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| Maxims and Sayings of St. Philip Neri for Everyday of the Year - translated by Fr. Faber |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-23-2023, 07:04 AM - Forum: The Saints
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Maxims and Sayings of St. Philip Neri for Everyday of the Year
Taken from here
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Preface.
The following pages are a translation of the Ricordi e Detti di San Filippo Neri, published at Turin. Their purpose cannot be better de scribed than in the words of the Italian editor: “It was the aim and study of the holy father, Philip Neri, to introduce among Christians a daily spiritual repast. His children, who have drunk of the spirit of their holy father, have always sought to cultivate this custom of a spiritual repast among devout persons; and among the plans which they have tried, and the practices they have introduced, one, gentle reader, is a collection of the sayings and doings of the Saint, distributed into the number of the days of the year, to the end that every one might have each day, either a maxim to meditate upon, or a virtue to copy. The method of using these sayings and doings, is to read only one of them each day, and that the one set apart for the current day, (for to read more would not be food but curiosity,) and then to regulate the actions of the day by that maxim or example. I am sure that by doing this you will reap an abundant harvest, especially if to the maxim or example you add some particular devotion to the Saint who was the author of it. I think it useless to make any long commendation of this practice; but it is well you should know that by the daily suggestion of such truths, the fruit which the saint obtained in Rome was immense; and so also will it be in your soul if you practise it in a true spirit of devotion. Farewell.”
F.W. FABER.
St. Wilfrid’s,
Feast of St. Bridget, 1847.
JANUARY
1. WELL! when shall we have a mind to begin to do good?
2. Nulla dies sine linea: Do not let a day pass without doing some good during it.
3. We must not be behind time in doing good; for death will not be behind his time.
4. Happy is the youth, because he has time before him to do good.
5. It is well to choose some one good devotion, and to stick to it, and never to abandon it.
6. He who wishes for anything but Christ, does not know what he wishes; he who asks for anything but Christ, does not know what he is asking; he who works, and not for Christ, does not know what he is doing.
7. Let no one wear a mask, otherwise he will do ill; and if he has one, let him burn it.
8. Spiritual persons ought to be equally ready to experience sweetness and consolation in the things of God, or to suffer and keep their ground in drynesses of spirit and devotion, and for as long as God pleases, without their making any complaint about it.
9. God has no need of men.
10. If God be with us, there is no one else left to fear.
11. He who wishes to be perfectly obeyed, should give but few orders.
12. A man should keep himself down, and not busy himself in mirabilibus super se.
13. Men should often renew their good resolutions, and not lose heart because they are tempted against them.
14. The name of Jesus, pronounced with reverence and affection, has a kind of power to soften the heart.
15. Obedience is a short cut to perfection.
16. They who really wish to advance in the ways of God, must give themselves up into the hands of their superiors always and in everything; and they who are not living under obedience must subject themselves of their own accord to a learned and discreet confessor, whom they must obey in the place of God, disclosing to him with perfect freedom and simplicity the affairs of their soul, and they should never come to any resolution without his advice.
17. There is nothing which gives greater security to our actions, or more effectually cuts the snares the devil lays for us, than to follow another person’s will, rather than our own, in doing good.
18. Before a man chooses his confessor, he ought to think well about it, and pray about it also; but when he has once chosen, he ought not to change, except for most urgent reasons, but put the utmost confidence in his director.
19. When the devil has failed in making a man fall, he puts forward all his energies to create distrust between the penitent and the confessor, and so by little and little he gains his end at last.
20. Let persons in the world sanctify themselves in their own houses, for neither the court, professions, or labour, are any hindrance to the service of God.
21. Obedience is the true holocaust which we sacrifice to God on the altar of our hearts.
22. In order to be really obedient, it is not enough to do what obedience commands, we must do it without reasoning upon it.
23. Our Blessed Lady ought to be our love and our consolation.
24. The good works which we do of our own will, are not so meritorious as those that are done under obedience.
25. The most beautiful prayer we can make, is to say to God, “As Thou knowest and willest, O Lord, so do with me.”
26. When tribulations, infirmities, and contradictions come, we must not run away in a fright, but vanquish them like men.
27. It is not enough to see that God wishes the good we aim at, but that He wishes it through our instrumentality, in our manner and in our time; and we come to discern all this by true obedience.
28. In order to be perfect, we must not only obey and honour our superiors; we must honour our equals and inferiors also.
29. In dealing with our neighbour, we must assume as much pleasantness of manner as we can, and by this affability win him to the way of virtue.
30. A man who leads a common life under obedience, is more to be esteemed than one who does great penance after his own will.
31. To mortify one passion, no matter how small, is a greater help in the spiritual life than many abstinences, fasts, and disciplines.
FEBRUARY
1. He who wishes to be wise without the true Wisdom, or saved without the Saviour, is not well, but sick - is not wise, but a fool.
2. Devotion to the Blessed Virgin is actually necessary, because there is no better means of obtaining God’s graces than through His most holy mother.
3. A man should force himself to be obedient, even in little things which appear of no moment; because he will thus render the practice of obedience in great matters easy to himself.
4. He who always acts under obedience, may rest assured that he will not have to give an account of his actions to God.
5. Perfection does not consist in such outward things as shedding tears and the like, but in true and solid virtues.
6. Tears are no sign that a man is in the grace of God, neither must we infer that one who weeps when he speaks of holy and devout things necessarily leads a holy life.
7. Cheerfulness strengthens the heart and makes us persevere in a good life; wherefore the servant of God ought always to be in good spirits.
8. When a man is freed from a temptation or any other distress, let him take great care to show fitting gratitude to God for the benefit he has received.
9. We must accept the adversities which God sends us without reasoning too much upon them, and we must take for granted that it is the best thing which could happen to us.
10. We must always remember that God does everything well, although we may not see the reason of what He does.
11. Every one ought to give in readily to the opinion of another, and to argue in favour of another and against himself, and take things in good part.
12. There is nothing more to the purpose for exciting a spirit of prayer, than the reading of spiritual books.
13. Let a man frequent the holy Sacraments, go to sermons, and be often reading the Lives of Saints.
14. Let a man always think that he has God before his eyes.
15. When a man is in an occasion of sin, let him look what he is doing, get himself out of the occasion, and avoid the sin.
16. There is nothing good in this world: Vanitas vanitatum, et omnia vanitas.
17. We must die at last.
18. Beginners in religion ought to exercise themselves principally in meditation on the Four Last Things.
19. He who does not go down into hell while he is alive, runs a great risk of going there after he is dead.
20. The greatest help to perseverance in the spiritual life is the habit of prayer, especially under the direction of our confessor.
21. There is nothing the devil fears so much, or so much tries to hinder, as prayer.
22. An excellent method of preserving ourselves from relapsing into serious faults, is to say every evening, “To-morrow I may be dead.”
23. A man without prayer is an animal without the use of reason.
24. The religious state is indeed the highest, but it is not suitable for all.
25. A most excellent means of learning how to pray, is to acknowledge ourselves unworthy of such a benefit, and to put ourselves entirely into the hands of the Lord.
26. The true preparation for prayer consists in the exercise of mortification; for he who wishes to give himself up to prayer without mortification, is like a bird wishing to fly before it is fledged.
27. We can never arrive at the contemplative life, if we do not first exercise ourselves laboriously in the active life.
28. We must exercise the spirit which God gives us in prayer, and follow that; so that, when, for example, it inclines us to meditate on the Passion, we must not wish to meditate on some other mystery.
29. When a person goes to communion, he ought to follow the same spirit he had in prayer, and not be casting about for new meditations.
MARCH
1. We must never pray for a favour for anyone, except conditionally, saying, “If it please God,” or the like.
2. When a spiritual person feels a great calmness of mind in asking anything of God, it is a good sign that God either has granted it, or will do so shortly.
3. A man ought never to think he has done any good, or rest contented with any degree of perfection he may have attained, because Christ has given us the type of our perfection, in putting before us the perfection of the Eternal Father. Be ye perfect, even as your heavenly Father is perfect.
4. The sweetness which some experience in prayer, is milk which our Lord gives as a relish to those who are just beginning to serve Him.
5. To leave our prayer when we are called to do some act of charity for our neighbour, is not really a quitting of prayer, but leaving Christ for Christ, that is, depriving ourselves of spiritual sweetnesses in order to gain souls.
6. It is good for a man to go from prayer rather with an appetite and desire to return to it, than satiated and weary.
7. The wisdom of the Scriptures is learned rather by prayer than by study.
8. A diligent charity in ministering to the sick, is a compendious way to the acquisition of perfect virtue.
9. Let women remain indoors, and look after their families, and not be desirous of going into public.
10. We must pray incessantly for the gift of perseverance.
11. We must not leave off our prayers be cause of distractions and restlessness of mind, although it seems useless to go on with them. He who perseveres for the whole of his accustomed time, gently recalling his mind to the subject of his prayer, merits greatly.
12. If in times of dryness in prayer we make acts of humility, self-knowledge, protestations of our own inability to help ourselves, and petitions for God’s assistance, all this is real and substantial prayer.
13. The best remedy for dryness of spirit, is to picture ourselves as beggars in the presence of God and the Saints, and like a beggar, to go first to one saint, then to another, to ask a spiritual alms of them with the same earnestness as a poor fellow in the streets would ask an alms of us.
14. We may ask a spiritual alms even corporally, by going first to the church of one Saint, and then to the church of another, to make our petition.
15. Without prayer a man will not persevere long in spirituality; we must have recourse to this most powerful means of salvation every day.
16. If young men wish to protect themselves from all danger of impurity, let them never retire to their own rooms immediately after dinner, either to read or write, or do anything else; but let them remain in conversation, because at that time the devil is wont to assault us with more than usual vehemence, and this is that demon which is called in Scripture the noonday demon, and from which holy David prayed to be delivered.
17. If young men would preserve their purity, let them avoid bad company.
18. Let them also avoid nourishing their bodies delicately.
19. It is God’s custom to interweave human life with a trouble and a consolation, at least, of an interior sort, alternately.
20. Young men should be very careful to avoid idleness.
21. When fathers have given their sons a good education, and put everything clearly and distinctly in train for them, the sons who succeed them, and continue to follow the road marked out for them, will have the advantage of seeing their family persevere in holy ways, and in the fear of God.
22. In order to preserve their purity, young men should frequent the Sacraments, and especially confession.
23. We must never trust ourselves, for it is the devil’s way first to get us to feel secure, and then to make us fall.
24. We ought to fear and fly temptations of the flesh, even in sickness, and in old age itself, aye, and so long as we can open and shut our eyelids, for the spirit of incontinence gives no truce either to place, time, or person.
