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| Please pray for Mr. Boulware |
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Posted by: Stone - 01-31-2021, 04:06 PM - Forum: Appeals for Prayer
- No Replies
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Dear friends,
Please keep Mr. Mike Boulware in your prayers, who has been very ill of late. Fr. Hewko asked for prayers for him in the beginning of today's sermon. Father spent several minutes talking about Mr. Boulware and what a good man he is.
Thank you and God bless you all.
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| Season of Septuagesima |
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Posted by: Stone - 01-30-2021, 07:26 PM - Forum: Lent
- Replies (4)
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Season of Septuagesima
![[Image: 3-1-1.jpg?w=506&ssl=1]](https://i1.wp.com/sensusfidelium.us/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/3-1-1.jpg?w=506&ssl=1)
History of Septuagesima
The Season of Septuagesima comprises the three weeks immediately preceding Lent. It forms one of the principal divisions of the Liturgical Year, and is itself divided into three parts, each part corresponding to a week: the first is called Septuagesima; the second, Sexagesima; the third, Quinquagesima.
All three are named from their numerical reference to Lent, which, in the language of the Church, is called Quadragesima, — that is, Forty, — because the great Feast of Easter is prepared for by the holy exercises of Forty Days. The words Quinquagesima, Sexagesima, and Septuagesima, tell us of the same great Solemnity as looming in the distance, and as being the great object towards which the Church would have us now begin to turn all our thoughts, and desires, and devotion.
Now, the Feast of Easter must be prepared for by a forty-days’ recollectedness and penance. Those forty-days are one of the principal Seasons of the Liturgical Year, and one of the most powerful means employed by the Church for exciting in the hearts of her children the spirit of their Christian Vocation. It is of the utmost importance, that such a Season of grace should produce its work in our souls, — the renovation of the whole spiritual life. The Church, therefore, has instituted a preparation for the holy time of Lent. She gives us the three weeks of Septuagesima, during which she withdraws us, as much as may be, from the noisy distractions of the world, in order that our hearts may be the more readily impressed by the solemn warning she is to give us, at the commencement of Lent, by marking our foreheads with ashes.
This prelude to the holy season of Lent was not known in the early ages of Christianity: its institution would seem to have originated in the Greek Church. The practice of this Church being never to fast on Saturdays, the number of fasting-days in Lent, besides the six Sundays of Lent, (on which, by universal custom, the Faithful never fasted,) there were also the six Saturdays, which the Greeks would never allow to be observed as days of fasting: so that their Lent was short, by twelve days, of the Forty spent by our Saviour in the Desert. To make up the deficiency, they were obliged to begin their Lent so many days earlier, as we will show in our next Volume.
The Church of Rome had no such motive for anticipating the season of those privations, which belong to Lent; for, from the earliest antiquity, she kept the Saturdays of Lent, (and as often, during the rest of the year, as circumstances might require,) as fasting days. At the close of the 6th century, St. Gregory the Great, alludes, in one of his Homilies,
to the fast of Lent being less than Forty Days, owing to the Sundays which come during that holy season. ” There are,” he says, “from this Day (the first Sunday of Lent) to the joyous Feast of Easter, six Weeks, that is, forty- two days. As we do not fast on the six Sundays, there are but thirty-six fasting days; * * * which we offer to God as the tithe of our year.” (from 16th Homily on the Gospels).
It was, therefore, after the pontificate of St. Gregory, that the last four days of Quinquagesima Week, were added to Lent, in order that the number of Fasting Days might be exactly Forty. As early, however, as the 9th century, the custom of beginning Lent on Ash Wednesday was of obligation in the whole Latin Church. All the manuscript copies of the Gregorian Sacramentary, which bear that date, call this Wednesday the In capite jejunii, that is to say, the beginning of the fast; and Amalarius, who gives us every detail of the Liturgy of the 9th century, tells us, that it was, even then, the rule to begin the Fast four days before the first Sunday of Lent. We find the practice confirmed by two Councils, held in that century. (Meaux, and Soissons) But, out of respect for the form of Divine Service drawn up by St. Gregory, the Church does not make any important change in the Office of these four days. Up to the Vespers of Saturday, when alone she begins the Lenten rite, she observes the rubrics prescribed for Quinquagesima Week.
Peter of Blois, who lived in the 12th century, tells us what was the practice in his days. He says: “All Religious begin the Fast of Lent at Septuagesima; the Greeks, at Sexagesima; the Clergy, at Quinquagesima; and the rest of Christians, who form, the Church militant on earth, begin their Lent on the Wednesday following Quinquagesima.” (Sermon xiii) The secular Clergy, as we learn from these words, were bound to begin the Lenten Fast somewhat before the laity; though it was only by two days, that is, on Monday, as we gather from the Life of St. Ulric, Bishop of Augsburg, written in the 10th century. The Council of Clermont, in 1095, at which Pope Urban the Second presided, has a decree sanctioning the obligation of the Clergy beginning abstinence from flesh-meat at Quinquagesima. This Sunday was called, indeed, Dominica carnis privii, and Camis privium Sacerdotum, that is, Priests’ Carnival Sunday — but the term is to be understood in the sense of the announcement being made, on that Sunday, of the abstinence having to begin on the following day. We shall find, further on, that a like usage was observed in the Greek Church, on the three Sundays preceding Lent. This law, which obliged the Clergy to these two additional days of abstinence, was in force in the 13th century, as we learn from a Council held at Angers, which threatens with suspension all Priests who neglect to begin Lent on the Monday of Quinquagesima Week.
This usage, however, soon became obsolete; and in the 15th century, the secular Clergy, and even the Monks themselves, began the Lenten Fast, like the rest of the Faithful, on Ash Wednesday.
