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| St. Alphonsus Liguori: Daily Meditations for Quinquagesima Week |
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Posted by: Stone - 02-21-2023, 07:23 AM - Forum: Lent
- Replies (7)
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St. Teresa says that all are not allowed to speak to their king; the most that can be hoped for is to communicate with him through a third person. And even if anyone at length succeeds in speaking with a king, how many difficulties has he had to overcome before he could do so! To converse with Thee, O King of Glory, no third person is needed. Thou art always ready in the Sacrament of the Altar to grant audience to all. In this Sacrament Thou grantest audience to all, night and day -- whenever we please.
I.
Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament gives audience to all. St. Teresa says, that in this world all cannot speak with their sovereign; the poor can hardly hope to do so, or even to make their wants known through some third person: but with this King of Heaven no third person is necessary, -- all, both high and low, may speak to Him, for He remains face to face with us in this Sacrament. It is for this reason that Jesus is called the Flower of the field and the lily of the valleys. (Cant. ii. 1). Garden-flowers are shut in and carefully preserved; but the flowers of the fields are open to all. Cardinal Hugo comments on these words, saying, "because I show Myself to be found by all."
Any one may, then, speak to Jesus in this Sacrament at any hour of the day. St. Peter Chrysologus, describing the birth of our Redeemer in the stable of Bethlehem, says, that kings are not always giving audience; it often happens that a person goes to speak to the prince, and the guards send him away, saying that it is not the hour for admission, and he must come again. But our Lord was pleased to be born in an open cave, without a door, and without guards, that He might receive all, at all hours. There is no attendant to say, "It is not the hour." And it is the same with Jesus in His Most Holy Sacrament: the churches are always open, and everyone may go and speak to the King of Heaven whenever he pleases; and Jesus wills that we should there address Him with the utmost confidence. It is for this that He has concealed Himself beneath the form of bread. If He were to appear on our Altars on a throne of light, as He will appear at the Last Judgment, which of us would have courage to approach Him? But because Our Lord wishes us to speak to Him, says St. Teresa, and to seek graces of Him with confidence and without fear, He has hidden His majesty under the species of bread: He wishes that we should treat with Him "as one friend with another," as Thomas a Kempis expresses it.
To converse with Thee, O King of Glory, no third person is needed: Thou art always ready in the Sacrament of the Altar to give audience to all. Whoever desires Thee always finds Thee there and converses with Thee face to face. Since, then, my Jesus, Thou art enclosed in this Tabernacle to receive the supplications of miserable creatures who come to seek an audience of Thee, listen this day to the petition addressed to Thee by the most ungrateful sinner on earth. I come repentant to Thy feet. Change me from a great rebel such as I have hitherto been to Thee, into a great lover of Thee. Thou canst do it. I love Thee, my Jesus, above all things. I love Thee more than my life, my God, my Love, my All!
II.
When the soul remains at the foot of the Altar, Jesus seems to address her in the words of the Canticle: Arise. my love, my beautiful one, and come. (Cant. ii. 10). "Soul arise," He says, "and fear not; approach, come near to Me. My friend: you are not now My enemy for you love Me, and are sorry for having offended Me. My beautiful one: you are no longer hideous in My eyes. My grace has made you beautiful. And come: come here, tell Me whatever you wish; I am on the altar for this very purpose." How delighted you would be if a king were to call you into his presence, and say to you "Tell me, what do you want, what do you wish? I love you and wish to benefit you." Jesus Christ, the King of Heaven, says this to all who visit Him: Come to me all you that labour and are burdened, and I will refresh you. (Matt. xi. 28). Come all you who are poor, sick, or afflicted, I can and will enrich you, hear you, and comfort you. I remain for this purpose on your altars: I myself that spoke: behold I am here. (Is. lii. 6).
My beloved Jesus, since Thou remainest on our Altar to hear the petitions of wretched creatures who have recourse to Thee, hear now the prayer which I, miserable sinner, make to Thee. O Lamb of God sacrificed and put to death on the Cross, Thou seest in me a soul redeemed with Thy Blood; forgive me the insults I have offered Thee, and help me by Thy grace to lose Thee no more. Give me, dear Jesus, a share in the grief Thou didst feel in the Garden of Gethsemani for my sins! Oh, that I had never offended Thee, my God! If I were to die in sin, my beloved Lord, I could love Thee no more; but Thou hast waited for me expressly that I may love Thee; I thank Thee for the time Thou grantest me, and since I now can love Thee, I will do so. Grant me the great grace of loving Thee, but of loving Thee so as to make me forget all, to think only of pleasing Thy most loving Heart. My Jesus, Thou hast expended Thy whole life for me; grant that I may use for Thee at least the remainder of my life. I hope for all graces through the merits of Thy Passion. I hope also in thy intercession, O Mary! Thou knowest that I love thee. Have pity upon me.
Spiritual Reading
VISITING JESUS IN THE BLESSED SACRAMENT
Let us be careful to profit by the presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. Our hearts should remain with Him to burn continually, and with greater splendour than the lights and lamps that adorn the Altar. But, alas! the ingratitude of men towards Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament made Him complain to His servant, St. Margaret Mary Alocoque, to whom He showed His Divine Heart burning with flames of love for men. Jesus said to her: "Behold this Heart that has loved men so tenderly, and has reserved nothing, but has consumed itself in order to show its love for men; yet in return I receive nothing but ingratitude and contempt from the greater number of men in this Sacrament. But what displeases Me most is, that some of these ungrateful ones are hearts consecrated to Me." In these last words Jesus spoke of those who dwell in the same house with Him, and yet draw but little profit from His Presence. If He were to come into your church once a year, and to remain only for a single day, surely all would contend with one another in paying homage to Him, and in remaining in His loving company; and will you leave Him alone, and seldom visit Him because in order to see you more frequently in His Presence, He, in His goodness, remains continually with you?
If you have hitherto been negligent in visiting Jesus in the Tabernacle, I entreat you henceforth to avail yourself of the great treasure that you have in the most Holy Sacrament. Sister Anne of the Cross, who had been Countess of Feria, and a Spanish lady of high rank, after being a widow for twenty-four years entered the Order of St. Clare, in Montilla. She procured a cell, from which she had a view of the Altar of the Blessed Sacrament, and there she generally remained day and night. Being asked how she was employed during so many hours that she spent before the Blessed Sacrament, she replied: "I would remain there for all eternity. How am I employed before Jesus in the Blessed Eucharist? I thank Him, I love Him, I ask His graces." Behold an excellent means of drawing great fruit from your visits to the Blessed Sacrament.
First, thank Jesus Christ. How thankful you are to relatives that come from a distance to visit you! And will you not thank Jesus Christ Who descends from Heaven, not only to visit you, but also to remain always with you? First of all in your Visit, enliven your Faith and adore your Spouse in the Sacrament: thank His great goodness in coming to remain on the Altar for the love of you.
Secondly, love Jesus. St. Philip Neri, when he saw the most holy Viaticum brought into his room, was all on fire with holy love, and exclaimed: "Behold my Love! Behold my Love!" Do you say the same when you remain before the Holy Tabernacle. Consider that your Jesus, shut up in that prison of love, is burning with love for you. To St. Catherine of Sienna He appeared one day in the Blesesed Sacrament in the form of a fiery furnace, and the Saint was astonished that the flames that issued from it had not filled the hearts of all men with the fire of Divine love. If, when you remain in His Presence, you wish to please Him, repeat acts of love, offering yourself to Him in a special manner.
Thirdly, ask Jesus for His grace. Blessed Henry Suso used to say that it is in the Holy Sacrament that Jesus hears most readily the prayers of those who visit Him, and that it is there He dispenses His graces most abundantly. The Venerable Father Balthasar Alvarez once saw Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament with His hands full of graces, but found no one to whom He could impart them, because there was no one to ask them. You say that you cannot remain in the Presence of Jesus Christ, because you know not what to do before Him, or what to say. O God! And why do you not employ yourself in asking the graces of which you stand in need? Beg of Jesus to give you strength to resist temptations, to correct the faults into which you always relapse, to rescue you from the passion that keeps you in chains, and hinders you from giving yourself entirely to God. Entreat Him to give you aid to suffer all insults and contradictions in peace, to increase in your heart His Divine love, and entreat Him particularly to make you live always united with His holy will. When you feel disturbed on account of having committed any fault, go instantly to the Holy Sacrament to ask pardon, and then calm your mind. When you receive any offence, or when you meet a heavy cross, go and offer it to Jesus Christ and ask His aid to embrace it with resignation. Oh! if we all acted in this manner and knew how to avail ourselves of the Presence of Jesus, we should all become Saints. Let it be our care to become Saints by adopting this practice.
Evening Meditation
A GIFT SURPASSING ALL GIFTS
I.
St. Paul draws attention to the time Jesus chose to make us this gift of the most Holy Sacrament; a gift which surpasses all the other gifts which an Almighty God could make, as St. Clement says: "A gift surpassing all fulness." And St. Augustine says: "Although omnipotent He could give no more." The Apostle remarks that the Lord Jesus, the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread and, giving thanks, broke and said: Take ye and eat; this is my body which shall be delivered for you. (1 Cor. xi. 23, 24). In that same night, then, that men were thinking of preparing torments and death for Jesus, our beloved Redeemer thought of leaving them Himself in the Blessed Sacrament; giving us thereby to understand that His love was so great, that, instead of being cooled by so many injuries, it was then more than ever yearning towards us. O most loving Saviour, how couldest Thou have so great love for men as to choose to remain with them on this earth to be their Food, after their having driven Thee away from it with so much ingratitude!
II.
Let us also consider the immense desire Jesus has during all His life for the arrival of that night, in which He had determined to leave us this great pledge of His love. For at the moment of His instituting this most sweet Sacrament, He said, With desire I have desired to eat this pasch with you. (Luke xxii. 15), words which reveal to us the ardent desire that He had to unite Himself with us in Communion through the love which He bore us: "This is the voice of most burning charity," says St. Laurence Justinian. And Jesus still retains at the present time the same desire towards all the souls that love Him.
O Lover, too full of love, there are no greater proofs left for Thee to give me in order to persuade me that Thou dost love me. I bless Thy goodness for it. O my Jesus, I beseech Thee, draw me entirely to Thyself. Make me love Thee henceforth with all the affections and tenderness of which I am capable. Let it suffice to others to love Thee with a love only appreciative and predominant, for I know that Thou wilt be satisfied with it; but I shall not be satisfied until I see that I love Thee also with all the tenderness of my heart, more than friend, more than brother, more than father, and more than spouse. And where, indeed, shall I find a friend, a brother, a father, a spouse, who will love me as much as Thou hast loved me, my Creator, my Redeemer, and my God, Who for the love of me hast spent Thy Blood and Thy life; and, not content with that, dost give Thyself entirely to me in this Sacrament of love. I love Thee, then, O my Jesus, with all the affections of my soul: I love Thee more than myself. Oh, help me to love Thee; I ask nothing more of Thee.
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| How the Novus Ordo Mass Was Made by Yves Chiron |
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Posted by: Stone - 02-21-2023, 07:12 AM - Forum: New Rite Sacraments
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![[Image: paul_vi_at_vatican_ii_wolleh.jpg]](https://churchlifejournal.nd.edu/assets/436329/1200x/paul_vi_at_vatican_ii_wolleh.jpg)
Paul VI At Vatican II
July 22, 2021
The incremental Vatican II reforms brought about by the September 1964 and May 1967 Instructions opened the way to a general reform of the Mass. They lay the groundwork for it in two transitional phases, as it were. A completely new rite of the Mass was slated for preparation from the very beginning of the Consilium [Council for the Implementation of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy]. During the fifth plenary session in April 1965 (20 members and 41 experts were in attendance), the possibility of modifying the Canon of the Mass was brought up. As Archbishop Bugnini himself was later to admit, however, a very broad majority of members and consultors was of the opinion that this “venerable document” was not to be touched.
The first complete draft of a new Ordo Missae was ready for the sixth plenary session (October 18–26, 1965). Msgr. Wagner, the relator for the tenth group, presented it. It was the occasion for two “experimentations” that took place in the chapel of the “Maria Bambina” Institute: the first in Italian on October 20, the second in French on October 22. The two celebrations of this “normative” Mass, as it was called, took place behind closed doors in the presence of Consilium members, who were then able to share their impressions in one of the Institute’s meeting rooms. Paul VI had some concerns regarding this reform of the Ordo Missae. On three different occasions (October 25, 1965, December 10, 1965, and March 7, 1966), he had his Secretary of State, Cardinal Cicognani, address official letters to Cardinal Lercaro to recommend prudence and reserving to the Holy See any decision involving “any possible changes proposed for the rite of celebration of the divine sacrifice.”
On June 20, 1966, the revised first draft of the new Mass was presented to Paul VI by Cardinal Lercaro. The pope wanted two important changes:
- the present anaphora [the Roman Canon] is to be left untouched; two or three other anaphoras should be composed, or sought in existing texts, that could be used during certain defined seasons.
- the Kyrie should be retained when the Gloria is not said; when the liturgy prescribes the Gloria, however, the Kyrie should be replaced with another penitential prayer.
Consequently, a Consilium subcommission prepared three new anaphoras (or Eucharistic Prayers). Two were new compositions while the third (which became the second Eucharistic Prayer in the new Ordo Missae) was inspired by the anaphora of Saint Hippolytus.
Archbishop Bugnini was later to acknowledge that one of these new Eucharistic Prayers (which became the fourth Eucharistic Prayer) was put together in haste, “a kind of forced labor.” A consultor on that subcommission, Fr. Bouyer, gave the same description (not without humor and irony) for the composition of the second Eucharistic Prayer that he prepared with Dom Botte, the famous Hippolytus specialist. He had to compose it posthaste, within a twenty-four-hour period:
Quote:Between the indiscriminately archeologizing fanatics who wanted to banish the Sanctus and the intercessions from the Eucharistic Prayer by taking Hippolytus’s Eucharist as is, and those others who could not have cared less about his alleged Apostolic Tradition and wanted a slapdash Mass, Dom Botte and I were commissioned to patch up its text with a view to inserting these elements, which are certainly quite ancient—by the next morning! Luckily, I discovered, if not in a text by Hippolytus himself certainly in one in his style, a felicitous formula on the Holy Ghost that could provide a transition of the Vere Sanctus type to the short epiclesis. For his part Botte produced an intercession worthier of Paul Reboux’s “In the manner of…” than of his actual scholarship. Still, I cannot reread that improbable composition without recalling the Trastevere café terrace where we had to put the finishing touches to our assignment in order to show up with it at the Bronze Gate by the time our masters had set!
Nine new Prefaces were composed at this time, of which eight were retained. Fr Bouyer sees them in a more positive light: “The only element undeserving of criticism in this new missal was the enrichment it received, thanks particularly to the restoration of a good number of splendid prefaces taken over from ancient sacramentaries.”
An Experimental Mass at the Synod of 1967
The new Mass in its completed structure was presented to some 180 cardinals and bishops in a Synod at the Vatican in 1967. This first postconciliar Synod was to deal with several topics: the revision of the code of canon law, doctrinal questions, and the liturgical reform. On October 21, Cardinal Lercaro presented the assembled cardinals and bishops with a report describing the new structure of the Mass and the changes introduced into it, as well as the reform of the Divine Office. On October 24, Fr Bugnini celebrated a “normative” Mass before the Synod Fathers in the Sistine chapel. Paul VI did not attend this celebration because of an “indisposition,” however.
Besides the changes that were already in force since the 1964 and 1967 Instructions (Mass celebrated facing the people in Italian including the Canon, fewer genuflections and signs of the cross, etc.), the “normative” Mass that Fr Bugnini celebrated with a large choir added other new elements: a longer Liturgy of the Word (three readings total), a transformed Offertory, a new Eucharistic Prayer (the third), and a great number of hymns.
