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| The Dystopia Towards Which We Run |
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Posted by: Stone - 07-27-2023, 05:46 AM - Forum: General Commentary
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Book Review of Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, Easton Press, 1978, 237 pp.
Brave New World is considered a landmark for its startling depiction of a dystopian science fiction future that is ruled not by oppression, but by pleasure. Published in 1932 by Aldous Huxley, this book became a classic esteemed in literary circles for its writing as much as its warning.
Huxley wrote not what he saw as fantasy, but as the fruits of seeds beginning to sprout in his own time. A future depicting man totally conquered by his appetites once may have seemed a work of fiction; now in the 21st century it seems inevitable.
![[Image: A_079_Bnw.jpg]](https://www.traditioninaction.org/bkreviews/ImagesA/A_079_Bnw.jpg)
Huxley's dystopian classic
Garden of Earthly Delights
This is Huxley’s dystopia: a world of seemingly paradisiacal pleasures that has entirely abandoned morality and any sense of nobler things. In this future Humanity has decisively traded dignity for empty gratification.
It all begins with convenience. Having children is inconvenient, as are the sacrifices of being a mother or father. The hardships and travail involved with raising children naturally pose threats to a society predicated on ease of comfort and enjoyment. To bypass this, and ensure a steady stream of quality controlled “citizens,” humans are born in labs, created in test-tubes to conform to society by design and conditioned from the beginning to love their place.
From birth the psychological conditioning begins, refined by amoral science to trap children in a mental prison from which they may never escape their whole lives, captives to brainwashing tactics and doomed to exist as mere consumers and sexual objects.
Hyper-sexuality is the “norm” in this world. Children are sexualized from a young age to lose any possible sense of modesty or reservation. Promiscuity is touted as normal, even “healthy.” Any child showing reluctance to engage in such acts is seen as a grave problem and sent away for special conditioning. Prior generations are viewed as incomprehensibly prudish to have “denied” children their “fun.”
As adults the citizens of Huxley’s world are endless consumers, conditioned to use and discard a stream of tawdry products. To save is to damage economic prosperity. To make or maintain things of quality is to impoverish the workplace.
Every relationship is vapid and mediocre, an endless flitting between superficial gossip and prurient indulgences. Orgies are substituted for religion, the only pathetic “height” to which this future man can aspire is found in the glorification of the flesh. All crosses have been cut to resemble T’s, a worshipful reference to Henry Ford’s Model-T, the beginning of mass production and the efficient, pleasure driven, materialist society of the future. Religion is mocked as the superstition of savages.
![[Image: A_079_Gra.jpg]](https://www.traditioninaction.org/bkreviews/ImagesA/A_079_Gra.jpg)
The novel’s Soma mirrors today’s “feel-good” mentality intent on avoiding all pain
With the advances offered by a godless science, the man of the future lives in perfect health and youth until he is 60, giving him decades to enjoy the nearly endless torrent of fleshly delights. Finally, if any anxiety should surface to interfere with his pleasures, it is drowned out, deadened by a scientific “wonder drug” called Soma that leaves its user in a blissful stupor.
This is the Greatest Happiness principle applied and taken to its logical consequences: All that matters is the greatest amount of pleasure for the greatest number of people. No God, no spirit, no soul, no concept of sin, no hardships; the natural virtues of sacrifice, delayed gratification or heroism are not permitted. Pain is heresy: All bow and debase themselves on the altar of their bellies-made-god.
Death to Life
The inevitable byproduct of Huxley’s pleasure-world is a culture inimical to life itself.
One particularly abominable passage portrays what is called the “Malthusian Drill,” where girls are trained to instinctively, almost involuntarily, consume contraceptives at the slightest possibility of pregnancy. Any “mishap” is immediately aborted, and about 30% of girls are outright sterilized, made incapable of bearing life.
In this future monogamy is taboo. Dating the same person more than once is viewed by society with deep suspicion. Even the terms “mother” and “father” are considered obscene. Pleasure is viewed as existing for its own sake. The reader gets the impression that the denizens of Huxely’s World State are confused by the very idea of pregnancy, as if linking sexuality to childbearing was a bizarre, perhaps comical, contradiction of the way things “should” be.
Is Huxley’s world so different from ours?
This is the appalling future painted by Huxley in 1932. A world of the perpetually infantile: heedless of death, bound in the mental chains of conditioning, deliberately helpless, dependent on technological systems, and drowned in the pleasant oblivion of drugs, promiscuity and artificially generated music.
![[Image: A_079_Quo.jpg]](https://www.traditioninaction.org/bkreviews/ImagesA/A_079_Quo.jpg)
Huxley accurately foresaw a future of man willingly enslaved
![[Image: A_079_Pho.jpg]](https://www.traditioninaction.org/bkreviews/ImagesA/A_079_Pho.jpg)
Now let us consider the world in which we live: a society that intentionally renders its adults psychologically infantile, helplessly dependent on technology, educated and trained to approve what society conditions them to approve and to disdain, slaves to their bodily appetites, drowning in endless drugs and medication, trained from youth to see not only sexual promiscuity but even sexual “identity” as an ultimate right.
Ours is a society that forces the sexualization of children, laughs at motherhood, is disturbed by sacrifice, and sees pleasure as the ultimate good. A world sterilizing its girls and boys with the transgender movement and discouraging families in the name of “overpopulation.” A people ruled by a One World State seeking to encompass the earth and ensure that all submit to the deadening numbness of man’s lowest nature.
Are Huxley’s predictions still science fiction?
Huxley saw in his day the cultural seeds of abomination. Analyzing the rebellious trends of the 1920s, he looked down the path the world was hurtling and penned this warning. If one were to paint a timeline between Huxley’s time and the age of Brave New World, one easily sees how we are well on our way – if not already there.
Perhaps what is worse is that Huxley himself seems to see no way to defeat the monster of his own making. The book ends with the suicide of the “savage,” the one man who tried and failed to stand against the ocean of debauchery.
There, but for the grace of God, go we.
And we, 90 years later, are doing everything we can to sever ourselves from God’s grace.
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| St. Louis de Montfort: ‘God Will Raise up the Greatest Saints in the Latter Times’ |
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Posted by: Stone - 07-26-2023, 05:56 AM - Forum: The Saints
- Replies (2)
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‘God Will Raise up the Greatest Saints in the Latter Times’
Taken from here.
In the 17th century, the world saw a great prophet of Our Lady and her coming Reign, which would be in the Latter Days of the history of the world. In his monumental work 'True Devotion to Mary,' St. Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort talks about the slaves of Mary to come, who “will surpass in holiness most other saints as much the cedars of Lebanon tower above little shrubs.”
He proclaims that he brings an authentic message from God about the greater honor and wider knowledge and more prominent love that God has reserved for Our Lady in the Latter Times, the last era of the Church before the End Times, so that Christ might reign in society in her, through her and with her. To Jesus through Mary.
St. Louis Grignion de Montfort
All the rich among the people, to use an expression of the Holy Spirit as explained by St. Bernard, all the rich among the people will look pleadingly upon the countenance of Our Lady throughout all ages, and particularly as the world draws to its end. This means that the greatest saints, those richest in grace and virtue, will be the most assiduous in praying to the most Blessed Virgin, looking up to her as the perfect model to imitate and as a powerful helper to assist them.
I said that this will happen especially towards the end of the world, and indeed soon, because Almighty God and His Holy Mother are to raise up great saints who will surpass in holiness most other saints as much as the cedars of Lebanon tower above little shrubs. …
These great souls filled with grace and zeal will be chosen to oppose the enemies of God who are raging on all sides. They will be exceptionally devoted to the Blessed Virgin. Illumined by her light, strengthened by her food, guided by her spirit, supported by her arm, sheltered under her protection, they will fight with one hand and build with the other.
With one hand they will give battle, overthrowing and crushing heretics and their heresies, schismatics and their schisms, idolaters and their idolatries, sinners and their wickedness. With the other hand they will build the temple of the true Solomon and the mystical City of God, namely, the Blessed Virgin, who is called by the Fathers of the Church the Temple of Solomon and the City of God.
By word and example they will draw all men to a true devotion to her and although this will make many enemies, it will also bring about many victories and much glory to God alone. This is what God revealed to St. Vincent Ferrer (1350-1419), that outstanding Apostle of his day, as he has amply shown in one of his works.
This seems to have been foretold by the Holy Spirit in Psalm 58: "The Lord will reign in Jacob and all the ends of the earth. They will be converted towards evening and they will be as hungry as dogs and they will go around the city to find something to eat." This city around which men will roam at the end of the world seeking conversion and the appeasement of the hunger they have for justice is the most Blessed Virgin, who is called by the Holy Spirit the City of God.
Continued
Taken from Treatise on True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, Part 1, n. 2. "Mary’s part in the sanctification of souls"
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| A new eucharistic miracle in Latin America? |
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Posted by: Stone - 07-24-2023, 10:42 AM - Forum: Vatican II and the Fruits of Modernism
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Seems Eucharistic miracles in the Conciliar Church are in abundance these days...!
And most "occur" either directly or indirectly with lay Eucharistic ministers.
This 'miracle' occurred in a town where there is no priest. The local lay minister hands out previously 'consecrated' hosts.
"For there will rise up false Christs and false prophets, and they shall shew signs and wonders, to seduce (if it were possible) even the elect." Mark 13:22
✠ ✠ ✠
A new eucharistic miracle in Latin America?
ACI Prensa [emphasis mine] | Jul 21, 2023
The first bishop of the Diocese of Gracias in Honduras, Walter Guillén Soto, has recognized a new eucharistic miracle that occurred a year ago in a rural parish in the small town of San Juan.