There can be no doubt, but that the original motive for this anticipation, — which, after several modifications, was limited to the four days immediately preceding Lent, — was to remove from the Greeks the pretext of taking scandal at the Latins, who did not fast a full Forty days. Ratramnus, in his Controversy with the Greeks, clearly implies it. But the Latin Church did not think it necessary to carry her condescension further, by imitating the Greek ante-lenten usages, which originated, as we have already said, in the eastern custom of not fasting on Saturdays. (The Gallic an Liturgy had retained several usages of the Oriental Churches, to which it owed, in part, its origin: hence, it was not without some difficulty, that the custom of abstaining and fasting on Saturdays was introduced into Gaul. Until such time as the Churches of that country had adopted the Roman custom, in that point of discipline, they were necessitated to anticipate the Fast of Lent. The first Council of Orleans, held in the early part of the 6th century, enjoins the Faithful to observe, before Easter, Quadragesima, (as the Latins call Lent,) and not Quinquagesima, in order, says the Council, that unity of custom may be maintained. Towards the close of the same century, the fourth Council held in the same City, repeals the same prohibition, and explains the intentions of the making such an enactment, by ordering that the Saturdays during Lent should be observed as days of fasting. Previously to this, that is, in the years 511 and 541, the first and second Councils of Orange had combated the same abuse, by also forbidding the imposing on. the Faithful the obligation of commencing the Fast at Quinquagesima. The introduction of the Roman Liturgy into France, which was brought about by the zeal of Pepin and Charlemagne, finally established, in that country, the custom of keeping the Saturday as a day of penance; and, as we have just seen, the beginning Lent on Quinquagesima was not observed excepting by the Clergy. In the 13th century, the only Church in the Patriarchate of the West, which began Lent earlier than the Church of Rome, was that of Poland: its Lent opened on the Monday of Septuagesima, which was owing to the rites of the Greek Church being so much used in Poland. The custom was abolished, even for that country, by Pope Innocent the fourth, in the year 1248. – Cap. Hi duo. De consec. Dist. 1.)
Thus it was, that the Roman Church, by this anticipation of Lent by Four days, gave the exact number of Forty Days to the holy Season, which she had instituted in imitation of the Forty Days spent by our Saviour in the Desert. Whilst faithful to her ancient practice of looking on the Saturday as a day appropriate for penitential exercises, she gladly borrowed from the Greek Church the custom of preparing for Lent, by giving to the Liturgy of the three preceding weeks a tone of holy mournfulness. Even as early as the beginning of the 9th century, as we learn from Amalarius, the Alleluia and Gloria in excelsis Avere suspended in the Septuagesima Offices. The Monks conformed to the custom, although the Rule of St. Benedict prescribed otherwise. Finally, in the second half of the 11th century, Pope Alexander the Second enacted, that the total suspension of the Alleluia should be everywhere observed, beginning with the Vespers of the Saturday preceding Septuagesima Sunday. This Pope was but renewing a rule already sanctioned, in that same century, by Pope Leo the Ninth, and which was inserted in the body of Canon Law.
Thus was the present important period of the Liturgical Year, after various changes, established in the Cycle of the Church. It has been there upwards of a thousand years. Its name, Septuagesima (Seventy), expresses, as we have already remarked, a numerical relation to Quadragesima (the Forty Days); although, in reality, there are not seventy but
only sixty-three days from Septuagesima Sunday to Easter. We will speak of the mystery of the name, in the following Chapter. The first Sunday of Lent being called Quadragesima (Forty), each of the three previous Sundays has a name expressive of an additional ten: the nearest to Lent, Quinquagesima (Fifty); the middle one, Sexagesima (Sixty); the third, Septuagesima (Seventy).
As the season of Septuagesima depends upon the time of the Easter celebration, it comes sooner or later, according to the changes of that great Feast. The 18th of January and the 22nd of February are called the Septuagesima Keys, because the Sunday, which is called Septuagesima, cannot be earlier in the year, than the first, nor later than the second, of these two days.
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| Septuagesima Sunday |
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Posted by: Stone - 01-30-2021, 07:17 PM - Forum: Lent
- Replies (7)
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Septuagesima Sunday
Taken from Fr. Leonard Goffine's Explanations of the Epistles and Gospels for the Sundays, Holydays, and Festivals throughout the Ecclesiastical Year - 36th edition, 1880
Why is this Sunday called "Septuagesima?"
BECAUSE in accordance with the words of the First Council of Orleans, some pious Christian congregations in the earliest ages of the Church, especially the clergy, began to fast seventy days before Easter, on this Sunday, which was therefore called "Septuagesima" — the seventieth day. The same is the case with the Sundays following, which are called Sexagesima, Quinquagesima, Quadragesima, because some Christians commenced to fast sixty days, others fifty, others forty days before Easter, until finally, to make it properly uniform. Popes Gregory and Gelasius arranged all Christians should fast forty day- before Easter, commencing with Ash-Wednesday.
Why from this day until Easter, does the Church omit in her service all joyful canticles, alleluias, and the Gloria in excelsis, etc?
Gradually to prepare the minds of the faithful for the serious time of penance and sorrow: to remind the sinner of the grievousness of his errors, and to exhort him to penance. So the priest appears at the altar in violet, the color of penance, and the front of the altar is covered with a violet curtain. To arouse our sorrow for our sins, and show the need of repentance, the Church in the name of all mankind at the Introit cries with David: The groans of death surrounded me, the sorrows of hell encompassed me: and in my affliction I called upon the he heard my voice from his holy temple. (Ps. xvii. 5 — 7.) I will love thee, O Lord, my strength; the Lord is my firmament, and my refuge., and my deliverer. (Ps. xvii. 2 — 3.) Glory be to the leather, etc.
PRAYER OF THE CHURCH. Lord, we beseech Thee graciously hear the prayers of Thy people; that we who are justly afflicted for our sins may, for the glory of Thy name, mercifully be delivered. Through our Lord, Jesus Christ etc.