During the four general congregations devoted to the liturgy (October 21–25), cardinals and bishops made many comments on this “normative” Mass and on the liturgical reform in general. All told, sixty-three cardinals, bishops, and religious superiors general commented on the subject and a further nineteen submitted written comments. There was a diversity of opinion. “Of sixty-three orators,” Fr Caprile reported, “thirty-six explicitly expressed, in the warmest, most enthusiastic, and unreserved terms,” their agreement with the reform underway and its results. Some bishops even wanted further changes, such as the possibility of receiving communion in the hand, that of using ordinary bread for communion, and the preparation of a specific Mass for youth, etc.
Yet the general tone was more prudent, if not reserved or even critical. The English-speaking bishops met at the English College to define a common position on the “normative” Mass. On October 25, at the Synod, Cardinal Heenan, Archbishop of Westminster, took the floor to accuse the Consilium of technicism and intellectualism and to blame it for lacking pastoral sense. More significant yet, in the sense that they came from the highest authority in the Church after the pope, were the words of Cardinal Cicognani, Secretary of State, who on the very same day asked for an end to liturgical changes “lest the faithful be confused.”
Twice during the debates on the liturgy, the participants were invited to express their opinion through a vote. On October 25, they answered four questions that Paul VI had specifically posed: on the three new Eucharistic Prayers, on two changes in the formula of consecration, and on the possibility of replacing the Niceno-Constantinopolitan creed with the Apostles’ Creed. Eight more questions were posed on October 27, particularly on the normative Mass and on the Divine Office draft.
Leaving aside a detailed analysis of these twelve votes, it is noteworthy that for half of them (two out of the pope’s four questions and four out of eight of the remainder), the required two-thirds majority was not reached. There were 187 voters; the two-thirds majority was therefore 124. For some of the votes, the tally was far from it, with the non placet (nays) and placet juxta modum (approval on condition of modifications) having a broad margin. For example, regarding the suppression of the phrase Mysterium fidei in the consecration formula, there were only 93 placet. More spectacular yet was the refusal to give unreserved approval to the general structure of the normative Mass: 71 placet; 43 non placet; 62 placet juxta modum; 4 abstentions.
A few months later Fr Bugnini acknowledged to Consilium consultors and members that “the response of the bishops was not unanimous. The votes in the Synod went to some extent contrary to what the Consilium wanted [contro il ‘Consilium’].”
Lercaro’s “Destitution”
This public disavowal of the Consilium’s work was one of the causes that led to Cardinal Lercaro’s destitution. In August 1966, Cardinal Lercaro, who was reaching the age limit of 75 imposed on bishops and curial officials, had presented his resignation to the pope. Paul VI had asked him to continue in his functions as both archbishop of Bologna and president of the Consilium. Nevertheless, Paul VI named one of his close collaborators, Msgr. Poma, as coadjutor in the archdiocese of Bologna in June 1967.
Then, unexpectedly for the cardinal, Paul VI wrote to Lercaro on January 9, 1968 to tell him that he accepted his resignation from the Consilium. The pope sent him a representative on the following 27th, whose mission was to secure the cardinal archbishop’s resignation [from the See of Bologna], which the latter, with a heavy heart, submitted on February 12.
One of Lercaro’s close collaborators, Don Lorenzo Bedeschi, presented this double resignation as a “destitution.” History, in the main, has accepted this view. Diverse reasons led to this double destitution: Cardinal Lercaro’s controversial pastoral policies in Bologna, his links to the Communist municipality (he agreed to being made an “honorary citizen”), his appeal against American bombing in Vietnam. Yet his management of the liturgical reform was also questioned. In 1967 the backlash linked to Casini’s pamphlet and the criticism leveled at the “normative” Mass had brought to light the opposition to the work of the Consilium, whose president he had been since 1964.
One may therefore say that Paul VI attempted to regain control of the liturgical reform in early 1968. Just as he officially accepted the resignation of the Consilium president, he simultaneously asked Cardinal Larraona to resign from the Congregation of Rites. On the same day Cardinal Gut, a Benedictine monk who was already a Consilium member, became its president as well the new prefect of the Congregation of Rites. This double nomination anticipated the fusion of the two organisms, which would occur the following year. Paul VI still had full confidence in Bugnini, however. During the audience that followed Lercaro’s resignation, Paul VI told Bugnini: “Now you alone are left. I urge you to be very patient and very prudent. I assure you once again of my complete confidence.” Fr Bugnini answered: “Holy Father, the reform will continue as long as Your Holiness retains this confidence. As soon as it lessens, the reform will come to a halt.”
Towards the “New Mass”
The Consilium put the “new Mass” project, which had been roundly criticized at the October 1967 Synod, back on the drawing board. We have seen that Paul VI had been unable to attend the first experiment of the “normative” Mass. A report prepared under Fr Bugnini’s direction had been presented to him on December 11, 1967. During an audience on January 4, 1968, he asked Fr Bugnini to organize three new “experimental” celebrations, to take place in his presence in the Matilda chapel on the second floor of the Apostolic Palace.
These three “normative” Masses were all celebrated in the late afternoon by one of Bugnini’s two closest collaborators, each with a different Eucharistic prayer, but in different modes of celebration: on January 11, a read Mass with hymns celebrated by Fr Carlo Braga; on January 12, an “entirely read Mass with participation of the faithful” celebrated by Fr Gottardo Pasqualetti; and on January 13, a sung Mass, once again celebrated by Fr Braga.
Each of the celebrations was attended by about thirty people besides the pope: the cardinal Secretary of State, different members of the Curia, several members of the Consilium, two religious women, and four laymen (two men and two women). These three experimental celebrations in the presence of the pope presented a few differences with the “normative” Mass that had been celebrated before the Synod a few months earlier, in particular by the introduction of a “Sign of Peace” that all in attendance exchanged after the instruction “Give each other the Peace.”
After each of the Masses, the pope welcomed some of the participants along with Fr Bugnini in his private library to share impressions and comments on what had been done in the celebration. On the following January 22, Paul VI provided his own written comments during an audience he granted to Fr Bugnini. The pope made seven suggestions, asking in particular that the Offertory should be given more prominence since it “should be the part of the Mass in which . . . [the faithful’s] activity is more direct and obvious.”
He also asked that the expression Mysterium fidei should be maintained at the end of the formula of consecration, “as a concluding acclamation of the celebrant, to be repeated by the faithful” and that the triple Agnus Dei invocation should be retained. Paul VI once again echoed some “authoritative persons” who asked that the last Gospel at the end of Mass (the prologue of the Gospel according to St. John) should be restored. Lastly, he asked that “the words of consecration . . . not be recited simply as a narrative but with the special, conscious emphasis given them by a celebrant who knows he is speaking and acting ‘in the person of Christ’.”
Also on January 22, Paul VI asked that the schema of the new Mass be sent, after revision, to all the Curia dicastery heads, a number of whom had expressed reservations or criticisms of the Synod “normative” Mass. “We must win them over and make allies of them,” the pope explicitly said, even if this entailed the argument from authority: “You saw, didn’t you, what happened when St. Joseph’s name was introduced into the Canon? First, everyone was against it. Then one fine morning Pope John decided to insert it and made this known; then everyone applauded, even those who had said they were opposed to it.”
The following May 23, Cardinal Gut, prefect of the Congregation of Rites and president of the Consilium, published a decree authorizing the use of the three new Eucharistic Prayers and of eight new Prefaces. They could be used starting on August 15, 1968. Once again, the traditional rite of the Mass was emended on important points before the new rite was completed and promulgated.
On June 2, 1968, the revised draft of the new Ordo Missae was sent, as Paul VI had intended, to fourteen curial cardinals (Congregation prefects and Secretariat presidents). Fr. Bugnini was to report that “of the fourteen cardinals involved, two did not reply, seven sent observations, and five said simply that they had no remarks to make or were ‘very pleased’ with the schema.”
It is noteworthy that the Institutio Generalis Missalis Romani (the “General Instruction of the Roman Missal”), which was to preface the new Ordo Missae, was not sent to these cardinals, not even to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. This Institutio, which was made up of eight chapters and put together by a study group directed by Fr Carlo Braga, presented itself as “at once [a] doctrinal, pastoral, and rubrical” treatment of the new Mass. Certain articles of this Institutio would come under criticism, as we shall see.
Paul VI had the revised draft and the cardinals’ responses examined by two of his close collaborators, Msgr. Carlo Colombo, his private theologian, and Bishop Manziana of Crema. Then he read and reread the draft himself, inserting marginal notes and underscoring the text in red and blue pencil, though without seeking to impose his views. On September 22, 1968, he gave the annotated draft back to Fr. Bugnini with the following written remark: “I ask you to take account of these observations, exercising a free and carefully weighed judgment.”
From October 8 to 17, the Consilium’s eleventh plenary session met to work on the Mass, but also on other rites (notably the Blessing of an Abbot and Religious Profession). Paul VI hosted the participants on October 14 and gave a long allocution. Its tone was graver than on any previous occasion. The pope issued several warnings: “Reform of the liturgy must not be taken to be a repudiation of the sacred patrimony of past ages and a reckless welcoming of every conceivable novelty.” He insisted on the “ecclesial and hierarchic character of the liturgy”:
The rites and prayer formularies must not be regarded as a private matter, left up to individuals, a parish, a diocese, or a nation, but as the property of the whole Church, because they express the living voice of its prayer. No one, then, is permitted to change these formularies, to introduce new ones, or to substitute others in their place.
More than this, Paul VI for the first time publicly deplored abuses committed by certain conferences of bishops:
Quote:This results at times even in conferences of bishops going too far on their own initiative in liturgical matters. Another result is arbitrary experimentation in the introduction of rites that are flagrantly in conflict with the norms established by the Church. Anyone can see that this way of acting not only scandalizes the conscience of the faithful but does harm to the orderly accomplishment of liturgical reform, which demands of all concerned prudence, vigilance, and above all discipline.
The Novus Ordo Missae (N.O.M.)
On November 6, 1968, Paul VI, after rereading the new Ordo Missae one more time, gave it his written “approbation.” The Apostolic Constitution Missale Romanum of April 3, 1969 was announced in Consistory on the following April 28 and presented to the press on May 2, the publication day of the new Ordo Missae, which was soon called the “new Mass” or the N.O.M. (Novus Ordo Missae). A new missal, soon commonly termed the “Paul VI Missal,” was about to succeed the Roman Missal codified by Saint Pius V.
The rite of the Mass was now “simplified.” In fact, we have seen that between the traditional Missal used on the eve of the Council in 1962 and the 1969 Missal, there had been a succession of transformations: the N.O.M. was not a pure innovation. In some of its formulations, the Institutio Generalis was far more innovative. It is worth noting that this lengthy “General Presentation” was not submitted to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith before publication. A number of infelicitous expressions provoked fierce criticism.
The “new Mass” was actually not as new as was claimed. Indeed, considering prior Instructions, it synthesized and made official the changes that had already been taking place: a more communal penitential part of the Mass; more numerous and diverse Sunday readings spread out over a three-year cycle; a restored “universal prayer”; new Prefaces; a changed Offertory; three new Eucharistic Prayers added to the ancient Roman Canon to be used at the celebrant’s choice; modified words of consecration, identical in all four Eucharistic Prayers; the Pater noster said by the whole congregation, no longer by the priest alone; suppression of many genuflections, signs of the cross, and bows.
The Path to Communion in the Hand
As we have seen, in 1965 Cardinal Lercaro, president of the Consilium, considered “placing the host in the open hands of the faithful” to be a deplorable and fanciful initiative. Neither the 1969 Missal nor the Institutio Generalis provided for the possibility of receiving communion in the hand. Yet the practice had already spread in several countries. The Congregation for Divine Worship therefore published a lengthy Instruction on the topic dated May 29, 1969.
As Jean Madiran was later to point out, this Instruction looks like a composite document. On the one hand, the Instruction uses different arguments (theological, spiritual, and practical) to defend the traditional manner of receiving communion and states that it must remain the norm: “In view of the overall contemporary situation of the Church, this manner of distributing communion must be retained. Not only is it based on a practice handed down over many centuries, but above all it signifies the faithful’s reverence for the Eucharist.”
In support of maintaining this tradition, the same document published the results of a survey conducted among all Latin-rite bishops. Without getting into the detail of the answers given to the three questions, we give here only those given to the first question: “Do you think that a positive response should be given to the request to allow the rite of receiving communion in the hand?”
In favor: 567
Opposed: 1,253
In favor with reservations: 315
Invalid votes: 20
On the basis of the survey’s results, the Instruction prescribed the following: “[Pope Paul VI’s] judgment is not to change the long-accepted manner of administering communion to the faithful. The Apostolic See earnestly urges bishops, priests, and faithful, therefore, to obey conscientiously the prevailing law, now reconfirmed.”
Yet in the second part, which is shorter and looks like an add-on, the same text granted to episcopal conferences the possibility of authorizing communion in the hand:
Quote:Wherever the contrary practice, that is, of communion in the hand, has already come into use, the Apostolic See entrusts to the same conferences of bishops the duty and task of evaluating any possible special circumstances. This, however, is with the proviso both that they prevent any possible lack of reverence or false ideas about the Eucharist from being engendered in the attitudes of the people and that they carefully eliminate anything else unacceptable.
Cardinal Oddi reports that, from a concern not to restrict the freedom of episcopal conferences and to respect the diversity of opinions, Paul VI refused to impose a single law in the matter, although he was personally opposed to communion in the hand. In any event, what had been a limited concession in 1969 has become the norm in a great many countries and parishes.
Pierre Lemaire, director of the review Défense du Foyer and of the Éditions Saint-Michel and an activist in defense of the family and of the catechism, voiced a complaint on the subject in Rome. In 1969, during one of his many visits to the Vatican, he was received by Cardinal Seper, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and by Cardinal Wright, new prefect of the Congregation for Clergy. He gave each of them a Pro memoria exposing “the dramatic and catastrophic confusion in which France finds herself” and the “fundamental points” that were introducing a “rupture” between Catholics faithful to the Holy See and the clergy. Pierre Lemaire underscored the “crisis” that the liturgical question had precipitated:
Quote:The aberrant liturgies invading our churches—now as bare as Protestant houses of worship—are having a disastrous effect. Communion in the hand, often distributed in baskets to all takers, represents the nadir of the innumerable profanations spreading in progressive parishes because of the multiplying sacrilegious communions of the “faithful” who never go to confession. In this climate, the new “Ordo Missae” is received not as a step forward but as the herald of further degradations, since the clergy, which is badly formed and badly taught in wayward seminaries, is open to any and all experiments.
The Congregation for Divine Worship
The promulgation of the new Missal did not mean that the implementation of the liturgical reform was at an end; it indicated that the reform was at its height. Paul VI, in a consistory held on April 28, 1969, announced that the venerable Congregation of Rites was to be divided into two Congregations: the Congregation for Divine Worship focusing on the liturgy in particular and the Congregation for the Causes of Saints that was to handle beatification and canonization causes.
The Apostolic Constitution Sacra Rituum Congregatio of May 8, 1969 established two new Congregations. The Consilium no longer existed as an autonomous body: it was integrated into the new Congregation for Divine Worship under the title “Special Commission for the Implementation of the Liturgical Reform.” Cardinal Gut was named prefect and Fr Bugnini secretary of this new Congregation. Although his title remained unchanged (“secretary”) and he was not yet given the prelature granting him the title “Monsignor,” Fr. Bugnini was completely integrated into the Curia. He left the old Palazzo Santa Marta buildings to set up with his collaborators on the fourth floor of the nice modern Palazzo dei Congregazioni, at 10 Piazza Pio XII.
