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| Bishop Tissier de Mallerais: Archbishop Lefebvre - A Life for Christ the King |
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Posted by: Stone - 10-31-2021, 07:53 AM - Forum: Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre
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Archbishop Lefebvre: A Life for Christ the King
by Bishop Bernard Tissier de Mallerais
First published in the October 2011 issue of The Angelus magazine.
Archbishop Lefebvre always linked the priesthood to the social reign of our Lord Jesus Christ: the one is source of the other; the other spontaneously flows from the first.
I. At the French Seminary in Rome
On the Via Santa Chiara, where he trained for the priesthood from 1923 to 1929, Fr. Lefebvre learned from Fr. Henri Le Floch, the Father Superior of the house, not to separate what should be joined: the divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ and His social reign, a priest’s doctrine and his piety, and also the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the social reign of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is the teaching of the popes in their encyclicals.
Pius IX, Leo XIII, Pius X, and Pius XI are the masters, and also Cardinal Pie, Louis Veuillot, and so on. But the Fathers of the seminary were also well-beloved masters to whom they listened.
Fr. Le Floch
According to Archbishop Lefebvre:
Quote:Fr. Le Floch made us enter into and live the history of the Church, this fight that the perverse powers take to our Lord. We were mobilized against this dreadful liberalism, against the Revolution and the forces of evil which were trying to overcome the Church, the reign of our Lord, the Catholic States, and the whole of Christianity."[1]
This conflict imposed a personal choice on every seminarian: "We had to choose: we had to leave the seminary if we didn’t agree, or else join in the fight." But taking up the fight meant taking it up for one’s whole life: "I think that our whole life as priests—or as bishops—has been marked by this fight against liberalism."[2]
But how does the priesthood fit into this essentially political combat?
At the French Seminary, the seminarians had to read or had read to them the writings of Godefroid Kurth [The Origins of Modern Civilization, 1912] to make them consider how
Quote:the mystical Body of Christ transformed the pagan society of imperial Rome and prepared the growing movement that recognized the plans for society of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Priest and King";
the seminarians also learned through the writings of Fr. Deschamps [in his book Secret Societies and Society] that
Quote:revolutions caused the exclusion of Christ the King from government with the final goal of eliminating the Mass and the supernatural life of Christ the sovereign High Priest."[3]
Fr. (and later Cardinal) Billot’s De Ecclesia made them grasp “the sense of the royalty of Christ and the horror of liberalism.” Through the works of Cardinal Pie they learned
Quote:the full meaning of ‘thy kingdom come,’ namely, that Our Lord’s kingdom must come not only in individual souls and in heaven, but also on earth by the submission of States and nations to His rule. The dethroning of God on earth is a crime to which we must never resign ourselves" (Fr. Fahey).[4]
[Fr. Fahey was a seminarian in Rome 12 years before Marcel Lefebvre. He attended the same seminary, which was also under Fr. Le Floch’s direction.] “Pius IX’s Syllabus and the encyclicals of the last four popes,” said Fahey, “have been the principal object of my meditations on the royalty of Christ and its relation to the priesthood.”[5]
What a surprising meditation subject for a young seminarian: joining the highest spirituality with the submission of the temporal order to Christ. For Marcel Lefebvre’s teachers, there was no divorce between individual life and political action in the broadest sense. So-called “Catholic” liberalism separates what should remain united.
Fr. Voegtli
It was also at the French Seminary in Rome that Fr. Marc Voegtli, C.S.Sp., a professor at Santa Chiara, commented on Pius XI’s encyclical Quas Primas of December 11, 1925, on the social kingship of Jesus Christ. Before his enthusiastic young audience he set forth the political program of the Catholic Church by the action of the Catholic priest. We’ll explain at the end of this talk the political program in which the priest is engaged.
The testimony of Fr. Voegtli’s students is unanimous: His teaching was simple, he spoke only of Our Lord Jesus Christ the King…. He taught the integrity of the priesthood, the priesthood taken to its logical conclusion: the sacrifice of the priest [Keep that idea in mind] for the reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Everything was judged in that light. 'My dear friends,' the Father would say, 'you must preach Our Lord Jesus Christ with all your heart!'"
A collective testimony signed by twelve seminarians declares:
Quote:Through him [Fr. Voegtli] we learned to see our Lord Jesus Christ, the King, as the center of everything, the answer to all questions, our food, our thought, our life, everything…. That is what he wanted to impress upon us: that will remain!"[6]
And remain it did, as we shall see. Marcel Lefebvre was one of those who had an unforgettable memory of Fr. Voegtli’s conferences. You may be thinking, "Let’s get to his actions during the Council and after!" Yes, but it is essential to understand the mainspring of his action!
The mainspring of Archbishop Lefebvre’s fight for Christ the King:
a testimony
He essentially gave his own testimony to the fact: 50 years [after the 12 seminarians’ testimony] one of Fr. Voegtli’s rare faithful disciples, Marcel Lefebvre, also bore witness to the indelible impression produced by Fr. Voegtli’s “talks, which were very simple, taking the words of Scripture, showing who Our Lord Jesus Christ was…. That remained with us for life!”[7]
It even became the subject of the seminarian’s meditation:
Quote:We shall never have sufficiently meditated on, or sought to understand, what Our Lord Jesus Christ is…. He should rule our thinking, He makes us holy. He is also our Creator since nothing whatsoever was made without the Word, and therefore without Our Lord Jesus Christ who is the Word. So we must only think about and contemplate Our Lord Jesus Christ. And that transforms one’s life!"[8]
What a striking remark. For Marcel Lefebvre, belief in the divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ and consequently His right alone to reign meant personally dedicating himself to the fight. This he did, like many of his confreres, at Rome before the Confession of St. Peter. There he made a private vow of doctrinal and militant “Romanity.” The account of the Fr. Berto suggests that making such a vow was normal and went without saying. The seminarian promised “to be constantly on crusade” (Archbishop Lefebvre).[9]
He didn’t know when or where or in what troubled, tragic circumstances of the Church it would be that he would have to enter the arena and himself write a page of that Church history that he was shown under the light of Christ the King, but he knew that he would have to join in the battle.
The Second Vatican Council was to be the providential moment for Archbishop Lefebvre, the moment when he felt himself pushed to intervene in fidelity to the promise he had made as a seminarian at Rome long before.
II. Herald of Christ the King
During the Council, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre became the head of the resistance against false religious freedom in the name of Christ the King. During the presentation of two rival drafts on religious freedom, one by Cardinal Bea and one by Cardinal Ottaviani, at the last meeting of the Central Preparatory Commission in June 1962, he gave his opinion.
About the liberal schema of Cardinal Bea, he said:
Quote:On Religious Liberty: non placet… since it is based on false principles solemnly condemned by the sovereign pontiffs, for example Pius IX, who calls this error "delirium" (Denzinger 1690)…. The schema on religious liberty does not preach Christ and therefore seems false…."
About the Catholic schema of Cardinal Ottaviani, he said:
Quote:‘On the Church’: placet. However, the exposition of the fundamental principles could be done with more reference to Christ the King as in the encyclical Quas Primas…. Our Council could have as its aim to preach Christ to all men, and to state that it belongs to the Catholic Church alone to be the true preacher of Christ who is the salvation and life of individuals, families, professional associations, and of other civil bodies. …The Theological Commission’s schema expounds the authentic doctrine but does so like a thesis; it does not sufficiently show the aim of this doctrine which is nothing other than the reign of Christ…. From the point of view of Christ as source of salvation and life, all the fundamental truths could be expounded as they say “pastorally,” and in this way the errors of secularism, naturalism, and materialism, etc., would be excluded."[10]
III. Theological Adversary
of the Secular State
The Declaration on Religious Freedom promulgated by the Council on December 7, 1965, Dignitatis Humanae, seems to assert that the State must recognize the Catholic religion as the one true one (DH 1), but at the same time it teaches the “natural” freedom of the adherents of false cults to practice their beliefs publicly (DH 6). This contradiction became more problematic after the Council from the way the Holy See required its application by States that were still officially Catholic: the article in their constitutions professing the Catholic religion as the State religion had to be expunged.
So, while passing through Colombia, South America, soon after the suppression of the “Catholic religion” as “that of the nation,” Archbishop Lefebvre remarked that “the speech of the president of the Republic is more Catholic than the Nuncio’s.” The Archbishop was indignant that Ireland had agreed to replace the expression “the special position of the holy, Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman Church as guardian of the faith professed by the great majority of its citizens,” with “the homage of public worship” given by the State “to Almighty God.”
In Italy, Article 1 of the Lateran Accords of February 11, 1929, read:
Quote:Italy recognizes and reaffirms the principle expressed by Article 1 of the Statute of the Realm of March 4, 1848, by which the Catholic, Apostolic and Roman religion is the only religion of the State."[11]
In 1984, to the consternation of Archbishop Lefebvre, the new concordat between the Holy See and Italy only recognized that “the principles of Catholicism constitute part of the historical patrimony of the Italian people.” In 1977 [7 years before the 1984 concordat], Cardinal Giovanni Colombo, the Archbishop of Milan, had declared: "o stato non puo essere che laico.—The State can only be secular. He explained:
Quote:The Church does not ask for privileges, but for genuine freedom…. In the current historical development of society, a confessional State is not possible: not only a confessional Christian State, but also a confessional Marxist atheistic State or a confessional radical bourgeois State. We are calling for a State that does not embrace any particular ideology, that does not impose the dogmas of any culture, and that does not identify with any party. Otherwise, very many of its citizens, because of their religious or ideological or partisan choices, would be compelled to feel like strangers in their own land."[12]
In terms that are insulting to the Church of Christ thus put on a par with ideologies, parties, and cultures, the Cardinal could not better express the current interpretation given to Dignitatis Humanae as propounding the agnostic and indifferentist State. The State’s pledge of allegiance to Jesus Christ, God Incarnate and the one true God, would amount to uncharitableness, contempt for human dignity, and unfair discrimination.
Archbishop Lefebvre spoke out against these liberal platitudes in an interview with the three cardinals who questioned him in 1975. “The goal of the secularization of the State,” he said, “is nothing other than the goal of the devil, who is behind Freemasonry: the destruction of the Catholic Church by affording all the false religions freedom of speech and by forbidding the State to work for the social kingship of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
The archbishop explained what he meant: First of all, the recognition of Christ by the State is not a privilege; it is the right of the Man-God and Redeemer of the human race. On the other hand, “How many Catholics are still able to recognize that the work of our Lord’s Redemption must also be accomplished through civil society?” And yet this is so, for “everything was made for our Lord Jesus Christ,” as St. Paul teaches (Col. 1:16).[13]
Man has but one ultimate goal: eternal salvation. The Church works directly toward this goal, but the State should also work towards it, although indirectly, for civil society is also a creature of our Lord Jesus Christ.[14] Consequently, as St. Pius X teaches, the State has as its “ultimate object …man’s eternal happiness after this short life shall have run its course.”[15]
This… is founded on the dogmatic reason and on the experience of the conversion of numerous nations subsequent to the conversion of their rulers: for example, Clovis, Ethelbert, and so on. This fact prompted St. Alphonsus Liguori to declare: “If I convert a king, I do more for the Catholic cause than hundreds of missionaries.”
Archbishop Lefebvre also held the supernatural and traditional position of the Church on Christ the King—namely, that the State should be an instrument in the work of Redemption. He is not far from taking as his own the program of his brother in religion and co-alumnus of Santa Chiara, Denis Fahey: since the reign of Christ must be established by the cross (“Regnavit a ligno Deus” we sing in the Vexilla Regis):
Quote:In order to favor union with Christ as Priest in Holy Mass, God wants the world organized under Christ as King."[16]
From this it follows that:
Quote:At Holy Mass all the members of Christ express their determination to work for the integral establishment of the rights of God and of Christ the King over the world."[17]
More briefly, Archbishop Lefebvre would often say: “The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is the expression of the Kingship of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
At the French Seminary in Rome, Fr. Marc Voegtli, following the teaching of Fr. Deschamps, taught the young Marcel Lefebvre the liberal, Freemasonic agenda in three points:
1. The banishment of Christ the King from government by the secularization of the State;
2. eliminating the Mass which would result from the persecution of the Church by legal means, and ultimately the secularization of the Church itself, the supreme plot of initiated Masons; in order
3. finally to suppress the grace of Jesus Christ High Priest in souls—the very secularization of Catholic souls. All of this happened after the Second Vatican Council…
What Archbishop Lefebvre did is reverse this satanic program in order to come up with the Catholic program, which is that of the Society of St. Pius X, also in three points:
1. Restore to the faithful the Mass—the true Mass, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass—which is the source and expression of the reign of Jesus Christ.
2. By the grace of the Mass, form an elite of faithful Catholics living in the state of grace; and
3. through the work of this elite in public institutions—not just in ecclesiastical organizations, but also in openly Catholic civil organizations—re-crown our Lord Jesus Christ in society: “Omnia instaurare in Christo—Establish all things in Christ,” according to the motto of St. Pius X.
This is the program Archbishop Lefebvre tried to explain to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the future Benedict XVI, in a meeting they had in Rome on July 14, 1987:
Quote:Eminence… you are working to dechristianize society and the Church, and we are working to Christianize them. For us, our Lord Jesus Christ is everything, He is our life. The Church is our Lord Jesus Christ; the priest is another Christ; the Mass is the triumph of Jesus Christ on the cross; in our seminaries everything tends towards the reign of our Lord Jesus Christ. But You! You are doing the opposite: you have just wanted to prove to me that our Lord Jesus Christ cannot, and must not, reign over society. For us, our Lord Jesus Christ is everything!"[18]
Footnotes
1 Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, Marcel Lefebvre: The Biography, pp. 36-7.
2 Ibid.
3 Fr. Denis Fahey, C.S.Sp., “Apologia pro Vita Mea,” 1950 (reprinted in Catholic Family News, April & May 1997), quoted in Tissier, Marcel Lefebvre, p. 37.
4 Ibid.
5 Ibid., pp. 37-8.
6 Tissier, Marcel Lefebvre, pp. 43-4.
7 Ibid., p. 44.
8 Ibid.
9 Archbishop Lefebvre, The Little Story of My Long Life [ref. to French edition], p. 28.
10 Tissier de Mallerais, Marcel Lefebvre, p. 285.
11 A.A.S. 21 (1929), pp. 290 seq.
12 Quoted from L’Osservatore Romano, translated from the Italian and published by “Ya” on July 14, 1977, and reprinted in the bulletin of the CICES, No. 210, March 15, 1977, under the byline of Andre Laforge.
13 Spiritual Conference, Econe, September 23, 1977, relating the conference of Archbishop Lefebvre at Rome at Princess Palaviccini’s in June 1977. Cf. They Have Uncrowned Him, p. 101 [ref. to French edition].
14 It is a creature of God because the social nature of man is God’s creation.
15 St. Pius X, encyclical Vehementer Nos condemning the Law of Separation of Church and State in France, February 11, 1906.
16 Rev. Fr. Denis Fahey, C.S.Sp., The Mystical Body of Christ and the Reorganization of Society, pp. 114-5.
17 Ibid.
18 Tissier de Mallerais, Marcel Lefebvre, p. 548.
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| Hymn for the Feast of Christ the King: Te Sæculorum Principem |
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Posted by: Stone - 10-31-2021, 07:25 AM - Forum: Pentecost
- Replies (1)
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Te Sæculorum Principem
Te sæculorum Principem, Te, Christe, Regem Gentium,
Te mentium, Te cordium Unum fatemur arbitrum.
Thou, Prince of all ages, Thou, O Christ, the King of the nations,
we acknowledge Thee the one Judge of all hearts and minds.
Scelesta turba clamitat: Regnare Christum nolumus:
Te nos ovantes omnium Regem supremum dicimus.
The wicked mob screams out. "We don't want Christ as king,"
While we, with shouts of joy, hail Thee as the world's supreme King.
O Christe, Princeps Pacifer, Mentes rebelles subiice:
Tuoque amore devios, Ovile in unum congrega.
O Christ, peace-bringing Prince, subjugate the rebellious minds:
And in Thy love, bring together in one flock those going astray.
Ad hoc cruenta ab arbore, Pendes apertis brachiis:
Diraque fossum cuspide Cor igne flagrans exhibes.
For this, with arms outstretched, Thou hung, bleeding, on the Cross,
and the cruel spear that pierced Thee, showed man a Heart burning with love.
Ad hoc in aris abderis Vini dapisque imagine,
Fundens salutem filiis Transverberato pectore.
For this, Thou art hidden on our altars under the form of bread and wine,
and pour out on Thy children from Thy pierced side the grace of salvation.
Te nationum Praesides Honore tollant publico,
Colant magistri, iudices, Leges et artes exprimant.