EPISTLE. (i. Cor.ix.24. — 27., to x. i — 5.) Brethren, know you not that they that run in the race, all run indeed, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that you may obtain. And every one that striveth for the mastery, refraineth himself from all things: and they indeed that they may receive a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible one. I therefore so run, not as at an uncertainty ; I so fight , not as one beating the air; but I chastise my body, and bring it into subjection; lest perhaps, when I have preached to others, I myself should become a castaway. For I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea: and all in Moses were baptized, in the cloud and in the sea; and did all eat the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink (and they drank of the spiritual rock that followed them: and the rock was Christ); but with the most of them God was not well pleased.
Quote:EXPLANATION. Having exhorted us to penance in the Introit of the Mass, the Church desires to indicate to us, by reading this epistle, the effort we should make to reach the kingdom of heaven by the narrow path (Matt. vii. 13.) of penance and mortification. This St. Paul illustrates by three different examples. By the example of those who in a race run to one point, or in a prize-fight practice and prepare themselves for the victor's reward by the strongest exercise, and by the strictest abstinence from everything that might weaken the physical powers. If to win a laurel- crown that passes away, these will subject themselves to the severest trials and deprivations, how much more should tor the sake of the heavenly crown of eternal happiness, abstain from those improper desires, by which the soul is weakened, and practice those holy virtues, such as prayer, love of God and our neighbor, patience to which the crown is promised.
Next, by his own example, bringing himself before them as one running a race, and fighting for an eternal crown, but not as one running blindly not knowing whither, or fighting as one who strikes not his antagonist, but the air; on the contrary, with his eyes firmly fixed on the eternal crown, certain to be his who lives by the precepts of the gospel, who chastises his spirit and' his body as a valiant champion, with a strong hand, that is, by severest mortification, by fasting, and prayer. If St. Paul, notwithstanding the extraordinary graces which he received, thought it necessary to chastise His body that he might not be cast away, how does the sinner expect to be saved, living an effeminate and luxurious lite without penance and mortification?
St. Paul's third example is that of the Jews who all perished on their journey to the Promised Land. even though God had granted them so many graces; He shielded them from their enemies by a cloud which served as a light to them ;it night, and a cooling shade by day: He divided the waters of the sea, thus preparing tor them a dry passage; lie caused manna to tall from the heaven to be their food, and water to gush from the rock for their drink. These temporal benefits which God bestowed upon the Jews in the wilderness had a spiritual meaning; the cloud and the sea was a figure ot baptism which en lightens the soul, tames the concupiscence of the flesh, and purifies from sin: the manna was a type of the most holy Sacrament of the Altar, the soul's true bread from heaven; the water from the rock, the blood Bowing from Christ's wound in the side; and yet with all these temporal benefits which God bestowed upon them, and with all the spiritual graces they were to receive by faith from the coming Redeemer, of the six hundred thousand men who left Egypt, only two, Joshua and Caleb, entered the Promised Land! Why? Because they were tickle, murmured so often against God, and desired the pleasures of the flesh. How much, then, have we need to tear lest we be excluded from the true, happy land. Heaven, if we do not continuously struggle for it, by penance and mortification !
ASPIRATION. Assist me, O Jesus, with Thy grace that, following St. Paul's example, I may be anxious, by the constant pious practice of virtue and prayer, to arrive at perfection and to enter heaven.
GOSPEL. (Matt. xx. i — 1 6.) At that time, Jesus spoke to his disciples this parable: The kingdom of heaven is like to a householder, who went out early in the morning to hire laborers into his vineyard. And having agreed with the laborers for a penny a day, he sent them into his vineyard. And going out about the third hour, he saw others standing in the market- place idle, and he said to them: Go you also into my vineyard, and I will give you what shall be just. And they went their way. And again he went out about the sixth and the ninth hour, and did in like manner. But about the eleventh hour, he went out, and found others standing; and he saith to them: Why stand you here all the day idle? They say to him: Because no man hath hired us. He saith to them: Go you also into my vineyard. And when evening was come, the Lord of the vineyard saith to his steward: Call the laborers, and pay them their hire, beginning from the last even to the first. When therefore they were come that came about the eleventh hour, thev received every man a penny. But when the first also came, they thought that they should receive more ; and they also received every man a penny. And receiving it, they murmured against the master of the house, saying: These Last have worked but one hour, and thou hast made them equal to us that have borne the burden of the day and the heats. But he answering said to one of them: Friend, I do thee no wrong; didst thou not agree with me for a penny? Take what is thine, and go thy way: I will also give to this last even as to thee. Or is it not lawful for me to do what I will? Is thy eye evil, because I am good? So shall the last be first, and the first last. For many are called, but few are chosen.
In this parable, what is to he understood by the householder, the vineyard, the laborers, and the penny?
The householder represents God, who in different ages of the world, in the days of Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and finally in the days of Christ and the apostles, has sought to call men as workmen into His vineyard, the true Church, that they might labor there industriously, and receive the penny of eternal glory.
How and when does God call people?
By inward inspiration, by preachers, confessors, spiritual books , and conversations, etc, in flourishing youth and in advanced age, which periods of life may be understood by the different hours of the day.
What is meant by working in the vineyard?
It means laboring, lighting, suffering for God and His honor, for our own and the salvation of others. As in a vineyard we spade, dig, root out weeds, cut off the useless and noxious, manure, plant, and bind up, so in the spiritual vineyard of our soul we must, by frequent meditation on death and hell, by examination of conscience dig up the evil inclinations by their roots , and by true repentance eradicate the weeds of vice, and by mortification, especially by prayer and fasting cut away concupiscence; by the recollection of our sins we must humble ourselves, and amend our life; in place of the bad habits we must plant the opposite virtues, and bind our unsteady will to the trellis of the fear of God and of His judgment, that we may continue firm.
How is a vice or bad habit to be rooted up?
A great hatred of sin must be aroused; a fervent desire of destroying sin must be produced in our hearts; the grace of God must be implored without which nothing can be accomplished. It is useful also to read some spiritual book which speaks against the vice. The Sacraments of Penance and of Holy Communion should often be received, and some saint who in life had committed the same sin, and afterwards by the grace of God conquered it, should be honored, as Mary Magdalen and St. Augustine who each had the habit of impurity, but with the help of God resisted and destroyed it in themselves; there should be fasting, almsdeeds, or other good works, performed for the same object, and it is of great importance, ever necessary, that the conscience should be carefully examined in its regard.