He now belonged to a Curia dicastery, which strengthened his authority but at the same time reduced his autonomy. The new Congregation “was to be organized according to the structures and regulations of the other curial departments.” Only seven of the forty Consilium bishops stayed on as members of the new Congregation and the number of consultors was considerably reduced: only nineteen remained.
Cardinal Gut, prefect of this new Congregation, tried to channel the liturgical ferment that had been disrupting the lives of the faithful in many parishes. In an interview sometime after the creation of the Congregation for Divine Worship, he announced that “stricter measures” would be taken. He said: “At present the limits of the conciliar Constitution on the Liturgy have been vastly overrun in many areas. Many elements have been introduced, with or without authorization, which go beyond the liturgy schema.” He hoped that this “fever of experimentation [would] soon come to an end” and, surprisingly, he (respectfully) lay part of the blame at the feet of the pope: “These unauthorized initiatives often could no longer be stopped because they had spread too far abroad. In his great goodness and wisdom the Holy Father then gave in, often against his own will.”
The Ottaviani Intervention
The new Ordo Missae was to come into effect on November 30, 1969, the first Sunday of Advent. Even before this date, however, the severest doctrinal critiques proliferated, some with the support of eminent authorities. They aimed both at the Ordo Missae and at the Institutio Generalis prefacing it. Even a review so attached to romanità as La Pensée catholique published, under collective authorships (“a group of theologians” and “a group of canonists”), two lengthy critiques of the new Ordo Missae. The group of theologians lamented that the new Mass “completely disregards the doctrine of the Council of Trent on the Mass: incruens sacrificium” and deemed that it “is not in conformity with the tradition of the Roman Church.”
The most glaring opposition came from a Short Critical Study of the New Order of Mass. This Short Critical Study, which is dated to the feast of Corpus Christi (June 5, 1969) but was only published a few months later, was unsigned at the time. The letter that Cardinals Ottaviani and Bacci wrote to Paul VI to introduce the Study indicates that it was composed by “a select group of bishops, theologians, liturgists and pastors of souls.” It later transpired that a laywoman, the Italian writer Cristina Campo (1923–1977), and the Dominican theologian Michel Guérard des Lauriers, professor at the Dominican-run Pontifical University Angelicum, had an essential role in writing this document.
The Short Critical Study began by questioning the definition of the Mass that the Institutio Generalis presented at chapter 3, §7: “The Lord’s supper or Mass is the sacred assembly or congregation of the people of God gathering together, with a priest presiding, in order to celebrate the memorial of the Lord.” The term “supper” was taken up again at §§8, 48, 55, and 56. The Short Critical Study deplored this in the following terms:
None of this in the very least implies:
The Real Presence.
The reality of the Sacrifice.
The sacramental function of the priest who consecrates.
The intrinsic value of the Eucharistic Sacrifice independent of the presence of the “assembly.”
The Short Critical Study spoke in scholastic categories when it also regretted that the “ends or purposes” of the Mass (ultimate, ordinary, immanent) did not appear clearly. It also questioned the formulas of consecration and the place of the priest in the new rite: a “minimized, changed, and falsified” role.
This relentless critique ended in a total rejection of the “new Mass” which “due to the countless liberties it implicitly authorizes, cannot but be a sign of division—a liturgy which teems with insinuations or manifest errors against the integrity of the Catholic Faith.” Two cardinals, Bacci and Ottaviani, who no longer had any official functions in the Curia, agreed to present this Short Critical Study to the pope. They did so in a letter accompanying the document. In this letter, dated September 25, 1969, the two cardinals judged that “the Novus Ordo Missae—considering the new elements susceptible to widely different interpretations which are implied or taken for granted—represents, both as a whole and in its details, a striking departure from the Catholic theology of the Mass.” In consequence, they were asking for the new rite of the Mass to be “abrogated.”
Although other cardinals and bishops had been approached to sign this plea, none made up their mind to take that step. Cardinal Siri, Archbishop of Genoa, thought that this Study was “more Bacci’s doing than Ottaviani’s” and that Cardinal Ottaviani gave his signature when the text had already been printed. Cardinal Siri added that he himself “would not have added his signature if he’d been asked.” Generally speaking, Cardinal Siri’s views on the liturgical reform were simple:
Quote:The Council did not ask for any such revolution. The liturgical reform was done, the pope approved it, and that’s enough: I take the position of obedience, which is always owed to the pope. If he had asked me, I think I might have made some observations—several. But once a law has been approved, there is only one thing left to do: obey.
The Short Critical Study came to Paul VI’s knowledge in September 1969; the press began to trumpet the story in the following month. The pope sent the Study to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith for review. Cardinal Seper, the Congregation prefect, gave his answer by November 12: “The pamphlet Breve esame . . . contains many superficial, exaggerated, inaccurate, biased, and false statements.”
Jean Madiran had been the first in France to publish the letter of Cardinals Bacci and Ottaviani. He was also the first to publish the French version of the Short Critical Study of the New Order of Mass. On the other hand, in 1970 Pierre Lemaire published as a supplement to Défense du Foyer 111 a small brochure under the sober title Note doctrinale sur le Nouvel Ordo Missae (“Doctrinal Note on the New Ordo Missae”). This forty-four-page brochure was commissioned, as the text says, “by the Knights of Our Lady,” an organization to which Pierre Lemaire belonged. In fact, the main writer of this “Note” was Dom Gérard md, the Order’s chaplain and a monk at the abbey of Saint Wandrille where he taught Sacred Scripture.
The Doctrinal Note, while it did express some criticisms regarding the translation of the new Ordo Missae then circulating in France, came to the defense of the new Mass’s orthodoxy. The Doctrinal Note also expressed the opinion that “Cardinal Ottaviani cannot have given his approval to the Short Critical Study; they probably refrained from reading it to him.”
Dom Lafond’s study had been sent to different authorities for review before being published by Pierre Lemaire along with excerpts of the responses they had sent in. Cardinal Journet had praised these “solid, luminous, balanced pages.” Fr Louis Bouyer, a renowned theologian and liturgical specialist, found the work “quite good.” Msgr Agustoni, Cardinal Ottaviani’s secretary, praised what he called “a serious, deep, serene work accomplished in the eye of the storm.”
Then, the following month, Pierre Lemaire published a letter from Cardinal Ottaviani that caused a sensation. This letter, which was addressed to Dom Lafond to thank him for the Note doctrinale, was in near complete counterpoint to the Short Critical Study published a few months before. In this letter Cardinal Ottaviani characterized Dom Lafond’s Note doctrinale as “remarkable for its objectivity and its dignity of expression.” He also deplored the publicity that had been given to his letter to Paul VI: “I regret that my name has been abused in a direction I did not want through the publication of a letter addressed to the Holy Father, without my having authorized anyone to publish it.”
Above all, Cardinal Ottaviani expressed his satisfaction with the allocutions Paul VI had given in general audience on November 19 and 26, 1969, and judged that henceforth “no one can be scandalized anymore,” even though “there is need for prudent and intelligent catechesis to remove a few legitimate perplexities that the text may arouse.”
Paul VI’s Corrections and Rectifications
To Jean Madiran, the letter from Cardinal Ottaviani to Dom Lafond seemed to be a provocation against the truth. A lively polemic ensued. Jean Madiran published a brochure in response to the Note doctrinale, its author, and Pierre Lemaire who had published it. He also questioned the authenticity of the letter from Cardinal Ottaviani to Pierre Lafond. This he did in highly polemical terms, judging that, in this whole business, Dom Lafond and Pierre Lemaire had been “duped and manipulated.”
In reality and according to diverse well-known attestations, one may consider that Cardinal Ottaviani had most certainly first approved the Short Critical Study, of which he was not the author. Then, a few months later, he gave his approval to Dom Lafond’s Note doctrinale. His position regarding the “new Mass” (which he went on to celebrate) had changed because in the meantime Paul VI had provided corrections and rectifications of no small import. Indeed, at the time neither the enthusiastic partisans of the new Mass and of the liturgical reform nor its most determined adversaries paid sufficient attention to what the pope did and said to rectify and correct the texts he had first approved and promulgated.
On the one hand, there were the allocutions given during the general audiences on November 19 and 26, 1969, two Wednesdays in a row. They were entirely devoted to the new Mass. Paul VI had explained the reasons for the changes in the rite and reaffirmed that it substantially “is and will remain the Mass it always has been”: a sacrifice offered by the priest “in a different mode, that is, unbloodily and sacramentally, as his perpetual memorial until his final coming.”
He acknowledged that abandoning Latin was a “great sacrifice,” necessary for a better “understanding of prayer.” He also asserted: “Finally, close examination will reveal that the fundamental plan of the Mass in its theological and spiritual import remains what it always has been.” The phrase “close examination” is worth noting: it acknowledged that continuity between the “old” Mass and the “new” was not obvious or immediately apparent. There were also the important corrections to the Institutio Generalis. Under the pressure of the moment, so to speak, Cardinal Gut and Fr Bugnini published a “Declaration” to specify that the Institutio “is not to be considered as a doctrinal or dogmatic document but as a pastoral and ritual instruction describing the celebration and each of its parts.”
Then there were the additions and corrections made to many articles of the Instructio itself. These are easy to pick out in a synoptic comparison of the 1969 editio typica and the 1970 editio typica. In the first place a lengthy, fifteen-paragraph Proemium (“Preamble”) had been added; it repeated the traditional Catholic doctrine of the Mass as a propitiatory sacrifice and notably cited the definitions of the Council of Trent several times. The chapters of the Instructio themselves had been corrected in several points by addition or by a different formulation. The famous §7 which, in the 1969 edition, gave a more than incomplete definition of the Mass, was corrected to yield a more complete and more theologically accurate definition. While it defined it again as a gathering and memorial—“At Mass or the Lord’s Supper, the people of God are called together, with a priest presiding and acting in the person of Christ, to celebrate the memorial of the Lord”—the new text defined it as a sacrifice also, and insisted on transubstantiation and the Real Presence: “For at the celebration of the Mass, which perpetuates the sacrifice of the Cross, Christ is really present to the assembly gathered in his name; he is present in the person of the minister, in his own word, and indeed substantially and permanently under the Eucharistic elements.”
The typical edition of the Missale Romanum published in Rome in 1970 also included substantial corrections, even though its structure remained unchanged. In fact, within a few months, the text of the new Ordo Missae as well as that of the Institutio Generalis had undergone revisions that were not merely marginal changes. These did not satisfy those who had for several months been multiplying criticisms on both form and substance. On the other hand, some were convinced and changed their views; for instance, Fr Luc Lefèvre retracted his initial critical stance and, in an editorial in La Pensée catholique, affirmed: “All the ambiguities have definitively and officially been set aside, then. Bene. Recte. Optime.”
EDITORIAL NOTE: This essay is excerpted from Annibale Bugnini: Reformer of the Liturgy. Copyright ©Angelico Press, 2020. Reprinted by arrangement with Angelico Press. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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| Pope Francis considering new proclamation to severely restrict or ban Traditional Latin Mass: report |
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Posted by: Stone - 02-21-2023, 06:39 AM - Forum: Pope Francis
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Pope Francis considering new proclamation to severely restrict or ban Traditional Latin Mass: report
The Remnant reported that the pope may issue an apostolic constitution to declare the Novus Ordo Mass the one and only official Latin Rite.
![[Image: Latin-Mass-1-810x500.jpeg]](https://www.lifesitenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Latin-Mass-1-810x500.jpeg)
Pilgrimage on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of Summorum Pontificum, at Saint Peter's Chair, Rome, September 16, 2017.
Feb 20, 2023
VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) — Vatican officials have confirmed privately to The Remnant that Pope Francis is reviewing a document to be published potentially as an apostolic constitution that would declare the Novus Ordo Mass of Paul VI to be the only official liturgy of the Latin Rite and that would severely regulate the Traditional Latin Mass communities such as the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter and the Institute of Christ the King.
The Remnant, which accurately warned of the restrictions on the Latin Mass before the publication of Traditionis Custodes, reported that a draft of the upcoming document was presented to Francis toward the end of January 2023 by the Dicastery for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments.
The dicastery’s prefect, Cardinal Arthur Roche, has shown himself extremely hostile to the continued celebration of the Latin Mass and the sacraments according to the ancient usage, even calling those who prefer the ancient form of the Roman Missal more Protestant than Catholic, an interesting accusation given the Protestant hatred of this very liturgy and the Protestant persecution of the Roman “papists” who clung to the old form of worship in preference to the new Protestantized forms in countries such as England over the course of several centuries.
The Remnant also reported that the chief intention of the new document is to curb the internal growth of Latin Mass communities through a prohibition on any ordinations to the priesthood or diaconate within the Old Rite. This would come together with a ban on the administration of the other sacraments to the faithful according to the Tridentine form of the sacraments, and a requirement on all priests to concelebrate at certain Masses, which would run contrary to the Code of Canon Law and the entire history of the Church’s liturgical tradition, according to which a priest is never required to concelebrate a Mass. Additionally, a prohibition against celebrating the Tridentine Mass on Sunday is apparently being discussed.
As an alternative to an explicit ban on the Tridentine Mass and the traditional forms of the sacraments, according to The Remnant, an Italian cardinal has presented to Pope Francis another draft of the new document that would simply declare the Novus Ordo Missae of Paul VI to be the only official form of the Mass for the Latin Rite, praising the “abundant fruit” of the “liturgical reform” enacted in the rituals of the Mass and sacraments. The Vatican would “crown and complete” these reforms by establishing them as the sole form of worship within the Latin Rite of the Church.
The document would celebrate the 54th anniversary of the promulgation of the new missal, which Paul VI issued on April 3, 1969. Without mentioning the Tridentine form of the Mass expressly, the document would nonetheless lay the groundwork for bishops to wholly eradicate the celebration of the Mass and sacraments according to the Church’s ancient Roman liturgy.
Should the new document be issued shortly before Easter and be enforced immediately, it could cause immense confusion among the faithful who attend the old liturgy for the celebration of the Sacred Triduum.
The news from The Remnant comes after Cardinal Roche recently issued letters to bishops claiming they could not dispense from the restrictions imposed by Traditionis Custodes, a position that was contradicted by canon lawyers versed on the issue. The letters manifest Roche’s dissatisfaction in the generosity some bishops have afforded priests and the faithful who wish to worship in the old form of the Mass.
Many Catholics already perceive that the Vatican appears bent on marginalizing those in the Church who love her traditional liturgy. Any attempt to ban the old Mass wholesale would likely cement this perception.
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| The Scala Paradisi - Classic Method of Lectio Divina |
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Posted by: Stone - 02-21-2023, 06:30 AM - Forum: Church Doctrine & Teaching
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Guigues du Chastel (also known as "Guigo de Castro" or "Guigo II"), A.D. 1083/4 - 27 July 1136-8, was a Carthusian monk who became the fifth prior of the Grande Chartreuse. He formally outlined the classic method of Lectio Divina in his letter to Brother Gervase.
This letter, below, is also known as Scala Claustralium or Scala Paradisi.
Letter of Dom Guigo the Carthusian to Brother Gervase about the Contemplative Life
To Brother Gervase from his dear friend, Brother Guy:
Greeting and joy in the Lord! I am bound to love you for the love which you first showed to me, and I owe you a letter in return for yours. I send you, therefore, these thoughts of mine concerning the spiritual way which monks should follow. I send them that you may judge and correct my work, for you know much more about the matter than I do, since you know it by experience and I only by study. I owe you some return for all you have done for me. You stole me, O happy theft, from the slavery of Egypt and the delights of the wilderness, to make me a soldier in the ordered army of God. I was a shoot of wild olive , and you cut me off skilfully and wisely grafted me on to the fruitful tree. The first-fruits of my toil are yours by right, and to you I now offer them.
