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| Hydrogel Biosensor: Implantable Nanotech? |
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Posted by: Stone - 10-24-2021, 08:34 AM - Forum: Health
- No Replies
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Hydrogel Biosensor: Implantable Nanotech?
![[Image: hydrogel-biosensor.jpg?resize=550%2C252&ssl=1]](https://i2.wp.com/principia-scientific.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/hydrogel-biosensor.jpg?resize=550%2C252&ssl=1)
Principia Scientific | May 17, 2021
An implantable hydrogel biosensor, made via a DARPA-Gates funded Silicon Valley company, appears to be slated to be used in the upcoming COVID vaccine.
The US Department of Defense and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have partnered with Profusa, a Silicon Valley company, to develop a piece of nanotechnology made out of hydrogel (similar to a soft contact lens) that can be injected and implanted under the skin using a vaccine as a delivery system. This sensor (or more accurately a biosensor), less than the size of a grain of rice, would effectively merge with the body.
As a piece of nanotech, it would link up with the wireless network (the 5G-driven IoT or Internet of Things) and it would both transmit information about you and your body to authorities, as well as receive information. This article from Defense One was already reporting in March 2020 that the biosensor was on track to get FDA approval in early 2021, which is around the same time we have been told to expect the rollout of the COVID vaccine.
2-Part Hydrogel Biosensor Would Emit Various Signals
The DefenseOne article outlines the properties and capacities of the hydrogel biosensor:
Quote:“The sensor has two parts. One is a 3mm string of hydrogel, a material whose network of polymer chains is used in some contact lenses and other implants. Inserted under the skin with a syringe, the string includes a specially engineered molecule that sends a fluorescent signal outside of the body when the body begins to fight an infection.
The other part is an electronic component attached to the skin. It sends light through the skin, detects the fluorescent signal and generates another signal that the wearer can send to a doctor, website, etc. It’s like a blood lab on the skin that can pick up the body’s response to illness before the presence of other symptoms, like coughing.”
Profusa is another of these Silicon Valley companies with ties to the US Military Industrial Complex. It boasts on its website that it “is pioneering tissue-integrating biosensors for continuous monitoring of body chemistries.” Whether it’s Big Tech companies Google, Facebook or Twitter, or smaller players like Profusa, the Military and Silicon Valley are joined at the hip and form an important part of the NWO (New World Order).
DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), the agency tasked with dreaming up exotic new lethal technologies to enslave and kill more and more people, threw some money at Profusa in 2011, and continues to work closely with them. Profusa is also tied to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which is not surprising, since eugenicist and depopulation advocate Gates has been almost single-handedly orchestrating this fake pandemic.
You may recall that Gates funded the Imperial College in London whose ridiculous and ill-advised models forecast doom that never even got close to eventuating. According to this article, Profusa is currently conducting a study in collaboration the Imperial College. Profusa’s website states:
Quote:“Rather than being isolated from the body, the biosensors work fully integrated within the body’s tissue — without any metal device or electronics, thereby overcoming the body’s attempts to reject it. To date, the injected biosensors have functioned for as long as four years.
Smaller than a grain of rice, each biosensor is a flexible fiber about 5 mm long and half a millimeter wide, comprised of a porous scaffold that induces capillary and cellular ingrowth from surrounding tissue. The hydrogel is linked to light-emitting fluorescent molecules that continuously signal in proportion to the concentration of a body chemical, such as oxygen, glucose, or other biomolecule of interest.”
Hacking The Human Body With Foreign Synthetic Nanotech Objects
Profusa wants to know your entire body chemistry – your oxygen levels, your glucose levels, your hormone levels, your heart rate, your respiratory rate, your body temperature, with the (unstated) capability of expanding into areas of knowing your menstrual cycle (if you are a woman), your sex life, your emotions and more – and then wants to transmit all that information to some kind of medical authority, although of course it is patently obvious this data would end up in the hands of the NWO conspirators who would use it to manipulate the masses.
Profusa put out this press release Injectable Body Sensors Take Personal Chemistry to a Cell Phone Closer to Reality in 2018. They are perfecting the art of hacking the human body, fooling it into accepting synthetic materials and objects disguised so they won’t be recognized as foreign:
Quote:“Conventional sensors, such as those found in continuous glucose monitors, have a sensing electrode wire that penetrates the skin to measure a target chemical in the fluid that surrounds cells. But because the body “sees” the electrode as foreign material, it needs to be removed and replaced within several days at a different location to avoid the effects of inflammation and scar tissue that eventually prevents the electrode from functioning accurately.
The team at Profusa is developing a family of tiny biosensors composed of a tissue-like hydrogel, similar to a soft contact lens, that are painlessly placed under the skin with a single injection. Rather than being isolated from the body, the biosensors work fully integrated within the body’s tissue — without any metal device or electronics, thereby overcoming the body’s attempts to reject it.”
This is more evidence we are hurtling headlong via The Synthetic Agenda towards a future of Transhumanism, where man is merged with machine to create Human 2.0.
This modified human is planned to be made of synthetic metallic and plastic-like parts; the sales pitch is that we will be augmented and enhanced, however the truth is we will be destroying what makes us human. This recent article reported that the American Chemical Society (ACS) is getting closer to integrating electronics in the body:
Quote:“Traditional microelectronic materials, such as silicon, gold, stainless steel and iridium, cause scarring when implanted. For applications in muscle or brain tissue, electrical signals need to flow for them to operate properly, but scars interrupt this activity … “We started looking at organic electronic materials like conjugated polymers that were being used in non-biological devices,” says Martin, who is at the University of Delaware. “We found a chemically stable example that was sold commercially as an antistatic coating for electronic displays.”
After testing, the researchers found that the polymer had the properties necessary for interfacing hardware and human tissue … So far, the team has made a polymer with dopamine, which plays a role in addictive behaviours, as well as dopamine-functionalised variants of the EDOT monomer. Martin says these biological-synthetic hybrid materials might someday be useful in merging artificial intelligence with the human brain.
Ultimately, Martin says, his dream is to be able to tailor how these materials deposit on a surface and then to put them in tissue in a living organism. “The ability to do the polymerization in a controlled way inside a living organism would be fascinating.”“
This Hydrogel Biosensor Implant Scheme Would Only Work If The NWO Controllers Gain Access To Everyone’s Bloodstream
From the NWO point of view, for this scheme to succeed on a worldwide scale, they would need to gain access to every person’s bloodstream, which they could do if mandatory vaccination laws continue to be rolled out, as is already happening or being talked about in many nations, states and regions around the world. Massachusetts just passed a law mandating flu shot vaccines for schoolchildren; the Australian PM is talking about mandatory vaccination; however on the other side, states like South Dakota have introduced bills to ban mandatory vaccinations for schools.
This will be the real battleground in the months ahead as Operation Warp Speed and other schemes are pushed to the hilt, with a desperate NWO trying to continue the charade of a pandemic in time for them to roll out their rushed and untested COVID vaccine – a new type of RNA vaccine with the capability to modify your genetics (RNA and DNA), and most likely the capability to implant you with a nanotech hydrogel biosensor. With Gates one of the funders of this technology, it shows his excuses are very weak when he says that he’s not trying to microchip humanity.
Sources:
http://tapnewswire.com/2020/08/fda-nears...computers/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBeqn0962nk
https://www.defenseone.com/technology/20...on/163497/
https://profusa.com/
https://thefreedomarticles.com/pentagon-...ywood-msm/
https://thefreedomarticles.com/bill-gate...accinated/
https://www.mddionline.com/implants/earl...ng-studied
https://profusa.com/injectable-body-sens...o-reality/
https://thefreedomarticles.com/synthetic...rld-order/
https://www.openaccessgovernment.org/ele...ody/92569/
https://blog.tenthamendmentcenter.com/20...narrative/
See more here: stateofthenation.co
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| La Conquistadora, Our Lady of the Rosary - America's Oldest Madonna |
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Posted by: Stone - 10-24-2021, 07:41 AM - Forum: Our Lady
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La Conquistadora - Our Country's Oldest Madonna
Taken from here.
![[Image: A008-1_Conquistadora.jpg]](https://www.traditioninaction.org/religious/religiousimages/A008-1_Conquistadora.jpg)
La Conquistadora – America’s oldest Madonna brought by Fray Alonzo Benavidez to the Royal Villa of Santa Fe in 1624
The oldest statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the United States to whom a constant public devotion has been maintained is a yard-high, wood-carved statue in the Cathedral of Santa Fe in New Mexico. She is called “Our Lady of the Rosary, [i]La Conquistadora[/i],” a notable title with much significance for our own times.
Why is so little known of this image and the first shrine in the present United States to honor Mary, who was later to become the patroness of the entire nation?
The answer perhaps lies in the fact that it was the English who became the almost exclusive recorders of the history of the United States. The history books in both the Catholic and secular schools of the 20th century begin the “story” with the Mayflower, the Pilgrims, and early New England settlements. We have, one might say, a Protestant version of the colonization of America. Until recently it was tantamount to historical heresy to claim that American history began, in depth, prior to 1607.
It was only many years after my primary school history classes that I learned about the Catholic past of a colonial America in the South and Southwest. In New Mexico, for example, seven years before there was a Jamestown, the Spaniards had founded Santa Fe. Almost 75 years before the landing of the Mayflower, Fray Marcos de Niza first saw New Mexico and reported on the rich possibilities to be found there. All the early expeditions into the “New Kingdom of St. Francis,” which would later be New Mexico, included Franciscan missionaries, many of whom stayed behind to spread the Faith to the Indians and were martyred.
I am sure the future will see the writing of an American Catholic history book that duly recognizes its Spanish and Catholic roots. And in that history, there will surely be a place for the story I will tell here. For, from the beginning of the Spanish presence on North American soil, the benevolent presence of Our Lady has been manifest.
New Lands and New Titles
The majestic delicately featured statue was carved from willow in Spain sometime in the early 1600s and was given her first name, Our Lady of the Assumption. Originally, her wooden garment was painted crimson and covered with gold leaf in arabesque designs, the costume of a Moorish princess. When the statue made her journey to New Spain is not documented. What the records do show is that she arrived with a group of colonists in Santa Fe in 1625 in the care of a Franciscan missionary, Fray Alonso da Venevides. In the greatest pomp and ceremony he could muster in the primitive colony, he installed the statue in the Church of the Assumption, the first shrine in the U.S. to specifically honor Mary.
![[Image: A008-2_Conquistadora_close-up2.jpg]](https://www.traditioninaction.org/religious/religiousimages/A008-2_Conquistadora_close-up2.jpg)
The expression of La Conquistadora is serious and somewhat sad, remindful of the gaze of the image of Our Lady of Fatima.
The statue is also titled Our Lady of the Rosary
Since a Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception already existed in Santa Fe, it was not long before the image organically assumed a second title: Our Lady of the Conception. The dogma of the Immaculate Conception had been promulgated for the Spanish kingdoms in 1617, and there was great enthusiasm for this invocation. Many of the Spanish Franciscans, including those in New Mexico, were wearing blue, rather than gray or brown, habits to commemorate the new honor shown Our Lady.
All that was needed for the transformation was to add a silver crescent moon to the pedestal, and this was done. At the same time, the confraternity in Santa Fe determined to adopt the Spanish style of the time of dressing sacred images in real clothes. The body was pared of much of its form, movable arms attached, and Our Lady dressed in a rich silk dress, brocade mantle and jeweled crown. Inventories through history list Castilian mantillas, lavish damask and gold lamé gowns and mantles, and even tiny Parisian lace handkerchiefs and ruby earrings.
It was in these early days that the statue adopted a third title as well, Our Lady of the Rosary. The constant attacks from roving tribes and unconverted Pueblos caused the Spanish colonists to turn to their most trusted weapon in times of danger: the Rosary. Still fresh in the minds of Catholics was the memory of the victory of the Spanish fleet at Lepanto in 1571, when the Confraternity of the Rosary in Rome went through the streets praying for victory over the Saracens who threatened to overrun Christian Europe.
Facing the growing boldness of the Indians, the first colonists of the Villa of Santa Fe turned with fervor to the Rosary. Our Lady had already sent a warning by means of 10-year-old girl, who had recovered instantaneously from a violent illness. In a vision, Our Lady had told her that the colony would suffer a chastisement and be destroyed because of the lack of reverence it had for her priests and the holy Religion.
On August 12, 1680, the feast of St. Lawrence, the first Spanish martyr, the Indians joined together to make a well-planned attack. They killed 21 Padres on that day, burned the city and drove out the Spanish colonists. Because of the prayers and sincere effort to heed the warning of Our Lady, most of the colonists escaped with their lives. Miraculously, Our Lady of the Rosary was rescued from the blazing remains of the Church, and she joined the refugees in their flight to safety to what is today Juarez, Mexico, awaiting a champion who would risk a return.
La Conquistadora Reoccupies Her City: A bloodless Reconquest
La Conquistadora waited twelve years for that champion. In 1691, Don Diego de Vargas was sent from Spain by the King to organize a campaign for the resettlement of Santa Fe. Like his noble conquistador forebears, Don Diego de Vargas was fearlessly intrepid and sincerely pious. The Catholic history of the New World is filled with the feats of such heroes, men forceful of character and mind who aspired to greatness of soul and deed. (2) Deeply devoted to the Virgin Mary, Don Diego de Vargas took on the difficult mission and vowed to return La Conquistadora to her rightful throne as Patroness and Protectress of the Kingdom and Villa of Santa Fe.
In his remarkable re-entry without bloodshed into Santa Fe that made him famous throughout Old and New Spain, Don Diego led an army of the Reconquest under the banner of Our Lady. All along the trail, he undertook to meet with the Indian chieftains and won them over by the force of his personality and presence. Displaying Our Lady on the royal standard he carried, he told them that both Indians and Spaniards could now live in peace together under so tender a Mother who loved them all alike.
Within four months, 23 pueblos of 10 Indian nations had been conquered and 2,000 Indians converted without the loss of a single life. In his long report to the viceroy one month after his triumphant entry into Santa Fe in 1692, Don Diego de Vargas gave the credit for the bloodless conquest to “the Sovereign Queen, Most Blessed Mary.”
“Now it is my wish,” he continued, “that the church should be built, first and foremost, and that in it before all else the patroness of the said kingdom and villa should be set up .... her title being La Conquistadora, Our Lady of the Conquest.” (3)
The statue had taken on its final and most enduring title, devoutly bestowed by Our Lady’s champion Don Diego de Vargas.
Our Lady of the Rosary Intercedes Again
The group of close to 800 colonists encamped in a sheltered area outside the city, while Vargas led his troops into Santa Fe for the peaceful takeover. The tribe of Pueblo Indians, however, began to prevaricate. Supporting tribes joined them to assist them in their resistance. There was no recourse but battle for Don Diego and his vastly outnumbered Spaniards, who were short on both food and water and poorly sheltered in the bitter midwinter cold. The odds favored the Pueblos.
In the civilian campsite outside the city, a makeshift shrine was erected for La Conquistadora, and fervent prayers for victory were made, Before the battle, Don Vargas knelt at the head of his companies of soldiers lined up in front of the improvised shrine and altar while all recited the Act of Contrition in a loud voice. The order for assault was given, the battle began, and the people continued praying the Rosary before the statue of their Queen.
Throughout the morning and afternoon, the repeated Spanish attacks proved futile. Night fell and Santa Fe remained in Indian hands. Then, in an unexpected surprise attack before daybreak, the tide turned and the Spanish cavalry prevailed. The colonists reclaimed their “Villa of the Holy Faith,” with Don Vargas and the people crediting the outcome to the intercession of La Conquistadora. To acknowledge her benevolent generalship Don Vargas placed a small military officer’s baton in her right hand.
Promises Fulfilled
Although Don Vargas had vowed to create a suitable “throne” for his Lady after her return, it was not until 13 years after his death in 1704 that the promise was realized. In 1717, the original adobe foundation of the first Church of the Assumption became the site for a larger church dedicated to St. Francis, which would later become the present day Cathedral of St. Francis. La Conquistadora left her makeshift chapel and was enthroned in the special Lady Chapel, where she can be venerated to this day.