May the rulers of the world publicly honour and extol Thee; May teachers and judges reverence Thee;
May the laws express Thine order and the arts reflect Thy beauty.
Submissa regum fulgeant Tibi dicata insignia:
Mitique sceptro patriam Domosque subde civium.
May kings find renown in their submission and dedication to Thee.
Bring under Thy gentle rule our country and our homes.
Iesu, tibi sit gloria, Qui sceptra mundi temperas,
Cum Patre et almo Spiritu, In sempiterna sæcula. Amen.
Glory be to Thee, O Jesus, supreme over all secular authorities;
And glory be to the Father and the loving Spirit through endless ages. Amen.
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| Prayers in Honor of Christ the King |
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Posted by: Stone - 10-31-2021, 07:15 AM - Forum: In Honor of Our Lord
- Replies (4)
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Prayer of Necessity
(Taken from the Raccolta 1910)
Jesus Christ, the King of Glory, hath come in peace.
God was made man.
The Word was made flesh.
Christ was born of Mary the Virgin.
Christ went through the midst of them in peace.
Christ was crucified.
Christ died.
Christ was buried.
Christ rose from the dead.
Christ ascended into heaven.
Christ is victorious
Christ reigns.
Christ is Lord of all.
May Christ defend us from all evil.
Jesus is with us.
(Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory be to the Father etc.)
Eternal Father, by the Blood of Jesus have mercy; sign us with the Blood of the Immaculate Lamb Jesus Christ, as Thou didst sign the people of Israel, in order to deliver them from death: and do thou, Mary, Mother of Mercy, pray to God and appease Him for us, and obtain for us the grace we ask. (Glory be to the Father etc.)
Eternal Father, by the Blood of Jesus have mercy; save us from the shipwreck of the world, as Thou didst save Noe from the universal deluge: and do thou, Mary, Ark of salvation, pray to God and appease Him for us, and obtain for us the grace we ask. (Glory be to the Father etc.)
Eternal Father, by the Blood of Jesus have mercy; deliver us from the plagues which we have deserved for our sins, as Thou didst deliver Lot from the flames of Sodom. And do thou, Mary, our Advocate, pray to God and appease Him for us, and obtain for us the grace we ask. (Glory be to the Father etc.)
Eternal Father, by the Blood of Jesus have mercy; comfort us under our present necessities and troubles, as Thou didst comfort Job, Anna and Tobias in their afflictions. And do thou, Mary, Comforter of the afflicted, pray to God and appease Him for us, and obtain for us the grace we ask. (Glory be to the Father etc.)
Eternal Father, by the Blood of Jesus have mercy; Thou who wouldst not the death of a sinner, but rather that he should be converted and live, grant us through thy mercy time for penance; that, filled with contrition and penance for our sins, which are the cause of all our evils, we may live in the holy faith, hope, charity and peace of our Lord Jesus Christ. And do thou, Mary, Refuge of sinners, pray to God and appease Him for us, and obtain for us the grace we ask. (Glory be to the Father etc.)
Precious Blood of Jesus, our Love, cry unto the Divine Father for mercy, pardon, grace and peace for us, for N., and for all the world. (Glory be to the Father etc.)
Mary, our Mother and our Hope, pray to God for us, for N., and for all, and obtain for us the grace we ask. (Glory be to the Father ect.)
Eternal Father, I offer Thee the Blood of Jesus Christ in discharge of all my debt of sin, for the wants of Holy Church, and for the conversion of sinners. (Glory be to the Father etc.)
Mary Immaculate, Mother of God, pray to Jesus for us, for N., and for all. Jesus, Mary, mercy ! St Michael Archangel, St Joseph, SS. Peter and Paul, protectors of all the faithful in the Church of God, and all ye Angels and Saints of Paradise, men and women, pray to God, and by your intercession obtain grace and mercy for me, for N., and for all. Amen.
(Indulgence 100 days)
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| Christus Vincit |
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Posted by: Stone - 10-31-2021, 07:09 AM - Forum: Pentecost
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Christus Vincit
Taken from here.
Also called the laudes regiae, Christus Vincit is the Hymn par excellence to acclaim Christ as the King of Kings. “Christ conquers, Christ reigns, Christ commands.”, an inscription engraved in the obelisk that stands in the middle of St. Peter’s square in the Vatican, the Obelisk itself symbolizing Christus Invictus.
The acclamation goes back to the great Christian King Charlemagne, in whose time the Church and state lived in harmony to a great extent. It is recorded, that at his coronation as Emperor of the Romans (A.D. 800) he took for his motto: Christus Vincit, Christus Regnat, Christus Imperat.
Since then, these words were instituted as the chant used in the coronation of the Holy Roman Emperors, and later on in France, during the anointing and coronation of the Kings.
Later on, the praises were sung every year, at the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris, which was the King’s own parish church. On Easter Sunday, as the king processed into the Cathedral, the laudes regiae were sung for both Him and Christ or rather, to Christ, in him.
Later on, this would move into England, Rome, and the rest of Europe, and it became of popular use also at the entrance of Bishops, and of course the Pope. In the several scores existing, one will find the acclamation for the Bishop, or the simple Christus Vincit, with verses from the Psalm 117.
Lyrics and Translation:
Christus vincit,
Christus regnat,
Christus imperat.
Laudate Dominum, omnes gentes
laudate eum, omnes populi.
Christus vincit,
Christus regnat,
Christus imperat.
Quoniam confirmata est super nos misericordia ejus,
et veritas Domini manet in aeternum.
Christus vincit,
Christus regnat,
Christus imperat.
Gloria Patri et Filio,
et Spiritui Sancto.
Christus vincit,
Christus regnat,
Christus imperat.
Sicut erat in principio et nunc, et semper,
et in saecula saeculorum. Amen.
Christus vincit,
Christus regnat,
Christus imperat.
Christ conquers,
Christ reigns,
Christ commands.
O praise the Lord, all ye nations:
praise ye Him, all ye people.
Christ conquers,
Christ reigns,
Christ commands.
For His mercy is confirmed upon us:
and the truth of the Lord remaineth forever.
Christ conquers,
Christ reigns,
Christ commands.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son,
and to the Holy Spirit.
Christ conquers,
Christ reigns,
Christ commands.
As in the beginning, is now and always and ever shall be,
world without end. Amen.
Christ conquers,
Christ reigns,
Christ commands.
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| Cardinal Manning: The Revolt of Society from God |
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Posted by: Stone - 10-31-2021, 06:59 AM - Forum: Articles by Catholic authors
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"The nation and the kingdom that will not serve Thee shall perish."--Isaias lx. 12.
These words are the promise of God to His Incarnate Son, the King of kings, and Lord of all the earth, which He has redeemed with His precious blood. It was to Him also that the words were spoken: "Sit Thou at My right hand, until I make Thy enemies Thy footstool (Ps. cix. 1, 2)." The Son of God declares of Himself: "I am appointed King by Him over Sion His holy mountain (Ibid. ii. 6)." Before He ascended into heaven, our Lord said to His disciples, "All power in heaven and on earth is given unto Me;" and He promised them, saying, "I dispose"--that, I give--"unto you a kingdom, as My Father has disposed unto Me. (St . Matt, xxviii. 18; St. Luke xxii. 29.)" This kingdom, then, is the kingdom of Jesus Christ; and the prophecy here is, that any nation or any kingdom that will not serve Him shall perish. Any nation or kingdom that says, "We will not have this Man to reign over us," refuses the sovereignty of Jesus Christ, and thereby shall fall.
It was on the day of Pentecost that the proclamation of the coming of this kingdom was first made in a multitude of tongues, and from Jerusalem was spread throughout the world. God the Holy Ghost on that day came as the "sound of a mighty wind," and by tongues of fire, speaking to the eye and to the ear, in witness of His Royal presence, Majesty, and power.
I have already spoken of the revolt of the intellect from truth, and also of the revolt of the will from God. Our present subject is the revolt of man from the authority of God. When I say the revolt of man, I do not only mean of individuals one by one, but of mankind in its organized and corporate state. It is therefore of the revolt of society from the authority of God that I am about to speak.
I have said before, that the history of the Christian society of the world may be divided into three periods: the first, when the Church as a spiritual society stood alone, separate from the world, and made up of individuals gathered from all nations, cities, and households, as a spiritual society without contact with the civil or political society of mankind; the second, when the Church and the civil society of the world, being in harmony and union, after the Empire had become Christian, were associated together in the government and sanctification of the world; the third is the period which for the last three hundred years has set in, of divorce, departure, and separation, between the spiritual society of the Church and the civil or political society of nations. Or in other words, the first period since the coming of our Lord may be called the period of the world under false gods, for the world was heathen; the second was the period of the world under the one true God; and this last period, on which we have now entered, I am afraid must be truly and justly named the world without God, the world departing from the true God.
The other day a book fell into my hands, describing the progress of the world in these three divisions. The writer says that there are three chief cities which have affected the destinies of the civilized world. The first is Jerusalem, from which the Law, the religion of Israel, flowed by tradition into the world. The second is the city of Rome, which, as the writer said--he was certainly not a Catholic, and I believe not a Christian, and if he were not of the house of Israel, I believe he must have been a sceptic--was the source of the Christian and Catholic religion, and of the society which belongs to the Middle Ages. The third city is the city of Paris, the new Jerusalem, the leader of civilization, the city of progress, and the city of the future. While I recite these words, your own thoughts are beginning so make their application.
At the outset of these subjects I said that the Syllabus, published by the Sovereign Pontiff some six or eight years ago, seems to have turned the world upside down. It has created commotion among peoples and kingdoms, governments and legislatures, newspapers and politicians, of whom perhaps not one in a hundred has seen even the outside of the Syllabus, and certainly not one in ten would take time to understand its meaning. This Syllabus is supposed to be a violent and medieval aggression upon the civil order of the world. Let me tell you simply what the Syllabus is. The Gospel of Jesus Christ--that is, Christianity--reveals a multitude of truths, and lays down a multitude of laws. Now, the world has been perpetually denying these truths, and violating these laws, both intellectually and in act. The Syllabus is a collection of eighty condemnations. Eighty of the chief intellectual and moral errors which have sprung up in the modern world, contrary to the faith and morals of Christianity have been condemned, as they arose, by the Head of the Church in express and explicit terms. The Syllabus is a summary of those condemnations. For example, I will recite to you five of the errors that are therein condemned.
They are as follows: first of all, that the civil society of man--that is, the political order of civil society--is the fountain and origin of all right, and that it can be circumscribed by no authority; secondly, that in conflicts between the spiritual and civil authorities, the civil authority is supreme, and must determine; thirdly, that education belongs to the State, as being what is called matter of civil competence, and ought to be strictly secular; fourthly, that kings and princes are exempt from ecclesiastical jurisdiction; lastly, that the State ought to be separated from the Church, and the Church from the State (Syllabus Pii IX., Propp. 39, 42, 45, 54, 55). Now, these are five of the errors which are condemned in the Syllabus; and you will easily understand that the remaining seventy-five propositions of the Syallabus are errors similar in kind. What I purpose to do is, incidentally, and without again reciting them, to show that these are five falsehoods, and are justly condemned.
There is a common axiom that passes from mouth to mouth in these days, that religion and politics have nothing to do with each other--that the Church has nothing to do with politics; that the Church must submit to the civil authorities as supreme; that politics may go their own way by themselves, and that priests and bishops, if they touch politics, go beyond their limits and exceed their powers. We hear a great deal of this talk.
Now, in the name of not only Christianity, but of common sense, I would ask you to consider for one moment the following questions: Is not the law of morals the same for a thousand men as for one? Is not the law of morals the same for a nation as for an individual? Are men bound by the moral law one by one, and are nations and kingdoms not bound by the moral law? Is it to be supposed that individuals, one by one, are under obligation to keep the law of God, and that states and kingdoms are not so bound? Are peasants bound to keep the law of the Gospel and of the Church, and are princes and kings not bound to keep that law? Are individuals who happen to be poor and unlearned under the obligation to obey Christian morality, and are not legislatures and executive governments equally obliged? Nay, I will say more; are they not more strictly bound and under heavier responsibility to conform themselves to the moral law? Well, then, whence comes the moral law? From reason and from Christianity; from the light of reason elevated and perfected by the Christian revelation. And to whose custody was the Christian revelation committed? To the Apostles and their successors, to whom our Lord said: "Go ye, and make disciples of all nations: teaching them to observe whatsoever I have commanded you."
Who, then, are the guardians of the moral law? The Apostles and their successors. And who are their successors? The pastors of the Church of God. And the things which He commanded include His moral precepts as well as the doctrines of Faith; and they bind individuals, and peoples, and nations, and kingdoms, and those who rule over them. To talk about the separation between religion and politics is to talk at random in those who know no better; it is to talk impiety, or it is to talk apostacy, in those who have understanding; for what are politics but the morals of society, the morals of men collected and living together under public law? The same law which governs the individual governs households, and the law that governs households governs the State. The legislature is as much bound to observe the moral law of the Gospel as the individual, as any private man; and therefore politics, so far from being separate, are a part of morals. They are morals applied to the public society of men, to the public action of nations, to the legislation of governments, to the executive authority of princes; for which reason, to attempt to separate between religion and politics, to shut up the priest, as it is said, in the sacristy, is a revolt of the world endeavoring to shake off the yoke of Jesus Christ. If He be the King of the world, which He has redeemed with His precious blood, He will judge the kings and the princes and the legislatures and the nations of this world for the laws which they have made. And this is our present subject. 1.
First of all, then, what is human society, or the political society of the world; and who created it? We read in histories, that such a one was the founder of this kingdom, and such another was the founder of that empire; but they did not create the society. The civil order, or political society of man, is the creation of God. The God of nature, in the day in which He created man, created him with an innate necessity of living a social life. Society sprang from our first parents. As soon as the family arose, the outlines of the political order were traced upon the earth. In the multiplication of men and of families, sprang up the civil and political order of the world; and that civil and political order, whatsoever form it may take, and howsoever it may be modified, has in it three immutable principles. It has the principle of authority, which rules; it has the principle of obedience, which subjects those who are under authority to its government; it has the principle of equal and reciprocal justice between those who are united under the same authority. These three principles are the principles of the family, and of the household, and of the whole civil and political order of the world. They may be variously clothed; they may be embodied in different forms of law, according to ages and nations; but essentially all governments and constitutions resolve themselves at last into these three simple laws. It is of this that the Holy Ghost, speaking by the Apostle, says: "Let every soul be subject to higher powers; for there is no power but from God; and those that are, are ordained of God. He that resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God; and they that resist, purchase to themselves damnation. For princes are not a terror to the good work, but to the evil.
Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? Do that which is good. If thou do that which is evil, fear; for he beareth not the sword in vain. For he is God's minister: an avenger to execute wrath upon him that doth evil (Rom. xiii. 1)." From what other source could the authority to inflict capital punishment be derived, save only from Him who is the Author and Giver of life? Society recognizes the Divine foundation of its authority every time that justice condemns a man to die. This authority is not of human creation; it is of Divine creation. It comes from God; and civil society is therefore in itself of Divine foundation. In the order of nature, it has God for its Author. Sovereignty, then, was immediately committed by God to the society of mankind, in the act of creating it. The particular form of government, whether it be by one or by many, whether it be empire or kingdom or republic--these mutable and incidental forms of government may be determined by man; but the authority which they embody, and by which alone they exist, is always from God. Now, such is civil society. Bear in mind the principles we have laid down; because upon them all depends; all public morality and all public law, the duty of loyalty and of civil obedience, the power of capital punishment, and the mutual justice between man and man. To call in question the Divine foundation of authority, and to talk only of the rights of men, is to violate the first laws of human society. We are in the century of revolutions, inaugurated by the gospel of the rights of man and of the sovereignty of the people, preached by the false prophets of this world to deceive the nations.
Men have come to believe that the freak and caprice of the public will is sovereign, and may at any time revoke the authority which God has providentially ordained in the powers that are. The word of God declares that authority is from God, and that they who resist the authority purchase to themselves damnation. Now, that supreme civil authority, being of God's own creating, is sacred, and was not left in the world to reel and to stagger in the darkness and instability of human ignorance and human license. When God became incarnate, He founded His own kingdom in the world; He instituted an authority in which are incorporated the rights of God; He promulgated a law which governs the conscience of all mankind. 2.