A Ladder of Four Rungs By Which We May Well Climb to Heaven
The First Chapter: Of the Four Rungs in General
When I was at hard at work one day, thinking on the spiritual work needful for God's servants, four such spiritual works came to my mind, these being: reading; meditation; prayer; contemplation. This is the ladder for those in cloisters, and for others in the world who are God's Lovers, by means of which they can climb from earth to heaven. It is a marvellously tall ladder, but with just four rungs, the one end standing on the ground, the other thrilling into the clouds and showing the climber * heavenly secrets.
This is the ladder Jacob saw, in Genesis, that stood on the earth and reached into heaven, on which he saw heavenly angels ascending and descending, with God leaning upon the ladder. From the ascending and descending of the angels is understood that the heavenly angels delight us with much spiritual comforting and carry our prayers up to our Lord in heaven, where he sits on high, and bring back down from him the desire of our hearts, as is proved by Daniel. By God's supporting the ladder is understood that he is always ready to help all who by these four rungs of this ladder will climb wisely, not fearing nor doubting that such a ladder will really help us.
Understand now what the four staves of this ladder are, each in turn. Reading, Lesson, is busily looking on Holy Scripture with all one's will and wit. Meditation is a studious insearching with the mind to know what was before concealed through desiring proper skill. Prayer is a devout desiring of the heart to get what is good and avoid what is evil. Contemplation is the lifting up of the heart to God tasting somewhat of the heavenly sweetness and savour. Reading seeks, meditation finds, prayer asks, contemplation feels. Vnde querite et accipietis: pulsate et aperietur vobis. That is to say 'Seek and you shall find: knock and the door will be opened for you'. That means also, seek through reading, and you will find holy meditation in your thinking; and knock through praying, and the doors shall be opened to you to enter through heavenly contemplation to feel what you desire. Reading puts as it were whole food into your mouth; meditation chews it and breaks it down; prayer finds its savour; contemplation is the sweetness that so delights and strengthens. Reading is like the bark, the shell; meditation like the pith, the nut; prayer is in the desiring asking; and contemplation is in the delight of the great sweetness. Reading is the first ground that that precedes and leads one into meditation; meditation seeks busily, and also with deep thought digs and delves deeply to find that treasure; and because it cannot be attained by itself alone, then he sends us into prayer that is mighty and strong. And so prayer rises to God, and there one finds the treasure one so fervently desires, that is the sweetness and delight of contemplation. And then contemplation comes and yields the harvest of the labour of the other three through a sweet heavenly dew, that the soul drinks in delight and joy.
The first degree is for beginners, the second for those profitting from it, the third for those who are devout, the fourth for those who are holy and blessed of God. The four degrees are so bound together, and each of them so ministering together to each other, that the first as reading and meditation helps only a little or nought all, without those that follow it, such as prayer and contemplation. Also without the first two we delay winning the last two. What use to spend your time in reading or listening to the deeds of the Holy Fathers, unless we bite and chew on them through meditation, and draw out somewhat and swallow it and send it to the heart, so that we may find, and by this understand, our own defaults, and after such knowing that we set ourselves to work that we may attain those virtues that were in them? But how may we thus think or take care that no false or unclean thought pass the boundaries set by our Holy Fathers but if we first either through hearing or in reading be so lawfully taught. Also what does it help a man if he see through meditation what he ought to do unless he through the help of prayer and of God's grace do what he can to win and to hold what he has found in meditation, and understand what he must do for his soul's health? For as the Apostle James says: 'All good gifts and all perfection comes from above from the Father of Light', without whose help we are unable to do any good.
But the good that is in us, if there be any, he does it in us, but not without us, for as Paul says: 'Cooperatores Dei sumus'. That is, we are God's helpers for our good; that is, we open our hearts when he sends us goodness through his grace, and do what is in us to keep and to hold it. But because we may do nothing in repayment, nor for our soul's health, except through his grace, it is therefore somewhat needful to speak of God's grace in this little book.
You shall understand there are three graces from God.
The first is a common grace given by God to all creatures. And this is God's help that he through his goodness gives to all creatures after their kind that they may move and feel, and without his grace they may do nothing, nor in the kind last or endure. For as you just as does water, when it is hot through the force of fire, when fire is removed from it, it ceases to stay warm and naturally it cold; just so is it with each creature and St Augustine notes. For as all creatures are and are made of nought, unless they are sustained and preserved by his grace, soon they will become nought again. St Paul understood that well when he said, 'Gracia Dei sum id quod sum'; as if he said, 'That I am, that I am alive, that I see, feel, or go, or stand, all is from God's grace'.
There is another grace from God, and this is more special. And this grace God only gives to us, to take if we will. And this grace stands always at the door of our heart, and knocks upon our free will to ask to enter, as it says in the Book of Secrets: 'Lo, I stand at the door and knock. Whoever hears my voice and opens the door to me, I shall enter to him, and I shall dine with him and he with me'. Behold here, the gentleness of our Lord who offers himself so humbly of his merciful grace. And this grace is called the grace of God's free gift to us. We need to receive this grace when God sends it, and dispose ourselves with the help of this second grace that we may be worthy to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, that moves us to good and recalls us from evil.
You will understand that for the health of our souls two things are necessary: the first is grace, of which we shall now speak, and the other is free will. Without these two no human creature may achieve soul health for ought that is in us. For free will cannot help without grace, nor grace without free will's help and consent. This St Augustine notes where he says: 'Qui creauit te sine te non iustificabit te sine te'. That is to say, 'He who made you without you', that is, without your help, 'cannot justify you without your help'. And though our free will cannot make grace in us, nevertheless we may do what is in us - cast out the old, which is the old corruptible sin that draws us from grace, and so make us ready that we may receive this grace. As you see that you may not through your own strength make the house be light, yet you may open the window and let the sun shine in to show its light; and if you close your eyes against the sun, who is to blame if you see nought? And if you will not open your mouth to take food, you complain wrongly if you are hungry. God says to you, 'Take heed, if you will open your mouth I will fill it' That means, 'Open your heart to me, and I will fill it with my grace'. And therefore we are greatly to blame who lack this grace, for St Augutine said, 'We lack not grace because God has not given it'. that means, we do not what is in us to receive it, for if we did, the grace of God would come to us to dwell in us. Therefore St Augustine says, 'Deus ingenti liberalitate replet omnes creaturas pro captu earum'. That is to say, God through his great freedom, so free and so generous that he fills all creatures according as they are able to receive. Therefore if we who are moved and called to this grace will open open the gates of our heart and with our free will grant it entry freely he will dwell wholy with us and make us to be in work his true companion. And therefore the apostle says, 'Gracia Dei in me vacua non fuit'. That is, 'The grace of God was not void in me'. No more it was, for he showed in his outer works that the grace of God wrought in him. He does so utterly with all those with whom he makes his dwelling, for he may not be idle, for he must doo ther work for which the Father of Heaven sent him. Of this grace St Augustine spoke and said, 'This grace is ever ready to me, if it finds me ready. Where ever I go, he never leaves me, unless I leave him first'.
God is as a partner in half getting God's works, and works with us as a partner who will profit. He gives his grace, and we our works, as merchants who will profit from what they have coming to them. And he marvellously challenges the love and respect that he has of us, but we as false wretches cheat him fraudulently. And we think we gain all, and we lose all, for we do injury and fraud, we give our love to the devil and our respect to the world and the flesh, and so our love is withdrawn from our gracious partner. As John says in his Epistle, 'Nolite diligere mundum neque ea que in mundo sunt'. That is to say, 'Do not love the things of this world'. Whoever loves the world, the charity of the Father is not in him, for all that is in the world is covetousness of flesh and covetousness of eye and pride of life, which is not of the Father but of the world. And the world shall pass, and covetousness of it. These things are beloved contrary to the counsels of our Lord God and partner. And we defraud him of his part that he bought at such great price, that is with the blood of the undefiled Lamb, Christ Jesus. We separate ourselves from the bliss of our Lord wilfully, just like the hound that carried a cheese to the water bank, and as he looked in the water he saw a shadow of the cheese and he opened his mouth to take it and it fell from him. And God says to such people through Isaiah the Prophet, ' Gloriam meam alteri non dabo'. That is, 'My loving and my worship I shall give to none other but to them, that is to say, who are my true servants'. Be then, man, to God as a true partner and let him have his share.
The third grace is more special, for this is not given to all men, but only to those who open the gates of their heart, and their free will ready to receive this grace that is described here. This grace is the gift of the Holy Spirit that moves us to do good deeds. This grace God gives to us that through it we may gain merit. Without this grace nothing is worthy that we do. This graces rises out of three, the first grace that is freely given that moves the will freely, the other is the assenting of that will, and the third is God making and giving this grace. This grace is the token of God's special love to those whom he sends it. This grace makes us patient in all angryness and meekly endure the loss of goods, loss of worldly friends, bodily harms, sicknesses and penance to remove sin without grudging. This makes us continue in goodness, this makes us wary of evil and to know all good. This God gives her to us as an earnest of the endless bliss if we will hold to it. Therefore by this grace the angels speaks in the Book of Secrets thus, 'Tene quod habes'. 'That is, 'Hold what you have'. As if he said, 'If you will have that joy that is endless, hold fast to that grace that God has sent to you, for this grace leads to bliss.
The Second Chapter: How the Four Rungs are Closely Joined Together
But God wills that we pray for this blessed grace, and he wills that we open the door of our heart to his coming, and that is that we assent with our free will to receive his grace. This consent Christ Jesus asked of the Samaritan woman to whom he spoke at the well, as she stood there to draw water, to whom he said: 'Go, and call your husband', as if he had said, 'I will give you my grace if you will assent with your own will.' Also, he asked prayer of her when he said, 'If you knew God's gift, and who he is who says to you "Give me drink", perhaps you would ask of him and he would give to you living water'.
When the woman heard Jesus' words, she thought in her heart that it was good and needful to drink of this precious living water of which Christ spoke. And immediately with great desire she prayed to have this water and said, 'Lord, give me this water'. See now how hearing of Christ's word and following that meditation with deep thought in her heart moved her to pray for this water. How should she have been so moved to pray unless the meditation of her heart had stirred her to this? Or what should the former thought of meditation have brought to her, unless the prayer that followed had won of Christ what she desired? If you will have your meditation richly rewarded you must pray with devotion, through which you may win to the sweetness of contemplation.
Through this then you may understand that reading without meditation is idle, meditation without prayer is without effect, but prayer with devotion wins contemplation. To win to the high ladder of contemplation without prayer, would be miraculous. The power of Almighty God is endless, and his mercy above all his works. Another time he raises of the hard stones Abraham's sons, when he moves and stirs those who are as hard as stones in wickedness to love God. And so as they say, 'He gives the ox by the horn'. That is when he called offers his grace and, neither sought nor desired, joins himself to them. If we read that this can happen so to any, such as to St Paul, nevertheless we should not tempt God and trust that God will do so to us we lying in sin. But we should do what we should - read and set deeply our hearts on God's holy law, and heartily pray him that he help our feebleness, and that he would with the eyes of his mercy see our wretchedness, and always hold ourselves unworthy and wretches. We must ever mistrust ourselves, and lean on him with hearty love, making our moan to him, for to that blessed Lord is the cure of our souls. As Peter said, 'Omnem sollicitudinam nostram projicientes in eum, quoniam ipsi cura est de nobis'. And therefore he comforts us and says, 'Petite et accipietis'. That is, 'Travail with holy love after my grace, and you shall have what you desire. This grace we must win with strength. Lo, now I have told you the properties and the four degrees of the four staves of this wonderful ladder.
Blessed be all who leave vanities and spend their time and occupation in these counsels, and those that sell all and buy the field in which lies the surpassing treasure of sweetness. As our Lord says, 'Vacate et videte quam suavis est Dominus'. That is, 'Think only and see how sweet God our Saviour is. Thus should we climb by this ladder from degree to degree, from stair to stair, and from virtue to virtue, until we see the God of gods in Sion, that is, in the bliss of heaven.
The Third Chapter: Of the First and Second Rungs: Reading and Meditation
In Matthew Christ says, 'Beati mundo corde, quoniam ipsi Deum videbunt'. Lo, this is a little word, but it is of much virtue and sweetness, and of great effect, and makes way to life. When we hear this little word with our bodily ears, and with the ghostly ears of our heart we have seen it, he speaks to our soul and says, 'It seems that this word may make way to God. I will' - we say - 'try in my heart to seek with his guidance how I may understand and win to this cleanness. For a rich thing it is, and truly it makes them that have it win to the bliss of heaven. And Christ himself promises us that we shall see God, which sight only is the fulfilling of all joy to all who are the *Friends of God .'
When we hear or read this lesson, 'Beati mundo corde, quoniam ipsi Deum videbunt' - that is to say, 'Blessed are they who are clean in heart for they shall see God' - we begin to chew it and break it with mind and reason, and seeks busily how we may come to this cleanness that is so precious and so mighty that it makes those who have it to see God.
Then meditation goes and searches quickly and finds truly that this so. He does not say, 'Blessed be those of clean body, but those that be of clean heart', for it is not enough to have one's hands clean from evil deeds unless the heart be clean within of thoughts. Therefore David asks in the Psalter when he says, ' Quis ascendit in montem Domini aut quis stabit in loco sanctis ejus?' And there it is immediately answered, 'Innocens manibus et mundo corde' That is to say, 'Who shall climb or ascend into the hill of God,' that is in heaven, 'or who shall stand in that holy place?' - that is, there to see God in his Godhead. The Holy Ghost in David says and answers, 'Those who do no evil with their hands and whose hearts are clean within'. Yet in meditation we think deeply how the same prophet David, God's darling, fervently prayed for this cleanness, where he says, 'Cor mundum crea in me, Deus'. 'Lord', he says, 'make in me a clean heart'. And we also say, 'Iniquitatem si aspexi in corde meo, non exaudiet Dominus deprecationem meam'. That is to say, 'If I know any wickedness in my heart, God will not hear my prayer'. We think about the holy man, Job, how fearful he was that he were not filled with foul thought, when he said, 'Pepigi foedus cum oculis meis no cogitarem de virgine'. That is, 'I have made a covenant with my eyes that I should not think of a woman or of a virgin'. Lo, how strictly that holy man restrained himself who shut his eyes that he should see no vanities, that he not cast his eyes unwisely on the thing that might cause foul love to rise and to undo the cleanness of his heart.
When he is thus afraid of losing this cleanness through vain sight, he begins to taste the great reward that rises that is so delectable, so joyful, to see the glorious face of God, that is fairest before all that ever were - not loathly, grisly, and deadly, as our deadly sins make him, but goodly, gracious and lovely and crowned with all joy and clothed with all bliss, as his Father clothed him at his Resurrection. He thinks that in this fairest sight shall be all perfection of joy, of which the prophet said, 'Saciabor cum apparuerit gloria tua'. That is, 'Lord, I shall be fulfilled of all manner of joy when you show your glorious face to me', and surely not before then. Then when he sees that so much sweetness comes from so little a word, how much fire is kindled from so little a spark as that is - Beati mundo corde : Blessed be the clean of heart - he beats it out, hot as it is, and draws it out in length and breadth.
When the soul of a glowing brand of this fire is enflamed and so ravished in desire to that thing that is the true reward to the cleanness of heart, that is, to see God, then the alabaster box with sweet ointment begins to break, and soon he senses the sweet smells come forth. But not with tasting, but as it were with smelling, he understands the sweet savour, and it is joyful to feel this sweetness. Truly it is said in the meaning of this, that we find in such seeking.