![[Image: A008-4_sfc_b-w.jpg]](https://www.traditioninaction.org/religious/religiousimages/A008-4_sfc_b-w.jpg)
The first mission church of the Assumption was the site where St. Francis Cathedral stands today. Its Lady Chapel enshrines La Conquistadora
Another desire of Don Vargas was carried out eight years after his death by one of his Captains, Lt. Gov. Paez Hurtado, who influenced city officials to draft a proclamation for an annual celebration commemorating the peaceful 1692 resettlement. The 1712 proclamation established the first Fiesta de Santa Fe, to be celebrated by the whole city with a Mass, vespers, and a sermon. It was not long before the people began to take the statue out in procession from its Chapel in the Church of St. Francis to the site outside the city where the colonists had encamped before moving into Santa Fe. There under a ramada, or shrine of boughs, La Conquistadora was enthroned for nine days in June, with a Mass said every day during the novena. Another procession brought the image back home to the St. Francis Church until the following year.
Today, enshrined in the Lady’s Chapel of the Cathedral of St. Francis, she is still cherished and feted at an annual festival by the people of the city and region. A procession still carries her to the old campsite, where today stands a chapel known as the Rosario, built in 1806 to replace the temporary shelter of cottonwood and juniper branches erected annually for her novena.
A Papal Coronation
With the passing of time, devotion to the Queen and Patroness of the Royal City of Santa Fe has never ceased. Small groups of pilgrims filter in an out to venerate the country’s oldest Madonna. In 1954 Our Lady of the Rosary: La Conquistadora was crowned by Cardinal Francis Spellman and in 1960 she received a Papal Coronation during ceremonies honoring the 350th anniversary of the founding of Santa Fe. Her golden crown is studded with precious stones, and her wardrobe has become rich and extensive, with new items constantly being presented by faithful devotees.
These honors, so admirable and so appropriate, were nonetheless little known and celebrated by Catholics in America. One can only wonder what were the first designs of Our Lady for this country? She came first to U.S. soil as La Conquistadora, and through her intercession an important battle was won for Catholic New Spain. How would it have been had the country been truly conquered for Our Lord Jesus Christ and governed under the banners of the Queen of Heaven? Perhaps God will raise up champions devoted to Mary and faithful to the Holy Church still yet in the future who will seek to reinstall the Kingship of Christ through Mary.
1. It was the groundbreaking work on the “Spanish Borderlands” by Herbert Eugene Bolton in the 1920s and ’30s that opened the door to a broader approach to American history, one which was not simply Anglo-oriented or limited to the study of the 13 colonies to which 37 states were added in time. Bolton’s textbook The Colonization of North America 1492-1783 almost never saw light because it so upset the status quo history-telling of the United States: one-third of the whole is devoted to the Spanish period of settlements, missions, and colonization that took place before 1606, that is, before there were any permanent English settlements in America. Bolton and the Spanish Borderlands, ed. by John Francis Bannon (Norman: Un. of Oklahoma Press, 1968), p. 11.
2. The new history wants to discredit those individuals who have traditionally been identified as the heroes or “great men” of history, and to replace them by the “common man” or “ordinary people: It is not only elitist individuals who are disparaged and displaced, but also the great themes and events of history in which individuals necessarily figure preeminently. Included in this, naturally, are the epic theme of Discovery and the heroic Missionary movement. Gertrude Himmelfarb, “Of Heroes, Villains and Valets” in On Looking in the Abyss (New York: Alfred A Knoff, 1994).
3. Fray Angelico Chavez, La Conquistadora, The Autobiography of an Ancient Statue (Santa Fe: Sunstone Press, n.d.), p. 54.
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| Prayers Honoring St. Raphael |
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Posted by: Stone - 10-24-2021, 07:33 AM - Forum: Prayers and Devotionals
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Prayers to St. Raphael the Archangel
![[Image: ?u=https%3A%2F%2Fi.pinimg.com%2Foriginal...f=1&nofb=1]](https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fi.pinimg.com%2Foriginals%2F5d%2F8e%2F95%2F5d8e95857921d731eae1600457df1a8b.jpg&f=1&nofb=1)
O God, Who gave Blessed Raphael the Archangel to Tobias as his traveling companion, grant to us thy servants that we also may be guarded by his care and receive the protection of his assistance. Through Our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
- Roman Breviary
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Glorious Archangel, St. Raphael, great prince of the heavenly court, illustrious by thy gifts of wisdom and grace, guide of travelers by land and sea, consoler of the unfortunate and refuge of sinners, I entreat thee to help me in all my needs and in all the trials of this life, as thou didst once assist the young Tobias in his journeying. And since thou art the "physician of God," I humbly pray thee to heal my soul of its many infirmities and my body of the ills that afflict it, if this favor is for my greater good. I ask, especially, for angelic purity, that I may be made fit to be the living temple of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
- (Indulgence of 100 days.----Leo XIII., June 21, 1890)
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Hymn to St. Raphael
And Raphael! of the glorious seven who stand
Before the throne of Him Who lives and reigns;
Angel of health! the Lord hath filled thy hand
With balm from heaven to soothe or cure our pains,
Heal or console the victim of disease,
And guide our steps when doubtful of our ways.
Ant. O holy angles, our guardians, defend us in the combat, that we perish not in the dreadful judgment.
V. In the sight of Thy angels I will sing to thee, my God.
R. I will adore at Thy holy temple, and confess to Thy name.
✠ ✠ ✠
Hymn from the Liturgical Year, 1903
O Raphael, divinely sent guide, graciously receive the hymn we suppliants address to thee with joyful voice.
Make straight for us the way of salvation, and forward our steps: lest at any time we wander astray, and turn from the path to heaven.
Look down upon us from on high; reflect into our souls the splendour shining from above, from the holy Father of lights.
Give perfect health to the sick, dispel the darkness of the blind: and while driving away diseases of the body, give spiritual strength to our souls.
Thou who standest before the Sovereign Judge, plead for the pardon of our crimes: and as a trusty advocate appease the avenging wrath of the Most High.
Renewer of the great battle, crush our proud enemy: against the rebel spirits give us strength, and increase our grace.
To God the Father be glory, and to his only Son, together with the Paraclete Spirit, now and for evermore. Amen.
✠ ✠ ✠
Meditations
St. Raphael, the third of the chieftains of the Heaven Host, receives from God a power to heal all sickness and infirmity, and repair the ravages that are wrought by sin. His very name indicates his office: The Healing of God. As God sometimes allows Satan to spread disease among men, as in the case of holy Job, so He employs St. Raphael to avert sickness and restore health. Hence he is our model in the privilege that God grants to all, of helping to alleviate misery, and bind up and cure the wounds of men. Do I heal the ills of those around me? Do I not too often aggravate them?
It was St. Raphael who was sent to keep the young Tobias safe from dangers of body and soul during his journey to seek for a wife among his kindred, and to furnish him with means to bring to nought the attempt of the devil to destroy him; to cure his aged father of his blindness, and to leave peace and happiness behind him. God often sends an Angel to keep us safe, though we too often scarce recognize our need of it, and make little account of our heavenly protector.
It is generally believed to have been St. Raphael who was sent to impart to the Pool of Bethsaida this power to heal him, who first bathed in it after the Angel's visit (St. John V. 4.) We little know how often God employs angelic agency in our behalf. Men often attribute to natural causes what is done by angelic hands. Remember their agency, and thank God for their aid.
✠ ✠ ✠
Additional Prayer to St. Raphael
O heavenly physician and faithful companion, St. Raphael, who didst restore sight to the elder Tobias, and guide the younger in his long journey and preserve him in safety ; be thou the physician of my soul and body, disperse the dark clouds of ignorance, defend me from the dangers of my earthly pilgrimage, and lead me to that heavenly country where, with thee, I may gaze for ever on the face of God. Amen.
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| October 24th – St Raphael, Archangel |
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Posted by: Stone - 10-24-2021, 07:11 AM - Forum: October
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October 24 – St Raphael, Archangel
Taken from The Liturgical Year by Dom Prosper Guéranger (1841-1875)
![[Image: ?u=https%3A%2F%2Fimages.fineartamerica.c...f=1&nofb=1]](https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fimages.fineartamerica.com%2Fimages%2Fartworkimages%2Fmediumlarge%2F2%2Farchangel-raphael-miguel-cabrera.jpg&f=1&nofb=1)
The approach of the great solemnity, which will soon be shedding upon us all the splendors of heaven, seems to inspire the Church with a profound recollection. Except for the homage she must needs pay, on their own date, to the glorious Apostles Simon and Jude, only a few Feasts of simple rite break the silence of these last days of October. Our souls must be in confirmity with the dispositions of our common Mother. It will not, however, be out of keeping to give a thought to the great Archangel, honored today by many particular churches.
The ministry fulfilled in our regard by the heavenly spirits is admirably set forth in the graceful scenes depicted in the history of Tobias. Rehearsing the good services of the guide and friend, whom he still called his brother Azarias, the younger Tobias said to his father: Father, what wages shall we give him? or what can be worthy of his benefits? He conducted me and brought me safe again, he received the money of Gabelus, he caused me to have my wife, and he chased from her the evil spirit, he gave joy to her parents, myself he delivered from being devoured by the fish, thee also he hath made to see the light of heaven, and we are filled with all good things through him.
And when father and son endeavored, after the fashion of men, to return thanks to him who had rendered them such good service, the Angel discovered himself to them, in order to refer their gratitude to their supreme Benefactor. Bless ye the God of heaven, give glory to him in the sight of all that live, because he hath shewn his mercy to you … When thou didst pray with tears, and didst bury the dead … I offered thy prayer to the Lord. And because wast acceptable to God, it was necessary that temptation should prove thee. And now the Lord hath sent me to heal thee, and to deliver Sara thy son’s wife from the devil. For I am the Angel Raphael, one of the seven, who stand before the Lord … Peace be to you, fear not; … bless ye him and sing praises to him.
We too will celebrate the blessings of heaven. For as surely as Tobias beheld with his bodily eyes the Archangel Raphael, we know by faith that the Angel of the Lord accompanies us from the cradle to the tomb. Let us have the same trustful confidence in him. Then, along the path of life, more beset with perils than the road to the country of the Medes, we shall be in perfect safety; all that happens to us will be for the best, because prepared by our Lord; and as though we were already in heaven, our Angel will cause us to shed blessings upon all around us.
We will borrow from the Ambrosian Breviary a hymn in honor of the bright Archangel.
Hymn
Divine ductor, Raphael,
Hymnum benignus suscipe
Quem nos canendo supplices,
O Raphael, divinely sent guide, graciously receive the hymn we suppliants address to thee with joyful voice.
Lætis sacramus vocibus.
Cursum salutis dirige,
Gressusque nostros promove:
Ne quando aberrent devii,
Cœli relicto tramite.
Make straight for us the way of salvation, and forward our steps: lest at any time we wander astray, and turn from the path to heaven.
Tu nos ab alto respice:
Lucem micantem desuper,
A Patre sancto luminum,
Nostris refundas mentibus.
Look down upon us from on high; reflect into our souls the splendor shining from above, from the holy Father of lights.
Ægris medelam perfice,
Cæcisque noctem discute:
Morbos fugando corporum,
Dona vigorem cordibus.
Give perfect health to the sick, dispel the darkness of the blind: and while driving away diseases of the body, give spiritual strength to our souls.
Astans superno Judici,
Causam perora criminum:
Iramque mulce vindicem,
Fidus rogator Numinis.
Thou who standest before the Sovereign Judge, plead for the pardon of our crimes: and as a trusty advocate appease the avenging wrath of the Most High.
Magni resumptor prælii,
Hostem superbum deprime:
Contra rebellus spiritus
Da robur, auge gratiam.
Renewer of the great battle, crush our proud enemy: against the rebel spirits give us strength, and increase our grace.
Deo Patri sit gloria,
Ejusque soli Filio,
Cum Spiritu Paraclito,
Et nuno, et in perpetuum. Amen.
To God the Father be glory, and to his only Son, together with the Paraclete Spirit, now and for evermore. Amen.
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| The Conversion of St. Augustine |
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Posted by: Stone - 10-24-2021, 07:01 AM - Forum: The Saints
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When Thy servant Simplician told me these things about Victor, I longed to imitate him, and this was Simplician's reason for telling me. Afterwards he indeed added that under the Emperor Julian a law had been passed forbidding Christians to teach literature and oratory, accepting which law, he had preferred rather to give up his teaching than Thy Word. By this Thy Word Thou makest eloquent tongues of infants. I thought his happiness at least equalled his courage, inasmuch as he thus found an opportunity of spending time upon Thee. This was the happiness after which I was sighing, all bound as I was, not by external chains, but by the chain of my own will. The enemy had possession of my will, and in this way he had involved me in a chain by which he held me bound. An unlawful desire is indeed produced by a perverse will, and in obeying an unlawful desire a habit becomes established; and when a habit is not restrained it grows into a necessity. Thus, like links hanging together, which induced me to use the word "chain," a dire servitude held me fast. For the new will which began to be in me that I might offer Thee my heart's free worship, and enjoy Thee, O God, Who alone art secure joy, was not yet strong enough to overcome the old will which habit had confirmed. So it was that these two wills, the old one and the new one, the former carnal and the latter spiritual, were at variance with each other, and dissipated my soul by their struggle.
In this way I understood by personal experience that which I had read, how the flesh may lust against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh. I indeed felt this double conflict, but I went rather with that in me which approved itself to me than with that in me of which I disapproved. With the latter indeed I did not go so much, because in a great measure I rather suffered it against my will than did it with a will. Still habit had acquired a greater power over me by my own fault, so that I had arrived by my will at a point which 1 did not will . . . . But I, who was weighed down by earthly necessities, refused to serve Thee, and I feared to be free from all impediments, as men ought to fear being held by them.
Thus the burden of this world held me in its easy yoke, after the fashion of sleep, and the thoughts which I had concerning Thee were like the efforts of men wishing to rouse themselves from sleep, who fall back again into it through excessive drowsiness. And as no man is to be found who would wish always to sleep, and in the sound judgment of all it is a good thing to be awake, still for all that, a man procrastinates much about throwing off sleep when he feels grievous weariness in his limbs, and he enjoys it the more even if distasteful in itself, although it be time for him to get up. So I knew for certain that it was better for me to give myself up to Thy charity than to yield to my own desire. The one approved itself to me and conquered my judgment; the other flattered me and won the day. For I had no answer to make to those words of Thine to me, Awake, thou who sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ will enlighten thee. I, who was convinced of the truth, had nothing whatever to answer Thee, everywhere showing Thyself to speak true things, except slow words and sleepy words. "Anon, anon;" "Presently;" "Leave me alone for a little while." But "presently, presently," had no present, and my "little while" went on for a long while.
It was in vain that I delighted in Thy law according to the inner man, whilst another law in my members was fighting against the law of my mind, and making me a captive unto the law of sin which was in my members . . . .
And I will now declare how Thou didst deliver me from the chain of lustful desire which was holding me tight, and from the slavery of worldly business; and I will confess to Thy name, O Lord, my Helper and my Redeemer. I carried out my usual occupations with increasing uneasiness, and I cried to Thee day by day. I frequented Thy church as far as the burden of those cares which made me groan gave me time. Alypius was with me, free from his legal business after the third session, and looking for some one to whom he might again sell his advice, just as I sold my power of speaking, if indeed it is to be imparted by teaching. Nebridius had now, in consideration of our friendship, consented to teach under Verecundus, a citizen and a grammarian of Milan, and a very intimate friend of us all, who urgently desired, and by the right of friendship challenged from our company, such faithful aid as he greatly needed.