25. Our sweet Christ, the Word Incarnate, has given Himself to us for everything that was necessary for us, even to the hard and ignominious death upon the cross.
26. One of the most efficacious means of keeping ourselves chaste, is to have compassion for those who fall through their frailty, and never to boast in the least of being free, but with all humility to acknowledge that whatever we have is from the mercy of God.
27. To be without pity for other men’s falls, is an evident sign that we shall fall ourselves shortly.
28. In the matter of purity there is no greater danger than the not fearing the danger: when a man does not distrust himself, and is without fear, it is all over with him.
29. The devil generally makes use of the weaker sex when he wishes to cause us to fall.
30. In order to begin well, and to finish better, it is quite necessary to hear mass every day, unless there be some lawful hindrance in the way.
31. A most excellent means of keeping ourselves pure, is to lay open all our thoughts, as soon as possible, to our confessor with the greatest sincerity, and keep nothing hidden in ourselves.
APRIL
1. To acquire and preserve the virtue of chastity, we have need of a good and experienced confessor.
2. Let a man who desires the first place take the last.
3. As soon as a man feels that he is tempted, he should fly to God, and devoutly utter that ejaculation which the fathers of the desert so much esteemed: Deus in adjutorium meum intende; Domine ad adjuvandum me festina: or that verse, cor mundum crea in me Deus.
4. When sensual thoughts come into the mind, we ought immediately to make use of our minds, and fix them instantaneously upon something or other, no matter what.
5. Never say, “What great things the Saints do,” but, “What great things God does in His Saints.”
6. In the warfare of the flesh, only cowards gain the victory; that is to say, those who fly.
7. We should be less alarmed for one who is tempted in the flesh, and who resists by avoiding the occasions, than for one who is not tempted and is not careful to avoid the occasions.
8. When a person puts himself in an occasion of sin, saying, “I shall not fall, I shall not commit it,” it is an almost infallible sign that he will fall, and with all the greater damage to his soul.
9. It is a most useful thing to say often, and from the heart, “Lord, do not put any confidence in me, for I am sure to fall if Thou dost not help me;” or, “O my Lord, look for nothing but evil from me.”
10. In temptation we ought not to say, “I will do,” “I will say,” for it is a species of presumption and self-confidence; we ought rather to say with humility, “I know what I ought to do, but I do not know what I shall do.”
11. The stench of impurity before God and the angels is so great, that no stench in the world can equal it.
12. We must not trust in ourselves, but take the advice of our spiritual father, and recommend ourselves to everybody’s prayers.
13 We must avoid lies as we would a pestilence.
14. When we go to confession, we should accuse ourselves of our worst sins first, and of those things which we are most ashamed of, because by this means we put the devil to greater confusion, and reap more fruit from our confession.
15. One of the very best means of obtaining humility, is sincere and frequent confession.
16. In trying to get rid of bad habits, it is of the greatest importance not to put off going to confession after a fall, and also to keep to the same confessor.
17. In visiting the dying we should not say many words to them, but rather help them by praying for them.
18. A sick man should make God a present of his will; and if it turns out that he has to suffer for a long time, he must submit to the Divine Will.
19. The sick man must not fear when he is tempted to lose confidence; for if he has sinned, Christ has suffered and paid for him.
20. Let the sick man enter into the Side of Jesus and His most holy Wounds; let him not be afraid, but combat manfully, and he will come forth victorious.
21. The true way to advance in holy virtues, is to persevere in a holy cheerfulness.
22. The cheerful are much easier to guide in the spiritual life than the melancholy.
23. Those who wish to enter upon the religious life, should first of all mortify themselves for a long time, and particularly mortify their will in things to which they have the greatest repugnance.
24. Excessive sadness seldom springs from any other source than pride.
25. Charity and cheerfulness, or charity and humility, should be our motto.
26. It is very necessary to be cheerful, but we must not on that account give in to a buffooning spirit.
27. Buffoonery incapacitates a person from receiving any additional spirituality from God.
28. Nay more, it roots up the little a man may have already acquired.
29. At table, especially where there are guests, we ought to eat every kind of food, and not say, “I like this,” and “I do not like that.”
30. Human language cannot express the beauty of a soul which dies in a state of grace.
MAY
1. If a man finds it very hard to forgive injuries, let him look at a crucifix, and think that Christ has shed all His Blood for him, and not only forgave his enemies, but prayed the Eternal Father to forgive them also.
2. Let him remember also that when he says the Pater Noster every day, instead of asking pardon for his sins, he is calling down vengeance upon them.
3. Men are generally the carpenters of their own crosses.
4. Let us concentrate ourselves so completely in the divine love, and enter so far into the living fountain of wisdom, through the wounded Side of our Incarnate God, that we may deny ourselves and our self-love, and so be unable to find our way out of that Wound again.
5. We must not give up praying and asking, because we do not get what we ask all at once.
6. He who is unable to spend a long time together in prayer, should often lift up his mind to God by ejaculations.
7. We must often remember what Christ said, that not he who begins, but he that perseveres to the end, shall be saved.
8. We ought to abhor every kind of affectation, whether in talking, dressing, or anything else.
9. When a scrupulous person has once made up his mind that he has not consented to a temptation, he must not reason the matter over again to see whether he has really consented or not, for the same temptations often return by making this sort of reflections.
10. If those who are molested by scruples wish to know whether they have consented to a suggestion or not, especially in thoughts, they should see whether, during the temptation, they have always had a lively love to the virtue opposed to the vice in respect of which they were tempted, and hatred to that same vice, and this is mostly a good proof that they have not consented.
11. The scrupulous should remit themselves always and in everything to the judgment of their confessor, and accustom themselves to have a contempt for their own scruples.
12. Scruples are an infirmity which will make a truce with a man, but very rarely peace; humility alone comes off conqueror over them.
13. Even in bodily indispositions spiritual remedies are the most helpful.
14. As much love as we give to creatures, just so much we steal from the Creator.
15. Penitents ought never to force their confessor to give them leave to do anything against his inclination.
16. He who has the slightest taint of avarice about him, will never make the least advance in virtue.
17. Avarice is the pest of the soul.
18. Experience shows that men given to carnal sins are converted sooner than those who are given to avarice.
19. He who wishes for goods will never have devotion.
20. All sins are highly displeasing to God, but above all sensuality and avarice, which are very difficult to cure.
21. We must always pray God not to let the spirit of avarice domineer over us, but that we may live detached from the affections of this world,
22. If we find nothing in the world to please us, we ought to be pleased by this very not finding anything to please us.
23. He who wishes to attain to perfection must have no attachment to anything.
24. It is a good thing to leave the world and our possessions to serve God, but it is not enough.
25. The greatness of our love of God must be tested by the desire we have of suffering for His love.
26. Let us strive after purity of heart, for the Holy Spirit dwells in candid and simple minds.
27. The Holy Spirit is the master of prayer, and causes us to abide in continual peace and cheerfulness, which is a foretaste of Paradise.
28. If we wish the Holy Spirit to teach us how to pray, we must practise humility and obedience.
29. The fruit we ought to get from prayer, is to do what is pleasing to the Lord.
30. A virtuous life consists in mortifying vices, sins, bad thoughts, and evil affections, and in exercising ourselves in the acquisition of holy virtues.
31. Let us be humble and keep ourselves down:- Obedience! Humility! Detachment!
JUNE
1. The love which our Blessed Lady had for God was so great, that she suffered keenly through her desire of union with Him; hence the Eternal Father, to console her, sent her His only and beloved Son.
2. If you wish to come where I am going, that is, to glory, you must come this road, that is, through thorns.
3. Before communion, we ought to exercise ourselves in many acts of virtue.
4. Prayer and communion are not to be made or desired for the sake of the devotion we feel in them, for that is seeking self, and not God; but we must be frequent in both the one and the other in order to become humble, obedient, gentle, and patient.
5. When we see these virtues in a man, then we know that he has really gathered the fruit of prayer and of communion.
6. Our sweet Jesus, through the excess of His love and liberality, has left Himself to us in the Most Holy Sacrament.
7. Let all go to the Eucharistic Table with a great desire for that Sacred Food. Sitientes! Sitientes!
8. To feel any displeasure because we are refused the Communion, is a sign of hardiness, pride, and a want of mortification.
9. Those who are going to Communion should prepare themselves for more temptations than usual, for the Lord will not have us stand idle.
10. It is a good thing, during the week that follows our communion-day, to do something more than usual; for example, to say five Our Fathers and Hail Maries with our arms extended, or an extra rosary.
11. It is not a good thing to load ourselves with many spiritual exercises; it is better to undertake a little, and go on with it: for if the devil can persuade us to omit an exercise once, he will easily get us to omit it the second time, and the third, until at last all our pious practices will melt away.
12. We must take care of little faults: for he who once begins to go backward, and to make light of such defects, brings a sort of grossness over his conscience, and then goes wrong altogether.
13. The servant of God ought to seek knowledge, but never to show it or make a parade of it.
14. Let us always go to confession with sincerity, and take this as our rule - Never out of human respect to conceal anything from our confessor, however inconsiderable it may be.
15. He who conceals a grave sin in confession, is completely in the devil’s hands.
16. Penitents should not generally change their confessors, nor confessors be forward to receive the penitents of others, a few particular cases excepted.
17. When a person who has been living a spiritual life for a long time falls into a serious fault, there is no better way of raising him up again than by exhorting him to manifest his fall to any pious friend with whom he has a particular intimacy: and God will reconduct him to his first estate for the sake of his humility.
18. For young men to make sure of persevering, it is absolutely necessary that they should avoid wicked companions, and be familiar with good ones.
19. In the spiritual life there are three degrees: the first may be called the animal life; this is the life of those who run after sensible devotion, which God generally gives to beginners, to allure them onwards by that sweetness to the spiritual life, just as an animal is drawn on by a sensible object.
20. The second degree may be called the human life; this is the life of those who do not experience any sensible sweetness, but by the help of virtue combat their own passions.
21. The third degree may be called the angelic life; this is the life which they come to, who, having been exercised for a long time in the taming of their own passions, receive from God a quiet, tranquil, and almost angelic life, even in this world, feeling no trouble or repugnance in anything.
22. Of these three degrees it is well to persevere in the second, because the Lord will grant the third in His own good time.
23. We must not be too ready to trust young men who have great devotion; we must wait till their wings are grown, and then see what sort of a flight they make.
24. Outward mortifications are a great help towards the acquisition of interior mortification and the other virtues.
25. He who cannot put up with the loss of his honour, can never make any advance in spiritual things.
26. It is generally better to give the body rather too much food than rather too little; for the too much can be easily subtracted, but when a man has injured his constitution by the too little, it is not so easy to get right again.