But what shall we do who desire to feel this delight, and find we may not have it by ourselves. For the more we sustain our meditation on this, the more sorrow we find, because we cannot find the sweetness of the cleanness of heart. Meditation shows him, but does not give to him, for neither through reading nor through meditation's thinking can we come to this sense of sweetness, but through the gift that comes from above. Always to be reading and being in meditation is common to both good and to evil: for the philosophers through exercise of their reason found that thing was the goodness of God, but because they did not know God and his goodness, nor loved him, nor worshipped him as God, were unworthy to have this sweetness and the liking of God that would have come of that knowing, and therefore God withheld from them as unworthy. And so all went to nought. That study of our intelligence does not give us the spirit of wisdom, the spiritual gives intelligence and savour to the soul to which it comes, and stirs us with liking, and furthers us with spiritual joy. And this only is spiritual joy and the gift of God and teaching to his chosen disciples. This knowledge is taught by nothing but grace that comes from above. To this wisdom we must open not the ear but the heart. This wisdom is hid from wise men of the world, and shown and opened to the lowly and meek, truly to understand and to feel.
Great strength arises out of humility that is worthy to conceive and win what through our intelligence may not be learned, nor heard with bodily ear, nor told with tongue. This wisdom God keeps only for his chosen, that all reasonable creatures may know and understand there is a Master teaching and reading in heaven, who teaches true wisdom and learning to his chosen scholars, and through his grace enlightens them within, and makes them know and feel what no worldly intelligence may gain. You may see this if you will behold how a simple old poor woman who is of little intelligence, who cannot truly say either the Lord's Prayer or the Creed, will find such liking in so short a time, in innocent sorrow her heart all melts, and without tears and mourning she may not pray.
Who, do you think, taught her how to pray so? Not this world's wisdom but grace from above. See, too, how a poor innocent man who lives by his toil, who is so dull of wit that though he should lose his head he would not stop thinking, may gain this learning and this wisdom as perfectly, if he do what is in him, as the wisest in the land, whosoever he be. Truly he may well be called a Master over all others that bear this name who without wisdom can thus teach wisdom, so that without intelligence they may feel and understand what we may reach to with no wisdom of this world. But we must do what is to be done, and bow the ear of our heart to listen to this learning.
This wisdom is only the gift of God that he has kept to himself to give to those whom he will. Even as God has given the office of christening children to many, but the power in baptism to forgive sin - this he keeps to himself alone. Therefore St John says, 'Here is he who baptises truly' - that is to say truly forgives sin. Thus may we say of him that it is our God, he who gives wisdom to feel and to taste how sweet he is. Many there are who the grace of word; but this grace is given only to few. That God gives to whom he will and when he will.
The Fourth Chapter: Of the Third and Fourth Rungs: Prayer and Contemplation
Then when we see that to the knowing or to the feeling of this wisdom we may not come nor reach by ourselves, and the more we think to travail to climb there, the more we see what the Godhead does, then we see our strength and our intelligence are nought, and we begin to know ourself, and as a poor needy wretch we humble ourself and fall down meekly with a lowly heart to pray, and say,
'Lord, you will not be seen, but by those who are clean of heart. I have done what is in me to do, read and thought deeply and searched what it is and in what manner I might best come to this cleanness that I might somewhat know you. Lord, I have sought and thought with all my poor heart; and, Lord, in my meditation the fire of desire kindles to know you, not only the bitter bark without, in feeling and tasting in my soul. Lord, this worthiness I ask not for myself, * for I am wretched and sinful and most unworthy than all others. But as much, Lord, as the puppy eats of the crumbs that fall from the board of the lord, I ask of the heritage that is to come one drop of the heavenly joy to comfort my thirsty soul that burns in love-longing to you'.
With these and other such desires the heart is enflamed. God is called and prayed as the dear spouse that is to come to this mourning soul that languishes in love. What does God then, whose help is ever upon the righteous and our ear at our prayer? He doesn't wait until the prayer is fully ended, but he pierces in the midst of the burning desire of that thirsty soul, and with a secret balm of heavenly sweetness softens the soul and comforts it, and makes it be so overcome with delight and joy that it forgets all earthly things for that hour, and he makes it to lose itself in wonder, as if it were dead from knowing ourself. And as in fleshly works we are so overcome that we lose the guidance of reason and so become all fleshly, right so in the ladder of contemplation our fleshly stirrings are so cancelled out that the flesh does not win over the spirit but is become all spiritual.
But, Lord, by what thing may we know when you do this, and what is the token of your coming? Are sighs and tears the messengers of this liking and comfort? And if it be so, it seems marvellous, it seems uncommon, that comfort comes with sighs and joy with tears. And it seems they should not be called tears, but a heavenly dew that comes from above, that moistens without, and cleanses the soul within, as comes about in the sacrament of baptism. The outer washing with tears means the inner washing. They are innocent tears, through which outer washing the inner spots are taken away, and the fire of sin is quenched. Blessed are those who weep thus, for Christ says of them they shall laugh. In these tears the soul recognizes God, its true Spouse. This is the solace your loving Spouse gives to you, sighs mingled with tears. But, dearworthy Lord, since these sighs and these tears are so sweet that come from you and liking of great joy, what joy, Lord, and comfort shall your lovers and your chosen have of you when they shall know you and see you as you are! But how of a thing that is so hidden and so unknown can we speak to others that they may understand, since none can understand it unless they have felt it, as those to whom God has sent to a joy and liking of him as to taste here what kind he is and shall be in sweetness to his lovers without end? For all that men read and may hear in books that ought to be read, is unsavoury, unless the heart understands it.
The Fifth Chapter: That This Grace Comes and Goes, for our Good
Now, my soul, we have talked of this at length. It seems good and merry for us to be here with Peter and John, to have mirth and joy with our Spouse, and make we our dwelling here with him. There is no need to make three tabernacles, for one is enough to shelter us all, in which we may be together and have our talking in measurable mirth. But what does our Lord say? 'Let me go,' he says, 'for the light of the morning is here'. The light and the comfort that you desire, you have. After the blessing is given, and the sinews in the loins be dried and dead, and the name of Jacob turned to Israel, then the spouse who is desired with jealous love, glides away and withdraws that sweetness that he sent to his lover in contemplation. And he nevertheless is with him, through dearworthy grace and submission of will, as with his dearworthy spouse.
Therefore do not fear that he has forsaken you, though he is gone for a little while, for he does all this to keep you and only for your good. This coming and this parting is gain to you, and know well that through this you gain greatly. He comes to you, and he leaves you. He comes to comfort you, he leaves you that you may be more wary that you, like the ignorant, for that comfort and liking do not believe that you were intimate with him, and think that he sends this to you for your holy living, and therefore think well of yourself and so leap into pride.
Also, if your spouse were always with you, you would think less of him. And this liking and this comfort that you take and feel at different times you would feel it were of nature and not of grace. Therefore know truly that God your dear spouse gives this grace and this comfort when he will and to whom he will, not as an inheritance to have in this life. For it is said in English, 'Familiarity breeds contempt'. Therefore he departs from you so that his long stay with you make him not unworthy to you, and that you when he is departed from you desire him and mourn after him the more heartily, and seek him more quickly that with more grace you may find him. And if it were so that our spouse let his lovers have here at their will the liking that he sends them in contemplation, they would have such liking therein that they would the less desire the great liking that is to come in heaven, that shall last with joyful life without end. Therefore they shall not believe of this exile, that they are cast in their penance to do, that it were heaven when it is a place of woe. Therefore now our spouse comes and now he goes, now he brings comfort and now he withdraws it and leaves us in our feebleness to know who we are; and lets us somewhat feel how sweet he is, but before we may feel him fully he withdraws himself.
The Sixth Chapter: The Similitude of the Taverner
So does God Almighty to his Lovers in contemplation like a taverner, who has good wine to sell, to good drinkers who will drink well of his wine and spend well. He knows them well when he sees them in the street. Quietly he goes to them and whispers in their ear and says to them that he has a claret, and of good taste in the mouth. He entices them to his house and gives them a taste. Soon when they have tasted of it and think the drink good and greatly to their pleasure, then
They drink all night, they drink all day;
And the more they drink, the more they may.
Such liking they have of that drink
That of none other wine they think,
But only for to drink their fill
And to have of this drink all their will.
And so they spend what they have, and then they sell or pawn their coat, their hood and all they may, for to drink with liking while they think it good.
Thus it fares sometimes with God's lovers that from the time that they had tasted of this potion, that is, of the sweetness of God, such liking they found in it that as drunken men they spent what they had and gave themselves to fasting and to watching and to doing other penance. And when they had not more to spend they pledged their clothes, as apostles, martyrs, and young maidens did in their time. Some gave their bodies to burn in fire, some let their heads be smitten off, some gave their breasts to be carved from their bodies, and some their bodies to be dragged by wild horses. And all that they did they set at nought, for the desire of that lasting joy that they fully desired to have in the life that is without end. But this liking is given here only to taste; but all those who desire fully to have it, need to follow Christ foot by foot and continually stir him with their loves, as these drinkers do the taverners.
Therefore when God sends any ghostly liking to your soul, think that God speaks to you, and whispers in your ear, and says: 'Have now this little, and taste how sweet I am. But if you will fully feel what you often have tasted, run after me and follow the savour of my ointments. Lift up your heart to me where I am sitting on the right hand of the my Father, and there you shall see me, not as in a mirror, but you shall see me face to face. And then you shall have fully at your will that joy that you have tasted for ever without end. And that joy or liking none shall snatch or take from you.
The Seventh Chapter: That We Must Give God our Whole Love
But who ever will taste of this liking in contemplation and climb the ladder that stands so high, he needs to be Jacob here in this life, that is, he must do all that his name spells, that is to trample under all worldly wealth, and tread under foot all folly and sins; for the more that a man casts underfoot, the more it helps him climb or reach on high. And then shall his name be changed to 'Israel', which in English means 'God he shall see'; through which sight he shall be fulfilled of that liking that passes all other without comparison. Of this Jacob in the Book of Genesis it tells that the angel wrestled with Jacob and struggled for a long while to have the mastery. But Jacob as the mighty stalwart withstood and won the mastery. When the angel saw that he might do no more, he touched the hip of Jacob and the sinews dried, and ever after that time he was lame in the one foot. And so the foot was benumbed, and his name was turned from Jacob to Israel. By this Jacob is understood man who is lifted on high in contemplation. Then he struggles with the angel and strives, when he travails with all his might to know God. But then at the last is the angel overcome and cast under, when man (through deep thought in a love-longing to know what God is and to feel in contemplation what he desires, conceives and feels in his soul of this sweetness) and si is overtaken by the liking of him that he sets at nought all the wealth of this world. But what is the meaning of this, that when the angel saw that he was overcome he touched Jacob upon the hip and the sinews dried? Because mighty God that can do all things, when he sends his grace to his lovers, would through his grace have them truly know that by sinews are udnerstood all fleshly desires and other vices. So he takes them and makes them dry as though they were dead. And they that before went on two feet and that would have liking both in God and in the world, after they have found sweetness in contemplation, that one foot in their love is whole, and in the other they halt, for worldly love quenches in them and grows all dry. The love of God is whole and sound, and ever more and more strong. Whosoever stands on the foot stalworthily, no woe of this world may overcome him. By a foot in Holy Writ is understood love.
But ever, as God's lover, be you watchful and wary, and understand in what way he withdraws himself from you, your dearworthy spouse. Know well for a truth that he withdraws himself not from you, though you never see him alike. He sees you, for he is full of eyes before and behind. You may hide nothing from him. He has set his spies on you that they watch by day and by night how you bear yourself while your spouse is from you. They are ready to betray you, if they may take you or find any countenance or token in you to any evil. Your spouse is jealous of you. If you take any other love or make any advances to another, he will soon forsake you and turn himself away from you, and withold himself from you until you truly love him, for he will have no lover in between. He will have all or leave all. He will have all your love here, if you in bliss will be his companion. Your spouse is delicious, most noble and very fair before all those that were ever born from a mother. Therefore he wills nothing but what is honest and fair. If he sees anything in you of evil, soon he turns away from you his precious sight, as he may no uncleanness suffer or see. Therefore if you desire to have liking of your spouse, and to have mirth with him at will, you must be modest and chaste.
The Eighth Chapter: Beware of Unfaithfulness
But be ever wary, whoever you are, once you are raised so high in contemplation that you think for liking to clasp your spouse with mirth in heaven, lest you from that high stair fall downward to hell and you after that sight of God turn to wanton works or fleshly lusts.
But since it is so that the meditation of our heart that is ravished on high with spiritual delight - as happens in contemplation to God's lovers - may feel the feebleness of the flesh that through its heavy weight ever draws downwards through its heavy burden will not suffer that the liking be fully filled, not let him see the brightness of the true light. Therefore since we must through the burden of the flesh fall downwards from so high a stair, it is good that we make our coming down into some of the degrees by which we climbed upwards, warily and gently so that we not hurt ourself, and rest now in one and now in another, according as our free will stirs us and place or time requires. And as near are you to God as you climb the higher from the first degrees.
But four causes there are that sometimes draw one downwards from these degrees. The first is need that cannot be prevented. The second is lovely and honest work. This third is weakness of nature. The fourth is vanity of this world. The first does not harm, the second may be permitted, the third is wretched, the fourth requires penance be performed. And this especially in those who have climbed to the highest rung of this ladder, and of this dearworthy liking have felt wisely, and before others have tasted of that heavenly sweetness, that from such high freedom have descended so low into the thraldom of this world, to have their liking in it. And where they thought to find honey, they find bitter gall. Wellaway! We may call this a bitter bargain, for it would be better to have no knowing of God than after knowing him to leave and go back.
What defence have they against God for their sin? As who should say, 'None'. For God may rightfully argue with them and say, 'What should I do to you and have I not done it? When you were nought, then I made you. And after that you sinned and made yourself slave who were free, then with the price of myself I bought you from slavery. And after you ran with the sinful of this world, I caught you from them, and before others gave you my grace, for I wanted you close to me. And when I would have made my dwelling with you, you shut me out as a stranger from yourself; and when men spoke my words to you, you lightly caste them behind you, and followed the vanities of the world and the desires of the flesh.
But, dearworthy Lord, sweet friend, wise counsellor, and so strong a helper, foolish, unwise and unhappy is he who casts you out, so gentle and so needful, from his heart. Ah, wellaway! How baleful a change is this: our Maker, our Lover, and All that is, and nought is that is good without him, when we cast him from us, and draw foul and evil thoughts into us; and that secret abiding of the Holy Spirit, that is in our soul, that a while before was lusting in heavenly mirth, so soon is cast down to wicked thoughts and to vanity; and there as were the hot foot steps of your spouse, to bring in on us lecherous desires. It is not seemly that the ears, that right now had heard these words that are not lawful for us to speak, should stoop to vain tales and to backbiting; and the eyes, that just now were baptized with holy tears, now overturned to see vanities; and the tongue, that a little before with loving and praising and other love tokens and petitions had drawn her spouse to her bower and brought him to her chamber, to clasp and kiss him sweetly, should now have her mirths turned one by one into vanity and to foul speech, to cursing and forswearing and to other jangling.
But would God for his pity that all such vices and all that were misliking were put away from us; and if it were so that we in any of them did fall or stumble, that we might soon turn again to our true Physician who heals the sick and comforts the sorry of heart.
To him heartily we pray that he help us to do away from us all evils that might hinder us from loving him. Amen.
Explicit Scala Celi
And now it is time to end this letter. Therefore let us pray to God that he lessen here and wholly remove hereafter the hindrances that keep us from his contemplation. May he lead us by the aforesaid rungs until we see the God of gods in Sion, where the chosen enjoy the sweetness of divine contemplation, not drop by drop, nor now and then, but where they are ever fulfilled with the torrent of pleasure and have that joy that no one shall take from them, and peace unchangeable, peace in the selfsame. And do you, Brother Gervase, if it is given to you to climb to the top of the aforesaid ladder, remember me. And when it shall be well with you, pray for me. So let friend draw friend, and he that heareth, let him say, Come!