On a certain day, therefore, I do not remember how it was that Nebridius was absent, a man called Pontitianus, a countryman of ours, inasmuch as he was an African, in high office in the Emperor's court, came to our house to see me and Alypius. I did not know what he wanted of us. We sat down to talk, and it happened that upon a table for some game before us he observed a book, took, opened it, and, contrary to his expectation, found it was the Apostle Paul, for he had thought it some of those books which I was wearing myself in teaching. Whereat, smiling and looking at me, he expressed his joy and wonder that he had suddenly come upon this book, and that I alone saw it. For he was a Christian and one of the faithful, and often prostrated himself before Thee, our God, in the church in frequent and continued prayers. When then I had told him that I bestowed very great pains upon those Scriptures, a conversation arose (suggested by his account) about Anthony, the Egyptian monk, whose name was in high reputation among Thy servants, though to that hour unknown to us. When he discovered this, he dwelt the more upon the subject, informing our ignorance, and expressing his wonder that we should know nothing of one so eminent. But we stood amazed, hearing Thy wonderful works most fully attested, in times so recent and so near to our own days, wrought in the true Faith and Catholic Church. We all wondered; we that they were so great, and he that they had not reached our ears.
Thence his discourse turned to the flocks in the monasteries and their holy ways, a sweet-smelling savour unto Thee, and the fruitful deserts of the wilderness, whereof we knew nothing. And there was a monastery at Milan, full of good brethren, without the city walls, under the fostering care of Ambrose, and we knew it not. He went on with his discourse, and we listened in intent silence. Then he told us how one afternoon at Trier, when the Emperor was taken up with the Circensian games, he and three others, his companions, went out to walk in gardens near the city walls, and there, as they happened to walk in pairs, one went apart with him, and the other two wandered by themselves; and these, in their wanderings, lighted upon a certain cottage inhabited by some of Thy servants, poor in spirit, of whom is the kingdom of heaven, and there they found a little book containing the life of Anthony. One of them began to read it, and to admire and to be fired at it, and, as he read, to meditate embracing this manner of life, and giving up his secular state for Thy service. These two were what they call agents for public affairs. Then, suddenly filled with holy love and quiet indignation, in anger with himself, he looked at his friend, saying, "Do tell me what we are aiming at by all these labours of ours? what are we seeking? what are we contending for? Can our hopes at court rise higher than to be the Emperor's favourites? And is there anything in this which is not unstable and full of danger? By how many perils do we arrive at a greater peril? and when? But if I choose to be a friend of God, I can become one at once."
Thus he spoke, and in pain with the travail of a new life, he turned his eyes again upon the book, and read on, and was changed inwardly before Thy sight, and his mind was stripped of the world, as soon appeared. For as he read and his feelings were stirred up, he was vexed with himself for a bit, and then he discerned and determined on a better course. Being already Thine, he said to his friend, "Now I have broken with those worldly hopes of ours, and am resolved to serve God, and to begin from this very hour and place. If you do not care to imitate me, do not oppose me." The other answered that he would remain with him as the sharer of so glorious a reward and so great a service. Both being now Thine, they were building the tower at the necessary cost of forsaking all they had and following Thee.
Then Pontitianus, and the other with him, that had walked in other parts of the garden, came-in search of them to the same place, and finding them, reminded them to return, for the day was now far spent. But they, relating their resolution and purpose, and how that will had arisen and become strengthened in them, begged their friends, if they would not join, not to molest them. But the others, though in no wise changed from what they were before, were still grieved that they were the same (so he said), and piously congratulated their friends, recommending themselves to their prayers; and so, with hearts lingering on the earth, went away to the palace. The other two, however, fixing their heart on heaven, remained in the cottage. And both had affianced brides, who, when they heard of this resolution, also dedicated their virginity to God.
This was the story of Pontitianus; but Thou, O Lord, whilst he was speaking, didst force me to look at myself, taking me from behind my back, where I had placed myself, unwilling to observe myself. Thou didst set me before my face, that I might see how foul I was, how crooked and defiled, bespotted and ulcerous. And I looked and stood aghast, and there was no escape from myself. If I tried to turn my eyes away from myself, he went on telling his story, and Thou didst again bring me before my eyes and make me look at myself, that I might find out my iniquity and hate it. I had known it, but tried not to see it, winked at it, and forgot it.
Then, indeed, the more I loved those of whose holy affections I was hearing, who had given themselves wholly up to Thee to be cured, the more heartily I hated myself by comparison with them. For I had passed many years of my life, perhaps twelve, since, in my nineteenth year, after reading Cicero's Hortensius, I was moved to study wisdom; and instead of despising earthly happiness, so as to be able to give myself up to consider that of which not the possession, but the mere inquiry, was to be put before treasures even possessed, the kingdoms of the nations and the plenitude of all carnal delights, I procrastinated. Miserable, most miserable youth indeed that I was! at the beginning of that youth itself I had even asked Thee to give me chastity, and had said, "Give me chastity and continence, but not yet." For I feared lest Thou shouldst quickly hear me, and cleanse me from the disease of concupiscence, which I wished to gratify, not to be delivered from. And I was walking by crooked ways in grievous depravity, not indeed secure in those ways, but as if preferring them to all others. I was in perverse opposition with regard to these latter, and did not honestly seek them.
I fancied it was because I had no certain light as to the direction of my life that I put off from day to day following Thee alone by despising all worldly hopes. The day came when my eyes were opened to myself, and the voice of my conscience asked me in a tone of reproach, "Where art thou, O tongue? For thou wert saying that thou wouldst not give up the yoke of vanity for an uncertain truth. See, now, it is certain, and it is still knocking at thy door, when those men, who have neither become broken by inquiry nor meditated on these things for ten years and more, put on wings, being less encumbered." Thus was I torn with anguish and buried in the depths of shame as Pontitianus went on telling his tale. Having said his say and finished his visit, he went away, and I returned into myself. What thought did not come into my head? With what cogent reasons did I not scourge my soul, that it might be one with me, who was striving to go after Thee? It was refractory; it refused, and did not excuse itself. Every argument was answered and overcome: a mute fear alone remained, which dreaded, like death, being restrained from the force of a habit which led to death.
In that great travail of my inner man which I had stirred up against my soul in the secret sanctuary of my heart, agitated both in face and in mind, I made a vehement appeal to Alypius. "What are we doing?" I exclaimed to him; "what is this? what did you hear? The unlearned rise up and take heaven by force; and look at us! we with our lifeless learning are immersed in flesh and blood. Because they have gone before us, are we to be ashamed of following? Are we not rather to be ashamed of not even following?" I said something, I know not what, to this effect, and my warmth tore me away from him as he looked at me in silent astonishment. Nor had my words their natural sound; my face and look, eyes, colour, and tone of voice spoke my mind better than the words which I uttered. Our establishment had a garden, which we used with the rest of the household, for the master of the house did not dwell in it. Thither I was drawn by my mental agitation. There no man would impede that burning struggle in which I was fighting against myself, until it should end in the way Thou didst know, though I did not know it. Only I was out of myself for my good, and I was dying a living death, conscious of my wickedness, unconscious of the good I was to reach in a short time.
I turned, therefore, into the garden, and Alypius followed closely after me. Nor did his company make my secret not mine; for would he ever forsake me in this frame of mind? We sat down as far from the house as possible. I was groaning in spirit, and was burning with indignation at my not accepting Thy pleasure, and making a compact with Thee, my God, for which acceptance all my bones were crying, and were sending to heaven the voice of praise. There was no getting there by ship or chariot or foot of man as quickly as I by one step had gone from the house into that place where we were sitting. For not only the going thither, but also the getting there, was nothing else than the will to go. This will should be strong and genuine, not a halfhearted will, which is irresolute and struggling, now with the wish to rise, now with the wish to fall.
Thus was I sick and in anguish, reproaching myself with more than usual severity, turning and re-turning in my chain, until its last snap should be broken; for, slight as it was, still it bound me; and Thou, O Lord, just Mercy, wert speaking to my secret heart, putting before me motives of fear and shame, lest I should again turn away, and that small and frail link which remained should not be broken, and should grow strong to bind me afresh. For I said to myself, "Let it be now, let it be now." And so I went on, contenting myself with words. I was already doing and not doing; neither did I fall back into my former ways, but I was standing still in near proximity to them, and taking my time. And again I tried, and was well-nigh successful, and had almost reached the mark and held it in my grasp; and still I fell short of it, and neither reached nor held it, hesitating to die to death and to live to life. I inclined rather to follow the worse course, which was familiar, than the better, which was unfamiliar; and as to that particular moment of time when I was to become different, the nearer it approached the more it struck me with horror. Only it did not vanish into the background, nor disappear, but was pending.
Small trifles, the vanity of vanities, the things which I had formerly loved, were holding me back. They were stirring up my covering of flesh, and murmuring, Wilt thou send us away? And from this time forth shall we be with thee no more? Wilt thou be unable to do such and such a thing for evermore? And what were the suggestions they made in saying "such and such a thing"? What indeed, my God? Let Thy mercy preserve the soul of Thy servant from them. What pollution and what shame! And I heard them with much less than half an ear, not contradicting me openly before my face, but, as it were, murmuring behind my back, and disappearing like a runaway thief to induce me to look round. Still they delayed me in my desire to tear myself away from them, and to go where I was called, because the strong force of habit said to me, "Dost thou think to do without these things?"
But already the suggestion was faintly made. For, in the direction in which I had turned my face, and whither I was fearing to pass, the pure glory of Chastity, with her serene and holy mirth, was disclosed to me. With honest words of encouragement she bade me come and not doubt, and held out her fair hands, full to overflowing with the examples of the good, to receive and embrace me. In them were crowds of boys and girls, and young people, and people of all ages; there were sober widows and aged virgins; and in no one of them was that same Chastity sterile, but she was the fruitful mother of sons of joy by Thee, O Lord, her spouse. And Chastity smiled at me in admonishment, as if to say, "Canst thou not do what these have done? or indeed can they do it of themselves, and not rather in the Lord their God? The Lord their God gave me to them; what art thou doing and not doing? Cast thyself upon Him: fear not; He will not leave thee to fall: cast thyself upon Him with confidence; He will receive and heal thee." And I was filled with great confusion, because I still heard the murmurings of my vanities, and hesitated in suspense. And again it seemed to me that Chastity spoke: "Turn a deaf ear on earth to those unclean members of thine, that they may be mortified. They speak to thee of delights, but they are not as the law of the Lord thy God." This struggle in my heart concerned only myself against myself. Alypius, who clung to my side, awaited in silence the issue of my unusual emotion.
But when earnest contemplation abstracted from the secret depth of conscience and brought before the eyes of my heart all my wretchedness, then a tempest broke, bringing with it a great fountain of tears. In order that I might give them full play, I got up and left Alypius; solitude seemed to me more suited to the shedding of tears, and I went far enough from him, so as not to feel the restraint of even his presence. This is how I was, and he thought I know not what. I believe I had said something in which the tone of my voice, struggling with sobs, had betrayed itself, and thus I had got up. He therefore remained where we had been sitting in great astonishment. I threw myself down, I know not how, under a certain fig-tree, and put no check upon my tears. The flood-gates of my soul poured forth a sacrifice acceptable to Thee. Not indeed in these words, but in the spirit of them, I spoke repeatedly to Thee: And Thou, O Lord, how long? How long, O Lord, wilt Thou be angry unto the end? Be not mindful of our former iniquities. For I felt that they held me captive, and was crying out in my anguish. "How long? how long is it to be to-morrow and to-morrow? Why not now? Why may not this very hour put an end to my shame?"
I was saying these things and weeping in the bitterest sorrow of heart; and all at once I heard a voice, like the voice of a boy or a girl, I know not which, coming from the next house, repeating over and over again in a musical tone, "Take and read; take and read." Composing myself instantly, I began most earnestly to ponder whether there was any game whatever in which children were wont to sing similar words, nor could I remember ever to have heard them before. The violence of my tears being checked, I rose, interpreting them in no other way than to mean that this was a Divine intimation to me to open the Scriptures and to read what first came in my way. For I had heard that Anthony was admonished by a chance reading of the Gospel, as if the words, Go, sell all that thou hast and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me, had been said to him, and that by this sign he had been at once converted to Thee. Thus minded, I returned to the place where Alypius was sitting, for I had put down the book of Epistles in coming away. I took it up, opened it, and read in silence the first chapter which met my eyes: Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in concupiscence and impurity, not in contention and anger: but put you on the Lord Jesus Christ, and provide not for the flesh in impure lusts. I would not read on, nor was there any need that I should. For I had no sooner read to the end of the sentence than a light as if of security being infused into my heart, all the darkness of doubt was dissipated.
Then, having put my finger or some other mark in the place, I closed the book and passed it to Alypius with a countenance already composed. As to him, this was how he showed me what was going on in himself, which I did not know. He asked to see what I had been reading. I pointed it out to him, and he went on further than I, and I was not familiar with what followed, which was, but receive the weak man in faith. This he took for himself, and disclosed it to me. But he was strengthened by this advice, and without any painful hesitation he followed that which was in keeping with his life, by which he had far outdistanced me for a long time past. Then we went in to my mother with our story, which rejoiced her. We told her how it had happened, and her joy was triumphant. She praised Thee, Who art powerful to do more than we ask or can understand, because she saw Thou hadst given her more in my regard than she had been wont to ask Thee for by her sighs and tears. For Thou hadst so converted me to Thee that I sought neither for a wife nor for anything else in this world, holding that rule of faith which Thou hadst revealed to her so many years before that I should hold. And Thou didst turn her weeping into joy much more abundantly than she had desired, and concerning the relations due to my sin much more tenderly and chastely than she had demanded.
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| Delay of Conversion by Fr. Francis Xavier Weninger |
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Posted by: Stone - 10-24-2021, 06:31 AM - Forum: Articles by Catholic authors
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Delay of Conversion
I will take occasion to speak today of a singular infatuation which prevails to an alarming extent both among the sick and those in health, and which is fraught with danger to the soul. I allude to the delay of conversion. Confession is postponed from day to day, for each one hopes that he will have time for reconciliation with God, even though advancing age or increasing weakness should prove the futility of that hope.
I am sure that scarcely a sinner exists in whose breast a lingering spark of faith still glimmers, who does not cherish the hope that, at some future time, he may return to his duty. Yes, although he may have given over his soul to the devil, he does not despair to return to God, though it be at his dying hour. Very good! There is a possibility, of course, that he may be converted by a miracle at the last; but what folly to wait for a miracle! O folly! folly! O blind and infatuated worldlings!
A preacher can scarcely ever select this subject for a discourse to his hearers without having before him some one to whom it applies.
My subject today, therefore, shall be the great danger in which the soul is placed, of eternal reprobation, by this lamentable delay in returning to God.
Mary, patroness of a happy death, pray that thy poor, erring children may obtain the grace of a true conversion, and return, without delay, to the service of thy Son! I speak in the most holy name of Jesus, for the greater honor and glory of God!
"Delay not to be converted to thy God; today when thou shalt hear His voice, do not harden thy heart." The Holy Ghost thus admonishes us; our own conscience whispers the same. Let us not still its voice; but walk according to the light of faith and the dictates of reason.
There are many, even among Catholics, who delay their conversion until the hand of the Lord is upon them, and they are stretched upon their dying bed. During life their object seemed to be to defraud their Creator of the love and obedience due Him; and now they would even defraud the devil of what they so assiduously prepared for him. Can aught but a miracle save such a creature? What can be said to one who thus delays his conversion?
Listen, sinner! your cry is: "Tomorrow! tomorrow! yet, for a little while, I will drive the thought of God away! "By this you acknowledge that you intend to change your life at some future time; then, too, you admit that at present you are leading an evil life. A sick person tries to obtain relief without delay. Christian! sinner! is corporal illness to be mentioned in the same breath with that dreadful malady which oppresses your soul? There is but one evil, but it is the origin and source of all evils, and that is: Sin! You believe this, and yet your cry is: "Tomorrow! tomorrow!" O folly! O presumption! You say: "Another time! Then, according to your own confession, sin is no gain. No, it is not. On the contrary, it is loss. And what a loss! It means the loss of God, of heaven, of all that is worth having, if you die in your present state.
Is there one among you who, losing a sum of money, would not immediately take steps to recover it? And what is money in comparison to divine grace? Christian! sinner! some other time, do you say? Would you say to the physician who comes to you in sickness: "I do not require your services now; come some other time; come in a month or a year?" Behold, you are sick unto death; and, according to St. Ambrose, your malady is either pride, avarice, anger, gluttony, envy or impurity. Christ is your Physician, the Sacrament of Penance your remedy; use it, and be healed.
