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| Archbishop Lefebvre - Declaration 1974 |
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Posted by: Stone - 11-26-2020, 06:53 AM - Forum: Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre
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1974 Declaration of Archbishop Lefebvre
The famous "1974 Declaration" of Archbishop Lefebvre was an affirmation of the Catholic Faith in response to the Modernist crisis afflicting the post-conciliar Church.
On November 21, 1974 Archbishop Lefebvre, scandalized by the opinions expressed by the two Apostolic Visitors, drew up for his seminarians "in a spirit of doubtlessly excessive indignation" this famous declaration as his stand against Modernism.
Ten days before, two Apostolic Visitors from Rome arrived at the St. Pius X Seminary in Econe. During their brief stay, they spoke to the seminarians and professors, maintaining scandalous opinions such as, the ordination of married men will soon be a normal thing, truth changes with the times, and the traditional conception of the Resurrection of Our Lord is open to discussion.
We hold fast, with all our heart and with all our soul, to Catholic Rome, Guardian of the Catholic Faith and of the traditions necessary to preserve this faith, to Eternal Rome, Mistress of wisdom and truth.
We refuse, on the other hand, and have always refused to follow the Rome of neo-Modernist and neo-Protestant tendencies which were clearly evident in the Second Vatican Council and, after the Council, in all the reforms which issued from it.
All these reforms, indeed, have contributed and are still contributing to the destruction of the Church, to the ruin of the priesthood, to the abolition of the Sacrifice of the Mass and of the sacraments, to the disappearance of religious life, to a naturalist and Teilhardian teaching in universities, seminaries and catechectics; a teaching derived from Liberalism and Protestantism, many times condemned by the solemn Magisterium of the Church.
No authority, not even the highest in the hierarchy, can force us to abandon or diminish our Catholic Faith, so clearly expressed and professed by the Church’s Magisterium for nineteen centuries.
“But though we,” says St. Paul, “or an angel from heaven preach a gospel to you besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema” (Gal. 1:8).
Is it not this that the Holy Father is repeating to us today? And if we can discern a certain contradiction in his words and deeds, as well as in those of the dicasteries, well we choose what was always taught and we turn a deaf ear to the novelties destroying the Church.
It is impossible to modify profoundly the lex orandi without modifying the lex credendi. To the Novus Ordo Missae correspond a new catechism, a new priesthood, new seminaries, a charismatic Pentecostal Church—all things opposed to orthodoxy and the perennial teaching of the Church.
This Reformation, born of Liberalism and Modernism, is poisoned through and through; it derives from heresy and ends in heresy, even if all its acts are not formally heretical. It is therefore impossible for any conscientious and faithful Catholic to espouse this Reformation or to submit to it in any way whatsoever.
The only attitude of faithfulness to the Church and Catholic doctrine, in view of our salvation, is a categorical refusal to accept this Reformation.
That is why, without any spirit of rebellion, bitterness or resentment, we pursue our work of forming priests, with the timeless Magisterium as our guide. We are persuaded that we can render no greater service to the Holy Catholic Church, to the Sovereign Pontiff and to posterity.
That is why we hold fast to all that has been believed and practiced in the faith, morals, liturgy, teaching of the catechism, formation of the priest and institution of the Church, by the Church of all time; to all these things as codified in those books which saw day before the Modernist influence of the Council. This we shall do until such time that the true light of Tradition dissipates the darkness obscuring the sky of Eternal Rome.
By doing this, with the grace of God and the help of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and that of St. Joseph and St. Pius X, we are assured of remaining faithful to the Roman Catholic Church and to all the successors of Peter, and of being the fideles dispensatores mysteriorum Domini Nostri Jesu Christi in Spiritu Sancto. Amen.
November 21, 1974
Econe, Switzerland
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| November 26th |
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Posted by: Stone - 11-26-2020, 06:29 AM - Forum: November
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![[Image: saint_peter_of_alexandria.jpg]](https://sanctoral.com/en/saints/images/saint_peter_of_alexandria.jpg)
Saint Peter of Alexandria
Patriarch and Martyr
(† 310)
The Church of Alexandria, founded by the Evangelist Saint Mark in the name of the Apostle Saint Peter, was the head of the churches of Egypt and of several other provinces; it had lost its Metropolitan when Saint Thomas of Alexandria died at the end of the third century. Saint Peter, a priest of that city, replaced him, and soon was governing the church amid the terrors of the persecution by Diocletian and Maximian. Two bishops and more than six hundred Christians were in irons and on the verge of torture; he sent to them pastoral letters to animate them to fervor and perseverance, and rejoiced to learn that a number of them had won the grace of martyrdom.
Many, however, had preferred apostasy to a cruel death. Saint Peter was obliged to instigate penances in order for them to return to the communion of the faithful. When he deposed a bishop who had incensed an idol during the persecution, his act of justice acquired for him the hostility of a certain Arius, the bishop's favorite, who became thereafter the author of a schism and an instrument of the cruel emperor Maximian who persecuted the Christians. He in fact animated this tyrant against Saint Peter. The sentence of excommunication which Saint Peter was the first to pronounce against the two schismatics, Arius and Melitius, and which he strenuously upheld despite the united efforts of powerful members of their parties, is proof that he possessed firmness as well as sagacity and zeal.
The Patriarch was soon seized and thrown into prison. There he encouraged the confessors imprisoned with him to sing the praises of God and pray to their Saviour in their hearts, without ceasing. Saint Peter never ceased repeating to the faithful that, in order not to fear death, it is necessary to begin by dying to oneself, renouncing our self-will and detaching ourselves from all things. He was soon to give proof of his own perfect detachment in his glorious martyrdom.
While in prison he was advised in an apparition as to his successors in the Alexandrian church, and he recognized that the day of his eternal liberation was at hand. He informed these two faithful sons that his martyrdom was imminent. In effect, the emperor passed sentence of death on him, despite the fact that a crowd of persons had come to the prison with the intention of preventing by force the martyrdom of their patriarch; they remained all night for fear he might be executed in secret. But Saint Peter delivered himself up to his executioners, and died by the sword on November 26, 310. His appearance on the scaffold was so majestic that none of them dared to touch him; it was necessary to pay one of them in gold to strike the fatal blow.
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![[Image: saint_john_berchmans.jpg]](https://sanctoral.com/en/saints/images/saint_john_berchmans.jpg)
Saint John Berchmans
Jesuit Seminarian
(1599-1621) Patron of altar boys
Born in 1599 in Diest, a town of northern Belgium near Brussels and Louvain, this angelic young Saint was the oldest of five children. Two of his three brothers became priests, and his father, after the death of John's mother when he was eleven years old, entered religion and became a Canon of Saint Sulpice.
John was a brilliant student from his most tender years, manifesting also a piety which far exceeded the ordinary. Beginning at the age of seven, he studied for three years at the local communal school with an excellent professor. And then his father, wanting to protect the sacerdotal vocation already evident in his son, confided him to a Canon of Diest who lodged students aspiring to the ecclesiastical vocation. After three years in that residence, the family's financial situation had declined owing to the long illness of the mother, and John was told he would have to return and learn a trade. He pleaded to be allowed to continue his studies. And his aunts, who were nuns, found a solution through their chaplain; he proposed to take John into his service and lodge him.
Saint John was ordinarily first in his classes at the large school, a sort of minor seminary, even when he had to double his efforts in order to rejoin his fellow students, all of excellent talent, who sometimes had preceded him for a year or more in an assigned discipline. He often questioned his Superiors as to what was the most perfect thing to say or do in the various circumstances in which he found himself. Such was the humility which caused the young to advance without ceasing on the road to heaven. Later he continued his studies at Malines, also not distant from Diest, under the tutelage of another ecclesiastic, who assigned to him the supervision of three young boys of a noble family. In all that John did he sought perfection, and he never encountered anything but the highest favor for his services, wherever he was placed.
He found his vocation through his acquaintance with the Jesuits of that city, and manifested his determination to pursue his course, although his father and family opposed it for a time. It had been decided that he would continue his studies at the Jesuit novitiate of Malines, with about 70 other novices. With another young aspirant, he was waiting in the parlor to be introduced, when he saw in the garden a coadjutor Brother turning over the ground in the garden. He proposed to his companion to go and help him, saying: Could we begin our religious life better than with an act of humility and charity? And with no hesitation, both went to offer their assistance. How many young persons in that situation would have thought of such an offer? This incident reveals the profound charity and interior peace which characterized this young religious at all times.
As a novice he taught catechism to the children in the regions around Malines. He made his instructions so lively and interesting that the country folk preferred his lessons to the ordinary sermons. The children became attached to him, and in a troop would conduct him back to the novitiate, where he distributed holy pictures, medals and rosaries to them. At the end of his novitiate in 1619 he was destined to go to Rome to begin serious application to philosophy, but his superiors decided to send him home for a few days first. A shock awaited him at the train station of Malines, where he was expecting to meet his father; he had died a week earlier. John was given time to take the dispositions necessary to provide for the younger brothers and sister. When he departed, it was apparently with a premonition that he would perhaps never see them again, for he said in a letter to the Canon of Diest with whom he had dwelt, to tell the younger ones for him: Increase in piety, in fear of God and in knowledge. Adieu.
With a fellow novice he began the two months' journey on foot to Rome, by way of Paris, Lyons and Loreto, where the two assisted at the Christmas Midnight Mass. Both of these two young Jesuits would die within three years' time, his companion in a matter of several months. John had time during these three years to give unceasing proofs of his already perfected sanctity; nothing that he did was left to chance, but entrusted to the intercession of his Heavenly Mother, to whom his devotion continued to increase day by day. He made an extraordinary effort during an intense heat wave in the summer of 1621, participating splendidly in a debate, which took place at a certain distance from the Jesuit residence, despite the fact he did not feel well. Two days later he was felled by a fever, which continued implacably to mine his already slight resistance, and he died in August of that year, after one week of illness. The story of his last days is touching indeed; in a residence of several hundred priests and students, there was none who did not follow with anxiety and compassion the progress of his illness. When the infirmarian told his patient that he should probably receive Communion the next morning — an exception to the rule prescribing it for Sundays only, in those times — John said, In Viaticum? and received a sad affirmative answer. He himself was transported with joy and embraced the Brother; the latter broke into tears. A priest who knew John well went to him the next morning and asked him if there was anything troubling or saddening him, and John replied, Absolutely nothing.
He asked that his mattress be placed on the floor, and knelt to receive his Lord; when the Father Rector pronounced the words of the Ritual: Receive, Brother, in viaticum, the Body of Our Lord Jesus Christ, all in attendance wept. Their angelic, ever joyous and affectionate young novice was called to leave them; no clearer tribute than their tears could have been offered to the reality of his sanctity, his participation in the effusive goodness of the divine nature. Devotion to his memory spread rapidly in Belgium; already in 1624 twelve engraving establishments of Anvers had published his portrait. He was canonized in 1888 by Pope Leo XIII, at the same time as two other Jesuits who lived during the first century of that Society's existence, so fruitful in sanctity — Peter Claver and Alphonsus Rodriguez.
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| On Religious Ignorance |
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Posted by: Stone - 11-25-2020, 07:34 AM - Forum: Sermons and Conferences
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The Angelus - July 2017
Religious Ignorance
A Lenten sermon by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre
“The Lord has looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there be any that understand and seek God. They are all gone aside, they are become unprofitable together…” These words of the psalmist are echoed by St. Paul: “…they are inexcusable, because that, when they knew God, they have not glorified Him as God or given thanks; but became vain in their thoughts; and their foolish heart was darkened.”
Giant Scientists and Spiritual Dwarfs
How relevant these passages still are! How many people there are in our own day who care nothing for God or the things of Heaven, or who know nothing of the Christian religion and the mysteries of Christ! Worse yet, many baptized Christians still know little or nothing of their religion, and cannot even recite the most basic prayers. How many there are, some even university graduates, who are unable to distinguish between the true religion into which they were baptized and heresies and cults invented by men.
This ignorance may be excusable in those who have been brought up in a pagan environment and who are making praiseworthy efforts to escape from it, but there is no excuse for those who live in a Christian milieu and who, along with a certain degree of education, have everything which makes of man a creature truly made in the image of God.
Our Holy Father Pope Pius X said:
Quote:“Those who are still zealous for the glory of God seek to know why things divine are being held in less esteem. Some give one reason, some another, and according to his opinion each proposes a different means for the defense or the reestablishment of the Kingdom of God on earth. For Ourself, without wishing to disparage the opinions of others, we concur wholeheartedly with the judgment of those who attribute today’s spiritual laxity and weakness and their attendant grave ills, mainly to ignorance of the things of God. This is precisely what God spoke through the mouth of the Prophet Osee, saying:
Quote:‘Cursing and lying and killing and theft and adultery have overflowed: and blood hath touched blood. Therefore shall the land mourn, and every one that dwelleth in it shall languish.’”
How many there are who think they can make do with a religious education received before they were eleven years old, an age when one is nowhere near capable of mastering a secular science. It may be true that religion comes naturally to man, and that at an age when passions have not yet overshadowed intelligence the raising up of the heart and mind to God is easy and spontaneous, but at that stage of a human life, the true knowledge upon which conviction is based, and which will make it possible to resist the internal and external assaults of the devil and the world cannot be and have not been acquired.
What a crime is committed, albeit unknowingly, by those parents who can see no point in continuing their children’s religious education, once they have made their Profession of Faith [Editor’s note: at age 12 in France]. And how wrong are those folk who think religious knowledge is only good for children, that the adolescent and the adult should not be expected to learn anymore, and that a minimal religious observance—a late Sunday Mass and annual Easter Communion—is sufficient for living a good Christian life!
The Dazzling Lights of the City
Small wonder if in the future we find Christians fulfilling only the strict minimum of obligations imposed by the Church, and otherwise living in the world like everyone else, without faith or morals. To quote Pius X again:
Quote:“Human will, led astray and blinded as it is by wicked passions, has need of a guide to show it the way and to bring it back into the paths of righteousness whence it has mistakenly wandered. We do not have to seek this guide outside ourselves, for it is given to us by nature, it is our own intelligence. If that is not truly enlightened, that is, if it lacks the knowledge of the things of God, then we shall be back to the situation of the blind leading the blind: they will both fall into the ditch.”
Worse yet, more often than not, an adolescent will give up the practice of his or her religion entirely and will soon abandon all moral standards, much to the distress of the priests and nuns who have tried everything to keep such young souls on the path of duty and eternal salvation. Alas, if it is true that adults are more than ever fascinated and captivated by all those inventions of modern science which are drawing the world into such a state of feverish activity; if it is true that the human spirit is ever more attracted by all that enslaves the senses, then how are the young to resist if there is not deep in their hearts and minds a still more powerful attraction towards God?
And such an attraction requires a more prefect knowledge of the unfathomable riches of God’s mercy, of His omnipotence, and the infinite love He has shown for us by making His Divine Son both our brother and our food. For does not Our Lord teach that “this is eternal life: that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, Whom Thou hast sent?” Are we going to cast away eternal life through ignorance of things divine just so that we may follow the attractions of this decaying and transitory life?
Modern man is displaying an almost pathological agitation, brought on by a sensual activity out of all proportions to the physical strength which God has given him. Radio, the cinema and a whole host of modern inventions are largely to blame for this, but these things would do less damage if people knew how to use them with moderation. This is not the case, however, and wherever we turn, we are faced with the spectacle of humanity rushing avidly in pursuit of intense sensual experiences. The effect upon the intelligence, whose activity depends so largely upon the nervous system, is all too evident. Children and young people have great difficulty concentrating at school, and adults find it hard to sustain any intellectual effort, or to give their minds to any one thing for long.
What are we to expect, then, when it comes to religious matters, where the senses have only a very small role to play, and where one has to rise above their limited perceptions if one is to grasp spiritual realities?
Nonetheless, there is no denying, as our Holy Father Pope Pius XI put it,
“that man created in the image and likeness of God has his destiny in Him Who is Infinite Perfection and, although modern material progress has brought with it an abundance of worldly goods, he is today more than ever aware of their inadequacy to bring true happiness to individuals and to nations. Thus, he feels more insistently within himself that aspiration towards a higher state of perfection which the Creator has implanted in the heart of rational nature.”
The Ordinary Channels of Wisdom
How, then, are we to overcome the ignorance of God and of the divine mysteries which prevent the realization of this noble aspiration to which Pope Pius refers?
First, we have to desire true wisdom, that is to say, understanding of the things of God.
Next, we must seek this knowledge at its authentic source, and that is the Church.
Finally, and above all, we must give ourselves over to prayer.
It is not enough for the priest to speak and write: the faithful must also attend to him with a genuine desire to learn.
“My son,” says the prophet, “lean not upon thine own prudence…seek wisdom…take hold on instruction, leave it not: keep it, because it is thy life…O men, it is to you that I say; hearken to me, for I have wondrous things to tell.” Thus he exhorts the faithful to pay heed to his words and gives himself as an example: “I desired wisdom and it was given to me; I have loved it and sought it from my youth.”
Let us beware of stifling in ourselves, and especially in the souls of our children, this desire to know and love God which is within every human being. As St. Augustine puts it, “Thou, O Lord, hast made us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in Thee.” “As the heart panteth after the fountains of water” where it may slake its thirst, let us go, thirsting to the fount of wisdom.
All knowledge and all wisdom come from Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Splendor of the Eternal Father. It is of Him that the Old Testament speaks when it says: “Come over to me, all ye that desire me, and be filled with my fruits; he that harkeneth to me shall not be confounded…” and He Himself has said: “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. And I give them life everlasting…He that receiveth Me receiveth Him that sent Me; and he that despiseth you, despiseth Me…” The college of Apostles, with St. Peter at its head, is the Church, and the Church continues to speak by the mouths of its bishops and its priests. So he who would come to the knowledge of God must heed the priest, who teaches in the name of the Church.
Now, the priest teaches in many ways. On Sundays and Holy days, he preaches; in Lent he gives special courses of instruction, and in his conversation and when making pastoral visits he gives advice, refutes errors, and points out the way of truth. It is to be deplored that some of the faithful have, without reasonable cause, got into the habit of fulfilling their Sunday obligation by attending a Mass at which there is no sermon.
A priest also teaches by catechizing both children and adults. In this connection, parents must be mindful of their grave obligation to send their children to catechism, even in addition to their secular studies. Religious instruction is no less essential for children in state schools than for those attending Catholic establishments. It is one of the most vital of parental duties to do everything possible to supply whatever may be lacking in one’s children’s schooling.
It has been a source of great joy to see the dedicated laity offering to assist the Fathers in teaching catechism. I can assure them that their zeal is most pleasing to God and the Church, and that heaven will bless them for that.
Another way in which the Church teaches is through the printed word, whether in books, magazines, newspapers or other publications designed to nourish and enlighten the intellect and to inform it regarding the things of God.
