbidding to resort to the prayers or conventicles of heretics; of the example of all antiquity condemning the same; of the verdict and common consent of the profoundest writers in Christendom; and in particular, of the choice men in the Tridentine Council who, after long sifting and examining this point, in the end found it altogether unlawful and avouched it better to suffer all kinds of torment than yield to it. Yea, although they were desired not to make this a public decree, in respect to the troubles that might arise to the Catholics in England, in whose behalf the question of going to church was proposed; yet the Legate and the aforesaid Fathers gave this answer: that they would have their resolution no less accounted of than if it were the censure of the whole Council.”

Quote:“Now, if  it were . . . that you should be brought through the broad high street of a great city and that all along the way that you were going there were on the one side of the way a rabble of ragged beggars and madmen that would despise and dispraise you, with all the shameful names that they could call you, and all the villainous words that they could say to you: and that there were then all along the other side of the same street . . . a goodly company standing in a fair range, a row of wise and worshipful folk allowing and commending you, more than fifteen times as many as that rabble of ragged beggars and railing madmen are: would you cease your progress willingly, believing that you went unto your shame because of the shameful jesting and railing of those mad, foolish wretches? Or hold on your way with a good cheer and a glad heart, thinking yourself much honored by the laud and approbation of that other honorable sort? A trenchant appraisal of the militant Catholic here below who sides with the real majority in the Church – the countless angelic hosts and multitudes of the blessed martyrs and saints who witness his trials.”

Quote:“Wherefore I must resolve myself and set it down as a thing undoubted that my whole life must be a continual combat with these adversaries, whom I must assuredly persuade myself do lie hourly in wait for me to seek their advantage, and that their malice is so implacable and their hatred against me so rooted in them that I must never look to have one hour secure from their assaults, but that they will from time to time, so long as there is breath in my  body, still labor to make me forsake and offend God, allure me to their service and draw me to my damnation.”

Quote:“If in the sacrifice Christ offered no one is to be imitated but Christ, we must beyond doubt obey and do what Christ did, and what He commanded to be done: since in the Gospel He tells us: ‘You are my friends if you do the things I command you’ (John 15:14). . . So if Christ alone is to be listened to, we must pay no attention to what another thinks is to be done, but do what Christ who is above all first did. We are not to follow after the notions of men, but the truth of God; since God says to us by His prophet Isaiah: ‘In vain do they worship Me, teaching the doctrines and the commands of men’ (29:13).

“And in the Gospel He says this same thing: ‘Making void the word of God by your own tradition, which you have given forth’ (Mk. 4:13).  And He lays it down in another place and says, ‘He therefore that shall break one of these least commandments, and shall so teach men, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 5:19). And if it is not lawful to undo even the least of the Lord’s commandments, how much more unlawful is it to break those that are so grave, so serious, so closely related to the mystery of the Lord’s Passion and to our own Redemption, or to change into something else, because of some human notion, that which has been divinely handed down to us?”

Blessed Anna-Maria Taigi

“Religion shall be persecuted, and priests massacred Churches shall be closed, but only for a short time. The Holy Father shall be obliged to leave Rome.”

https://catholicprophecy.org/blessed-anna-maria-taigi/

Please note that everything in red is mine.

When the saints and mystics talk about blessed candles they are referring to the candles blessed at Candlemas, February 2nd. In their days, which is also tradition, the Church would only bless candles on Candlemas (which includes all the ones for the altars, as well as those that the laity could light in the churches) and would give a few to each faithful to have to burn for special favors, storms, etc.

I have done research on the blessed candles to ensure that God meant that it was those blessed on February 2nd. After looking in several Catholic books and researching on the internet, the conclusion is that it is those blessed at Candlemas. Any time you put in "blessed candles" in the search bar, Candlemas is what comes up immediately and when you do further research you learn that it is tradition to bless candles on February 2nd and that was the only time that the Church blessed them. It is the same as only being able to bless Holy Chrism on Holy Thursday or the Baptismal water on Holy Saturday. Now that does not mean that those blessed with the ordinary blessing done outside of Candlemas don't have any benefits, of course when you burn them they prayers are then said, for example, for the Purgatory Souls, but they aren't going to help against storms because only the prayer done for the Candlemas candles have that power.

The biggest difference between the ordinary blessing and the Candlemas blessing is that the candles done at Candlemas are good against storms, which for the Three Days of Darkness is key. (A priest was asked what the difference was between the Candlemas candles and those blessed with the ordinary blessing)

When you read the Three Days of Darkness from multiple saints and visionaries, you realize that the description of those days fit the descriptions of severe storms, so the only blessed candle that would work for those days would be the candles blessed at Candlemas.

I understand that in these times it is difficult to get candles blessed at Candlemas, but if you pray to God and Mother Mary, They will help guide you to a solution. For example, maybe a laity has some extra candles from Candlemas and God may inspire them to send some to those to have none. Another idea would be to send a candle to a priest for him to bless at Candlemas.

I tried to find when the Church started using the ordinary blessing to bless candles all the time, but I was unable to find any history or tradition of it, which is odd and a little concerning. If anyone has any information in regards to when the Church started this practice, please feel free to share. You can either reply in this thread or private messaging, which ever you prefer.





“God will send two punishments: one will be in the form of wars, revolutions and other evils; it shall originate on earth. The other will be sent from Heaven. There shall come over the whole earth an intense darkness lasting three days and three nights. Nothing can be seen, and the air will be laden with pestilence which will claim mainly, but not only, the enemies of religion. It will be impossible to use any man-made lighting during this darkness, except blessed candles (blessed at Candlemas). He, who out of curiosity, opens his window to look out, or leaves his home, will fall dead on the spot. During these three days, people should remain in their homes, pray the Rosary and beg God for mercy.”

“On this terrible occasion so many of these wicked men, enemies of His Church, and of their God, shall be killed by this divine scourge, that their corpses around Rome will be as numerous as the fishes, which a recent inundation of the Tiber had carried into the city. All the enemies of the Church, secret as well as known, will perish over the whole earth during that universal darkness, with the exception of some few, whom God will soon after convert. The air shall be infested by demons, who will appear under all sorts of hideous forms.



“After the three days of darkness, Saints Peter and Paul, having come down from heaven, will preach throughout the world and designate a new Pope. A great light will flash from their bodies and settle upon the cardinal, the future pontiff. Then Christianity will spread throughout the world. Whole nations will join the Church shortly before the reign of the Antichrist. These conversions will be amazing. Those who survive shall have to conduct themselves well. There shall be innumerable conversions of heretics, who will return to the bosom of the Church; all will note the edifying conduct of their lives, as well as that of other Catholics. Russia, England and China will come into the Church."