Who are standing idle in the market-place?
In the market-place, that is the world, they are standing idle who, however much business they attend to, do not work for God and for their own salvation; for the only necessary employment is the service of God and the working out of our salvation. There are three ways of being idle: doing nothing whatever; doing evil; doing other things than the duties of our position in life and its office require, or if this work is done without a good intention, or not from the love of God. This threefold idleness deprives us of our salvation, as the servant loses his wages if he works not at all, or not according to the will of his master. We are all servants of God, and none of us, can say with the laborers in the vineyard that no man has employed us; for God, when He created us, hired us at great wages, and we must serve Him always, as Me cares for us at all tin. and if, in the gospel, the householder reproaches the work- men, whom no man had hired, for their idleness, what will God, one day, say to those Christians whom He has placed to work in His vineyard, the Church, if they have remained idle?
Why do the last comers receive as much us those who worked all day?
Because God rewards not the time or length of the work, but the industry and diligence with which it has been performed. It may indeed happen, that many a one who has served God but tor a short time, excels in merits another who has lived long, but has not labored as diligently. (Wisd. iv. 8-13.)
What is signified by the murmurs of the first workmen when the wages were paid?
As the Jews were the first who were called by God, Christ intended to show that the Gentiles, who were called last, should one day receive the heavenly reward, and that the Jews have no reason to murmur, because God acted not unjustly in fulfilling His promises to them, and at the same time calling others to the eternal reward. In heaven envy, malevolence, and murmuring will find no place. On the contrary, the saints who have long served God wonder at His goodness in converting sinners, and those who have served Him but a short time, for these also there will be .the same penny, that is, the vision, the enjoyment, and possession of God and His kingdom. Only in the heavenly glory there will be a difference, because the divine lips have assured us that each one shall be rewarded according to his works. The murmurs of the workmen and the answer of the householder serve to teach us, that we should not murmur against the merciful proceedings of God towards our neighbor, nor envy him; for envy and jealousy are abominable, devilish vices, hated by God. By the envy of the devil, death came into the world. (Wisd, ii. 24.) The envious, therefore, imitate Lucifer, but they hurt only themselves, because they are consumed by their envy. "Envy," says St. Basil, "is an institution of the serpent, an invention of the devils, an obstacle to piety, a road to hell, the depriver of the heavenly kingdom."
What is meant by : The first shall be last, and the last shall be first?
This again is properly to be understood of the Jews; for they were the first called, but will be the last in order, as in time, because they responded not to Christ's invitation, received not His doctrine , and will enter the Church only at the end of the world; while, on the contrary, the Gentiles who where not called until after the Jews, will be the first in number as in merit, because the greater part responded and are still responding to the call. Christ, indeed, called all the Jews, but few of them answered, and so few were chosen. Would that this might not also come true with regard to Christians whom God has also called, and whom He wishes, to save; (i. Tim. ii. 4.) Alas! very few live in accordance with their vocation of working in the vineyard of the Lord, and, consequently, do not receive the penny of eternal bliss.
PRAYER.
O most benign God, who, out of pure grace, without any merit of ours, hast called us, Thy unworthy servants , to the true faith . into the vineyard of the holy Catholic Church, and dost require us to work in it for the sanctification of our souls, grant, we beseech Thee, that we may never be idle but be found always faithful workmen, and that that which in past years we have failed to do, we may make up for in future by greater zeal and persevering industry, and, the work being done, may receive the promised reward in heaven, through Jesus Christ, Thy Son our Lord. Amen.
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| Merck stops developing COVID vaccine: Better immunity found through ‘natural infection’ |
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Posted by: Stone - 01-30-2021, 07:17 AM - Forum: COVID Vaccines
- No Replies
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Merck stops developing COVID vaccine: Better immunity found through ‘natural infection’
Merck will now focus instead on two therapeutic drugs, termed MK-7110 and MK-4482.
WASHINGTON, D.C., January 29, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) — U.S.-based vaccine company Merck announced it is stopping all further development on both of its COVID-19 vaccines since the results gave less protection than was gained from “natural infection.”
Merck, or MSD outside of the United States and Canada, announced the news in a press release a few days ago, saying all production and development on both of its vaccine candidates would cease. Both candidates were made in conjunction with other companies: V590 was a joint project with IAVI, and V591 was being developed with Institut Pasteur and Themis.
However, Merck found that the immune responses gained from both vaccines were “inferior to those seen following natural infection,” as well as those which were seen in other COVID-19 vaccines.
This finding relates to the words of the Great Barrington Declaration, authored by three highly qualified epidemiologists from the universities of Harvard, Oxford, and Stanford, and currently signed by 13,290 medical and public health scientists, 40,199 medical practitioners, and 727,139 concerned citizens.
The declaration calls for an end to the widespread, restrictive lockdown policies, based on normal immunity and the policy of building herd immunity: “(A)s immunity builds in the population, the risk of infection to all — including the vulnerable — falls.”
“Our goal should therefore be to minimize mortality and social harm until we reach herd immunity,” the authors wrote.
Merck will now focus instead on two therapeutic drugs, termed MK-7110 and MK-4482. MK-7110 allegedly has a “greater than 50 percent reduction in the risk of death or respiratory failure in patients hospitalized with moderate to severe COVID-19,” although full results are not yet published.
The company is to receive around $356 million from the U.S. government as part of Operation Warp Speed in order to manufacture 60,000-100,000 doses of the two drugs until June 30, 2021.
One of Merck’s now discontinued vaccines had been linked to abortion, through using HEK-293 cells in its design and development, as well as on some testing. The HEK-293 cell line was derived from kidney tissue taken from a healthy baby who was aborted in the Netherlands in the 1970s.
It is still unclear if Merck’s two new therapeutic drugs will be linked to abortion in any way.