The book par excellence for anyone wishing to know about God is, of course, the Holy Bible. His Holiness Pope Pius XII has written:
Quote:“Let the bishops lend their support to every initiative undertaken by zealous apostles with the laudable aim of promoting and nurturing among the faithful the knowledge and love the Holy Books. Let them therefore support and smooth the way for those pious associations whose purpose is to disseminate among the faithful copies of the Sacred Scriptures, especially the Gospels, and which encourage the devout reading of them each day in Christian families…as St. Jerome says, “Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ,” and “if there be one thing in this life which keeps a man virtuous, and convinces him to maintain the equanimity of his soul amid all the sufferings and torments of this world, I believe that thing to be the meditation and the knowledge of the Scriptures.”
With all my heart, I encourage you, the faithful, to adopt this excellent practice, recommended by Our Holy Father the Pope, of reading together as a family each day some passage from these inspired books.
Concluding Exhortation
Dearly beloved brethren, neglect nothing which can bring you to a greater knowledge of our holy religion, and of the Giver of all graces, Our Lord Jesus Christ.
What strength and consolation, what hope in trials and tribulations is this Christian faith of ours, which transports us to the realities of eternity even while we are yet here on earth! But our desire for the knowledge of God, our longing to draw from the wellsprings of Truth, must be accompanied by prayer, the prayer of the blind man on the road to Jericho. When Jesus asked him what he wanted he replied, “Lord, that I may see.” Imagine how that poor blind man must have uttered those words: “That I may see” even though he was asking only for the sight of transitory things. May we take up these words with a persistence and a longing which will touch the merciful heart of God. Let us make an effort to pray with greater humility, with greater contrition. A humbled and contrite heart God will not despise, and so the light of wisdom and knowledge will rise upon our souls, a dawning of peace and benediction, until the full day of the Lord shall shine on them forever in the eternity of the Blessed.
[Emphasis - The Catacombs]
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| November 25th |
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Posted by: Stone - 11-25-2020, 06:24 AM - Forum: November
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Saint Catherine of Alexandria
Virgin, Martyr, Patroness of Students, Philosophers and Young Girls
(† Fourth Century)
Catherine was a noble virgin of Alexandria, born in the fourth century. Before her Baptism, she saw in a dream the Blessed Virgin asking Her Son to receive her among His servants, but the Divine Infant turned away, saying she was not yet regenerated by the waters of Baptism. She made haste to receive that sacrament, and afterwards, when the dream was repeated, Catherine saw that the Saviour received her with great affection, and espoused her before the court of heaven, with a fine ring. She woke with it on her finger.
She had a very active intelligence, fit for all matters, and she undertook the study of philosophy and theology. At that time there were schools in Alexandria for the instruction of Christians, where excellent Christian scholars taught. She made great progress and became able to sustain the truths of our religion against even very subtle sophists. At that time Maximinus II was sharing the empire with Constantine the Great and Licinius, and had as his district Egypt; and this cruel Christian-hater ordinarily resided in Alexandria, capital of the province. He announced a gigantic pagan sacrifice, such that the very air would be darkened with the smoke of the bulls and sheep immolated on the altars of the gods. Catherine before this event strove to strengthen the Christians against the fatal lures, repeating that the oracles vaunted by the infidels were pure illusion, originating in the depths of the lower regions.
She foresaw that soon it would be the Christians' turn to be immolated, when they refused to participate in the ceremonies. She therefore went to the emperor himself, asking to speak with him, and her singular beauty and majestic air won an audience for her. She said to him that it was a strange thing that he should by his example attract so many peoples to such an abominable cult. By his high office he was obliged to turn them away from it, since reason itself shows us that there can be only one sovereign Being, the first principle of all else. She begged him to cease so great a disorder by giving the true God the honor due Him, lest he reap the wages of his indifference in this life already, as well as in the next. The consequences of her hardy act extended over a certain time; he decided to call in fifty sophists of his suite, to bring back this virgin from her errors. A large audience assembled to hear the debate; the emperor sat on his throne with his entire court, dissimulating his rage.
Catherine began by saying she was surprised that he obliged her to face, alone, fifty individuals, but she asked the grace of him, that if the true God she adored rendered her victorious, he would adopt her religion and renounce the cult of the demons. He was not pleased and replied that it was not for her to lay down conditions for the discussion. The head of the sophists began the orations and reprimanded her for opposing the authority of poets, orators and philosophers, who unanimously had revered Jupiter, Juno, Neptune, Minerva and others. He cited their writings, and said she should consider that these persons were far anterior to this new religion she was following. She listened carefully before answering, then spoke, showing that the ridiculous fables which Homer, Orpheus and other poets had invented concerning their divinities, and the fact that many offered a cult to them, as well as the abominable crimes attributed to them, proved them to be gods only in the opinion of the untutored and credulous. And then she proved that the prophecies of the Hebrew Scriptures had clearly announced the time and the circumstances of the life of the future Saviour, and that these were now fulfilled. Prodigy; the head of the sophists avowed that she was entirely correct and renounced his errors; the others said they could not oppose their chief. Maximinus had them put to death by fire, but the fire did not consume their remains. Thus they died as Christians, receiving the Baptism of blood.
The story of Saint Catherine continues during the time of the emperor's efforts to persuade her to marry him; he put to death his converted wife and the captain of his guards who had received Baptism with two hundred of his soldiers. He delivered Catherine up to prison and then to tortures as a result of her firmness in refusing his overtures. The famous wheel of Saint Catherine — in reality several interacting wheels — which he invented to torment her, was furnished with sharp razor blades and sharp points of iron; all who saw it trembled. But as soon as it was set in movement it was miraculously disjointed and broken into pieces, and these pieces flew in all directions and wounded the spectators. The barbaric emperor finally commanded that she be decapitated; and she offered her neck to the executioner, after praying that her mortal remains would be respected.
The story of Saint Catherine continues with the discovery of the intact body of a young and beautiful girl on Mount Sinai in the ninth century, that is, four centuries later. The Church, in the Collect of her feast day, bears witness to the transport of her body. A number of proofs testified to the identity of her mortal remains found in the region of the famous monastery existing on that mountain since the fifth century. Her head is today conserved in Rome.
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| November 24th |
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Posted by: Stone - 11-25-2020, 06:18 AM - Forum: November
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Saint John of the Cross
Doctor of the Church
(1542-1591)
Saint John of the Cross was born near Avila in Spain. As a child, he was playing near a pond one day. He slid into the depths of the water, but came up unharmed and did not sink again. A tall and beautiful Lady came to offer him Her hand. No, said the child, You are too beautiful; my hand will dirty Yours. Then an elderly gentleman appeared on the shore and extended his staff to the child to bring him to shore. These two were Mary and Joseph. Another time he fell into a well, and it was expected he would be retrieved lifeless. But he was seated and waiting peacefully. A beautiful lady, he said, took me into Her cloak and sheltered me. Thus John grew up under the gaze of Mary.
One day he was praying Our Lord to make known his vocation to him, and an interior voice said to him: You will enter a religious Order, whose primitive fervor you will restore. He was twenty-one years old when he entered Carmel, and although he concealed his exceptional works, he outshone all his brethren. He dwelt in an obscure corner whose window opened upon the chapel, opposite the Most Blessed Sacrament. He wore around his waist an iron chain full of sharp points, and over it a tight vestment made of reeds joined by large knots. His disciplines were so cruel that his blood flowed in abundance. The priesthood only redoubled his desire for perfection. He thought of going to bury his existence in the Carthusian solitude, when Saint Teresa, whom God enlightened as to his merit, made him the confidant of her projects for the reform of Carmel and asked him to be her auxiliary.
John retired alone to a poor and inadequate dwelling and began a new kind of life, conformed with the primitive Rules of the Order of Carmel. Shortly afterwards two companions came to join him; the reform was founded. It was not without storms that it developed, for hell seemed to rage and labor against it, and if the people venerated John as a Saint, he had to accept, from those who should have seconded him, incredible persecutions, insults, calumnies, and even prison. When Our Lord told him He was pleased with him, and asked him what reward he wished, the humble religious replied: To suffer and to be scorned for You. His reform, though approved by the General of the Order, was rejected by the older friars, who condemned the Saint as a fugitive and an apostate and cast him into prison, from which he only escaped, after nine months' suffering, with the help of Heaven and at the risk of his life. He took refuge with the Carmelite nuns for a time, saying his experience in prison had been an extraordinary grace for him. Twice again, before his death, he was shamefully persecuted by his brethren, and publicly disgraced.
When he fell ill, he was given a choice of monasteries to which he might go; he chose the one governed by a religious whom he had once reprimanded and who could never pardon him for it. In effect, he was left untended most of the time, during his last illness. But at his death the room was filled with a marvelous light, and his unhappy Prior recognized his error, and that he had mistreated a Saint. After a first exhumation of his remains, they were found intact; many others followed, the last one in 1955. The body was at that time found to be entirely moist and flexible still.
Saint John wrote spiritual books of sublime elevation. A book printed in 1923 which has now become famous, authored by a Dominican theologian*, justly attributed to Saint John and to Saint Thomas Aquinas, whom the Carmelite Saint followed, the indisputable foundations for exact ascetic and mystical theology. He was proclaimed a Doctor of the Church in 1926 by Pope Pius XI.
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| Pope Pius V: Quo Primum |
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Posted by: Stone - 11-24-2020, 07:18 AM - Forum: Encyclicals
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Quo Primum
Apostolic Constitution
Pope St. Pius V - 1570
From the very first, upon Our elevation to the chief Apostleship, We gladly turned our mind and energies and directed all our thoughts to those matters which concerned the preservation of a pure liturgy, and We strove with God’s help, by every means in our power, to accomplish this purpose. For, besides other decrees of the sacred Council of Trent, there were stipulations for Us to revise and re-edit the sacred books: the Catechism, the Missal and the Breviary. With the Catechism published for the instruction of the faithful, by God’s help, and the Breviary thoroughly revised for the worthy praise of God, in order that the Missal and Breviary may be in perfect harmony, as fitting and proper – for its most becoming that there be in the Church only one appropriate manner of reciting the Psalms and only one rite for the celebration of Mass – We deemed it necessary to give our immediate attention to what still remained to be done, viz, the re-editing of the Missal as soon as possible.
Hence, We decided to entrust this work to learned men of our selection. They very carefully collated all their work with the ancient codices in Our Vatican Library and with reliable, preserved or emended codices from elsewhere. Besides this, these men consulted the works of ancient and approved authors concerning the same sacred rites; and thus they have restored the Missal itself to the original form and rite of the holy Fathers. When this work has been gone over numerous times and further emended, after serious study and reflection, We commanded that the finished product be printed and published as soon as possible, so that all might enjoy the fruits of this labor; and thus, priests would know which prayers to use and which rites and ceremonies they were required to observe from now on in the celebration of Masses.
Let all everywhere adopt and observe what has been handed down by the Holy Roman Church, the Mother and Teacher of the other churches, and let Masses not be sung or read according to any other formula than that of this Missal published by Us. This ordinance applies henceforth, now, and forever, throughout all the provinces of the Christian world, to all patriarchs, cathedral churches, collegiate and parish churches, be they secular or religious, both of men and of women – even of military orders – and of churches or chapels without a specific congregation in which conventual Masses are sung aloud in choir or read privately in accord with the rites and customs of the Roman Church. This Missal is to be used by all churches, even by those which in their authorization are made exempt, whether by Apostolic indult, custom, or privilege, or even if by oath or official confirmation of the Holy See, or have their rights and faculties guaranteed to them by any other manner whatsoever.
This new rite alone is to be used unless approval of the practice of saying Mass differently was given at the very time of the institution and confirmation of the church by Apostolic See at least 200 years ago, or unless there has prevailed a custom of a similar kind which has been continuously followed for a period of not less than 200 years, in which most cases We in no wise rescind their above-mentioned prerogative or custom. However, if this Missal, which we have seen fit to publish, be more agreeable to these latter, We grant them permission to celebrate Mass according to its rite, provided they have the consent of their bishop or prelate or of their whole Chapter, everything else to the contrary notwithstanding.
All other of the churches referred to above, however, are hereby denied the use of other missals, which are to be discontinued entirely and absolutely; whereas, by this present Constitution, which will be valid henceforth, now, and forever, We order and enjoin that nothing must be added to Our recently published Missal, nothing omitted from it, nor anything whatsoever be changed within it under the penalty of Our displeasure.
We specifically command each and every patriarch, administrator, and all other persons or whatever ecclesiastical dignity they may be, be they even cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, or possessed of any other rank or pre-eminence, and We order them in virtue of holy obedience to chant or to read the Mass according to the rite and manner and norm herewith laid down by Us and, hereafter, to discontinue and completely discard all other rubrics and rites of other missals, however ancient, which they have customarily followed; and they must not in celebrating Mass presume to introduce any ceremonies or recite any prayers other than those contained in this Missal.
Furthermore, by these presents [this law], in virtue of Our Apostolic authority, We grant and concede in perpetuity that, for the chanting or reading of the Mass in any church whatsoever, this Missal is hereafter to be followed absolutely, without any scruple of conscience or fear of incurring any penalty, judgment, or censure, and may freely and lawfully be used. Nor are superiors, administrators, canons, chaplains, and other secular priests, or religious, of whatever title designated, obliged to celebrate the Mass otherwise than as enjoined by Us. We likewise declare and ordain that no one whosoever is forced or coerced to alter this Missal, and that this present document cannot be revoked or modified, but remain always valid and retain its full force notwithstanding the previous constitutions and decrees of the Holy See, as well as any general or special constitutions or edicts of provincial or synodal councils, and notwithstanding the practice and custom of the aforesaid churches, established by long and immemorial prescription – except, however, if more than two hundred years’ standing.
It is Our will, therefore, and by the same authority, We decree that, after We publish this constitution and the edition of the Missal, the priests of the Roman Curia are, after thirty days, obliged to chant or read the Mass according to it; all others south of the Alps, after three months; and those beyond the Alps either within six months or whenever the Missal is available for sale. Wherefore, in order that the Missal be preserved incorrupt throughout the whole world and kept free of flaws and errors, the penalty for nonobservance for printers, whether mediately or immediately subject to Our dominion, and that of the Holy Roman Church, will be the forfeiting of their books and a fine of one hundred gold ducats, payable ipso facto to the Apostolic Treasury. Further, as for those located in other parts of the world, the penalty is excommunication latae sententiae, and such other penalties as may in Our judgment be imposed; and We decree by this law that they must not dare or presume either to print or to publish or to sell, or in any way to accept books of this nature without Our approval and consent, or without the express consent of the Apostolic Commissaries of those places, who will be appointed by Us. Said printer must receive a standard Missal and agree faithfully with it and in no wise vary from the Roman Missal of the large type (secundum magnum impressionem).
Accordingly, since it would be difficult for this present pronouncement to be sent to all parts of the Christian world and simultaneously come to light everywhere, We direct that it be, as usual, posted and published at the doors of the Basilica of the Prince of the Apostles, also at the Apostolic Chancery, and on the street at Campo Flora; furthermore, We direct that printed copies of this same edict signed by a notary public and made official by an ecclesiastical dignitary possess the same indubitable validity everywhere and in every nation, as if Our manuscript were shown there. Therefore, no one whosoever is permitted to alter this notice of Our permission, statute, ordinance, command, precept, grant, indult, declaration, will, decree, and prohibition. Would anyone, however, presume to commit such an act, he should know that he will incur the wrath of Almighty God and of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul.
Given at St. Peter’s in the year of the Lord’s Incarnation, 1570, on the 14th of July of the Fifth year of Our Pontificate.
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| The Secret of La Salette -The Little Apocalypse of Our Lady |
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Posted by: Stone - 11-24-2020, 06:51 AM - Forum: Our Lady
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The Secret of La Salette
Little Apocalypse of Our Lady
Solange Hertz
“Well, now, my children, you will pass this along to all my people.”
With these words Mary the Mother of God concluded the famous message she came to earth on September 19, 1846 to deliver to two poor peasant children employed as cowherds on the mountain of La Salette, famous as the message is, its full contents continue unknown to the vast majority, not only in the world, but even in the Church. This leads one to wonder who “all Mary’s people” really are, for only these, it would seem, does it succeed in reaching, as our Lady said it would.
She didn’t ask the children, Melanie Calvat and Maximin Giraud, to pass it along. She simply told then they would, and that was that. And they have. Somehow, in every generation since, little souls are found who transmit our Lady’s words faithfully and quietly, although for the most part painfully, by the most humble, nay, bumbling means, please God this may be one of them.
Outside the Gospel itself, hardly any communication from heaven has encountered such furious and determined opposition, and that not so much outside the Church, as from within, from those members who would be most expected to take the Secret to heart and preach it from the housetops. It has continued unabated, despite the fact that the apparition at La Salette enjoyed almost immediately the full approbation of the Church, with rich indulgences granted to pilgrims there, and that canonically approved miracles have taken place on the spot. Why?
“Alas,” wrote Melanie to her director Abbé Combe in 1903, “the bishops, those who considered themselves referred to in the Secret, are the enemies of this merciful Secret, just as the high priests condemned the divine Savior to death! . . . And inasmuch as the Mother of God and of all Christians by adoption at the foot of the Cross has recommended that her message in its entirety be made known to her people, what are we waiting for to obey the Virgin Mother, seeing that every day we behold the punishments announced by the Secret taking place?
“What more are we waiting for, inasmuch as Holy Church has shown herself in favor insofar as She can where revelations are concerned? Pius IX ordered the Bishop of Grenoble to build a beautiful Church on the mountain of La Salette. Leo XIII crowned the statue and gave the sanctuary the title of Basilica. What more do we need to beat our breasts, to admit that all, all of us, have sinned, all of us have provoked God’s justice, all of us have set our lips to the poisoned fount of our depraved passions, drunkenness from which plunges us into darkness? Whoever is ill-willed in regulating his life according to the law of God, according to the maxims of the Gospel, will always find reasons for doubting everything he wants to be in doubt about; the faith of these people is not a sanctifying faith. . .” (Documents Pour Servir á l’Histoire Réelle de La Salette, Nouvelles Editions Latines, Paris, 1963-66)
In our days the Secret has been largely consigned to oblivion. In the lifetime of the visionaries some confessors refused absolution to penitents who read it. Melanie and Maximin were subjected to unparalleled and totally unfounded calumny and persecution. Melanie’s own Bishop, along with many other persons, made her out as insane, or at best unstable. Maximin was reputed an alcoholic. To this day, at best, the general judgment would agree with that expressed by Fr. John Kennedy in his Light on the Mountain: “The deficiencies and idiosyncrasies of Maximin and Melanie are but gargoyles on the monumental, enduring fact of La Salette.” La Salette, yes. Maximin, Melanie and the Secret, no.
After receiving the first communication from our Lady dealing with the divine displeasure at profanations of Sunday and the Holy Name – generally propagated as the Message of La Salette and beyond the limits of this paper – both children were entrusted with a secret. Maximin’s, apparently never intended for the public, was carried to the grave with him. Melanie’s, however, was meant to be revealed in due time: and the moment she began doing so in obedience to heaven, she attracted the full brunt of hell’s fury.
Many good people when they heard it were convinced that Melanie had made it up, so sure were they our Lady would never say such terrible things about the clergy. And if it’s true, what good does it do to reveal it?