27. The devil has a crafty custom of sometimes urging spiritual persons to penances and mortifications, in order that by going indiscreet lengths in this way, they may so weaken themselves as to be unable to attend to good works of greater importance; or be so intimidated by the sickliness they have brought upon themselves as to abandon their customary devotions, and at last turn their backs on the service of God.
28. Those who pay a moderate attention to the mortification of their bodies, and direct their main intention to mortify the will and understanding, even in matters of the slightest moment, are more to be esteemed than they who give themselves up exclusively to corporal penances and macerations.
29. We ought to desire to do great things for the service of God, and not content ourselves with a moderate goodness, but wish, if it were possible, to surpass in sanctity and love even St. Peter and St. Paul.
30. Even though a man may be unable to attain such a height of sanctity, he ought to desire it, so as to do at least in desire what he cannot carry out in effect.
JULY
1. We ought to make no account of abstinences and fasts, when there is self-will in the matter.
2. Our Blessed Lady is the dispenser of all the favours which the goodness of God concedes to the Sons of Adam.
3. In seeking for counsel it is necessary sometimes to hear what our inferiors think, and to recommend ourselves to their prayers.
4. A man ought never to say one word in his own praise, however true it may be, no, not even in a joking way.
5. Whenever we do a good work, and somebody else takes the credit of it, we ought to rejoice, and acknowledge it as a gift from God. Anyhow, we ought not to be sorry, because if others diminish our glory before men, we shall recover it with all the more honour before God.
6. Let us pray God, if He gives us any virtue or any gift, to keep it hidden even from ourselves, that we may preserve our humility, and not take occasion of pride because of it.
7. We ought not to publish or manifest to every one the inspirations which God sends us, or the favours He grants us. Secretum meum mihi! Secretum meum mihi!
8. In order to avoid all risk of vain-glory, we ought to make some of our particular devotions in our own rooms, and never seek for sweetnesses and sensible consolations in public places.
9. The true medicine to cure us of pride, is to keep down and thwart touchiness of mind.
10. When a man is reproved for anything, he ought not to take it too much to heart, for we commit a greater fault by our sadness than by the sin for which we are reproved.
11. They who when they have got a little devotion think they are some great one, are only fit to be laughed at.
12. Humility is the true guardian of chastity.
13. When a man has fallen he ought to acknowledge it in some such way as this: “Ah, if I had been humble I should not have fallen!”
14. We ought to be pleased to hear that others are advancing in the service of God, especially if they are our relations or friends; and we ought to rejoice that they share in whatever spiritual good we may have ourselves.
15. In order the better to gain souls, in visiting the sick, we ought to imagine that what we do for the sick man we are doing for Christ Himself; we shall thus perform this work of mercy with more love and greater spiritual profit.
16. He whose health will not permit him to fast in honour of Christ and our Blessed Lady, will please them much more by giving some alms more than usual.
17. Nothing is more dangerous for beginners in the spiritual life, than to wish to play the master, and to guide and convert others.
18. Beginners should look after their own conversion and be humble, lest they should fancy they had done some great thing, and so should fall into pride.
19. If we wish to help our neighbour, we must reserve neither place, hour, or season, for ourselves.
20. Avoid every kind of singularity, for it is generally the hot-bed of pride, especially spiritual pride.
21. A man must not, however, abstain from doing a good work merely to got out of the way of a temptation to vain-glory.
22. The love of God makes us do great things.
23. We may distinguish three kinds of vain-glory; the first we may call mistress; that is, when vain-glory goes before our works, and we work for the sake of it: the second we may call companion; that is, when a man does not do a work for the sake of vain-glory, but feels complacency in doing it: the third we may call servant; that is, when vain-glory rises in our work, but we instantly repress it. Above all things never let vain-glory be mistress.
24. When vain-glory is companion, it does not take away our merit; but perfection requires that it should be servant.
25. He who works purely for the love of God, desires nothing but His honour, and thus is ready in every thing either to act or not to act, and that not in indifferent matters only, but even in good ones; and he is always resigned to the Will of God.
26. The Lord grants in a moment what we may have been unable to obtain in dozens of years.
27. To obtain perfectly the gift of humility, four things are required: to despise the world, to despise no person, to despise one’s self, to despise being despised.
28. Perfection consists in leading captive our own will, and in playing the king over it.
20. A man ought to mortify his understanding in little things, if he wishes easily to mortify it in great ones, and to advance in the way of virtue.
30. Without mortification nothing can be done.
31. We ought to hope for and love the glory of God by means of a good life.
AUGUST
1. St. Peter and the other apostles and apostolical men, seeing the Son of God born in poverty, and then living so absolutely without anything, that He had not where to lay His Head, and contemplating Him dead and naked on a cross, stripped themselves also of all things, and took the road of the evangelical counsels.
2. Nothing unites the soul to God more closely, or breeds contempt of the world sooner, than being harassed and distressed.
3. In this life there is no purgatory; it is either hell or paradise; for to him who serves God truly, every trouble and infirmity turns into consolations, and through all kinds of trouble he has a paradise within himself even in this world: and he who does not serve God truly, and gives himself up to sensuality, has one hell in this world, and another in the next.
4. To get good from reading the Lives of the Saints, and other spiritual books, we ought not to read out of curiosity, or skimmingly, but with pauses; and when we feel ourselves warmed, we ought not to pass on, but to stop and follow up the spirit which is stirring in us, and when we feel it no longer then to pursue our reading.
5. To begin and end well, devotion to our Blessed Lady, the Mother of God, is nothing less than indispensable.
6. We have no time to go to sleep here, for Paradise was not made for poltroons.
7. We must have confidence in God, who is what He always has been, and we must not be disheartened because things turn out contrary to us.
8. Men should not change from a good state of life to another, although it may be better, without taking grave counsel.
9. Let every one stay at home, that is, within himself, and sit in judgment on his own actions, without going abroad to investigate and criticise those of others.
10. The true servants of God endure life and desire death.
11. There is not a finer thing on earth, than to make a virtue of necessity.
12. To preserve our cheerfulness amid sicknesses and troubles, is a sign of a right and good spirit.
13. A man should not ask tribulations of God, presuming on his being able to bear them: there should be the greatest possible caution in this matter, for he who bears what God sends him daily does not do a small thing.
14. They who have been exercised in the service of God for a long time, may in their prayers imagine all sorts of insults offered to them, such as blows, wounds, and the like, and so in order to imitate Christ by their charity, may accustom their hearts beforehand to forgive real injuries when they come.
15. Let us think of Mary, for she is that unspeakable virgin, that glorious lady, who conceived and brought forth, without detriment to her virginity, Him whom the width of the heavens cannot contain within itself.
16. The true servant of God acknowledges no other country but heaven.
17. When God infuses extraordinary sweetnesses into the soul, a man ought to prepare for some serious tribulation or temptation.
18. When we have these extraordinary sweetnesses, we ought to ask of God fortitude to bear whatever He may please to send us, and then to stand very much upon our guard, because there is danger of sin behind.
19. One of the most excellent means of obtaining perseverance is discretion; we must not wish to do everything at once, or become a saint in four days.
20. In our clothes we ought, like S. Bernard, to love poverty, but not filthiness.
21. He who wishes to advance in spirituality, should never slur over his defects negligently without particular examination of conscience, even independent of the time of sacramental confession.
22. A man should not so attach himself to the means as to forget the end; neither must we give ourselves so much to mortify the flesh as to forget to mortify the brain, which is the chief thing after all.
23. We ought to desire the virtues of prelates, cardinals, and popes, but not their dignities.
24. The skin of self-love is fastened strongly on our hearts, and it hurts us to flay it off, and the more we get down to the quick, the more keen and difficult it is.
25. This first step, which we ought to have taken of ourselves already, we have always in our mind, yet never put it in execution.
26. A man ought to set about putting his good resolutions in practice, and not change them lightly.
27. We must not omit our ordinary devotions for every trifling occasion that may come in the way, such as going to confession on our fixed days, and particularly hearing mass on week-days: if we wish to go out walking, or anything of that sort, let us make our confession, and perform our usual exercises first, and then go.
28. It is very useful for those who minister the word of God, or give themselves up to prayer, to read the works of authors whose names begin with S, such as Saint Augustine, Saint Bernard, &c.
29. Nothing more glorious can happen to a Christian, than to suffer for Christ.
30. There is no surer or clearer proof of the love of God than adversity.
31. When God intends to grant a man any particular virtue, it is His way to let him be tempted to the opposite vice.
SEPTEMBER
1. Persons who live in the world should persevere in coming to church to hear sermons, and remember to read spiritual books, especially the Lives of the Saints.
2. When temptation comes, a man should remember the sweetnesses he has had in prayer at other times, and he will thus easily master the temptation.
3. The fervour of spirituality is usually very great in the beginning, but afterwards, the Lord fingit se longius ire, makes as though He would go farther: in such a case we must stand firm and not be disturbed, because God is then withdrawing His most holy Hand of sweetnesses, to see if we are strong; and then, if we resist and overcome those tribulations and temptations, the sweetnesses and heavenly consolations return.
4. We ought to apply ourselves to the acquisition of virtue, because in the end the whole terminates in greater sweetnesses than before, and the Lord gives us back all our favours and consolations doubled.
5. It is easy to infuse a most fervent devotion into others, even in a short time; but the great matter is - to persevere.
6. He who continues in anger, strife, and a bitter spirit, has a taste of the air of hell.
7. To obtain the protection of our Blessed Lady in our most urgent wants, it is very useful to say sixty-three times, after the fashion of a Rosary, “Virgin Mary, Mother of God, pray to Jesus for me.”
8. When we make this prayer to our Blessed Lady, we give her every possible praise in the least possible compass, because we call her by her name of MARY, and give her those two great titles of Virgin, and Mother of God, and then name JESUS, the fruit of her most pure womb.
9. The things of this world do not remain constantly with us, for if we do not leave them before we actually die, in death at least we all infallibly depart as empty-handed as we came.
10. To pray well requires the whole man.
11. The discipline and other like things ought not to be practised without the leave of our confessor; he who does it of his own mind, will either hurt his constitution or become proud, fancying to himself that he has done some great thing.
12. God takes especial delight in the humility of a man who believes that he has not yet begun to do any good.
13. Before going to confession or taking counsel with our director, it will be very useful to pray for a sincere good will to become a really holy man.
14. He who runs away from one cross, will meet a bigger one on his road.
15. Christ died for sinners; we must take heart, therefore, and hope that Paradise will be ours, provided only we repent of our sins, and do good.
16. Never let a sick man set himself to reason with the devil, otherwise he will inevitably be taken in; let him appeal to his ghostly father, of whom the devil stands in mortal fear.