"Some other time," you say. If a conflagration were raging in your vicinity, and waves of the fiery sea were rolling madly towards your home, would you say: "Tomorrow! tomorrow! it will be time enough then to extinguish the flames?"
"Some other time," you say. If you fell from a ship into the ocean; and if I, seeing you fall, hastened to your rescue, would you repulse my aid, and say: "Tomorrow! tomorrow! it will be time enough then?"
O sinner! your soul is engulfed in the restless waves of passion, and the priests of your Holy Church eagerly extend a helping hand, longing to aid you; but you say: "Some other time; I am not in danger yet!"
Now, I ask you one question: Will it always be in your power to return to God? You fain would answer : Yes! and believe you are in the right; but I must warn you that you may be most sadly mistaken. You are free; but do you consider the force of habit?
Holy Scripture assures us that the young man does not turn in old age from the path he pursued in youth. There are exceptions, it is true; but experience tells us that they are few. And when did our Lord assure you that His efficacious grace would be ready for you whenever it suited your convenience to accept it?
"I will have time enough, later on I will listen to the voice of God." You have no assurance that you will. Listen to this terrible warning: " You shall seek Me, but you shall not find Me; you shall die in your sins! As our sins have their measure, so also has the grace of God, which He alone knows. And are you willing to expose yourself to the frightful risk of losing your soul? Be wise, and today when you hear His voice, harden not your heart. Do not say: "God is merciful, and I can repent even on my death-bed." He is merciful, but He is just also; and how many are called before the judgment-seat of Christ without a moment's warning! This is especially the case; in America, where fatal accidents are of constant occurrence. And even were you certain of the very day and hour of your death, are you sure that you will have a priest to assist you? Do not say: "Yes, I am sure; I live so near the Church, I can not fail to have the priest." I tell you, that were the priest to take up his abode in your very house, you could have no such assurance. Many have allowed themselves to be deluded thus; and, death surprising them, they have gone to "the house of their eternity" without the support and aid of the Holy Sacraments, and, perhaps, alas, have been lost forever!
Be not presumptuous in postponing your conversion; for even if you should have a priest to assist you in your last moments, could you, after a life spent in forgetfulness of God and His commandments, so dispose your soul in a moment as to benefit by his assistance? You know not in what state you will be in that awful hour. Your mind may be weakened, and your body enfeebled and convulsed with pain, so as to prevent you from making your confession properly. And could you be absolved in that helpless condition?
I do not say that the priest would not pronounce the words of absolution, but would they be of any avail? You might be unable to elicit one single act of heartfelt contrition.
What is meant by true contrition? That sorrow which will enable you to detest sincerely all that you for years have loved and esteemed more than God, to whom you are indebted for every thing. Consider it well, O sinner! You have loved the world and its creatures during a life-time, clinging to them as long as you could; and now that you see them slipping away, you pretend to forsake them, and to turn lovingly to that God towards whom you have been more than indifferent. Ah, friends! nothing less than a miracle of grace is needed here! The priest may be deceived; but to God the heart of the dying impenitent sinner is fully revealed in all its deformity. Think of the terrible examples we read in Holy Scripture! The dying Antiochus was loud in his professions of repentance and of resolutions to lead a godly life, if God would spare him. "He prayed to the Lord, of whom he was not to obtain mercy," because he only prayed as does a slave writhing under the pain of the lash. In health, he would have gone on in his wickedness. Therefore, O sinner! listen to the warning you receive today, and delay not to be converted to the Lord thy God!
Would that, from all here present, who are in mortal sin, the priest, in the tribunal of penance, could receive the blessed assurance, that during this sermon, " at the same hour" that you listened to my words, you resolved, within your hearts: "I will delay no longer; I will make a good confession, and save my soul." To which the whole celestial host cry: Amen!
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| The Sin Unto Death by Cardinal Henry Manning |
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Posted by: Stone - 10-24-2021, 06:24 AM - Forum: Articles by Catholic authors
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The Sin Unto Death
by Cardinal Henry Manning, 1874
![[Image: The%20Sins%20Unto%20Death.jpg]](https://catholicharboroffaithandmorals.com/The%20Sins%20Unto%20Death.jpg)
If any man shall see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and life shall be given unto him that sinneth not unto death. There is a sin unto death: I do not say for that any man shall ask. All iniquity is sin, and there is a sin unto death. 1 S. John V. 16, 17.
From the written Word of God it is clear, beyond controversy, that some sins are unto death, and some sins are not unto death. That is to say, that some sins are mortal, and some sins are not mortal.
Our next subject, as I said, is mortal sin. But before I enter upon it, I wish to recall to your memories the general principles already laid down. First, we know that the end of man is God; that God made man for Himself; that He made him to His own likeness; that He made him capable of knowing, loving, and serving Him, and of being like to God; and that in the knowledge, the love, and the service, and the likeness of God, is the bliss of man. Therefore conformity to God is our perfection, and union with God is eternal life; but deformity, or departure from the likeness of God, is sin, and separation from God is eternal death. The nature of sin is, as we have defined it, the transgression of the law of God; or, in other words, any thought, word, or deed deliberately committed with the knowledge of the intellect, and the consent of the will, contrary to the will of God; or, in other words again, it is the variance of the created will against the uncreated will--of the will of the creature against the will of the Creator. The essential malice of sin, then, consists in the variance of the will, the hostility of the will of the creature against the will of his Maker. These were the principles which I laid down last time. We will now take them up again, and make application of them in one particular point.
Saint John, in the words with which I began, tells us that if any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he ought to pray for him. Now what are the sins that are not unto death? Sins of infirmity; sins of impetuosity; sins of strong temptation; sins which by the subtilty of Satan lead men astray; sins of passion, in which human nature, being weak and tempestuous and liable to disorder, is drawn aside: if in all these there be no malice, either against God, or against our neighbour. Now these are sins which all Christians are liable to commit, and do commit, and which, without doubt, you yourselves are profoundly conscious of committing. These are sins not unto death, as we may trust, because if there be no malice against God or our neighbour, then the essential sinfulness of sin is wanting; and in that case, Saint John says, 'Let him pray for him, and God will give life unto those that sin not unto death;' that is to say, He will give grace, sorrow, pardon, help, protection, and perseverance. He will watch over those souls if in humility and in sorrow they persevere; and the prayer of those who are faithful and steadfast will obtain grace for those that sin not unto death.
Then he goes on: 'There is a sin unto death: for that I say not that any man should ask that is, that any man should pray. Now what is this sin unto death? The sin of Judas was a sin unto death. With his eyes open, with a knowledge of his Master,--though perhaps he did not know of the mystery of the Incarnation as we know it now; nevertheless he knew enough,--he sold his Master, and yet perhaps not knowing that he sold Him to be crucified. This, then, was a sin unto death. The sin of Simon Magus was a blasphemy and a sin unto death. The sin of those that blaspheme the Holy Ghost, which shall never be forgiven, is a sin unto death. The sin of apostates from the faith, who, having known the truth, and having had the full light and illumination to know God, afterwards fall from Him, is described by Saint Paul in the Epistle to the Hebrews, where he says, 'It is impossible for those who have been once enlightened, and have tasted of the Heavenly Gift, and of the good Word of God, and of the powers of the world to come, if they shall fall away, to be renewed again unto repentance (Heb. vi. 6).'
In one word, all who are impenitent sin unto death. All those who, having had full light and knowledge of God in His revelation, with their eyes open, turn from it, of whom Saint John says, 'They went out from us because they were not of us; for if they had been of us, without doubt they would have continued with us (1 St. John ii. 10)'--all these who so sin, sin unto death, and are left to the judgment of God. Saint John in these words does not forbid us to pray; he says, 'I do not say'--that is, 'I do not enjoin it.' He leaves it to the conscience of every man. He says of those who sin not unto death, that 'we have all confidence we may obtain pardon and grace for them;' but for those who do sin unto death as I have described, 'we have no such confidence, and therefore, though I do not enjoin it, I do not forbid it.'
Then he goes on to say, 'All iniquity is sin.' Now iniquity means all departure from the rectitude of God and of the law of God. Iniquity is inequality, or crookedness. Everything that is not conformed to the rectitude of God, to His perfections, to His law, and to His will, is sin. 'And there is a sin unto death.' We have here a distinction of those sins which are and those which are not mortal. My purpose now is very roughly to define what it is that constitutes this distinction; and secondly, to show what are the effects of this mortal sin which is unto death.
As I have said before, to constitute a mortal sin it is necessary that the man who commits it should know what he does--there must be a knowledge of the intellect; if not, the sin is only, as I then said, a material sin, and not a formal sin, unless his ignorance be a culpable and guilty ignorance. Next, he must not only know that he is doing wrong, but his will must consent to the wrong-doing. Thirdly, he must know and consent deliberately, with such an advertence or attention to what he is about as to make him conscious of his action. A man who should transgress the law of God in the least possible way would fulfil these three conditions. It would be a transgression of the law of God if I should take an apple off the tree of my neighbour without his leave. It was his: I had not a right to take it, and I thereby broke the commandment, 'Thou shalt not steal;' but that certainly would not be a sin unto death. It became a sin unto death when a divine prohibition was laid upon such an act under pain of death, and that the pain of eternal death; but where there is no such command laid under pain of death, it is quite clear that the taking of an apple would not constitute a sin unto death.
Therefore it is necessary that there should be a gravity in the matter of the sin; and the gravity of that matter will be constituted in one of two ways--it is either the material gravity, that is, the extent, or amount, or quantity of the sin committed; or it is the moral gravity derived from the circumstances of the case. An illustration will at once make this clear. If I were to rob a man of a very large amount of his property, no one would doubt for an instant that I had committed a sin unto death, or a mortal sin. The common sense of mankind, the instincts of justice, would at once pronounce against me. If I were to take a needle from some rich person, the instincts of justice would Aquit me of a sin unto death. I have taken that which did not belong to me, but no one would say that, in taking that needle from the rich man, who could obtain an abundant supply of needles, I had committed a sin unto death. No. But suppose that needle belonged to a poor seamstress, who gained her daily bread by the industrious use of that one needle, and that she had not the means to buy another; and that if she were robbed of it, her industry must cease, and she could no longer gain her bread; and that I knew all those facts; and that, with my eyes open, knowing the extent of the injury I was doing, in violation of the law of charity, as well as of the law of justice, I should take that needle with a perfect consciousness that I was destroying the means of industry and reducing her to hunger. You see at once that there is a moral guilt which arises from these circumstances. Suppose, still further, that I myself were jealous of her prosperity, being of the same trade or calling, and that I take the needle in order to ruin her for my own advantage. You see, therefore, that in so small a theft as the stealing of a needle there may be an enormity of moral guilt. It is not enough then that there should be the knowledge of the intellect, and the consent of the will to the action, unless the matter in which that action is committed shall be of a grave kind, either materially or morally, before God.
There are seven capital sins, the names of which you all know. First of all there is pride, which separates the soul from God; secondly, there is envy, or jealousy, which separates a man from his neighbour; thirdly, there is sloth, which is a burden pressing down the powers of man, so that he becomes weary of his duty towards God, and forsakes Him; fourthly, there is avarice, which plunges a man deep into the mire of this world, so that he makes it to be his god; fifthly, there is gluttony, which makes a sensual fool; sixthly, there is anger, which makes a man a slave to himself; and lastly, there is impurity, which makes a man a slave of the devil. In those seven kinds there are seven ways of eternal death; and all those who, with their eyes open, with the knowledge of the intellect, and the full consent of the will, commit sin in any of those seven kinds, are walking in the way towards sin unto death.
1. We come now to the effects. The first effect of one mortal sin is to strike the soul dead. The grace of God is the life of the soul as the soul is the life of the body; and one sin unto death, in any one of the kinds that I have spoken of, strikes the soul dead. The soul dies at once, and on the spot; not as the tree which is blasted by the lightning and dies gradually day after day; first in the leader, then it begins to die in the branches, and then it dies in the trunk, and then it dies in the root. This is a slow process, but not so with the soul. One single sin unto death strikes the soul dead at once, and that for this reason: the grace of God is the life of the soul, and one mortal sin separates the soul from God. The holy angels, when they were created, lived in the presence of God, though they did not as yet see the face of God. They were on probation. Every creature depends on God in two ways: he needs the support of God for his existence; and of the grace of God for his sanctification. If God were not present with us at this moment in our physical life we should die. If He were not in this building, the walls of it would vanish. So it was with the angels in their first state of bliss. It was the assistance of God which sustained them in their being as pure intelligences, spotless in their innocence, excellent in their strength, surpassing in their energy. 'He maketh His angels spirits, and His ministers a flame of fire (Heb. i. 7.).' They also needed grace. The angels were holy just as we are holy, because the Holy Ghost was with them; and all the actions of the angelic perfection were sustained by an actual grace and help of God, just like our own. By one sin--one sin unto death--and that a sin of pride, purely spiritual, they fell and died eternally and without redemption; and as S. Jude writes: 'Leaving their habitations, were cast down into darkness and everlasting chains until the day of judgment (St. Jude 6.).'
As it was with the angelic natures, so it was with man. God, when He created man, constituted him, as I said before, with three perfections--the perfection of nature, that is, of body and soul; the supernatural perfection or the indwelling of the Holy Ghost and of sanctification; and the preternatural perfection or the perfect harmony of the soul in itself and with God; and the immortality of the body. These three perfections, natural, supernatural, and preternatural, make up what is called original justice; and in that state man was constituted when he was created. But by one sin of disobedience, with his eyes open, with the consent of his will and with full deliberation--and that in a matter light in itself, as I have said, but grave because the prohibition of God under the penalty of eternal death was laid upon it--in that slight trial, without temptation save only the listening to the tempter, who awakened a spirit of curiosity and disobedience, where all around him was permitted and one only thing forbidden, man sinned against God, and by that one sin was struck dead. The Holy Ghost departed from him, and all his perfections were wrecked. The supernatural perfection was lost, the preternatural perfection was forfeited, the soul fell from God, the body was struck by death. He became from that time disinherited, shorn of sanctity and life: one sin unto death separated him and all his posterity from God.
As it was in the case of Adam, so it is also in the case of the regenerate; so it is in our own. We who are born, into the world, spiritually dead have once more, by regeneration in baptism, the life of the Spirit. If we sin mortally with our eyes open, and with consent of our will, we forfeit the presence of the Holy Ghost in the soul, the charity of God which unites us to Him, the sanctifying grace whereby we are made children of God, the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost which are always inseparably united to His presence. There is left in us, indeed, the grace of hope and the grace of faith. These two remain like the beating of the pulse and the breathing of the lungs: there is just so much left of the life of grace with the light of faith and the aspiration of hope after God; but our union with God is broken: we are separated from Him, and at variance with Him. This is the first effect of mortal sin; for habitual grace and the presence of God are the life of the soul; and the loss of that grace, which is the loss of the presence of God, is the death of the soul.
2. But further: one mortal sin destroys all the merits that the soul has ever heaped up. Understand what is meant by merit. The doctrine of the Catholic Church is this: not that any creature can merit in the sense of claiming out of the hand of his Maker, Redeemer, and Judge, by any right of his own, anything whatsoever in nature or in grace. Cast out of your minds for ever all shadow of misunderstanding upon this. Merit does not signify that the creature can by any right of his own, either in the order of nature or of grace, challenge and demand of God the gift or the possession of anything. No. The word 'merit' is used in two senses. There is the merit for good, and the merit for evil. Every good action has a merit--that is, a certain conformity to the will of God; and every evil action has a merit, that is, a deformity, which will be followed by punishment. Therefore 'merit' is a word altogether indifferent in itself, and derives its meaning for good or for evil from its context. Merit signifies the connection or link that exists between certain actions done in grace and certain awards; and that connection or link is constituted sovereignly and gratuitously by the grace and promise of God. So that every man who does acts of faith, or of charity, or of self-denial, or of piety, will receive a reward, both in this life and the next, according to those actions. Every man who does acts of charity will receive an increase of charity and of grace in this life; and hereafter, as the Council of Florence defines, the glory of the blessed shall be in proportion to the measure of their charity on earth. There is a link then between the measure of our charity here and the measure of our glory hereafter. This is what is called merit; and all through our life, if we are living faithfully in the grace of God, we are thereby heaping up merits, and Aquiring in virtue of the promise a greater reward and a greater bliss.