The kingdom of Jesus Christ is His Church one and universal, and by it He exercises His sovereignty over the nations. The commission of His Apostles was to found a universal kingdom, which should never be destroyed; of which the prophet has said, "It shall not be delivered up to another people (Daniel ii. 44.)." Empires have passed from people to people, kingdoms have vanished from off the face of the earth; but the kingdom of Jesus Christ can never pass to any hand from that which was pierced on Calvary. His kingdom shall endure to all eternity. The Church of God on earth is a true kingdom, reigning by its own right. It has a right to its own existence, to its own possessions, to its own legislature, to its own executive, and to its own tribunals. It receives these prerogatives neither from king, nor prince, nor people; and no human authority can circumscribe its limits. Nay, it circumscribes the limits of all other authority, and is itself subject to none but God only. When the Church came into this world, it suffered its ten persecutions. The world, if it had been possible, would have stifled it in its own blood; but an indefectible life cannot perish. For three hundred years it spread, and penetrated and pervaded the whole civil society of the world: it entered into households, and peoples, and nations, and cities, and kingdoms. It reached, at last, to the palace of the Caesars; it took possession of the imperial family; it converted the emperor on his throne: and when it had prevaded the senate, and the tribunals, and the whole civil life of Rome, the empire was elevated above itself. It became regenerate by grace, and lived by a new life, and was guided by new laws and confirmed by new authorities; and the civil society of the world was born again.
That which God had created in the natural state was elevated, by its union with the Church, to the supernatural order; the members of it were regenerated by water and the Holy Ghost, and became members of the kingdom of God, illuminated by faith under the guidance of the pastors of the Universal Church and the Vicar of Jesus Christ. Then came to pass a change so terrible, that the world does not contain in history anything more fearful. Rome, which had governed the world by its laws, and its warfare, and its civilization, was purged by fire, and by blood. The kingdom of Jesus Christ then took possession of the civil society of the world. Then passed away the old civilization, which was corrupt to the very marrow; so corrupt, that nothing could have changed it but the baptism of fire, by which it was cleansed. The most terrible judgments of God fell upon Rome, upon the city and upon the provinces of the Roman Empire. They were purged by wars, massacres, and pestilence; the old world was burned down to the roots, that the new civilization and the new Christian world might spring from the earth purified by fire.
And nothing could be more beautiful, nothing more like to the vision of the Heavenly City, than the rise of this Christian civilization. When, in the love of God, slavery began to melt away; when fathers with horror cast from them the power of life and death over their children and their slaves as a thing too hideous for Christian men; when husbands renounced with thanksgiving to their Redeemer the power of life and death over wives; when the horrors, and injustice, and abominations of the pagan domestic life gave place to the charities of Christian homes, then the whole world was lifted to a higher sphere. It had come under the light and jurisdiction of the sovereignty of Jesus Christ. Such was the growth of the world; beginning, I will say, from the time of St. Gregory the Great, the apostle of our Christianity, who reigned with a patriarchal sway over the three and-twenty patrimonies of the Church--over Italy and the north of Africa, and the coasts of the Adriatic, and the south of France, and Sicily, and the islands of the Mediterranean. This new Christian world was the germ of modern Europe. The Pontiffs laid the foundations of a world which is now passing away--a Christian commonwealth of nations, about which men vaunt themselves as if they were its saviours, though they never cease to destroy it. 3.
And then came another epoch, when, in the solemnities of Christmasday of the year 800, St. Leo III. crowned Charlemagne at the tomb of the Apostle, and made him the Emperor of the West. That act, done in the midst of tribulation and danger, when the times were dark with all manner of evil, was the beginning of a new era. There sprang up in the world for some seven hundred years a Christendom in which the kings and princes of Europe acknowledged the sovereignty of Jesus Christ; the nations and the kingdoms served Him, and inherited the benediction promised to those that acknowledge His supreme rights. In order that we may better understand what, in those ages of faith, was the belief of men as to the civil power, let us look at the ceremony of the consecration of a king. Nowadays we hear of coronations, but we hear no more of the consecration of kings. But a coronation, even in the tradition of England, takes place in the old Abbey of Westminster, and with certain rights which remain, mutilated indeed, but taken chiefly from the ancient Catholic ritual. I will shortly describe what the ancient ritual was.
The prince who was to be consecrated, for three days before, fasted as a preparation. On the day of his consecration he came to the sanctuary of the church, where the metropolitan and his suffragans received him. He then, first upon his knees before the altar made solemn oath to Almighty God, to observe and cause to be observed, according to his knowledge and his power, for the sake of the Church and of his people, law, justice, and peace, according to the laws of the land and the canons of the Church. He then lay prostrate before the altar, like a bishop when he is consecrated; the litanies were chanted, the same litanies which are sung in our solemn ordinations. Then, kneeling before the altar, he received the unction. He was anointed in the right arm, which is the arm of strength, and on the shoulder, typical of royal power; as in the prophecy, "The government is upon His shoulder (Isaias ix. 6.)." He then received the sword, with this admonition, "Remember that the saints conquered kingdoms, not by the sword, but by faith." After this, the crown was put upon his head, with the prayer that he might wear it in mercy and in justice; and the sceptre was then placed in his hands, in token of the authority of law. After that, the Holy Mass was celebrated; and in that Mass he received the Holy Communion of the precious body and blood of Jesus Christ, from the hands of the consecrating bishop. These solemn acts in themselves portrayed what were the relations of Christian law and fidelity between the chief rulers of nations and of kingdoms, and the sovereignty of Jesus Christ. 4.
Such was once the Christian world. What is it now? Look at Christian Europe. Read history for the last three hundred years. Briefly, for briefly it must be, I will touch upon its main points. Three hundred years ago, Germany and the greater part of northern Europe--Sweden, Norway, Denmark, England, Scotland, to say nothing of other smaller countries--separated themselves formally from the unity of the Faith and Church, and therein of the supreme authority of the Vicar of Jesus Christ. What straightway followed? The civil power, which until that time had been obedient to the laws of faith and of Christian morality, thenceforward went its way alone, choosing and determining for itself. The most terrible persecutions, to prison and to death, for the sake of religion, sprang up in every country; and the two authorities, civil and spiritual, which God has made distinct and has committed to separate hands, were united in the person of princes. The civil supremacy and the ecclesiastical supremacy were claimed for the crown, and civil rulers invested themselves with prerogatives which can be borne by the Vicar of Jesus Christ alone. The authority over conscience, religion, and the worship of God belongs only to those to whom He has committed it. Wheresoever the conscience and the soul enter in, man is free from all authority of men. No king, nor prince, nor legislature, has power to make law or ordinance over my conscience. He may take my life, but my faith he cannot touch. It was a violation of the Divine law: and bitterly and in blood the people that were torn from the unity of the Church suffered for that deed. I will say nothing of Ireland--the memories of Ireland are too mournful, too profoundly dark--but England, which then was united, which then had one faith and one worship, has been miserably rent, cut asunder in religion, until one half of the English people no longer belong to the religion which was set up by law three hundred years ago. And those who have separated from it are divided and subdivided again into innumerable religious fractions; and in that one body, which is held together by the law, what a dying out of faith, what denials of Christianity, what oppositions of teachers against each other, what separations, what bondage of conscience, what violations of Christian liberty! From what source are all these evils? From the usurpation of the civil authority, which assumed to itself to be the head and supreme judge in religion.
But I pass this by. These were only the beginning of troubles which fell upon the nations separated from the unity of the Church. There was also a flood of evils in countries that still continued to be of that unity. In France, in Austria, in parts of Italy, in Spain, in Portugal, princes who still professed to be Catholic, assumed authority to meddle with religion, with worship, with education, though not with faith. They did indeed profess that they could not touch faith; but discipline and all things outside of faith they claimed as subject to their jurisdiction.
I have said there is, in all countries, a disposition to depart from the unity of the Christian civilization which the providence of God has ordained. The conflicts which began three hundred years ago have been everywhere accomplishing themselves. In Austria some twenty years ago, in Italy the other day, it was declared that the Church and the State were no longer united; that is to say, that the sovereignty of Jesus Christ was no longer acknowledged by the civil power, and that the political order of the world was claimed by man for himself. The "kingdoms and the nations" would no longer serve the sovereignty of Jesus Christ. The other day, two laws were passed in Italy, the one to forbid the teaching of Christian doctrine (that is, the Catechism) in the schools of the poor, the other to forbid the teaching of theology in the universities of the kingdom. 5.
Thus far, I have touched upon the creation of the civil power; secondly, upon its consecration by Christianity; thirdly, upon the harmony and union between the civil and the spiritual powers when united; fourthly, on the separation and divorce which has been accomplishing itself between them. I now come to the last point, which is a consequence of that divorce--the desecration of civil society, the stripping off, the effacing of the sacred and Christian character from all political institutions.
For clearness, I will give an example of what I mean; and I do it sadly, and with the greatest tenderness of sympathy. If any word I speak should seem to be wounding to noble, Christian, Catholic, chivalrous France, I disclaim beforehand whatever may seem to come from my lips. In the year 1789, as I told you the other night, was published to the world a document called the The Principles of the Rights of Man. I told you then, that in that document we find nothing about the duties of man, or the rights of God. The rights of man, indeed, are there; as if man were the lord and king of all things: as if he had no duties to anybody, and no one had rights over him. What was the consequence of this beginning? There were two of the greatest pestilences at that time spreading in France, the forerunners and causes of its downfall--the infidel philosophy of Voltaire, and the flagrant immorality of Rousseau; the two false prophets, who destroyed the one the faith, the other the morals of society. You will remember how the worship of Christianity was then abolished, the name of Jesus Christ blasphemed, the church of Notre Dame profaned; Reason, personified as my tongue refuses to describe, set upon the altar. Atheism took possession of men's minds, or rather of their lives. And there came a day when, as by a concession towards belief, the Assembly voted the existence of the Supreme Being. You know what followed: a reign of terror, blood, blasphemy; horrors beyond the imagination of man; revolutions in every city; civil war in the streets; an infidel empire. At last, Christianity was restored as a public policy; and no doubt, under that politic device, faithful men and faithful pastors began once more to do their work. Souls once more were saved; but the heart of faith was sick unto death.
Such was France for a long period of years; and the seeds of infidelity were cast far and wide. They sank so deep, that never to this day has Atheism been finally eradicated. In the midst of that noble, Christian, Catholic people, the roots of infidelity are now so deeply set, and the taint of indifferentism is so wide, that all the prayers, labors, sufferings of the faithful and fervent cannot restore to France its Christian laws, and the sovereignty of Jesus Christ. After awhile, came a restoration; you know with what results. I will not go into detail. We have seen, I think, some five revolutions, and in three of them blood running in the streets. But all this has passed away; and the horrors of the past are pale in the horrors before us at this moment. We used to look back upon the first French revolution as a time of such exquisite terror, that I, for my part, have often wondered how our forefathers could have endured the daily tidings of misery and blood so near to their doors; but you and I have been hearing worse, day by day, for weeks, and in this last week worse than all. The other day we read these words: "In a little while all religion will disappear from the schools of the Commune; the crucifix will disappear as a violation of liberty of Conscience." A little while afterwards there was a question whether or not the churches should be closed; and it was answered, "That the churches be kept open, and that in them Atheism shall be taught, to disabuse the minds of men from the prejudice of belief." And do we, then, wonder that the chief pastor of that flock and some score of his faithful clergy are cast into prison? and in this moment of horrible suspense God only knows whether they be among the living or the dead.
It is almost out of place to quote the words I now repeat; but they are so intensely horrible, that lest I should seem to exaggerate, I here transcribe them. They are from Comte, one of the false prophets who has been contributing to the ruin of France by the moral and intellectual action of his false philosophy for the last thirty years. He is held in honor by some in England, and has disciples among us, who teach the same intellectual enormities. These are his words: "In the name of the past and the future, the servants of humanity, both its philosophical and practical servants --come forward to claim as their due the general direction of this world. Their object is to constitute at length a real Providence in all departments, moral, intellectual, and material. Consequently, they exclude once for all, from political supremacy, all the different servants of God, Catholic, Protestant, or Deist, as being at once behindhand and a cause of disturbance (Catechism of positive Religion, preface)." I told you in the beginning, of the three cities typical of civilization, and that the new Jerusalem of progress is Paris. We see that new Jerusalem at this moment illuminated, not with the light of God and of the Lamb, but by the flames of its burning palaces, and by the conflagration of its homes. And to what one supreme cause is this to be ascribed? To the rejection of God and of His Christ, to the rejection of the sovereignty of our Divine Redeemer. "The nation and the kingdom that will not serve Him shall perish;" and noble, Christian, Catholic France, except it acknowledge once more the sovereignty of Jesus Christ, by that Divine law of prophecy must perish. But I have better hopes. I know, from my own personal knowledge, that through the provinces of that noble people there are millions who are true and faithful. They are casting off, by the almighty help of God, the tyranny and the dominion of a corrupt and infidel sect.
It is more than time to make an end: I will therefore draw a general conclusion from what I have said, that the unimaginable horrors, of which Paris is at this moment the field, come from the revolt of civil society from God. They are the offspring, the legitimate, the lineal working out, of the principles of infidelity and impiety which were set in motion a century ago. And let statesmen and politicians lay to heart, that the first rising, in 1789, was a rising against the king and those that surrounded him; the next rising in 1830 and 1848, was of the middle class against those that were immediately above them; but the rising now is the rising of the masses, of the multitudes, who, having been neglected, outcast, and therefore morally outlawed, have been robbed of their Christian education. They have grown up a terrible generation, to be the scourge and the overthrow of civil society. I need not, then, repeat that Pius IX., in the Syllabus, taught wisely and well, that it is a falsehood, and an error to be condemned by Christian men, to say that the civil society of the world is the fountain and origin of all right, and cannot be circumscribed. The Church of God and God Himself are the fountain and the origin of rights higher than the civil state; and the authority of God and of His laws circumscribes the authority of the civil order.
Next, it is a falsehood, and an error justly condemned, to say that, when the spiritual and the civil authorities are in conflict, the contention shall be determined by the superior authority of the civil power. The spiritual authority of God and of the Christian laws must circumscribe and limit the claims of the civil authority. Thirdly, it is a falsehood and an error to say that education is a matter of civil competence and ought to be secular. The education of Christian men must be Christian. The education of baptized children must be according to the faith of their baptism. Nothing can educate the heart, the soul, and the conscience but the laws of God. Again, it is a falsehood and an error to say that kings and princes are exempt from the superior jurisdiction of God and of His Church. They are bound like others, and bound with a heavier responsibility than others, and will have to give a heavier reckoning before the tribunal of the King of kings. And lastly, to say that the Church ought to be separated from the State, and the State from the Church, is a falsehood and an error to be condemned; because, in the natural order, the State is God's creation, and, in the supernatural order, the Church is God's creation, and these two ought to be in harmony and in union. They ought to act in concord, co-operating with one another to the highest ends of man.
And now there are two plain truths which I will add by way of corollaries from all that I have said. The civil powers of the world, in separating themselves from the authority of God and of His Church, are committing suicide; it is political self-murder. They are condemning themselves to one of two inevitable results--either to the despotism of military dictators, or to the worst form of tyranny, the tyranny of revolutions. The civil powers of the world at this moment are standing between two great movements, and between them they must make their choice. There is, on the one hand, the One Holy Catholic Church, with its Divine authority, its Divine faith, its Divine laws, and its Divine obligations, spreading throughout the world, penetrating into all nations. This there is on one side--and this is in the noonday light. But there is on the other a society which is in the darkness of midnight: the deadly antagonist of the Church. It is one, because it is compactly united: it is unholy, for it springs from Satan: it is universal, for it is international; it is invisible because it is hid out of the sight of men; and that is the universal international revolution of secret societies, allied together for the common purpose of overturning, if it were possible (as it is not,) the Church of God, and of overturning (as it is easily possible) all civil governments on earth. Between these two alternatives, the civil rulers of to-day have to make their choice. "O ye kings, understand: receive instruction, you that judge the earth (Ps. ii. 10)." The choice is before you; civil life or death: choose promptly, that you may live.
But, I fear, the choice is already made. If there be one thing that has been derided, scoffed at, cast out, misrepresented, in these last twenty years, it is the Temporal Power of the Pope. Yet what is it but the recognition of the sovereignty of Jesus Christ over men and over races, over public, law, over the whole of Christendom--the recognition that there is a King in heaven, Who is represented upon earth, and that on earth there is one from whom the interpretation of His law, and the sentence of His truth, comes with supreme authority? In this person alone are united together the two authorities, civil and spiritual; in order that, in all other nations of the world, those two authorities shall be separate: so that tyranny over the consciences of men and violation of the freedom of religious conviction shall be rendered impossible, because kings and princes and rulers are limited by a superior authority in all things that are spiritual. And inasmuch as that supreme spiritual authority has been, by Divine Providence, in a visible and marvellous manner, freed from all subjection to emperors or kings, having a perfect independence of his own, owing only to his Divine Master in heaven the account that he must give--that Providence of God is being visibly justified at this moment by the revolutions, now assailing all countries which have cast off their allegiance to the Christian Church. I see no hope for the Christian civilization of the world, unless men turn back again to the true foundation of Christian society, and acknowledge that this dark and bitter period of revolution has sprung from a rising against the authority of the Church of God, and that revolt and unbelief are the curse and scourge of Europe.