17. He who serves God must do the best he can not to receive the reward of his labours in this world.
18. In giving alms to the poor we must act as good ministers of the Providence of God.
19. He who feels that the vice of avarice has got hold of him, should not wish to observe fasts of supererogation, but to give alms.
20. Perfection cannot be attained without the greatest toil.
21. As soon as we are stripped of the sordid garb of avarice, we shall be clothed with the royal and imperial vest of the opposite virtue, liberality.
22. Even in the midst of the crowd we can be going on to perfection.
23. Not everything which is better in itself is better for each man in particular.
24. Be devout to the Madonna, keep yourself from sin, and God will deliver you from your evils.
25. If we wish to keep peace with our neighbours, we should never remind any one of his natural defects.
26. We must sometimes bear with little defects in others, as we have against our own will to bear with natural defects in ourselves.
27. Men of rank ought to dress like their equals, and be accompanied by servants, as their state requires, but modesty should go along with it all.
28. We should not be quick at correcting others, but rather to think of ourselves first.
29. Let us think, if we only got to heaven, what a sweet and easy thing it will be there to be always saying with the angels and the saints, Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus.
30. The best way to prepare for death is to spend every day of life as though it were the last.
OCTOBER
1. In passing from a bad state to a good one there is no need of counsel, but in passing from a good one to a better, time, counsel, and prayer must go to the decision.
2. We must continually pray to God for the conversion of sinners, thinking of the joy there is in heaven both to God and the angels in the conversion of each separate sinner.
3. To speak of ourselves without cause, saying, “I have said,” “I have done,” incapacitates us for receiving spiritual consolations.
4. We ought to desire to be in such a condition as to want sixpence, and not be able to get it.
5. Let us despise gold, silver, jewels, and all that the blind and cheated world vainly and ignorantly prizes.
6. Let us learn here below to give God the confession of praise which we ought to hope to give Him in heaven above.
7. He who wishes to go to Paradise must be an honest man and a good Christian, and not give heed to dreams.
8. Fathers and mothers of families should bring up their children virtuously, looking at them rather as God’s children than their own; and to count life and health, and all they possess, as loans which they hold of God.
9. In saying the Pater Noster, we ought to reflect that we have God for our Father in heaven, and so go on making a sort of meditation of it word by word.
10. To make ourselves disaffected to the things of the world, it is a good thing to think seriously of the end of them, saying to ourselves, “And then? And then?”
11. The devil, who is a most haughty spirit, is never more completely mastered than by humility of heart, and a simple, clear, undisguised manifestation of our sins and temptations to our confessor.
12. We ought not ordinarily to believe prophecies or to desire them, because it is possible there may be many deceits and snares of the devil therein.
13. It is a most useful thing, when we see another doing any spiritual good to his neighbour, to seek by prayer to have a part in that same good which the Lord is working by the hand of another.
14. At communion we ought to ask for the remedy of the vice to which we feel ourselves most inclined.
15. To him who truly loves God, nothing more displeasing can happen than the lack of occasion to suffer for Him.
16. We ought to hate no one, for God never comes where there is no love of our neighbours.
17. We must accept our own death and that of our relations when God shall send it to us, and not desire it at any other time; for it is sometimes necessary that it should happen at that particular moment for the good of our own and their souls.
18. The perfection of a Christian consists in knowing how to mortify himself for the love of Christ.
19. He who desires ecstasies and visions does not know what he is desiring.
20. As for those who run after visions, dreams, and the like, we must lay hold of them by the feet and pull them to the ground by force, lest they should fall into the devil’s net.
21. According to the rules of the fathers and ancient monks, whoever wishes to advance in perfection must hold the world in no reputation.
22. There is nothing more displeasing to God, than our being inflated with self-esteem.
23. When a man knows how to break down his own will and to deny his soul what it desires, he has got a good degree in virtue.
24. When a man falls into any bodily infirmity, he must lie and think, and say, “God has sent me this sickness, because He wishes something of me; I must therefore make up my mind to change my life and become better.”
25. When a man has a tribulation sent him from God, and is impatient, we may say to him, “You are not worthy that God should visit you; you do not deserve so great a good.”
26. Poverty and tribulations are given us by God as trials of our fidelity and virtue, as well as to enrich us with more real and lasting riches in heaven.
27. Scruples ought to be most carefully avoided, as they disquiet the mind, and make a man melancholy.
28. Let us throw ourselves into the arms of God, and be sure that if He wishes anything of us, He will make us good for all He desires us to do for Him.
29. Nothing helps a man more than prayer.
30. Idleness is a pestilence to a Christian man; we ought always therefore to be doing something, especially when we are alone in our rooms, lest the devil should come in and catch us idle.
31. We ought always to be afraid, and never put any confidence in ourselves; for the devil assaults us on a sudden, and darkens our understanding; and he who does not live in fear is overcome in a moment, because he has not the help of the Lord.
NOVEMBER
1. The great thing is to become saints.
2. In order to enter Paradise we must be well justified and well purified.
3. Let the young man look after the flesh, and the old man after avarice, and we shall all be saints together.
4. Where there is no great mortification there is no great sanctity.
5. The sanctity of a man lies in the breadth of three fingers, (the forehead,) that is to say, in mortifying the understanding, which would fain reason upon things.
6. He who really wishes to become a saint must never defend himself, except in a few rare cases, but always acknowledge himself in fault, even when what is alleged against him is untrue.
7. What we know of the virtues of the saints is the least part of them.
8. The relics of the saints ought to be venerated, and we may laudably keep them in our room; but it is not well, unless for some grave occasion, to wear them on our persons, because it will often happen then that they are not treated with all the respect which is becoming.
9. The old patriarchs possessed riches, and had wives and children, but they lived without defiling their affections with these things, although they possessed them, because they only allowed themselves the use of them, and were ready to abandon them in whatever way the Majesty of God might require of them.
10. We ought to pray God importunately to increase in us every day the light and heat of his goodness.
11. It is an old custom with the servants of God always to have some little prayers ready, and to be darting them up to heaven frequently during the day, lifting their minds to God from out of the filth of this world. He who adopts this plan will get great fruit with little pains.
12. Tribulations, if we bear them patiently for the love of God, appear bitter at first, but they grow sweet, when one gets accustomed to the taste.
13. The man who loves God with a true heart, and prizes him above all things, sometimes sheds floods of tears at prayer, and has in abundance of favours and spiritual feelings coming upon him with such vehemence, that he is forced to cry out, “Lord! let me be quiet!”
14. But a man ought not to seek for these sweetnesses and sensible devotions forcibly, for he will be easily deluded by the devil, and will run a risk of injuring his health.
15. When the soul lies resignedly in the hands of God, and is contented with the divine pleasure, it is in good hands, and has the best security that good will happen to it.
16. To be entirely conformed and resigned to the Divine Will, is truly a road in which we cannot get wrong, and is the only road which leads us to taste and enjoy that peace which sensual and earthly men know nothing of.
17. Resignation is all in all to the sick man; he ought to say to God, “Lord, if You want me, here I am, although I have never done any good: do with me what You will.”
18. Never make a noise of any sort in church, except for the greatest necessity.
19. Patience is necessary for the servant of God, and we must not be distressed at trouble, but wait for consolation.
20. When seculars have once chosen their secular state, let them persevere in it, and in the devout exercises which they have begun, and in their works of charity, and they shall have contentment at their death.
21. The vocation to the religious life is one of the great benefits which the Mother of God obtains from her Son for those who are devoted to her.
22. There is nothing more dangerous in the spiritual life, than to wish to rule ourselves after our own way of thinking.
23. Among the things we ought to ask of God, is perseverance in well-doing and in serving the Lord; because, if we only have patience, and persevere in the good life we have begun to lead, we shall acquire a most eminent degree of spirituality.
24. He is perfect in the school of Christ who despises being despised, rejoices in self-contempt, and accounts himself to be very nothingness.
25. The way which God takes with the souls that love him, by allowing them to be tempted and to fall into tribulations, is a true espousal between Himself and them.
26. In temptations of the flesh, a Christian ought to have immediate recourse to God, make the sign of the cross over his heart three times, and say, “Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me.”
27. As to temptations, some are mastered by flying from them, some by resisting them, and some by despising them.
28. In order to acquire prudence, and to make a good judgment, we must have lived long and been intimate with many people.
29. It is a great perfection in a heart when it is discreet and does not overstep the limits of convenience and what is befitting.
30. We must seek Christ where Christ is not, that is, in crosses and tribulations, in which truly He is not now, but we shall find Him in glory by this road.
DECEMBER
1. Frequent confession is the cause of great good to the soul, because it purifies it, heals it, and confirms it in the service of God: we ought not therefore to omit confession on our fixed days for any business whatsoever; but go to confession first, and to business afterwards, and the first will help the last.
2. When we go to confession, we ought to persuade ourselves to find Jesus Christ in the person of our confessor.
3. Give me ten men really detached from the world, and I have the heart to believe I could convert the world with them.
4. He who communicates often, as he ought to do, brings forth good fruit, the fruit of humility, the fruit of patience, the fruit of all the virtues.
5. Penitents ought not to go to confession for temporal ends, to get alms and the like.
6. We ought to make no account of an immodest person, notwithstanding that he may possess other virtues.
7. The Holy Spirit says of prelates and pastors, He who hears and obeys his superiors, hears and obeys Me, and he who despises them, despises and disobeys Me.
8. If the servant of God would fain walk with more security through so many snares scattered in every place, he should have our Blessed Lady as his mediatrix with her Son.
9. The sick man may desire to get well, provided he seals his desire always with an “If it please God,” “If it is good for my soul;” for we can do many good things in health, which sickness hinders us from doing.
10. In sickness we ought to ask God to give us patience, because it often happens, that when a man gets well, he not only does not do the good he proposed to do when he was sick, but he multiplies his sins and his ingratitude.
11. The mole is a blind rat, which always stays in the ground; it eats earth, and hollows it out, but is never satisfied with it: so is the avaricious man or woman.
12. Penitents should never make vows without the advice of their spiritual fathers.
13. If we do make such vows, it is best to make them conditionally: for example, “I make a vow to have two masses said on S. Lucy’s day, with this bargain, If I can, If I do not forget it, because if I do not remember it I do not wish to be bound.”
14. When a man has to buy anything, he ought not to do so because he is moved by an attachment to the thing, but from want and necessity; for it will never do to buy attachments.
15. Certain little voluntary attachments of self-love must be cut through, and then we must dig round them, and then remove the earth, till we get down deep enough to find the place where they are rooted and interlaced together.
16. A person must be ready to endure, when through a virtuous motive he is mortified by others, and even when God permits him to be in bad odour with others, and regarded and driven away as an infected sheep.