I may give as example the life of the Apostles, who, through the whole of their career, even to their martyrdom, were continually increasing in the sight of God the accumulation of His good-will, of His grace, and of His reward. This is true of you all, and through your whole life everything that you do according to the will of God, being in a state of grace, has in the Book of Remembrance a record, and in the Sacred Heart of our Divine Master a promise of reward, which shall be satisfied at His coming. One sin then, unto death, unless afterwards repented of, utterly cancels all these merits of a whole life. It matters not how long you may have been living a life of justice, of charity, of humility, of generosity, and of piety, before God--one mortal sin, and the whole of that record is cancelled from the Book of His remembrance. It is all gone as if it had never been. Do you need proofs of it? Take the history of David, the 'man after God's own heart (Acts xiii. 22).' You remember his faith, his patience, his fidelity, his courage, his prayer, his spirit of thanksgiving. He is the Psalmist of Israel, the man with the greatest of all titles--'the man after God's own heart.' But in one moment, by the twofold sin of murder and adultery, he cancelled before God every merit of his youth and of his manhood: all was dead before God. Solomon, the son of David, the type of our Divine Lord, the King of Peace, the man famous for wisdom--not only because he received it as a divine gift, but because he had the wisdom to ask for wisdom, not for riches--the man illuminated beyond all other men, because afterwards he fell away from God into sin unto death, all the merit of that long life of wisdom and light and of early sanctity was cancelled. Judas, in his childhood, and in his boyhood, and in his youth, was perhaps as faithful to the light of his conscience as you have been. He left kindred, and all that he had, to follow his Master. No doubt there were in his heart struggles and aspirations and prayers and desires to walk in the footsteps of his Divine Lord; but there crept upon him the sin of covetousness. He carried the bag, and that which was put therein; and Satan tempted him, and then entered into him, and he sold his Master. Ananias in like manner renounced the world, perilled his own life to become a Christian, sold all that he had, made sacrifice of everything; but kept back part of the price. Demas was the companion of Apostles, and exposed his life to danger, and lived in toil and poverty and perpetual risk, the companion of the Apostle of the Gentiles until he forsook him, having loved this present world ( 2 Tim. iv. 10.); and all the merits of that life of faith, and of all those actions which once were recorded in the Book of God's remembrance, were in one moment cancelled; and therefore S. Paul said of himself, 'I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection, lest, after I have preached the Gospel to others, I myself should become a castaway (1 Cor. ix. 27.).' The prophet Ezekiel says, 'When the just man turneth away from justice he hath done, and committeth iniquity; in the iniquity he hath done, in the sin he hath committed, in that he shall die, and his justice shall be no more remembered (Ezek. iii. 20.).'
3. The third effect is even more terrible; it mortifies and kills the very power of serving God. All the actions of a man in a state of mortal sin are dead; they have no merit or power to prevail before God for his salvation. So long as he is separated from God, nothing he does has saving power. Just as a tree that has life bears living fruit, and a tree that is dead has nothing but fruit that is withered and dead likewise, so a soul that is planted in God, as we all are by baptism, strikes its root as the tree by the rivers of water, and increases continually in faith, hope, and charity, and in the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost, which expand themselves like the leaves upon the branch, and the twelve fruits of the Holy Ghost unfold themselves and ripen. On the other hand, a soul that is separated from God is like the tree that is cut asunder at the root, and as the severed tree withers from the topmost spray and every fruit upon it dies, so the soul in the state of mortal sin, of whatsoever kind, so long as it remains in that state, is separated from God, and can bear no fruit unto salvation. The Apostle has declared this, in the most express words: 'Though I speak with the tongue of men and of angels, and have not charity, I become as sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal; and if I have all prophecy and all knowledge, and can understand all mysteries, and though I have faith and could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing; and though I give my goods to feed the poor and my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing (1 Cor. xiii. 1-3.):' that is to say, a soul separated from God, not having the love of God; it matters not what that soul may know, it may be able to prophesy, to expound mysteries, to work miracles: it may give all it possesses to the poor in alms, it may be martyred, as men may think, and yet if it have not the love of God it profits nothing to salvation. There will be at the last day those who will come to our Divine Lord and say, 'Lord! Lord! we prophesied in Thy name, we cast out devils and did many mighty works in Thy name; we have eaten and drunk in Thy presence; and He will say unto them, Depart from Me, I never knew you (St. Matt. vii. 22.):' that is to say, a soul that has sinned unto death by one sin, one transgression, continuing in that state, until restored to union with God by charity and by grace, is dead before God, and all the actions of the soul are dead.
Those who are in such a condition are like men looking up to a high mountain on which the sun dwells perpetually in its splendour, and there is a glory as of the Heavenly City upon it, and they long to climb up to it; but before them there is the breast of a precipice, which no human foot can scale, and they pine away with longing and with the impossibility of ascending: or they are like men gazing upon a fair country, the Promised Land of vineyards and olive-yards and fig-trees, and rivers flowing with milk and honey; and homes of peace are before them; but at their feet there is a river, so deep and rapid, without ferry and without ford, which the mightiest swimmer cannot pass. So is it with sinners. The law of God stands between the soul that is cut off from Him, between the soul that is out of grace, and the peace of God.
4. And not this only: the soul in itself begins to lose its vigour and its strength. As I said before, every creature needs the help of nature and of graae: and the supernatural gifts of God--faith, hope, and charity--are by a mortal sin either entirely destroyed or weakened. Charity is utterly destroyed. Hope remains and faith remains, but hope begins to grow faint; for a man conscious of having sinned mortally against God cannot deceive himself with the hope of salvation unless he has grounds for hope; and what grounds can an impenitent sinner have? The faith that remains in him--what does it show to him? 'The Great White Throne,' 'the smoke that ascendeth up before the Seat of Judgment,' the law of God written in letters of fire: 'There is no peace, saith my God, for the wicked (Isa. xlviii. 22.),' and 'without holiness no man shall see the Lord (Heb. xii. 14.).' Faith shows him judgment to come, and the witnesses that will stand before the Throne on that day and bear testimony against him; and therefore the faith that remains in him is a terrible light, warning him and piercing his conscience. So far the supernatural grace that is still with him is goading him with fear to bring him back to God; more than this it cannot do. The natural powers of the soul are also affected when a man is in a state of sin. The heart becomes corrupt, the soul becomes weak.
Let me take what may seem to be an example not fitting for you. You who listen to me are not likely to be tempted to excess, or intoxication, but it is an apt example to illustrate every kind of sin. The man who indulges himself in drink loses the vigour and command of his will. The will becomes feeble and loses its imperious control. It can no longer command the man. It is like a rotten helm which the ship will not obey. The will itself becomes paralysed--there is a solvent which has been eating away its elasticity and its power, and what happens in this gross example happens in every other. I might take falsehood, sloth, or other sins I named before--but you must make application for yourselves. The very will loses its power of repenting. Ay, and there is a still more terrible thought than this. Sometimes the sins that men have committed long ago are the cause of their instability, their inconsistency, their wavering, and irresolution at this day. They have never yet returned to God; they have never yet been really restored to the grace of God and vitally united to Him. They carry within them that which we read of in the Book of Job, where it says: 'His bones are full of the vices of his youth, and they shall go down with him to his grave (Job xx. 11.).'
5. Lastly, there is another effect of the sin unto death; that is, that it brings a man into a double debt before God--it brings him into the debt of guilt, and into the debt of pain--and he will have to pay both. The debt of guilt he must answer at the Day of Judgment. The debt of pain he must suffer before he can see God, either here, or after death in the state of purification: or in hell to all eternity. Every substance in this world has its shadow. You cannot separate the shadow from the substance. Where the substance moves the shadow follows, so every sin has its pain; it matters not whether we think of it or no, whether we believe it or no. So it is: God has ordained it from the day in which He said: 'In the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt die the death.' From that day onward, no sin has ever been committed that has not been followed by its measure of judicial pain. It must be some day expiated, either by bearing it here or bearing it hereafter, or by a loving sorrow prevailing with God through the Precious Blood of Jesus Christ, to wash out from the book of His remembrance the great debt of accumulated sin.
I will not go further into these effects; I will only sum up what I have said. First of all, one mortal sin unto death strikes a soul dead. Secondly, one such sin when the soul is struck dead destroys all the merits of a long life, be they what they may--hereafter I will show how they may all revive again like the spring after the winter time; but this, not for the present. Thirdly, one such sin unto death mortifies, kills, and destroys the saving power of every action that the soul may do while in that state of separation from God. Fourthly, it weakens both the supernatural graces that remain in the soul, and the natural powers and faculties of the soul itself. Lastly, it brings the soul into the double debt of guilt and pain. These are the five effects of a sin unto death.
I have but a few words of counsel to add. The first is this: meditate every day of your lives upon this great and awful truth--how easy it is to fall from God; and say to yourselves, 'God is my end; for Him I was created; and if I fall short of that end by a hair's-breadth, if I swerve aside from attaining that end, I shall go down into eternal death.' An arrow shot at a mark, a hair's breadth aside from its aim, fails to attain it. A ship steered by a confident and cunning hand, if it miss the light, is wrecked, be it never so near the port: and a soul that does not attain to union with God here in a state of grace will be separated from God to all eternity. Next say to yourselves, 'If I do not correspond with the grace which God has given me, I shall miss my eternal end.' As I have before said, God is co-operating with every creature. The drawing of His Holy Spirit, and the gifts of His grace, are like a chain of gold drawing every created soul to Himself. 'God wills all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth;' and again, our Divine Lord has said, 'And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all things unto Me.' God is drawing every created soul to Himself. He is drawing them to the knowledge of Himself and of His Incarnate Son, and of the Precious Blood shed on the Cross from the Sacred Heart of Jesus; and the graces and the love and the breathings of the Holy Ghost are perpetually going out and drawing souls to Himself, and to the unity of the Church. God is always drawing souls to repentance, and through repentance to perfection, and from one degree of perfection to another, raising them higher and higher to union with Himself. This is always going on, but we must correspond with it. Listen to Him, respond, answer, lay hold of that grace which is offered to you, keep fast the links of that golden chain, never let it go, and take heed lest you break its links.
We often think if a soul that is already in eternal death could once more return, what would be the fervour of such a man through all the time granted him on earth. What humility, what hatred of sin, what holy fear of its occasions, what piety, what selfdenial, what self-sacrifice, would mark a soul that once had tasted eternal death, if it could return, and have one more opportunity of salvation. What a life of the Cross, and of intense devotion to God, that soul would live! You have never yet gone down into eternal death. You have been the subject of a greater grace than even if you had been liberated. You are still in life, still surrounded by the light of truth, you have yet the graces of the Holy Ghost in abundance, you have time, you have opportunity, you have the seven Sacraments, you have the Holy Sacrament of the Altar, the Precious Blood of Jesus Christ: all that is needful for eternal life--ay, and that in abundance, without stint and without measure. You are like the Prodigal Son before he left his father's house--you have not yet tasted that far country, and the misery and condemnation of falling from God. Therefore say to yourselves: 'God be praised! I am still in life, and my day of grace is not gone by.' The sun is yet in the heavens --with some it is in the morning still, with others it is the noontide, with some who hear me it is declining towards the horizon. Say: 'Lord, abide with us; for it is towards evening, and the day is far spent. Give me grace to make my peace with Thee, that I may be united with Thee, lest Thou find me parted from Thee in the day of Thy coming.'
This, then, is the first thought I would pray you with all my heart to make day after day; and the other is like unto it, but it is more terrible. Day after day say this to yourselves: 'If I fall from God--as I easily may--I shall go down alive into hell.' Dear brethren, we live in days when men must speak plainly. There are among us going to and fro, as there are in foreign countries, mockers, scoffers, blasphemers, ministers of Satan, apostles of lies, who say there is no hell. Eternal punishment! mediaeval fables! Popish superstition! True it is that the Church which is called 'Popish' inflexibly maintains that there is a hell, that there is an eternal punishment, and that they who live and die impenitent will go down quick into that torment. It is a glory that such a charge is laid against the Church of Rome. I accept the accusation--ay, and as a minister of Jesus Christ, and as an apostle of His Gospel, I declare that God has revealed that there is hereafter eternal pain and everlasting death. As there is a heaven, so there is a hell. As there is eternal life, so there is eternal death.
Be on your guard then, dear brethren. Be not so shallow or so credulous. Let no impostors, who pretend to philosophy and to criticism, lead you for one moment to believe that the existence of hell and eternal punishment is by an arbitrary law, by a mere act of Divine legislation, like a statute made by despotic power. Eternal death is an intrinsic necessity of the perfection of God, and of the wilful apostasy of man. If there be a God who is holy, just, pure, true, and unchangeable; then, if man is impure, unjust, unholy, and false, and will not change by repentance, as light and darkness cannot exist together, God and that soul cannot unite in eternity. It is not a statute law. It is an intrinsic necessity of the Divine perfection on the one hand, and of the sinfulness of the human soul upon the other. Why is the human soul unholy and unjust? By the abuse of the free will which God has given us--as I said in the beginning--by the open-eyed transgression of God's law, by the deliberate breaking of His commandments, by the impenitent persevering in that state of disobedience and of separation from God, which in itself is death, which is eternal death in time, which is hell upon earth. Except the soul repent, it already begins to taste the condemnation of eternity.
Therefore, bear in mind that the holiness of God and the sinfulness of man are enough clearly to demonstrate the intrinsic necessity of an eternal separation. And what is hell but to be separated from God eternally? and to be separated from God not as we are here, with our souls clogged and stupefied by sin, intoxicated by the world, ignorant of ourselves? No. After death, the eyes of the soul will be opened, the scales will fall from its sight, it will see itself for the first time, as it will for the first time see God in judgment. And when it shall see God in judgment, all that instinct of the soul in which it was from the beginning created for God--an instinct like the needle of the compass, which points by its own law always to the north, as in the blaze of the noonday, so in the darkness of the midnight, will return to its direction. The lost soul that was created in the image of God, of which the beatific end is God, and to be united with God is life, will then begin to hunger and thirst after God, when to be united with God is impossible for ever. Just as breathing is a vital necessity to the body, so union with God is a vital necessity to the soul.
You know sometimes in sleep a sense of stifling and suffocation in which you seem to lie an endless night in torment; conceive to yourselves an eternity of that suffocation, when the soul is conscious of the vital necessity of its union with God, when to be united with God is eternally impossible. Ay, more than this, there will be a torment in the soul which is the undying worm that will gnaw to all eternity. What is that torment? Remorse. The consciousness that the soul has committed self-murder, that it died because it sinned unto death, and that it sinned unto death of its own free will. There was no constraint, no necessity. With its own free will it sinned against God, and broke the link of union with Him. In eternal death the worm that dieth not, the perpetual tooth of remorse, will make the soul conscious of an anguish, which no human heart can conceive. There is no need of fire to torment; this alone is torment enough, to lose God eternally; to have eternal remorse without anything more is hell; but there will be more. Those who are lost will be lost together--multitudes, myriads of millions--all in misery, all separated from God, all in remorse, all feeding on themselves, hateful and hating one another.
I have not said one word as yet of that which I now will add. It is true there is a Divine mystery which we shall know--God grant not by experience. Our Divine Lord has said it: 'Where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.' And again: 'Go, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.' There is an eternal pain by fire. God has declared it. Woe to the man that denies it! Satan is always endeavouring to efface this belief out of the minds of men--doing everything he can by subtil philosophy, by specious reasoning, by appeals to the mercy of God, by wonderful exaltations of the Divine perfections, and criticisms upon the Greek Testament, by laughter, derision, scoffing, and mockery, before which many a man who is not afraid of going into battle is coward enough to run away. Satan is always endeavouring to root out the belief of eternal fire from the minds of men. I will tell you why. Because the greater multitude of men have so little hunger and thirst after God, so little aspiration after union with Him, that they are conscious only of the fear of an eternal pain to keep them from sin. If he could only efface from the minds of men-the thought of eternal pain, there is nothing left to restrain them; and for this he is always labouring. There is nothing Satan loves better than to get men to laugh at him, to use his name in jest, to interlard their conversation with some reference to him in mocking levity, which very soon makes men cease to fear him, and then cease to believe in his existence.