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| Abrahamic family house inaugurated in Abu Dhabi |
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Posted by: Stone - 02-20-2023, 08:09 AM - Forum: Pope Francis
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Abrahamic family house inaugurated in Abu Dhabi
TIA | February 19, 2023
On February 16, 2023, the so-called Abrahamic Family House was inaugurated on Saadiyat Island in Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates. It will be open to the public on March 1st. It is a complex that comprises – all in the same site – a Catholic Church, first and second rows below, a mosque, third row, and a synagogue, fourth row.
With this we see the fruition of a project born during the February 2019 visit of Pope Francis to Ur and Abu Dhabi where he signed the Abu Dhabi Document on human fraternity with imam Ahmed el Tayeb.
Card. Miguel Angel Ayuso, president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, was present, above, and stressed that the center is "a beacon of mutual understanding." He affirmed that "without renouncing his different spiritual resources, each [believer] has received the command to live with his brothers and sisters, whatever their religion may be."
The complex called the Abrahamic Family House is, therefore, an important institutional step for the accomplishment of the Freemasonic dream of having a Panreligion at the service of an One World Order. All of which is also the plan of Vatican Council II and the Conciliar Popes.
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| Letter from Beyond |
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Posted by: Stone - 02-18-2023, 08:12 AM - Forum: Resources Online
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Letter from Beyond
Taken from here
The following was found among the papers left by a nun who died in a German convent. Whether private revelation or pious fiction, it is a poignant meditation on Hell. Over 6,000 words in length the letter is startling both in detail and insight, which to the atheist, agnostic or Protestant may seem counter-intuitive; for example, that it is a mercy of Almighty God to grant some reprobates a short earthly life.
Theologically sound, the ‘Letter from Beyond’ was published with approbation in Germany in 1953 and the imprimatur is reproduced below. Fr. Bernhardin Krempel, CP, Doctor of Theology, published it separately and lent it more authority with his footnotes showing that it conflicted with nothing in Catholic doctrine. These are included below, with external source links, and are taken from AgeOfMary.com.
Our Blessed Mother warned in the First Secret of Fatima of the sight of multitudes of souls falling into Hell “like snowflakes” because there was no one to pray and sacrifice for them, and asked that the Rosary be prayed daily (and further that the Brown Scapular be worn). St. John Chrysostom, an important Early Church Father and Doctor of the Church warned that “He who despises Hell or forgets it will not escape it.”
This letter was widely shared by the faithful under the pontificate of venerable Pius XII and yielded many conversions. A printed booklet can be purchased at TraditionInAction.org, translated by Marian T. Horvat, Ph.D with accompanying footnotes and appendix on the Existence of Hell. Click here for her analysis on this letter and our modern day apathy towards the notion of eternal damnation.
On the first page of the original German edition of 1953 are these words of approbation:
Imprimatur of the orginal German:
Brief aus dem Jeneseits: Treves, 9/11/1953. N. 4/53. Ecclesiastical approbation of this work: Taubaté – Est. de São Paulo – 2/11/1955.
Preface (Sister Claire)
In my youth, I had a friend, Anne, who lived near my house. That is to say, we were mutually attached as companions and co-workers in the same office. After Anne married, I never saw her again. We never had what can be called a real friendship, but rather an amiable relationship. For this reason, when she married well and moved to a better neighbourhood far from my home, I didn’t really miss her that much.
In mid-September of 1937 I was vacationing at Lake Garda when my mother wrote me this bit of gossip: “Imagine, Anne N. died. She lost her life in an automobile accident. She was buried yesterday in M. cemetery.”
I was shocked by the news. I knew that Anne had never been very religious. Was she prepared when God called her suddenly from this life? The next morning I assisted at Mass in the chapel of the convent boarding house where I was rooming. I prayed fervently for the eternal rest of her soul and offered my Holy Communion for that intention.
Throughout the day I was unsettled, and that night I slept fitfully. Once, I awoke suddenly, hearing something that sounded like my door being opened. Startled, I turned on the light, noting that the time on the clock on my nightstand showed ten minutes after midnight. The house was quiet and I saw nothing unusual. The only sound was from the waves of Lake Garda breaking monotonously on the garden wall. There was no wind. Nonetheless, I thought I heard something else after the rattling of the door, a swooshing sound like something being dropped. It reminded me of when my former office manager was in a bad mood and dropped some problem papers on my desk for me to resolve.
Should I get up and look around? I wondered. But since all remained quiet, it didn’t seem worthwhile. It was probably just my imagination, somewhat overwrought by the news of the death of my friend. I rolled over, prayed several Our Fathers for the Poor Souls in Purgatory, and returned to sleep. I then dreamed that I arose at six to go to morning Mass in the house chapel.
Upon opening the door of my room, I stepped on a parcel containing the pages of a letter. I picked it up and recognised Anne’s handwriting. I cried out in fright. My fingers trembled, and my mind was so shaken I couldn’t even think to say an Our Father. I felt like I was suffocating, and needed open air to breathe. I hastily finished arranging myself, put the letter in my purse, and rushed from the house.
Once outside, I followed a winding path up through the hills, past the olive and laurel trees and the neighbouring farms, and then on beyond the famous Gardesana highway. The day was breaking with the brilliant light of the morning sun. On other days, I would stop every hundred steps or so to marvel at the magnificent view of the lake and beautiful Garda Island. The sparkling blue tones of the water delighted me, and like a child gazing with awe at her grandfather, I would gaze with admiration upon the ashen-coloured Mount Baldo that rose some 7,200 feet above the opposite shore of the lake.
On this morning, however, I was oblivious to everything around me. After walking a quarter of an hour, I sank mechanically to the ground on the riverbank between two cypress trees where only the day before I had been happily reading a novel, Lady Teresa. For the first time I looked at the cypress trees conscious of them as symbols of death, something I had taken no notice of before, since these trees are quite common here in the south.
I took the letter from my purse. There was no signature, but it was, beyond any doubt, the handwriting of Anne. There was no mistaking the large, flowing S or the French T she made that used to irritate Mr. G. at the office. It was not, however, written in her usual style of speaking, which was so amiable and charming, like her, with those blue eyes and elegant nose. Only when we discussed religious topics did she become sarcastic and take on the rude tone and agitated cadence of the letter I now began to read.
Here, word for word, is the Letter from Beyond of Anne V. as I read it in the dream.
Letter from Beyond (Anne, c. 1933)
Claire!
Do not pray for me. I am damned. Do not think that I am telling you this and certain circumstances and details about my condemnation as a sign of friendship. Here we no longer love anyone. I do it on the command of “that power that never desires Evil and always does Good.”
In truth, I would like to see you here where I will remain forever. [ 1 ]
Do not be surprised that I should say this. We all think the same way here. Our will is hardened in evil—in what you call “evil.” Even when we do something “good,” as I do now in opening your eyes about Hell, it is not with any good intention. [ 2 ]
Do you remember when we worked together for four years in M. You were 23 and had already worked in the office for a half year when I arrived. You helped me out many times, and frequently gave me good advice while you were training me. But what is meant by that term “good”? At the time I praised your “charity.” How ridiculous! You helped me to please your own vanity, as I suspected at the time. Here we don’t acknowledge good in anyone! You knew me in my youth, but I will fill in certain details. According to my parents’ plans, I never should have existed. The disgrace of my conception was due to their carelessness. When I was born, my two sisters were already 14 and 15 years of age. How I wish that I had never been born! I wish I could annihilate myself at this moment and escape these torments! There could be no pleasure greater than to be able to end my existence, to do away with myself like a piece of cloth reduced to ashes, leaving no remnant behind. [ 3 ] But I must exist. I must be as I have made myself, bearing the total blame for how I have ended.
Before my parents married, they had moved away from their country villages to the city and drifted away from the Church, making friends with others who had fallen away from the practice of the faith. They met at a dance, and six months later they were “obliged” to get married. During the wedding ceremony a few drops of holy water fell on them, just enough to draw my mother to Sunday Mass a few times a year. She never taught me to pray correctly. She wore herself out over material concerns, even when our situation was not difficult. It is only with deep repugnance and unspeakable disgust that I write words such as pray, Mass, holy water, and church. I profoundly detest those who go to church, along with everyone and everything in general. For us, everything is a torture. Everything we came to understand at death, every recollection of life and of what we knew, is like a burning flame that torments us. [ 4 ]
All of these memories only show us the horrible sight of the graces we rejected. How this tortures us now! We do not eat, we do not sleep, we do not walk with human legs as you know. Enchained in spirit, we reprobates stare with terror at our misspent lives, howling and gnashing our teeth, tormented and filled with hatred. Do you hear me? Here we drink hatred as if it were water. We all hate one another. [ 5 ] And more than anything else, we hate God. I will try to make you understand how this is.
The blessed in Heaven must necessarily love Him, for they constantly behold Him in His awe-inspiring beauty. That makes them indescribably happy. We know this, and that knowledge fills us with fury. [ 6 ]
On earth, men know God through Creation and Revelation and are able to love Him, but they are not forced to do so. The believer – I say this seething with fury – who contemplates and meditates upon Christ extended on the Cross will love Him. But when God approaches as Avenger and Judge, the soul who rejected Him will hate Him, as we hate Him. [ 7 ] That soul hates Him with all the strength of its perverse will. It hates Him eternally, by virtue of its deliberate resolution to reject God with which it ended its earthly life. This perverse act of the will can never be revoked, nor would we ever want to do so.
I am forced to add that even now God is still merciful to us. I say “forced” because even though I willingly write this letter, I cannot lie as I would like to. Much of what I put on this paper I write against my will. I also have to choke down the torrent of insults I would like to spew out against you and everything. God is merciful even to us here in that He did not allow us to do all the evil we wanted to do while on earth. Had He permitted us to do so, we would have added greatly to our guilt and chastisement. He allowed some of us to die early – as is my case – or permitted attenuating circumstances in others. Even now He shows us mercy, for He does not oblige us to draw near to Him. He placed us in this distant place of Hell, thus diminishing our torment. [ 8 ] Every step closer to God would increase my suffering more than every step you might take toward a fire.
You were astonished one day when I told you in passing what my father said to me some days prior to my First Communion. “Be sure you get a beautiful dress, little Anne,” he said. “The rest is all a sham.” I was almost ashamed then for having shocked you so much, but now I laugh about it. The best part of this sham was that Communion was only allowed at 12 years of age. By then, I had already tasted enough of the pleasures of the world, so I didn’t take Communion seriously.
The new custom of allowing children to receive Holy Communion at seven years of age infuriates us. We strive in every possible way to frustrate this, to make people believe that a child is too young to properly comprehend what Communion is or to think that children must commit serious sins before they can receive. The “white” host [that is, the Sacred Host] will then be less damaging than if He were received with faith, hope, and love, the fruits of Baptism – I spit upon all this! – which are still alive in a heart of a child. Do you recall that I already had this same point of view on earth?
I return now to my father. He fought a lot with my mother. I didn’t often speak of this to you because I was ashamed of it. But what is shame? Something ridiculous! It makes no difference to us here.
After a while, my parents no longer slept in the same room. I slept with my mother, and my father slept in the adjoining room, which he would enter at all hours of the night. He drank heavily and spent everything we had. My sisters were employed but needed their money to live, or so they said. So my Mother went to work. In the last year of her bitter life, my father often beat her when she refused to give him money. With me, however, he was always very kind.
I told you all about this one day and you were scandalised at my capricious attitude—but what was there about me that didn’t scandalise you? – such as when I returned new pairs of shoes twice in one day because the style of the heel wasn’t modern enough for me.
On the night my father died from a stroke, something happened that I never told you because I didn’t want to hear your interpretation. Today, however, you ought to know it. The fact is memorable, for it is the first time that my true cruel spirit revealed itself.
I was asleep in my mother’s bedroom. She was sleeping deeply, as I could tell from her regular breathing. Suddenly, I heard someone say my name. An unfamiliar voice murmured, “What would happen if your father were to die?”
I no longer loved my father after he had begun to mistreat my mother. Properly speaking, I no longer loved anyone. I only had some attachments to certain persons who were kind to me. Love without a natural motive rarely exists except in souls that live in the state of grace, which I did not.
“I’m sure he’s not dying,” I replied to the mysterious interlocutor. After a brief interval, I heard the same question. Without troubling myself as to its source, I sullenly replied, “It doesn’t matter. He’s not dying.”
For the third time the question came: “What would happen were your father to die?” In a flash certain scenes passed quickly through my mind: my father coming home drunk, his scolding and fighting with my mother, how he often embarrassed us in front of our neighbours and acquaintances.
I cried out obstinately: “All right, then, it’s what he deserves. Let him die!”
Afterward, everything became still. The following morning, when my mother went upstairs to straighten father’s room, she found the door locked. Around noon they forced it open. Father was lying half-dressed on his bed – dead, a corpse. He probably took a chill while hunting for beer in the cellar. He had already been sick for a long time.
Marta K. and you made me enroll in a sodality for young women. I never told you how absurd I found the instructions of the two directors, although the games were amusing enough. As you know, I quickly came to play a preponderant role in them, which flattered me. I also found the excursions pleasant. I even allowed myself at times to be taken to Confession and receive Holy Communion. I really had nothing to confess, for I never paid heed to answering for my thoughts and sentiments. And I was still not ready for worse things.
One day you admonished me: “Anne, you will be lost if you don’t pray more.” In truth I prayed very little, and always reluctantly and with annoyance. You were indisputably right. All those who burn in Hell either did not pray or did not pray enough. Prayer is the first step toward God. It is always decisive, especially prayer to that one who is the Mother of God, whose name it is not licit to pronounce. Devotion to her draws innumerable souls away from the devil, souls who by their sins would otherwise have fallen into his hands.
I continue, but with fury, being obliged to do so. Praying is the easiest thing one can do on earth. God rightly linked salvation to this simplest of actions. To those who persevere in prayer, God grants, little by little, so much light and strength that even a drowning sinner can be raised up and saved, even if he is immersed in mud up to his chest. In fact, in the last years of my life I no longer prayed at all, and thus deprived myself of the graces without which no one can be saved.
Here we no longer receive any grace. Even if we were to receive it, we would reject it with disdain. All the vacillations of earthly life come to an end in the beyond. In earthly life, man can pass from a state of sin to the state of grace. From grace he can fall into sin. I often fell from weakness, rarely from malice. But with death, this fluctuating “yes” and “no,” this rising and falling, comes to an end. With death, every individual enters into his final state, fixed and unalterable.
As one advances in age, the rises and falls become fewer. It is true that until death one can either convert or turn ones back upon God. In death, however, man makes his decision with the last tremors of his will, mechanically, the same way he did throughout his life. A good or bad habit becomes second nature, and this is what moves a person one way or another in his final moments. So it was with me. For years I had lived apart from God. Consequently, when I received that final call of grace, I decided against Him. It was fatal not because I had sinned so much, but rather because I had refused so often to amend my life.
You repeatedly admonished me to listen to sermons and read pious books, but I always made excuses for myself, citing a lack of time. What more could I have done to increase my inner uncertainty?
By the time I reached this critical point, which was shortly before I left the sodality for young women, it would have been difficult for me to follow any other path. I felt insecure and unhappy. I had erected a huge wall that stood in the way of my conversion, although you apparently didn’t realise it. You must have thought I could convert quite easily when you said to me once: “Anne, make a good confession and everything will be all right.” I suspected that what you said was true, but the world, the flesh, and the devil already had me securely in their clutches.
I never believed in the action of the devil, but now I attest that the devil exercises a powerful influence over persons such as I was then. [ 9 ] Only many prayers on the part of others and myself, together with sacrifices and sufferings, would have managed to wrench me away from him. And then only slowly.