In the beginning I said that this subject, though it seems to be of a public and political kind, is also intrinsically moral and religious. It comes home to our consciences. Tomorrow, it may be, in the first newspaper that falls in your way, you will hear the principles of which I have been speaking denied and denounced. It is necessary, therefore, that we should, from time to time, turn back again to these great laws and principles of faith. They sprang from faith, and they belong to the morality of faith.
I have said these things because I am convinced that it is necessary you should be on your guard. Do not be deceived by the silvery sounds of "liberty," of "freedom," of "public rights," of "the rights of man," and of those rights which I spoke of last time, and for very shame will not utter again. Be on your guard. Do not be seduced or carried away by the talk and clamor of a revolting and unbelieving age. Remember the words of the Son of God: "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free (St. John viii. 32. )." "If the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed (Ibid. 36.)."
Liberty without Jesus Christ is the worst of bondage. The service of Jesus Christ is true liberty. Remember His own words: "Come to Me, all you that labor, and are burdened, and I will refresh you. Take up My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; because I am meek, and humble of heart, and you shall find rest for your souls. For My yoke is sweet, and My burden light (St. Matt. xi. 28-30)." This alone is the way of liberty. Liberty is in the heart. True liberty is in the service of Him who must "reign until He hath put all His enemies under His feet (1 Cor. xv. 25.)."
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| Dom Prosper Guéranger: The Christian Sense of History |
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Posted by: Stone - 10-31-2021, 06:51 AM - Forum: Articles by Catholic authors
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The Christian Sense of History
Imprimimatur Potest: Solesmis, die 18 julii 1945. † fr. Germanus Cozien Abbas S. Petri Solesmis.
IMPRIMATUR: Cenomani, die 18 julii 1945. † Georgius, Archiepiscop. Episc. Cenomanensis.
PREFACE
The name and the work of Dom Guéranger are so well known that it would not be necessary to introduce at length to the readers the one who, in the Nineteenth Century, restored the Benedictine life in France.
Prosper Louis Pascal Guéranger was born on the 4th of April 1805 at Sablé, a small town situated around one mile from the Solesme Priory in the Maine region.
The revolution had emptied the monastery. From very young age, the monastery became the destination of his walks, not tiring to admire the statues that adorn the transept of the church. Still young, he showed a passion for the study. His early readings, works by Jansenist and Gallican, only made upon him an impression of short time because he had a tender piety for the incarnate Word and the Most Holy Virgin, and also from the fact that he recited the Roman breviary added to this was the authority of Lamennais, who was once a defender of the Papacy, all worked to exert an influence which will forward itself imperceptibly towards the work of his whole life.
He has ordained priest on the 4th October 1827. He followed the retired bishop of Mans to Paris, working as his secretary. He did not lack recreation and was well looked after.
Two years later Father Guéranger published his first studies “Considerations about Liturgy”, “Prayers for the King” and “About the appointment of Bishops”. The call for monastic life became more specific. The Solesme priory was for sale, he decided to buy it in order to restore Benedictine life which, in the past had produced so many fruits in the field of science and holiness. Providence gave him many generous benefactors and on the 11th of July 1833 the new clerics moved definitely into the old house of the Marusites, where the Divine office and practice of the Practice of the Rule would know no more interruptions other than those imposed by violent evictions.
After 4 years of hard work, sufferings and training, on the 14th of July 1837 the Pope ratified the Constitutions, elevated the Priory to the status of Abbey, leader of the Benedictine Congregations in France and raised Dom Guéranger to the abbatial dignity. Twelve days later on the feast of St. Anne, the Benedictines took their first professions, in Church of St. Paul outside the walls, after which they would return to Solemn. He was able to celebrate first pontifical Mass on the feast of all saints. He prepared his religious for their profession on the feast of the presentation.
We do not have scrutinise the stages of Dom Guérangers' life until his death which will come on the 30th of January 1875. The interest of his life is less as regards the events mark his life, than the doctrine that he has sown.
He had to govern his abbey from day to day with little resources he had. He had the continuous threats of the politicians, the legislators, and the clerics who stood against his newly established monastery. Yet, as if this was not enough, he had to found new monasteries, while answering numerous persons soliciting his help and the founding of new Monasteries.
God had given Dom Guéranger a threefold mission; the great monk will not be disheartened by the most vicious threats coming from politicians, legists and even clerics against his work; he will face them with zeal and great courage that never failed in face of terrible storms. It was not for the love fighting that this monk of Solemns will accept the years of unending polemics. He would have much preferred the prayer and silence of the Monastery and sweetness that such contemplation affords. He would have preferred to have seen others stand up for the cause of orthodoxy which would have dispensed him from intervening. Often he would wait, then he would calmly, with pen in hand, take up his pen and write in defence of the faith.
He would say on the night of his death; "the good God placed such a large burden on my shoulders, though I never asked Him anything"." God asked of my to bring liturgical unity into the different dioceses in France." This was ignored. Every diocese had it's own modern liturgy, but he wanted everyone to embrace the Roman liturgy, which had moved him when he open for the first time the Roman Breviary and Missal, so many years ago. This became his aim; to re-implement the Roman Liturgy. This would allow the faithful to regulate their life together with their knowledge of the contemplation of the Christian mysteries and Christian virtue combined with the daily duty to the liturgy of the Church.
In less than 20 years, then entire Church in France was restored to the Roman unity, and God knows, how many souls were touched by his sweet and tranquil teaching from the year 1841 through his liturgical year. Once tasted, they could not tear themselves away from the recognition of the savour of the baptism.
God charged Dom Guéranger to constantly to defend the Roman doctrine and the prerogatives and rights of the apostolic see. His duty was show clearly origin of the Roman Church, from whence it came about the authority of the first Pontiff and his succession was set forth, giving to each reality, a clear historical authenticity.
He set out to remind a revolutionary time, that an authority exists still, now and forever sacred. Society needed to be reminded that it had to go beyond what is of this world and produce saints, who are going to be like beacons who enlighten the people, setting forth discipline which binds them and actions which sanctify them.
The secular world was enraged by these ideas, not to mention that it set the Galicans and Janenists in a rage, yet Dom Gueranger's liturgical reforms prevailed.
His love for the Church and the Blessed Virgin lead him to produce his famous work "memories of the blessed Virgin Mary." This text had a decisive action upon the definition of dogma of the immaculate conception proclaimed by Pope Pius IX.
Pope requested of Him along with all the other Abbots to come to the First Vatican Council, he was unable to attend. Yet, despite this he wrote his book known as 'The Pontifical Monarchy'. The Pope thanked him at once for having rendered to the Church a very great service and for acknowledging the rights and history of the Church. He reminded even the Pope to acknowledge the right and sovereignty of the Papacy.
On the 19th of July bells of the Monastery rang far and wide, to acknowledge far and wide, the dogma of Papal infallibility. God charged him to fight against the heresy of his time; namely to fight against naturalism, and to defend the supernatural order.
Around the middle of the Nineteenth Century Dom Guéranger could see with great concern a return of impiety becoming manifest in France. Pernicious errors had slyly crept into books written by talented philosophers and historians who had no other goal but to destroy Catholicism. What was very serious was the fact that an important group of Catholic politicians and writers would more or less make a pact with evil. The Catholic liberal party, which was at its beginning, would think judicious then to give free round to mistake and rather than resolutely fighting it would prefer to live peacefully with it hoping that the enemy would also show mutual tolerance towards them. But this was impossible. Error had its particular way in all branches of human knowledge: theology, philosophy, history, literature. All together they would form His creation, to free man from His law. Dom Guéranger was very skilled at unmasking evil. He approached it on all its grounds, particularly on the Historic ground. A book named “The Church and the Roman Empire in the Fourth Century” written by Prince A de Broglie, leader of the liberal party gave him the opportunity to interfere. In a series of articles later published in a book, Dom Guéranger unveiled the true aspect of Naturalism.
“The History of the Church is so impregnated with Christian dogmatism that if we do not take it into account, it is impossible to not only speak about it, but also understand it. Material facts may be real but the History of the Church told by an historian devoid of faith does not stick to the truth. The life of the Church is a divine fact fulfilled on earth with the participation of man and the Catholic man is the only one who holds the Key of that mystery. Wanting to adapt the History of the Church to human needs is a waste of time and trying to imagine systems to explain it is rash and useless” Dom Guéranger knew that people are more interested in History than in philosophy. This is why, feeling a greater danger on that side, he would treat it with his habitual fervour saying that he was like a school teacher loving to explain the nature of the doctrine. It is possible to limit his concern to a strictly temporal point of view, but people with Faith have a higher interpretation, they consider things and time “sub specie aetennigagis”. Where does man come from? Where is he going? Why does he need to live in a society? Why does he need to accept the authority which will maintain his freedom whenever it is threatened? How can he make the difference between authority and tyranny, order and pressure, freedom and anarchy? The philosopher and the sociologist may answer those questions but the historian does it in a more expressive manner; he knows how to highlight the obvious as well as the prominent part played by moral and religion. Because the Christian historian can see further, he can firmly conclude that the moral brought about by the Decalogue and Christ religion are the great exploration of History. The people who violate natural law will head for their own ruin and only the Catholic Church is the infallible guardian of that law. The Catholic Church explains it, develops it and preaches it. It solves the enigma of evil; it shows to man what perfection would be and adds to the thread of History three essential chapters that the Church is the only one to acknowledge: the origin of creation and the original fall – Calvary and Redemption – the end with the Last Judgement.
If the beginning and the end escape the problem: of science and erudition, the Key of History is found in chapter two: Calvary and the Redemption; that is where the ultimate explanation is found, the essential fact which gives meaning to all the rest.
The conversion of Constantine and the victory of Milvius bridge; the liberation of Orleans with Joan of Arc and the stake emerge with their huge significance only to the people who do contemplate them from the top of Calvary and those people know the truth about the History of universal humanity. This writing of History produced a number of works of art such as “the Apocalypse” by Saint John who examines the situation with symbols or “Discourse on Universal History” by Bossuet who weaves his study with rough facts. If this way of narrating is, nowadays, sometimes forgotten, it’s a real catastrophe because we need to recognise ourselves in the chaos in which we may perish and we need to evaluate our time.
It looks like the Nineteenth Century itself, in relation to Dom Guéranger had wished to prove him right against all doctors of Naturalism who, for long years, had covered his voice with their clamours. The Nineteenth Century was more than any other, the century that gave evidence to the supernatural the Saint Cure of Ars (Jean Marie Vianney) whose life reminds that of the thanmatungist Priests in the desert; the Saint Massabielle’s shepherdess ( Bernadette Soubirous) who, at the invitation of Our Lady, made a sprint spurt out and that spring, still flowing continues to cure miraculously; Saint Therese of Lisieux who, as soon as she dies, forces the universe to proclaim its survival and with her kindness keeps pouting over it a shower of roses; the Church itself when the world would deny its divine origin, firmly claimed its infallible nature. It would take too long to demonstrate the magnificent contribution of modern France to the Catholic Church, in the fields of thinking works, apostolic zeal and saintliness. Pius X had this memorable words: “If the supernatural lives everywhere on earth it is especially present in France”. Dom Guéranger was one of the most vigorous instruments God used to defend and protect the supernatural in our country and in the world. Dom Guéranger demonstrated the truth of the principles that he kept reminding with great courage to his people about modern idolatry, the giving up of the Church practices the apostasy of nations which are true historic prophecies. Nowadays, we only have to look around us: the history of our time becomes clearer if we consider it in the light of Christian doctrine. We can acknowledge the fight of mysterious hidden forces which are clashing with each other, the forces of evil against the forces of good. Our history looks very much like that one described by the author of the “Apocalypse” two thousand years ago and it is not very difficult to recognize the threats of the Beast, its lies, its blasphemies, its implacable tyranny, its colossal power of destruction. We know where the source of all expectations and salvation is to be found. “God, Bossuet said, build a piece of work in the middle of us, away from all other causes whose control belongs to Him only, fills all times and all places and with the impact of His hand brings on the whole world the character of His authority and this work is Jesus Christ and His Church” (funeral oration for the Palatine Princess) “Christ is at home in History” affirms also Dom Guéranger. “History develops itself under His Reign, it aims to an end which will comfort us all.”
The Supernatural in History
For every Christian, history is not only human, man is called by God to a supernatural state which means the end of his nature as man. God could leave man in his natural state but His kindness calls man to a superior degree by giving Himself to him and calling him to possess His divine essence. Physiology and psychology in their natural state are them powerless to explain main in his destiny. Man thinking only cannot understand the phenomenon of grace which changes the mind, the soul and the body to unite them to God in an ineffable manner there cannot be true knowledge of man outside the revealed point of view. If man in his wholeness cannot be known without the revealed grave, can we imagine that human society, in its different stages called History, will be able to be explained it he does not call to his assistance that same grace which projects its light on out nature and our individual destinies. By calling man to join divine union, the Creator invites mankind. We shall witness this on the last day when missions of individuals in full glory will be seen to the right of the Sovereign Judge and as St John said “It’s counting will be impossible” (Apoc, VII, 9). If its narration has to stick to the truth, History must be Christian. All historic systems which take no account of natural order in the statement of facts, is a false system that explains nothing leaves the annals of mankind in chaos and in permanent contradiction with all ideas that reasoning forms on the destinies of our race on earth. In the Eighteenth and Nineteenth centuries, the non-Christian narrators have borrowed from the Christian method they style of generalisation but they have directed it against the orthodox system. They have sensed that grasping History and giving it the print of their own ideas, they would give a strong blow to the supernatural principle. Three school have exploited the field of History.
1. The Fatalist or atheist school
2. The Humanitarian school
3. The Naturalist school
The Fatalist school shows mankind battling with the invincible sequences of brutal causes and their unavoidable outcomes.
The Humanitarian school bows down before mankind idol and its progressive development through revolutions, philosophies, religions. According to them, in the end God lets mankind free to follow its own path.
The Naturalist school is the most dangerous of the three because it puts on a show of Christianity claiming the action of divine Providence but, in the end, according to them, the infinite resources God holds to govern the world will probably bring a better form of Government and mankind will direct itself towards new destinies and History will be seen in a more vivid light.
The Christian school knows that the Son of God made man is the King of the world, “all power has been given to Him on earth and in Heavens” (Math. XXVII, 18).
It splits the lasting of History in two great sections: Before Jesus Christ and after Jesus Christ. The Church walks in front of the Christian historian like a luminous column and enlightens divinely all his appreciations. The Christian historian knows what links tightly unite the Church to God made man, in what way the promise made by God is securing His Church against all teaching errors, in the general behaviour of Christian society and in what way the Holy Spirit animates and leads the Church.
Therefore it is to the Church that the Christian historian refers for his judgments. He knows he is in the truth since he is with the Church and the Church is with Christ. He holds his views firmly because he knows he cannot make any mistake. If today appearances seem to be against his judgement, he knows that tomorrow the facts will prove him right. Philosophers and tyrants have worked at demolishing the Church for the last nineteen centuries but its walls are so solidly built that until now they have not been able to pull out one stone.
We have to consider the conversion of the gentiles first inside and outside the Roman Empire; whose results proceed directly from God’s hand. The steady behaviour of the martyrs, for from eradicating the new society, makes it stronger and propagates it. In the middle of all those wonders, the Christian historian is at ease and nothing surprises him; he knows and claims that everything on earth is for the elected and the elected are for Christ. Christ is at home in History. It is therefore very simple that History cannot be explained without Him and that with Him, history emerges in all its light and greatness. Since the publication of the Gospel the fates of the world have taken a new expansion after having waited for the coming of its King, the world now possess Him. Rome becomes the new Jerusalem. Titus is the executioner of the Heavenly Father who takes revenge on the blood shed by His Son. The nations will have in front of their eyes, until the last day, the sight of the Jewish people damned by God. The preservation of the Church through the centuries is a supernatural fact. It has survived without any blend of his doctrine, without any deterioration of its hierarchy, without any suspension in its duration, without any weakness in its progressive march.
God supports directly the Church and every man of good faith able to apply the laws of analogy can read in the facts which directly concern the Church, the immortal promise of everlasting written by God from its beginning- Heresies, scandals, defections, conquests and revolutions, nothing can destroy it; pushed out of a country, the Church foes forward in another one always visible, always Catholic, always conquering and always severely tested. The nations on earth do not only belong to God who has created the first human family but are also, as said the prophet, the particular domain of God made man. History has been treated by two Christian genius and their reputation has not failed: Saint Augustine and Bossuet, therefore it would be a serious inconsistency and a high responsibility that the principle of supernatural be left on the side. Don’t we ever isolate Jesus Christ from History of humanity; in our judgements and narrations let’s see History of humanity in relation to Jesus Christ. Let’s remember that when we look at a map of the world, we are looking at the empire of God made man and His Church.