Gracias, in the department of Lempira, is a town and “municipio” of just over 57,000 inhabitants in western Honduras. Its foundation dates back to 1536, and its original name was “Gracias a Dios” (Thanks Be to God).
Instead of states and counties, the administrative districts in Honduras are called departments and “municipios.”
Just 22 miles south of Gracias is the town of San Juan, in the neighboring department of Intibucá. There in the chapel of the El Espinal community is where the eucharistic miracle declared by the prelate occurred: a blood stain on a corporal.
The moment of the miracle
On the afternoon of June 9, 2022, when the Catholic Church was celebrating the liturgical feast of Jesus Christ, Eternal High Priest (celebrated the Thursday after Pentecost), José Elmer Benítez Machado [a layman] arrived before anyone else at the chapel of the El Espinal community to celebrate the Liturgy of the Word [!] and distribute to the faithful the hosts previously consecrated by the priests of the diocese.
About 60 families live in El Espinal, spread throughout the mountainous region, dedicated mainly to agriculture and raising cattle, pigs, and poultry. Barely 15 families attend the Liturgy of the Word every Thursday conducted by laypeople, since they don’t have a priest based in the town.
Benítez was appointed an extraordinary minister of holy Communion two years ago to attend to the pastoral needs of the chapel dedicated to the Apostle James.
At about 5 p.m. local time, the Liturgy of the Word began. When it was time to distribute the Eucharist, Benítez opened the tabernacle and noticed that the corporal (sacred linen cloth), under and folded over the wooden ciborium and on a white satin cushion, showed large stains that seemed to be of human blood.
“I was amazed,” he told “EWTN Noticias,” the EWTN’s Spanish-language news program. “My first hope was: ‘It’s the blood of Christ.” However, in the confusion of the moment, and to complete his ministry, he continued with the celebration and distributed the Eucharist.
Before concluding, at the time of making the parish announcements, Benítez asked those present if they had seen any water leaking into the church or if they knew of anyone who had entered before. He then told what he had seen.
“Several of us responded that we had not seen any water leaking, and when he explained what had happened, we asked him to show the corporal,” Reginaldo Aguilar Benítez, parish coordinator and sworn witness in the investigation process, told “EWTN Noticias.”
Pedrina García, who was in the chapel at the time, said she did not doubt that it was a miracle. “This is something that God has put there for us,” she said.
The investigation
The next day, Father Marvin Sotelo and Father Oscar Rodríguez, Missionaries of the Sacred Heart of Jesus — who had come to the town of San Juan de Intibucá just two months before — went to the community of El Espinal to corroborate what the parish coordinator had told them over the phone.
Sotelo put the corporal in a plastic bag with a hermetic seal, kept it in his rectory, and handed it over to Bishop Guillén two days later.
Guillén was particularly skeptical and decided to keep it in his personal chapel while he decided what to do. “I’m not that prone to naively believing in things. Logic makes us prudent in terms of believing things without sifting through them and without analyzing them,” he told “EWTN Noticias.”
Almost three months later, the bishop ordered some scientific tests to be carried out at the Santa Rosa de Copán Medical Center, about 30 miles from Gracias, to evaluate the oxidation and dilution of the apparent blood.
Concluding that the necessary material was not available to carry out an analysis, the corporal was sent to the DISA Test toxicological center in Tegucigalpa, where Dr. Héctor Díaz del Valle, who holds a doctorate in chemistry and pharmacy, led the investigation.
At the end of October 2022, the analysis began with the intervention of an external forensic expert and an expert in analytical toxicology.
The same blood type on the Shroud of Turin and Lanciano
Initially, it was ruled out that the stains were of wood resin or animal blood. Subsequent procedures revealed that the blood was human and was type AB with a positive Rh factor, the same as the eucharistic miracle of Lanciano, Italy, as well as that found on the Shroud of Turin, also in Italy.
According to the World Population Review portal in Honduras, less than 2.5% of the population in that country has that same blood type.
The expert tests also ruled out that the pattern of the blood stains could have been made artificially.
Valle was surprised because the cloth “had contact with air, humidity; presumptive tests were carried out on the cloth and it did not dry properly” and yet to date “it does not show deterioration or fungus.”
In forensic investigations, presumptive and confirmatory tests are a useful tool in the study of blood stains.
After carrying out the investigations and putting the statements of the witnesses under notarized oath, the bishop of Gracias confirmed that it was a surprising occurrence. “I don’t place in doubt the credibility,” he said.
“I think that this extraordinary, visible, tangible, perceptible, verifiable sign of this manifestation of the blood of the Lord in an obscure community in the midst of the most extreme rurality of our agricultural environment says a lot at this time,” he said.
“You have to think that God seeks extremes to call us to the balance of good sense and truth. It seems to me that this is an extreme sign of God who manifests himself again, as he has done in the holy Scriptures, in the history of salvation, by those simple ones whom Mary praises for their lowliness,” the bishop said.
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| ‘World ID’ Is Coming ‘Whether You Like It or Not’ |
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Posted by: Stone - 07-24-2023, 07:15 AM - Forum: General Commentary
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CEO of Company that Wants to Scan Your Irises: ‘World ID’ Is Coming ‘Whether You Like It or Not’
Brietbart | 21 Jul 2023
Alex Blania, CEO of Worldcoin, a company that wants billions of people to scan their irises to create a global system of authentication, says that a global form of ID is coming “whether you like it or not.”
Worldcoin was co-founded by Sam Altman, who is also the CEO of OpenAI, the company behind the controversial large language model ChatGPT. The AI mogul previously stated his hopes for the technology to “break capitalism” by enabling the more efficient allocation of resources.
![[Image: OpenAI-founder-Sam-Altman-creator-of-ChatGPT.jpg]](https://media.breitbart.com/media/2023/02/OpenAI-founder-Sam-Altman-creator-of-ChatGPT.jpg)
OpenAI founder Sam Altman, creator of ChatGPT (TechCrunch/Flickr)
Previous investors in Worldcoin include disgraced Crypto kingpin Sam Bankman-Fried, founder of the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX.
The company uses technology that scans the irises of people around the world, data which is then used to grant access to the Worldcoin ecosystem, as well as a means of distinguishing between real people and bots.
This means that Worldcoin’s success will in part be driven by the success of AI in impersonating humans, a field that Altman’s OpenAI is also closely tied to.
In recent remarks, Blania said that eventually, anyone who wants to use the internet will need to be authenticated by Worldcoin or “something like it.”
“Something like World ID will eventually exist, meaning that you will need to verify [you are human] on the internet, whether you like it or not,” said Blania.
Coindesk summarizes the ambitious goals of Worldcoin:
Quote:To do this, they invented a physical device called “The Orb” that can scan your eyeball. The goal is for The Orb to eventually scan every eyeball of every human who walks the Earth. And at some point, if all goes well, everyone will have access to open-source and decentralized financial tools.
If Worldcoin was the brainchild of some random crypto bro, maybe it could be laughed away as a delusion of grandeur. But the project has real intellectual heft. It was co-founded by Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI (creator of ChatGPT), who’s arguably the most central player in the development of AI. Altman suspects that the world will change forever if — or when — AI becomes so advanced that it achieves AGI, or Artificial General Intelligence, meaning it truly surpasses the abilities of humans.
Distinguishing between bots and humans is rising in importance as AI continues to change the tech industry. Using biometric data, as Worldcoin does, is one potential solution — although the challenge for the company will be overcoming privacy concerns.
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| St. Alphonsus Liguori: Daily Meditations for Eighth Week after Pentecost |
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Posted by: Stone - 07-23-2023, 06:18 AM - Forum: Pentecost
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What joy will he experience at the Judgment when he hears these welcome words: Well done, thou good and faithful servant! Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord! But it is written: What things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap. Let us weigh well what things we have hitherto been sowing, and let us do now what we shall then wish to have done.
I.
What great consolation he will enjoy at the Judgment hour who, for the love of Jesus Christ, has been detached from all worldly things; who has loved contempt, and mortified the body; who, in a word has loved only God!
What joy will he experience in hearing these welcome words: Well done, thou good and faithful servant! Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord! Be glad and rejoice, for now thou art saved, and there is no longer any fear of being lost.
On the contrary, the soul which leaves this life in a state of sin, will, even before Jesus condemns it, condemn itself, and declare itself deserving of hell.
O Mary, my powerful advocate, pray to Jesus for me. Help me, now that thou art able to help me. For then thou wouldst have to see me perish and not be able to assist me.
What things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap (Gal. vi. 8). Let us consider what things we have hitherto been sowing, and let us do now what we shall then wish to have done.
If now, within an hour, we had to stand for judgment, how much should we be willing to give to purchase another year? And how are we going to employ the years which remain for us?
II.
The Abbot Agatho, after long years of penance, when he thought of Judgment, would say: “What will become of me when I shall be judged?” And holy Job exclaimed: What shall I do when God shall rise to judge? And when he shall examine, what shall I answer him? (Job. xxxi. 14). And what shall we answer when Jesus Christ calls us to account for the graces He has bestowed upon us, and for the bad use we have made of them?
O my God, deliver not up to beasts the souls that confess to thee (Ps. lxxiii. 19). I do not deserve pardon, but Thou wouldst not have me to lose confidence in Thy mercy. Save me, O Lord, and raise me up from the mire of my miseries. I desire to amend my life, do Thou assist me.
The cause to be decided at the hour of our death will be one that will involve eternal happiness or eternal misery. Hence we should be most careful in using our utmost endeavours to secure success. Each one, considering this, should say to himself: Yes, this is true. Why, therefore, do I not leave all things to give myself entirely to God? Seek ye the Lord, while he may be found (Is. lv. 6). The sinner who thinks to find God at the Judgment after death will not find Him. But in life he who seeks Him, finds Him.