17. Our enemy the devil, who fights with us in order to vanquish us, seeks to disunite us in our houses, and to breed quarrels, dislikes, contests, and rivalries, because while we are fighting with each other, he comes and conquers us, and makes us more securely his own.
18. He who does not think on the benefits he receives from God in this life, and on those greater ones his mercy has prepared in that other life of bliss, does not nourish love to God, but chills and freezes it.
19. If a soul could altogether abstain from venial sins, the greatest pain it could have would be to be detained in this life, so great would its desire be of union with God.
20. In the persecutions which bad men excite against piety and devotion, we must keep our eyes on God, whom we serve, and on the testimony of a good conscience.
21. How patiently Christ, the King and Lord of heaven and earth, bore with the apostles, enduring at their hands many incivilities and misbeliefs, they being but poor and rough fishermen! How much more ought we to bear with our neighbour, if he treats us with incivility.
22. We must give ourselves to God altogether.
23. God makes all his own the soul that is wholly given to him.
24. It is as a general rule a bad sign when a man has not a particular feeling of devotion on the chief feasts of the year.
25. Let us reflect that the Word left heaven, and stooped to become man for us.
26. Besides pardoning those who persecute us, we ought to feel pity for the delusion they are labouring under.
27. To one who really loves God, there is nothing more harassing or burdensome than life.
28. Let young men be cheerful, and indulge in the recreations proper to their age, provided they keep out of the way of sin.
29. Not to know how to deny our soul its own wishes, is to foment a very hot-bed of vices.
30. All created things are liberal, and show the goodness of the Creator: the sun scatters its light, the fire its heat; the tree throws out its arms, which are its branches, and reaches to us the fruit it bears: water, and air, and all nature express the liberality of the Creator, and we, who are his lively image, do not represent him, but through our degenerate manners deny Him in deeds while we are confessing Him with our mouths.
31. The hour is finished - we may say the same of the year; but the time to do good is not finished yet.
THE END.
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| 80% of receipts at major store chains contain "toxic" chemicals, report says |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-23-2023, 06:22 AM - Forum: Health
- No Replies
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80% of receipts at major store chains contain "toxic" chemicals, report says
CBS News | March 24, 2023
The majority of receipts at the nation's biggest store and restaurant chains contain "toxic chemicals" such as bisphenol A, or BPA, according to new research.
About 80% of receipts from 144 major chain stores in 22 U.S. states and Washington, D.C., contained bisphenols, the analysis from the Ecology Center, a nonprofit environmental health organization. BPA, a chemical used in the production of polycarbonate plastics, as well as bisphenol S, or BPS, were detected on receipts from retailers such as Walmart and restaurants including McDonald's, the study found.
"Receipts are a common exposure route for hormone-disrupting bisphenols which readily absorb through the skin. Our studies show most retailers use bisphenol-coated receipt paper," Melissa Cooper Sargent, environmental health advocate at the Ecology Center, said in a statement. "Switching to non-toxic paper is an easy shift."
Health risks unclear
BPA is known to affect the reproductive systems of laboratory animals, but the impact on human health requires more research, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The chemical has been found in the urine of almost all people who were tested by the CDC, with the agency noting that this indicates "widespread exposure to BPA" among Americans.
Some retailers have pledged to switch to receipt paper that is made without the chemicals, with Walgreens earlier this month announcing that it plans to switch to phenol-free paper receipts — paper made without phenol-based chemicals like BPA or BPS — at its 9,000 locations by the end of 2023.
Walmart and McDonald's didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.
The study noted that the share of retailers and other chains that are using receipts that contain BPA or BPS has declined since it last tested for the chemicals, decreasing from 93% in 2017 to 80% now.
Some retailers' receipts didn't include the chemicals in the latest round of testing, including those used at Best Buy, Costco, Culver's, CVS, H&M, Starbucks and Target, among others.
Don't ask for a receipt, if possible
The Ecology Center recommends that consumers decline printed receipts when possible, or wash their hands after taking a receipt. It also said shoppers can fold the receipt with the printed side in, since the backside of the paper typically isn't coated with the chemicals.
It also recommended that babies and children should not touch receipts.
Workers should wear disposable gloves while handling receipts, and wash and dry their hands before eating or changing the receipt rolls, the group recommended.
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| Bill Gates Issues Predictions About 2024 Elections, Next Pandemic, AI |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-22-2023, 07:37 AM - Forum: General Commentary
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Bill Gates Issues Predictions About 2024 Elections, Next Pandemic, Artificial Intelligence
![[Image: FotoJet_18.jpeg?ezimgfmt=ng%3Awebp%2Fngc...%2Frscb1-1]](https://resistthemainstream.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/FotoJet_18.jpeg?ezimgfmt=ng%3Awebp%2Fngcb1%2Frs%3Adevice%2Frscb1-1)
DFID - UK Department for International Development, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons, Cropped by Resist the Mainstream
resistthemainstream.com | December 21, 2023
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates published a blog post on Tuesday sharing his predictions for 2024, paying special regard to the transformative potential of artificial intelligence (AI) and the pivotal role of the 2024 elections in shaping health and climate policies.
Gates emphasized the significant advancements in AI this year, highlighting its increasing application across various sectors. He stressed that AI’s role is becoming clearer in improving access to education, mental health and more.
Gates expressed concern about ensuring that AI contributes to reducing global inequities rather than exacerbating them. He noted the rapid development of AI in creating new medicines, significantly speeding up drug discovery processes. Experts are currently exploring AI’s potential in combating antibiotic resistance, managing high-risk pregnancies, assessing HIV risk and making medical information more accessible to health workers.
“This is an exciting and confusing time, and if you haven’t figured out how to make the best use of AI yet, you are not alone,” Gates wrote. “I thought I would use AI tools for the foundation’s strategy reviews this year, which require reading hundreds of pages of briefing materials that an AI could accurately summarize for me. But old habits are hard to break, and I ended up preparing for them the same way I always do.”
Gates also provided extensive coverage of the purportedly humanitarian efforts of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to address malnutrition and provide vaccines to the third world, among other public health initiatives.
Regarding the 2024 elections, Gates predicted they would mark a turning point for health and climate. He warned that the decisions of elected leaders would critically determine progress in these areas. Gates also highlighted the importance of national elections in countries like the United States, India and South Africa, emphasizing their significant impact on the world’s future.
“Citizens from nearly 60 countries will head to the polls next year to elect leaders at all levels of government,” Gates said. “Those countries are home to more than 4 billion people — or more than half of the world’s population. It’s staggering to think about.”
Without endorsing particular candidates or parties in these upcoming elections, Gates espoused a cosmopolitan message, encouraging voters to elect candidates who have an international approach to the issues of the day.
“If I could make one wish for all the people headed to the polls next year — no matter where they live — it would be for them to consider electing leaders who understand the importance of investing in human development around the world,” he added. “History has proven time and time again that, when governments choose to engage with and help people outside their borders, the entire world benefits.”
Gates also touched on the advancements in energy production, particularly in nuclear power, despite environmental objections. He mentioned a recent pledge by the United States and other countries to triple global nuclear energy capacity by 2050. Gates argued that nuclear power is likely necessary to meet the world’s growing energy needs while eliminating carbon emissions. He emphasized the next decade as crucial for upgrading electric grids and improving power transmission, calling the next five years critical for realizing the full potential of clean electricity generation.
Concluding his predictions, Gates expressed disappointment that the world is not as prepared for the next pandemic as he had hoped, despite the lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic. He urged policymakers to prioritize pandemic preparedness before it’s too late.
“Now is the time for policymakers to prioritize pandemic preparedness before it is too late,” Gates concluded.
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| "It's Like Martial Law" – Poland's Pro-EU Govt Seizes Public News Channels |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-22-2023, 07:30 AM - Forum: Global News
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NB: Interesting as one week ago the Poles elected a new pro-EU Prime Minister, Donald Tusk, and the nationalist party in power for the last eight years was voted out.
"It's Like Martial Law" – Poland's Pro-EU Govt Seizes Public News Channels In Massive Police Raid
![[Image: 2023-12-21_17-00-54.jpg?itok=TL1GAwcK]](https://assets.zerohedge.com/s3fs-public/styles/inline_image_mobile/public/inline-images/2023-12-21_17-00-54.jpg?itok=TL1GAwcK)
ZH [adapted] | DEC 22, 2023 - 05:00 AM
Authored by Grzegorz Adamczyk via ReMix News,
Poland’s public television news stations went off the air yesterday as police conducted massive raids to seize public news station TVP, with fears becoming realized that Prime Minister Donald Tusk would move quickly to crack down on press freedoms once he assumed power.
A group of senior Law and Justice (PiS) politicians, including party leader Jarosław Kaczyński and former Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, arrived at the headquarters of state-run TV broadcaster TVP on Wednesday afternoon as the new pro-EU government moved to seize control of state-run press in dramatic authoritarian fashion.
Both Morawiecki and Kaczyński said the government’s decision to replace public media chiefs resembled a “coup d’état” and an illegal “takeover by force.”
Kaczyński told reporters that the Law and Justice (PiS) party stood in defense of democracy and a “pluralistic media.”
PiS politicians compared the action to the introduction of martial law in Poland in 1981 in the sense that the government then also shut down TV programs and dismissed scores of journalists.
There was outrage too at an incident in which a female MP from PiS was assaulted by one of the bodyguards who assisted the new chairman of the TVP Board in taking over an office at TVP.
Former Education Minister Przemysław Czarnek said that “this is the most brutal taking of power ever in the EU, with the government using force, assaulting MPs and shutting down media they do not like.”
Meanwhile, Culture Minister Bartłomiej Sienkiewicz told the left-liberal Gazeta Wyborcza paper that the protest “will achieve nothing.”
Earlier in the day, the government informed that the culture minister had relieved the CEOs of TVP, Polish Radio and the Polish Press Agency (PAP) of their duties, and also dismissed the boards of directors of these outlets. Sienkiewicz has appointed new boards of directors for TVP, Polish Radio and PAP, which in turn have appointed new executive boards, the Ministry of Culture added in its statement.
It also said that the “necessity and justification” for the move flowed from Tuesday’s resolution by the Polish parliament, which called on the government to “restore the impartiality and credibility of public media.”
Protests continued outside TVP’s headquarters in Warsaw throughout Wednesday.
The journalists stopped from having their programs broadcast have been hosted by the independent channel TV Republika, and they are planning to start broadcasting from there starting Thursday.
Read more here....
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| Denouncements of Fiducia Supplicans |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-22-2023, 05:10 AM - Forum: Vatican II and the Fruits of Modernism
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Abp. Viganò: Bergoglio’s approval of blessings for homosexual ‘couples’ shows he is a servant of Satan
Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò has stated the Vatican’s newly approved blessings for homosexuals ‘couples’ shows that the ‘Bergoglian hierarchy’ are ‘servants of Satan and his most zealous allies.’