I hate the devil, and yet I like him because he and his helpers, the angels that fell with him at the beginning of time, strive to make you lose your souls. There are myriads of demons. Uncountable numbers of them wander through the world like swarms of flies, their presence not even suspected. Condemned souls like us are not the ones who tempt you; this is left to the fallen spirits. [ 10 ] Our torments increase every time they bring another soul to Hell, but we still want to see everyone condemned. Hatred is capable of anything! [ 11 ]
Even though I tried to avoid Him, God sought me out. I prepared the way for grace by the works of natural charity I often did, following the natural inclination of my nature. At times, too, God attracted me to a church. When I took care of my sick mother even after a hard day of work at the office, which was no small sacrifice for me, I strongly felt these attractions to the grace of God.
Once, in the hospital chapel where you used to take me during our free time at mid-day, I was so moved that I found myself just one step away from conversion. I wept.
The pleasures of the world, however, shortly swept me up in a torrent and drowned out this grace. The thorns choked out the wheat. Making the rationalisation that religion is sentimentalism, the argument I heard at the office, I cast away this grace also, like so many others.
Once you reprimanded me because instead of genuflecting in church, I made only a slight inclination of my head. You thought it was laziness, not suspecting that I already no longer believed in the presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament. I believe it now, although only naturally, as one believes in a storm, by perceiving its signs and effects.
In the meantime, I had found for myself a religion. The general opinion in the office, that after death a soul would return to this world as another being, with an endless succession of dying and returning again, pleased me. With this, I shut out the distressing problem of the hereafter to the point that I imagined it no longer troubled me.
Why didn’t you remind me of the parable of the rich man and poor Lazarus, in which the narrator sent one to Hell and the other to Paradise after they died? But what good would this reminder have done? I would have just considered it just more of your pious advice.
Little by little I arranged a god, one privileged enough to be called a god, and at the same time distant enough that I didn’t have to deal with him. I made him confusing enough to allow me to transform him, at will and without need to change religions, into a pantheistic god, or even to permit me to become a proud Deist.
This “god” had neither a heaven to console me nor a hell to frighten me. I left him in peace. This is what my adoration of him consisted of. One easily believes in what one loves. With the passing of years, I became sufficiently convinced of my religion. I lived at ease with it, without its causing me any inconvenience.
Only one thing would have been able to bring me to my senses: a profound and prolonged suffering. But this suffering never came. Do you now understand that saying, “Whom God loves, He chastises”?
One summer day in July the sodality of young women organised an outing. Yes, I liked those outings, but not the pious beatas who went on them! I had recently placed an image very different from the one of Our Lady of Grace on the altar of my heart. It was that fine manly figure of Max N. from the nearby office. We had already conversed several times. On this occasion, he invited me out on the same Sunday that the sodality outing was planned. Another woman whom he had been dating was in the hospital.
He had noticed, of course, that I had my eyes on him, but I had never thought of marrying him. He was wealthy, but too friendly with all the young ladies, in my opinion. Up until then I had wanted a man who would belong exclusively to me, and I would be his alone. Thus, I had always kept a certain distance between us.
Max began to shower me with attentions from the day of that outing. Our conversation, of course, was certainly different from that of your pious women. The next day in the office, you reprimanded me for not having gone with you. I then told you about my Sunday diversion.
Your first question was: “Did you go to Mass?” How ridiculous! How could I have gone to Mass when we had agreed to leave at six in the morning? Do you remember that I heatedly added, “The good God is not so mean-spirited as your little priests!” Now I am forced to confess to you that, His infinite goodness notwithstanding, God takes everything much more seriously than any priest.
After this first outing with Max, I only attended one more of your sodality meetings. I was attracted to some of the Christmas solemnities, but I had already dissociated myself from you interiorly. What interested me were movies, dances, and excursions. At times Max and I argued, but I knew how to keep him interested in me.
After being released from the hospital, my rival was furious with me, and I found her quite disagreeable. Her anger worked in my favour, though, for my discreet calm impressed Max and ultimately led him to choose me over her. I knew just how to belittle her. I would speak calmly, seeming to be entirely objective, but spewing venom from within. Insinuations and actions like this can rapidly lead one to Hell. They are diabolical, in the true sense of the word.
Why am I telling you this? To show you how I came to separate myself definitively from God. To remove myself so far, it was not even necessary to be entirely familiar with Max. I knew that if I lowered myself to that too soon, he would think less of me. So I restrained myself and refused. In truth, I was ready to do anything I thought useful to reach my aim. I would stop at nothing to win Max.
Gradually we fell in love, for both of us possessed certain admirable qualities that we could mutually appreciate. I was talented and had become a good conversationalist, so I eventually had Max in my hands, secure that he belonged only to me, at least in those last months before our wedding.
This is what constituted my apostasy from God: making a mere creature into my god. The way this can be more fully realised is between two persons of opposite sex, if they have only a material love. For this becomes the allure, the sting, and the venom. The “adoration” I rendered to Max became an ardent religion for me.
At this stage of my life I would still at times hypocritically run off during the office lunch hour to go to church, to listen to the silly priests, to say the Rosary, and other such foolishness.
You strove, with more or less intelligence, to encourage such practices, but apparently without suspecting that, in final analysis, I no longer believed in any of these things. I only sought to set my conscience at ease – I still needed that – in order to justify my apostasy. In the depth of my soul I lived in revolt against God. You did not perceive that. You always thought I was still Catholic. I wanted to be seen as such, and I even went so far as to make contributions to the church, thinking that a little “insurance” couldn’t hurt me.
As sure as you were with your answers, they always bounced off me. I was sure that you could not be right. This strained our relationship, and when my marriage put some distance between us, the pain of our separation was slight. Before my wedding, I went to Confession and Holy Communion one more time, but it was a mere formality. My husband thought the same as I. We carried out that formality just like any other. You would call that “unworthy.” But after that “unworthy” Communion I had greater peace of mind. It was the last one of my life.
Our married life was generally harmonious. We shared the same opinion on just about everything. That included our opinion regarding children: We didn’t want the burden. Deep down, my husband wanted one child, but naturally no more. I was able to remove even this notion from his head. I preferred fine clothing and furniture, tea with the ladies, automobile excursions, and other such amusements. And so a year of earthly pleasure passed from our wedding day until my sudden death.
Every Sunday we went for a drive or visited my husband’s relatives—I was ashamed of my mother then. My husband’s relatives, like us, swam well on the surface of life. Inside, however, I never felt truly happy. Something always gnawed at my soul. I hoped that death, which was certainly far off in the future, would put an end to this.
When I was a child, I once heard in a sermon that God rewards the good one does. If He does not reward one in the next life, He will do it on earth. Without my expecting it, I received an inheritance [from my Aunt L]. At the same time my husband received a considerable raise in his salary. With this, we were able to furnish our new house quite well.
Any attachment to religion I might have had was almost gone, like the last glimmer of light on the far horizon. The bars and cafes of the city and the restaurants where we ate on our travels did not draw us any closer to God. Everyone who frequented them lived as we did, concerned about externals, and not matters of the soul.
Once in our travels we visited a famous cathedral, but just to appreciate the artistic value of its masterpieces. I knew how to neutralise the religious air of the Middle Ages that it radiated, and I seized every opportunity for ridicule. I made fun of the lay brother who served as our guide; I criticised the pious monks for their business of making and selling liqueur; I disparaged the eternal pealing of the bells calling the people to the churches as solicitations only for money. Thus I rejected every grace that came knocking at my door.
In particular, I let my sarcasm flow profusely at every depiction of Hell in the books, the cemeteries, and other places, where one could find devils roasting souls in red or yellow fires while their long-tailed associates kept arriving with more victims.
Hell might be poorly drawn, Claire, but it can never be exaggerated.
Above all, I always scoffed at the fire of Hell. Do you recall our conversation about the fire of Hell when I jokingly put a lit match under your nose and asked, “Does it smell like this?” You quickly blew out the match, but here no one extinguishes the fire. Let me tell you something else—the fire that the Bible speaks about is not just the torment of conscience. Fire means fire. That is just what He meant when he said, “Depart from Me, ye accursed, into the everlasting fire.” Quite literally.
“How can the spirit be affected by material fire?” you ask.
How, then, can your soul suffer on earth when you put your finger in the fire? Your soul itself does not burn, but what the man as a whole suffers!
In like manner, here we are imprisoned in a fire in our being and our faculties. Our souls are deprived of their natural movements. We can neither think nor want what we used to desire. [ 12 ] Do not even try to comprehend a mystery that goes against the laws of material nature: the fire of Hell burns without consuming.
Our greatest torment consists in knowing with certainty that we will never see God. How greatly we are tortured by that which we were indifferent to while on earth! When the knife lies on the table, it leaves you cold. You see its sharp edge, but you don’t feel it. But the moment it enters your flesh, you scream with pain. Before, we only saw the loss of God; now we feel it. [ 13 ]
All the souls do not suffer equally. The more frivolous, malicious, and resolute one was in sin, the more the loss of God weighs upon the soul and the more tortured he feels for the abused creature. Catholics who are damned suffer more than those of other beliefs because, in general, they received more lights and graces without taking advantage of them. The ones who knew more suffer more than those who had less knowledge. Those who sinned out of malice suffer more than those who fell from weakness. No one, however, suffers more than he deserves. Would that this were not true, so that I might have more reason to hate!
You once told me that no one goes to Hell without knowing it. This was revealed to some saint. I laughed at that, but the thought was entrenched in my mind. If this were the case, then there would be enough time for me to convert – that is how I thought in my heart.
What you said was true. Before my sudden end, I had no idea of what Hell really is. No human being does. But I had no doubt about this: should I die, I would enter into eternity in a state of revolt against God, and I would suffer the consequences. As I already have told you, I did not change my course but continued along the same path, impelled by habit, just as people act with greater deliberation and regularity as they grow older.
Now, I will tell you how my death occurred.
One week ago – I speak to you in the terms by which you measure time, for judging by the pain I have endured, I could already have been burning in Hell for ten years. Therefore, on a Sunday one week ago, my husband and I went for a drive. It was the last one for me.
The day was radiant and beautiful. I felt well and at ease, as I rarely did. An ominous presentiment, however, came over me as we drove. On the way home that evening my husband and I were unexpectedly blinded by the lights of a car rapidly approaching from the opposite direction. My husband lost control of our car.
“Jesus!” I shouted, not as a prayer, but as a scream. I felt a crushing pain – a trifle in comparison with my present torment. Then I lost consciousness. How strange! On that very morning, the idea had come to me unexpectedly that I could, after all, go to Mass again. It entered my mind almost like a supplication. My “No!” – strong and determined – nipped the thought in the bud. I must finish with this once and for all, I thought, and I assumed all the consequences. And now I endure them.
You know what happened after my death. The grief of my husband and my mother, my body laid out and the burial. You know all this down to the last detail, as do I through a natural intuition we have here. We have only a confused knowledge of what transpires in the world, but we know something of what concerned us. Thus I know also your whereabouts. [ 14 ]
At the moment of my death I awoke from a darkness. I found myself suddenly enveloped by a blinding light. It was at the same place where my body lay. It seemed almost like a theater, when the lights suddenly go out, the curtain noisily opens, and a tragically illuminated scene appears: the scene of my life. I saw my soul as in a mirror. I saw the graces I had trampled underfoot from the time I was young until that final “No!” given to God. I felt like an assassin brought to trial before its inanimate victim. Repent? Never! [ 15 ] Did I feel shame for my actions?
Not at all!
Notwithstanding, it was impossible for me to remain in the presence of the God I had denied and rejected. Only one thing remained for me: flight. Thus, just as Cain fled from the body of Abel, so my soul sought to flee far from this terrible sight.
That was my private judgment. The invisible Judge spoke: “Depart from Me!” and my soul swiftly fell, like a sulphurous shadow, into the place of eternal torment! [ 16 ]
Prologue (Sister Claire)
Thus ended the letter from Anne about Hell. The last letters were so twisted as to be almost illegible. When I finished reading the last word, the entire letter turned to ashes.
What was I hearing? After those harsh notes of the lines I imagined I was reading, what came to my ears was the sweet reality of bells ringing. I awoke suddenly to find myself still in bed. The early morning light was entering the room. From the parish Church came the sound of the bells ringing the Angelus.
Had it only been a dream? I never felt such consolation in praying the Angelic Salutation as I did after this dream. I said the three Hail Marys. And as I prayed them, this thought came to me very clearly: One must always stay close to Our Lord’s Blessed Mother and venerate her filially if one does not want to suffer the same fate related to me here—albeit in a dream—by a soul that will never see God.
Still frightened and shaking from that night’s revelation, I got up, dressed myself hastily, and rushed to the convent chapel. My heart was beating violently and unevenly. The houseguests kneeling closest to me looked at me with concern. Perhaps they thought that I was breathless and flushed from running down the stairs.
A kindly lady from Budapest, frail as a child and nearsighted, suffering greatly but lofty of spirit and fervent in the service of God, spoke to me that afternoon in the garden. “My dear child,” she said, “Our Lord does not want to be served in such haste.”
But then she perceived that it was something else that had excited me and made me so overwrought. She added kindly: “Let nothing distress you. You know the advice of Saint Teresa—let nothing alarm you. All things pass. He who possesses God lacks nothing. God alone suffices.”
While she humbly consoled me with these words, without any sermonizing tone, she seemed to be reading my soul.
“God alone suffices.” Yes, God must suffice for me – in this life and in the next. I want to possess Him there one day for all eternity however numerous may be the sacrifices I have to make here in order to triumph. I do not want to fall into Hell.
Theological Footnotes
[ 1 ] St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Suppl., Q. 98, art. 4: “Therefore, they [the damned] will wish all the good were damned.” | Return to text
[ 2 ] In response to the Question whether every act of the will in the damned is evil, St. Thomas distinguishes the deliberate will and the natural will: “Their natural will is theirs not of themselves but of the Author of nature, Who gave nature this inclination which we call the natural will. Wherefore since nature remains in them, it follows that the natural will in them can be good. | Return to text
“But their deliberate will is theirs of themselves, inasmuch as it is in their power to be inclined by their affections to this or that. This will is in them always evil: and this because they are completely turned away from the last end of a right will, nor can a will be good except it be directed to that same end. Hence even though they will some good, they do not will it well so that one is not able to call their will good on that account.” Ibid., Q. 98, a. 1.
[ 3 ] Ibid., Q 98, a. 3, r. ib. Ad. 3: “Although ‘not to be’ is very evil in so far as it removes being, it is very good in so far as it removes unhappiness, which is the greatest if evils, and thus it is preferred ‘not to be.’” | Return to text
[ 4 ] Ibid., Q 98, a. 7, r.: “Accordingly, in the damned there will be actual consideration of the things they knew heretofore as matters of sorrow, but not as a cause of pleasure. For they will consider both the evil they have done, and for which they were damned, and the delightful goods they have lost, and on both counts they will suffer torments.” | Return to text
[ 5 ] Ibid., Q. 98, a. 4, r.: “Even as in the blessed in heaven there will be most perfect charity, so in the damned there will be the most perfect hate.” | Return to text
[ 6 ] Ibid., Q. 98, a. 9, r.: “The damned, before the judgment day, will see the blessed in glory, in such a way as to know, not what that glory is like, but only that they are in a state of glory that surpasses all thought. This will trouble them, both because they will, through envy, grieve for their happiness, and because they have forfeited that glory.” | Return to text
[ 7 ] Ibid., Q. 98, a. 8, sf 1, iba 5, r: “The damned do not hate God except because He punishes and forbids what is agreeable to their evil will [the evil that they still desire to do]: and consequently they will think of Him only as punishing and forbidding.” | Return to text
[ 8 ] Ibid., Part I, Q. 21, a. 4, ad. 1: “Even in the damnation of the reprobate mercy is seen, which, though it does not totally remit, it somewhat alleviates, in punishing short of what is deserved.” In another note, the holy Doctor of the Church says that this is the case above all with those who in this world were merciful to others (Q. 99, a. 5, ad. 1). | Return to text
[ 9 ] Devils and demons are the names given to the evil spirits that exercise this influence. For proof of their existence two texts from Holy Scriptures suffice: “Be sober and watch, because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goes about seeking whom he may devour” (I Peter 5:8). | Return to text
“Put you on the armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the deceits of the devil. For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood; but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places” (Ephes. 6:11–12).