However, former vice president of Pfizer Dr. Michael Yeadon has flatly rejected the need for any vaccines for COVID-19, saying “there is absolutely no need for vaccines to extinguish the pandemic. I’ve never heard such nonsense talked about vaccines. You do not vaccinate people who aren’t at risk from a disease. You also don’t set about planning to vaccinate millions of fit and healthy people with a vaccine that hasn’t been extensively tested on human subjects.”
Dr. Theresa Deisher, whose doctorate is in molecular and cellular physiology from Stanford University, also rejected the need for a vaccine for COVID, explaining that it “has less than a 0.03 percent fatality rate and most of those people, I believe 92 percent or above, have other health problems; we’re making a vaccine at warp speed for a virus that doesn't look like it's going to need a vaccine.”
She also added that “(i)t is possible, but I don’t believe it is desirable, nor do I believe that it’s safe,” with as much as “15 percent of the very healthy young volunteers (experiencing) significant side effects.”
Yeadon’s warning about the lack of testing is already bearing fruit, as numerous reports from around the globe are documenting unexpected deaths shortly after people receive the COVID vaccines. Not only that, but a warning issued about Pfizer’s vaccine, stipulated that pregnancy should be avoided for two months after the injection, and breastfeeding mothers shouldn’t receive it. The paper also revealed that there was no knowledge about what impact the injection could have upon fertility.
Indeed, those who have received their vaccinations may have done so for no reason, as medical advisers across the world are suggesting that people will continue to wear masks and practice physical distancing, even after the injection.
In place of such untested and dangerous vaccines, the two little known treatments of ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine have received much support from medics, with doctors saying ivermectin “basically obliterates transmission of this virus,” with “miraculous effectiveness.”
Meanwhile, hydroxychloroquine can reduce mortality of COVID patients “by 50 percent.” The Association of American Physicians & Surgeons explained that COVID mortality rate “in countries that allow access to HCQ is only 1/10th the mortality rate in countries where there is interference with this medication, such as the United States.”
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| Solange Hertz: The Crack in the Board |
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Posted by: Stone - 01-30-2021, 07:10 AM - Forum: Articles by Catholic authors
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The Crack in the Board
Written by Solange Hertz
![[Image: ?u=http%3A%2F%2F3.bp.blogspot.com%2F-CYp...f=1&nofb=1]](https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2F3.bp.blogspot.com%2F-CYplT5bEZYY%2FUYJxM69oPDI%2FAAAAAAAAXi8%2FLrQgGZZSkWc%2Fs640%2Fbedtimestory.jpg&f=1&nofb=1)
Remnant Archives | July 1972
"Any parent tempted to think his home is his idea, to do with as he pleases, heads a house of slavery." - Solange Hertz
Many years ago, squarely facing our ignorant brood and the inescapable fact that somebody had to teach them the truths of the Faith, I began looking around for tools. Among my youthful wild oats was a degree in Education which led me to believe I would need, at the very least, a blackboard.
As luck would have it, I heard genuine slate ones were to be had from a dismantled school a mere 30 miles away. Deo gratias! It was, believe it or not, the feast of Our Lady’s Assumption, so I crudely credited her with this windfall. Fetching the thing would provide a most suitable pilgrimage in her honor. Off we went.
I’ll come to the point quickly, as I think our Lady did: when we got home with the monster carefully packed in the trunk of the car, it was split. It was so split that not one portion of it was usable. We didn’t return for another. In the first sickening sight of cracked slate, a luminous message had been communicated, wordless but efficacious. No room in our house was ever converted into a classroom. We never dared.
Transmitting the Faith live and kicking from parent to child does seem to depend a lot on what you don’t do. Like the Ten Commandments, most of the directives prove to be negative. “I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no gods except Me!”
Any parent tempted to think his home is his idea, to do with as he pleases, heads a house of slavery. He doesn’t know the first thing about religion and couldn’t even teach it in CCD. Before creating His Church, God laid it out in natural form in the human family. Each in its own way follows the same divine pattern used in the beginning in Eden, and each is subject to divine laws which may not be broken without mortal penalties.
A Christian home is furthermore a cell of the Mystical Body of Christ, a whole church in miniature, an ecclesiola, as St. John Chrysostom so goldenly put it. By its very nature it partakes of the promises Christ made to the greater Ecclesia. Whatever the world says, the home is here to stay. Founded on the same rock as the Church, it too shall withstand the gates of hell as long as it remains in union with Peter. And like her it will teach its children, and through them the world.
As a true communion of saints, the home has many more members than those immediately visible. Generations of its deceased relatives may be dependent on its prayer and good works to hasten their entry into the Beatific Vision. In return, although no longer able to merit for themselves, these ancestors may and do offer efficacious supplication for their descendants on earth in the Church Militant. God’s gifts are without repentance. Once a parent, always a parent, not only in the Church Suffering, but even more so in the Church triumphant. The ancestors intercede for their families before the throne of God along with our patron saints, not to mention the angelic spirits assigned by God to the members on earth. All have a vested interest in what instruction the children are receiving!
As in the Church, the members of any given family are predestined. They are created and chosen by God, not man, to occupy a certain place in this particular family and not in that one, with these brothers and sisters and not those, and with these selected two appointed parents. No one has the slightest control over the personnel of his family, least of all the parents, who must get acquainted with their children as they would anyone else as they arrive on the scene. Please God, all were at least permitted to be born!
There are house rules we must follow, and these weren’t laid down by us either. We are commanded to honor father and mother as God’s representatives, and to welcome each child as we would the Son of God. We must, furthermore, all love one another as He loved us. The Sacred Heart has told us He wished to rule as the invisible but real head of every household. In any program for teaching the Faith in the home these facts must be kept in mind.
Because the family is a divinely created organism existing in its own right, obeying its own inner laws, it cannot be subjected to organizations serving other gods without incurring the wrath of its Creator. Any attempt to manipulate its membership artificially by legislation, birth control, genetics, euthanasia, indoctrination or other human engineering is an attempt to displace God as Creator and Lord of the home. It is doomed to ultimate failure by destroying the society supporting such practices.