The Sainthood in History
The Christian historian will record all events would they be of lesser importance, the divine kindness and power has scattered along the centuries in order to revive the faith along the generations. He will demonstrate that the Redeemer of the world has not made to the believers the empty promise of His interference using visible signs until the end. Then the apparitions of the Cross to Constantine has the right to go down in the history of the Fourth Century as well as the wonders which took place in Jerusalem when Julian the Apostate wanted to rebuild the Jerusalem Temple. Saint Martin’s miracles had a major influence in Gaulle in the extinction of idolatry; the miracles of Saint Philip Neri in Rome and of Saint Francis Xavier in India in the Sixteenth Century testified brilliantly that the Church was the only rightful Heir of the promise and the refuge of the faith, the true faith, in spite of the blasphemies brought around by the Reformation and the decline of moral standards. The chain of those marvels has been permanent from the origin of Christianity until our time and will go on. They are the evidence of the supernatural presence of God in the movement of humanity. Prodigious facts took place with the introduction of the Gospel in the diverse countries where it was preached: the miracles of the monk Saint Augustine in the evangelism of England and those which drew attention to the famous promoters of religious life in the East as well as in the West since Saint Anthony in the desert of Egypt until Saint Francis and Saint Dominic, the clerics of the Thirteenth Century. The historian must expect to meet early and often the supernatural factor, may he then never betray his duty. If one intends to write French History, he will have to be in the presence of Joan of Arc, whether he like it or not. Who is Joan of Arc? The Faith shows us the divine predilection for France, God’s intention to take away the very Christian Kingdom from the heresy – protestant England would have not missed to impose a century later. The saints have filled a great part in the History of the world. It is not permitted to forget that after the persecution of Diocletian Christian saved the society against pagan and barbarian invaders whose heresies in the Fourth and Fifth Centuries nearly caused the collapse of the Church: the saint bishops, doctors of the law, monks saved the Church: Athanasius, Basil, Ambrose, Saint Augustine, Saint Hilaire, Saint Gregory of Nazianzus, Saint Martin, Saint John Chrysostom, Saint Jerome, Saint Cyril of Alexandria, Saint Leo: we, Christians must be very grateful to those friends of God. Great genius and great men are God’s gift to humanity. Bossuet and Fenelon in the XVII Century are God’s gift. But when sainthood is linked to genius it is something else. In the saints we feel God himself and that is why we cannot resist them. The invasion of the barbarians and the tragedies they brought with them will give the historian the opportunity to point out a new part played by sainthood in the middle of those amazing calamities; barbarians who threw themselves at the empire met everywhere saint individuals who, like a barrier, made a protection against the flood. Saint bishops who stopped a cruel leader, saint pastors who saved their flock by giving themselves to the sword, saint monks who by their imposing simplicity, disarm the fierce conqueror who, at first, wanted to immolate them; saint virgins who, like Genevieve, put their town at ease and by means of their prayers diverted the plague sent by God. The only obstacle the barbarians met and showed respect for was sainthood. The Christian historian cannot forget the works nor the rule of the great Patriarch of the west, monks who worked at the salvation of the European Christianity neither can he forget the work of the holy bishops who excelled in the Sixth and Seventh Century through councils and religious foundations which made a great job in our regions: “they built the Kingdom of France like the bees build their hives” (Dixit Gibbon). The Christian historian will not fail to enlighten the work of the saint popes of the apostolic seat: Saint Gregory the Great whose virtues ruled and sanctified the East and the West; Saint Gregory II, Italy’s saviour; Saint Zachary, the oracle of the Frankish nation, Saint Nicholas I who did not spare his efforts to prevent the destruction of the Eastern world. Keeping the unity with the true faith. Could the Christian historian not mention saint Kings and emperors who, through more than three centuries, have given with their faith, the supernatural start to the politics of their time: Saint Henry, Saint Etienne of Hungary, Saint Edward the Confessor, Saint Ferdinand and in France Saint Louis; we cannot either forget those empresses, queens and duchesses visible angels who, in the middle of their people, have developed the Christian life, giving themselves as examples. The beneficial effect brought along by saint kings and queens is one of the main evidence of God in the supernatural leadership of the society,
The Christian reaction pulled our Barbary from Europe thanks to the strength of their soul and to the victory of the mind over the brutal force. This triumph happened because God gave saints to His Church. Cluny was the strong point of lever of which the Papacy took control in this century; but don’t we forget that it was erected by four saints whose long life spreads over a century and a half. In the Twelfth Century who could explain the work of Saint Bernard without taking into account the radiant Sainthood which shone in him. In the Thirteenth Century Saint Francis and the apostolic son of Guzman, by their works and virtues beyond human endurance, woke up in a powerful manner the supernatural sense which was going weak. In the Fourteenth Century Christianity seemed to sink because of internal strife brought by the great schism and the invasion of the society by naturalism and sensualism which had been neutralized by the rising of sainthood but not eliminated it. Apart from Catherine of Sienna, we cannot see any saint whose action would have been felt beyond borders; the whole supernatural vitality of that time is summed up by the sublime figure of Catherine of Sienna. The Fifteenth Century is even more miserable than the previous one: for the first time the anarchical doctrines come up and soon the heresy spread with Wiclef and Jean Huss who will raise the standard against Christianity. The Fifteenth Century was poor in examples of Sainthood. The extraordinary effect produced by Saint Vincent Ferrer over several Kingdoms shows, however, that the sense of sainthood was still alive among people but this Angel of God ended his career in 1419. Then comes the Sixteenth Century which in its first half was a terrible time of hardship and time of triumph in the second half. Saint Gaetan is almost alone in the first half but as soon as 1550 starts, we can see a wonderful blooming on the branches of the secular tree of Christianity while Protestantism is at last stopped in its conquests. Saint Gaetan prepared the updating of Christian moral standards Saint Ignatius of Loyola and the Saints of his time carried on with the work in the most vigorous manner. The wise edicts promulgated by the Council of Trent reinforced the reform of discipline with the participation of saint popes like Saint Pius V and saint bishops like Saint Charles Borromeo. The evangelism of the Gentiles comes back to life with Saint Francis Xavier and of the Christian cities with Saint Philip Neri. Therese purified the convent, John of the Cross and Peter Alcantara purified the monastery. The Seventeenth Century while counting less examples of Sainthood than the previous one, will however show beautiful revelations of the supernatural principle in the men of God. The sainthood of Saint Francis de Sales rekindled piety in all Catholic nations especially in France. To say so he personified the Catholic Church with his inviolable faith, his sense of infinite charity and his constant struggle. Jacques the first used to say to his Anglican Bishops about “The Devout Life”: “you should write books like that one”. This heretic prince had then the sense of sainthood. The pages written by the saints have a particular savour which cannot be reached without being a saint. The reading of Saint Therese touches far more than the spiritual letters most praised in the Seventeenth century. France owes a great deal to Saint Francis de Sales and it is only justice to look at him as one of the principal lever of the upward movement of the Christian sense which was beneficial to France. Owing to him, France can again be counted among the nations where sainthood blooms again. During this period we must consider Peter Fourier, John Francis Regis, Jane Frances de Chantal and Vincent de Paul who died in 1660 and closes the list of French Saints in the Seventeenth century. Since then, France, glorious on several sides, remained sterile in the number of saints. However the Christian historian will have to explain why in time of the Regency which started in 1715 France was exploited with success by the spirit of incredulity which could not have been stopped. Obviously, the supernatural sense had been weakened and naturalism had secretly won. Two servants of God extended their career well further in the Eighteenth Century” Jean Baptiste de la Salle and Louis de Montfort; but we must acknowledge that they were unrecognised, persecuted, censured and if God had not watched over them their name and their works would have faded away and be forgotten. In the second half of the Seventeenth Century, marvels of sainthood blew up outside France: Saint Madeleine of Pazzi, Saint Rose of Lima have filled the air with the fragrance of their virtues. Can we imagine that the name itself of Saint Joseph of Cupertino and the miracles linked to his personality, known in the whole Catholic universe, took such a long time to go over the Alps. The Duke of Brunswick witness of the divine marvels apparent in the Servant of God had abjured Lutheranism, thus giving up the rights of his sovereignty. We must however, mention that at the end of the Seventeenth Century Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque was at the origin of the devotion to the Sacred Heart.
The Eighteenth Century will be stamped by a general symptom of weakness in the Christian society. However marvels blew up at the heart of the Church, where life can never fade away. Veronique Giuliani wearing the stigmata of Christ’s Passion, Leonard de Port Maurice, Paul of the Cross, Alphonsus Ligouri, in the name of their heroic virtues deserved the honour to be, one day, promoted on the altars. In France, at the court the most corrupted in its history, descendants of Saint Louis came forward to deserve the Crown of Sainthood: Louise de France, virgin and followed of Saint Therese, Clotilde de Sardaigne, spouse and Queen. Those two princesses and Benoit- Joseph Labre, a beggar are the only revelations of sainthood that France seems to have produced in the whole of the Eighteenth Century and when they emerged the country was on the brink of being handed over to the enemies of supernatural order who would have reduced France to ashes, would the merciful hand of God not have smashed the oppressors of people.
This narration shows that faith and moral code are supported by the influence of Sainthood. The Christian historian, giving the saints a large space in History, points out that History is as God sees it and judges it.
The Duties of the Historian and Christian
There is a great difference between a Christian historian and a philosopher. The philosopher takes no account of the supernatural order and nothing is more dangerous than giving preferential treatment to the rationalist inclination.
Faith is a virtue, it is not the result of a scientific labour, and faith is often threatened by the enemy of man who can see in it the means God uses to throw light on man’s intelligence. May the Christian believer never forget that his narrative must be Christian, it is not permitted to the Christian historian to be impartial when it comes to faith and the application of faith. Concerning historic judgements, when it comes to the facts, there is only the truth, he must not flatter anyone neither disguise the faults of whoever; in the same time he must bring to light the lies which made of history a conspiracy against truth. The Christian historian judges facts, men and institutions as they are seen by the Church, he is not free to judge otherwise and this makes him strong. If he cannot resign himself to offend, he must refrain from writing History. Numerous betrayals have generated prejudices and irresponsible ads which were invincible obstacles to the development of a vigorous and solid catholicity. It is through history that we can see where the supernatural is produced and the Christian historian must have the courage of showing it to his readers. Saint Augustine and Bossuet relate everything and judge all in relation to Jesus Christ and His Church. They show the supernatural principle governing and explaining everything by and large as well as in the smallest details; along the narrative we feel them Christian and we become more Christian ourselves when we read the beautiful passages from their books. Saint Augustine shows that it’s by the permanent gift of miracles that the Christian identity of the society proves to itself to have been established by the irresistible strength of God’s arm. Saint Augustine tells the miracles brought about by the relics of Saint Etienne in Africa, under his own eyes and seen by the people. Christian historian, do not make any concession to the philosophers, thinking that those favours would be a means to attract the philosophers to the faith; there are two disadvantages: the first and not the least, those articles and narratives read by weak Catholics will cool down their faith and will maintain them in a haziness from which they should be taken out. They read your passages with confidence because they know you are Catholic and this reading leaves them in a state worse than before.
The second is that far from bringing back the philosophers to the faith, you increase their pride and their triumph is to see Catholics lagging behind their system, proud of what they consider a breakthrough, they feel free to impose their ideas and their language. You will be reduced to lead two systems at the same time: your strong faith and the demands of what you call the mentality of modern society; despite your intellectual efforts they cannot be compatible and if many of your kind are outraged, the others will not be taken back to the faith.
Nowadays, society more than ever, needs doctrines strong and consistent with themselves. In the middle of general debauchery of ideas, only strong assertions will be accepted. Like in the first days of Christianity, it is necessary that Christians call on people’s attention by the unity of their principles and of their judgements. The present society lives on the remnants of the ancient Christian civilisation that revolutions have not destroyed, preserved from sinking by God’s mercy. Show yourself as you are: convinced Catholic; the society will at first be scared but, be sure it will come back to you. If speaking its language, you flatter the society, they will be amused for a while, then you will be forgotten because they will not have been impressed by your lack of seriousness; more or less they will have recognised themselves in you but having little confidence in themselves, you will have missed to inspire more confidence in yourself. There is a state of grace tied up to the full and absolute confession of faith; and this confession says the Apostle is the salvation of those who make it and of those who listen to it. Let’s be Catholics and nothing else, no philosophers, no dreamers of utopian ideals; let’s be the yeast which rises the dough. The last hope of the society is to be found more and more in the resolute attitude of the Christians. Mr de Montalembent did not hesitate to express Catholicism with great vitality in his introduction to “the story of Saint Elizabeth”. Since then, too often we saw Catholic historians wanting to stitch together strife of worldly wisdom to the substance of the Christian faith. Would their Christian dignity be more enlightened they would have been less ready to heap praises upon modern prejudices. To imagine spreading faith with naturalism is as foolish as to pretend, in politics making order with disorder. The Christian historian must admit that the ideas of today are hostile to the supernatural principles that is why he cannot transpose the ideas of today to his judgements on the past. He must realise that modern paganism has wreaked havoc on society. “A hostile feeling against the faith, an over-excitement of the pagan mind have blown the storm of 1789” said Mr de Champagny. Fortunate is the historian who in the middle of contradictory principles, free from all research of popularity and upstanding disciple of the Church, will have been able to go across this terrible crisis without having sacrificed the least piece of truth; disciple of the Catholic Church to which belongs the future of times and of Eternity.
Christ, Hero of History
It is very important to warn Catholics against naturalism in the appreciation of historic facts. It has to be known that naturalism is not just a theory but it is insinuated and even applied in most of the writing which have been published for a long time. This double language is dangerous for the readers especially for the youngsters. Generally speaking naturalism can be recognised in a book when his author puts a slow of hiding the act of God; when he becomes fond of the philosophic ideas of Providence instead of claiming the supernatural order; when he speaks about the Church as being a human institution; when he delivers a verdict on ideas and on men differently from the Church; one likes to go ahead and be seen as belonging to his time, in a word he likes to reap the kind of success given to anyone being able to deserve the title of man of progress. We also recognise the presence of naturalism in a book when his author instead of showing the imperfection of the pagan virtues he fills them with the admiration they do not deserve. I call pagan virtues those actions brilliant from outside whose principle was not to implement divine law but pride, severity of heart, stoical contempt of life, the barbarian cult of a material of a material nationality. At the end of the Eighteenth Century we know the disastrous excitements that highlighted pagan virtues has produced. There is another danger to be avoided by the Christian historian; Apostle of the revelation, he must not imagine that the gentiles had no means to reach the knowledge of the true God, that knowledge which enables man to the fulfilment of virtues which honour him and are his salvation. The means supernatural Providence uses to operate this great purpose are the aims of Christian history. The Catholic theology unveils the reality that grace is never denied to men, even to the most neglected among us. God lets his wrath against Ninive be swayed with Jonah’s simple words; Corneille the centurion who had become elected for baptism before having known the mission of the Saviour. The part played by the Jewish people, their synagogues scattered beyond the limits of the time, thriving in the heart of Rome and in Greece for centuries when God made man came along. Through those facts we can easily follow, still today, the traces of supernatural in the annals of the ancient world. End of Seventeenth Century and the first half of Eighteenth Century in France, Fontenelle was one of the forerunners of naturalism and did not fear when faith was still prevailing, to deny the monuments of primitive Christianity, saying that the oracles being a hoax of paganism did not stop with the coming of Christ. It was then easy for Christian Science to retaliate and restore the good sense of people libelled by a man affected by supernatural antipathy. The Christian historian who depicts the ancient world will often meet the diabolical world whose empire had not felt the victorious strength of the Cross. The awful disorders of the ancient world were the result of the power held by the father of lies which was more profound than it has been since the triumph of the Son of God. Ignoring that fact would be for a Christian historian a lack of faith that nothing may justify. Jesus Christ has not omitted to call Satan by his name: the “Prince of the World,” and certain Christian writers would not take into account passages of the Gospel where this perverted mind is condemned as being the source of all evil? It is obvious that the historian who does not speak about the purpose of all those tribulations, who does not hint to the reign of Christ getting closer is a blind man who maintains other blindness in the dark. He is joining the pagan mind who did not know anything about God’s plans to lead the world. The historian can see that everything leads to the Roman Empire; this colossal empire used as a stepping stone by Jesus Christ, must collapse without returning and the historian will not mention the empire of Christ? He says that the coming of Christ is the greatest even of all times but he does not say that the world, for thousands of years, was in the waiting of its King and He has been reigning over it for the last twenty centuries. When our fathers stood up against Voltaire’s school who dared pretend that humanity had regressed because Jesus Christ religion was conducting civilisation to barbary; it had become necessary to support against the philosophers this new thesis and easy to demonstrate that in all its useful sides for man and society, modern civilisation is the daughter of Christianity. When polytheism and philosophy conducted people to a mindless state and to their destruction. They were aware of the fact that the mission of Christ had other interests far more precious for man and society than those linked to economy. The fruits of Christianity put the Christian nations above the others and are only consequences of the benefits provided by Jesus Christ and His superior order. They also knew the Gospel by heart and accepted all of it. If Jesus Christ said “the prince of this world will be driven away from his empire” they knew that the Redeemer’s blood will be shed for the redemption of our sins and that humanity will only be one one under the leadership of the Good Shepherd who gives His life for His sheep. In the Gospel there is a word of Christ pointing at those benefits: “Look for God’s Kingdom and His justice, the rest will be given to you in addition”. In the eighteenth century the defenders of Christianity knew all that understood all of it and looked forward to noticing all the benefits brought by Christianity. In the fourth Century, Julian the Apostate himself had started to understand those benefits due to Christianity. Since then, Christianity is ignored in modern society; the legislation does not admit it as a social link but if a certain protection is provided it’s only because Christianity is supposed to represent the religions interest of the nation. In such a situation, faith is still alive in a great number of people, so in a way, fruits of Christianity continue to be produced. What will be the link of the Christians among them, in what way will they unite to form an indomitable strength to overcome paganism? Without any doubt through energy and unity of the Christian idea. Did the Christian writers of the first three centuries speak about political utopias, human progress? The conquest took place through the faith in the crucifixion of Jesus Christ which brought to the world mysteries to believe in and supernatural virtues to be put into practice. In the eyes of the first Christians the era of Christ was the salvation given to man on the condition to sacrifice the goods of present life to obtain those of the times to com, the access of which is given by the Redeemer. There was no more, no less to regenerate the world; nowadays, no more no less will be needed to save it.