To which Mélanie replied:
Quote:“No, no, the Seat of Wisdom never spoke ill of the Ministers of the Altar! Mercifully, Mary, Patroness of France. Queen of the Catholic clergy, pointed out the diseases infecting the souls of the pastors of God’s people. Those who have forgotten prayer and penance and filled their hearts with affection for transitory things, their faith has cooled. . . Instead of rebelling, they should have entered into themselves, revived their faith, their charity, wisely regulating their conduct in accordance with the examples of Jesus, our divine Master and model,” (Letter to Fr. Combe, September 1902)
That Pius IX believed in Mélanie absolutely, indeed countering her detractors with, “Melanie is a good girl,” seemed to weigh little in her favor. Nor did the fact that he later relieved her of her religious vows, which would have kept her in the cloister where the enemies of the Secret wanted her kept, even going so far as trying to do so forcibly. She tells us, Quote:“His holiness Pius IX relieved me of such vows as could not be kept in the world; he said that I couldn’t accomplish my mission in the cloister and he granted me privileges I would never have dared ask him.”
Badgered beyond endurance, even excommunicated by one French Bishop, Melanie eventually fled incognito to Italy, to publish the Secret there under the protection of friendly Italian prelates. Pope Leo XIII, who approved of Melanie as heartily as his predecessor, called her to Rome in 1879 to confer with her not only about the Secret, but about a rule for a religious order which our Lady had given her at the same time and wished founded immediately against the coming crisis. Specifically the Order of the Mother of God, the “Apostles of the Latter Times” predicted by St. Louis de Montfort, it was encouraged in every way by the Pope, who in fact kept Melanie in Rome six months finalizing its Constitutions, but despite several abortive attempts, it always failed to materialize. (The present religious organized under the name of La Salette do not follow this rule, nor are they in any way connected with it.) This great work is yet to come.
The ire of the French bishops, whom Melanie knew to be masonically controlled pursued her even into Italy, where she was driven from pillar to post in her attempt to remain hidden from the world. Applying heavy pressure on Rome to have the Secret put on the Index, these high ecclesiastics even threatened to withhold Peter’s Pence from the impoverished Apostolic treasury. This was never done, but to placate them Cardinal Caterini sent a letter from the Inquisition forbidding Melanie in 1880 to write about or publish anything further on the Secret.
“This unhappy letter has finished, you might say, poisoning my existence,” said poor Melanie,” and has evaporated my trembling hope that by Christianity’s return to its God the long and great scourges which our prevarications deserve might be much mitigated.” In great anguish she complied with the letter. “As for me, I want to be submissive to the Holy Church of God.” Nevertheless she conceded that if she could be certain “that the Caterini letter was unknown to the Holy Father, then I would be free to write and would write.” (Letter to A. M. Schmid, of the periodical Légitimité, July 25, 1896).
Apparently never accorded this certainty, she continued obedient. Contrary to her detractors, Melanie’s life was one of high virtue, austerity and prayer, her apparent eccentricities and “instability” due almost entirely to her fidelity to her mission and her determination to keep herself and her many extraordinary gifts (among them the stigmata) hidden from public view. On reading an account of her life in 1910, Pope St. Pius X exclaimed to the Bishop of Altamura, in whose diocese she had died and was buried, “La nostra Santa!” He suggested to the Bishop that her cause for beatification be introduced immediately.
Testimony to her holiness is plentiful if one knows where to look, but that of the Fr. Rigaux, her last director, should suffice:
“In the 48 years that I’ve been a priest, I’ve known and directed some very beautiful souls. I dare state before God, who will soon judge me, that never have I encountered a soul so humble, gentle, pure, obedient a virgin so pure, a character so strong, a victim so resigned in frightful trials, a martyr in body, bearing the stigmata from her tenderest years.”
Melanie died at the age of 72, alone and unattended, on December 14, 1904, but she left us the Secret. It’s extraordinary how many people today are still hesitant about reading it, let alone believing it, because they think it was on the Index. Nothing could be further from the truth. Although it’s true that several publications dealing with it were condemned – some of them with very good reason – the Secret itself has never suffered any official condemnation. As a matter of fact there is extant a letter from Fr. Lepidi, Master of the Sacred Palace, dated December 16, 1912 to Cardinal Luçon, stating officially, that the Secret of La Salette has never been condemned by the Index nor by the Holy Office.
Delivered orally hundreds of times by Melanie herself. It was first published under the Imprimatur of the Bishop of Naples. It appeared a second time under the Imprimatur of Salvatore Zola, Bishop of Lecce, Italy, who gave his permission after consulting with Leo XIII on the matter. This edition was reprinted ne varietur in France in 1904, a few months before Melanie died.
In the meantime the full text had been examined by the congregation of the Index, which found no change necessary. When Leo XIII read it initially, not only did he voice no objection, but he ordered a version with fuller explanations to be undertaken! The Bishops of Arras and bayonne granted further Imprimaturs in 1893, followed by many others throughout Christendom. Fr. Rigaux, writing around the turn of the century, stated that he had in his possession “28 editions of the Secret, with Imprimatur from Cardinals and Bishops.”
Nevertheless, as Mélanie wrote then,
Quote:“With Imprimatur and all the Imprimaturs, I wonder who will believe the teachings of an apparition, when almost the whole Church of God no longer believes in the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Or if she does believe, it’s only with the faith of the intellect and not with the faith of the will.” (May 19, 1904)
Although never placed on the Index, the Secret suffered grievous impediments due to the cause Melanie saw so well. It must be forcibly noted here that by a decree of the Holy Office dated December 21, 1915, all the faithful are forbidden to write commentaries or interpretations of the Secret. As far as can be ascertained, this decree is still in effect and must be obeyed.
But are commentaries really necessary? As Mélanie told her director in 1903, “souls who are God’s friends can guess the Secret’s meaning without help, and the others won’t want to because it applies to them too closely.” When all is said and done, “The Secret only proposes observance of God’s law, and complains of the lack of observance of this same law, and it threatens the transgressors of this holy law with chastisements and scourges.” Pope Pius IX summed it up even more briefly: “If you don’t do penance you will perish!”
If this was clear at the turn of the century. It’s even clearer now for those with eyes to see. Hardly any soul of good will needs help interpreting the Secret of La Salette today. It has become an open secret if ever there was one. In the same letter to her director just quoted Melanie explained to him exactly the sort of thing our Lady was referring to when she said,
Quote:“There are two holy places: the Church and the spouse, or if you prefer, the soul which no longer belongs to herself. In 1865 there passed like a gust of rebellion: an archbishop who poisoned a king; cardinals and others sold the great See of Catholicism, after having become fathers several times, and events of like nature, it’s a long story. But nobody knows about it you say? Haven’t we heard tell that Napoleon, Garibaldi, Gambetta and certain priests were in the habit of visiting convents from time to tine, that they were very charitable towards these nuns? And that in other countries or kingdoms the rendezvous took place in churches? And hasn’t Freemasonry been solemnly established, that is to say, recognized? But it’s useless. I’m not capable of uncovering the stratagems, the brood of crimes which only apathy and frenzy for pleasure have hidden from the eyes of those who already no longer see. We shall see: it’s not everyone who will see, but those souls nearest to the spotless light!” She concludes, “At most we can say that God is reproaching us with the same crimes which caused the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to perish by fire from heaven.”
The prohibition against her publishing anything about the Secret must have weighed on her ever more heavily as she saw public morality sink lower and lower, for apparently she had been given to understand very much more than our Lady’s words conveyed on the surface. Speaking of the apparition she says,
Quote:“Each word develops and the future action takes place within the moment, and thousands and thousands more things are seen than the ears hear…One sees plots hatching, one sees the kings of the earth, each of whom has several guardian angels; one sees them moving about, doing, undoing; one sees the jealousy of some, the ambition of others, etc., and all that in one word escaping from the lips of her who makes hell tremble.” (Letter to Fr. Bliard)
In 1897 she mourned to Fr. Combe,
Quote:“God used to speak continually to His prophets and they weren’t held to obedience to…when this was contrary to God’s will. Today one must obey or be struck with excommunication. I can only groan at the lamentable state of our loving Jesus’ representatives…”
Yet, even given permission, Mélanie would have been powerless to transmit it all. To the pious and zealous Fr. Roubaud – who had hoped in the beginning to publish a volume on the subject from her pen – she said,
Quote:“I don’t feel I have the grace to explain. The world isn’t disposed to hear it. What’s more, the little people of God don’t need to touch with the finger. Our sweet Mother Mary didn’t come for believers, but for those who don’t practice the promises made at their baptism.” She had prefaced this with the rueful comment, “It’s possible, and it’s even certain, that the Jews will re-assume their title of people of God and perhaps we shall be rejected.”
Melanie was not acquainted with the famous prophecy of St. Malachy, but in 1894 she told this good priest that among the future events she saw unrolling in the course of the apparition,
Quote:“I didn’t see, I don’t see, any Great Pope or Great Monarch before an extremely great tribulation, horrifying, terrible and general for all Christendom. But before that time, twice there will be a short-lived peace two shaky, servile, doubtful popes.”
Anyone who thinks the crisis in the Church we suffer today began with the Second Vatican Council need only read Melanie’s correspondence. The following extracts from her letters to Fr. Roubaud are a fair sample:
Quote:“When the Secret has been scorned, misunderstood … held back for money, one must be surprised at nothing. The Church will endure forever, our Lord said so; but among the teaching members of the Church, what traitors, what apostates, what mercenaries, what sectarians, who bear the imprint or the sign of the beast with ten horns St. John speaks of in his vision on Patmos! But this beast similar to the Lamb, who rises out of the earth, isn’t it the figure of faithless ecclesiastics? I firmly believe so. Happy those who die in God’s grace, for those who live will see sad and terrifying things. We still haven’t reached the beginning of the end.” (January 2, 1892)
Later the same year, her words apropos of a good priest who was losing his eyesight have sadly increased in relevance today:
“Oh, how God afflicts His true servants in these times! But this affliction is a punishment for the half-Christians who have rendered themselves unworthy of hearing the word of truth, which they obstinately refuse to put into practice. When God favored us, when He was giving us all we needed, we abandoned Him; now we blaspheme Him like the damned. God was giving us His graces in manifold ways, now He deprives us of everything. He plays deaf, indifferent, as we did towards Him. We have nothing to say. And now He is taking from us the few good priests who, despite all the thunderbolts of those sold for gold, never ceased teaching us the practice of the Christi virtues and flight from sin…
Quote:“… You’d think the devil would keep quiet inasmuch as men are almost all working for him, for his triumph. Well, no, he turns himself into an angel of light, aping true apparitions, truly divine. Later he’ll show his horns, in order to destroy the true divine apparitions by his impostures. It’s noteworthy that in all these false apparition there are always many flattering words directed to certain persons, which these seers, seeing only the devil, apply to some gullible person wrapt in refined self-love. It’s also true there are visionaries without visions, who don’t even need the devil’s help, being themselves possessed.”
The rash of false signs and wonders, tongues and prophecies soliciting our attention so generally now was evidently well under way in the last century. On September 9, 1894, she writes, “
Quote:The devil is a liar, what he says mustn’t be believed because if he says something true, it’s preceded and followed by lies and wrapped In obscurity. The good Lord doesn’t permit His true worshippers to be playthings of evil spirits at their expense. Today already in the world, in families (Christian in appearance) there are supernatural-diabolic things; these are treated as illness, and bit by bit the serpent’s wonders insinuate themselves noiselessly into society – Mistrust of self, deep and true humility, supreme love of God alone can deliver these souls from the eternal abysses. It seems to me, if I’m not mistaken, that we don’t have to wait for the reign of the Antichrist to see apostates behind masks; today we have a great number, whom Satan recognizes as his own. The sentinels of the sanctuary have passed into the enemy camp!!! The divine supernatural has been scorned! We’ll be taken in the nets of the diabolic supernatural.”
Sad to say, that Melanie prophesied truly here can now be demonstrated. All the more reason, therefore, to heed the Secret. Why risk setting our sights to doubtful prophecies from lesser sources? The words of the greatest saints can never measure up to those of the Mother of God, whose motherly apocalypse could rank second only to that of our Lord himself spoken in the Gospels and through St. John on Patmos.
With this thought in mind we can proceed to a first hand reading of the authentic Secret. The accompanying part is that of the definitive 1904 edition, of which Melanie said in April of that year to Fr. Rigaux: Quote:“The Secret is word for word that of our gentle Mother, just as I gave it to His Holiness Leo XIII in 1879.” The following October she wrote, “I protest highly against a differing text, which people may dare publish after my death, I protest once more against the very false statements of all those who dare say and write: First, that I embroidered the Secret; second, against those who state that the Queen of Wisdom did not say to transmit the Secret to all her people.”
We might note here that the Secret was given to Mélanie in French. Although she spoke only patois at the tine and learned French later, she was able to understand the message, and retained it perfectly word for word. When a gentleman asked her as a child how such a thing was possible, she answered, simply, “I don’t know. If the holy Virgin so willed it, sir, I understood.” Our translation may be rather stiff in spots, but every effort was made to hew as closely as possible to the original, inasmuch as in a communication of this kind a change in the nuance of one word can shift the interpretation.
The Secret must be allowed to speak for itself, coming to us as it does from our Lady herself. A true apocalypse, it must be read like all apocalyptic literature, which uses enigma and metaphor precisely so that only those for whom it is intended may grasp its true meaning. Let him who reads understand. Our Lady’s own people, by supernatural instinct, will know not to take its terms in their purely literal sense, any more than they would in reading the Apocalypse of St. John. For instance, they would know better than to take in a carnal sense the “Hebrew nun,” the “false virgin” who is to bear the Antichrist as a result of relations with a Bishop. Genuine apocalyptic messages deal primarily in spiritual matters. These are clothed in material imagery designed to give the clue to the meaning, but which remains secondary. Nor is there any strict chronology sometimes the same event is described in different ways.
Even so, only the light of the Holy Ghost, supported by prayer, penance and innocence of life can unlock divine mysteries for the human intellect, which no amount of purely human explanation can enlighten in such matters. This makes obeying the Decree of 1915 rather easy, for as Melanie said, commentaries are largely useless anyway.
Who will not heed Mélanie may heed St. Gregory the Great:
Quote:“… Unless the same Spirit is in the heart of the one who learns, unprofitable is the word of the teacher … Unless He is within who will teach us, the tongue of the teacher labors in vain. All alike hear the voice of the speaker, yet all do not understand alike the meaning of the words they hear. Since the word is the same, why do your hearts not understand alike, if not for the reason that, although the voice of the speaker is directed towards all, it is the Master within us who teaches us what is said, and some more than others?” (Serno 30 In Evangelia)
We can do no better than to introduce the Secret with the same words Melanie used before setting down her recital of the marvelous happening at La Salette:
Quote:“I obey the most holy Virgin Mother of God and Mother of all believers. I submit this publication to the judgment of the Holy Apostolic See, and I declare condemned in advance all found therein contrary to Catholic doctrine:”
Melanie, what I am about to tell you now will not always be a secret. You may make it public in 1858.
The priests, ministers of My Son, the priests, by their wicked lives, by their irreverence and their impiety in the celebration of the holy mysteries, by their love of money, their love of honors and pleasures, the priests have become cesspools of impurity. Yes, the priests are asking vengeance, and vengeance is hanging over their heads. Woe to the priests and to those dedicated to God who, by their unfaithfulness and their wicked lives, are crucifying My Son again! The sins of those dedicated to God cry out towards Heaven and call for vengeance, and now vengeance is at their door, for there is no one left to beg mercy and forgiveness for the people. There are no more generous souls, there is no one left worthy of offering a spotless sacrifice to the Eternal for the sake of the world.
God will strike in an unprecedented way.
Woe to the inhabitants of the earth! God will exhaust His wrath upon them, and no one will be able to escape so many afflictions together.
The chiefs, the leaders of the people of God, have neglected prayer and penance, and the devil has bedimmed their intelligence. They have become wandering stars which the old devil will drag along with his tail to make them perish. God will allow the old serpent to cause divisions among those who reign in every society and in every family. Physical and moral agonies will be suffered. God will abandon mankind to itself and will send punishments which will follow one after the other for more than thirty-five years.
The Society of men is on the eve of the most terrible scourges and of gravest events. Mankind must expect to be ruled with an iron rod and to drink from the chalice of the wrath of God.
May the Vicar of My Son, Pope Pius IX never leave Rome again after 1859; may he, however, be steadfast and noble, may he fight with the weapons of faith and love. I will be at his side. May he be on his guard against Napoleon: he is two-faced, and when he wishes to make himself Pope as well as Emperor, God will soon draw back from him. He is the mastermind who, always wanting to ascend further, will fall on the sword he wished to use to force his people to be raised up.
Italy will be punished for her ambition in wanting to shake off the yoke of the Lord of lords. And so she will be left to fight a war; blood will flow on all sides. Churches will be locked up or desecrated. Priests and religious orders will be hunted down, and made to die a cruel death. Several will abandon the faith, and a great number of priests and members of religious orders will break away from the true religion; among these people there will even be bishops.
May the Pope guard against the performers of miracles. For the time has come when the most astonishing wonders will take place on the earth and in the air.
In the year 1864, Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from hell; they will put an end to faith little by little, even in those dedicated to God. They will blind them in such a way, that, unless they are blessed with a special grace, these people will take on the spirit of these angels of hell; several religious institutions will lose all faith and will lose many souls.
Evil books will be abundant on earth and the spirits of darkness will spread everywhere a universal slackening of all that concerns the service of God. They will have great power over Nature: there will be churches built to serve these spirits. People will be transported from one place to another by these evil spirits, even priests, for they will not have been guided by the good spirit of the Gospel which is a spirit of humility, charity and zeal for the glory of God. On occasions, the dead and the righteous will be brought back to life. (That is to say that these dead will take on the form of righteous souls which had lived on earth, in order to lead men further astray; these so-called resurrected dead, who will be nothing but the devil in this form, will preach another Gospel contrary to that of the true Christ Jesus, denying the existence of Heaven; that is also to say, the souls of the damned. All these souls will appear as if fixed to their bodies).
Everywhere there will be extraordinary wonders, as true faith has faded and false light brightens the people. Woe to the Princes of the Church who think only of piling riches upon riches to protect their authority and dominate with pride.
The Vicar of My Son will suffer a great deal, because for awhile the Church will yield to large persecution, a time of darkness; and the Church will witness a frightful crisis.
The true faith to the Lord having been forgotten, each individual will want to be on his own and be superior to people of same identity, they will abolish civil rights as well as ecclesiastical, all order and all justice would be trampled underfoot and only homicides, hate, jealousy, lies and dissension would be seen, without love for country or family.
The Holy Father will suffer a great deal. I will be with him until the end and receive his sacrifice.
The mischievous would attempt his life several times to do harm and shorten his days but neither him nor his successor will see the triumph of the Church of God.
All the civil governments will have one and the same plan, which will be to abolish and do away with every religious principle, to make way for materialism, atheism, spiritualism and vice of all kinds.
In the year 1865, there will be desecration of holy places. In convents, the flowers of the Church will decompose and the devil will make himself like the King of all hearts. May those in charge of religious communities be on their guard against the people they must receive, for the devil will resort to all his evil tricks to introduce sinners into religious orders, for disorder and the love of carnal pleasures will be spread all over the earth.