![[Image: Screen_Shot_2018-10-19_at_9.28.23_AM.jpg]](https://www.lifesitenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Screen_Shot_2018-10-19_at_9.28.23_AM.jpg)
Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò
don Elvir Tabaković, Can.Reg
Dec 21, 2023
(LifeSiteNews [emphasis mine]) — When the devil tries to persuade us to sin, he emphasizes the supposed good of the evil action he wants us to do, while overshadowing the aspects that are necessarily contrary to God’s commandments. He does not say to us: Sin and offend the Lord who died for you on the Cross, because he knows that a normal person does not want evil in itself, but that he usually does evil under the appearance of good.
This strategy of deception invariably recurs. To induce a mother to have an abortion, Satan does not ask her to be pleased with the killing of the child she is carrying, but to think about the consequences of pregnancy, the fact that she will lose her job, or that she is too young and inexperienced to raise and educate a child; and it almost seems that that mother, by making herself a murderer through infanticide, shows a sense of responsibility in wanting to spare the innocent creature a life without love. In order to convince a man into adultery, the tempting spirit shows him the supposed advantages of finding an outlet in an extramarital affair, all to the benefit of peace in the family. To urge a priest to accept the heretical deviations of his superiors, he emphasizes obedience to authority and the preservation of ecclesial communion.
These deceptions obviously serve to drag souls away from God, to erase grace in them, to stain them with sin, to obscure their conscience in such a way that the next fall is all the more casual the more serious it is. In a way, the action of the devil is expressed as the “Overton window,” making the offense against God less horrible, making us believe that the punishment that awaits us is less terrible, and the consequences of our guilt more acceptable.
The Lord is good: He forgives everyone, He whispers to us, taking care to keep us away from the thought of Christ’s Passion, from the fact that every blow of the scourge, every slap, every thorn stuck in His head, every nail driven into His flesh is the fruit of our sins. And then, if you give in to temptation, it’s not your fault, it’s your frailty. And once sunk, sin after sin, in the habit of evil and vice, the soul allows itself to be dragged lower and lower, until the devil’s request presents itself in all its horror: Rebel against God, reject Him, blaspheme Him, hate Him because He has deprived you of your right to happiness with oppressive precepts.
This, on closer inspection, is the recurring element in temptation, ever since Adam’s sin: to show evil under false appearances of good, and good as an annoying obstacle to the fulfillment of one’s rebellious will.
The Church, who is our Mother, knows well how dangerous it is for a Christian soul to ignore this infernal strategy. Confessors, spiritual directors, and preachers considered it essential to explain to the faithful how the devil acts, so that they might understand with their intellect the fraud of the evil one, so as to be able to oppose it with their will, aided in this by assiduity in prayer and frequent use of the sacraments. On the other hand, how could we imagine a mother who encourages her child not to progress in God’s love, and who reassures him that the Lord will grant him salvation unconditionally? What mother would witness the ruin of her child, without trying to warn him and even punish him, so that he understands the gravity of his actions and does not harm himself for eternity?
The delirious Declaration Fiducia Supplicans, recently published by the parody of the former Holy Office renamed the Dicastery, definitively pierces the veil of hypocrisy and deception of the Bergoglian hierarchy, showing these false shepherds for what they really are: servants of Satan and his most zealous allies, beginning with the usurper who sits – an abomination of desolation – on the Throne of Peter. The very incipit of the document sounds, like all those issued by Bergoglio, mocking and deceptive: because trust in God’s forgiveness without repentance is called the presumption of salvation without merit and is a sin against the Holy Spirit.
The false pastoral solicitude of Bergoglio and his courtiers with regard to adulterers, concubinaries, and sodomites should be denounced first of all by the presumed beneficiaries of the Vatican document, who are the first victims of sulphureous conciliar and synodal pharisaism. It is their immortal soul that is sacrificed to the woke idol, because on the day of the Particular Judgment they will discover that they have been deceived and betrayed by those who on Earth hold the authority of Christ. The fault that the Lord will accuse these unfortunate people of will not only concern the sins committed, but also and above all in having wanted to believe in a diabolical lie, in a fraud of false pastors – starting with Bergoglio and Tucho – that conscience had shown them as such. A lie that many members of the hierarchy want to believe, who hope sooner or later to be able to receive the same blessing together with their accomplices in vice, ratifying that sacrilegious and sinful lifestyle that they already practice, and with the ostentatious consent of Bergoglio.
The fact that Tucho Fernández’s declaration approved by Bergoglio reiterates that blessing an irregular couple ought not to seem like a form of wedding rite, and that marriage is only between a man and a woman, is part of the strategy of deception. For what is at issue here is not whether marriage can be contracted by two men or two women, but whether persons living in a gravely sinful state can merit, as an irregular couple, a blessing imparted by a deacon or a priest, with the sole precaution that it is not to give the impression of being a liturgical celebration.
The attention of the Vatican Sanhedrin is entirely directed to reassuring the Christian people that they have no intention of formalizing new forms of marriage, while the state of mortal sin and grave scandal of those who would receive such a blessing, and the danger of eternal damnation that weighs on those poor souls, is totally overlooked. Not to mention the social impact that this declaration will have on those who are not Catholic, and who thanks to it will consider themselves entitled to much worse excesses. One wonders whether, in this race to legitimize sodomy – obtained without going so far as to celebrate marriages between sodomites – there is a conflict of interest in those who propose it so insistently: it is as if rulers protected themselves with a legal shield against liability before imposing on the population an experimental gene serum about whose adverse effects they are not unaware.
There is no doubt about it: it is a rude awakening for the so-called conservatives, who find themselves blatantly mocked by Prefect Tucho, who worries that the blessing of a couple should not look like a marriage but has nothing to say about the intrinsic sinfulness of public concubinage and sodomy. The important thing is that the moderates – defenders of Vatican II – can consider themselves satisfied with that Jesuitical apostille (in this case that these spontaneous and non-ritual blessings are not a marriage) that is supposed to save the doctrine on the papacy while pushing souls to damn themselves.
For priests who do not agree to bless these unfortunate people, two paths are being prepared: the first, to be expelled from the parish or from the diocese ad nutum Pontificis; the second, to resign themselves to bartering their right to dissent in exchange for the recognition of the right of other confreres to approve; something already seen in the liturgical field with Summorum Pontificum. In short, Bergoglio’s operation is an outlet of the Faith, where you can find everything from the rites of pre-1955 Holy Week to LGBT “Eucharists,” as long as nothing is called into question about his “pontificate.”
Added to this is the scandal for Catholics, who, in the face of the horrors of the sect of Santa Marta, are tempted to embrace schism, or to abandon the Church. And again: with what bitterness and sense of disillusionment will those people regard Rome who, aware of their situation of objective irregularity, have sought and still seek with all their strength and with the grace of God not to sin and to live in conformity with the Commandments? How can those people feel who ask for a paternal voice that exhorts them to continue on the path of holiness, and not the ideological recognition of their vices that they know to be incompatible with natural morality?
Let us ask ourselves: what does Bergoglio want to achieve? Nothing good, nothing true, nothing holy. He does not want souls to be saved; he does not proclaim the Gospel opportunely, importunately to call souls to Christ; he does not show them the scourged and bloodied Savior to spur them on to change their lives. No. Bergoglio wants their damnation, as an infernal tribute to Satan and a brazen challenge to God.
But there is a more immediate and simple purpose to be achieved: to provoke Catholics to turn away from his church and leave him free to turn it into the concubine of the New World Order. Women priests, gay blessings, sexual and financial scandals, the immigration business, forced vaccination campaigns, gender ideology, neo-Malthusian environmentalism, the tyrannical management of power are the tools with which to scandalize the faithful, to disgust those who do not believe, to discredit the Church and the papacy. Whatever happens, Bergoglio has already achieved his goal, which is the premise for securing the consent of heretics and fornicators who recognize him as Pope, ousting any critical voice.
If this document, together with other more or less official pronouncements, really had as its purpose the good of adulterers, concubinaries, and sodomites, it should have pointed out to them the heroism of Christian witness, reminded them of the self-sacrifice that Our Lord asks of each one of us, and taught them to put their trust in God’s grace in order to overcome trials and live in conformity with His Will. On the contrary, he encourages them, blesses them as irregular, as if they were not; but at the same time he deprives them of marriage, and in this way admits that they are irregular. Bergoglio does not ask them to change their lives, but authorizes a grotesque farce in which two men or two women will be able to appear before a minister of God to be blessed, together with their relatives and friends, and then celebrate this sinful union with a banquet, the cutting of the cake, and gifts. But it’s not a wedding, let’s be clear…
I wonder what’s going to prevent this blessing from being imparted not to a couple, but to several people, in the name of polyamory; or to minors, in the name of the sexual freedom that the globalist elite is introducing through the U.N. and other subversive international organizations. Will it suffice to point out that the Church does not approve of polygamous unions and pedophilia to allow polygamists and pedophiles to be blessed? And why not extend this gimmick to those who practice bestiality? It would always be in the name of welcoming, integration, inclusiveness.
The same diabolical falsification is taking place for women priests. If, on the one hand, the Synod on Synodality did not address the ordination of women, on the other hand, a form of “non-ordained ministry” is already being planned that would allow them to preside over spurious celebrations under the pretext that there are no more priests and deacons. Also in this case, the faithful see on the altar a woman in an alb reading the Gospel, preaching, distributing Communion, just as a priest would do, but without being one. It is done with the Vatican footnote that it is a ministry that does not call into question the Catholic priesthood.
The hallmark of the conciliar and synodal church, of this sect of rebels and perverts, is falsehood and hypocrisy. Its purpose is intrinsically evil, because it takes away God’s honor, exposes souls to the danger of damnation, prevents them from doing good, and encourages them to do evil. Those in the Bergoglian church who continue to follow the doctrine and precepts of the Catholic Church are out of place and sooner or later will end up separating themselves from it or giving in.
The Catholic Church is the only ark through which the Lord has ordained the salvation and sanctification of mankind. Wherever what appears to be the church acts and works for mankind’s damnation, it is not the Church, but rather her blasphemous counterfeit. The same is true of the papacy, which providence willed as a bond of charity in truth, and not as an instrument to divide, scandalize, and damn souls.