O Jesus, if hitherto I have despised Thy love, I now seek for nothing but to love Thee and to be loved by Thee. Grant that I may find Thee, O God of my soul!
Spiritual Reading
PRAYER
GOD WISHES ALL MEN TO BE SAVED.
Taking, then, for granted that Prayer is necessary for the attainment of Eternal Life, as we have proved, we ought, consequently, to take for granted also that every one has Divine assistance to enable him actually to pray, without need of any further special grace; and that by Prayer he may obtain all the other graces necessary to enable him to persevere in keeping the Commandments, and thus gain Eternal Life; so that no one who is lost can ever excuse himself by saying that it was through want of the aid necessary for his salvation. For as God, in the natural order, has ordained that man should be born naked, and in want of several things necessary for life, but then has given him hands and intelligence to clothe himself and provide for his other needs; so, in the supernatural order, man is born unable to obtain salvation by his own strength; but God in His goodness grants to every one the grace of Prayer, by which he is able to obtain all other graces which he needs in order to keep the Commandments and to be saved.
But before I come to treat this point, I must first establish Two Preliminary Propositions:
FIRST PRELIMINARY PROPOSITION
GOD WISHES ALL MEN TO BE SAVED, AND THEREFORE CHRIST DIED TO SAVE ALL MEN.
(a) God wishes all men to be saved.
God loves all things that He has created: For thou lovest all things that are, and hatest none of the things which thou hast made (Wis. xi. 25). Now love cannot be idle: “All love has a force of its own, and cannot be idle,” says St. Augustine. Hence love necessarily implies benevolence, so that the person who loves cannot help doing good to the person beloved whenever there is an opportunity: “Love persuades a man to do those things which he believes to be good for him whom he loves,” says Aristotle. If, then, God loves all men, He must, in consequence, will that all should obtain Eternal salvation, which is the one and sovereign good of man, seeing that it is the one end for which he was created: You have your fruit unto sanctification; and the end life everlasting (Rom. vi. 22).
This doctrine, that God wishes all men to be saved, and that Jesus Christ died for the salvation of all, is now a certain doctrine taught by the Catholic Church, as theologians in common teach, for example, Petavius, Gonet, Gotti, and others, besides Tourneley, who adds, that it is a doctrine all but of Faith.
1.–Proved from Decision of the Church.
With reason, therefore, were the Predestinarians condemned, who, among their errors, taught that God does not will all men to be saved, as Hincmar, Archbishop of Rheims, testifies of them: “The ancient Predestinarians asserted that God does not will all men to be saved, but only those who are saved.” These persons were condemned, first in the Council of Arles, A.D. 475, which pronounced “anathema to him that said that Christ did not die for all men, and that He does not will all to be saved.” They were next condemned in the Council of Lyons, A.D. 490, where Lucidus was forced to retract, and also to proclaim, “I condemn the man who says that Christ did not suffer for the salvation of all men.” So also in the ninth century, Gottschalk, who renewed the same error, was condemned by the Council of Quercy, A.D. 853, in the third Article of which it was decided, “God wills all men, without exception, to be saved, although all men be not saved.” These men were justly condemned, precisely because they taught that God does not will all men to be saved; since from the proposition that those whom God wills to be saved are infallibly saved, it would logically follow that God does not will even all the faithful to be saved, let alone all men.
This was also clearly expressed by the Council of Trent, in which it was said that Jesus Christ died, “that all might receive the adoption of sons,” and again it says: “But though He died for all, yet all do not receive the benefits of His death.” The Council, then, takes for granted that the Redeemer died not only for the elect, but also for those who, through their own fault, do not receive the benefit of Redemption. Nor is it of any use to affirm that the Council only meant to say that Jesus Christ has given to the world a ransom sufficient to save all men; for in this sense we might say that He died also for the devils. Moreover, the Council of Trent intended here to reprove the errors of those innovators, who, not denying that the Blood of Christ was sufficient to save all, yet asserted that in fact it was not shed and given for all. This is the error which the Council intended to condemn when it said that our Saviour died for all. Further, in Chapter VI, it says that sinners are put in a fit state to receive justification by hope in God through the merits of Jesus Christ: “They are raised to hope, trusting that God will be merciful to them through Christ.” Now, if Jesus Christ had not applied to all the merits of His Passion, then, since no one (without a special revelation) could be certain of being among the number of those to whom the Redeemer had willed to apply the fruit of His merits, no sinner could entertain such hope, not having the certain and secure foundation which is necessary for hope; namely, that God wills all men to be saved, and will grant pardon to all sinners made worthy of it by the merits of Jesus Christ.
2.–Proved from the celebrated text of St. Paul.
On the other hand, both the Scriptures and all the Fathers assure us that God sincerely and really wishes the salvation of all men and the conversion of all sinners, as long as they are in this world. For this we have, first of all, the express words of St. Paul: Who will have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth (1 Tim. ii. 4). The sentence of the Apostle is absolute and decisive–God wills all men to be saved. These words in their natural sense declare that God truly wills all men to be saved; and it is a certain rule received in common by all, that the words of Scripture are to be interpreted in the literal sense, except in the sole case where the literal sense is repugnant to Faith and morals. St. Bonaventure writes precisely to our purpose when he says: “We must hold that when the Apostle says, God wills all men to be saved, it is necessary to grant that He does will it.”
It is true that St. Augustine and St. Thomas mention different interpretations which have been given to this text, but both these Doctors understand it to mean a real will of God to save all, without exception.
And concerning St. Augustine, we shall see just now that this was his true opinion; so that St. Prosper protests against attributing to him the idea that God did not sincerely wish the salvation of all men, and of each individual, as an aspersion on the holy Doctor. Hence the same St. Prosper, who was a most faithful disciple of his, says: “It is most sincerely to be believed and confessed that God wills all men to be saved; since the Apostle (whose very words these are) is particular in commanding that prayers should be made to God for all.”
The argument of the Saint is clear, founded on St. Paul’s words in the above-cited passage: I desire, therefore,… that supplications, prayers … be made for all men (1 Tim. ii. 1); and then he adds: For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour, who will have all men to be saved (1 Tim. ii. 3, 4). So the Apostle wishes us to pray for all, exactly in the sense that God wishes the salvation of all. St. Chrysostom uses the same argument: “If He wills all to be saved, surely we ought to pray for all. If He desires all to be saved, do you also be of one mind with Him.” And if in some passages in his controversy with the Semi-Pelagians, St. Augustine seems to have held a different interpretation of this text, saying that God does not will the salvation of each individual, but only of some, Petavius well observes that here the holy Father speaks only incidentally, not with direct intention; or at any rate, that he speaks of the grace of that absolute and victorious will (voluntas absoluta et victrix) with which God absolutely wills the salvation of some persons, and of which the Saint elsewhere says, “The will of the Almighty is always invincible.”
Let us hear how St. Thomas uses another method of reconciling the opinion of St. Augustine with that of St. John Damascene, who holds that antecedently God wills all and each individual to be saved: “God’s first intention is to will all men to be saved, that as Good He may make us partakers of His goodness: but after we have sinned, He wills as Just to punish us.” On the other hand, St. Augustine (as we have seen) seems in a few passages to think differently. But St. Thomas reconciles these opinions, and says St. John Damascene spoke of the antecedent will of God, by which he really wills all men to be saved, while St. Augustine spoke of the consequent will. He then goes on to explain the meaning of antecedent and consequent will: “Antecedent will is that by which God wills all to be saved; but when all the circumstances of this or that individual are considered, it is not found to be good that all men should be saved; for it is good that he who prepares himself, and consents to it, should be saved; but not good that he who is unwilling and resists… And this is called the consequent will, because it presupposes a foreknowledge of a man’s deeds, not as a cause of the act of will, but as a reason for the thing willed and determined.” …
And again: “God, by His most liberal will, gives grace to every one that prepares himself–who wills all men to be saved; and therefore the grace of God is wanting to no man, but as far as He is concerned He communicates it to every one.” … And St. Thomas again, and more distinctly, declares what he means by antecedent and consequent will: “A judge antecedently wishes every man to live, but he consequently wishes a murderer to be hanged; so God antecedently wills every man to be saved, but He consequently wills some to be damned; in consequence, that is, of the exigencies of His justice.”
I have no intention here of blaming the opinion that men are predestined to glory previously to the provision of their merits; I only say that I cannot understand how those who think that God, without any regard to their merits, has elected some to eternal life, and excluded others, can therefore persuade themselves that He wills all to be saved; unless, indeed, they mean that this will of God is not true and sincere, but rather a hypothetical or metaphorical will…
It is certain that the happiness of a creature consists in the attainment of the end for which he was created. It is likewise certain that God creates all men for eternal life. If, therefore, God, having created certain men for eternal life, had thereupon, without regard to their sins, excluded them from it, He would in creating them have utterly hated them without cause, and would have done them the greatest injury they could possibly suffer in excluding them from the attainment of their end, that is, of the glory for which they had been created: “For,” says Petavius in a passage which we abridge, “God cannot feel indifferent whether He loves or hates His creatures, especially men, whom He either loves to eternal life or hates to damnation. Now it is the greatest evil that can befall man to be alienated from God and to be reprobate; wherefore, if God wills the everlasting destruction of any man’s soul, He does not love him, but hates him with the greatest hatred possible in that kind which transcends the natural order.” … “Wherefore,” Petavius concludes, “if God loves every man with a love which is antecedent to his merits, He does not hate his soul, and therefore He does not desire the greatest evil to him.” If, then, God loves all men, as is certain, we ought to hold that He wills all to be saved, and that He has never hated any one to such a degree that He has willed to do him the greatest evil, by excluding him from glory previously to the prevision of his demerits.