On the other hand, God is always striving to awaken and revive in the conscience of each one of us the sense of the danger of eternal death by His Divine Word, by the voice of His Church, by the whispers of conscience. He is perpetually reviving in every one of us the sense and belief that there is hereafter a judgment and a condemnation to eternal fire.
Live, then, as you would wish to die; because as you die, so you will be to all eternity. Precisely that character which you have woven for yourself through life by the voluntary acts of your free will, be it for good or be it for evil, that will be your eternal state before God. If God find you clothed in the white raiment which is the justice of the saints, happy are you; you will walk before Him in white for ever. If you be found in the rags and tatters of the Prodigal before his repentance, you will be cast out from His face, and all men will see your shame. As you live, so you will die; as you die, so you will be for ever. God is unchangeable. You are continually changing; but death will precipitate the form in which you die, and you will be so fixed for ever. As the tree falls, so it shall be. Make one mistake, and that mistake is made for ever.
O, dear brethren, look round about us; how many men there are that are learned, and scientific, and noble, and eloquent, and prosperous, whom the world honours! How many there are that are amiable, and loving, and loved, and their neighbours think no evil of them; they see nothing but the fair outside --the whited disguise. Some one mortal sin--God knows what--unrepented of, is within. Whited sepulchres--fair without; within, full of dead men's bones, and of uncleanness. Dear brethren, that may be our case. Say to yourselves, every one of you: 'That may be my case--that may be my likeness before God at this moment.' 'It is appointed unto all men once to die, and after that the judgment (Heb. ix. 27.).' And hear what that judgment will be: 'I saw a great White Throne and One sitting on it, before whose face the heaven and earth fled away, and there was no place found for them; and I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened, and the dead were judged out of the things that are written in the books; and another book was opened which was the Book of Life, and death and hell were cast into the pool of fire--which is the second death; and whosoever was not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the pool of fire (Apoc. xx. 11-15.).'
Prayers Against The Seven Deadly Sins
1. Against Pride
Lord Jesus Christ, Pattern of humility, who didst empty Thyself of Thy glory, and take upon Thee the form of a servant: root out of us all pride and conceit of heart, that, owning ourselves miserable and guilty sinners, we may willingly bear contempt and reproaches for Thy sake, and, glorying in nothing but Thee, may esteem ourselves lowly in Thy sight. Not unto us, O Lord, but to Thy name be the praise, for Thy loving mercy and for Thy truth's sake. Amen.
2. Against Covetousness
O Lord Jesus Christ, who though Thou wast rich yet for our sakes didst become poor, grant that all over-eagerness and covetousuess of earthly goods may die in us, and the desire of heavenly things may live and grow in us: keep us from all idle and vain expenditures, that we may always have to give to him that needeth, and that giving not grudgingly nor of necessity, but cheerfully, we may be loved of Thee, and be made through Thy merits partakers of the riches of Thy heavenly treasure. Amen.
3. Against Lust
O Lord Jesus Christ, Guardian of chaste souls, and lover of purity, who wast pleased to take our nature and to be born of an Immaculate Virgin: mercifully look upon my infirmity. Create in me a clean heart, O God: and renew a right spirit within me; help me to drive away all evil thoughts, to conquer every sinful desire, and so pierce my flesh with the fear of Thee that, this worst enemy being overcome, I may serve Thee with a chaste body and please Thee with a pure heart. Amen.
4. Against Anger
O most meek Jesus, Prince of Peace, who, when Thou wast reviled, reviled not, and on the Cross didst pray for Thy murderers: implant in our hearts the virtues of gentleness and patience, that, restraining the fierceness of anger, impatience, and resentment, we may overcome evil with good, for Thy sake love our enemies, and as children of our heavenly Father seek Thy peace and evermore rejoice in Thy love. Amen.
5. Against Gluttony
Lord Jesus Christ, Mirror of abstinence, who, to teach us the virtue of abstinence, didst fast forty days and forty nights, grant that, serving Thee and not our own appetites, we may live soberly and piously with contentment, without greediness, gluttony, or drunkenness, that Thy will being our meat and drink, we may hunger and thirst after justice, and finally obtain from Thee that food which eudureth unto life eternal. Amen.
6. Against Envy
O Most loving Jesus, Pattern of charity, who makest all the commandments of the law to consist in love towards God and towards man, grant to us so to love Thee with all our heart, with all our mind, and all our soul, and our neighbor for Thy sake, that the grace of charity and brotherly love may dwell in us, and all envy, harshness, and ill-will may die in us; and fill our hearts with feelings of love, kindness, and compassion, so that by constantly rejoicing in the happiness and success of others, by sympathizing with them in their sorrows, and putting away all harsh judgments and envious thoughts, we may follow Thee, who art Thyself the true and perfect love. Amen.
7. Against Sloth
Lord Jesus Christ, eternal Love, who in the garden didst pray so long and so fervently that Thy Sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground: put away from us, we beseech Thee, all sloth and inactivity both of body and mind; kindle within us the fire of Thy love; strengthen our weakness, that whatsoever our hand is able to do we may do it earnestly, and that, striving heartily to please Thee in this life, we may have Thee hereafter as our reward exceeding great. Amen.
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| Twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost |
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Posted by: Stone - 10-24-2021, 05:43 AM - Forum: Pentecost
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Twenty-Second Sunday After Pentecost
From Fr. Leonard Goffine's Explanations of the Epistles and Gospels for the Sundays, Holydays, and Festivals throughout the Ecclesiastical Year 36th edition, 1880
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At the Introit of the Mass pray with the priest for the forgiveness of your sins: If thou shalt observe iniquities O Lord: Lord, who shall endure? for with thee is propitiation, O God of Israel. From the depths I have cried to thee, O Lord: Lord, hear my voice. (Ps. CXXIX.) Glory etc.
COLLECT O God, our refuge and strength, who art the author of all goodness, hear, we beseech Thee, the devout prayers of Thy Church, and grant that what we faithfully ask we may effectually obtain. Thro’.
EPISTLE (Philipp. I. 6-II.) Brethren, We are confident in the Lord Jesus, that he who hath begun a good work in you will perfect it unto the day of Christ Jesus. As it is meet for me to think this for you all, for that I have you in my heart, and that in my bands, and in the defence and confirmation of the gospel, you are all partakers of my joy. For God is my witness, how I long after you all in the bowels of Jesus Christ. And this I pray, that your charity may more and more abound in knowledge and in all understanding: that you may approve the better things; that you may be sincere and without offence unto the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of justice, through Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God.
EXPLANATION This epistle was written by St. Paul at Rome, where he was imprisoned for the faith, to the inhabitants of Philippi in Macedonia whom he had converted to the true faith. He congratulates them that they so willingly received and conscientiously obeyed the gospel which he had preached to the, and he says, he trusts in God to complete the good work which He has commenced, and to give them perseverance until the day of Christ, that is, until death.
GOSPEL (Matt. XXII. 15-21.) At that time, The Pharisees went and consulted among themselves how to ensnare Jesus in his speech. And they send to him their disciples, with the Herodians, saying: Master, we know that thou art a true speaker, and teachest the way of God in truth, neither carest thou for any man, for thou dost not regard the person of men: tell us, therefore, what dost thou think? Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar or not? But Jesus knowing their wickedness, said: Why do you tempt me, ye hypocrites? Show me the coin of the tribute. And they offered him a penny. And Jesus saith to them: Whose image and inscription is this? They say to him: Caesar's. Then he saith to them: Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's.
Why did the Pharisees try to ensnare Jesus in His speech?
In order to find some reason to accuse Him before the emperor, or to make Him hated by the Jews; for had He denied tribute to Caesar, they would have accused Him before the emperor as guilty of high treason; had He, on the contrary made it obligatory to pay tribute, then they would have denounced Him as a destroyer of the liberty of the people, who considered themselves a free nation owing allegiance only to God. Like the Pharisees are all those who, under the appearance of friendship, only cause vexation and misfortune to their neighbor.
Who are really hypocrites?
Those who in order to cheat their neighbor, appear outwardly pious and holy, whilst inward they are full of malice; those who have honey on the tongue, but gall in the heart, and sting like scorpions, when we least expect it. Because there are so many vices connected with hypocrisy, (Matt. XXIII.) therefore Christ has denounced no sin more emphatically than this one. Hypocrites are brethren of Cain, Joab, and Judas, of whom the first killed his brother, the second his cousin and the third betrayed his divine Master with a kiss. Such false men are cursed by God. (Mal, I. 14.) I hate a mouth with a double tongue. (Prov. VIII. 13.) "The devil silently possesses the hearts of hypocrites and quietly sleeps in them, whilst he gives them no peace," says St. Gregory; and St. Jerome writes: "Pretended holiness is double malice." Better is an open enemy, before whom we can be on our guard, than a hypocritical friend of whom we have no suspicion, because we look upon him as a friend. Beware, therefore, my dear Christian, of the vice of hypocrisy, which is so hateful to God; endeavor always to be sincere with God, thyself and thy neighbor, and to walk in true humility before God, then mayst thou carry His image within thee.
PRAYER Help me, O Lord, for the number of the saints is decreasing and truth is becoming rare among men. They speak vain things each with his neighbor: their lips are deceitful, and they speak with double hearts. Let the Lord destroy all those who say: We will magnify our tongue; our lips are our own; who is Lord over us? O Lord, deliver my soul from wicked lips and deceitful tongues give me grace to preserve Thy image in my soul, by piety and virtue. Direct my heart to justice and keep it from avarice, that I may give to each his own.
INSTRUCTION ON THE FOLLY OF HUMAN RESPECT
Thou art a true speaker neither carest thou or any man, for thou dost not regard the person of men. (Matt. XXII. 16.)
In this Christians ought especially to follow the Saviour, and not permit themselves to be deterred from piety, and the practice of virtue by fear or human respect. What matters it, what people think and say of us, if we only please God? He alone can truly benefit or injure us; therefore he alone is to be feared, as Christ says: Fear ye not them that kill the body, and are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him that can destroy both soul and body in hell. (Matt. X. 28.)
How foolishly, therefore, do those act who through fear of displeasing certain people, are afraid to serve God and practice piety; who even go so far as to commit sin; who in order to be pleasing to others, oppress innocent, poor and forsaken people; who adopt the latest and most scandalous fashions and customs; those who eat meat on days of abstinence, or give it to others; those who sing sinful songs, or what is still worse, do not hesitate to ridicule sacred things to give others occasion to laugh, or in order to be considered strong-minded. Implore God daily and sincerely, that He may take from you this vain fear of men and give you instead the fear of the Lord, which is the beginning of wisdom.
INSTRUCTION ON THE VALUE AND DIGNITY OF THE SOUL
Whose image is this? (Matt. XXII. 20.)
Thus we should often ask ourselves with respect to our soul, particularly when we are tempted to stain and ruin it by sin, Whose image is this? We should then say to ourselves, "Is it not the likeness of God, a likeness painted with the blood of Jesus, an image for which the Saviour gave His life? Should I defile and deform this by sin and voluptuousness? God forbid!" For in truth, what among all created things, except the angels, is more beautiful and more precious than a human soul, which is in the state of grace? "Could we," says St. Catherine of Sienna, "behold with our corporal eyes a soul in the state of grace, we would see with astonishment that it surpasses in splendor all flowers all stars, the whole world, and there is probably no one who would not wish to die for such beauty." It is a dwelling of the Blessed Trinity! Christ did not give His life for all the goods and treasures of this earth, but for the human soul. And yet many estimate their soul at such little value that they sell it for a momentary pleasure, for a present not worth a penny! For shame! The body we estimate so highly that we take all pains to decorate it and keep it alive, and the soul the image and likeness of God, we take no pains to keep in the state of grace, and adorn with virtues! What folly!
INSTRUCTION ON THE OBLIGATION TO PAY TAXES OR TRIBUTE TO THE GOVERNMENT
Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's. (Matt. XXII. 21.)
To pay tribute to the lawful government is a duty of justice which the Spirit of God Himself commands us faithfully to fulfil. (Rom. XIII. 6, 7.) Christ Himself paid the customary didrachma for Himself and St. Peter; (Matt. XVII. 23.) "and if the Son of God Himself paid duty and tax," says St. Ambrose, "who art thou, O man, that thou wouldst free thyself from it?" The government must watch lest the life of its subjects be at hazard, that their property be not endangered or stolen, that there be security on the highways, that peace, harmony and order be preserved among the citizens, that their temporal welfare be promoted; that science and art flourish, etc. For this, teachers, judges, officers and soldiers are necessary, for whose support care must be taken, and whose trouble must be rewarded. Besides this the government must care for the security of the country, for public streets and bridges, and institutions necessary for the common good; to enable the government to perform these duties, taxes are necessary and lawfully assessed. If you oppose these laws, you oppose God, for by Him princes rule, and the mighty degree justice. (Prov. VIII. 16.) Let the payment of duties be done willingly, because you pay them for love of God, and resigned to His holy will as the early Christians did, who even served their heathenish government with pleasure, in all that was not contrary to God's will, and cheerfully paid the duties.
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| Archbishop Lefebvre: "All who believe in the Catholic Faith are betrayed!" [1981] |
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Posted by: Stone - 10-23-2021, 05:50 AM - Forum: Sermons and Conferences
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The Angelus - August 1981
The Archbishop Speaks
THE ORDINATION SERMON of His Grace Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre 29 June 1981
at the International Seminary of the Society of Saint Pius X in Ecône, Switzerland
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
My dear brothers, dear friends, it is with a great delight and a profound joy that we arrive each year at this point, on this date, to confer ordination to the holy priesthood upon the young deacons who have prepared themselves for long years to receive the holy anointing of the priesthood. We rejoice to confer ordination not only on members of the Society, but also on those who have prepared so carefully in the monasteries, those of Dom Gerard and Dom Augustine. If the number this year seems smaller, it is because, day before yesterday, I performed the same ceremony in our seminary at Zaitzkofen, in Germany. We ordained five members of the Society who had completed their studies, either at Weissbad or at Zaitzkofen. And I must say, the ceremony was very moving—remarkable in the devotion of all the faithful who were present, in the number of the faithful present—some three thousand, I think. We had a day truly blessed by God. And I am sure that today also—the sky proves it with the sun God has given us—God is blessing us equally at Ecône, as usual.
My dear friends, we often use this occasion, to which you come from everywhere, to highlight, in a sense, the situation of the Society, and the situation also of the Church. We must say that the Passion of the Church continues, a Passion which manifests itself even, I would say, in the health of the Head of the Church. The Pope suffers in his own body, so to say, the Passion of the Church, in these sad and difficult times, by this accident—incredible, inconceivable, in our time. And we have had to live through an age when the Pope could be mortally injured. Yes, we are truly living the Passion of the Church. But this Passion manifests itself in an even more urgent way, more difficult, more shocking, when one thinks of all that is happening today in the world, and that this is promoted, we must say, by the clergy, by members of the Church. Just as Our Lord was betrayed by one of His own, Our Lord was abandoned by the apostles, when the soldiery came to lay hands on Our Lord, even so today, members of the clergy and others betray anew Our Lord Jesus Christ.
We have observed, alas, in our dear country of France, how on the occasion of the last elections, the bishops, the priests, religious men and women, aided the coming to power of Socialism—Socialism which wars against Our Lord Jesus Christ, which fights on the side of atheism! Not for nothing did the new President go to receive—as the newspapers put it—lay-anointing at the Pantheon. It is this which disturbed us. The economic consequences are less important alongside this drama which we are living, this struggle against Our Lord Jesus Christ. It seems that the devil, unleashed, has finally arrived at his goal. By the Socialism which is spreading in all countries, by the Communism which spreads through the world, the devil aspires to destroy the Catholic religion and Our Lord Jesus Christ. And unfortunately, we must say once again, in South America, in the episcopacy of North America, in almost all espicopacies, one may say, of Europe, these movements of rebellion against Our Lord are promoted—willingly, most willingly by the episcopacy. This is the particular drama of the Church in our day. St. Pius X said it clearly: the enemies of the Church are no longer merely outside the Church; they are now also inside. He pointed the finger himself at the seminaries. And in pinpointing the seminaries, he also pinpointed the professors of the seminaries—those charged with the formation of the clergy. It is thus that the clergy was formed by Modernist ideas, Liberal ideas, and so we arrive at the point where we are today.