France, Italy, Spain, and England will be at war. Blood will flow in the streets. Frenchman will fight Frenchman, Italian will fight Italian. A general war will follow which will be appalling. For a time, God will cease to remember France and Italy because the Gospel of Jesus Christ has been forgotten. The wicked will make use of all their evil ways. Men will kill each other, massacre each other even in their homes.
At the first blow of His thundering sword, the mountains and all Nature will tremble in terror, for the disorders and crimes of men have pierced the vault of the heavens. Paris will burn and Marseilles will be engulfed. Several cities will be shaken down and swallowed up by earthquakes. People will believe that all is lost. Nothing will be seen but murder, nothing will be heard but the clash of arms and blasphemy.
The righteous will suffer greatly. Their prayers, their penances and their tears will rise up to Heaven and all of God’s people will beg for forgiveness and mercy and will plead for My help and intercession. And then Jesus Christ, in an act of His justice and His great mercy will command His Angels to have all His enemies put to death. Suddenly, the persecutors of the Church of Jesus Christ and all those given over to sin will perish and the earth will become desert-like. And then peace will be made, and man will be reconciled with God. Jesus Christ will be served, worshipped and glorified. Charity will flourish everywhere. The new kings will be the right arm of the holy Church, which will be strong, humble, pious in Its poor but fervent imitation of the virtues of Jesus Christ. The Gospel will be preached everywhere and mankind will make great progress in its faith, for there will be unity among the workers of Jesus Christ and man will live in fear of God.
This peace among men will be short-lived. Twenty-five years of plentiful harvests will make them forget that the sins of men are the cause of all the troubles on this earth.
A forerunner of the Antichrist, with his troops gathered from several nations, will fight against the true Christ, the only Saviour of the world. He will shed much blood and will want to annihilate the worship of God to make himself be looked upon as a God.
The earth will be struck by calamities of all kinds (in addition to plague and famine which will be widespread). There will be a series of wars until the last war, which will then be fought by the ten Kings of the Antichrist, all of whom will have one and the same plan and will be the only rulers of the world. Before this comes to pass, there will be a kind of false peace in the world. People will think of nothing but amusement. The wicked will give themselves over to all kinds of sin. But the children of the holy Church, the children of My faith, My true followers, they will grow in their love for God and in all the virtues most precious to Me. Blessed are the souls humbly guided by the Holy Spirit! I shall fight at their side until they reach a fullness of years.
Nature is asking for vengeance because of man, and she trembles with dread at what must happen to the earth stained with crime. Tremble, earth, and you who proclaim yourselves as serving Jesus Christ and who, on the inside, only adore yourselves, tremble, for God will hand you over to His enemy, because the holy places are in a state of corruption. Many convents are no longer houses of God, but the grazing-grounds of Asmodeas and his like. It will be during this time that the Antichrist will be born of a Hebrew nun, a false virgin who will communicate with the old serpent, the master of impurity, his father will be B. At birth, he will spew out blasphemy; he will have teeth, in a word, he will be the devil incarnate. He will scream horribly, he will perform wonders, he will feed on nothing but impurity. He will have brothers who, although not devils incarnate like him, will be children of evil. At the age of twelve, they will draw attention upon themselves by the gallant victories they will have won; soon they will each lead armies, aided by the legions of hell.
The seasons will be altered, the earth will produce nothing but bad fruit, the stars will lose their regular motion, the moon will only reflect a faint reddish glow. Water and fire will give the earth’s globe convulsions and terrible earthquakes which will swallow up mountains, cities, etc. …
Rome will lose faith and become the seat of the Antichrist.
The demons of the air, together with the Antichrist, will perform great wonders on earth and in the atmosphere, and men will become more and more perverted. God will take care of His faithful servants and men of good will. The Gospel will be preached everywhere, and all peoples of all nations will get to know the truth.
I make an urgent appeal to the earth. I call on the true disciples of the living God who reigns in Heaven; I call on the true followers of Christ made man, the only true Saviour of men; I call on My children, the true faithful, those who have given themselves to Me so that I may lead them to My divine Son, those whom I carry in My arms, so to speak, those who have lived on My spirit. Finally, I call on the Apostles of the Last Days, the faithful disciples of Jesus Christ who have lived in scorn for the world and for themselves, in poverty and in humility, in scorn and in silence, in prayer and in mortification, in chastity and in union with God, in suffering and unknown to the world. It is time they came out and filled the world with light. Go and reveal yourselves to be My cherished children. I am at your side and within you, provided that your faith is the light which shines upon you in these unhappy days. May your zeal make you famished for the glory and the honor of Jesus Christ. Fight, children of light, you, the few who can see. For now is the time of all times, the end of all ends.
The Church will be in eclipse, the world will be in dismay. But now Enoch and Eli will come, filled with the Spirit of God. They will preach with the might of God, and men of good will will believe in God, and many souls will be comforted. They will make great steps forward through the power of the Holy Spirit and will condemn the devilish lapses of the Antichrist. Woe to the inhabitants of the earth! There will be bloody wars and famines, plagues and infectious diseases. It will rain with a fearful hail of animals. There will be thunderstorms which will shake cities, earthquakes which will swallow up countries. Voices will be heard in the air. Men will beat their heads against walls, call for their death, and on another side death will be their torment. Blood will flow on all sides. Who will be the victor if God does not shorten the length of the test? At the blood, the tears and prayers of the righteous, God will relent. Enoch and Eli will be put to death. Pagan Rome will disappear. The fire of Heaven will fall and consume three cities. All the universe will be struck with terror and many will let themselves be led astray because they have not worshipped the true Christ who lives among them. It is time; the sun is darkening; only faith will survive.
Now is the time; the abyss is opening. Here is the King of kings of darkness, here is the Beast with his subjects, calling himself the Savior of the world. He will rise proudly into the air to go to Heaven. He will be smothered by the breath of the Archangel Saint Michael. He will fall, and the earth, which will have been in a continuous series of evolutions for three days, will open up its fiery bowels; and he will have plunged for all eternity with all his followers into the everlasting chasms of hell. And then water and fire will purge the earth and consume all the works of men’s pride and all will be renewed. God will be served and glorified.”
[Emphasis mine.]
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| The Secret of La Salette -The Little Apocalypse of Our Lady |
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Posted by: Stone - 11-24-2020, 06:51 AM - Forum: Catholic Prophecy
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The Secret of La Salette
Little Apocalypse of Our Lady
Solange Hertz
“Well, now, my children, you will pass this along to all my people.”
With these words Mary the Mother of God concluded the famous message she came to earth on September 19, 1846 to deliver to two poor peasant children employed as cowherds on the mountain of La Salette, famous as the message is, its full contents continue unknown to the vast majority, not only in the world, but even in the Church. This leads one to wonder who “all Mary’s people” really are, for only these, it would seem, does it succeed in reaching, as our Lady said it would.
She didn’t ask the children, Melanie Calvat and Maximin Giraud, to pass it along. She simply told then they would, and that was that. And they have. Somehow, in every generation since, little souls are found who transmit our Lady’s words faithfully and quietly, although for the most part painfully, by the most humble, nay, bumbling means, please God this may be one of them.
Outside the Gospel itself, hardly any communication from heaven has encountered such furious and determined opposition, and that not so much outside the Church, as from within, from those members who would be most expected to take the Secret to heart and preach it from the housetops. It has continued unabated, despite the fact that the apparition at La Salette enjoyed almost immediately the full approbation of the Church, with rich indulgences granted to pilgrims there, and that canonically approved miracles have taken place on the spot. Why?
“Alas,” wrote Melanie to her director Abbé Combe in 1903, “the bishops, those who considered themselves referred to in the Secret, are the enemies of this merciful Secret, just as the high priests condemned the divine Savior to death! . . . And inasmuch as the Mother of God and of all Christians by adoption at the foot of the Cross has recommended that her message in its entirety be made known to her people, what are we waiting for to obey the Virgin Mother, seeing that every day we behold the punishments announced by the Secret taking place?
“What more are we waiting for, inasmuch as Holy Church has shown herself in favor insofar as She can where revelations are concerned? Pius IX ordered the Bishop of Grenoble to build a beautiful Church on the mountain of La Salette. Leo XIII crowned the statue and gave the sanctuary the title of Basilica. What more do we need to beat our breasts, to admit that all, all of us, have sinned, all of us have provoked God’s justice, all of us have set our lips to the poisoned fount of our depraved passions, drunkenness from which plunges us into darkness? Whoever is ill-willed in regulating his life according to the law of God, according to the maxims of the Gospel, will always find reasons for doubting everything he wants to be in doubt about; the faith of these people is not a sanctifying faith. . .” (Documents Pour Servir á l’Histoire Réelle de La Salette, Nouvelles Editions Latines, Paris, 1963-66)
In our days the Secret has been largely consigned to oblivion. In the lifetime of the visionaries some confessors refused absolution to penitents who read it. Melanie and Maximin were subjected to unparalleled and totally unfounded calumny and persecution. Melanie’s own Bishop, along with many other persons, made her out as insane, or at best unstable. Maximin was reputed an alcoholic. To this day, at best, the general judgment would agree with that expressed by Fr. John Kennedy in his Light on the Mountain: “The deficiencies and idiosyncrasies of Maximin and Melanie are but gargoyles on the monumental, enduring fact of La Salette.” La Salette, yes. Maximin, Melanie and the Secret, no.
After receiving the first communication from our Lady dealing with the divine displeasure at profanations of Sunday and the Holy Name – generally propagated as the Message of La Salette and beyond the limits of this paper – both children were entrusted with a secret. Maximin’s, apparently never intended for the public, was carried to the grave with him. Melanie’s, however, was meant to be revealed in due time: and the moment she began doing so in obedience to heaven, she attracted the full brunt of hell’s fury.
Many good people when they heard it were convinced that Melanie had made it up, so sure were they our Lady would never say such terrible things about the clergy. And if it’s true, what good does it do to reveal it?
To which Mélanie replied:
Quote:“No, no, the Seat of Wisdom never spoke ill of the Ministers of the Altar! Mercifully, Mary, Patroness of France. Queen of the Catholic clergy, pointed out the diseases infecting the souls of the pastors of God’s people. Those who have forgotten prayer and penance and filled their hearts with affection for transitory things, their faith has cooled. . . Instead of rebelling, they should have entered into themselves, revived their faith, their charity, wisely regulating their conduct in accordance with the examples of Jesus, our divine Master and model,” (Letter to Fr. Combe, September 1902)
That Pius IX believed in Mélanie absolutely, indeed countering her detractors with, “Melanie is a good girl,” seemed to weigh little in her favor. Nor did the fact that he later relieved her of her religious vows, which would have kept her in the cloister where the enemies of the Secret wanted her kept, even going so far as trying to do so forcibly. She tells us, Quote:“His holiness Pius IX relieved me of such vows as could not be kept in the world; he said that I couldn’t accomplish my mission in the cloister and he granted me privileges I would never have dared ask him.”
Badgered beyond endurance, even excommunicated by one French Bishop, Melanie eventually fled incognito to Italy, to publish the Secret there under the protection of friendly Italian prelates. Pope Leo XIII, who approved of Melanie as heartily as his predecessor, called her to Rome in 1879 to confer with her not only about the Secret, but about a rule for a religious order which our Lady had given her at the same time and wished founded immediately against the coming crisis. Specifically the Order of the Mother of God, the “Apostles of the Latter Times” predicted by St. Louis de Montfort, it was encouraged in every way by the Pope, who in fact kept Melanie in Rome six months finalizing its Constitutions, but despite several abortive attempts, it always failed to materialize. (The present religious organized under the name of La Salette do not follow this rule, nor are they in any way connected with it.) This great work is yet to come.
The ire of the French bishops, whom Melanie knew to be masonically controlled pursued her even into Italy, where she was driven from pillar to post in her attempt to remain hidden from the world. Applying heavy pressure on Rome to have the Secret put on the Index, these high ecclesiastics even threatened to withhold Peter’s Pence from the impoverished Apostolic treasury. This was never done, but to placate them Cardinal Caterini sent a letter from the Inquisition forbidding Melanie in 1880 to write about or publish anything further on the Secret.
“This unhappy letter has finished, you might say, poisoning my existence,” said poor Melanie,” and has evaporated my trembling hope that by Christianity’s return to its God the long and great scourges which our prevarications deserve might be much mitigated.” In great anguish she complied with the letter. “As for me, I want to be submissive to the Holy Church of God.” Nevertheless she conceded that if she could be certain “that the Caterini letter was unknown to the Holy Father, then I would be free to write and would write.” (Letter to A. M. Schmid, of the periodical Légitimité, July 25, 1896).
Apparently never accorded this certainty, she continued obedient. Contrary to her detractors, Melanie’s life was one of high virtue, austerity and prayer, her apparent eccentricities and “instability” due almost entirely to her fidelity to her mission and her determination to keep herself and her many extraordinary gifts (among them the stigmata) hidden from public view. On reading an account of her life in 1910, Pope St. Pius X exclaimed to the Bishop of Altamura, in whose diocese she had died and was buried, “La nostra Santa!” He suggested to the Bishop that her cause for beatification be introduced immediately.
Testimony to her holiness is plentiful if one knows where to look, but that of the Fr. Rigaux, her last director, should suffice:
“In the 48 years that I’ve been a priest, I’ve known and directed some very beautiful souls. I dare state before God, who will soon judge me, that never have I encountered a soul so humble, gentle, pure, obedient a virgin so pure, a character so strong, a victim so resigned in frightful trials, a martyr in body, bearing the stigmata from her tenderest years.”
Melanie died at the age of 72, alone and unattended, on December 14, 1904, but she left us the Secret. It’s extraordinary how many people today are still hesitant about reading it, let alone believing it, because they think it was on the Index. Nothing could be further from the truth. Although it’s true that several publications dealing with it were condemned – some of them with very good reason – the Secret itself has never suffered any official condemnation. As a matter of fact there is extant a letter from Fr. Lepidi, Master of the Sacred Palace, dated December 16, 1912 to Cardinal Luçon, stating officially, that the Secret of La Salette has never been condemned by the Index nor by the Holy Office.
Delivered orally hundreds of times by Melanie herself. It was first published under the Imprimatur of the Bishop of Naples. It appeared a second time under the Imprimatur of Salvatore Zola, Bishop of Lecce, Italy, who gave his permission after consulting with Leo XIII on the matter. This edition was reprinted ne varietur in France in 1904, a few months before Melanie died.
In the meantime the full text had been examined by the congregation of the Index, which found no change necessary. When Leo XIII read it initially, not only did he voice no objection, but he ordered a version with fuller explanations to be undertaken! The Bishops of Arras and bayonne granted further Imprimaturs in 1893, followed by many others throughout Christendom. Fr. Rigaux, writing around the turn of the century, stated that he had in his possession “28 editions of the Secret, with Imprimatur from Cardinals and Bishops.”
Nevertheless, as Mélanie wrote then,
Quote:“With Imprimatur and all the Imprimaturs, I wonder who will believe the teachings of an apparition, when almost the whole Church of God no longer believes in the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Or if she does believe, it’s only with the faith of the intellect and not with the faith of the will.” (May 19, 1904)
Although never placed on the Index, the Secret suffered grievous impediments due to the cause Melanie saw so well. It must be forcibly noted here that by a decree of the Holy Office dated December 21, 1915, all the faithful are forbidden to write commentaries or interpretations of the Secret. As far as can be ascertained, this decree is still in effect and must be obeyed.
But are commentaries really necessary? As Mélanie told her director in 1903, “souls who are God’s friends can guess the Secret’s meaning without help, and the others won’t want to because it applies to them too closely.” When all is said and done, “The Secret only proposes observance of God’s law, and complains of the lack of observance of this same law, and it threatens the transgressors of this holy law with chastisements and scourges.” Pope Pius IX summed it up even more briefly: “If you don’t do penance you will perish!”
If this was clear at the turn of the century. It’s even clearer now for those with eyes to see. Hardly any soul of good will needs help interpreting the Secret of La Salette today. It has become an open secret if ever there was one. In the same letter to her director just quoted Melanie explained to him exactly the sort of thing our Lady was referring to when she said,
Quote:“There are two holy places: the Church and the spouse, or if you prefer, the soul which no longer belongs to herself. In 1865 there passed like a gust of rebellion: an archbishop who poisoned a king; cardinals and others sold the great See of Catholicism, after having become fathers several times, and events of like nature, it’s a long story. But nobody knows about it you say? Haven’t we heard tell that Napoleon, Garibaldi, Gambetta and certain priests were in the habit of visiting convents from time to tine, that they were very charitable towards these nuns? And that in other countries or kingdoms the rendezvous took place in churches? And hasn’t Freemasonry been solemnly established, that is to say, recognized? But it’s useless. I’m not capable of uncovering the stratagems, the brood of crimes which only apathy and frenzy for pleasure have hidden from the eyes of those who already no longer see. We shall see: it’s not everyone who will see, but those souls nearest to the spotless light!” She concludes, “At most we can say that God is reproaching us with the same crimes which caused the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to perish by fire from heaven.”
The prohibition against her publishing anything about the Secret must have weighed on her ever more heavily as she saw public morality sink lower and lower, for apparently she had been given to understand very much more than our Lady’s words conveyed on the surface. Speaking of the apparition she says,
Quote:“Each word develops and the future action takes place within the moment, and thousands and thousands more things are seen than the ears hear…One sees plots hatching, one sees the kings of the earth, each of whom has several guardian angels; one sees them moving about, doing, undoing; one sees the jealousy of some, the ambition of others, etc., and all that in one word escaping from the lips of her who makes hell tremble.” (Letter to Fr. Bliard)
In 1897 she mourned to Fr. Combe,
Quote:“God used to speak continually to His prophets and they weren’t held to obedience to…when this was contrary to God’s will. Today one must obey or be struck with excommunication. I can only groan at the lamentable state of our loving Jesus’ representatives…”
Yet, even given permission, Mélanie would have been powerless to transmit it all. To the pious and zealous Fr. Roubaud – who had hoped in the beginning to publish a volume on the subject from her pen – she said,
Quote:“I don’t feel I have the grace to explain. The world isn’t disposed to hear it. What’s more, the little people of God don’t need to touch with the finger. Our sweet Mother Mary didn’t come for believers, but for those who don’t practice the promises made at their baptism.” She had prefaced this with the rueful comment, “It’s possible, and it’s even certain, that the Jews will re-assume their title of people of God and perhaps we shall be rejected.”
Melanie was not acquainted with the famous prophecy of St. Malachy, but in 1894 she told this good priest that among the future events she saw unrolling in the course of the apparition,
Quote:“I didn’t see, I don’t see, any Great Pope or Great Monarch before an extremely great tribulation, horrifying, terrible and general for all Christendom. But before that time, twice there will be a short-lived peace two shaky, servile, doubtful popes.”