I say, however, and repeat again and again, that I cannot understand it; for this matter of predestination is so profound a mystery, that it made the Apostle exclaim: Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! How incomprehensible his judgments, and how unsearchable his ways! For who hath known the mind of the Lord? (Rom. xi. 33, 34). We ought to submit ourselves to the will of God, Who has chosen to leave this mystery in obscurity in His Church, that we all may humble ourselves under the deep judgments of His Divine Providence. All the more, because Divine grace, by which alone men gain eternal life, is dispensed more or less abundantly by God entirely gratuitously, and without any regard to our merits. So that to save ourselves it will always be necessary for us to throw ourselves into the arms of the Divine Mercy, in order that God may assist us with His grace to obtain salvation, trusting always in His infallible promises to hear and save the man who prays to Him.
But let us return to our point, that God sincerely wills all men to be saved.
3.–There are other texts which prove the same thing.
As I live, saith the Lord, I desire not the death of the wicked, but that the wicked may turn from his way and live (Ezech. xxxiii. 11). He says that not only does He not will the death, but that He wills the life of a sinner; and He swears, as Tertullian observes, in order that He may be more readily believed in this: “When moreover He swears, saying, as I live, He desires to be believed.”
Further, David says: For wrath is in his indignation, and life in his will (Ps. xxix. 6). If He chastises us, He does it because our sins provoke Him to indignation; but as to His will, He wills not our death but our life; Life in his will. St. Basil says concerning this text, that God wills all to be made partakers of life. David says elsewhere: Our God is the God of salvation; … of the Lord are the issues from death (Ps. lxvii. 21). On this Bellarmine says: “This is proper to Him; this is His nature; our God is a saving God, and His are the issues from death–that is, liberation from death”; so that it is God’s proper nature to save all, and to deliver all from eternal death.
Our Lord says: Come to me, all ye that labour and are burdened, and I will refresh you (Matt. xi. 28). If He calls all to salvation, then He truly wills all to be saved. Again, St. Peter says: He willeth not that any should perish, but that all should return to penance (2. Pet. iii. 9). He does not will the damnation of any one, but He wills that all should do penance, and so be saved.
Again the Lord says: Behold I stand at the gate and knock. If any man shall open to me the door I will come in to him. Why will you die, O house of Israel? Return ye and live (Ezech. xviii. 31, 32). What is there that I ought to do more to my vineyard, that I have not done to it? (Is. v. 4). How often would I have gathered together thy children, as the hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and thou wouldst not! (Matt. xxiii. 37). How could the Lord have said that He stands knocking at the hearts of us sinners? How exhort us so strongly to return to His arms? How reproach us by asking what more He could have done for our salvation? How say that He has willed to receive us as children, if he had not a true will to save all men? Again, St. Luke relates that our Lord, looking on Jerusalem from a distance, and contemplating the destruction of its people because of sin, wept: Seeing the city, he wept over it (Luke xix. 41). Why did He weep then, says Theophylact (after St. Chrysostom), seeing the ruin of the Jews, unless it was because He really desired their salvation? How, then, after so many attestations of our Lord, in which He makes known to us that He wills to see all men saved, how can it ever be said that God does not will the salvation of all? “But if these texts of Scripture,” says Petavius, “in which God has testified His will in such clear and often-repeated expressions, nay even with tears and with an oath, may be abused and distorted to the very opposite sense–namely, that God determined to send all mankind (except a few) to perdition, and never had a will to save them, what dogma of Faith is so clear as to be safe from similar injury and cavil?” … And Cardinal Sfondrati adds: “Those who think otherwise seem to me to make God a mere stage-god; like those people who pretend to be kings in a play, when indeed they are anything but kings.”
4.–Proved from the general consent of the Fathers.
Moreover, this truth, that God wills all men to be saved, is confirmed by the general consent of the Fathers. There can be no doubt that all the Greek Fathers are unanimous in saying that God wills all and each individual to be saved. So, St. Justin, St. Basil, St. Gregory, St. Cyril, St. Methodius, and St. Chrysostom, all adduced by Petavius. But let us see what the Latin Fathers say.
St. Jerome: “God wills to save all; but since no man is saved without his own will, God wills us to will what is good, that when we have willed, He may also will to fulfil His designs in us.” And in another place: “God therefore willed to save those who desire (to be saved); and He invited them to salvation that their will might have its reward; but they would not believe in Him.”
St. Hilary: “God would have all men to be saved, and not those alone who are to belong to the number of the elect, but all absolutely, so as to make no exception.”
St. Paulinus: “Christ says to all: Come to me, etc.; for He, the Creator of all men, so far as He is concerned, wills every man to be saved.”
St. Ambrose: “Even with respect to the wicked He had to manifest His will (to save them), and therefore He could not pass over His betrayer, that all might see that in the election even of the traitor He exhibits His desire to save all … and, so far as God is concerned, He shows to all that He was willing to deliver all.” …
St. Chrysostom asks: “Why then are not all men saved, if God wills all to be saved?” And he answers: “Because every man’s will does not coincide with God’s will, and He forces no man.”
St. Augustine: “God wills all men to be saved, but not so as to destroy their free will.” He says the same thing in several other places to which we shall refer later.
Evening Meditation
THE PRACTICE OF THE LOVE OF JESUS CHRIST
“Charity endureth all things”
HE THAT LOVES JESUS CHRIST WITH A STRONG LOVE DOES NOT CEASE TO LOVE HIM IN THE MIDST OF TEMPTATIONS AND DESOLATIONS
I.
Let us come now to the means which we have to employ in order to vanquish temptations. Spiritual masters prescribe a variety of means; but the most necessary, and the safest, of which only I will here speak, is to have immediate recourse to God with all humility and confidence, saying: “Incline unto my aid, O God; O Lord make haste to help me!” This short prayer will enable us to overcome the assaults of all the devils of hell; for God is infinitely more powerful than all of them. Almighty God knows well that of ourselves we are unable to resist the temptations of the infernal powers; and on this account the most learned Cardinal Gotti remarks that “whenever we are assailed, and in danger of being overcome, God is obliged to give us strength enough to resist as often as we call upon Him for it.”
And how can we doubt of receiving help from Jesus Christ, after all the promises He has made us in the Holy Scriptures? Come to me, all you that labour and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you (Matt. xi. 28). Come to Me, ye who are wearied in fighting against temptations, and I will restore your strength. Call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me (Ps. xlix. 15). When thou seest thyself troubled by thine enemies, call upon Me, and I will bring thee out of danger, and thou shalt praise Me. Then shalt thou call, and the Lord shall hear: thou shalt cry, and He shall say, Here I am (Is. lviii. 9). Then shalt thou call upon the Lord for help, and He will hear thee: thou shalt cry out, Quick, O Lord, help me! and He will say to thee, Behold, here I am; I am present to help thee. Who hath called upon him and he despised him? (Ecclus. ii. 12). And who, says the Prophet, has ever called upon God, and God has despised him and given him no help? David felt sure of never falling a prey to his enemies, whilst he could have recourse to God. He says: Praising, I will call upon the Lord: and I shall be saved from my enemies (Ps. xvii. 4). For he well knew that God is close to all who invoke His aid: The Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon him (Ps. cxliv. 18). And St. Paul adds that the Lord is by no means sparing, but lavish of graces towards all that pray to Him: Rich unto all that call upon him. (Rom. x. 12).
II.
Oh, would to God that all men had recourse to Him whenever they are tempted to offend Him; they would then certainly never commit sin! They unhappily fall, because, led away by the cravings of their vicious appetites, they prefer to lose God, the Sovereign Good, than to forego their wretched short-lived pleasures. Experience gives us manifest proofs that whoever calls on God in temptation does not fall; and whoever fails to call on Him, as surely falls: and this is especially true of temptations to impurity. Solomon himself said that he knew very well that he could not be chaste unless God gave him the grace to be so; and therefore he invoked Him by prayer in the moment of temptation: And as I knew that I could not otherwise be continent, except God gave it … I went to the Lord and besought him (Wis. viii. 21). In temptations against purity (and the same holds good with regard to those against Faith), we must take it as a rule never to stay and combat the temptation hand to hand; but we must endeavour immediately to get rid of it indirectly by making a good act of the love of God or of sorrow for our sins, or else by applying ourselves to some indifferent occupation calculated to distract us. As soon as we discover a thought of evil tendency, we must disown it immediately, and, so to speak, close the door in its face, and deny it all entrance into the mind, without tarrying in the least to examine its object or errand. We must cast away these foul suggestions as quickly as we would shake off a hot spark from the fire.
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| Giorgio La Pira: A Catholic Communist by Dr. Carol Byrne |
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Posted by: Stone - 07-20-2023, 06:21 AM - Forum: The Architects of Vatican II
- Replies (11)
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La Pira: A Catholic Communist
Part I - What La Pira Expected from the Council
by Dr. Carol Byrne
Taken from here, slightly adapted.
What was it about Giorgio La Pira, twice Mayor of Florence, (1) that elicited the highest praise not only from Dorothy Day but also from Popes Paul VI, John Paul II (who opened his Cause in 1986) and Benedict XVI? And why was it that John XXIII had protected him from all criticism on the grounds that he was a Catholic and therefore beyond reproach? (2)
![[Image: J049_lapira1.jpg]](https://www.traditioninaction.org/HotTopics/HTimages_g-k/J049_lapira1.jpg)
Giorgio La Pira extending a hand to Communism with a smiling, ‘Christian’ face
The answer, in a nutshell, is that they were all Catholics friendly to Communism.