Quote:[This is what Archbishop Lefebvre said many times, for example:
“What could be clearer? We must henceforth obey and be faithful to the Conciliar Church, no longer to the Catholic Church. Right there is our whole problem: we are suspended a divinis by the Conciliar Church, the Conciliar Church, to which we have no wish to belong! That Conciliar Church is a schismatic church because it breaks with the Catholic Church that has always been. It has its new dogmas, its new priesthood, its new institutions, its new worship… The Church that affirms such errors is at once schismatic and heretical. This Conciliar Church is, therefore, not Catholic. To whatever extent Pope, Bishops, priests, or the faithful adhere to this new church, they separate themselves from the Catholic Church.” (Archbishop Lefebvre, Reflections on his suspension a divinis, July 29, 1976) - The Catacombs]
I exhort all those who have been awarded the dignity of cardinal, my brothers in the episcopate, priests, clerics, and faithful to oppose most firmly this mad race towards the abyss to which a sect of renegade apostates would like to force us. I implore the bishops and ministers of God – by the Most Holy Wounds of Our Lord Jesus Christ – not only to raise their voices to defend the immutable teaching of the Church and to condemn deviations and heresies, under whatever appearance they may appear; but also to warn the faithful and prevent these sacrilegious blessings in their dioceses. The Lord will judge us on the basis of His holy law, and not on the pharisaic seductions of those who serve the enemy.
+ Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop
December 20, 2023
Feria IV Quattuor Temporum Adventus
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| Another historic Catholic church in Canada burned down in ‘suspicious’ fire |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-19-2023, 06:43 AM - Forum: Anti-Catholic Violence
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Another historic Catholic church in Canada burned down in ‘suspicious’ fire
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police are searching for a suspect in the fire that destroyed St. Gabriel Catholic Mission in northern Alberta.
![[Image: Church-fire.png]](https://www.lifesitenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Church-fire.png)
St. Gabriel Catholic Mission in northern Alberta was burned to the ground.
Facebook
Dec 18, 2023
(LifeSiteNews - adapted/not all hyperlinks included) – Yet another historic Catholic church in northern Canada has been reduced to ashes in an “suspicious” case of suspected arson, with police confirming they are actively looking for suspects seen fleeing the scene.
On December 15, members of the Wood Buffalo Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) said they responded to a fire call in the community of Janvier, which is about 400 kilometers northeast of Alberta’s capital, Edmonton, and is located on the Chipewyan Prairie Dene First Nation.
Upon arrival, police said per a press release sent out Sunday that St. Gabriel Catholic Mission in Janvier was “fully engulfed in flames.”
Although the fire was eventually put out, the church was reduced to a pile of ashes.
RCMP says it’s looking for suspects seen fleeing in a silver sedan around the time the blaze started. No injuries were reported.
St. Gabriel Catholic Mission is in the Diocese of St. Paul, which is administered by Bishop Gary Franken, who told LifeSiteNews that the church destroyed was the original St. Gabriel Catholic Mission but that the newer church next to it was unharmed.
“The fire is considered suspicious,” Franken confirmed to LifeSiteNews.
“The church building destroyed by fire in Janvier was the unused ‘old’ church, which happens to be right beside the ‘new’ church that has been in use for a number of years. I was informed that the newer church was not damaged.”
Franken noted that there was talk that the “old” church was going to be used as a museum, but nothing was finalized. The church buildings belong to First Nations, Franken noted.
St. Gabriel is administered by St. John the Baptist parish of Fort McMurray, Alberta.
The St. John the Baptist pastor would say Mass once a month at the Janvier mission. LifeSiteNews contacted the St. John the Baptist pastor for comment about the fire but has not received a reply.
‘Enough is enough’ with church burnings, says First Nations councillor
According to councillor Shane Janvier of the Chipewyan Prairie Dene First Nation, the church burning is a suspected arson attack, and the fire is being investigated. He condemned the burnings, saying “Enough is enough.”
“The significance of this old church in the community, lots of celebrations at this church over the years, lots of weddings, lots of baptisms, this is a place where we’ve come to say our last respects to our loved ones and our ancestors. You know, myself personally, my first Holy Communion was at this church … enough’s enough,” Janvier said in a video posted to his Facebook page.
“We’ve gotta start looking out for one another as a community.”
Janvier said that if the community is “going to make statements that this is our land and we’re going to fight for this land, then we damn well better learn to respect our land.”
“That’s not respecting our community,” he stressed.
Janvier urged anyone with information about the fire to contact the RCMP.
The incident was also condemned by Conservative Party of Canada leader Pierre Poilievre.
“Saddened to hear of the loss of St. Gabriel Catholic Church in Janvier, Alberta in a suspicious fire. There is no place in Canada for acts of religious hatred or violence of any kind,” Poilievre posted Sunday on X (formerly Twitter).
The Janvier church burning is just the latest in a string of church burnings in Alberta and in Canada. Last week, LifeSiteNews reported on two historic Christian churches in Barrhead, Alberta, intentionally set on fire in what police said were suspected acts of arson.
Since the spring of 2021, well over 100 churches, most of them Catholic but all Christian, have been burned or vandalized across Canada. The attacks on the churches came shortly after the unconfirmed discovery of “unmarked graves” at now-closed residential schools once run by the Church in parts of the country.
In 2021 and 2022, the mainstream media ran with inflammatory and dubious claims that hundreds of children were buried and disregarded by Catholic priests and nuns who ran some of the schools.
Despite the church burnings, the federal government under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has done nothing substantial to bring those responsible to justice or to stem the root cause of the burnings.
Instead, a little over a month ago, Liberal and NDP Members of Parliament (MPs) struck down a Conservative Party of Canada motion that would have condemned incidents of church burnings and acts of vandalism.
In August 2022, LifeSiteNews reported about the destruction by fire of one of the oldest standing Catholic churches in Alberta. Police at the time said the fire was a “suspicious” incident.
Despite the massive number of church fires, Canadian Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez in May made a brazen suggestion that the recent slew of anti-Christian church burnings could be remedied through further “online” internet regulation.
RCMP are asking for anyone with information on the fires to call the Wood Buffalo RCMP at 780-788-4000 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477 (TIPS). Crime Stoppers tips are anonymous and can also be sent online at tipsubmit.com.
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| Pope approves blessings for same-sex couples |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-18-2023, 12:02 PM - Forum: Pope Francis
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NB: Deliberate or not, this document was released on the Feast of Our Lady's Expectation, which honors the fruitfulness of the Divine Maternity, and yet the Conciliar Church has chosen this date to celebrate instead the sterility associated with 'same-sex couples.'
“How can one avoid the conclusion: there where the Faith of the Church is, there also is Her sanctity, and there where the sanctity of the Church is, there is the Catholic Church. A Church which no longer brings forth good fruits, a Church which is sterile, is not the Catholic Church.” (Archbishop Lefebvre, Letter to Friends and Benefactors, September 8, 1978)
✠ ✠ ✠
Pope approves blessings for same-sex couples if they don’t resemble marriage
December 18, 2023
ROME (AP) — Pope Francis has formally approved allowing priests to bless same-sex couples, with a new document explaining a radical change in Vatican policy by insisting that people seeking God’s love and mercy shouldn’t be subject to “an exhaustive moral analysis” to receive it.
The document from the Vatican’s doctrine office, released Monday, elaborates on a letter Francis sent to two conservative cardinals that was published in October. In that preliminary response, Francis suggested such blessings could be offered under some circumstances if they didn’t confuse the ritual with the sacrament of marriage.
The new document repeats that condition and elaborates on it, reaffirming that marriage is a lifelong sacrament between a man and a woman. And it stresses that blessings in question must be non-liturgical in nature and should not be conferred at the same time as a civil union, using set rituals or even with the clothing and gestures that belong in a wedding.
But it says requests for such blessings for same-sex couples should not be denied full stop. It offers an extensive and broad definition of the term “blessing” in Scripture to insist that people seeking a transcendent relationship with God and looking for his love and mercy should not be subject to “an exhaustive moral analysis” as a precondition for receiving it.
“Ultimately, a blessing offers people a means to increase their trust in God,” the document said. “The request for a blessing, thus, expresses and nurtures openness to the transcendence, mercy, and closeness to God in a thousand concrete circumstances of life, which is no small thing in the world in which we live.”
He added: “It is a seed of the Holy Spirit that must be nurtured, not hindered.”
The Vatican holds that marriage is an indissoluble union between man and woman. As a result, it has long opposed same-sex marriage.
And in 2021, the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith said flat-out that the church couldn’t bless the unions of two men or two women because “God cannot bless sin.”
That document created an outcry, one it appeared even Francis was blindsided by even though he had technically approved its publication. Soon after it was published, he removed the official responsible for it and set about laying the groundwork for a reversal.
In the new document, the Vatican said the church must shy away from “doctrinal or disciplinary schemes, especially when they lead to a narcissistic and authoritarian elitism whereby instead of evangelizing, one analyzes and classifies others, and instead of opening the door to grace, one exhausts his or her energies in inspecting and verifying.”
It stressed that people in “irregular” unions — gay or straight — are in a state of sin. But it said that shouldn’t deprive them of God’s love or mercy.
“Thus, when people ask for a blessing, an exhaustive moral analysis should not be placed as a precondition for conferring it,” the document said.
The Rev. James Martin, who advocates for greater welcome for LGBTQ+ Catholics, praised the new document as a “huge step forward” and a “dramatic shift” from the Vatican’s 2021 policy.
The new document “recognizes the deep desire in many Catholic same-sex couples for God’s presence and help in their committed relationships,” he said in an email. “Along with many Catholic priests, I will now be delighted to bless my friends in same-sex marriages.”
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| Masonic cremation advances in the Conciliar Church |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-18-2023, 08:39 AM - Forum: Vatican II and the Fruits of Modernism
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Masonic cremation advances in the Conciliar Church
![[Image: B068-Cre-1.jpg]](https://traditioninaction.org/RevolutionPhotos/Images(B-001-100)/B068-Cre-1.jpg)
TIA [slightly adapted, emphasis in the original]| December 17, 2023
On May 8, 1963, Paul VI revoked Canon 1203 of the 1917 Code of Canon Law, which denied Catholic burial to those who would cremate their bodies. On July 5, 1963, he approved the Instruction Piam et constantem, which allowed Catholics to be cremated. Afterwards, it was rumored that he had been blackmailed by Freemasonry. According to that rumor, if he had not approved cremation, his homosexual past would have been revealed.
Real or not, what counts is that 1) he established cremation going against the entire tradition of the Catholic Church, and 2) his action strongly pleased Freemasonry.
In 1983, that wrong doctrine entered the New Code of Canon Law (canon 1176 § 3) promulgated by John Paul II.
For 33 years no other document was issued by the Vatican, and cremation was encouraged everywhere by progressivist local Bishops.
On October 25, 2016, Francis approved Ad resurgendum, a document by the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith reaffirming that cremation can be chosen for "sanitary, economic or social considerations." (§ 4) That is, it opened the door wide for all Catholics to use one or another of these excuses. Some restrictions remained such as the stipulation that the ashes should be deposited in a cemetery.