A Christian writer must not speak about the coming of Christ as a social event, he must put into his mind that he is writing for Christians. Men must and need to know that Christ came to redeem them, and the purpose of His mission is not to civilize them. Then, should he not insist on the consequences of the Gospel? Well, all truth is useful and every piece of truth must be seen according to its importance; who would dare express a doubt on the results produced by Christianity for the improvement of human condition? You must use Saint Augustine and Bossuet language, your writings have to give support to the Christians and you will only do it claiming loudly that under the reign of Caesar Augustus, the only Son of God, born from a Virgin, offered Himself to redeem the sins of the world and to crush the yoke which was holding man in slavery. Now, if you have something else to add on the applications of the Gospel concerning the benefit for man and society, do not remain quiet, we shall listen to you. “The rest will be added unto you…” promised by Jesus Christ Himself must not be the only benefit to be pointed out in the coming of Christ on earth. Our faith is weak, our education is often not very Christian, the society around us does not reflect our beliefs, we live in the middle of a social revolution bursting with pride.
Today, the first necessity is to strengthen the faith of the Christians and to protect them; the second necessity is aiming to increase their number. If you acquire the first one, you will not have lost your time; as for the second necessity, it is obvious that you will not go far if you convince people who have no faith that those who believe think and speak like themselves. You will not educate your children in the faith if you use naturalist theories and they will not grow up like Christians. Tell the facts of history as a convinced Christian and claim that progress is in Jesus Christ and will take place with Him. It is impossible not to be struck by the dedication and the quiet heroism of the Sisters of Charity. How it comes then that kind of devotion does not exist in the religions of the ancient world and among Christian people we only meet it in the church of Roman tradition. Basically, it is very simple, you must say to the people interested to know: “It does exist sacerdotal orders founded by Jesus Christ and their members have the power to purify souls and put them in contact with God Himself in a mystery called communion of which they are the dispensers. Would those sacerdotal vocations be pushed out of our societies, brothers of the poor and the sick would be extinguished.” That is why the question of revealed dogma is naturally brought along to solve the particular problem concerning the presence of supernatural in history; it is the same for all other questions which could be raised about the different forms of progress of which Christianity gave a taste to Christian nations. Our fathers, of Christian tradition were well aware of it when they kept arguing about the economic matter of Christianity with the philosophers of their time. As for us, we no longer know that and that is why it has become necessary to be told about it. What would historical facts be worth when consequences are put forward without pointing out the causes?
The destiny of man is supernatural, so history which does not go in to the supernatural causes would not be genuine history in spite of the Christian convictions of the writer.
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| The Last Sunday of October: The Feast of Our Lord Jesus Christ the King |
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Posted by: Stone - 10-31-2021, 05:50 AM - Forum: Pentecost
- Replies (8)
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The Last Sunday of October: The Feast of Our Lord Jesus Christ the King
The Kingdom of Heaven—Holy Church—is seen bringing forth out of her treasure “things new and old.” Although she can never add new dogmas to the deposit of Faith entrusted to her, as the ages go by she is seen understanding more perfectly and explaining more fully those treasures in her keeping. She is a living body, not a statue, and she can develop, though she can never change her nature. Hence, guided by the Holy Spirit of him who has promised to be with her not merely for a few centuries but unto the end of the world, she defines or emphasizes certain points of doctrine as she sees fit, considering needs of the times. We have an example in the institution of the feast, of the Kingship of our Lord Jesus Christ by the Sovereign Pontiff, Pope Pius XI, in the jubilee year 1925, and explained to the faithful in the Encyclical Quas Primas.
Christians have ever hailed our divine Lord as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. It was as a King that the representatives of the Eastern World came to adore him in the manger; it was as a King, albeit not knowing what he did, that the official representative of the Western world lifted him up upon the Cross. The patriarchs and prophets of the old dispensation foretold his royalty; he spoke constantly of his kingdom: when asked plainly whether he were in truth a king by the representative of Cæsar, he acknowledged that such indeed he was, though of a kingdom not of this world.
“His Kingship is founded upon the ineffable hypostatic union. It is spiritual and concerned with spiritual things. It is opposed to none other than to that of Satan, and to the powers of darkness. Christ is King over angels and men; King over men’s hearts and wills; his Kingship demands of its subjects a spirit of detachment from riches and earthly things, and a spirit of gentleness. They must hunger and thirst after justice and, more than this, they must deny themselves and carry the cross.”
Yet though his is a spiritual kingdom, opposed to no just earthly polity, “it would be a grave error to say that Christ has no authority whatever in civil affairs, since by virtue of the absolute empire over all creatures committed to him by the Father, all things are in his power. All men, whether collectively or individually, are under the dominion of Christ. In him is the salvation of the individual, in him is the salvation of society.”
Today we sadly behold “a world undone,” largely paganized in principles and outlook and, in recent years, in one country even glorying in the name “pagan.” At the best, governments mostly ignore God; and at the worst, openly fight against him, as we of today are witnessing in the Old World and in the New. Even the statesmen’s well-meant efforts to find a remedy for present ills and, above all, to secure world peace, prove futile because whereas peace is from Christ, and possible only in the Kingdom of Christ, his name is never mentioned throughout their deliberations or their documents. Christ is kept out of the State schools and seats of higher education; and the rising generations seem to be taught anything and everything save to know, love, and serve him. Art and literature all too frequently reflect the same tendencies.
And since the spirit of evil reigns inevitably wherever the spirit of Christ has ceased to reign, in public and in private men are flouting the moral laws of God, and some of the worst abominations of ancient paganism are becoming matters of every-day life. Moreover, be it remembered, modern paganism is worse than that of the ancient world, in that the former knows what it does as the latter did not. There is now an intense, positive hatred of Jesus Christ in the militant atheist, which differs in kind from the attitude of the fiercest Roman or Eastern persecutor: “If I had not come and spoken to them … if I had not done among them the works that no other man hath done, they would not have sin: but now they have both seen and hated both me and my Father.”
Ever as practical as she is supernatural, the Church is not content with merely deploring the evil, nor even with counteracting it by sound teaching. She would also make definite reparation to the divine majesty thus denied and defied; to him whose royalty is slighted and insulted. Something must be done by those who, in a measure, understand and love, in order to atone for those who do not. “To repair the crime,” says the great 20th century Thomist Fra. Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange in his study L’Amour de Dieu et de la Croix de Jesus, The Love of God and the Cross of Jesus, “of ‘lèse-divinité,’ which denies God’s rights over the human society whose author he is, we must exalt Jesus Christ as King over all individuals, families, and peoples. If his universal royalty be proclaimed and his reign in society recognized, one of the principal evils of the modern world—the secularizing of public and private life—will be attacked at its roots.” Hence we have the special exhortation of the Vicar of Christ, and the institution of the feast of this divine Kingship.
“To this end nothing would serve better than the institution of a special feast in honor of the Kingship of Christ. For people are instructed in the truths of faith, and brought to appreciate the inner joys of religion, far more effectually by the annual celebration of our sacred mysteries than by any pronouncement, however weighty, of the teaching of the Church. Such pronouncements usually reach only a few, and those the more learned among the faithful; feasts reach them all; the former speak but once, the latter speak every year—in fact for ever. The Church’s teaching affects the mind primarily; her feasts affect both mind and heart, and have a salutary effect upon the whole of man’s nature … We have commanded its observance on a Sunday, in order that not only the clergy may perform their duty by saying Mass and reciting the Office, but that the laity too, free from their daily tasks, may in a spirit of holy joy give ample testimony of their obedience and subjection to Christ … that they may so order their lives as to be worthy, faithful, and obedient subjects of the Diving King.”
Mass
Introit
Dignus est Agnus, qui occisus est, accipere virtutem, et divinatem, et sapientiam, et fortitudinem, et honorem. Ipsi gloria et imperium in sæcula sæculorum.
The Lamb that was slain is worthy to receive power and divinity and wisdom and strength and honor; to Him be glory and empire for ever and ever.
Deus, judicium tuum Regi da: et justitiam tuam Filio Regis. Gloria Patri.
Give to the King, O God, Thy justice, and to the King’s Son Thy judgment. Glory be to the Father, &c.
Collect
Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, qui in dilecto Filio tuo, universorum Rege, omnia instaurare voluisti: concede propitius; ut cunctiæ familiæ Gentium, peccati vulnere disgregatæ, ejus suavissimo subdantur imperio: Qui cum vivit et regnat.
Almighty and everlasting God, Who in Thy beloved Son, the King of the whole world, hast willed to restore all things, mercifully grant that all the kindreds of the nations that are now divided by the wound of sin, may be brought under the sweet yoke of His rule: Who with Thee liveth and reigneth.
Commemoration is made of the occurring Sunday.
Epistle
Lesson of the Epistle of Blessed Paul the Apostle to the Colossians. Ch. i.
Brethren: Giving thanks to God the Father, who hath made us worthy to be partakers of the lot of the saints in light: Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of the Son of his love, In whom we have redemption through his blood, the remission of sins; Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature: For in him were all things created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones, or dominations, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him and in him. And he is before all, and by him all things consist. And he is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he may hold the primacy: Because in him, it hath well pleased the Father, that all fullness should dwell; And through him to reconcile all things unto himself, making peace through the blood of his cross, both as to the things that are on earth, and the things that are in heaven.
Gradual
Dominabitur a mari usque ad mare, et a flumine usque ad terminos orbis terrarum. Et adorabunt eum omnes reges terræ: omnes Gentes servient ei.
He shall rule from sea to sea, and from the river to the end of the earth. And all kings shall adore Him, all nations shall serve Him.
℣. Potestas ejus, potestas æterna, quæ non auferetur: et regnum ejus, quod non corrumpetur.
℣. His power shall be an everlasting power, which shall not be taken away; and His kingdom a kingdom that shall not decay.
Quote:In votive Masses after Septuagesima, instead of the Alleluia and its ℣., there is said:
Tract
Ipse invocabit me, Pater meus es tu: Deus meus, et susceptor salutis meæ.
He shall cry out to me: Thou art my Father, my God, and the support of my salvation.
℣. Et ego primogenitum ponam illum: excelsum præ regibus terræ.
℣. And I will make him my firstborn, high above the kings of the earth.
℣. Et ponam in sæculum sæculi semen ejus: et thronum ejus sicut dies cœli.
℣. And I will make his seed to endure for evermore, and his throne as the days of heaven.
In Paschal time, omitting the Gradual, there is said: Alleluia, alleluia.
℣. Potestas ejus, etc., as above; then:
Alleluia. ℣. Habet in vestimento et in femore suo scriptum: Rex regum, et Dominus dominantium. Alleluia.
Alleluia. ℣. He hath on his garment and on his thigh written: King of kings and Lord of lords. Alleluia.
Gospel
Sequel of the holy Gospel according to John. Ch. XVIII.
At that time: Pilate said to Jesus: Art thou the king of the Jews? Jesus answered: Sayest thou this thing of thyself, or have others told it thee of me? Pilate answered: Am I a Jew? Thy own nation, and the chief priests, have delivered thee up to me: what hast thou done? Jesus answered: My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would certainly strive that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now my kingdom is not from hence. Pilate therefore said to him: Art thou a king then? Jesus answered: Thou sayest that I am a king. For this was I born, and for this came I into the world; that I should give testimony to the truth. Every one that is of the truth, heareth my voice.
Offertory
Postula a me, et dabo tibi Gentes hereditatem tuam, et possessionem tuam terminos terræ.
Ask of me, and I will give thee the Gentiles for thy inheritance, and the utmost parts of the earth for thy possession.
Secret
Hostiam tibi, Domine, humanæ reconciliationis offerius: præsta quæsumus; ut quem sacrificiis præsentibus immolamus, ipse cunctis gentibus unitatis et pacis dona concedat, Jesus Christus, Filius tuus, Dominus noster: Qui tecum.
We offer thee, O Lord, the victim of man’s reconciliations; grant, we beseech thee, that he whom we immolate in these present sacrifices may himself bestow on all nations the gifts of unity and peace, Jesus Christ, thy Son, our Lord: Who liveth.
Commemoration is made of the occurring Sunday.
Preface
Vere dignum et justum est, æquum et salutare, nos tibi semper et ubique gratias agere: Domine sancte, Pater omnipotens, æterne Deus: Qui unigenitum Filium tuum, Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum, Sacerdotem æternum et universorum Regem, oleo exsultatipnis unxisti: ut, seipsum in ara crucis hostiam immaculatam et pacificam offerens, redemptionis humanæ sacramenta perageret: et suo subjectis imperio omnibus creaturis, æternum et universale regnum, immensæ tuæ traderet Majestati. Regnum veritatis et vitæ: regnum sanctitatis et gratiæ: regnum justitiæ, amoris et pacis. Et ideo …
It is meet and just, right and for our salvation, that we should at all times, and in all places, give thanks unto Thee, O holy Lord, Father almighty, everlasting God: Who didst anoint, with the oil of gladness, Thine only-begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, to be the eternal Priest and King of the universe; that by offering Himself a spotless Victim and peace-offering on the altar of the Cross, He might accomplish the mysteries of man’s redemption, and that having subjected all creatures to His dominion, He might present to Thine infinite Majesty an everlasting and universal Kingdom; a kingdom of truth and life; and kingdom of holiness and grace; a kingdom of justice, love, and peace. And therefore …
Communion
Sedebit Dominus Rex in æternum: Dominus benedicet populo suo in pace.
The Lord shall sit as King for ever: the Lord shall bless His people in peace.
Postcommunion
Immortalitatis alimoniam consecuti, quæsumus, Domine: ut, qui sub Christi Regis vexillis militare gloriamur, cum ipso, in cœlesti sede, jugiter regnare possimus: Qui tecum vivit et regnat.
We who have received the food of immortality, beseech Thee, O Lord: that we who glory in our warfare under the banners of Christ our King, may reign with Him for ever in His heavenly swelling place: Who liveth and reigneth, etc.
Commemoration is made of the occurring Sunday, the Gospel of which is read at the end of Mass.
HYMN
Ruler of all from heaven’s high throne,
O Christ our king ere time began,
We kneel before thee, Lord to own
Thy empire o’er the heart of man.
While bands of shameless men refuse
The homage due to Christ their Lord,
We own thee sovereign Lord of all.
The King by heaven and earth adored.
O Prince of peace, o Christ, subdue
Those rebel hearts, thy peace restore;
Into thy sheep-fold lead anew
Thy scattered sheep, to stray no more.
For this upon the tree of shame,
Thy body hung, with arms spread wide,
The spear revealed the heart of flame
That burned within thy sacred side.
For this our altars here are spread
With mystic feast of bread and wine,
Still thy redeeming blood is shed
From that sore-stricken heart of thine.
May heads of nations fear thy name
And spread thy honour through their lands,
Our nation’s laws, our arts proclaim
The beauty of thy just commands.
Let kings the crown and sceptre hold
As pledge of they supremacy;
And thou all lands, all tribes enfold
In one fair realm of charity.