- Dorothy Day called him “a saint in politics” who “took the unused homes of the rich to make homes for the poor” without their owners’ permission. (3)
- Paul VI characterized him as “the example every Christian ought to keep firmly in mind during his earthly passage towards the kingdom of God.” (4)
- John Paul II said he was “an exemplary lay Christian” for “the entire Ecclesial Community” and recommended “everyone to cherish his teaching.” (5)
- Benedict XVI said that as “an eminent figure in politics, culture and spirituality of the last century,” La Pira worked “for the cause of fraternal existence among nations,” setting an example to present day Catholics for “a common effort to promote this basic good in various spheres: in society, politics, the economy, cultures and among religions.” (6)
However, it seems to have been forgotten that there was a time – before Vatican II – when La Pira had been strongly criticized in the Vatican’s newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, for his pro-socialist views. As a Catholic working in collaboration with communists, he earned the nickname of “the little red fish in the holy water font.” In particular, the newspaper expressed “shock” at his pro-communist activism and issued warnings to Catholics notto follow his example. (7)
Let us look at the teaching and example set by this “saint in politics” who is now being considered for formal canonization. Outwardly, La Pira presented himself as an extraordinarily pious Catholic. He attended Mass daily, read the Bible, lived for some years in a monastery cell and was often seen walking around Florence barefoot, having given his shoes, coat, umbrella and most of his salary to the poor. But his good works were accompanied by flamboyant and idiosyncratic gestures, (8) and inwardly he was not lacking in self-aggrandizing flights of fancy.
La Pira’s Dream of the Council
La Pira felt that Florence was a place called by Providence to produce a “great bridge of peace spanning the world” (9) and saw himself at the hub of that world-changing process. Incredibly, what should have been considered as, at best, a piece of comic fiction and, at worst, an advanced case of megalomania, was taken seriously by the Vatican, which published on its official website the following words by Italian journalist and close friend of La Pira, Vittorio Citterich:
![[Image: J049_PaulVI.jpg]](https://www.traditioninaction.org/HotTopics/HTimages_g-k/J049_PaulVI.jpg)
Paul VI praised La Pira highly and helped allay suspicions about his socialist policies
"On September 4, 1962, even before the [Conciliar] Assembly began, a contemplative in political activity like Giorgio La Pira ('the charismatic Mayor of Florence,'” as John Paul II defines him in his great prayer for Italy) seemed to sense its potential impact on the future:
“‘How does the Council fit into the great perspective of the Church and the nations in this technical, scientific and space age which marks an unprecedented turning-point in the history of the world? An age in which war is disappearing, peace flourishes, the world is becoming united, ideologies are crumbling and the Church is emerging more and more every day, almost to enlighten it...’” (10)
Here La Pira shows himself to be one of those millenarian impostors who throughout history have sought to mobilize the masses of the poor towards a communistic dream of a Golden Age where everyone would supposedly live together in harmony. When these utopian dreams are put into practice, however, they have always resulted in widespread mayhem and bloodshed.
His “prophetic witness” has, however, been proved false on two counts. Not only have ideologies been given leave to flourish through Vatican II’s “opening” to the world, but the light of Christianity has been almost totally extinguished from whole nations through the Council’s failure to preach the Truth “in season and out of season.” And so the Church has been reduced to a shadow of its former self, a mere plaything in the hands of would-be reformers like La Pira for the progress of humanity in a new social order.
On the eve of Vatican II, La Pira wrote a circular letter to the religious superiors of convents in an attempt to persuade them of the benefits of the revolutionary changes that the upcoming Council was about to introduce into the Church. He described it as a "new society in justice, hope, progress and freedom":
“The Council ‘opens’ … to all the most active schools of ‘social’ thought (in the broadest sense) which affect peoples all over the Earth and have been so decisively influential – and will continue to be so – in building a new science, a new culture a new economy and a new society in justice, hope, progress and freedom.” (11)
But La Pira’s dream was a mirage. It was that very “openness” of the Council to the modern world (celebrated by Pope John XXIII in his inaugural address) that weakened the Church by flooding her with ideas incompatible with Catholic doctrine.
Beneath La Pira’s rhetoric we can discern a recycled version of the discredited Marxist theory of “historical inevitability,” for he believed that he had insight into the driving force of history, the “hidden plan” on which the history of the world was built, and that his political action would guide it in the “proper” direction.
Unfortunately, the message of the Popes to follow La Pira as a leader of Catholic Action is tantamount to an endorsement of his political views which, as we shall see, were ideologically biased towards the most extreme Left of the political spectrum.
Continued
1. La Pira was Mayor of Florence from 1951-1958 and 1961-1965 i.e. before and during the Second Vatican Council
2. See here
3. Catholic Worker, October 1963
4. Wednesday Audience November 9, 1977
5. Letter of John Paul II To Card. Ennio Antonelli on the Occasion of the Centenary of the Birth of Giorgio La Pira, November 1, 2004
6. In a meeting with the National Association of Italian Local Authorities reported by the Catholic News Agency, April 26, 2004
7. See extracts from the L'Osservatore Romano in the archives of the Catholic Herald, e.g. here, here and here
8. Douglas Hyde, a well known convert from Communism, recounted that when La Pira was returning from his mayoral office in the Palazzo Vecchio, he “thumbed a lift on the back of a passing Vespa motor scooter, ridden by a teenage boy” and entertained his official guest to lunch “sitting on a landing at the top of the stairs in a home for juvenile delinquents”. (Douglas Hyde, ‘Hurricane Mayor’, Catholic Herald July 15, 1955, see here
9. La Pira, Letter of 28 October 1970, quoted by Giulio Andreotti in 30 Days Magazine, February 2004
10. Vittorio Critterich, ‘And the Church becomes News for the World’
See here.
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| Opinion: First it was Covid – now we’re being scared into submission over the weather |
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Posted by: Stone - 07-19-2023, 06:03 AM - Forum: General Commentary
- No Replies
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First it was Covid – now we’re being scared into submission over the weather
There’s no denying it’s hot in Europe, but it feels like sunshine is being weaponised in a bid to get us to adjust our ways to hit net zero
![[Image: TELEMMGLPICT000343057029_16896978465920_...mwidth=960]](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/columnists/2023/07/18/TELEMMGLPICT000343057029_16896978465920_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqnhOKBabfOLZJQBViQ93mSOCFylYSPGVSIorX81r5RaU.jpeg?imwidth=960)
Weather maps are starting to look terrifying
The Telegraph.co.uk [adapted - not all hyperlinks included] | 18 July 2023
Brace yourselves, travel agents of Britain! People have been watching those hysterical chaps with their flapping arms and their weather maps like a homicidal pizza on the telly. Last week, Europe was burning in the hellish heat of Cerberus, this week it’s Charon.
“Sharon who?”
“Oh, Neville, do keep up. It’s Charon. You know, the man who ferried the dead to the underworld in Greek mythology.”
“What’s that got to do with our fortnight in La Palma, Mary?”
“It’s unbearably hot there, wildfires and everything, according to the BBC. Better cancel, Nev.”
Brrrring brrring, brrring brrrrring.
Neville: Hi there, I’d like to cancel our holiday in La Palma. They say on the news it’s very hot.”
Travel agent (sighing audibly): It’s the summer, Sir. It’s always hot in the Med.”
Neville: I know, but they say it’s dangerously hot in La Palma.”
Agent: Actually, the temperature in La Palma has been in the 20s and it’s forecast to remain below 30. Very pleasant, actually, for the time of year.
Neville: What about the wildfires?
Agent: The fires have nothing to with the heat, Sir. I think you’ll find the BBC spliced clips of the fires in La Palma into its heatwave report to make it look like it was happening in Spain.”
Neville: La Palma isn’t in Spain?”
Agent: Er, no, its 1500 kilometres away, Sir.
Neville: So we shouldn’t bother to cancel?
Agent: I’m afraid your travel insurance doesn’t have a clause covering Nervous Nellies scared half to death by the weather forecast on the TV. Sorry, Sir, it’s non-refundable. You won’t get your money back.”
Neville: Ah, okay. I’ll be glad to get away from this awful weather to be honest with you. Not exactly summer, is it?”
You may have noticed that climate catastrophism has gone nuclear over the past week, as if on cue (we’ll come back to that), but the good old British weather refuses to co-operate. Disappointingly for the We’re All Gonna Fry brigade, it’s cool, rainy and sullen here with fitful gusts of wind; almost autumnal at times. As a July baby, I can tell you this is not unusual for July. (Prince George will have to get used to having his parties in the cloudy drizzle on our mutual birthday.) Still, reporters scour the rest of Europe for better (ie bad) news. Tourists at the Trevi Fountain in Rome are invited to agree that the weather is “unbearable”. If it’s unbearable, why aren’t they back in their hotel rooms with a wet towel on their heads instead of happily licking their pistachio gelato and soaking up the rays? Why are reports of wildfires in La Palma being linked to soaring temperatures, when the weather on the island is in fact unusually mild, and set to be in the mid-20s all week?
Really not very unusual weather events have suddenly acquired important, scary names drawn from the mythological flames of hell. After Cerberus and Charon, get ready for Heatwave Hades. If the current weather in the UK had a name it would be Colin.
Are Brits really “cancelling their holiday plans” because of the “truly terrifying conditions”? Or are they, like me, stocking up on Hawaiian Tropic (used to be sniffy about it, now addicted) from Boots and crawling through the final fortnight of work before I can replenish my stocks of Vitamin D on a Turkish sunlounger.
There is something horribly familiar about all these apocalyptic warnings of catastrophic consequences if people don’t act. “Temperatures across the Mediterranean are nearing the highest ever recorded in Europe with travellers being warned that local medical and health services are strained in some areas.”