We must also say—we cannot deny it that this Passion of the Church is everywhere. The Church suffers everywhere. And it suffers, first, we must add, in the Roman Curia, which continues to propagate Modernist ideas. And now we see, in spite of everything, these reforms, which were set in motion by Vatican II, which are in the process of destroying the Church—the self-destruction of the Church, as Pope Paul VI himself called it! This self-destruction of the Church, how did it come about, if not by the clergy themselves, if not by those placed in the citadel of the Roman Church, to protect the Faith of the Church—which they are no longer protecting. Are they condemned? These so-called philosophers, these so-called theologians who corrupt the Faith, who are virtually heretics—are they really being punished? Are the bishops punished, who fashion an ecumenism which is nothing more nor less than the spread of heresy, who invite Protestants to concelebrate with them? Are they condemned, the bishops? The superiors of seminaries who introduce pornography into the seminaries—and Rome knows this—one could go on indefinitely with examples of this kind. Are the bishops of Mexico condemned, who in their diocesan assemblies, in their newspapers, publish articles favorable to the Revolution, and against El Salvador, asking for money for Fidel Castro, expressing a willingness to fight—physically, if possible—against the government of El Salvador, to spread the Revolution, to spread Communism?
My dear friends, we are betrayed. You—you are betrayed. All honest people are betrayed. All who believe in the Catholic Faith are betrayed. All who believe in Our Lord Jesus Christ, all who wish to defend the Faith of Our Lord, who wish to defend the fundamental truth of their Faith, in the catechism itself, who wish to defend morality, the Ten Commandments, who wish to defend Sacred Scripture itself—all these are betrayed. Betrayed by Modernist ideas. Modernism replaces the Faith by research, purely masonic ideas! ("We are all searching for the truth. It does not exist. We will never find it. We don't know if it exists.") We do know our Faith, and we wish to maintain it! The Ten Commandments have been replaced by the Rights of Man. What we have now is the religion of the Rights of Man, in place of the Ten Commandments. Now we know perfectly well that the Rights of Man and justice in this world, exist only in virtue of the Ten Commandments. When we have done our duty to God and our neighbor, justice will prevail—but not in the fight against the authority of God, against all authority. The Rights of Man is simply the struggle against the authority of God and against all authority. Law has been replaced by conscience. Everyone does as he pleases. Everyone looks to his conscience, and no longer to law. These are the Modernist ideas which are spreading in the world.
And so they wanted to fashion for us a liturgy in this spirit. In this spirit of liberty, of pluralism, in short, of desacralization. They don't want to adore God any longer; they don't want to recognize His sovereign authority: they don't want to believe any longer in Our Creator, Our Savior, Our Redeemer, Our Judge. And all this is promoted—promoted by the Roman Curia. Perhaps not everyone [in the Curia], but certainly by those in charge of worship, of the bishops and of religious. And also by the Secretary of State. Because, wherever the freedom of all religions has been proclaimed, as in Spain, in Ireland, and here in the Canton of Valais, and in all countries where the Catholic religion has been kept as the one true religion, they wanted to establish this law of ecumenism, this false ecumenism, as the great desire of the age, this heresy which destroys what is still Catholic in those countries which recognize Our Lord Jesus Christ as their head and their sovereign. And all this is promoted. And it is promoted by the [Papal] Secretary of State.
How can this be, my dear friends? You know as well as I. I cite facts. I do not seek for explanations; I stand by facts. The fact is that our resolution is made, to stand forever: qui perseverat usque in finem, his salvus erit. (He who perseveres unto the end, he will be saved. Mt. 10:22) And persevere in what, I ask you? Persevere in the Catholic Faith! Persevere in what Our Lord Jesus Christ taught us—that there is only one true religion, that other religions were invented by the devil, to turn souls away from Our Lord Jesus Christ. This is clearly the truth. This is what Pope St. Leo in the Lesson for today, the Feast of St. Peter and St. Paul, teaches, that, before the coming of Peter and Paul, Rome was the place which recognized all gods, and that the devil invented that idea to keep men in error. Now Rome has become the mistress of truth. That is what St. Leo says. So we must maintain our Catholic Faith. Persevere—unto the end.
AND TO MAINTAIN OUR CATHOLIC FAITH, my dear brothers (I now address the men who will be ordained priests in a few minutes), what is the means? Maintain your Holy Mass! Not because it is the Mass of the Latin Rite. There are other Masses in other rites. But this rite contains all the truths of Our Catholic Faith—and proclaims them! Thus today these new rites, infested with ecumenism, a false ecumenism, does not proclaim our Faith any longer, as the immemorial Mass does. And in this way we know that the faithful are in the way of losing the Faith. Some more rapidly than others, to the extent that priests are guarding tradition. But the results are forthcoming; they are clear and unmistakable. So what must we do? We must maintain our holy immemorial Mass. It is the cornerstone of the Church. This is the treasure that Our Lord Jesus Christ has given us: hic est calix sanguinis mei, novi et aeterni testamenti—the new and everlasting covenant. This is the covenant of Our Lord Jesus Christ: His blood poured out for us, for the forgiveness of our sins.
It is in this that you will believe, my dear friends. You will believe in the Sacrifice of the Mass, the Sacrifice of Our Lord Jesus Christ, renewed by yourselves, for us sinners, all poor sinners, as the good Lord has given us the power—this power actually given to bring the Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ upon our altars, for the forgiveness of our sins. You will maintain this profound understanding of your Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, which is simply the great charity of Our Lord Jesus Christ. In pronouncing the words of consecration, you will think of the last breath of Our Lord Jesus Christ and you will think of His pierced heart. Can one show a greater love than to lay down his life for those he loves? Our Lord Jesus Christ gave His life first of all for His Father, for the glory of His Father, to establish the glory of His Father. The Father never received such glory as when Our Lord Jesus Christ breathed His last, when His Heart was pierced—it was for Him that He did that. You too, you will offer your entire lives to God, first to God.
Then, in a spirit of prayer, in a spirit of adoration, in a spirit of humility, in a spirit of holiness, then you will go, to bring the word of the Gospel, to bring your faith—so well expressed in the Catechism of the Council of Trent, which is at the foundation of what you teach—to bring the light of faith, to draw people to the light of charity, to kindle the fire of charity, this fire which will embrace your hearts and your souls, and you will go forth, to bring the grace of the Lord in the sacrament of baptism and in the sacrament of penance especially. No one goes to Confession any more! In entire countries, like Ireland, no one goes to Confession for two, three, four years. And they go to Communion whenever they have a chance. And this can be said for the whole world, for the whole Catholic world. And you will allow souls to pour into your hearts the secrets of their conscience, and you will wash these souls in the Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, with your words of absolution. If you spend the whole of your day in the confessional, that is the most beautiful service that you could render, to souls and to the Church. And you will give, above all, by the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, Holy Communion, the very Body of Our Lord Jesus Christ, with all the respect that we owe Him, Our God, Our Savior, Our Redeemer.
And you will teach souls the meaning of sacrifice. No one speaks any more of the Sacrifice of the Mass, but rather of a Eucharist, a Communion, a Sharing. It is not that! It is a question of the Holy Sacrifice, the sacrifice of Our Lord. The spirit of sacrifice is the Catholic spirit. Without sacrifice, there is no more Catholicism. You know this very well, my dear brothers, and you are an example of it, a magnificent example.
Everywhere I go, where I have occasion to go, I find this circumstance, of people who have the Faith, who want to keep the Faith. We find beautiful Christian families, with numerous children, whence come religious and priestly vocations. How beautiful! There you are—this is what the Church does! This is what the grace of Our Lord produces, by Holy Mass and by Holy Communion. And we must add, my dear brothers, that the sacrament of marriage has its symbol, its image, its meaning on Calvary. Our Lord gives birth to His bride, unites Himself to His bride, on Calvary. One finds it in His Blood, in His pierced Heart, the water and blood which flowed from His Heart. Here is the symbol of marriage, the mystical marriage of Our Lord Jesus Christ with His bride. As a result, the grace of the sacrament of marriage renews itself in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. So Christians cannot nourish the grace of marriage without frequently attending Holy Mass.
This is what you do, and we congratulate you. This is what is done, so traditionalist families—i.e., simply good Catholics, have numerous children. See the joy and peace which is at the root of the many vocations which we have in our seminaries. They are here, they are in monasteries, they are in the religious congregations which we know, these religious who are here present—numerous vocations. You will be the support, my dear brothers, of these Christian homes, and at the same time the models.
Now I end with these few words. You have studied. You have bent over the holy books, over those books which are at the foundation of the Faith of the Church, these books of philosophy, of theology; you have questioned your professors; you have enlightened your minds; you have increased your faith; and you feel yourselves profoundly attached to the Church, to the Sovereign Pontiff, to all the bishops (insofar as they remain Catholic), to all the Church, to Rome—Rome which cannot separate itself from the Church. You feel yourselves attached to all these fundamental values, which have made the entire history of the Church, for twenty centuries, and which you wish to hand on. It is for this reason that you are traditionalists, as St. Pius X so well said: the Catholic is a traditionalist, because the Church is a tradition. So you will transmit all this to all the souls who will turn to you. But you will be nothing, my dear brothers, without holiness. You have an intelligence well enlightened, an extraordinary knowledge of philosophy and theology, Holy Scripture and Canon Law. But you will do nothing if you have not holiness. And who is the model of holiness for the priesthood? The Most Blessed Virgin. Why? Because see how God, Our Lord Jesus Christ, chose to prepare His mother to be worthy to receive Him—this was the Immaculate Conception. She knew the dominion neither of sin nor the devil. Her soul is pure. Her soul is holy. Her soul is truly divine. The Holy Ghost dwells there; the Holy Trinity dwells with joy in this soul which has never known sin. By her Fiat, prepared by her total virginity, she prepares for the coming of the Lord, she accepts the coming of the Lord. So you too—your lips in pronouncing the words of consecration, will repeat in a sense the Fiat of the Virgin Mary, and make Jesus Himself come upon the altar—Jesus, to Whom you unite yourselves first, before distributing Him to souls. So if the Lord wished the Virgin Mary to have a wonderful holiness, a holiness which surpasses the holiness of all other creatures, you priests, priests of Jesus Christ, you who will bring Jesus upon the altar, you too must be holy. One cannot stay with a priest who is not holy, who does no seek for holiness, who does not seek for a humility like that of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary.
Respexit humilitatem meam. He has looked upon my lowliness, said the Holy Virgin. Yes, she can sing of the glory of God, because she is humble. So you too will be humble in heart, because these graces which you are going to receive, which you owe not to yourselves, but to God, you have been chosen by God, and you receive them also through the Virgin Mary. As the Apostles in the Cenacle, seated around the Virgin Mary, received the graces they received through the Virgin Mary, so you too, in a few minutes, by the imposition of hands of the bishop and by the words of the sacrament of ordination, you will receive the Holy Ghost, and you will receive Him through your Good Mother in Heaven, the Most Blessed Virgin Mary. So remain united to the Holy Virgin, like the Apostles, who sat around her in the Cenacle, remain so all your lives, and you will exercise in this way a magnificent apostolate. And thus you will persevere until the end, and you will save yourselves, with all the souls whom you have sanctified.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
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| October 23rd - St. Anthony Mary Claret, Bishop |
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Posted by: Stone - 10-23-2021, 05:32 AM - Forum: October
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October 23 -St. Anthony Mary Claret, Bishop
He was one of the greatest prelates and missionaries of the nineteenth century. Born in Sallent, a small town in the province of Barcelona on December 25, 1807, as a child he began to give extraordinary signs of his providential destiny. Dedicated to the work of his father’s loom, where a cheerful future awaited him given his good qualities and his great love of work, he left it all day to dedicate himself fully to the salvation of his own soul and the souls of others.
He begins by studying Latin and philosophy at the Vich Seminary. During this time, he had a strong desire to give his blood for Christ, and it was these same wishes that led him to embark on Marseilles to go to countries of the infidels, in order to spread the Christian faith everywhere. But his apostolate ambitions are unsuccessful. He then tries to join the Society of Jesus, and his poor health forces him to leave it. He returned again to Spain, where he was ordained as a priest and was entrusted with the care of the Villadraú parish, in which he displayed great apostolic activity from the first moment: he confessed, preached, organized pious brotherhoods and brotherhoods, consoled the afflicted, He helps the poor and sows good hands full in every corner of his congregation. His fame began to spread throughout the region, and on Sundays a stream of people flocked to listen to the famous and austere preacher. Soon all the towns of Catalonia can hear his voice, and he lets himself be carried away. You walk from town to town from the banks of the Ebro to the slopes of the Pyrenees. His passage raises waves of enthusiasm and cries of repentance: peoples are transformed, great sinners change their lives and the most stupendous conversions take place. He possessed the divine secret of snatching hearts like the great popular preachers, San Antonio de Padua, San Bernardino de Siena, or San Vicente Ferrer. He had taken Blessed Avila as the model of his preaching and, like him, he anointed his sermons with prayer. and on Sundays a stream of people flock from all over to listen to the famous and austere preacher. Soon all the towns of Catalonia can hear his voice, and he lets himself be carried away. You walk from town to town from the banks of the Ebro to the slopes of the Pyrenees. His passage raises waves of enthusiasm and cries of repentance: peoples are transformed, great sinners change their lives and the most stupendous conversions take place. He possessed the divine secret of snatching hearts like the great popular preachers, San Antonio de Padua, San Bernardino de Siena, or San Vicente Ferrer. He had taken Blessed Avila as the model of his preaching and, like him, he anointed his sermons with prayer. and on Sundays a stream of people flock from all over to listen to the famous and austere preacher. Soon all the towns of Catalonia can hear his voice, and he lets himself be carried away. You walk from town to town from the banks of the Ebro to the slopes of the Pyrenees. His passage raises waves of enthusiasm and cries of repentance: peoples are transformed, great sinners change their lives and the most stupendous conversions take place. He possessed the divine secret of snatching hearts like the great popular preachers, San Antonio de Padua, San Bernardino de Siena, or San Vicente Ferrer. He had taken Blessed Avila as the model of his preaching and, like him, he anointed his sermons with prayer. You walk from town to town from the banks of the Ebro to the slopes of the Pyrenees. His passage raises waves of enthusiasm and cries of repentance: peoples are transformed, great sinners change their lives and the most stupendous conversions take place. He possessed the divine secret of snatching hearts like the great popular preachers, San Antonio de Padua, San Bernardino de Siena, or San Vicente Ferrer. He had taken Blessed Avila as the model of his preaching and, like him, he anointed his sermons with prayer. You walk from town to town from the banks of the Ebro to the slopes of the Pyrenees. His passage raises waves of enthusiasm and cries of repentance: peoples are transformed, great sinners change their lives and the most stupendous conversions take place. He possessed the divine secret of snatching hearts like the great popular preachers, San Antonio de Padua, San Bernardino de Siena, or San Vicente Ferrer. He had taken Blessed Avila as the model of his preaching and, like him, he anointed his sermons with prayer. He possessed the divine secret of snatching hearts like the great popular preachers, San Antonio de Padua, San Bernardino de Siena, or San Vicente Ferrer. He had taken Blessed Avila as the model of his preaching and, like him, he anointed his sermons with prayer. He possessed the divine secret of snatching hearts like the great popular preachers, San Antonio de Padua, San Bernardino de Siena, or San Vicente Ferrer. He had taken Blessed Avila as the model of his preaching and, like him, he anointed his sermons with prayer.