There are very few persons who are physically possessed by the devil, but many who are possessed interiorly. The devil cannot take the free will from those who give themselves over to his influence. Yet as a chastisement for one’s almost total apostasy from God, He permits that person to be dominated by “evil.”
[ 10 ] Summa Theologica, Suppl., Q. 98, a. 6, ad. 2: “Men who are damned are not occupied in drawing others to damnation, as the demons are.” | Return to text
[ 11 ] Ibid., Q. 98, a. 4, ad. 3: “Although an increase in the number of the damned results in an increase of each one’s punishment, so much the more will their hatred and envy increase that they will prefer to be more tormented with many, rather than less tormented alone.” | Return to text
[ 12 ] Ibid., Suppl., Q. 70, a. 3, r.: “Accordingly we must unite all the aforesaid modes together, in order to understand perfectly how the soul suffers from a corporeal fire: so as to say that the fire of its nature is able to have an incorporeal spirit united to it as a thing placed is united to a place; that as the instrument of Divine Justice it is enabled to detain it enchained as it were, and in this respect this fire is really hurtful to the spirit, and thus the soul seeing the fire as something hurtful to it is tormented by the fire.” | Return to text
[ 13 ] St. Augustine said, “The separation from God is a torment as great as God.” Cf. Houdry, Bibliotheca concionatorum (Venice, 1786), vol 2, “Infernus,” No. 4, p. 427. | Return to text
[ 14 ] S. Th. Suppl., Q. 98, a 7,: “Accordingly, in the damned there will be actual consideration of the things they knew heretofore as matters of sorrow, but not as a cause of pleasure.” | Return to text
[ 15 ] Ibid., Q. 98, a. 2, r.: “Accordingly the wicked will not repent of their sins directly [that is, out of hatred of sin], because consent in the malice of sin will remain in them; but they will repent indirectly, inasmuch as they will suffer from the punishment inflicted on them for sin.” | Return to text
[ 16 ] It is certain that Hell is a determined place. But where this place is situated, no one knows. That the punishment of Hell is eternal is a dogma, certainly the most terrible of all, rooted in Sacred Scripture: “Then he shall say to them also that shall be on his left hand: Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels…And these shall go into everlasting punishment; but the just, into life everlasting” (St. Matthew. 25:41, 46).
See also 2 Thessalonians. 1:9, St. Jude 1:13; Apoc. 14:11, 20:10. All are irrefutable texts, in which the word “everlasting” cannot be misunderstood or interpreted as “a long time.”
If it were inappropriate to illustrate this dogma, then Our Lord Himself would not have done so in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. He described Hell in the same way that it was done here – he showed that it existed and what one must do not to fall into it. The purpose of the parable was not to excite the senses, but the same one that occasioned this publication. The aim of this booklet finds expression in these words, “Let us think of Hell while we are still living, so that we will not fall into it after we die.” This counsel is but the paraphrasing of Psalm 54: “Descendat in infernum viventes, videlicet, ne descendant morientes,” which is found in a statement (erroneously) attributed to St. Bernard (Migne, Patr. Lat., vol. 184, Col. 314 b).
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| Abp. Viganò: The globalist New World Order has the marks of the ‘antichurch of Satan’ |
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Posted by: Stone - 02-17-2023, 06:43 PM - Forum: Archbishop Viganò
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Abp. Viganò: The globalist New World Order has the marks of the ‘antichurch of Satan’
Those who do not accept the anti-Gospel of Davos are ipso facto heretics and must therefore be
punished, excommunicated, separated from the social body, and considered public enemies.
Feb 17, 2023
(LifeSiteNews) — The following is an essay written by Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò on the rising influence of globalists groups.
THE STATE RELIGION
Some observations on the globalist cult
It forced all the people, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to be given a stamped image on their right hand or forehead.
No one could buy or sell except for those who had the stamped image, that is, the name of the beast or the number that corresponds to his name. Rev 13:16-17
Video: https://videofiles.lsntv.com/video_23021...c_1080.mp4
In an interesting interview on Fox News titled The Church of Environmentalism, journalist Tucker Carlson has brought to light a contradiction that may have escaped the notice of many people but which I consider extremely revealing.
Carlson recalls that the American Constitution prohibits any state religion, but for some time the governing Democratic Party has imposed on the American people the globalist cult, with its green agenda, its woke dogmas, its condemnations and cancel culture, its priests of the World Health Organization, and its prophets of the World Economic Forum. A religion in all respects, all-encompassing not only for the life of the individuals who practice it, but also in the life of the nation that publicly confesses it, adapts laws and sentences to it, and inspires education and every governmental action around it.
In the name of the globalist religion, its adherents demand that all citizens behave in accordance with the morality of the New World Order, accepting uncritically – and with an attitude of devout submission to religious authority – the doctrine defined ex cathedra by the Davos Sanhedrin.
Citizens are not required merely to share the motivations that justify the health, economic or social policies imposed by governments, but to give their blind and irrational assent, which goes far beyond faith. For this reason, it is not allowed to contest the psycho-pandemic, criticize the management of the vaccination campaign, argue the groundlessness of climate alarms, oppose the evidence of NATO’s provocation of the Russian Federation with the Ukrainian crisis, ask for investigations into Hunter Biden’s laptop or the electoral fraud that prevented President Donald Trump from remaining in the White House, or refuse to stand by as children are corrupted with LGBTQ obscenities.
After three years of follies incomprehensible to a rational mind but amply justifiable in a perspective of blind fideism, the proposal formulated by an American clinic to ask patients to give up part of their anesthesia so as to reduce their trace of carbon dioxide and “save the planet” should therefore not be read as a grotesque pretext to reduce hospital expenses to the detriment of patients, but as a religious act, a penance to be accepted willingly, an ethically meritorious act.
The penitential character is indispensable in this operation of forced conversion of the masses, because it counterbalances the absurdity of the action with the reward of a promised good: wearing the mask (which is useless) the citizen/religious adherent has made his own gesture of submission, has “offered” himself to the divinity (the State? the community?). A submission confirmed with the equally public act of vaccination, which represented a sort of “baptism” in the globalist faith, the initiation into worship.
The high priests of this religion have even reached the point of theorizing human sacrifice by means of abortion and euthanasia: a sacrifice required by the common good, so as not to overpopulate the planet, burden public health, or be a burden on social security.
Even the mutilations to which those who profess gender doctrine are subjected and the deprivation of reproductive faculties induced by homosexuality are nothing more than forms of sacrifice and immolation of oneself: of one’s body, one’s health, including life itself (receiving, for example, an experimental gene therapy demonstrably dangerous and often deadly).
Adherence to globalism is not optional: it is the state religion, and the state “tolerates” non-practitioners to the extent that their presence does not prevent society from exercising this cult. Indeed, in its presumption of being legitimized by “ethical” principles to impose on citizens what represents an incontestable superior “good,” the State also obliges dissenters to perform the basic acts of “globalist morality,” punishing them if they do not conform to its precepts.
Eating insects and not meat, injecting drugs instead of practicing a healthy life; using electricity instead of gasoline; renouncing private property and freedom of movement; enduring controls and limitations of fundamental rights; accepting the worst moral and sexual deviations in the name of freedom; renouncing the family to live isolated, without inheriting anything from the past and without transmitting anything to posterity; erasing one’s identity in the name of political correctness; denying the Christian faith to embrace woke superstition; conditioning one’s work and one’s subsistence to respect absurd rules – all these are elements destined to become part of the daily life of the individual, a life based on an ideological model that, on closer inspection, no one wants and no one has asked for, and that justifies its existence only with the bogeyman of an unproven and unprovable ecological apocalypse.
This violates not only the much-vaunted freedom of religion on which this society is founded, but wants to lead us step-by-step, inexorably, to the point of making this cult exclusive, the only one allowed.
The “church of environmentalism” defines itself as inclusive but does not tolerate dissent, and it does not accept dialectically engaging with those who question its dictates. Those who do not accept the anti-Gospel of Davos are ipso facto heretics and must therefore be punished, excommunicated, separated from the social body, and considered public enemies; they must be re-educated by force, both through an incessant hammering of the media and also through the imposition of a social stigma and truly extortive forms of consent, starting with the “informed” consent of submitting against their will to the vaccination obligation and continuing in the madness of the so-called “15-minute city,” which is anticipated moreover in detail in the programmatic points of the 2030 Agenda (which are ultimately dogmatic canons to the contrary).
The problem with this disturbing phenomenon of mass superstition is that this state religion has not been imposed de facto only in the United States of America, but it has also spread to all the nations of the Western world, whose leaders were converted to the globalist “Word” by the great apostle of the Great Reset, Klaus Schwab, its self-proclaimed “pope” who is therefore invested with an infallible and incontestable authority.
And as in the Annuario Pontificio we can read the list of cardinals, bishops and prelates of the Roman Curia and dioceses spread throughout the world, so on the website of the World Economic Forum we find the list of “prelates” of globalism, from Justin Trudeau to Emmanuel Macron, discovering that not only the presidents and prime ministers of many states belong to this “church,” but also numerous officials, heads of international bodies and major multinational corporations, and members of the media.
To these must also be added the “preachers” and “missionaries” who work for the spread of the globalist faith: actors, singers, influencers, sportsmen, intellectuals, doctors, teachers. A very powerful, highly-organized network, widespread not only at the top of institutions, but also in universities and courts, in companies and hospitals, in peripheral bodies and local municipalities, in cultural and sports associations, so that it is impossible to escape indoctrination even in a provincial primary school or in a small rural community.
It is disconcerting – you must admit – that in the number of converts to the universal religion we can also count exponents of the world religions, and among them even Jorge Mario Bergoglio – whom Catholics also consider head of the Church of Rome – with all the cowardliness of ecclesiastics faithful to him.
The apostasy of the Catholic hierarchy has reached the point of worshiping the idol of the pachamama, the “mother Earth,” demonic personification of ecumenical, inclusive, and sustainable “Amazonian” globalism. But was it not John Podesta himself who advocated the advent of a “springtime of the Church” that would replace its doctrine with a vague environmentalist sentimentality, finding prompt execution of his hopes in the coordinated action that led to the resignation of Benedict XVI and the election of Bergoglio?
What we are witnessing is nothing more than the reverse application of the process that led to the spread of Christianity in the Roman Empire and then throughout the world, a sort of revenge of barbarism and paganism on the Faith of Christ.
What Julian the Apostate tried to do in the fourth century, that is, to restore the cult of pagan gods, today is pursued zealously by new apostates, all united by a “sacred fury” that makes them as dangerous as they are convinced of being able to succeed in their intentions because of the endless means at their disposal.
In reality, this religion is nothing more than a modern incarnation of the cult of Lucifer: the recent Satanic performance at the Grammy Awards sponsored by Pfizer is only the latest confirmation of an adherence to an infernal world that until now had been silenced because it was still considered unmentionable.
It is no mystery that the ideologues of globalist thought are all indistinctly anti-Christian and anticlerical, significantly hostile to Christian morality, and ostentatiously opposed to the civilization and culture that the Gospel has shaped in two thousand years of history. Not only that: the inextinguishable hatred towards life and towards all that is the work of the Creator – from man to nature – reveals the attempt (almost successful, albeit delirious) to tamper with the order of Creation, to modify plants and animals, to change the very human DNA through bioengineering interventions, to deprive man of his individuality and his free will, making him controllable and even maneuverable through transhumanism.
At the bottom of all this, there is the hatred of God and envy for the supernatural fate that He has reserved for men by redeeming them from sin with the Sacrifice of the Cross of His Son.
This Satanic hatred is expressed in the determination to make it impossible for Christians to practice their religion, to see its principles respected, to be able to make their contribution in society and, ultimately, in the will to induce them to do evil, or at least to ensure that they cannot do good, much less spread it; and if they do, to distort their original motivations (love of God and neighbor) by perverting them with pitiful philanthropic or environmentalist purposes.
All the precepts of the globalist religion are a counterfeit version of the Ten Commandments, their grotesque inversion, an obscene reversal. In practice, they use the same means that the Church has used for evangelization, but with the aim of damning souls and subjecting them not to the Law of God, but to the tyranny of the devil, under the inquisitorial control of the antichurch of Satan.
In this perspective, the American secret services are also reporting on groups of traditional Catholic faithful, confirming that the enmity between the seed of the Woman and that of the serpent (Gen 3:15) is a theological reality in which the enemies of God believe above all, and that one of the signs of the end times is precisely the abolition of the Holy Sacrifice and the presence of the abomination of desolation in the temple (Dn 9: 27).
The attempts to suppress or limit the traditional Mass unite deep church and deep state, revealing the essentially Luciferian matrix of both: because both know very well what are the infinite graces that pour out on the Church and on the world through that Mass, and they want to prevent those graces from being given so that they do not hinder their plans. They show it to us themselves: our battle is not only against creatures of flesh and blood (Eph 6:12).
Tucker Carlson’s observation highlights the deception to which we are subjected daily by our rulers: the theoretical imposition of the secularism of the State has served to eliminate the presence of the true God from the institutions, while the practical imposition of the globalist religion serves to introduce Satan into the institutions, with the aim of establishing that dystopian New World Order in which the Antichrist will claim to be worshiped as a god, in his mad delirium to replace Our Lord.
The warnings of the Book of Revelation take on ever greater concreteness, the more the plan proceeds to subject all men to a control that prevents any possibility of disobedience and resistance: only now do we understand what it means not to be able to buy or sell without the green pass, which is nothing if not the technological version of the mark with the number of the Beast (Rev 13:17).
But if not everyone is yet ready to recognize the error of having abandoned Christ in the name of a corrupt and deceptive freedom that has hidden unspeakable intentions, I believe that today many are ready – psychologically, even before rationally – to take note of the coup d’état with which a lobby of dangerous fanatics is managing to take power in the United States and in the world, determined to make any move, even the most reckless, in order to maintain it.
Through a twist of Providence, the secularism of the State – which in itself offends God because it denies Him the public worship to which He is sovereign – could be the argument with which to put an end to the subversive project of the Great Reset. If Americans – and with them the peoples of the whole world – can rebel against this forced conversion, demanding that citizens’ representatives in positions of government be accountable to the holders of national sovereignty and not to the leaders of the globalist Sanhedrin, it will perhaps be possible to put a stop to this race towards the abyss.
But to do so requires the awareness that this will be only a first phase in the process of liberation from this infernal lobby, which must be followed by the re-appropriation of those moral principles proper to Christianity that constitute the foundations of Western civilization and the most effective defense against the barbarism of neopaganism.
For too long citizens and faithful have passively suffered the decisions of their political and religious leaders in the face of the evidence of their betrayal. Respect for authority is based on the recognition of a “theological” fact, that is, of the Lordship of Jesus Christ over individuals, nations, and the Church. If those in authority in the State and Church act against the citizens and the faithful, their power is usurped and their authority null and void.
Let us not forget that rulers are not the owners of the State and the masters of the citizens, just as the pope and the bishops are not the owners of the Church and the masters of the faithful.
If they do not want to be like fathers to us; if they do not want our good and indeed do everything to corrupt us in body and spirit, it is time to drive them out of their positions and call them to account for their betrayal, their crimes, and their scandalous lies.
+ Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop
February 16, 2023
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| LFSPN: Sermons of Fr. Hewko - January 2023 |
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Posted by: Stone - 02-17-2023, 06:33 PM - Forum: LFSPN
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| LFSPN - December 2022 Sermons of Fr. Ruiz |
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Posted by: Stone - 02-16-2023, 08:41 AM - Forum: LFSPN
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