Jesu, to thee be honour done,
Who rulest all in equity
With Father, Spirit, ever One,
From age to age eternally.
Amen.
℣. His empire shall be multiplied.
℟. And there shall be no end of peace.
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| Twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost |
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Posted by: Stone - 10-30-2021, 07:02 PM - Forum: Pentecost
- Replies (7)
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Twenty-Third Sunday After Pentecost
Taken from Rev. Fr. Leonard Goffine's The Church's Year
![[Image: pentecost23.jpg]](http://www.calefactory.org/books/goffine/pix/pentecost23.jpg)
REMARK If from Pentecost until Advent there be only twenty-three Sundays, the following one is omitted, and the Mass of the twenty-fourth is said.
The Introit of the Mass consoles and incites us to confidence in God who is so benevolent towards us, and will not let us pine away in tribulation. The Lord saith: I think thoughts of peace, and not of affliction: you shall call upon me, and I will hear you: and I will bring back your captivity from all places. (Fer. XXIX. 11. 12. 14.) Lord, thou hast blessed thy land: thou hast turned away the captivity of Jacob. (Ps. LXXXIV.) Glory etc.
COLLECT Absolve, we beseech Thee, 0 Lord, Thy people from their offences: that through Thy bountiful goodness we may be freed from the bonds of those sins which through our frailty we have contracted. Thro',
EPISTLE (Philipp. III 17-21.: IV, 1-3.) Brethren, Be followers of me, and observe them who walk so as you have our model. For many walk, of whom I have told you often (and now tell you weeping), that they are enemies of the cross of Christ: whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things. But our conversation is in heaven: from whence also we look for the Saviour, our Lord Jesus Christ, who will reform the body of our lowness, made like to the body of his glory, according to the operation whereby also he is able to subdue all things unto himself. Therefore, my dearly beloved brethren, and most desired, my joy and my crown: so stand fast in the Lord, my dearly beloved. I beg of Evodia, and I beseech Syntyche, to be of one mind in the Lord. And I entreat thee also, my sincere companion, help those women who have labored with me in the gospel with Clement and the rest of my fellow-laborers, whose names are in the book of life.
Quote:EXPLANATION There are unhappily many Christians, who, as St. Paul complains, are, declared enemies of Christ's cross, who do not wish to mortify their senses, who only think of gratifying their lusts, and, as it were, find their only pleasure, even seek their honor, in despising the followers of Jesus and His saints on the narrow path of the cross, of mortification and humiliation. What will be the end of these people? Eternal perdition! For he who does not crucify the flesh, does not belong to Christ. (Gal. V. 24.) He who does not bear the-marks of the mortification of Jesus in his body, in him the life of Christ shall not be manifested. (II Cor. IV. 10.) He who does not walk in heaven during his, life-time, that is, who does not direct his thoughts and desires heavenward, and despise the world and its vanities, will not find admission there after his death.
ASPIRATION Would to God , I could say with St. Paul: The world is crucified to me, and I to the world. (Gal. VI. 14.)
GOSPEL (Matt. IX. 18-26.) At that time, As Jesus was speaking to the multitudes, behold, a certain ruler came up, and adored him, saying: Lord, my daughter is even now dead: but come, lay thy hand upon her, and she shall live. And Jesus, rising up, followed him, with his disciples. And behold, a woman, who was troubled with an 'issue of blood twelve years, came behind him, and touched the hem of his garment. For she said within herself: If I shall touch only his garment, I shall be healed. But Jesus turning and seeing her, said: Be of good heart, daughter: thy faith hath made thee whole. And the woman was made whole from that hour. And when Jesus was come into the house of the ruler, and saw the. minstrels and the multitude making a tumult, he said: Give place: for the girl is not dead, but sleepeth. And they laughed him to scorn. And when the multitude was put forth, he went in, and took her by the hand. And the maid arose. And the fame hereof went abroad into all that country.
Quote:INSTRUCTIONS
I. Filial was the faith, unbounded the confidence, profound the humility of this woman, and therefore, she received health also. Learn from this, how pleasing to the Lord is faith, confidence and humility; let your prayer always be penetrated by these three virtues, and you will receive whatever you ask.
II. The devout Louis de Ponte compares the conduct of this woman to our conduct at holy Communion, and says: Christ wished to remain with us in the most holy Eucharist, clothed with the garment of the sacramental species of bread, that he who receives His sacred flesh and blood, may be freed from evil concupiscence. If you wish to obtain the health of your soul, as did this woman the health of the body, imitate her. Receive the flesh and blood of Jesus with the most profound humility, with the firmest confidence in His power and goodness, and like this woman you too will be made whole.
III. Jesus called three dead persons to life, the twelve year old daughter of Jairus, ruler of the synagogue, of whom there is mention made in this gospel, the young man at Naim, (Luke VII. 14.) and Lazarus. (John. XI- 43.) By these three dead persons three classes of sinners may be understood: the maiden signifies those who sin in their youth through weakness and frailty, but touched by the grace of God, perceive their fall and easily rise again through penance; by the young man at Naim those are to be understood who sin repeatedly and in public, these require greater grace, more labor and severer penance; by Lazarus, the public and obdurate habitual sinners are to be understood who can be raised to spiritual life only by extraordinary graces and severe public penance.
IV. Christ did not raise the maiden, until the minstrels and noisy multitude were removed, by which He wished to teach us that the conversion of a soul cannot be accomplished in the midst of the noise and turmoil of temporal cares, idle pleasures and associations.
✠ ✠ ✠
INSTRUCTION CONCERNING RIDICULE AND DERISION
And they laughed him to scorn. (Matt IX. 24.)
When Jesus told the minstrels and the crowd that the girl was not dead, but sleeping, they laughed at Him, because they understood not the meaning of His words. Sensual-minded men generally act in the same manner towards the priests and ministers of God, who by their word and example admonish them to despise honors, riches and pleasures, and to embrace the love of poverty, humility and mortification. This is, an unintelligible and hateful language to them which they ridicule and mock just as they do when they hear that death is a sleep, from which we shall one day awake and be obliged to appear before the judgment-seat of God. Woe to such scoffers by whose ridicule so many souls are led from the path "of virtue! What the devil formerly, accomplished by tyrants in estranging men from God and a lively faith in Him and His Church, he seems to wish to accomplish in our days by the mockery, scoffs, and blasphemies of wicked men; for at no period have piety and virtue, holy simplicity and childlike faith, adherence to the holy Roman Church and her laws, reverence for her head, her ministers and priests, been more mocked, derided and blasphemed. Unhappily many permit themselves to be induced by mockery to abandon piety, to omit the public practice of their faith, to conceal their Catholic conviction, and to lead a lukewarm, careless, indeed, sinful life. Woe to the scoffers! they are an abomination to the Lord (Prov. III. 32.) who will one day require from their hands all the souls perverted by them. Do not permit yourself to be led astray by those who ridicule your faith and zeal for virtue; remember the words of Jesus: He that shall deny me before men, I will also deny him before my Father who is in heaven. (Matt. X. 33.) Let Jesus be your consolation, He was scoffed and blasphemed for your sake, and often say within yourself:
I know, my most amiable Jesus, that the servant cannot be more than his master. Since Thou wert so often sneered at, mocked and blasphemed, why should I wonder if I am derided for my faith in Thee and Thy Church, and for the practice of virtue!
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| Sixth Sunday after Epiphany |
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Posted by: Stone - 10-30-2021, 06:02 PM - Forum: Christmas
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[For the Introit of this day's Mass see the Introit of the Third Sunday after Epiphany.]
COLLECT Grant, we beseech Thee, Almighty God, that ever fixing our thoughts on such things as are reasonable, we may both in our words and works do what is pleasing in Thy sight. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, etc.
EPISTLE (I. Thess. I. 2-10.) Brethren, we give thanks to God for you all, making a remembrance of you in our prayers without ceasing; being mindful of the work of your faith, and labor, and charity, and of the enduring of the hope of our Lord Jesus Christ before God and our Father: knowing, brethren, beloved of God, your election: for our gospel hath not been unto you in word only, but in power also, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much fullness, as you know what manner of men we have been among you for your sakes. And you became followers of us and of the Lord, receiving the word in much tribulation, with joy of the Holy Ghost: so that you were made a pattern to all that believe, in Macedonia and in Achaia. For from you was spread abroad the word of the Lord, not only in Macedonia and in Achaia, but also in every place, your faith, which is towards God, is gone forth; so that we need not to speak anything. For they themselves relate of us what manner of entering in we had unto you; and how ye turned, to God from idols, to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven (whom he raised from the dead), Jesus, who both delivered us from the wrath to come.
EXPLANATION The apostle gives thanks to God in prayer for those inhabitants of Thessalonia, who have been converted to Christianity by his words, and declares to them his joy at their Christian life which they prove by their good works and their perseverance, even through all trials, in expectation of eternal reward through Christ. He assures them also of their salvation, (election) because God had caused the preaching of His gospel, which they so willingly received, to produce in them such extraordinary fruit. He praises them not only for having listened to the gospel and abandoned idolatry, but for having regulated their lives in accordance with the faith, and having become a model to distant nations, for the report of their faith had spread far, and everywhere their zealous reception of the gospel was spoken of. Would that the same could be said of all Christians!
GOSPEL (Matt. XIII. 31-35.) At that time, Jesus spoke this parable to the multitudes: The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard-seed, which a man took and sowed in his field: which is the least indeed of all seeds; but when it is grown up, it is greater than all herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come, and dwell in the branches thereof. Another parable he spoke to them: The kingdom of heaven is like to leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, until the whole was leavened. All these things Jesus spoke in parables to the multitude, and without parables he did not speak to them, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying: I will open my mouth in parables, I will utter things hidden from the foundation of the world.
What is here understood by the kingdom of heaven?
The Church and the doctrine of Christ.
Why is the Church compared to a grain of mustard-seed?
Because there is a great similarity between them. The mustard-seed, though so small, grows in Palestine so high and so rapidly, that it becomes a broad tree, in which birds can build their nests. In like manner the Church of Christ was in the beginning very small like the mustard-seed, but it soon spread so wide that numberless people, even great philosophers and princes, came to find peace and protection under its branches.
Why is Christ's doctrine compared to leaven?
Because like the leaven, which quickly penetrates the flour, and makes it palatable bread, the doctrine of Christ, spreading with surprising swiftness over the then known parts of the globe, gave the Gentiles a taste for divine things and for heavenly wisdom. Thus Christ’s doctrine penetrates him who receives it, sanctifies all his thoughts, words, and deeds, and makes him pleasing to God.
By what means, in particular, was the Church of Christ propagated?
By the omnipotence of God and the miracles which He so frequently wrought to prove the truth and divinity of the Christian religion; the courageous faith, and the pure moral life of the early Christians, which led many pagan minds to accept the doctrine of Christ; and the persecution of Christianity, for, as Tertullian says: "The blood of the martyrs was the seed of the Church." The false doctrine of Mahomet, the erroneous teachings of Luther, Calvin, and earlier and later heretics have, it is true, also spread quickly far and wide; but this is not to be wondered at, for it is easy to lead people to a doctrine that encourages sensuality, and to which they are carried by their evil inclinations, as was the case with the doctrine of the impostor Mahomet, and three hundred years ago with the heresy of Luther; but to spread a doctrine which demands the subduing of the carnal, earthly inclinations, and to bend the will to the yoke of obedience to faith, something more than human eloquence is required. Thus, the Chancellor of England, Thomas More, who gave his blood for the true doctrine of Christ, wrote to Luther, who was boasting of the rapid increase of his sect: "It is easy to descend; seducing the people to a bad life is nothing more marvellous than that a heavy stone should fall of its own accord to the ground;" and Melanchton, a friend of Luther, in answer to his mother's question, whether she should remain a Catholic or receive Luther's doctrine, wrote : "In this religion it is easy to live, in the Catholic it is easy to die."
Why did Christ always speak in parables?
That His teaching by being simple might be more easily understood, and better remembered. He who is called upon to teach others, should, as did Christ, always speak to them according to their ability to understand, and by no means seek his own honor, but the honor of God, and the benefit of those who hear him.
PRAYER O most benign Jesus. How much do we give Thee thanks that Thou hast permitted us to be born in Thy holy Church, and instructed in Thy holy doctrine, which, like the mustard-seed, has grown to be a large tree, spreading over the whole earth. Grant that under the shadow of this tree, in Thy holy Church, we may ever rest securely, cling to her faithfully, and penetrated, as by leaven, with her doctrine may bring Thee pleasing fruits of faith and virtue. Amen.
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| Fifth Sunday after Epiphany |
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Posted by: Stone - 10-30-2021, 05:53 PM - Forum: Christmas
- Replies (3)
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[For the Introit of this day see the Introit in the Mass of the third Sunday after Epiphany]
On this Sunday mention is made of the practice of Christian virtues, and of God's sufferance of the wicked upon earth, that by them the just may be exercised in patience.
COLLECT Keep, we beseech Thee, O Lord, Thy household by Thy continual mercy; that as it leans only upon the hope of Thy heavenly grace, so it may ever be defended by Thy protection. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, etc.
EPISTLE (Col. III. 12-17.) Brethren, put ye on, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, the bowels of mercy, benignity, humility, modesty, patience; bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if any have a complaint against another; even as the Lord hath forgiven you, so you also. But above all these things, have charity, which is the bond of perfection: and let the peace of Christ rejoice in your hearts, wherein also you are called in one body; and be ye thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you abundantly, in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another, in psalms, hymns, and spiritual canticles, singing in grace in your hearts to God. All whatsoever you do in word or in work, all things, do ye in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, giving thanks to God and the Father through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Quote:Why does St. Paul call charity the bond of perfection?
Because charity comprises in itself and links all the virtues in which perfection consists. For whoever truly loves God and his neighbor, is also good, merciful, humble, modest, patiently bears the weakness of his neighbor, willingly forgives offences, in a word, practices all virtues for the sake of charity.
When does the peace of God rejoice in our hearts?
When we have learned to conquer our evil inclinations, passions, and desires, and have placed order and quiet in our hearts instead. This peace then, like a queen, keeps all the wishes of the soul in harmony, and causes us to enjoy constant peace with our neighbor, and thus serve Christ in concord, as the members of one body serve the head. The best means of preserving this peace are earnest attention to the word of God, mutual imparting of pious exhortations and admonitions, and by singing hymns, psalms, and spiritual canticles.
Why should we do all in the name of Jesus?
Because only then can our works have real worth in the sight of God, and be pleasing to Him, when they are performed for love of Jesus, in His honor, in accordance with His spirit and will. Therefore the apostle admonishes us to do all things, eat, drink, sleep, work &c. in the name of Jesus, and so honor God, the Heavenly Father, and show our gratitude to Him. Oh, how grieved will they be on their death-bed who have neglected to offer God their daily work by a good intention, then they will see, when too late, how deficient they are in meritorious deeds. On the contrary they will rejoice whose consciences testify, that in all their actions they had in view only the will and the honor of God! Would that this might be taken to heart especially by those who have to earn their bread with difficulty and in distress, that they might always unite their hardships and trials with the sufferings and merits of Jesus, offering them to the Heavenly Father, and thus imitating Christ who had no other motive than the will and the glory of His Heavenly Father.
ASPIRATION O God of love, of patience, and of mercy, turn our hearts to the sincere love of our neighbor, and grant, that whatever we do in thoughts, words and actions, we may do in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and through Him render thanks to Thee.
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ON CHURCH SINGING
"Admonish one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual canticles, singing in grade in your hearts to God." (Col. III. 16.)
The custom of singing in the Church-choir* has its foundation as far back as the Old Testament, when by the arrangement of David, Solomon, and Ezechias, the psalms and other sacred canticles were sung by the priests and Levites. This custom the Catholic Church has retained, according to the precepts of the apostles, (I. Cor. XIV. 26; Eph. V. 19.) and the example of Jesus who, after they had eaten the Pasch, intoned a hymn of praise with His apostles, Matt XXVI. 30) that Christians on earth, like the angels and saints in heaven, (Apoc. V. 8. 9., XIV. 3.) who unceasingly sing His praises, might at certain hours of the day, at least, give praise and thanks to God. In the earliest ages of the Church, the Christians sang hymns of praise and thanksgiving during the holy Sacrifice and other devotional services, often continuing them throughout the whole night; in which case the choir-singers probably were bound to keep the singing in proper order and agreement. In the course of time this custom of all the faithful present singing together ceased in many churches, and became confined to the choir, which was accompanied later by instruments in accordance with the words of David who calls to the praise of the Lord with trumpets, with timbrels, with pleasant psaltery and harps. (Ps, CL. 3, 4., LXXX. 3. 4.) In many churches, where the faithful still sing in concert, if done with pure hearts and true devotion, it is as St. Basil says, “a heavenly occupation, a spiritual burnt offering; it enlightens the spirit, raises it towards heaven, leads man to communion with God, makes the soul rejoice, ends idle talk, puts away laughter, reminds us of the judgment, reconciles enemies. Where the singing of songs resounds' from the contrite heart there God with the angels is present."