It’s to weep the way the home has permitted itself to be invaded and dictated to by self-appointed experts. Mothers deprived of the technical assistance whereby they might nurse their sick at home meekly allow themselves to be ordered out of hospital rooms where their nearest and dearest are relegated. Schools have literally torn children away from their parents, setting themselves up as despots decreeing even what time they may spend together, let alone imposing curricula in no way subject to parental control. Private industry—and some government overseas agencies—assume without question that hiring the husband and father automatically entitles them to the extra-curricular services of wife and children, even dictating their social contacts.
In every case the organization, which originally sprang from the home and was designed to fill its needs and implement its apostolate in the world, has in fact turned upon it and is preparing to displace it entirely in pursuit of its own mindless ends. Generations of fathers have been encouraged to put careers ahead of family duties, relegating the bulk of parental responsibility to their wives. Now even these are joining them in the ranks of the enemy, swelling the work force of the world while even their newborns are left to the tender mercies of daycare centers and experimental social projects. That many such travesties are church-supported proclaims the depth of the disorder.
Sins against the gentle inspirations of grace are long behind us. Sins against the Commandments are being taken in stride. All that remains to fill up our measure of iniquity are sins against nature itself, now being committed in the name of science and progress. When we refuse to accept even the way we are made, we pronounce the final non serviam against the Creator.
With this state of affairs, transmitting the Faith becomes mainly a matter of reaffirming the obvious. Only the home can do it, because the home is about the only place left where the obvious can still be seen and recognized with the naked eye.
The last Council urged us to regain our footing by a radical return to the charisms of founders, so let’s begin with mother, the very personification of the home. The whole family begins in her. Mothers are designed not only to bear life, but also to nourish and sustain it after it leaves the womb. “Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breast that nursed you” was spoken under inspiration in praise of the Mother of the Church herself. Like all great truth, it celebrates the obvious.
Due proportion kept, it applies equally to the mother of the humblest ecclesiola, who is, like her exemplar, both mater and magistra. The first doctrinal milk must flow from her, from her very being, as it does from the Church. It’s hardly coincidence that the decline in home teaching has kept pace with the disappearance of breast-feeding. Both are symptoms of the same irresponsible motherhood, rooted in a denial of nature. Even animals know they must feed and teach their young, but as prepared formulas and plastic bottles substitute for mother’s breast, so classrooms and audio-visual aids are expected to substitute for the living teaching of the home.
There is nothing so intimate as transmitting the Faith. It can be done only person to person, in an atmosphere of supernatural love. Where this is missing, it degenerates into just so much information to be conveyed—into teaching religion. Luckily secular schools don’t concern themselves with teaching the Catholic Faith; but with the breakdown of Church schools, Catholic parents will be forced to teach it themselves or watch the world bring their children up pagans. Those who do take up the obligation soon realize, as many have already, that not only are they capable of it, but that they are indeed specially endowed for the task by nature and grace.
I don’t know why it is, but almost everyone talks down to parents, especially to mothers. As single girls they may have excelled as Madison Avenue executives or Sanskrit scholars, but just let them settle down to devote themselves exclusively to their families, and it’s immediately assumed they know nothing and are out of touch with everything. This is very odd, inasmuch as the housewife produces every professional in the world, lays the groundwork for every science, and plies every trade at grassroots level. Being out of touch with the world doesn’t mean being out of touch with reality. Quite the contrary! Calling the housewife an ignoramus would do little harm, if only she didn’t believe it.
“This place was made by God, a priceless mystery; it is without reproof,” runs the ancient Mass for the dedication of a church. Unabashedly applying it to the ecclesiola, we can continue, “O God, from living and chosen stones you prepare an everlasting place for your majesty. Hear the prayers of the people who call upon you!”
God hears parents. If the Faith can’t be taught in the home, it isn’t Catholicism, and can’t be taught anywhere. That’s where it started in the beginning. It’s not God, or his Church, but pedagogical bureaucrats who have made it so complicated—or abstruse, as the case may be—that only trained technicians can handle it.
The same self-appointed experts who have helped demolish CCD and parochial schools are now turning their sights on our living rooms. Catechetical congresses have already discovered a brand new apostolate in “Home Religious Education.” Canned lessons are being prepared for benighted parents to dole out to their children, on the just barely implicit premise that mothers (and fathers) are incompetent teachers of their own children. Soon whole batteries of tapes, records, filmstrips and other audio-visual paraphernalia will be cluttering every room in the house.
Not that technology shouldn’t benefit the home. Already it would be feasible to transfer the bulk of schooling to the fireside via TV, tapes and microfilm, thereby effecting a significant reintegration of home life. The Faith, however, isn’t a school subject, and can never be successfully taught like one. Like sex education, it’s altogether special, and has already suffered cruelly from being crammed into secular molds by those who should know better. The fruits to this approach are woefully apparent.
Outside services could in fact be very helpful in teaching religion at home; above all, parents need orthodox doctrine aimed directly at them. This they have a right to demand from the appointed teachers of the Church, for parents in the home share fully in the pastoral office under the Magisterium as teachers of the children in their care, and in the ecclesiola as in the Ecclesia, governing power and teaching power are indissolubly one. They must not be divided by pedagogues who have experienced home life only as children in it and never as parents in charge.
Nothing can be brought into the home that isn’t there already, at least potentially. Every successful pedagogical technique was first taken from the home and artificially adapted to the classroom, never the other way around. The genius of Maria Montessori lay precisely in grasping this truth, rendering classroom instruction more fluid and less artificial. As far as it went, hers was an inspired return to origins.
Any home can outdo Montessori if it will. There in natural state are found all the elements of the best classroom, painstakingly transferred from the home over the years. What is modern coeducation, for instance, but a clumsy approximation of home atmosphere where both sexes have always lived and learned together? But schools are hopelessly far behind. At home, it’s still possible to address many different ages at once, and let them address one another as God intended. Is there a practice sillier than incarcerating 30 or so children all the same age in one room to teach them something?