This week, on December 12, 2023, Francis took another step and gave his approval for the ashes – but "just a small portion" – to be deposited in "a place of significance" dear to deceased where he lived; the greater part should be laid to rest in "a sacred place."
Card. Victor Fernandez, head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, who signed the document, stipulates some restrictions: The ashes cannot be scattered "in the air, on land, at sea or in other way, nor may they be preserved in mementos, pieces of jewelry or other objects."
Seven years ago, Card. Muller, who wrote Ad resurgendum, also made restrictions on "Catholic cremation" that have been almost completely disregarded by Fernandez today. Why should those of Fernandez be taken more seriously than Muller's?
Who cannot see that the Conciliar Church is moving toward adopting the same tenets held by Freemasonry on cremation?
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| Fr. Chazal implies Archbishop Viganò has been conditionally re-consecrated |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-18-2023, 07:15 AM - Forum: Archbishop Viganò
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In Father Hewko's Sermon for December 16, 2023, he notes that a rumor has been started through a recent conference given by Fr. Chazal in the UK in November of 2023 that Archbishop Viganò has been conditionally re-consecrated (sub conditione), presumably by Bishop Williamson.
If this indeed did happen, it has still yet to be officially announced or confirmed by Archbishop Viganò or Bishop Williamson, which is interesting since it supposedly happened at least a month or more ago. Though arguably, that fact that Fr. Chazal gives this announcement in the UK, in Bishop Williamson's 'territory' if you will, it would seem as if Fr. Chazal spoke with Bishop Williamson's approval to announce this?
Thus, for now, it is simply a rumor. We await official confirmation.
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| St. Bernard of Clairvaux: Our Lady is the Universal Mediatrix |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-17-2023, 07:00 AM - Forum: Our Lady
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Our Lady Is the Universal Mediatrix
![[Image: ?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.hildrethmeiere.org%...ipo=images]](https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.hildrethmeiere.org%2Ffiles%2Fimages%2Fhildreth-meiere-fordham-university-church-altarpice-close-up.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=ab9889cae1c8f734f89478715d728ede790b36d940a9f9f4a4db89353c129bbb&ipo=images)
In the name of ecumenism, many Marian devotions, especially the doctrine of the universal mediation of Mary, have been put aside and silenced. It is good for us, therefore, to show how the opposite should be practiced and stressed by true Catholics, following the example of the great Saints of the past.
In his sermon for the Second Sunday of Advent, St. Bernard instructs the people “to go up to Jesus by Mary for Jesus came down to us by her.” It is the age-old doctrine of the Church, which has always honored the Virgin Mary as the Universal Mediatrix of all Graces.
St. Bernard of Clairvaux
A virgin shall conceive and bear a Son (Is &:14). ... It is now surely clear how the Virgin is the royal way by which the Savior has drawn near to us, coming forth from her virginal womb as a Bridegroom from His bridal chamber. Let us endeavor, therefore, to go up to Jesus by Mary, for Jesus came down to us by her. Let us seek His grace through her by whom He came to succor our need.
O blessed Finder of grace! O Mother of life! O Mother of salvation! May we through thee have access to thy Son. May He, who was given to us by thee, receive us by thee. May He admit thy purity and, for its sake, forgive our impurities. May He give us the pardon of our pride, because of the pleasure He took in thy humility. May thy abundant charity cover the multitude of our sins. May thy glorious fruitfulness get for us fruitfulness of merit.
Our Lady, our Mediatrix, our Advocate, reconcile us to thy Son, commend us to thy Son, present us to thy Son. O blessed Lady, through the grace thou hast found, through the prerogatives thou hast merited, through the mercy thou didst bring forth, grant us that by thy intercession, Jesus Who deigned to become, through thy maternity, partaker of our weakness and misery, may, through thy intercession, make us partakers of His glory and bliss.
Dom Gueranger, The Liturgical Year, Vol 1, Second Sunday after Advent, p 156
TIA | December 16, 2023
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| Sorrowful Heart of Mary Newsletter - Advent 2023 |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-15-2023, 01:53 PM - Forum: Sorrowful Heart of Mary
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Advent 2023
Dear Friends of Those Who Seek Our Lord’s Face, as the Shepherds and Magi did so eagerly,
Greetings and blessings in this holy Advent!
Once again, let us turn to Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre to clarify more ongoing drizzles of
confusion.
1. Error: “It’s time to give a green (or yellow) light to the Thuc line.”
Truth: Here’s Abp. Lefebvre’s answer about priests seeking consecration from the Thuc line: “Archbishop Lefebvre totally condemned their actions and warned all Catholics to have nothing to do with them. ‘They will bring ruination and scandal on the Church,’ the Archbishop replied, when asked his opinion of the scandal-ridden ‘consecrations’. Archbishop Lefebvre also stated the the actions of Ngo-Dinh-Thuc, the former Vietnamese Bishop who participated in the so-called ‘consecrations’ are quite questionable in view of the fact that he is the same individual responsible for the Palmar de Troya fiasco… Soon after the questionable ordinations, Bishop Ngo-Dinh-Thuc renounced his actions and published a letter saying that the ‘orders’ he had conferred were null and void because he had withheld his intention of conveying orders to the Palmar de Troya sect. Given his past performances, there is no reason to believe that his present fiasco is any more credible… Referring to Ngo-Dinh-Thuc, Archbishop Lefebvre said, ‘He seems to have lost all reason’.” (The Angelus, June, 1982. See also: thecatacombs.org).
2. Error: “It’s not 1988, so it’s time for seeking a canonical solution, a personal prelature, or unilateral recognition from Modernist Rome and we approved this by signing six conditions for the agreement, in 2012.”
Truth: To this illusion, Abp. Lefebvre said: “We must not be under any illusions. We are in the thick of a great fight, a great fight! We are fighting a fight guaranteed by a whole line of Popes. Hence, we should have no hesitation or fear, hesitation such as, ‘Why should we be going on our own? After all, why not join Rome, why not join the Pope?’ Yes, if Rome and the Pope were in line with Tradition, if they were carrying on the work of all the Popes of the 19th and first half of the 20th century, of course! But they themselves admit that they have set out on a new path. They themselves admit that a new era began with Vatican II. They admit that it is a new stage in the Church’s life, wholly new, based on new principles. We need not argue the point, they say it themselves. It is clear, we must drive this point home with our people, in such a way that they realize their oneness with the Church’s whole history, going back well beyond the Revolution. Of course. It is the Fight of the City-of-Satan against the City-of-God! Clearly! So we do not have to worry. We must after all trust in the grace of God.” (Abp. Lefebvre, September 6, 1990 Conference in Econe, Switzerland).
3. Error: “The New Mass gives grace. The New Mass can nourish your faith.”
Truth: Abp. Lefebvre answers in no uncertain terms: “These New Masses are not only incapable of fulfilling our Sunday obligation, but are such that we may apply to them the canonical rules which the Church customarily applies to [i]‘communicatio in sacris’ with Orthodox and Protestant sects.”[/i] (Conference, November 8, 1979). “It is all wasted because the holy Sacrifice of the Mass, desecrated as it is, no longer confers grace and no longer transmits it.” (Abp. Lefebvre, Open Letter to Confused Catholics, ch. 3).
4. Error: “We cannot reject the scientific evidence for the New Mass Eucharistic miracles.”
Truth: But Our Divine Lord Himself warns: “For there will rise up false Christs and false prophets, and they shall show signs and wonders, to seduce (if it were possible) even the elect.” (St. Mark 14:22). “It must be understood immediately that we do not hold to the absurd idea that if the New Mass is valid, we are free to assist at it. The Church has always forbidden the faithful to assist at the Masses of heretics and schismatics even when they are valid. It is clear that no one can assist at sacrilegious Masses or at Masses which endanger our Faith. All these innovations are authorized. One can fairly say without exaggeration that most of these [New] Masses are sacrilegious acts which pervert the Faith by diminishing it.” (Abp. Lefebvre, November 8, 1979).
5. Error: “This is not the time for seminaries. This is not the time for structure and organization.”
Truth: Abp. Lefebvre thought diametrically the opposite: “Our Lord wants Catholic priests, such as He Himself made! The pope cannot not want Catholic priests! The Church cannot not want Catholic priests!…Hence, it is wholly untrue to say that we are in danger of becoming a sect or schismatics. It is far otherwise. It is we who are most nearly in union with our Holy Father the Pope and with the Catholic Church!” (Sermon of Abp. Lefebvre, September 8, 1975 in Mariazell, Austria). “It is our bounden duty, though all unworthy, to fight for the honor of God, the Catholic Faith, and priestly renewal as integral and as vital for Holy Church.” (Abp. Lefebvre, Letter to Libre Belgique, August 21, 1975).
6. Error: “Batten down the hatches!”
Truth: “As for me, I will not resign; I will not content myself with being present, my arms dangling, at the death-throes of my Mother the Church ... .We have to fight more than ever for the Social Reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ! In this battle we are not alone: we have with us all the Popes up to Pius XII, inclusively. All of them combatted Liberalism in order to deliver the Church from it. God did not grant that they succeed, but this is no reason to lay down our weapons! We have to hold on. We have to build, while the others are demolishing. The crumbled citadels have to be rebuilt, the bastions of the Faith to be reconstructed: firstly, the holy Sacrifice of the Mass of all times, which forms saints; then, our chapels, which are our true parishes; our monasteries; our large families; our enterprises faithful to the social doctrine of the Church; our politicians determined to make the politics of Jesus Christ!" ( Abp. Lefebvre, They Have Uncrowned Him, ch. 34, p.250-251).
Abp. Lefebvre believed in the Catholic Resistance as a true movement of Catholics, faithful to Tradition and determined to rebuild from the ground up, relying totally on the grace of God and Our Lady of the Rosary! Despite the chaos of our times, we resist and fight in the line of all the great Popes, Bishops, priests and laymen who would not mix Liberalism with Catholicism!
“The Revolution is the legal negation of the Kingship of Christ on earth, it is the social destruction of the Church,” said Msgr. De Segura. The conniving of the enemies of Christ prevailed at the Second Vatican Council. It is the Revolution! The Catholic Resistance is chiefly to proclaim the Kingship of Christ, working for the re-construction of the Church at every level and tirelessly resist the Modernist errors destroying her! Fight on, little flock! Great will be your crown in Heaven!
“Blessed are ye when they shall revile you, and persecute you, and speak all that is evil against you, untruly, for My sake: be glad and rejoice, for your reward is very great in Heaven!” (St. Matthew 5:11).
In Christ the King,
Fr. David Hewko
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