Anyone who thinks the crisis in the Church we suffer today began with the Second Vatican Council need only read Melanie’s correspondence. The following extracts from her letters to Fr. Roubaud are a fair sample:
Quote:“When the Secret has been scorned, misunderstood … held back for money, one must be surprised at nothing. The Church will endure forever, our Lord said so; but among the teaching members of the Church, what traitors, what apostates, what mercenaries, what sectarians, who bear the imprint or the sign of the beast with ten horns St. John speaks of in his vision on Patmos! But this beast similar to the Lamb, who rises out of the earth, isn’t it the figure of faithless ecclesiastics? I firmly believe so. Happy those who die in God’s grace, for those who live will see sad and terrifying things. We still haven’t reached the beginning of the end.” (January 2, 1892)
Later the same year, her words apropos of a good priest who was losing his eyesight have sadly increased in relevance today:
“Oh, how God afflicts His true servants in these times! But this affliction is a punishment for the half-Christians who have rendered themselves unworthy of hearing the word of truth, which they obstinately refuse to put into practice. When God favored us, when He was giving us all we needed, we abandoned Him; now we blaspheme Him like the damned. God was giving us His graces in manifold ways, now He deprives us of everything. He plays deaf, indifferent, as we did towards Him. We have nothing to say. And now He is taking from us the few good priests who, despite all the thunderbolts of those sold for gold, never ceased teaching us the practice of the Christi virtues and flight from sin…
Quote:“… You’d think the devil would keep quiet inasmuch as men are almost all working for him, for his triumph. Well, no, he turns himself into an angel of light, aping true apparitions, truly divine. Later he’ll show his horns, in order to destroy the true divine apparitions by his impostures. It’s noteworthy that in all these false apparition there are always many flattering words directed to certain persons, which these seers, seeing only the devil, apply to some gullible person wrapt in refined self-love. It’s also true there are visionaries without visions, who don’t even need the devil’s help, being themselves possessed.”
The rash of false signs and wonders, tongues and prophecies soliciting our attention so generally now was evidently well under way in the last century. On September 9, 1894, she writes, “
Quote:The devil is a liar, what he says mustn’t be believed because if he says something true, it’s preceded and followed by lies and wrapped In obscurity. The good Lord doesn’t permit His true worshippers to be playthings of evil spirits at their expense. Today already in the world, in families (Christian in appearance) there are supernatural-diabolic things; these are treated as illness, and bit by bit the serpent’s wonders insinuate themselves noiselessly into society – Mistrust of self, deep and true humility, supreme love of God alone can deliver these souls from the eternal abysses. It seems to me, if I’m not mistaken, that we don’t have to wait for the reign of the Antichrist to see apostates behind masks; today we have a great number, whom Satan recognizes as his own. The sentinels of the sanctuary have passed into the enemy camp!!! The divine supernatural has been scorned! We’ll be taken in the nets of the diabolic supernatural.”
Sad to say, that Melanie prophesied truly here can now be demonstrated. All the more reason, therefore, to heed the Secret. Why risk setting our sights to doubtful prophecies from lesser sources? The words of the greatest saints can never measure up to those of the Mother of God, whose motherly apocalypse could rank second only to that of our Lord himself spoken in the Gospels and through St. John on Patmos.
With this thought in mind we can proceed to a first hand reading of the authentic Secret. The accompanying part is that of the definitive 1904 edition, of which Melanie said in April of that year to Fr. Rigaux: Quote:“The Secret is word for word that of our gentle Mother, just as I gave it to His Holiness Leo XIII in 1879.” The following October she wrote, “I protest highly against a differing text, which people may dare publish after my death, I protest once more against the very false statements of all those who dare say and write: First, that I embroidered the Secret; second, against those who state that the Queen of Wisdom did not say to transmit the Secret to all her people.”
We might note here that the Secret was given to Mélanie in French. Although she spoke only patois at the tine and learned French later, she was able to understand the message, and retained it perfectly word for word. When a gentleman asked her as a child how such a thing was possible, she answered, simply, “I don’t know. If the holy Virgin so willed it, sir, I understood.” Our translation may be rather stiff in spots, but every effort was made to hew as closely as possible to the original, inasmuch as in a communication of this kind a change in the nuance of one word can shift the interpretation.
The Secret must be allowed to speak for itself, coming to us as it does from our Lady herself. A true apocalypse, it must be read like all apocalyptic literature, which uses enigma and metaphor precisely so that only those for whom it is intended may grasp its true meaning. Let him who reads understand. Our Lady’s own people, by supernatural instinct, will know not to take its terms in their purely literal sense, any more than they would in reading the Apocalypse of St. John. For instance, they would know better than to take in a carnal sense the “Hebrew nun,” the “false virgin” who is to bear the Antichrist as a result of relations with a Bishop. Genuine apocalyptic messages deal primarily in spiritual matters. These are clothed in material imagery designed to give the clue to the meaning, but which remains secondary. Nor is there any strict chronology sometimes the same event is described in different ways.
Even so, only the light of the Holy Ghost, supported by prayer, penance and innocence of life can unlock divine mysteries for the human intellect, which no amount of purely human explanation can enlighten in such matters. This makes obeying the Decree of 1915 rather easy, for as Melanie said, commentaries are largely useless anyway.
Who will not heed Mélanie may heed St. Gregory the Great:
Quote:“… Unless the same Spirit is in the heart of the one who learns, unprofitable is the word of the teacher … Unless He is within who will teach us, the tongue of the teacher labors in vain. All alike hear the voice of the speaker, yet all do not understand alike the meaning of the words they hear. Since the word is the same, why do your hearts not understand alike, if not for the reason that, although the voice of the speaker is directed towards all, it is the Master within us who teaches us what is said, and some more than others?” (Serno 30 In Evangelia)
We can do no better than to introduce the Secret with the same words Melanie used before setting down her recital of the marvelous happening at La Salette:
Quote:“I obey the most holy Virgin Mother of God and Mother of all believers. I submit this publication to the judgment of the Holy Apostolic See, and I declare condemned in advance all found therein contrary to Catholic doctrine:”
Melanie, what I am about to tell you now will not always be a secret. You may make it public in 1858.
The priests, ministers of My Son, the priests, by their wicked lives, by their irreverence and their impiety in the celebration of the holy mysteries, by their love of money, their love of honors and pleasures, the priests have become cesspools of impurity. Yes, the priests are asking vengeance, and vengeance is hanging over their heads. Woe to the priests and to those dedicated to God who, by their unfaithfulness and their wicked lives, are crucifying My Son again! The sins of those dedicated to God cry out towards Heaven and call for vengeance, and now vengeance is at their door, for there is no one left to beg mercy and forgiveness for the people. There are no more generous souls, there is no one left worthy of offering a spotless sacrifice to the Eternal for the sake of the world.
God will strike in an unprecedented way.
Woe to the inhabitants of the earth! God will exhaust His wrath upon them, and no one will be able to escape so many afflictions together.
The chiefs, the leaders of the people of God, have neglected prayer and penance, and the devil has bedimmed their intelligence. They have become wandering stars which the old devil will drag along with his tail to make them perish. God will allow the old serpent to cause divisions among those who reign in every society and in every family. Physical and moral agonies will be suffered. God will abandon mankind to itself and will send punishments which will follow one after the other for more than thirty-five years.
The Society of men is on the eve of the most terrible scourges and of gravest events. Mankind must expect to be ruled with an iron rod and to drink from the chalice of the wrath of God.
May the Vicar of My Son, Pope Pius IX never leave Rome again after 1859; may he, however, be steadfast and noble, may he fight with the weapons of faith and love. I will be at his side. May he be on his guard against Napoleon: he is two-faced, and when he wishes to make himself Pope as well as Emperor, God will soon draw back from him. He is the mastermind who, always wanting to ascend further, will fall on the sword he wished to use to force his people to be raised up.
Italy will be punished for her ambition in wanting to shake off the yoke of the Lord of lords. And so she will be left to fight a war; blood will flow on all sides. Churches will be locked up or desecrated. Priests and religious orders will be hunted down, and made to die a cruel death. Several will abandon the faith, and a great number of priests and members of religious orders will break away from the true religion; among these people there will even be bishops.
May the Pope guard against the performers of miracles. For the time has come when the most astonishing wonders will take place on the earth and in the air.
In the year 1864, Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from hell; they will put an end to faith little by little, even in those dedicated to God. They will blind them in such a way, that, unless they are blessed with a special grace, these people will take on the spirit of these angels of hell; several religious institutions will lose all faith and will lose many souls.
Evil books will be abundant on earth and the spirits of darkness will spread everywhere a universal slackening of all that concerns the service of God. They will have great power over Nature: there will be churches built to serve these spirits. People will be transported from one place to another by these evil spirits, even priests, for they will not have been guided by the good spirit of the Gospel which is a spirit of humility, charity and zeal for the glory of God. On occasions, the dead and the righteous will be brought back to life. (That is to say that these dead will take on the form of righteous souls which had lived on earth, in order to lead men further astray; these so-called resurrected dead, who will be nothing but the devil in this form, will preach another Gospel contrary to that of the true Christ Jesus, denying the existence of Heaven; that is also to say, the souls of the damned. All these souls will appear as if fixed to their bodies).
Everywhere there will be extraordinary wonders, as true faith has faded and false light brightens the people. Woe to the Princes of the Church who think only of piling riches upon riches to protect their authority and dominate with pride.
The Vicar of My Son will suffer a great deal, because for awhile the Church will yield to large persecution, a time of darkness; and the Church will witness a frightful crisis.
The true faith to the Lord having been forgotten, each individual will want to be on his own and be superior to people of same identity, they will abolish civil rights as well as ecclesiastical, all order and all justice would be trampled underfoot and only homicides, hate, jealousy, lies and dissension would be seen, without love for country or family.
The Holy Father will suffer a great deal. I will be with him until the end and receive his sacrifice.
The mischievous would attempt his life several times to do harm and shorten his days but neither him nor his successor will see the triumph of the Church of God.
All the civil governments will have one and the same plan, which will be to abolish and do away with every religious principle, to make way for materialism, atheism, spiritualism and vice of all kinds.
In the year 1865, there will be desecration of holy places. In convents, the flowers of the Church will decompose and the devil will make himself like the King of all hearts. May those in charge of religious communities be on their guard against the people they must receive, for the devil will resort to all his evil tricks to introduce sinners into religious orders, for disorder and the love of carnal pleasures will be spread all over the earth.
France, Italy, Spain, and England will be at war. Blood will flow in the streets. Frenchman will fight Frenchman, Italian will fight Italian. A general war will follow which will be appalling. For a time, God will cease to remember France and Italy because the Gospel of Jesus Christ has been forgotten. The wicked will make use of all their evil ways. Men will kill each other, massacre each other even in their homes.
At the first blow of His thundering sword, the mountains and all Nature will tremble in terror, for the disorders and crimes of men have pierced the vault of the heavens. Paris will burn and Marseilles will be engulfed. Several cities will be shaken down and swallowed up by earthquakes. People will believe that all is lost. Nothing will be seen but murder, nothing will be heard but the clash of arms and blasphemy.
The righteous will suffer greatly. Their prayers, their penances and their tears will rise up to Heaven and all of God’s people will beg for forgiveness and mercy and will plead for My help and intercession. And then Jesus Christ, in an act of His justice and His great mercy will command His Angels to have all His enemies put to death. Suddenly, the persecutors of the Church of Jesus Christ and all those given over to sin will perish and the earth will become desert-like. And then peace will be made, and man will be reconciled with God. Jesus Christ will be served, worshipped and glorified. Charity will flourish everywhere. The new kings will be the right arm of the holy Church, which will be strong, humble, pious in Its poor but fervent imitation of the virtues of Jesus Christ. The Gospel will be preached everywhere and mankind will make great progress in its faith, for there will be unity among the workers of Jesus Christ and man will live in fear of God.
This peace among men will be short-lived. Twenty-five years of plentiful harvests will make them forget that the sins of men are the cause of all the troubles on this earth.
A forerunner of the Antichrist, with his troops gathered from several nations, will fight against the true Christ, the only Saviour of the world. He will shed much blood and will want to annihilate the worship of God to make himself be looked upon as a God.
The earth will be struck by calamities of all kinds (in addition to plague and famine which will be widespread). There will be a series of wars until the last war, which will then be fought by the ten Kings of the Antichrist, all of whom will have one and the same plan and will be the only rulers of the world. Before this comes to pass, there will be a kind of false peace in the world. People will think of nothing but amusement. The wicked will give themselves over to all kinds of sin. But the children of the holy Church, the children of My faith, My true followers, they will grow in their love for God and in all the virtues most precious to Me. Blessed are the souls humbly guided by the Holy Spirit! I shall fight at their side until they reach a fullness of years.
Nature is asking for vengeance because of man, and she trembles with dread at what must happen to the earth stained with crime. Tremble, earth, and you who proclaim yourselves as serving Jesus Christ and who, on the inside, only adore yourselves, tremble, for God will hand you over to His enemy, because the holy places are in a state of corruption. Many convents are no longer houses of God, but the grazing-grounds of Asmodeas and his like. It will be during this time that the Antichrist will be born of a Hebrew nun, a false virgin who will communicate with the old serpent, the master of impurity, his father will be B. At birth, he will spew out blasphemy; he will have teeth, in a word, he will be the devil incarnate. He will scream horribly, he will perform wonders, he will feed on nothing but impurity. He will have brothers who, although not devils incarnate like him, will be children of evil. At the age of twelve, they will draw attention upon themselves by the gallant victories they will have won; soon they will each lead armies, aided by the legions of hell.
The seasons will be altered, the earth will produce nothing but bad fruit, the stars will lose their regular motion, the moon will only reflect a faint reddish glow. Water and fire will give the earth’s globe convulsions and terrible earthquakes which will swallow up mountains, cities, etc. …
Rome will lose faith and become the seat of the Antichrist.
The demons of the air, together with the Antichrist, will perform great wonders on earth and in the atmosphere, and men will become more and more perverted. God will take care of His faithful servants and men of good will. The Gospel will be preached everywhere, and all peoples of all nations will get to know the truth.
I make an urgent appeal to the earth. I call on the true disciples of the living God who reigns in Heaven; I call on the true followers of Christ made man, the only true Saviour of men; I call on My children, the true faithful, those who have given themselves to Me so that I may lead them to My divine Son, those whom I carry in My arms, so to speak, those who have lived on My spirit. Finally, I call on the Apostles of the Last Days, the faithful disciples of Jesus Christ who have lived in scorn for the world and for themselves, in poverty and in humility, in scorn and in silence, in prayer and in mortification, in chastity and in union with God, in suffering and unknown to the world. It is time they came out and filled the world with light. Go and reveal yourselves to be My cherished children. I am at your side and within you, provided that your faith is the light which shines upon you in these unhappy days. May your zeal make you famished for the glory and the honor of Jesus Christ. Fight, children of light, you, the few who can see. For now is the time of all times, the end of all ends.
The Church will be in eclipse, the world will be in dismay. But now Enoch and Eli will come, filled with the Spirit of God. They will preach with the might of God, and men of good will will believe in God, and many souls will be comforted. They will make great steps forward through the power of the Holy Spirit and will condemn the devilish lapses of the Antichrist. Woe to the inhabitants of the earth! There will be bloody wars and famines, plagues and infectious diseases. It will rain with a fearful hail of animals. There will be thunderstorms which will shake cities, earthquakes which will swallow up countries. Voices will be heard in the air. Men will beat their heads against walls, call for their death, and on another side death will be their torment. Blood will flow on all sides. Who will be the victor if God does not shorten the length of the test? At the blood, the tears and prayers of the righteous, God will relent. Enoch and Eli will be put to death. Pagan Rome will disappear. The fire of Heaven will fall and consume three cities. All the universe will be struck with terror and many will let themselves be led astray because they have not worshipped the true Christ who lives among them. It is time; the sun is darkening; only faith will survive.
Now is the time; the abyss is opening. Here is the King of kings of darkness, here is the Beast with his subjects, calling himself the Savior of the world. He will rise proudly into the air to go to Heaven. He will be smothered by the breath of the Archangel Saint Michael. He will fall, and the earth, which will have been in a continuous series of evolutions for three days, will open up its fiery bowels; and he will have plunged for all eternity with all his followers into the everlasting chasms of hell. And then water and fire will purge the earth and consume all the works of men’s pride and all will be renewed. God will be served and glorified.”
[Emphasis mine.]
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| St. John Eudes - Salutation to the Blessed Virgin Mary |
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Posted by: Stone - 11-24-2020, 06:42 AM - Forum: Our Lady
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SALUTATION TO THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY
By St. John Eudes. (1601-1680)
A Copy Was Found in a Book Belonging to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque after Her Death. This Prayer Was Zealously Propagated by Venerable Father Paul De Moll, 1824-1896.
The holy Benedictine, Père Paul De Moll, was born in 1824. His life was spent in great sanctity, in extraordinary virtue, and in the working of wonders. Early in his religious life, being at the point of death, Our Lord with Our Lady, St. Joseph and St. Benedict, appeared to him and said, “Be healed! I will grant all that you ask of Me for others.” He died in the Abbey of Termonde in 1896, and three years later his body was found incorrupt.
Venerable Father Paul Moll Said This Salutation to the Blessed Virgin Mary Was So Pleasing to Her That Many Blessings Would Come To Those Who Would Say It and Made the Salutations Known to Others
SALUTATION TO THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY
Hail Mary, Daughter of God the Father.
Hail Mary, Mother of God the Son.
Hail Mary, Spouse of the Holy Ghost.
Hail Mary,Temple of the Most Blessed Trinity.
Hail Mary, Immaculate lily of the resplendent and ever peaceful Trinity.
Hail Mary, Celestial Rose of the ineffable love of God.
Hail Mary, Virgin pure and humble of whom the King of Heaven
willed to be born and with Thy milk to be nourished.
Hail Mary, Virgin of Virgins
Hail Mary, Queen of martyrs, whose soul was pierced with a sword of sorrow.
Hail Mary, Lady most blessed! Unto Whom all power in Heaven and Earth is given.
Hail Mary, Queen of my heart, my Mother, my life, my sweetness and my Hope.
Hail Mary, Mother most amiable.
Hail Mary, Mother most admirable.
Hail Mary, Mother of Divine Love.
Hail Mary, Immaculate! Conceived without sin.
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee.
Hail Mary, Blessed art Thou amongst women.
Hail Mary, Blessed is the fruit of Thy womb, Jesus.
Blessed be Thy spouse, Saint Joseph.
Blessed be Thy father, Saint Joachim.
Blessed be Thy mother, Saint Anne.
Blessed be Thy guardian, Saint John
Blessed be Thy angel, Saint Gabriel.
Glory be to God the Father, Who chose Thee.
Glory be to God the Son, Who loved Thee.
Glory be to God the Holy Ghost, Who espoused Thee.
Blessed be forever all those who bless and who love Thee.
Holy Mary, Mother of God! Pray for us and bless us now and at death, in the Name of Jesus, Thy Divine Son! Amen
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| Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange: Consecration to Our Lady's Immaculate Heart |
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Posted by: Stone - 11-24-2020, 06:30 AM - Forum: Our Lady
- Replies (2)
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The Angelus - March 2010
Consecration to Mary
Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P.
Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange explains the doctrine, meaning, and importance of the Consecration to Mary as taught by St. Louis de Montfort.