See where rationalism has led us. The modern school is an artificial environment found nowhere in nature and prepares students for nothing but more artificiality. It prepares them, for instance, for suburbia, where people of one income level are herded together, or for other forms of totalitarian regimentation like the concentration camp. It hardly prepares them for real life.
In the natural God-grown community, the outlines of the Ecclesia can always be discerned. All ages and both sexes mingle, and each individual shows forth some particular gift in his relation to the others. Varying levels of development are evident, with no segregation based on I.Q., size and weight, income or other arbitrary norms. There is, in other words, true unity based on true distinctions, as in the triune God-head in whose image we are created. Because the home is so constructed, each one is unique.
In such an atmosphere “methods” mean little, for what works in one home will be completely foreign to the spirit of another. Parents must realize the wealth of obnoxious pedagogical overhead they are privileged to do without. Divesting themselves of the hardened preconceptions acquired from their own artificial schooling may prove difficult at first. Those who allowed themselves to be soughed out of their homes to teach other people’s children in classrooms will certainly fare the worst. How few of us have known the joy of studying Scripture at home, where all ages take part, where the younger share insights with the still younger, and the dumbest may amaze us all!
The house itself bespeaks the home as magistra. The very plumbing illustrates the mysteries of grace. Holy images and pictures on the wall reveal its visible ecclesiola, house of God, holy and awesome. The Eucharist is shadowed at every meal, the Sunday roast as victim proclaiming both supper and sacrifice. How could a child instructed at home look at the meat immolated on his plate and believe the Mass is merely a banquet? The Cross is embedded in the very bones of the house, in rooftree and window mullions; the youngest dweller can be shown from a thousand props that the whole world around him is fashioned on the lines of Calvary.
How is it possible not to teach the Faith of the Apostles at home? That so many of us are unable to, certainly isn’t for lack of teaching aids. Could it be we’re trying to teach a different faith? One not rooted in nature, but in the disciplines of a corrupted world? Where there are so many gods, the teaching would necessarily become very unwieldy!
Religious instruction for children apart from the home is a modern phenomenon rendered necessary only by the rise of rationalism and scientism, the breakdown of natural community, and last but not least, the Protestant revolt. If parents would resume their proper role in today’s structural wreckage, they have only one job to do, really: they must restore their home to its true character as a center of contemplation in the world. Such was the home in the beginning when God walked there in the cool of the day, and where He walks, everything necessary comes with Him.
Nothing less than a deep interior renewal can reinstate parents as teachers. Catechesis is after all only a means to contemplation, or its agent. Let’s not get unduly wrapped up in the mechanics. Before shopping for texts and tapes, let’s enlist the help of the family angels whose duty it is to enlighten those confided to them. Patron saints, ancestors, parents and children must all join them in what is truly an ecclesial family affair. No matter how educated we get, we can never get around the Lord’s dictum that “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.” Every tree is known by its fruit.
God’s house, he told us, is the house of prayer for all nations. It’s designed to produce and nourish the life of God Himself, as the home in Nazareth did, and as the Church continues to do. With the progressive neglect of the liturgy, prayer and pedagogy have gone sadly separate ways. They must be reunited in the home as in the Church, for their goal is the same. The patriarch Job found it good to offer a holocaust for each of his children, saying, “Perhaps my sons have sinned in their hearts and affronted God.” He was at grips with the fundamentals of parenthood.
We have the divine promise that the Spirit of truth will teach us all the truth, but unless the sins of the family are forgiven and expiated, how can we expect the divine Educator to teach in its very bosom? He is the only religion teacher.
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| Solange Hertz: The Real World |
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Posted by: Stone - 01-30-2021, 07:03 AM - Forum: Articles by Catholic authors
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The Real World
Written by Solange Hertz
"Appearances often come to us second or third hand, filtered through ever proliferating communications media,
so that the so-called real world recedes farther from us every day." - Solange Hertz
The Remnant Editor's Note: The following first appeared in The Remnant on February 28, 2002. In the fast-paced world of blogging and tweeting and texting, this article is entirely too long, too boring, too hard to read, too demanding, too challenging, and definitely too whatever to be taken seriously. But I'm confident a few holdout dinosaurs still ambling about the real world will appreciate its unconventional and politically incorrect message. It was written by an excellent thinker, a saintly academic, and something of a prophet. She didn't blog, never sent a single tweet, and, while her face was usually in a book, Facebook meant nothing to her. And yet even despite such crippling handicaps, she had something to say. She also had the kind of courage rarely seen here in this brave new world of ours---the courage to be different and to question the modern world's most sacred narratives (what she called “fairytales for adults”) about who we are and what we're doing here on this earth. I’m confident there are still readers out there who’ve been insufficiently brainwashed to read and appreciate the words and wisdom of the late, great Solange Hertz. Especially if you're younger than 35, I dare you to give it a try -- and let the blindfold be damned.
Sooner or later, anyone found actually trying to apply the maxims of the Gospels to daily life can expect to be told to “get real!” as if living a spiritual life involved entering a largely imaginary world that existed mostly in the mind. Parents of home schoolers, for instance, are sometimes asked, or even ask themselves, “What will happen to these children educated outside the mainstream according to Catholic principles, when they leave home and plunge into the real world?
By the “real” world is ordinarily meant the visible, material one we contact every day through our senses, the tangible here and now in which we commit sins and practice virtues in the normal flow of human activity. Ordinarily, “getting real” means “getting in touch with our feelings,” which are rooted in our bodies, so as to make closer contact with a world which in fact is not only the least real of all by comparison with what lies beyond it, but which can be grasped by us only imperfectly to begin with. Our senses cannot know the innermost substances of what they perceive, having contact at best only with outward phenomena or appearances. Our bodily eyes may see a chair, but strain as they will, they will never behold “chairness.” Only by intellectual abstraction and inference can we come to an approximation of the essence of the reality conveyed to us by the senses. When it comes to knowing people, our contact with them yields at best a few superficial surmises regarding the unknown continents which lie hidden within them.