Ah, yes, that’s it. Knew we’d heard it before: Stay At Home, Save on Sunscreen, Support Net Zero.
It’s almost as if the same people who scared the pants off us during the pandemic, terrorising people into obeying often idiotic rules, were at it again. The Behavioural Insights Team (aka the Nudge Unit) – spun out of the Cabinet Office, and now working many large corporates, global institutions and national governments – is teaming up with broadcasters to drive messages about climate change.
A report by the BIT in collaboration with Sky TV called ‘The Power of TV: Nudging Viewers to Decarbonise their Lifestyles’ says that “behavioural change on climate can be driven by TV... It comes at a critical time as experts now widely accept that we must shift the behaviour of millions of people to deliver our collective net zero goals”.
You don’t have to be a climate sceptic to find something sinister in the idea of broadcasters plotting to manipulate the public into reaching “our collective goals”. Whose goals are they? Why no questioning of whether this is in the population’s best interest or not? Where are the alternative points of view?
After the disastrous impact of its Covid propaganda on the nation’s mental and physical health, a period of embarrassed silence would be welcome from the Nudge Unit. Yet, here they go again with their sly tricks, their cold calculation of human weakness, their sneaky sleight of hand. What is the betting that the sudden change in TV weather maps, from pastoral greens and shy yellows to diabolical reds, even bruised purples and black, was suggested by the Nudge Unit?
And why has the Foreign Office weighed in, updating the Greece and Spain sections of its website, adding an ‘Extreme Weather’ section detailing how to stay safe during the heatwave as well as “important resources to take note of if heading to the holiday hotspots in the near future”? For heaven’s sake, has no one at the FO heard of this excellent thing called “a siesta”?
None of this is to deny that it looks like a very hot summer for southern Europe – although we must wait for the full statistics to properly assess how it compares with previous heatwaves. But if you were being cynical, and after two years of the entire population being professionally frightened by our own government it’s hard to be otherwise, you would conclude that sunshine is being weaponised in a bid to get the British people to adjust their ways to hit an unattainable and self-harming net zero target.
No. No. We have been shamefully mistreated by our masters, criminally misled by “models”, controlled and horribly hurt by unseen forces, and now the wily bunch think because they got away with it last time we will roll over again and do as we’re told. No.
By happy chance, I’ve just read an important new book, Free Your Mind: The New World of Manipulation and How to Resist It. Authors Laura Dodsworth and Patrick Fagan have some great ideas how to recognise Nudge Unit tactics and how to fight back because “there is a war on for your mind”.
They have over-reached this time, I think, with their lurid weather maps and their brazen attempt to get us to cancel our summer hols. Rebellion is stirring. People are mocking. “In Cyprus, we’re just about holding out,” reports one laconic reader, “Locals simply call it ‘summer’, but what would they know?”
We shall fight the Nudgers on the beaches. We shall fight in the seas and swimming pools. We shall revel in the heat and defend our fortnight in the sun. We shall never surrender our minds to them, for our minds are ours and ours alone.
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| Pope Francis bows to Communist China and confirms bishop appointed by Beijing |
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Posted by: Stone - 07-19-2023, 05:30 AM - Forum: Pope Francis
- Replies (1)
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Pope Francis bows to Communist China and confirms bishop appointed by Beijing
Pope Francis' approval and appointment of Bishop Shen Bin to Shanghai reveals who really holds power in the Vatican's deal with China.
![[Image: Pope-Xi-810x500.jpg]](https://www.lifesitenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Pope-Xi-810x500.jpg)
Pope Francis and China's Xi Jinping
none & Gil Corzo/Shutterstock
Jul 18, 2023
VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews [adapted]) –– On Saturday, Pope Francis signaled to China and to the world that the secretive Vatican-China deal does indeed surrender the Vatican’s authority and power to the Communist authorities in Beijing.
In the daily bulletin on July 15, the Holy See Press Office announced that Pope Francis had appointed Bishop Joseph Shen Bin as Bishop of Shanghai, thus “transferring him from the Diocese of Haimen, Jiangsu Province.”
The significant news was, as has lately become commonplace from the Vatican, issued on a Saturday in an apparent move to draw the least attention possible.
If the name of Bishop Shen Bin is familiar, that is because he was already appointed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) as head of the Diocese of Shanghai back on April 4 of this year, in a move which the Vatican was only “informed” about but not involved in.
READ: Chinese Communists blindside Vatican by appointing new bishop without its involvement
His April appointment came from the state-controlled Chinese Catholic Bishops’ Group, part of the official Chinese state-approved Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association (CPA).
Shen serves as head of the Chinese Catholic Bishops’ Group, which does not recognize the authority of the Holy See with regard to appointing new bishops.
By appointing Shen to Shanghai, the CCP completely disregarded the terms of the secretive 2018 Sino-Vatican deal, which is supposed to be a collaboration between the Vatican and Beijing with regard to appointing bishops.
Instead, the Vatican stated via its press office that “the Holy See had been informed a few days ago of the decision of the Chinese authorities” and then “learned from the media of the settlement” on the morning the event took place.
At the time, the Vatican-recognized bishop of Shanghai was actually Bishop Thaddeus Ma Daqin, who had been appointed to the see as its auxiliary in 2012, with the CCP believing him to be loyal to them. However, after his consecration, he denounced and left the CPA and was subsequently sequestered to house arrest in a nearby seminary.
Shen himself had been recognized by the Vatican in his former diocese of Haimen at the time of his move to Shanghai.
Chinese authorities subsequently visited his new see of Shanghai in May, in order to ensure that he was propagating CCP-approved policies. Local news reports wrote that the visitation was to “study the local church’s progress on the implementation of socialist policies” and to enforce the “Chineseization (Sinicization) of religion.”
With such background, the Pope’s move to retroactively approve the CCP’s decision was widely slated by Catholics who have expressed concerns about the Vatican’s current relationship with Beijing. “Francis’s China policy is fully exposed as an unforgivable, wicked betrayal of Chinese Catholics, as he is forced to act as an agent of the CCP in installing its stooge as Bishop of Shanghai,” wrote The Spectator’s Damian Thompson.
Vatican’s Secretary of State defends move
The Vatican’s Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin has, along with Pope Francis, continually defended the deal, which has been twice renewed since its inception in fall 2018. He continued this record on Saturday with the publication of an interview conducted with Vatican News, in which he explained and defended Pope Francis’ decision to approve the CCP’s hijacking of the Vatican’s authority.
Parolin stated that the CCP’s move to install Shen—and also Bishop John Peng Weizhao as auxiliary Bishop of Jiangxi, which is a diocese not recognized by the Holy See—“seems to disregard the spirit of dialogue and collaboration established between the Vatican and Chinese sides over the years and which has found a point of reference in the Agreement.” Indeed, regarding Bishop John’s appointment, the Vatican declared that it learnt of the ceremony afterward with “surprise and regret.”
But Parolin told Vatican News that “the Holy Father Francis has decided to heal the canonical irregularity created in Shanghai, in view of the greater good of the Diocese and the fruitful exercise of the Bishop’s pastoral ministry.”
He argued that Pope Francis’ intention in legitimizing the CCP’s transfer of Shen “is fundamentally pastoral and will allow Bishop Shen Bin to work with greater serenity to promote evangelization and foster ecclesial communion.”
READ: Leading Vatican diplomat says China deal the result of decades work but ‘not the best’
Parolin added that the Vatican was still hoping for future collaboration with the CCP on the position of two other bishops, whose positions “have been pending for some time.”
In his interview—which was issued in full to journalists but only partly published by Vatican News—Parolin also fielded questions about the Sino-Vatican deal itself, stating that “the text is confidential because it has not yet been finally approved.”
Such an argument is slightly peculiar, given that the deal has now been renewed twice since 2018—thus calling into doubt its temporary nature—but also given that Pope Francis has previously published online his temporary reforms relating to the Vatican before they were then re-issued in a final version some years later.
The deal, which “revolves around the basic principle of consensuality of decisions affecting bishops,” is effected by “trusting in the wisdom and goodwill of all,” said Parolin.
But China expert Stephen Mosher described the deal as an action which was “perhaps the most controversial of a papacy dogged by controversy.” Critiquing the deal in 2018, Mosher summarized a Vatican capitulation to Beijing and predicted future power-grabs by the Chinese:
Quote:Given all this, why would Beijing not think that the Pope would prove equally compliant in the future in accepting those candidates they would advance? It has never stopped insisting on total control…The only way for the agreement to work is for the Pope simply to go along with Beijing’s choices. To do otherwise would interfere in China’s “sovereignty.”
The emeritus bishop of Hong Kong Cardinal Joseph Zen has repeatedly criticized the deal strongly. He described it as an “incredible betrayal” of China’s Catholics and accused the Vatican of “selling out” Chinese Catholics.
READ: Pope Francis’ deal with Communist China has led to greater persecution of Catholics
While Parolin defended the deal as a necessary means of “dialogue” with the Communists authorities, the deal has actually led to a heightened increase in religious persecution since it was signed, which the U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China described as a direct consequence of the deal. In its 2020 report, the Commission wrote that the persecution witnessed is “of an intensity not seen since the Cultural Revolution.”
The Commission directly linked the increase in Catholic persecution to the deal: “Subsequently, local Chinese authorities subjected Catholic believers in China to increased persecution by demolishing churches, removing crosses, and continuing to detain underground clergy. The Party-led Catholic national religious organizations also published a plan to ‘sinicize’ Catholicism in China.”