In his Treatise of True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, St. Louis de Montfort distinguished a number of different degrees of true devotion to the Mother of God. He speaks only briefly of the forms of false devotion—that which is altogether exterior, or presumptuous, or inconstant, or hypocritical, or self-interested—since his main concern is true devotion.
Like the other Christian virtues, true devotion grows in us with charity, advancing from the stage of the beginner to that of the more proficient, and continuing up to the stage of the perfect. The first degree or stage is to pray devoutly to Mary from time to time, for example, by saying the Angelus when the bell rings. The second degree is one of more perfect sentiments of veneration, confidence and love; it may manifest itself by the daily recitation of the Rosary—five decades or all fifteen. In the third degree, the soul gives itself fully to Our Lady by an act of consecration so as to belong altogether to Jesus through her.1
What does this Consecration mean?
This act of consecration consists in promising Mary to have constant filial recourse to her and to live in habitual dependence on her, so as to attain to more intimate union with Our Blessed Lord and through Him with the Blessed Trinity present in our souls. The reason for making it lies, St. Louis de Montfort says, in the fact that God has willed to make use of Mary for the sanctification of souls, having already made use of her to bring about the Incarnation (Treatise on True Devotion, ch. I, a. I, no. 44).
St. Louis continues:
Quote:I do not think that anyone can attain to great union with Our Blessed Lord or perfect fidelity to the Holy Ghost without being closely united to Our Lady and depending very much on her help....She was full of grace when she was saluted by the Archangel Gabriel, she was superabundantly filled with grace by the Holy Ghost when He overshadowed her, she so advanced in grace from day to day and from moment to moment as to arrive at an inconceivable summit of grace; on which account the Most High has made her His unique treasurer and the unique dispenser of His graces, so that she may ennoble, enrich and elevate whom she wills, and make whom she wills enter the narrow gate of Heaven....Jesus is everywhere and always the Son and the fruit of Mary; Mary is everywhere the true tree which bears the fruit of life and the true mother who produces it.
In the same chapter, a little earlier, we read:
Quote:We may apply to Mary with even more truth than St. Paul applies them to himself the words: “My little children, of whom I am in labor again, until Christ be formed in you. I am in labor daily with God’s children till Jesus be formed in them in the fulness of His age.” St. Augustine says that the predestined are in this world hidden in the womb of Mary in order to become conformed to the image of the Son of God; and there she guards, nourishes, and supports them and brings them forth to glory after death, which is the true day of their birth—the term by which the Church always speaks of the death of the just. O mystery of grace unknown to the reprobate and little understood by the predestined! Mary is truly the mother of the just, conceiving them spiritually and bringing them forth after death by their entry into glory, which is their definitive spiritual birth. It is clear then that it would be a falling short in humility to neglect to have frequent recourse to the Universal Mediatrix whom Divine Providence has given us as our true spiritual mother to form Christ in us. It is clear also that theology cannot but recognise that it is lawful and more than lawful to consecrate oneself to Mary, Mother and Queen of all men.2
Consecration to Our Lady is a practical form of recognition of her universal mediation and a guarantee of her special protection. It helps us to have continual childlike recourse to her and to contemplate and imitate her virtues and her perfect union with Christ. In the practice of this complete dependence on Mary, there may be included—and St. Louis de Montfort invites us to it—the resignation into Mary’s hands of everything in our good works that is communicable to other souls, so that she may make use of it in accordance with the will of her Divine Son and for His glory.
Quote:I choose thee this day, O Mary, in the presence of the whole court of Heaven, as my Mother and Queen. I give and consecrate to you as your slave my body and my soul, my interior and exterior possessions, and even the value of my past, present and future good actions, allowing you the full right to dispose of me and of all that belongs to me, without any exception whatever, according to your good pleasure, for the greater glory of God, in time and in eternity.
This offering is really the practice of the so-called heroic act, there being a question here not of a vow but of a promise made to the Blessed Virgin.3
We are recommended to offer our exterior possessions to Mary, that she may preserve us from inordinate attachment to the things of this world and inspire us to make better use of them. It is good also to consecrate to her our bodies and our senses that she may keep them pure.
The act of consecration gives over to Mary also our soul and its faculties, our spiritual possessions, virtues and merits, all our good works past, present and future. It is necessary, however, to explain how this can be done. Theology gives us the answer by distinguishing what is communicable to others in our good works from what is incommunicable.
What in our good works is communicable to others?
To begin at the other end of the problem, our merits de condigno, which constitute a right in justice to an increase of grace and to eternal glory, are incommunicable. Our merits de condigno differ in that from those of Our Blessed Lord. He was Head of the human race and could in justice communicate His merits to us. If, therefore, we offer our merits de condigno to Mary, it is not in order that she may give them to others but that she may keep them for us, that she may help us to make them bear fruit, and, if we have the misfortune to lose them by mortal sin, that she may obtain for us the grace of truly fervent contrition.
There is, however, something in our good works which we can communicate to others whether on earth or in purgatory.4 There is in the first place the merits de congruoproprie, founded on the rights of friendship with God by grace. God gives grace to some because of the good intentions and good works of others who are His friends. There are, in the second place, our prayers; we can and should pray for our neighbor, for his conversion and his spiritual progress. We should pray also for the dying and for the souls in Purgatory.
There are finally our acts of satisfaction. We can make satisfaction de congruo for others, for example, by accepting our daily crosses to help expiate their sins. We may even, if God moves us to do so by His grace, accept the penalty due to their sins as Mary did at the foot of the Cross, and thereby draw down the Divine Mercy on them.5 This the saints did frequently. An example is found in the life of St. Catherine of Siena. To a young Sienese whose heart was full of hate of his political enemies she said: “Peter, I take on myself all your sins. I shall do penance in your place; but do me one favour; confess your sins.” “I have been frequently to Confession,” answered Peter. “That is not true,” replied the saint. “It is seven years since you were at Confession,” and she proceeded to enumerate all the sins of his life. Confounded, he repented and pardoned his enemies. Even without having all of St. Catherine’s generosity, we can accept our daily crosses to help other souls to pay the debt they owe to the Divine justice.
We can also gain indulgences for the souls in purgatory, opening to them the treasury of the merits and satisfactions of Christ and the saints and hastening the day of their liberation.
There are, therefore, three things which we can share with others: our merits de congruo, our prayers, and our satisfaction. And if we put these in Mary’s hands for others, we ought not to be surprised if she sends us crosses—proportionate, of course, to our strength—to make us really work for the salvation of souls.
Who are those who may be advised to make this act of consecration? It certainly should not be recommended to people who would make it for merely sentimental reasons or through spiritual pride, and would not understand its true meaning. But those who are truly spiritual may be recommended to make it for a few days at first and then for some longer time; when finally they are prepared they may make it for their whole lives.
Someone may say that to give everything to Our Lady is to strip oneself, to leave one’s own debts unpaid, and so to add to one’s term in purgatory. This is in fact the difficulty the devil suggested to St. Brigid of Sweden when she thought of making the act of donation to Mary. Our Blessed Lord, however, explained to the saint that the objection sprang from self-love and made no allowance for Mary’s goodness. Mary will not be outdone in generosity: her help to us will far exceed what we give her. The very act of love which prompts our donation will itself obtain remission of part of our purgatory.
Others wonder if making the act of donation to Mary leaves them free to pray for relatives and friends afterwards. They forget that Mary knows the obligations of charity better than we do: she would be the first to remind us of them. There may even be some among our relatives and friends on earth and in purgatory who have urgent need of prayers and satisfactions without our knowing who they are. Mary, however, knows who they are, and she can help them out of our good works if we have put them at her disposal.
Thus understood, consecration and donation make us enter more fully, under Mary’s guidance, into the mystery of the Communion of Saints. It is a perfect renewal of the baptismal promises.6
Fruits of this Consecration
“This devotion,” St. Louis de Montfort tells us,
gives us up altogether to the service of God, and makes us imitate the example of Our Blessed Lord, Who willed to be “subject” in regard to His Blessed Mother (Lk. 2:51). It obtains for us the special protection of Mary, who purifies our good works and adorns them when she offers them to her Divine Son. It leads us to union with Our Blessed Lord; it is an easy, short, perfect and safe way. It confers great interior freedom, procures great benefits for our neighbor, and is an excellent means of assuring our perseverance.7
The Saint develops each of these points in a most practical way. He speaks of the easiness of the way in Ch. 5, A. 5:
Quote:It is an easy way, one followed and prepared for us by Our Blessed Lord in His own coming, one where there are no obstacles in reaching Him. It is true that one can arrive at union with God by following other roads; but there will be many more crosses and trials, and many more difficulties which it will not be easy to surmount—there will be combats and strange agonies, steep mountains, sharp thorns, fearful deserts. But the way of Mary is sweeter and more peaceful.
Even along the way of Mary there are stern battles and great difficulties; but our good Mother makes herself so near and present to her faithful servants to enlighten them in their doubts, to strengthen them in their fears, and to sustain them in their battles, that in truth the Virgin’s way to Jesus is a way of roses and honey compared with all others.
The Saint adds that the truth of this can be seen from the lives of the Saints who have followed this way most particularly: St. Ephrem, St. John Damascene, St. Bernard, St. Bonaventure, St. Bernardine of Siena, and St. Francis de Sales.
A little further on in the same chapter, the Saint states that Mary’s servants “receive from her Heaven’s greatest graces and favors which are crosses; but it is the servants of Mary who bear the crosses with most ease, merit and glory; and what would hold back another makes them advance,” for they are more aided by the Mother of God, who obtains for them the unction of love in their trials. It is wonderful how Mary makes the cross at the same time easier to bear and more meritorious: easier to bear because she helps us, and more meritorious because she obtains for us greater charity, which is the principle of greater merit.
It is a short way...one advances more in a little while of submission to and dependence on Mary than in many years of self-will and self-reliance....We can advance with giant strides along the path by which Jesus came to us....In a few years we shall arrive at the fulness of the perfect age.8 It is a perfect way, chosen by God Himself....The Most High descended to us by way of the humble Mary without losing anything of His Divinity; it is by Mary that little ones can rise perfectly and divinely to the Most High without fear.
It is finally a safe way, for the Blessed Virgin preserves us from the illusions of the devil and our imagination. She preserves us from sentiment as well, calming and ruling our sensibility, giving it a pure and holy object, and subordinating it to the rule of the will vivified by charity.
In consecration to Mary, we find great interior liberty: this is the reward of putting ourselves in such complete dependence on Mary. Scruples are banished; the heart dilates with confidence and love. The Saint confirms this point by referring to what he read in the life of the Dominican, Mother Agnes de Langeac, who, suffering great anguish of soul, heard a voice which said to her that if she wished to be delivered and to be protected from her enemies, she should make herself at once the slave of Jesus and His Holy Mother....When she had done so all her anguish and scruples ceased, and she found herself in a state of great peace, as a result of which she determined to teach the devotion to others...among whom was M. Olier, the founder of the seminary of Saint-Sulpice, and many other priests of the same seminary.
It was in the same seminary that St. Louis de Montfort received his priestly formation.
Finally, this devotion is one which procures the good of our neighbor and it is for those who live by it an admirable means of persevering in grace...for by it one gives to Mary, who is faithful, all that one has....It is on her fidelity that reliance is placed...that she may preserve and increase our merits in spite of all that could make us lose them....Do not commit the gold of your charity, the silver of your purity, the waters of heavenly graces, or the wine of your merits and virtues...to broken vessels such as you yourselves are; else you will be despoiled by robbers, that is by the demons, who watch day and night for a favorable opportunity. Put all your treasures, all your graces and virtues, in the womb and in the heart of Mary: she is a spiritual vessel, a vessel of honor, a singular vessel of devotion.
Souls who are not born of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God and of Mary, understand and relish what I say; and it is for them that I write....If a soul gives itself to Mary without reserve, she gives herself to it without reserve and helps it to find the road which leads to the eternal goal.
Such are the fruits of this consecration: Mary loves those who commit themselves to her fully; she guides, directs, defends, protects, supports and intercedes for them. It is good to offer ourselves to her so that she may offer us to her Son according to the fulness of her prudence and her zeal.
There are also fruits of a higher order which this devotion produces, fruits which are strictly mystical.
According to St. Louis de Montfort (ch. I, a. 2, no. 3), devotion to Our Blessed Lady will be more specially necessary in the last ages of the world, when Satan will make an effort such “as to deceive (if possible) even the elect” (Mt. 24:24). “If the predestined,” he says, “enter with the grace and light of the Holy Ghost into the interior and perfect practice of this devotion, they will see clearly as far as faith permits this beautiful star of the sea, and they will arrive safely in harbour, in spite of pirates and tempests. They will learn the greatness of their Queen, and they will consecrate themselves entirely to her service, as her subjects and slaves of love” to combat what St. Paul calls the slavery of sin (cf. Rom. 6:20). They will have experience of her motherly tenderness, and they will love her as her well-beloved children. The expression “holy slavery” used by St. Louis has been sometimes criticized. This is to forget that it is a slavery of love which accentuates rather than diminishes the filial character of our love of Mary. Besides, as Bishop Garnier, Bishop of Luçon, remarked in a pastoral letter of March 11, 1922, if there are in the world slaves of human respect, of ambition, of money, and of shameful passions, there are also, thank God, slaves of conscience and of duty. The holy slavery belongs to this group. The expression “holy slavery” is a striking metaphor, opposed to the slavery of sin.
This article is taken from Chapter 15, Article III, of the book The Mother of the Saviour by Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange. It was granted the nihil obstat in 1941 and the imprimi potest in 1948.
1 That is why St. Louis de Montfort speaks in his formula of “Consecration of oneself to Jesus by the hands of Mary.” In the course of his treatise he usually says it more briefly, “Consecration to Mary,” meaning thereby consecration to Jesus through her.
2 Cf. Dict. de Theol. Cath., s.v. “Marie,” cols. 2470 sqq. Pius X has made his own the teaching of St. Louis de Montfort, and sometimes of his very expressions, in the Encyclical Ad Diem IlIum on Mary, universal Mediatrix.
3 Even religious who have taken solemn vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience can make this offering which will introduce them further into the mystery of the Communion of Saints.
4 Cf. Treatise of True Devotion, ch. iv, a. I.
5 Cf. Summa Theologica, III, Q. 14, Art. 1; Q. 48, Art. 2; Suppl., Q. 13, Art. 2: “Onus pro alio satisfacere potest, in quantum duo homines sunt unum in caritate.”
6 Cf. Treatise of True Devotion, ch. iv, a. 2.
7 Ibid., ch. v.
8 St. Francis of Assisi learned one day in a vision that his sons were endeavoring vainly to reach Our Blessed Lord by a steep ladder which led directly to Him. St. Francis was shown instead a ladder much less steep, at the top of which was Mary, and he heard the words: “Tell your sons to make use of the ladder of My Mother.”
The Consecration to Russia
Sadly, the consecration of Russia has yet to be done. In 1925, Sr. Lucy stated:
“It was Our Lady of Fátima...with a crown of thorns...and she said to me: ‘The moment has come in which God asks the Holy Father in union with all the Bishops of the world to consecrate Russia to My Immaculate Heart, promising to save it by this means.’”
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| Massachusetts Legislature Passes ‘Infanticide Act’ |
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Posted by: Stone - 11-23-2020, 09:03 PM - Forum: Abortion
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Massachusetts Legislature Passes ‘Infanticide Act’ Removing Requirement of Preserving Abortion Survivor’s Life
Breitbart | November 23, 2020
The Massachusetts legislature has passed an amendment to a budget bill that would allow abortions after the 24th week of pregnancy, eliminate parental consent, and remove the requirement that abortionists must attempt to preserve the life of a baby who survives abortion.
The state House passed Amendment 759 by a vote of 108-49, while the state Senate approved it by a vote of 33-7. The amendment, as part of the fiscal year 2021 budget bill, is now on the desk of Gov. Charlie Baker ® who, as Masslive.com reported, was critical of Democrats pushing a late-term abortion proposal in a budget bill.
“I do share some of the unhappiness that was raised by a number of members of the Republican Party that putting policy in the budget was something that both leaders in the House and Senate said they would not do,” Baker said Friday afternoon, according to the report. “It’s pretty hard to argue this isn’t a major policy initiative that is not in the budget.”
As late as last year, Baker disapproved of measures to expand late-term abortion.
“I do not support late term abortions,” the governor said. “I support current law in Massachusetts. It’s worked well for decades for women and families here in Massachusetts, and that’s what we support.”
The Massachusetts Family Institute (MFI) explained why Amendment 759 has been dubbed the “Infanticide Act:”
Quote:The reason why this legislation has earned the moniker “Infanticide Act” is because it removes the requirement that an abortionist “shall” save the life of a baby born alive during a botched abortion and replaces it with the requirement to simply have life-saving equipment in the room with no obligation to use it.
MFI continued:
Quote:The current language in the law that prohibits passive infanticide is found in Section 12P:
“…the physician performing the abortion shall take all reasonable steps, both during and subsequent to the abortion… to preserve the life and health of the aborted child.”
Instead of simply striking this language, as the original ROE Act did, the new budget amendment version twists it to this:
“…the room where the abortion is performed shall maintain life-supporting equipment, …to enable the physician performing the abortion to take appropriate steps, …to preserve the life and health of a live birth and the patient.”
…
To summarize, this new version still requires life-saving equipment in the room where the abortion takes place, but removes the requirement for abortionists to actually have to USE it.
Additionally, the amendment removes the word “mother” and inserts, instead, the word “patient.” The current section of the law reads:
Quote:If a pregnancy has existed for twenty-four weeks or more, no abortion may be performed except by a physician and only if it is necessary to save the life of the mother, or if a continuation of her pregnancy will impose on her a substantial risk of grave impairment of her physical or mental health.
The same section under the new legislation removes the word “mother” and essentially allows abortion until birth for almost any reason:
Quote:If a pregnancy has existed for twenty-four weeks or more, no abortion may be performed except by a physician and only if it is necessary in the best medical judgment of the physician, to preserve the life of the patient, or if it is necessary, in the best medical judgment of the physician, to preserve the patient’s physical or mental health, or, in the best medical judgment of the physician, an abortion is warranted because of a lethal fetal anomaly incompatible with sustained life outside the uterus.
Massachusetts Senate President Emerita Harriette Chandler (D) said the amendment was added to the budget bill as an immediate response to the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett.
“The time has come for urgent action,” said Chandler, who sponsored the amendment. “I believe in an affirmative right to choose, but this right now hangs in the balance. Those of us who remember the days before legal abortion and contraception must unite with those of us who never knew those dark times to protect this right at all costs.”
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| St. Benedict's Twelve Degrees of Humility |
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Posted by: Stone - 11-23-2020, 08:59 PM - Forum: The Saints
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From the 'Archived' Catacombs [here]:
St. Benedict lived as he believed. He toiled as each one of us toils, but left no reserve for himself, he gave himself all for God; as all saints do.
For any Catholic who wants to follow our Lord in the counsel of the Angels "Glory to God in the highest; and on earth peace to men of good will." (Luke 2). There must first be the desire to fulfill God's Holy Will, making it your own, then there will be peace in one's mind and heart. Humility must be the foundation.