*The choir is usually a gallery in the Church in which the singers are stationed; the place where the clergy sing or recite their office, is also called the choir.
GOSPEL (Matt. XIII. 24-30,) At that time, Jesus spoke this parable to the multitudes: The kingdom of heaven is likened to a man that sowed good seed in his field. But while men were asleep, his enemy came, and oversowed cockle among the wheat, and went his way. And when the blade was sprung up, and had brought forth fruit, then appeared also the cockle. And the servants of the good man of the house coming, said to him: Sir, didst thou not sow good seed in thy field? whence, then, hath it cockle? And he said to them: An enemy bath done this. And the servants said to him: Wilt thou that we go and gather it up? And he said: No, lest perhaps, gathering up the cockle, you root up the wheat also together with it. Suffer both to grow until the harvest; and in the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers: Gather up first the cockle, and bind it into bundles to burn, but the wheat gather ye into my barn.
What is understood by the kingdom of heaven ?
The Church of God, or the collection of all orthodox Christians on earth, destined for heaven.
What is meant by the good seed, and by the cockle?
The good seed, as Christ Himself says, (Matt. XIII. 38.) signifies the children of the kingdom, that is, the true Christians, the living members of the Church, who being converted by the word of God sown into their hearts become children of God, and bring forth the fruit of good works. The cockle means the children of iniquity, of the devil, that is, those who do evil; also every wrong, false doctrine which leads men to evil.
Who sows the good seed, and by the cockle?
The good seed is sown by Jesus, the Son of Man not only directly, but through His apostles, and the priests, their successors; the evil seed is sown by the devil, or by wicked men whom he uses as his tools.
Who are the men who were asleep?
Those superiors in the Church; those bishops and pastors who take no care of their flock, and do not warn them against seduction, when the devil comes and by wicked men sows the cockle of erroneous doctrine and of crime; and those men who are careless and neglect to hear the word of God and the sacrifice of the Mass, who neglect to pray, and do not receive the Sacraments. In the souls of such the devil sows the seeds of bad thoughts, evil imaginations and desires, from which spring, later, the cockle of pride, impurity, anger, envy, avarice, etc.
Why does not God allow the cockle, that is, the wicked people, to be rooted out and destroyed?
Because of His patience and long suffering towards the sinner to whom He gives time for repentance, and because of His love for the just from whom He would not, by weeding out the unjust, take away the occasion of practicing virtue and gathering up merits for themselves; for because of the unjust, the just have numerous opportunities to exercise patience, humility, etc.
When is the time of the harvest?
The day of the last judgment when the reapers, that is, the angels, will go out and separate the wicked from the just, and throw the wicked into the fiery furnace; while the just will be taken into everlasting joy. (Matt. XIII. 29.)
PRAYER O faithful Jesus, Thou great lover of our souls, who hast sown the good seed of Thy Divine Word in our hearts, grant that it may be productive, and bear in us fruit for eternal life; protect us from our evil enemy, that he may not sow his erroneous and false doctrine in our hearts, and corrupt the good; preserve us from the sleep of sin, and sloth that we may remain always vigilant and armed against the temptations of the world, the flesh, and the devil, overcome them manfully, and die a happy death. Amen.
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ON INCLINATION TO EVIL
Whence then hath it cockle? (Matt. XIII. 27.)
Whence comes the inclination to evil in man?
It is the sad consequence of original sin, that is, of that sin which our first parents, by their disobedience, committed in paradise, and which we as their descendants have inherited. This inclination to evil remains even in those who have been baptized, although original sin with its guilt and eternal punishment is taken away in baptism, but it is no sin so long as man does not voluntarily yield. (Cat. Rom. Part. II. 2. .43.)
Why, the sin being removed, does the inclination remain?
To humble us that we may know our frailty and misery, and have recourse to God, our best and most powerful Father, as did St. Paul, when he was much annoyed by the devil of the flesh; (II. Cor. XII. 7. 8.) that the glory of God and the power of Christ should be manifested in us, which except for our weakness could not be; that we might have occasion to fight and to conquer. A soldier cannot battle without opposition, nor win victory and the crown without a contest. Nor can we win the heavenly crown, if no occasion is given us, by temptations, for fight and for victory. "That which tries the combatant," says St. Bernard, "crowns the conqueror." Finally, the inclination remains, that we may learn to endure, in all meekness, the faults and infirmities of others and to watch ourselves, lest we fall into the same temptations.
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| Fourth Sunday after Epiphany |
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Posted by: Stone - 10-30-2021, 05:48 PM - Forum: Christmas
- Replies (4)
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[The Introit of the Mass as on the preceding Sunday.]
COLLECT O God, who knowest us to be set in the midst of so great perils, that because of the frailty of our nature we cannot stand; grant to us health of mind and body, that those things which we suffer for our sins, we may by Thy aid overcome. Through the same Jesus Christ, our Lord &c.
EPISTLE (Romans XIII. 8-10.) Brethren, owe no man anything, but to love one another; for he that loveth his neighbor hath fulfilled the law. For thou shaft not commit adultery; thou shaft not kill; thou shaft not steal; thou shaft not bear false witness; thou shaft not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is comprised in this word: Thou shaft love thy neighbor as thyself. The love of our neighbor worketh no evil. Love, therefore, is the fulfilling of the law.
Quote:What is meant by St Paul's words: He that loveth his neighbor, hath fulfilled the law?
St. Augustine in reference to these words says: that he who loves his neighbor, fulfils as well the precepts of the first as of the second tablet of the law. The reason is, that the love of our neighbor contains and presupposes the love of God as its fountain and foundation. The neighbor must be loved on account of God; for the neighbor cannot be loved with true love, if we do not first love God. On this account, the holy Evangelist St. John in his old age, always gave the exhortation: Little children, love one another. And when asked why, he answered: Because it is the command of the Lord, and it is enough to fulfill it. Therefore in this love of the neighbor which comes from the love of God and is contained in it, consists the fulfillment of the whole law. (Matt. XXII. 40.)
GOSPEL (Matt. VIII 23-27) At that time, when Jesus entered into the boat, his disciples followed him. And behold, a great tempest arose in the sea, so that the boat was covered with waves; but he was asleep. And they came to him and awaked him, saying: Lord, save us, we perish. And Jesus saith to them Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith? Then rising up, he commanded the winds and the sea, and there came a great calm. But the men wondered, saying: What manner of man is this, for the winds and the sea obey him?
Why did Christ sleep in the boat?
To test the faith and confidence of His disciples; to exercise them in enduring the persecutions which they were afterwards to endure; to teach us that we should not waver in the storms of temptations. St. Augustine writes: "Christ slept, and because of the danger the disciples were confused. Why? Because Christ slept. In like manner thy heart becomes confused, thy ship unquiet, when the waves of temptation break over it. Why? Because thy faith sleeps. Then thou shouldst awaken Christ in thy heart; then thy faith should be awakened, thy conscience quieted, thy ship calmed."
Why did Christ reproach His disciples when they awaked Him and asked for help?
Because of their little faith and trust; for if they firmly believed Him to be true God, they would necessarily believe He could aid them sleeping as well as waking.
Nothing so displeases God as to doubt His powerful assistance. Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh (mortal man) his arm (aid), and whose heart departeth from the Lord. Blessed be the man that trusteth in the Lord, and the Lord shall be his confidence. (Jerem. XVII. 5. 7.) God sometimes permits storms to assail us, such as poverty, persecution, sickness, so that we may have occasion to put our confidence in Him alone. Of this St. Bernard very beautifully says: "When the world rages, when the wicked become furious, when the flesh turns against the spirit, I will hope in Him. Who ever trusted in Him, and was put to shame?" We should therefore trust in God only, and take refuge to Him, invoking Him as did the disciples: Lord, save us, we perish; or cry out with David: Arise, why sleepest thou, O Lord? Arise, and cast us not off to the end. (Ps. XLIII. 23.)
Why did Jesus stand up and command the sea to be still?
To show His readiness to aid us, and His omnipotence to which all things are subject. His disciples who saw this miracle, wondered and said: What manner of man is this, for the winds and the sea obey Him?
We see daily in all creatures the wonders of the Omnipotence, the wisdom, and the goodness of God, and yet we are not touched; we continue cold and indifferent. The reason is, that we look upon all with the eyes of the body and not with the eyes of the soul; that is, we do not seek to ascend by meditation to the Creator, and to judge from the manifold beauty and usefulness of created things the goodness and the wisdom of God. The saints rejoiced in all the works of the Lord; a flower, a little worm of the earth would move the heart of St. Francis of Sales, and St. Francis the Seraph, to wonderment and to the love of God; they ascended, as on a ladder, from the contemplation of creatures to Him who gives to every thing life, motion, and existence. If we were to follow their example, we would certainly love God more, and more ardently desire Him; if we do not, we live like irrational men, we who were created only to know and to love God.
ASPIRATION Grant us, O good Jesus! in all our needs, a great confidence in Thy divine assistance, and do not allow us to become faint-hearted; let Thy assistance come to us in the many dangers to which we are exposed; command the turbulent winds and waves of persecution to be still, and give peace and calmness to Thy Church, which Thou hast redeemed with Thy precious blood, that we may serve Thee in sanctity and justice, and arrive safely at the desired haven of eternal happiness. Amen.
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ON THE PROVIDENCE OF GOD
But he was asleep. (Matt VIII. 24.)
It is an article of faith in the holy Catholic Church that God has not only created the world, but that He sustains and governs it; this preservation and ruling of the whole world and of each individual creature is called Providence. There are people who think that God is too great a Lord to busy Himself about the care of this world, that to do so is beneath His majesty; it was enough for Him to create the world, for the rest, He leaves it to itself or to fate, enjoys His own happiness, and, as it were, sleeps in regard to us. Thus think some, but only the ignorant and impious. Were He as these imagine Him, He would not or could not have aught to do with creation. If He could not, then He is neither all-wise nor almighty, if He would not, then He is not good; and if He knows nothing of the world, then He is not omniscient.
If we once believe that God created the world, (and what rational man can doubt it?) then we must also believe He rules and sustains it. Can any work of art, however well constructed and arranged, subsist without some one to take charge of and watch aver the same? Would not the greatest of all master-pieces, the world, therefore come to the greatest confusion and fall back into its original nothingness, if God, who created it from nothing, did not take care of its further order and existence? It is indeed true that the method of Divine Providence with which God controls all things is so mysterious that, when considering some events, one is persuaded to admit a necessary fate, an accident, the course of nature, the ill will of the devil or man, as the fundamental cause. Yet in all this the providence of God is not denied, for nothing does or can happen accidentally, not the smallest thing occurs without the knowledge, permission, or direction of God. Not one sparrow shall fall on the ground without your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. (Matt. X. 29. 30.) Chance, fate, and luck are but the ideas of insane or wicked men, which even the more rational heathens have rejected, and the course of nature is but the constant, uninterrupted, all-wise and bountiful preservation and government of creation through God. The perverted will of men or of the devil is but the instrument which God in His all-wise intention, uses to effect the good, for He knows how to produce good from evil, and, therefore, as St. Augustine says, "permits the evil that the good may not be left undone." If we peruse the history of our first parents, of Abraham, of Joseph in Egypt, of Moses, of the people of Israel, of Job, Ruth, David, Tobias, Esther, Judith and others, we will easily see everywhere the plainest signs of the wisest Providence, the best and most careful, absolute power, by virtue of which God knows how to direct all things according to His desire, and for the good of His chosen ones. The gospel of this day furnishes us an instance of this? Why did Christ go into the boat? Why did a storm arise? Why was He asleep? Did all this occur by accident? No, it came about designedly by the ordinance of Christ that His omnipotence might be seen, and the faith and confidence of His disciples be strengthened.
Thus it is certain that God foresees, directs, and governs all; as Scripture, reason, and daily experience prove. Would we but pay more attention to many events of our lives, we would certainly notice the providence of God, and give ourselves up to His guidance and dispensations. The Lord ruleth me, and I shall want nothing, says David. (Ps. XXII. 1.) And we also, we shall want nothing if we resign ourselves to God's will, and are contented with His dispensations in our regard; while, on the contrary, if we oppose His will, we shall fall into misfortune and error. God must rule over us with goodness, or with sternness, He is no slumbering God. Behold! He shall neither slumber nor sleep, that keepeth Israel. (Ps. CXX. 4.)
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| Marco Tosatti: The Pope’s Iron Fist on the Order of Malta. A Total Police State. |
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Posted by: Stone - 10-30-2021, 08:35 AM - Forum: Pope Francis
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The Pope’s Iron Fist on the Order of Malta. A Total Police State.
Dear readers of Stilum Curiae, in the past few days something particularly important has occurred in the saga of the Order of Malta. The reigning Pontiff has issued this document, with which, in practice, he entrusts the oversight of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta entirely to Cardinal Tomasi, a prelate of the diplomatic service. Here is the text, and then a comment:
***
LETTER OF THE HOLY FATHER FRANCIS
TO THE SPECIAL DELEGATE TO THE SOVEREIGN MILITARY
HOSPITALLER ORDEROF SAINT JOHN OF JERUSALEM,
OF RHODES AND OF MALTA (S.M.O.M.)
To His Most Reverend Eminence
Cardinal Silvano Maria TOMASI
Special Delegate to
the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order
of Saint John of Jerusalem, Rhodes and Malta
Dear Brother,
On 1 November 2020, you were appointed by me as my special delegate to the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes and of Malta (S.M.O.M.). I noted, with gratitude, the positive steps taken in the spiritual and moral renewal of the Order, especially of the professed members, as well as in the process of updating the Constitutional Charter and the Order’s Code of Malta, the latter being of fundamental importance not only in view of the forthcoming Extraordinary Chapter General, but especially for the renewal of the Order.
Having taken note of what has been done in consultation with the professed members, the Sovereign Council, the Procurators, Regents and Presidents, so that the work already undertaken may bear fruit, it is important that the Extraordinary General Chapter be celebrated in conditions that will ensure the necessary renewal in the life of the Order.
In light of this, I have therefore decided to extend, from this moment, Fra’ Marco Luzzago’s term of office as Lieutenant Grand Master, until the conclusion of the Extraordinary General Chapter and the subsequent election of a new Grand Master by the Council of State.
In order to be able to continue this important work of renewal, as my special delegate you have all the powers necessary to decide any questions that may arise in the implementation of the mandate entrusted to you. As my special delegate, you have the power to take upon yourself aspects of the ordinary government of the Order, even derogating, if necessary, from the current Constitutional Charter and the current Codex Melitense, as well as to resolve all internal conflicts within the Order ex auctoritate Summi Pontificis.
Furthermore, in view of the forthcoming Extraordinary General Chapter, in order to address any problems that may arise, I also expressly grant you the following powers
– to convoke the Extraordinary General Chapter for a date that you will determine, and to co-chair it;
– to define ad hoc regulations for the composition and celebration of the Extraordinary General Chapter;
– to approve the Constitutional Charter and the Codex Melitense;
– to proceed with the renewal of the Sovereign Council in accordance with the new regulatory texts;
– to convene the full Council of State for the election of a new Grand Master.
I encourage and support the Order of Saint John in the many works of charity it carries out through the commendable work of its members and volunteers in various parts of the world, faithful to the Order’s aims: the “tuitio fidei” (the defence of the faith) and the “Obsequium pauperum” (service to the poor, the sick and the weak).
I have no doubt that the entire Order, at every level, will willingly collaborate with you in a spirit of authentic obedience and respect.
While I thank you for your availability, I assure you of my prayers and cordially impart the Apostolic Blessing to Your Eminence, which I gladly extend to all the members and volunteers of the Order of Malta.
Vatican City, 25 October 2021
FRANCIS
§§
In effect, this establishes a total commissioner authority over the activities of the Order, entrusted to the Delegate. According to what we are told from the inside, the key to this extraordinary provision (absolutely unheard of in the history of an institution that is certainly linked to the Pope but that has always remained independent, as its title “Sovereign” indicates) would be in the attitude that is not always respectful towards the Delegate of the German party – the one that provoked the decapitation of the Grand Master Matthew Festing – perhaps convinced that it could lead the political and economic schemings of the order without having to render an account to anyone. The most recent instance, which took place in the last few weeks, would have driven Cardinal Tomasi to go to the Pontiff (they say that Father Ghirlanda, S.J., was also present, who is the Pontiff’s trusted expert for canonical and institutional problems) in order to make him aware of the situation and the need for a radical intervention – which has taken the form of the statement you have just read.
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