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| Ireland: Another Fake Eucharistic Miracle? |
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Posted by: Stone - 07-17-2023, 05:51 AM - Forum: Vatican II and the Fruits of Modernism
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These fake Novus Ordo miracles seem to get more fantastic as time goes on! And notice how many of them
somehow involve a lay 'Eucharistic minister' and are also often the result of some kind of sacrilege related to the reception of Communion. - The Catacombs
Eucharistic Miracle in Ireland?
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gloria.tv | July 16, 2023
Father Philip Kemmy, a parish priest in Raphoe Diocese, Ireland, had just finished handing out Communion while a communion helper was still doing so.
Then, a strange thing happened, he said in a July 13 video posted online. He went to the tabernacle and emptied the remaining hosts into a larger ciborium.
As he was placing it in the tabernacle, he felt something like a flash, as if something had fallen in front of his face.
He genuflected, closed the tabernacle, and took the empty ciborium. He was surprised to see that it contained a host although he was convinced that he had emptied it. He placed this host in the tabernacle.
Later that day, a lady he knew well called him, and asked if he had not noticed anything strange at the tabernacle that day.
Kemmy admitted that he had the impression that a host had fallen from the sky into the ciborium, “Maybe I'm nuts”, he said.
“No, you’re not”, the lady insisted and told him another story. While Kemmy was at the tabernacle, a stranger took communion from the helper who was still distributing it and returned to his place without consuming it.
The lady saw this and was about to confront the man when suddenly, the host in his hand shot up into the air about seven feet, turned around and shot up to the tabernacle where it dropped down. She said that another woman also witnessed this.
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| ‘I Have Many Friends of My Table, But Few of My Cross’ |
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Posted by: Stone - 07-17-2023, 05:33 AM - Forum: The Saints
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In a world deliriously turned toward pride and sensuality, not excluding transhumanism and artificial intelligence that stems from a pride directly against God, and the sins of the flesh against nature, LGBT and all its deviants, the Letter to the Friends of the Cross by St. Louis Grignion de Monfrot is more timely than ever.
Indeed, the response to this madness is to not follow the tornado of scandals in which we live, but rather to become a friend of the Cross and follow the counsels of the Great Saint who taught us how to walk this path.
Today we bring to our readers an excerpt in which St. Louis de Montfort imagines Our Lord Jesus Christ addressing each one of us.
Dear Brethren, remember that our beloved Jesus has His eyes upon you at this moment, addressing you individually: “See how almost everybody leaves Me practically alone on the royal road of the Cross.
“Blind idol worshipers sneer at My Cross and brand it folly. Obstinate Jews are scandalized at the sight of it as at some monstrosity (1 Cor. 1:23). Heretics tear it down and break it to pieces out of sheer contempt.
“But one thing I cannot say without My eyes filling with tears and My heart being pierced with grief is that the very children I nourished in My bosom and trained in My school, the very members I quickened with My spirit, have turned against Me, forsaken Me and joined the ranks of the enemies of My Cross (Is 1:2; Phil:18).
“Would you also leave Me? (Jin 6: 68). Would you also forsake me and flee from My Cross, like the worldlings, who are acting as so many Antichrists? (1 Jn 2:12). Would you subscribe to the standards of the day (Rom 12:2), despise the poverty of My Cross and go in quest of riches; shun the sufferings connected with My Cross to run after pleasure; spurn the humiliations that must be borne with My Cross and pursue worldly honors?
“There are many who pretend that they are friends of Mine and love Me but in reality they hate Me because they have no love for My Cross. I have many friends of My table, but few indeed of My Cross.” (Imitation of Jesus Christ, Bk 2, Chap 11.)
In answer to the gracious invitation which Jesus extends, let us rise above ourselves. Let us not, like Eve, listen to the insidious suggestion of sense. Let us look up to the unique Author and Finisher of our faith, Jesus crucified (Heb 12:2). Let us fly from the corrupting concupiscence and enticements of a corrupt world (2 Pet 1:4). Let us love Jesus in the right way, standing by Him through the heaviest of crosses. Let us meditate seriously on these remarkable words of our beloved Master which sum up the Christian life in its perfection: “If any man will come after Me let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me” (Matt. 16,24).
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| St. Alphonsus Liguori: Daily Meditations for Seventh Week after Pentecost |
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Posted by: Stone - 07-16-2023, 08:02 AM - Forum: Pentecost
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What will be the terror of the poor worldling when he reflects: In a short time I shall be no more! And I know not whether I shall be happy or miserable for eternity! O God, what consternation will the bare words, Judgment, Hell, Eternity, strike into the souls of poor worldlings!
I.
We must die. Sooner or later we must all die. In every age houses and cities are filled with new inhabitants, and their predecessors are consigned to the grave.
We are born but to die–born with a halter, as it were, about our necks. However long, then, our life may be, a day, an hour, will come which will be our last, and this hour is already determined.
I thank Thee, O God, for the patience with which Thou hast borne with me. Oh, that I had died rather than have ever offended Thee! But since Thou givest me time to repair the past, make known to me what Thou requirest of me, and I will obey Thee in all things.
In a few years neither I who write nor thou who readest will be living on this earth. As we have heard the bell toll for others, so will others one day hear it toll for us. As we now read the names of others inscribed in the lists of the dead, so will others read our names.
In a word, there is no alternative; we must all die. And, what is more terrible, we can die but once; and if once lost, we shall be lost for ever.
What will be your alarm when it is announced to you that you must receive the Last Sacraments, and that there is no time to be lost! Then will you see your relatives and friends leave your room, and none remain but your confessor and those who are to attend you in your last moments.
O Jesus, I will not wait until death to give myself to Thee. Thou hast said that Thou knowest not how to reject the soul that seeks Thee: Seek and you shall find (Matt. vii. 7).
Now, therefore, O Jesus, do I seek Thee; grant that I may find Thee. I love Thee, O infinite Goodness! Thee alone do I desire, and besides Thee, nothing more.
In the midst of his schemes and worldly projects the man of the world shall hear it said to him: “My brother, you are fatally ill, and must prepare to die.” He would wish to put his accounts in order; but, alas! the terror and confusion which agitate him render him incapable of doing anything.
Whatever he sees or hears adds to his pain and distress. All worldly things are now thorns to him: the remembrance of past pleasures, his vanities, his successes, the friends who have withdrawn him from God, vain apparel; all are thorns, and all alarm and torment him.
What will be his terror when he reflects: “In a short time I shall be no more; and I know not whether I shall be happy, or miserable, for eternity!” O God, what consternation will the bare words, Judgment, Hell, Eternity, strike into the souls of poor dying worldlings!
My Redeemer, I believe that Thou hast died for me. From Thy precious Blood do I hope for salvation. I love Thee, O infinite Goodness! And I am grieved for having offended Thee. O Jesus, my Hope, my Love, have pity on me.
II.
Consider that poor worldling now seized with his last illness. He who but a little while ago went about slandering, threatening, and ridiculing others, is suddenly struck down and deprived of his strength and bodily senses, so that he can no longer speak, or see, or hear.
Alas! the unhappy man thinks now no more of his worldly projects, or his schemes of vanity; the thought of the account which he must soon render to God alone occupies his mind. His relatives are weeping and sighing, or in sad silence around him, and his confessor is there to assist him.
Physicians consult together. Everything increases his alarm. In such a state, he thinks no longer of his amusements; he thinks only of the news which has been brought him–his malady is fatal!
But there is no help for it, and in this state of confusion, in this tempest of pain, affliction, and fear, he must prepare himself to depart out of this world. But how is he to prepare himself in so short a time and his mind so troubled? But it matters not! There is no remedy; he must depart! What is done is done!
O God, what shall my end be? No, I desire not to die in so great uncertainty as to my salvation. I will change my life. O Jesus! help me, for I am resolved to love Thee henceforward with my whole heart. Unite me to Thyself, and never suffer me to b
e separated from Thee.
Spiritual Reading
PRAYER, ITS POWER
III–GOD IS ALWAYS READY TO HEAR OUR PRAYER
St. Bernardine of Sienna says that Prayer is a faithful ambassador, well known to the King of Heaven, and having access to His audience chamber, and able by his importunity to induce the merciful Heart of the King to grant every aid to us His wretched creatures, groaning in the midst of our conflicts and miseries in this valley of tears. Isaias also assures us, that as soon as the Lord hears our prayers He is moved with compassion towards us, and does not leave us to cry long to Him, but instantly replies, and grants us what we ask: Weeping, thou shalt not weep; he will surely have pity upon thee: at the voice of thy cry as soon as he shall hear, he will answer thee (Is. xxx. 19). In another place He complains of us by the mouth of Jeremias: Am I become a wilderness to Israel, or a lateward springing land? Why then have my people said, we are revolted, we will come to thee no more? (Jer. ii. 31). Why do you say that you will no more have recourse to Me? Has My mercy become to you a barren land, which can yield you no fruits of grace? or a tardy soil, which yields its fruit too late? So has our loving Lord assured us that He never neglects to hear us, and to hear us instantly when we pray; and so does He reproach those who neglect to pray through diffidence of being heard.
If God were to allow us to present our petitions to Him once a month, even this would be a great favour. The kings of the earth give audience a few times a year, but God gives continual audience. St. Chrysostom writes that God is always waiting to hear our prayers, and that a case never occurred when He neglected to hear a petition offered to Him with the proper dispositions. And again, he says that when we pray to God, before we have finished recounting to Him our petitions, He has already heard us: “It is always obtained, even while we are yet praying.” We even have the like promise from God: As they are yet speaking I will hear (Is. lxv. 24). The Lord, says David, stands near to everyone who prays, to console, to hear, and to save him: The Lord is nigh to all them that call upon him; to all that call upon him in truth (that is, as they ought). He will do the will of them that fear him; and he will hear their prayer and will save them (Ps. cxliv. 18, 19). It was in this that Moses gloried, saying: There is no other nation so great, that has gods so nigh them, as our God is present to all our petitions (Deut. iv. 7). The gods of the Gentiles were deaf to those who invoked them, for they were wretched fabrications, which could do nothing. But our God, Who is Almighty, is not deaf to our prayers, but always stands near the man who prays, ready to grant him all the graces which he asks: In what day soever I shall call upon thee, behold I shall know that thou art my God (Ps. lv. 10). Lord, says the Psalmist, hereby do I know that Thou art my God, all goodness and mercy, in that, whenever I have recourse to Thee, Thou dost instantly help me.