Our Holy Church teaches us this in the beginning of Ash Wednesday to begin life and all we do with humility and docility - "Remember o'man, thou art dust, and to dust thou shalt return".
Our Lord renounced pride from the time of His Birth, right up to His Crucifixion. In one of His sermon's, Our Lord stated: "Everyone that exalteth himself shall be humbled, and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted". (Luke 14).
The Rule of St. Benedict has been bearing fruit sanctifying souls for over 1500 years. It is a great counsel our Lord provided to practice what He gave in His Mount of Beatitudes. (Matthew 5) Though there are 73 Chapters in the Benedictine Rule, given in an overview here, St. Benedict gives 12-Degrees of Humility to put away the old-man to blossom the new-man to advance closer to God in our prayers, works and actions, striving to gain everlasting glory with Him.
* * *
The first degree of humility, then, is that a man always
have the fear of God before his eyes (cf Ps 35[36]:2), shunning all
forgetfulness and that he be ever mindful of all that God hath commanded, that
he always consider in his mind how those who despise God will burn in hell for
their sins, and that life everlasting is prepared for those who fear God. And
whilst he guard himself evermore against sin and vices of thought, word, deed,
and self-will, let him also hasten to cut off the desires of the flesh.
The second degree of humility is, when a man love not his
own will, nor is pleased to fulfill his own desires but by his deeds carried
out that word of the Lord which said: “I came not to do My own will but
the will of Him that sent Me” (Jn 6:38). It is likewise said:
“Self-will hath its punishment, but necessity win the crown.”
The third degree of humility is, that for the love of God a
man subject himself to a Superior in all obedience, imitating the Lord, of whom
the Apostle said: “He became obedient unto death” (Phil 2:8).
The fourth degree of humility is, that, if hard and
distasteful things are commanded, nay, even though injuries are inflicted, he
accept them with patience and even temper, and not grow weary or give up, but
hold out, as the Scripture said: “He that shall persevere unto the end
shall be saved” (Mt 10:22). And again: “Let thy heart take courage,
and wait thou for the Lord” (Ps 26[27]:14).
The fifth degree of humility is, when one hides from his
Abbot none of the evil thoughts which rise in his heart or the evils committed
by him in secret, but humbly confesses them. Concerning this the Scripture
exhorts us, saying: “Reveal thy way to the Lord and trust in Him” (Ps
36[37]:5). And it said further: “Confess to the Lord, for He is good, for
His mercy endures forever” (Ps 105[106]:1; Ps 117[118]:1). And the Prophet
likewise said: “I have acknowledged my sin to Thee and my injustice I have
not concealed. I said I will confess against myself my injustice to the Lord;
and Thou hast forgiven the wickedness of my sins” (Ps 31[32]:5).
The sixth degree of humility is, when a monk is content with
the meanest and worst of everything, and in all that is enjoined him holds
himself as a bad and worthless workman, saying with the Prophet: “I am
brought to nothing and I knew it not; I am become as a beast before Thee, and I
am always with Thee” (Ps 72[73]:22-23).
The seventh degree of humility is, when, not only with his
tongue he declares, but also in his inmost soul believeth, that he is the
lowest and vilest of men, humbling himself and saying with the Prophet:
“But I am a worm and no man, the reproach of men and the outcast of the
people” (Ps 21[22]:7).
The eighth degree of humility is, when a monk doeth nothing
but what is sanctioned by the common rule of the monastery and the example of
his elders.
The ninth degree of humility is, when a monk withholds his
tongue from speaking, and keeping silence doth not speak until he is asked; for
the Scripture shows that “in a multitude of words there shall not want
sin” (Prov 10:19); and that “a man full of tongue is not established
in the earth” (Ps 139[140]:12).
The tenth degree of humility is, when a monk is not easily
moved and quick for laughter, for it is written: “The fool exalts his
voice in laughter” (Sir 21:23).
The eleventh degree of humility is, that, when a monk speaks,
he speak gently and without laughter, humbly and with gravity, with few and
sensible words, and that he be not loud of voice, as it is written: “The
wise man is known by the fewness of his words.”
The twelfth degree of humility is, when a monk is not only
humble of heart, but always lets it appear also in his whole exterior to all
that see him; namely, at the Work of God, in the garden, on a journey, in the
field, or wherever he may be, sitting, walking, or standing, let him always have
his head bowed down, his eyes fixed on the ground, ever holding himself guilty
of his sins, thinking that he is already standing before the dread judgment
seat of God, and always saying to himself in his heart what the publican in the
Gospel said, with his eyes fixed on the ground: “Lord, I am a sinner and
not worthy to lift up mine eyes to heaven” (Lk 18:13); and again with the
Prophet: “I am bowed down and humbled exceedingly” (Ps 37[38]:7-9; Ps
118[119]:107)
IN SHORT, the 12 degrees of humility are these:
1. Always have the fear of God before your eyes & never forget it
2. Love God's will, not your own.
3. Be obedient to God and your superiors
4. Accept hardships with patience and endurance
5. Humbly confess all your sins to the priest
6. Be happy with having the worst of everything
7. Be happy not only saying but sincerely believing that you are the lowliest of all people
8. Do nothing except what is in the rule of the monks and in the example of elders
9. Do not speak unless asked to speak
10. Be not easily moved or brought to laughter
11. Speak gently, without laughter and with few words.
12. Wherever you are, whatever you are doing, believe that you are a sinner and do not lift your eyes from the ground or from your work
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| Fr. Demaris [1801]: Catholics Without a Priest |
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Posted by: Stone - 11-23-2020, 08:47 PM - Forum: When there is No Priest
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Catholics Without a Priest - God's Providence Will Provide
by
Fr. Demaris
Professor of Theology Missionary of St. Joseph, at Lyon, France
1801
Editor's Preface
During the French Revolution very many Bishops and priests were martyred for their faith as were many outstanding laymen also martyred. Church property was seized by the Masonic government. That left the people without their priests and without a place to go to Mass and receive the sacraments. It was during that period that a Father Demaris wrote the following letter to the concerned Catholics of his day. At the present time (the year 2004), the Church is in a situation which is EXACTLY parallel to the time of Fr. Demaris. If he were writing this letter today, he would in all probability write exactly the same words. Hence, Fr. Demaris’ letter is given below in its entirety. Read it with an eye to history and an eye to the present. May it bring you courage and consolation.
Letter from Fr. Demaris to Catholics Who Have Been Deprived of a Priest
Dear Children,
1. In the midst of human vicissitudes and the havoc of shock to the feeling, you voice your fears to your Father and ask for a rule of conduct. I’m going to show you and try to instill into your souls the consolation you need.
2. Jesus Christ, the Model of Christians, teaches us by his conduct, what we must do in the painful situation in which we find ourselves, and St. Luke tells us (Chapter 13:31) that some Pharisees, coming to Our Lord, said “Go away from here, Herod wants to have you put to death.” He answered, ‘Go tell that fox that I have yet to chase out demons and give health to the sick, today and tomorrow and the third day my life shall be finished. Anyway, I must carry on today and tomorrow and the next day and a prophet must die only at Jerusalem.”
3. You are frightened, my children, at what you see: all that you hear is frightening, but be consoled that it is the will of God being accomplished. Your days are numbered. His Providence watches over us.
4. Cherish those men who appear to you as savages. They are the means which Heaven uses in its plans, and like a tempestuous sea, they will not pass the prescribed line against the countering and menacing waves. The stormy turbulence of revolution which strikes right and left, and the sounds which alarm you are the threats of Herod. Let it not deter you from good works, nor change your trust, nor wither the shower of virtues which tie you to Jesus Christ. He is your model, The threats of Herod do not change the course of his destiny.
5. I know you can be deprived of your freedom that one can even seek to kill you. I would say to them what St. Peter said to the first faithful, What pleases God is that with a view to pleasing Him, we should endure all the pain and suffering given to us unjustly. What glory would you have if it were for your sins you endured maltreatment? But if in doing good, you suffer with patience that is pleasing to God. For this is why you have been called, since Jesus Christ has suffered for us, leaving you an example to follow ... He, who had committed no sin; Whose mouth no wrong had spoken: When heaped with curses gave none in return; when ill-treated made no threats, but gave Himself into the hands of one who judged Him unjustly.” (1 Peter 2: 19-23).
6. The disciples of Jesus Christ in their fidelity to God are faithful to their country and full of submission and respect for all authority - adoring the will of God, they must not coward-like flee persecution. When one loves the Cross, one is fearless to kiss it and even enjoy death. It is necessary for our intimate union with Jesus Christ. It could happen any instant but it is not always so meritorious or glorious. If God does not call you to it, you shall be like those illustrious confessors of who St. Cyprian said, That without dying by the executioner, they have gained the merits of martyrdom, because they were prepared for it.
7. The conduct of St. Paul mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles, tells us how one must model oneself on Jesus Christ. “Going to Jerusalem, he learnt at Caesarea that he would be persecuted there. The faithful besought him to avoid going, but he believed himself called to be crucified with Jesus Christ if such was His wish. His only reply to them was, “Stop softening my heart with your tears. I tell you, I am prepared to suffer at Jerusalem, not only prison, but even death for Jesus Christ.”
8. There, my children, such must be your dispositions. The shield of faith must arm you, hope must sustain you and charity guide you in everything. If, in all and always we must be simple as the doves and prudent as the serpents. I will recall for you here a maxim of St. Cyprian which in these times must be the rule of your faith and piety: “Do not seek too much,” said this illustrious martyr, the chance of a fight, and do not dodge it either. Let us await God’s command, and let us hope for His mercy alone. If God asks of us a humble confession rather than a fierce protestation, then humility is our greatest strength.”
9. This saying invites us to meditate on the strength, the patience and the joy with which the saints suffered. Look at what St. Paul said, and you will be convinced that when one is animated by faith, troubles only afflict us outside and are but an instrument of battle which victory crowns. This consoling truth can only be appreciated by the righteous, and do not be surprised if in our own time, we see that St. Cyprian saw in his - that most of the faithful succumbed.
10. To love God and fear Him alone, such is the lot of a small number of the elect. It is this love and this fear which makes martyrs by detaching the faithful from the world and attaching them to God and His holy law. To support this love and this fear, in your hearts, watch and pray. Increase your good works and join to that the edifying act of which the first faithful have given us an example. Mix with followers of the faith, and then glorify the Lord as did the first Christians whom we retrace in the fourth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles.
11. This practice will be much more salutary seeing that you are deprived of ministers of the Lord who nourished your souls with the bread of the word. You weep for these men precious to your piety. I appreciate all your loss. You feel lonely by yourselves, but could not this loneliness be salutary to you in the eyes of faith? It is by faith that the faithful are united in probing this truth, we find that the absence of the body does not break this unity, since it does not break the ties of faith, but rather augments it by depriving it of all felling.
12. If you were united by those ties to the ministers of the Lord whom you regret, console yourselves; their absence purifies and enlivens the love which united us. Faith gives us eyes so piercing that we can see them wherever they are, when they are at the ends of the earth, and when death has separated them from the world. Nothing is far away in faith. It plumbs the depths of the earth as the heights of the heavens. Faith is beyond the senses, and its empire beyond the power of men. Who can prevent us loving whom we wish? Who can steal from us memory? Who can prevent us from presenting to God those we love, and asking Him for our daily bread, by prayers in union with those whom we love? It is not enough, my children, to console you on the absence of the Lord’s ministers and to dry the tears you shed on their chains. This loss deprives you of sacraments and spiritual consolation; your piety takes flight; it sees itself alone. However, through your desolation, never forget that God is your Father, and if He permits your deprivation of the dispensation of the mysteries, that does not mean that He shuts off the means of His graces and mercies. I am going to offer them to you as the only source to which you can possibly go for purification. Read what I write with the same intention that I have in writing them. Seek nothing but the truth, and our salvation is self-denial, in our love for God and a submission to His holy will.
Sacraments
13. You know of the efficacy of the sacraments; you know of the obligation imposed on you to have recourse to the sacrament of Penance to cleanse us of our sins. But to profit from these channels of mercy, it requires ministers of the Lord. In our position without worship, without altar, without sacrifice, without priests, we only see Heaven and no longer have mediators among men. Let this abandonment not deject us! We offer faith to Jesus Christ our Immortal Mediator. He reads our hearts. He understands our desires. He will crown our faithfulness. We are in the eyes of His all-powerful mercy. The sick one of eighty-eight years of age, whom He is said to have cured, not to get someone to put him in the bath, but to take up his bed and walk. If life’s events change the position of the faithful, the events change our obligations. Once upon a time we were the servants who received five talents, we had the peaceful exercise of our religion. Today, we have but one talent - our heart. Let us make it fruitful and our recompense will be equal to that of five. God is just. He does not ask of us the impossible. Respectful to the Divine and Ecclesiastical laws which recall us to the sacrament of Penance, I must tell you, that in these circumstances, these laws do not oblige. Listen to what I tell you. It is essential for your learning and consolation that you should know these circumstances, in order to not accept your own mind for that of God’s. The circumstances where these laws do not oblige, are those where Gods Will manifests itself to obtain Our salvation without the intermediary of man. God needs nobody but Himself to save us when He so desires. He is the source of life, and He gives to everyone the ordinary means that He has provided to effect our salvation by extraordinary means that His mercy dispenses us according to our needs. He is a loving Father Who by ineffable means helps His children, when believing themselves abandoned, they seek Him and yearn for Him. If in the course of our lives, we had in the least neglected the means which God and His Church had provided for our sanctification, we would have been ungrateful children, but if we were to believe that in the extraordinary circumstances we could not do without even greater means, we would be forgetting and insulting the Divine Wisdom Who puts us to the test, and Who, in wishing us to be deprived of it, makes up to us with His Spirit.
Rule-Of-Conduct
14. To show you, my children, your exact rule of conduct, I am going to apply to your situation, the principles of faith, and some examples of the history of religion which should develop all the senses and console you in the use you are able to make of them. It is of faith, the first and most necessary of all sacraments, Baptism! It is the doorway to salvation and eternal life. However, the desire, the wish for Baptism suffices in certain cases. Catechumens who were surprised by persecution, only received it in blood which they spilt for the faith. They found the grace of all the sacraments in the free possession of their faith, and they were received into the Church by the Holy Ghost, Who is the tie which unites all the members to the Head. It was thus that the martyrs saved themselves, their blood serving as Baptism (the Holy Innocents). It will be thus that you will be saved. Baptism of Desire is for all those who, instructed in our mysteries, shall desire, according to their faith, to receive them. Such is the law of the Church, founded on what St. Peter said that one cannot refuse the water of Baptism to those who have received the Holy Ghost. When one has the spirit of Jesus Christ, one cannot be separated from Jesus Christ. When we are persecuted for love of Him, deprived of all help, heaped with captives chains, when we are led to the scaffold, we then have all the sacraments in the Cross. This instrument of our redemption embraces all that is necessary for our salvation. The tradition and history of the better days of the Church, confirm this dogmatic truth. The faithful who desired the sacraments, the confessors and martyrs were saved without the sacraments since they could not receive them. From that it is simple for us to conclude that no sacrament is necessary when it is impossible to receive it, and this conclusion is the belief of the Church ... St. Ambrose regarded the Pious Emperor Valentinian as a saint, although he died without the Baptism of water although he desired to do so, but which he had not been able to receive. “It is the desire and the will which saves us in this case.’ Said the doctor of the Church, “He who does not receive the sacraments from the hand of men, receives them from God who is not baptized by his piety and desire, is baptized by Jesus Christ.”
15. What this great man said of Baptism, let us say of all the sacraments, of all the ceremonies, and all the prayers that we can be deprived of at the present time. He who is unable to go to confession to a priest, but who, having all the necessary dispositions for the sacrament, the desire, and in form the most firm and constant wish, hears Jesus Christ Who, touched and witnessed to his faith, says to him or her what He once said to the sinning women, ‘Go, it is forgiven because you have loved much.” St. Leo said that love of justice contains in itself all apostolic authority, and in that he has expressed the belief of the Church.
Confession
16. The application of this maxim has place for all, like ourselves, who are deprived of apostolic ministry by persecution which removes or incarcerates all true ministers of Jesus Christ worthy of the faith and piety of the faithful. It has place above all if we are stricken with persecution; we suffer then for justice. The Cross of Christ leaves no blemish when embraced and carried as it should be. Here, instead of reasoning, let us listen to the language of the saints. The confessors and martyrs of Africa, writing to St. Cyprian, said boldly that one renewed ones conscience pure and spotless in the courts when one had confessed the name of Jesus Christ. They did not say that one went there with a pure conscience. Nothing silences scruples like the Cross. Surrounded by drastic measures which are the tests of saints if we cannot confess our sins to priests confess them to God. I feel my children, that your worry and scruples are vanishing and that your faith and love of the Cross increasing. Say to yourselves, and by your conduct say to all who see you, what St. Paul said: “Who can separate me from the love of Jesus Christ? Shall it be tribulation, hunger, nakedness, etc.” (Romans 8) St. Paul then, was in your position, and he did not say that any minister of the Lord, where he was able to find one, would be able to separate him from Jesus Christ and change his love for Him. He knew that, robbed of all human help and deprived of an intermediary between himself and Heaven, he found in his love, his zeal for the gospel and in the Cross, all the sacraments are means of salvation, necessarily.
17. From what I have just said, it is easy for you to see a great truth, proper to your consolation and to give you courage. It is that your conduct is a true confession before God and before men. If confession must precede absolution, your conduct here, precedes the graces of holiness and Justice which God gives you and is confession, public and continuous. Confession is necessary,’ said St. Augustine, because it embraces the condemnation of sin.” Here, we condemn it in a manner so public and so solemnly, that is known by all, and this condemnation is why we cannot go to a priest; is it not more satisfactory and edifying? The secret condemnation of our sins to a priest costs us little, while this which we make today is supported by the general sacrifice of our possessions, of our liberty, or our rest, of our reputation and perhaps even our life! The confession we would be making to the priest would only benefit ourselves, while that which we presently make is useful to our brothers and can serve all the Church. God confers on us, unworthy as we are, the grace of wanting to use us to show that it is an enormous crime to offend against truth and justice, and our voice shall be much more intelligible when we suffer greater evils with more patience. Our example tells the faithful that there is more good than one thinks in doing what is the truth, which is the most noble confession, and the most necessary in these circumstances. We do not confess our sins in secret, we confess the truth in public. We are persecuted, the truth is not captive, and we have this consolation in the hope that we suffer. That we will not hold back God’s truth and justice, as the apostle of the nations says, and that we teach our brothers not to hold it back.