In addition to being a preacher, Saint P. Claret was a tireless propagandist of the pen: he wrote thousands of pious books, founded religious bookstores, published Catholic newspapers, and promoted the religious teaching of the people by all means. This incomparable and fruitful activity aroused against him the wrath of the anti-religious and Masonic sectarianism that persecuted him with all fury, raising against him the most vile slander. But the virtue of the integrity of the missionary emerged triumphant from all his enemies and the glory began to adorn his forehead from this very life. The Queen of Spain chose him as her confessor, but before that he was appointed Bishop of Santiago de Cuba, an island where his zeal greatly intensified Christian life, and, finally, he was given the title of Archbishop of Trajanópolis;
He concentrated the last years of his life especially in the Institute of the Missionaries Sons of the Heart of Mary, which he had founded with other companions in 1849, and which continues to be still today the purest and most exalted glory of the eminent missionary of Sallent.
At the outbreak of the 1868 revolution, Father Claret followed the queen into exile, dying two years later (1870) in the Fontfroide Cistercian Abbey (France), always harassed, fiercely slandered and persecuted until after his death. He had a great rage and still has hell, Satan knows why.
Pope Pius XI declared him Blessed, and Pius XII canonized him in the midst of tremendous functions. The fame and glory of this incomparable man, the pride of Spain, grows in the world like one more overwhelmed, and astonishing manifestations of his beneficial influence in the entire world are to be expected. We wish for him the aura of the doctorate in the universal Church. Hail father, hail tireless shepherd of souls, hail prez of Missionaries and Prelates; look from the sky at the vineyard that you planted and watered with sweat, watch over its prosperity!
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| CDC Director Says US May Change Definition of “Fully Vaccinated” as Booster Shots Become Available |
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Posted by: Stone - 10-23-2021, 05:26 AM - Forum: COVID Vaccines
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HERE WE GO: CDC Director Walensky Says US May Change Definition of “Fully Vaccinated” as Booster Shots Become Available (VIDEO)
GP | October 22, 2021
Here we go…
CDC Director Rochelle Walensky on Friday said the US may change its definition of “fully vaccinated” as booster shots become available for everybody.
A reporter for the Associated Press asked Walensky if the Biden Administration is rethinking the definition what it means to be “fully vaccinated” now that booster shots are recommended.
“Should people who are eligible for a booster now get one by a certain time frame to maintain their fully vaccinated status?” the reporter asked Fauci and Walensky.
“We have not yet changed the definition of ‘fully vaccinated.’ We will continue to look at this. We may need to update our definition of ‘fully vaccinated’ in the future,” Walensky said during a press briefing on Friday.
VIDEO:
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| Analysis Shows More COVID Deaths in 2021 than 2020 with Large Percent of 2021 Deaths Fully Vaccinate |
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Posted by: Stone - 10-23-2021, 05:06 AM - Forum: Pandemic 2020 [Secular]
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Analysis Shows More COVID Deaths in 2021 than 2020 with Large Percent of 2021 Deaths Fully Vaccinated
GP | October 22, 2021
The Devil is in the Details and The Trends Look Like Hell
Some may want to “Follow the Science” since a majority feel it is correct but math provides the true answers. Math takes the data and determines the trends. While we must learn from the past 22 months of this pandemic we also must understand the current trends so we can determine the correct path forward.
In the first 3 months of 2020 in the US, 3,603 people died from Covid-19. In April the deaths accelerated and varied between 9k and 15k per week. Eventually, 333,199 died between April 1, 2020 and Dec 31, 2020 for a daily average of 1,216 deaths.
During the October 22nd 2020 debate Joe Biden stated, “Folks, I will take care of this. I will end this. I will make sure we have a plan”.
According to www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ there have been an additional 414,890 deaths from Covid-19 between Jan 1, 2021 and Oct 20, 2021. That equates to a new daily average of 1,421 deaths. The 2021 daily rate is 16.9% greater than 2020. In the math world we would say the plan has failed.
The following is an analysis of breakthrough cases and deaths in Maryland, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. Covid-19 breakthrough cases or deaths are in fully vaccinated persons. Each state records their Covid-19 data differently which makes some data more readily available. It is practically impossible to get all the data for these states on the exact same dates.
From the Maryland.gov website we are told.
Then it states later,
Quote:Less than 0.71% sounds pretty low doesn’t it? The state of Maryland implies the vaccines are doing their job as Dr. Fauci has told us over and over again. Yet what is the trend?
Between Sept 22, 2021, and Oct 10, 2021, Maryland had an additional 21,864 Covid-19 cases which 7,233 or 33.1% of the cases were classified as breakthrough cases. Why doesn’t the state of Maryland give you this data versus the 0.71% number?
During this same period, Maryland lost 259 citizens to Covid-19. Of those 259 souls, 77 or 29.7% were fully vaccinated. Again, why does Maryland.gov water down that data?
In Massachusetts, for the four week ending period of Aug 28 through Sep 18, there were 44,773 Covid-19 cases which 37.1% were classified as breakthrough and 269 covid-19 deaths of which, 86 or 32.0% were in fully vaccinated people. For the four week ending period of Sep 25 through Oct 16, there were 38,228 Covid-19 cases which 40.8% were classified as breakthrough and 380 Covid-19 deaths of which, 154 or 40.5% were in fully vaccinated people.
These trends detail an obvious failure of the vaccine, but news outlets state that this fully vaccinated death count of 371 is only a very small percentage of the total vaccinated. What should be troubling to the Massachusetts public is those fully vaccinated account for an average of 39.2% of all deaths in the first two weeks of October.
In Pennsylvania, the acting Sec. of Health Alison Beam stated at a news conference at Lancaster General Hospital, “With nearly seven million Pennsylvanians fully vaccinated, the data makes it clear: the vaccines are safe and effective at preventing severe illness from Covid-19.”
However, recent analysis of cases and deaths between September 15 and Oct 4 show that in 132k cases, 26.1% of them were classified as breakthrough and 305 (26.5%) deaths out of a total of 1,153 were in fully vaccinated people. But Sec. of Health Alison Beam makes no mention of that.
While Vermont is a small state, the fully vaccinated share of the total loss of life from Covid-19 is an even higher percentage than any of the states reviewed so far. In September, according to the Vermont Daily Chronicle, 76% of those who died of Covid-19 were fully vaccinated.
When we look to the UK, the picture looks as bad as in Vermont except on a larger scale which should be a concern as our country’s numbers tend to lag the UK’s by a few weeks.
The following table from the UK government can be found here, on page 15. It shows that between week 37 and week 40, there was a total of 2,805 covid-19 deaths and 2,136 or 76.1% were fully vaccinated. These deaths happened within 28 days of a positive Covid-19 test.
Recently, Dr. Robert Malone, who developed the mRNA technology, was interviewed on The Jimmy Dore Show and stated, “overuse of vaccines will drive the development of viruses that are able to evade vaccinations”.
Vaccinating those that aren’t at risk drives this development of further variants which could be killing more of our elderly.
Hopefully, we can learn from these trending hardships in the UK, that a booster shot that was designed for the initial variant discovered in the fall of 2019 can’t be the silver bullet against the variants in the 2021/2022 Covid-19 season. When will we realize that statements like, “we can vaccinate ourselves out of a pandemic”, could actually be very dangerous to our young and killing our elderly?
Why is our 2021 daily death toll, with vaccine use, 16.9% greater than in 2020 when no vaccine was readily available?
The following Virginia data was obtained.
If a current protocol has failed, we need to discard it. If the majority of deaths are in a specific age group we need to focus on that age group and protect their lives. We need to stop spending time on scare tactics with other groups who are at minimal risk of death, by coercing them or mandating them into getting an experimental vaccine without knowledge of long-term side effects.
The old saying, “knowledge is power, get some” is more relevant than ever now. Math is a beautiful thing.
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| UK: Deleted Government Report Celebrates How Public Loves to “Conform” |
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Posted by: Stone - 10-22-2021, 02:50 PM - Forum: General Commentary
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Deleted Government Report Celebrates How Public Loves to “Conform”
Climate change technocrats plan on using same methods that convinced public to obey lockdown.
Summit News | 22 October, 2021
A deleted government report exploring how to make the public alter its behavior to accept the new ‘green economy’ reveals how COVID-19 restrictions have created a population with a “deep set reverence” for authority and a “powerful tendency to conform.”
The report was inadvertently published by the British government before being hastily pulled down, but numerous journalists were able to retrieve its contents.
The document explored how to weaponize behavioral psychology to ‘nudge’ the public into supporting measures and adopting behavior without them explicitly knowing they’re being manipulated.
The investigation found that the same techniques the government used to force people into accepting lockdown could be used to make them change their lifestyles in the name of preventing climate change.
Under the heading “principles for successful behaviour,” the paper noted;
“Government statements, actions and laws powerfully shape perceptions of normative and acceptable behaviour. For instance, even with public criticism being high, many still perceived government approval as the yardstick for safe behaviour during COVID-19 ‘we’re allowed to do this now [so must be safe]…’. This reveals, for many, a deep set reverence for legitimate government authority, regardless of one’s personal political views.”
While PR stunts such as having officials vaccinated live on television worked to convince people of the narrative, elite hypocrisy (public officials violating lockdown rules) was found to cause significant damage to public trust.
“Perceived hypocrisy can do a lot to undermine efforts to build public engagement and support. This was observed during the COVID-19 pandemic when prominent authority figures broke guidelines, leading to measurable reductions in public compliance as well as shifting attitudes.”
“Green politics has similar deep-seated reputational issues with elite hypocrisy,” notes Breitbart. “A common feature of climate change summits has been high-profile attendees arriving by private or government jet, a disconnect between word and deed that seems unlikely to vanish in the near term.”
The paper concluded that people can be rather easily “nudged” into changing their behavior in response to government announcements and “have a powerful tendency to conform.”
The investigation also found that even if enforced changes to lifestyle are not wanted by the public, most tend to fall in line with the new status quo rather quickly anyway.
The report was prepared by the Behavioural Insights Team (BIT), a quasi-government body that was part of the effort to use “totalitarian” and “unethical” methods of instilling fear into the population as a means of scaring them into complying with lockdown rules.
A related group, the Scientific Pandemic Insights Group on Behaviours team, warned at the start of the first lockdown that a “substantial number of people still do not feel sufficiently personally threatened [by Covid-19].”
“The perceived level of personal threat needs to be increased among those who are complacent, using hard-hitting emotional messaging,” the group added, leading to numerous lurid propaganda campaigns that exaggerated the threat of COVID to bully the public into total submission.
In summary, the public is largely unthinking, compliant and docile and can be made to go along with just about anything so long as they’re bombarded with the right propaganda.
Wonderful.
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| October 22nd - Saint Mello of Cardiff, Archbishop of Rouen |
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Posted by: Stone - 10-22-2021, 07:26 AM - Forum: October
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October 22 - Saint Mello of Cardiff, Archbishop of Rouen
Saint Mello was born at Cardiff in Great Britain, immersed in idolatry, but converted when sent on a diplomatic mission to Rome. He heard a discourse by Pope Saint Steven and immediately afterwards expressed his desire for Baptism. Later the same Pope ordained him to the priesthood, having witnessed his zeal for the Faith. He was designated miraculously by God to go to Rouen as its Bishop, when the Pope, as well as Saint Mello himself, saw an Angel beside the altar while he was saying Mass. This heavenly Messenger presented him with a pastoral staff and told him he was destined to take the Gospel to the city of Rouen in Neustria, which is now Normandy. Saint Steven sent him there after consecrating him bishop.
In Auxerre he cured the injured foot of a carpenter by touching his pastoral staff to it, and the artisan himself and all the witnesses to this cure were converted. Then blind persons and paralytics were brought to him, and he cured them by his prayers, offered in the name of Jesus Christ. Several of his converts would later shed their blood for their faith.
Saint Mello preached in Rouen to a crowd, and a young man who had gone up on a roof to hear him, fell and was killed by the fall. The apostle resurrected him at once, and several thousand persons became Christians, including the young man in question, who was afterwards ordained a priest and became a great preacher in his turn. It was there that Saint Mello decided to build a church in honor of the Most Holy Trinity and the Blessed Virgin; it is believed that the present Cathedral stands at the same site. At what is now Saint Lo he cast out a demon from an idol, in the presence of a crowd, and nearly the entire village asked for Baptism. He purified the temple by the exorcisms of the Church and placed there an altar to the true God. This sanctified site is today the Church of Saint Lo. The holy bishop continued to bring souls to the truth during a long episcopate; he died in peace, an octogenarian, in the year 311, having governed the see of Rouen for forty years. A spring at Hericourt where the Saint once baptized, is still visited by parents with sick children, who plunge them into the water of this Fountain of Saint Mello.
- Les Petits Bollandistes: Vies des Saints, by Msgr. Paul Guérin (Bloud et Barral: Paris, 1882), Vol. 12
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| 91 Research Studies Affirm Naturally Acquired Immunity to Covid-19: Documented, Linked, and Quoted |
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Posted by: Stone - 10-22-2021, 07:15 AM - Forum: Pandemic 2020 [Secular]
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91 Research Studies Affirm Naturally Acquired Immunity to Covid-19: Documented, Linked, and Quoted
![[Image: shutterstock_116566336-800x469.jpg]](https://brownstone.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/shutterstock_116566336-800x469.jpg)
Brownstone Institute | OCTOBER 17, 2021
We should not force COVID vaccines on anyone when the evidence shows that naturally acquired immunity is equal to or more robust and superior to existing vaccines. Instead, we should respect the right of the bodily integrity of individuals to decide for themselves.
Public health officials and the medical establishment with the help of the politicized media are misleading the public with assertions that the COVID-19 shots provide greater protection than natural immunity. CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, for example, was deceptive in her October 2020 published LANCET statement that “there is no evidence for lasting protective immunity to SARS-CoV-2 following natural infection” and that “the consequence of waning immunity would present a risk to vulnerable populations for the indefinite future.”
Immunology and virology 101 have taught us over a century that natural immunity confers protection against a respiratory virus’s outer coat proteins, and not just one, e.g. the SARS-CoV-2 spike glycoprotein. There is even strong evidence for the persistence of antibodies. Even the CDC recognizes natural immunity for chicken-pox and measles, mumps, and rubella, but not for COVID-19.
The vaccinated are showing viral loads (very high) similar to the unvaccinated (Acharya et al. and Riemersma et al.), and the vaccinated are as infectious. Riemersma et al. also report Wisconsin data that corroborate how the vaccinated individuals who get infected with the Delta variant can potentially (and are) transmit(ting) SARS-CoV-2 to others (potentially to the vaccinated and unvaccinated).
This troubling situation of the vaccinated being infectious and transmitting the virus emerged in seminal nosocomial outbreak papers by Chau et al. (HCWs in Vietnam), the Finland hospital outbreak (spread among HCWs and patients), and the Israel hospital outbreak (spread among HCWs and patients). These studies also revealed that the PPE and masks were essentially ineffective in the healthcare setting. Again, the Marek’s disease in chickens and the vaccination situation explains what we are potentially facing with these leaky vaccines (increased transmission, faster transmission, and more ‘hotter’ variants).
Moreover, existing immunity should be assessed before any vaccination, via an accurate, dependable, and reliable antibody test (or T cell immunity test) or be based on documentation of prior infection (a previous positive PCR or antigen test). Such would be evidence of immunity that is equal to that of vaccination and the immunity should be provided the same societal status as any vaccine-induced immunity. This will function to mitigate the societal anxiety with these forced vaccine mandates and societal upheaval due to job loss, denial of societal privileges etc. Tearing apart the vaccinated and the unvaccinated in a society, separating them, is not medically or scientifically supportable.
The Brownstone Institute previously documented 30 studies on natural immunity as it relates to Covid-19.
This follow-up chart is the most updated and comprehensive library list of 81 of the highest-quality, complete, most robust scientific studies and evidence reports/position statements on natural immunity as compared to the COVID-19 vaccine-induced immunity and allow you to draw your own conclusion.
I’ve benefited from the input of many to put this together, especially my co-authors:
Dr. Harvey Risch, MD, PhD (Yale School of Public Health)
Dr. Howard Tenenbaum, PhD ( Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto)
Dr. Ramin Oskoui, MD (Foxhall Cardiology, Washington)
Dr. Peter McCullough, MD (Truth for Health Foundation (TFH)), Texas
Dr. Parvez Dara, MD (consultant, Medical Hematologist and Oncologist)
See article link [above] for all 90 articles: Evidence on natural immunity versus COVID-19 vaccine induced immunity as of October 15th 2021
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