IV–THE POWER OF PRAYER TO OBTAIN GREAT THINGS FOR US.
We are so poor that we have nothing; but if we pray we are no longer poor. If we are poor, God is rich; and God, as the Apostle says, is all liberality to him that calls for His aid: Rich unto all who call upon Him (Rom. x. 12). Since therefore (as St. Augustine exhorts us), we have to do with a Lord of infinite power and infinite riches, let us not go to Him for little and valueless things, but let us ask some great thing of Him: “You seek from the Almighty–seek something great.” If a man went to a king to ask some trumpery coin, like a farthing, methinks that man would but insult the king. On the other hand, we honour God, we honour His mercy, and His liberality, when, though we see how miserable we are, and how unworthy of any kindness, we yet ask for great graces, trusting in the goodness of God, and in His faithfulness to His promises of granting to the man who prays whatever grace he asks: You shall ask whatsoever you will, and it shall be done unto you (Jo. xv. 7). St. Mary Magdalen de Pazzi said that “God feels Himself so honoured and is so delighted when we ask for His grace, that He is, in a certain sense, grateful to us; because when we do this we seem to open to Him a way to do us a kindness, and to satisfy His nature, which is to do good to all. “And let us be sure that, when we seek God’s grace, He always gives us more than we ask: If any of you want wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth to all men abundantly, and upbraideth not (James i. 5). Thus speaks St. James, to show us that God is not like men, parsimonious of His goods. Men, though rich and liberal, when they give alms, are always somewhat niggardly, and generally give less than what is asked of them, because their wealth, however great it be, is always finite, so that the more they give the less they have. But God, when He is asked, gives His good things abundantly, that is, with a generous hand, always giving more than is asked, because His wealth is infinite, and the more He gives the more He has to give: For thou, O Lord, art sweet and mild; and plenteous in mercy to all that call upon thee (Ps. lxxxv. 5).
On this point, then, we have to fix all our attention, namely, to pray with confidence, feeling sure that by Prayer all the treasures of Heaven are thrown open to us. “Let us attend to this,” says St. Chrysostom, “and we shall open Heaven to ourselves.” Prayer is a treasure; he who asks most receives most. St. Venture says that every time a man has recourse to God by fervent Prayer he gains good things that are of more value than the whole world: “A man gains any day more by devout prayer than the whole world is worth.” Some devout souls spend a great deal of time in reading, and in meditating, but pay little attention to petition. There is no doubt that Spiritual Reading and Meditation on the Eternal Truths are very useful things; “but”, says St. Augustine, “it is of much more use to pray.” By reading and meditating we learn our duty; but by Prayer we obtain the grace to do it. “It is better to pray than to read: by reading we know what we ought to do; by prayer we receive what we ask.” What is the use of knowing our duty and then not doing it, but to make us more guilty in God’s sight? Read and meditate as we like, we shall never satisfy our obligations, unless we ask of God the grace to fulfil them.
And, therefore, as St. Isidore observes, the devil is never more busy to distract us with the thoughts of worldly cares than when he perceives us praying and asking God for grace: “Then mostly does the devil insinuate thoughts, when he sees a man praying.” And why? Because the enemy sees that at no other time do we gain so many treasures of heavenly goods as when we pray. This is the chief fruit of Mental Prayer, to ask God for the graces which we need for perseverance and for eternal salvation; and chiefly for this reason is it that Mental Prayer is morally necessary for the soul, to enable it to preserve itself in the grace of God. For if a person neglects in the time of Meditation to ask for the help necessary for perseverance he will not do so at any other time; for without Meditation he will not think of asking for it, and will not even think of the necessity of asking for it. On the other hand, he who makes his Meditation every day will easily see the needs of his soul, its dangers, and the necessity for his praying; and so he will pray, and will obtain the graces which will enable him to persevere and save his soul. Father Segneri said of himself that when he began to meditate he aimed rather at exciting affections than at making petitions. But when he came to know the immense utility of Prayer, he more and more applied himself, in his long mental prayer, to making petitions.
I will cry like a young swallow, said the devout King Ezechias (Is. xxxviii. 14). The young of the swallow do nothing but cry to their mother for help and food; so should we all do, if we would preserve our life of grace. We should be always crying to God for aid to avoid the death of sin, and to advance in His holy love. Father Rodriguez relates that the Ancient Fathers who were our first instructors in the spiritual life held a conference to determine which was the exercise most useful and most necessary for salvation; and that they determined it was to repeat over and over again the short prayer of David, Incline unto my aid, O God (Ps. lxix. 2). “This,” says Cassian, “is what everyone ought to do who wishes to be saved: he ought to be always saying, My God, help me! My God, help me!” We ought to do this the first thing when we awake in the morning; and then to continue doing it in all our needs, and when attending to our business, whether spiritual or temporal; and most especially when we find ourselves troubled by any temptation or passion. St. Bonaventure says that at times we obtain a grace by a short prayer sooner than by many other good works: “Sometimes a man can soon obtain by a short prayer what he would with difficulty obtain by pious works.” St. Ambrose says that he who prays while he is praying obtains what he asks, because the very act of prayer is the same as receiving: He who asks of God, while he asks receives; for to ask is to receive.” Hence St. Chrysostom wrote that “there is nothing more powerful than a man who prays,” because such a one is made partaker of the power of God. To arrive at perfection, says St. Bernard, we must meditate and pray: by Meditation we see what we want; by Prayer we receive what we want. “Let us mount up by Meditation and Prayer: the one points out what may be deficient, the other obtains it.”
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, to save one’s soul without Prayer is most difficult, and (as we have seen) in the ordinary course of God’s Providence, even impossible. But by praying our salvation is made secure, and very easy. It is not necessary in order to save our souls to go among the heathen, and give up our life as martyrs. Nor is it necessary, like the hermits, to retire into the desert, and eat nothing but herbs. What does it cost us to say, My God, help me! Lord, assist me! Have mercy on me! Is there anything more easy than this? And this little will be enough to save us, if we will be diligent in doing it. St. Laurence Justinian specially exhorts us to oblige ourselves to say a prayer at least when we begin any action: “We must endeavour to offer a prayer at least in the beginning of every work.” Cassian attests that the principal exhortation of the Ancient Fathers was to have recourse to God with short but frequent prayers. St. Bernard says: “Let no one undervalue his prayer, for God does not undervalue it … He will give either what we ask or what He knows to be better”. And let us understand that if we do not pray we have no excuse, because the grace of Prayer is given to everyone. It is in our power to pray whenever we will, as David says of himself: With me is prayer to the God of my life; I will say to God, thou art my support (Ps. xli. 9). On this point I shall later speak at length, and I will make it quite clear that God gives to all men the grace of Prayer in order that thereby they may obtain every help, and even more than they need, for keeping the Divine Law and for persevering till death. At present I will only say that if we are not saved the whole fault will be ours; and we shall have to answer for our own failure because we did not pray.
Evening Meditation
THE PRACTICE OF THE LOVE OF JESUS CHRIST
“Charity hopeth all things”
HE THAT LOVES JESUS CHRIST HOPES FOR ALL THINGS FROM HIM
I.
Charity hopeth all things. St. Thomas, with the Master of the Sentences, defines Christian Hope to be a “sure expectation of eternal happiness.” Its certainty arises from the infallible promise of God to give eternal life to His faithful servants. Now Charity, by taking away sin, at the same time takes away all obstacles to our obtaining the happiness of the Blessed; hence the greater our Charity the greater also and firmer is our Hope; Hope, on the other hand, can in no way interfere with the purity of love, because, according to the observation of St. Denis the Areopagite, love tends naturally to union with the object beloved; or, as St. Augustine asserts in stronger terms, love itself is like a chain of gold that links together the hearts of the lover and the loved. “Love is as it were a kind of bond uniting two together.” And as this union can never be effected at a distance, the person that loves always longs for the presence of the object of his love. The Sacred Spouse languished in the absence of her Beloved, and entreated her companions to acquaint Him with her sorrow, that He might come and console her with His presence: I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if you find my beloved, that you tell him that I languish with love (Cant. v. 8). A soul that loves Jesus Christ exceedingly cannot but desire and hope, as long as she remains on earth, to go without delay and be united to her beloved Lord in Heaven.
Thus we see that the desire to go and see God in Heaven, not so much for the delight we shall experience in loving God, as for the pleasure we shall afford God by loving Him, is pure and perfect love. Neither is the joy of the Blessed in Heaven any hindrance to the purity of their love; such joy is inseparable from their love; but they take far more satisfaction in their love of God than in the joy that it affords them. Someone will, perhaps, say: But the desire of a reward is rather a love of concupiscence than a love of friendship. We must therefore make a distinction between temporal rewards promised by men, and the eternal rewards of Paradise promised by God to those who love Him: the rewards given by man are distinct from and independent of their own persons, since they do not bestow themselves, but only their goods, when they would remunerate others; on the contrary, the principal reward which God gives to the Blessed is the gift of Himself: I am thy reward exceeding great (Gen. xv.1). Hence to desire Heaven is the same thing as to desire God, Who is our last end.
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