18. Finally, if we do not confess our sins, the Church confesses them for us. Such are the admirable rules of Providence, which allows these trials to make us obtain merit and make us reflect seriously on the use we have made of the sacraments. The habit and ease that we had for confession often made us lukewarm. Instead of as at present, deprived of a confessor, one turns in on oneself, and the fervor increases. Let us look at this privation as a fast for our souls and a preparation to receive the bread of penance which, greatly desired, will become a more salutary nourishment. Strive to banish from our conduct, which is our confession before men and our accusation before God, all the faults which might have crept into our ordinary confessions; above all, aim for interior humility. What I have said is more than sufficient. However, I am not sure that I have been able to tranquilize you on the anxieties and scruples which are conjured up in a soul which has to judge itself, and to follow its own directions. I sense, my children, all the importance of your solicitude, but when one trusts in God, one must not do it by halves, as this would show lack of confidence, looking at the extraordinary means by which God calls and keeps His elected in justice. You found in the wisdom, maturity and experience of ministers of the Lord, advice and wise practices for avoiding sin, to do good and gain in virtue. All that was not of a sacramental character, but of private enlightenment. A virtuous, zealous, enlightened, charitable friend, could on this point be your judge and guide. Pious persons did not go the tribunal of penance only for instruction and enlightenment. They opened their hearts to illustrious people by their holiness in their intimate discussions. Do the same, but let the most discreet charity reign in these mutual interchanges of your souls, of your wills and desires. God will bless them, and you will find there the guidance you need. If this means is not open to you, rely on the Mercy of God. He will not abandon you. His spirit itself will speak to your hearts by holy inspirations which will inflame and direct them towards the high objectives of your destiny.
19. You are finding me concise on this subject, your desires go well beyond, but have patience and the rest will thoroughly answer your expectations. One cannot say everything at once, especially on such a delicate matter which demands the greatest exactitude. I am going to continue talking to you as I talk to myself. Removed from the resources of the sanctuary, and deprived of all exercise of the priesthood, there remains no mediator for us, save Jesus Christ. It is to Him we must go for our needs. Before His Supreme Majesty we must bluntly tear the veil off our consciences, and in the search of good and bad that we shall have done. Thank Him for His graces; confess our sins and ask pardon and to show us the direction of His minister, whenever we are able to do so. There, my children, is what I call confessing to God! In such a confession, well made, God Himself will absolve us.
20. It is the Gospel which teaches this to us, in giving us the example of the publican, who, humiliating himself before God, went away justified; since the best sign of absolution is justice, which cannot be tied, because it unties. So in the total isolation in which we find ourselves, that is what we must do. Holy Scripture here outlines our duties. All which attaches to God is holy. When we suffer for the truth, our sufferings are those of Jesus Christ, Who honors us then with a special character of resemblance to Him with His Cross. This grace is the greatest happiness which could possibly happen to a mortal in this life. It is thus in all painful situations which deprive us of the sacraments. The carrying of the cross like a Christian is the source of the remission of our sins; such as once carried by Jesus Christ; it was for the sins of the whole human race. To doubt this truth is to wound the Crucified Savior. It is to confess that one does not realize deeply enough, the virtue and merits of the cross. Tell me, would it be possible that the Good Thief received on the cross the forgiveness of all his sins, and the faithful one who gives up everything for his God should not be forgiven his? The Holy Fathers observed that the thief was a thief right to the cross to show he was faithful; what they must hope for from this cross when they embrace it, and remain attached to it for justice and truth. Jesus ending His sufferings entered Heaven by the Cross. To be sanctified by the cross, our actions must reflect the virtues of Jesus. It is not sufficient in these times, that animated with His love, like St. John, you rest your head on His breast. You must serve Him with firmness and constancy, on Calvary and on the cross. There, in confessing to God, if your confession is not crowned by the imposition of the hands of the priest, it will be by the imposition of the hands of Jesus Christ. See those adorable hands which appeared so heavy by nature, and which are so light to those who love Him. They are spread over you from morning to night, to heap you with all sorts of blessings, if you do not reject Him yourselves. There is no blessing like that of Jesus Crucified, when He blesses His children from the Cross.
21. The sacrament of Penance is for us at this moment like the well of Jacob, whose water was pure and salutary, but the well is deep. Without assistance we are unable to make entry. That is the picture of our position. Look at the action of our persecutors as a punishment for our sins. It is certain that if we could approach the well with faith, we would find Jesus there talking to the Samaritan woman. But be not discouraged, let us go down in the valley of Bethulie where we will find several springs which are not guarded, where we can leisurely quench our thirst. Let Jesus Christ live in our heart and His Holy Spirit inflame it, and we will find for ourselves the spring of living water which gives life and makes up for Jacob’s well. As Sovereign Pontiff, Jesus Christ Himself, does, in an ineffable manner in the confession which we make to God, that which men cannot take away. So carrying Jesus in us, Who looks after us continually, we can do it any time, any place and in any disposition. It is something worthy of admiration and recognition to see that what the world does to us to drive us away from Him, only brings us closer. Confession must not be only a remedy for past sins, but must be a preservative from sins to come. If we seriously reflect on this double efficacy of the sacrament of penance, we are able to have much to humiliate us and to bewail, and we shall be so much better founded in it, that our advancement towards virtue shall have been slower, and that we shall be founded the same, still, before and after confession. We are able now to repair the faults, which come from too great a trust in absolution and that one did not examine thoroughly enough ones weaknesses. Obliged to bewail now before God, the faithful soul considers all its deformities. And there at the feet of Our Savior, stricken with grief of repentance, it remains there silent, only speaking with tears as did the sinning woman of the Gospel. Seeing on the one hand all her wretchedness and on the other, the goodness of God, she prostrated herself before His Majesty until her sins were cleansed by one of His looks. That is how the Divine Light enlightens a contrite and humble heart, right to the particles which can darken it. Let this confession to God be for you a short daily practice, but fervent, and that from time to time you do it from one epoch to another as you have been doing it daily. The first fruit you will draw from it, apart from the remission of your sins, will be to learn to know yourself and to know God, and the second will be, to be ever ready to present yourself to a priest, if you are able, enriched in character by the mercy of the Lord. I think I have said all that I should have, my children, on your actions during privation of the sacrament of Penance. I am going to discuss the privation of that of the Eucharist and after that all those things you mentioned in your letter.
The Holy Eucharist
22. The Holy Eucharist had for you many joys and advantages when you were able to participate in this Sacrament of Love, but now that you are deprived of it for being defenders of the truth and justice, your advantages are the same. For who would have dared approach this fearsome table if Jesus Christ had not given us a precept, and if the Church, which desires that we fortify ourselves with this Bread of Life, had not invited us to eat by the voice of its ministers, who re-clothed us with a nuptial dress. All was obedience, but if we compare obedience by that which we are deprived of, with that which led us there, it will be easy to judge the merit. Abraham obeyed in immolating his son, and in not immolating him, but his obedience was greater when he took the sword in his hand than when he returned it to its scabbard. We are obedient in going to Communion, but in holding ourselves from the sacrifice we are immolating Ourselves. Quenched of the thirst of justice and deprived of the Blood of the Lamb which alone can slake it, we sacrifice our own liking as much as it is in us to do. The sacrifice of Abraham was for an instant, and an angel stopped the knife, ours is daily, renewing itself everyday, every time that we adore with submission the Hand of God which drives us away from His altars, and this sacrifice is voluntary. It is to be advantageously deprived of the Eucharist, to raise the standard of the Cross for the cause of Christ and the Glory of His Church. Observe, my children, that Jesus, after having given His Body, found no difficulty in dying for us. There is the action of a Christian in the persecutions; the cross follows on from the Eucharist. Let not the love for the Eucharist drive us away from the cross. It is to arise and make glorious advance in the grace of the gospel, to go out from the Cenacle, to go to Calvary. Yes, I have no fear in saying it. When the storm of the malice of men roars against truth and justice, it is more advantageous to the faithful to suffer for Christ than to participate in His Body by Communion. I seem to hear the Savior saying to us, Do not be afraid to be separated from My table for the confession of My Name: it is a grace I give you, which is very rare. Repair by this humiliating deprivation which glorifies Me, all the Communions which dishonor me. Feel this grace. You can do nothing for me, and I put into your hands a means of doing what I have done for you, and to return to Me with magnificence, that which I have given you in the greatest measure. I have given you My Body, and you give it back to Me. since you are separated from It in My service. You give back the truth which you have received from My love. I could not have given you anything greater. Your gratitude matches that; the grace I have given you - the greatest of the Gifts I made to you. Console yourselves if I do not call upon you to pour out your blood like the martyrs; there is mine to make up for it. Every time that you are prevented from drinking It, I regard it the same as if you had spilt yours; and Mine is more precious.”
23. So that is how we find the Eucharist, even during the deprivation of the Eucharist. From another viewpoint, who is able to separate us from Christ and His Church in Communion in approaching its altars by faith in a much more efficacious manner since it is spiritual and further from the senses. It is what I call communicating spiritually in uniting oneself with the faithful who are able to do it in different places on earth. You were familiar with this sort of Communion in the times when you were able to go to the Holy Table. You knew the advantages and the manner of it, so I shall not discuss it with you, but I am going to show you what Holy Scripture and the annals of the Church offer in reflections on the deprivation of the Mass, and the necessity of continual sacrifice for the faithful in times of persecution.
24. Give particular attention, my children, to the principles I am giving to recall. They are for your edification. Nothing happens without the Will of God! Whether we have a worship which allows us to assist at Mass, or that we be deprived of it, let us submit to His Holy Will, but in all circumstances let us be worthy. The worship which we owe to Christ depends on the assistance which He gives us and the necessity we have of His help. This worship outlines for us our duties as isolated faithful just as it was outlined for us before, in the public exercise of our religion. As children of God, according to the witness of Sts. Peter and John, we participated in the Priesthood of Jesus Christ to offer prayers and promises. If we are not entitled to sacrifice on visible altars, we are not without offering, since we can offer it in worship by our love in sacrificing Christ ourselves to His Father on the invisible altar of our hearts. Faithful to this principle, we shall gather all the graces that we would have been able to gather had we been able to assist at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Charity unites us to all the faithful of the universe who offer this Divine Sacrifice, or who assist at it. If we lack a material altar and sensible species, there are no longer any in heaven where Jesus Christ is offered in the most perfect manner. Yes, my children, the faithful who are without priest, offer their sacrifices without temple, without minister and without anything sensible. It needs only Jesus Christ to offer it. ‘For the sacrifice of the heart, where the Victim must be consumed by the fire of love for the Holy Ghost, it requires to be united to Jesus Christ,” said St. Clement of Alexandria, ‘by words, by deeds and by heart. We are united to Him by words when they are true, by our actions when they are just, by our hearts when charity inflames them. So, let us speak the truth, follow nothing but the truth, love nothing but the truth. Then we shall render to God the glory which is His due. When we are true in our words, just in our actions, submit to God in our desires and thoughts, in speaking for Him alone, in praising Him for His gifts, in humiliating ourselves for our sins, we offer God an agreeable sacrifice, and which cannot be taken from us. It remains for me to consider the Eucharist as a last sacrament. You could be deprived of It at death, so I must enlighten you and caution you against so terrible a deprivation.
Last Sacrament
25. God, Who loves and protects us, wishes to give us His Body at the approach of death -- to take away our fear on this last journey. When you look to the future and see yourself on your own deathbed, without the Last Sacrament, without Extreme Unction and without any help on the part of the ministers of the Lord, you see yourself abandoned in the most sad and terrible way. Console yourselves, my children, in the trust you have in God. This tender Father will pour on you His graces, His blessings and His mercies, in these awful moments which you fear, in more abundance than if you were being assisted by His ministers of whom you have been deprived only because you would not abandon Him Himself. The abandonment and forsakenness which we fear for ourselves, resembles that of the Savior on the Cross when He said to His Father: My God, My God, why have You forsaken me? (Psalm 21) Ah! How constructive and consoling are these words! Your pains and abandonment lead you to your Glorious Destiny in Ending Your Life like Jesus ended His. Jesus, in His sufferings, His abandonment and His death, was in most intimate union with His Father. In your pains and abandonment, be to Him likewise united, and let your last sign be like His, that God’s will be done. Being deprived of Extreme Unction, and in the hands of persons, who not only do not help, but also insult me, I shall be much happier that my death shall have more conformity with that of Jesus Who was a spectacle of opprobrium to all the world. Crucified by the hands of His enemies, He was treated like a thief and died between two thieves. He was wisdom Itself and was taken for an idiot. He was truth, and He was taken for a cheat and deceiver. The Pharisees and scribes triumphed over Him and in His presence. They were finally sated with His Blood. Christ died in the torture and excruciating pains of the Cross. Christians, if your last moment and death are an occasion for your enemies to treat you with insults and disgrace, what were those of Jesus? I am not sure that the angel who was sent to make up for the hard heartedness and callousness of men was not to teach us, that in similar circumstances, we receive the consolation of Heaven when that of men is missing. It was not without a special plan of God, that the Apostles who ought to have consoled Jesus, remained in a deep sleep. So the faithful should not be surprised to find himself without a priest in his last moments. Jesus reproached His apostles that they slept, but He did not say that they left Him without consolation, to teach us, that if we go into the Garden of Olives, if we climb up to Calvary, if we die alone and without human help, God watches over us, consoles us, and that suffices. Faithful, you are afraid of what follows the present time. Lift your eyes up to Jesus; keep them on Him; contemplate Him. He is your Model.
26. After having contemplated on Him, could you still fear the deprivation of prayers and ceremonies of the Church which was established to sanctify and honor our last moments, our death and burial? Remember that the cause for which we suffer and die gives to this deprivation a new glory and gives to us the merit of the last bit of resemblance we can have to Jesus Christ. Providence has wished and permitted for our instruction, that the Pharisees should put guards at the Sepulchre to guard the Body of Jesus Crucified. It has even wished that after His death His Body should remain in the hands of His enemies, and that in order to teach us that however long the domination of our enemies be, we must suffer it with patience and pray for them. St. Ignatius, the Martyr, who had so much ardor to be eaten by wild beasts, did not he prefer to have them for a sepulchre than the most beautiful mausoleum? Even the first Christians who were delivered to the executioner, all the confessors and all the martyrs, never worried about their last moment nor their graves. None of them worried on what should become of their bodies. Yes, my children, when one has trusted Jesus Christ all his life, he still trusts Him after his death. Jesus on the Cross and near to death, saw the women who had followed Him from Galilee. His Mother and Mary Magdalene and His beloved Apostle were near the Cross in sorrow, silence and grief. There, my children, is the picture you shall see, Most Christians feel sorry for those among the faithful who find themselves persecuted, but they keep themselves apart, while some like the Mother of Jesus go to the innocent, which wickedness strikes down. I remark with St. Ambrose, that Jesus’ Mother, who stayed at the foot of the Cross, knew that her Son was dying for the redemption of mankind, and wishing to die with Him for the accomplishment of this great work, she did not tear to annoy the Jews with her presence and desired to die with her Son. When you see someone die all forsaken, my children, or by the sword of persecution, imitate the Mother of Jesus, and not the women who had followed Him from Galilee, but kept back at the foot of the Cross. Be pierced with this truth: that the most glorious and salutary time to die is when virtue is strongest in our heart. One must never fear for a friend of Jesus Christ when he is suffering. Help him even by our looks and our tears. That, my children is what I believe I had to tell you. I believe it sufficient to answer your questions and calm your fears. I have put the principles without going into detail, which appears useless. Your reflections will certainly make up for it, and our conversations if providence ever permits, shall be on what you have done and what will inspire you to new desires.
27. I must tell you, my children, not to worry at what you are witnessing. Faith is not allied to these terrors. The number of the elect was always small. Only fear that God does not reproach you for lack of faith, and for not having been able to watch an hour with Him. I admit, however, that humanity can grieve, but in so saying, I shall add that faith must gladden. God does all. Bear this judgment. It is the only one worthy of you. The unbelievers themselves delivered this judgment when the Savior was making miraculous cures. What He is doing now is far greater. In His mortal life He cured the body, but now He cures souls and completes by trials the number of the elect.
28. Whatever are God’s plans for us, let us adore the depth of His judgments and put all our confidence in Him. If He wishes to deliver us, the time is near. Everything turns against us, our friends oppress us; our relations treat us like strangers; the faithful who used to worship with us are turned away with a single look. We do not fear to say that they are not only unlike us, they are faithful to their country and submit to its laws (right or wrong) and also claim to be faithful to God. They fear to say that they love us, or even know us. If we are without help along side men, we are assured of Gods help, who according to the Prophet King, will deliver the poor from the powerful, for they have no other help.
29. The universe is the work of God. He reigns over it, and every happening is according to the plans of His providence. When we believe that desertion is going to be general, we forget that a little faith is enough to give faith to the family of Jesus - like a little leaven makes all the dough rise. These extraordinary events where the mob wields the ax to undermine the work of God, serve marvelously to show His omnipotence. In every country will be seen what the people of God saw. When the Lord was wanted by Gideon to show His power against the Midianites, He had him send back most of his army. Three hundred men only and those without arms in order that it could be seem that the victory was God’s. This small number of Gideon’s soldiers, is the number of the faithful elect of this century. You have seen with the saddest astonishment, my children, that out of all those called, since all of France was Christian, the greater part, like Gideon’s army, remained weak, timid and fearing to lose their temporal interests. God sends them back, for use in His justice. God only wants those who give themselves to Him entirely. Do not be surprised at the great number who quit. Truth wins, no matter how small the number of those who love and remain attached to Him. For my part I nave only one wish, the desire of St. Paul. As a child of the Church, as a soldier of Christ I wish to die under His standard.
30. If you have the works of St. Cyprian, read them, my children. One must go back to the first centuries of the Church to find worthy examples to serve as models. It is in these holy books and in those of the first defenders of the faith that one must form a precise idea of the object of martyrdom and of the confession of Jesus Christ. It is truth and justice. These are the august, eternal and unchangeable objects of the faith which one must confess. It is the gospel. For human instructions, however wise they may be, they are temporary and changeable. But the gospel and the law of God holds for eternity. It is in thinking over this distinction that you will clearly see what is God’s and what is Caesars. As by the example of Christ you must render to One with respect, and to the other that which is his due.
31. Every century, the Church is in agreement, that there is nothing more glorious and holy than to confess the Name of Jesus Christ. But remember, my dear children, to confess it in a manner worthy of the crown which we desire. It is during the time one suffers most that one must have the greatest holiness. I can find nothing more beautiful than the words of St. Cyprian when he praises all the Christian virtues in the confessors of Jesus Christ. “You have always observed,” he says to them, “the command of the Lord with a severity worthy of your firmness, you have conserved simplicity and innocence, charity and concord, modesty and humility. You have carried out your ministry with care and exactitude. You have been vigilant to help those who need help, to have compassion for the poor, of constancy in defending the truth and discipline, in order that there be nothing wanting in these great examples of virtue which you have till now given. It is by your confession and generous sufferings that you highly animate your brethren to martyrdom and to show then the road.”
32. I hope, children, although God does not call you to martyrdom nor to a distressing confession of His Name, to be able to speak to you one day as in the example of this illustrious martyr when he spoke to the confessors Celerius and Areie, and to praise in you your humility rather than your steadfastness and to glorify you more for your holiness than for your sufferings and wounds. In looking towards this happy moment, profit from my advice and sustain yourselves by my example, if necessary.
33. God watches over us; our hope is justified. It shows us either that the persecution stops, or the persecution will be our crown. In the alternative of one or the other, I see the accomplishment of our destiny. Let God’s will be done, since in whatever manner He delivers us, His eternal mercies pour into us. I end, my dear children, in embracing you and praying to God for your as my faith and as my sincere resignation is to have no other will than that of God.
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