St. Francis de Sales in his famous Treatise on the Love of God gives the standard Catholic explanation for this as developed by scholastic philosophy. Written in the seventeenth century, it might be considered outmoded, but the truth is that modern science has come up with no better explanation of what actually happens in our situation than where he says,
Quote:“When we look on anything, though it is present to us, it is not itself united to our eyes, but only sends out to them a certain representation or picture of itself, which is called its sensible species, by means of which we see. So also when we contemplate or understand anything, that which we understand is not united to our understanding otherwise than by another representation and most delicate spiritual image, which is called intelligible species. But further, these species, by how many windings and changes do they get to the understanding! They arrive at the exterior senses, thence pass to the interior, then to the imagination, then to the active understanding, and come at last to the passive understanding, to the end that passing through so many strainers and under so many files they may be purified, subtilized and perfected, and of sensible become intelligible.”[1]
To make matters worse, in modern times these appearances often come to us second or third hand, filtered through ever proliferating communications media, so that the so-called real world recedes farther from us every day. Beginning with the wireless and the telephone, we have become accustomed to communicating with our fellow humans by increasingly indirect contact, to the point of forming friendships with them electronically through cyberspace without ever seeing them in the flesh or even holding a letter actually written by them in our hands. Worldwide buying and selling, in fact the entire work of the world, can be carried on with minimal direct contact between the participants. By the same token our hatreds and animosities can now be indulged via impersonal push-button warfare where the combatants never come close enough to their targets to see them, let alone look at the whites of their eyes.
As we have seen, modern science began ushering us into false “virtual reality” when Galileo persuaded us, without advancing a shred of actual proof, that our earth is not the center of the universe as Scripture says it is, but whirls around the sun as merely one of several other planets. Still without proof, Newtonian physics then concocted the now generally accepted myth that matter moves itself by its own natural attractions, thus obliterating the whole angelic management of the heavens and the earth.
Finally, following Darwin, science leaped to the conclusion that matter generates life itself by a purely natural process called “evolution,” whereby the inanimate becomes animate over millions of years, changing itself into increasingly complex living forms, and “progress” toward ever greater perfection is automatic. That educated people have been brought to believe such absurdities provides a measure of the degree of unreality reached thus far, for the exact opposite is true. All human cultures record a degeneration into simpler forms from a previous “golden age” of some kind rather than any upward progress to greater complexity.
Didn’t St. Paul predict to the young bishop St. Timothy that
Quote:“there shall be a time when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires they will heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears: And will turn away indeed their hearing from the truth but will be turned to fables?”(2 Tim. 4:3-4)
That time is here. Materialist science now assumes that mysteries are only apparent, and that credible explanations for them can be found by sufficient human effort. The truth is, however, mysteries are an inherent part of reality, and the more we delve into them, the deeper they get.
One of Pius XII’s favorite theologians, Fr. Matthias Scheeben, had this to say in the first chapter of his Mysteries of Christianity:
Quote:”If by mystery we mean nothing more than an object which is not entirely conceivable in its innermost essence, we need not seek very far to find mysteries. Such mysteries are found not only above us, but all around us, in us, under us. The real essence of all things is concealed from our eyes. The physicist will never fully plumb the laws of forces in the physico-chemical world and perfectly comprehend their effects; and the same is true of the physiologist with regard to the laws of organic nature, of the psychologist with regard to the soul, of the metaphysician with regard to the ultimate basis of being. Christianity is not alone in exhibiting mysteries in the above-mentioned sense. If its truths are inconceivable and unfathomable, so in greater part are the truths of reason.”
Creation in all its aspects – material, spiritual and supernatural – remains a mystery and will continue to unfold its secrets throughout eternity. By disregarding on principle any evidence which cannot be seen, heard, touched or measured, the new scientific man consigns to oblivion what is in fact the greater reality encompassing and activating matter, for what we can see is meant to direct us toward what we cannot see. St. Paul speaks of “those men that detain the truth of God in injustice. Because that which is known of God is manifest in them. For God hath manifested it to them. For the invisible things of him, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made: his eternal power also and divinity: so that they are inexcusable. Because that, when they knew God, they did not glorify him as God, nor give thanks: but became vain in their thoughts and their foolish heart was darkened: for professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.”
Drunk with freedom and indulging in the orgy of independent self-government brought on by the Age of Democracy, post-Christian man is therefore taking ever more giant strides from created reality into an artificial world patterned on his own imaginings, where whatever happens is ascribed to purely material causes. Not content with distorting the perception of his environment, he is fabricating an entirely new view of himself. Whereas human nature is fundamentally social and hierarchical, being patterned on the image of God who is a society of three hierarchically ordered Persons, he now bases government on the individual, who is postulated as having been “created equal” with all others, to the point that today even their body parts have become interchangeable. Where the sexes as well are now regarded as equal, and no longer complementary, homosexuality becomes a normal option. The family, the basic cell of society and the greater family of nations, is thus wrenched from its organic, trinitarian roots and redefined as any association of individuals who decide to share everyday life in common.
It should come as no surprise that St. Paul pinpoints homosexuality as the direct consequence of this willful flight from reality, for it is the ultimate sin against human nature, now so symptomatic of our diseased modern society that it enjoys the protection of civil law. This happens, says St. Paul, when those who refuse to look beyond their senses are abandoned
Quote:“to the desires of their heart, to uncleanness: to dishonor their own bodies among themselves. For this cause God delivered them up to shameful affections. For their women have changed the natural use into that use which is against nature. And in like manner the men also, leaving the natural use of the woman, have burned in their lusts one towards another, men with men working that which is filthy and receiving in themselves the recompense which was due to their error.”
This accounts not only for the current invasion of women into men’s activities, paralleled by men’s growing effeminacy, but a whole roster of further consequences. St. Paul says that those who “liked not to have God in their knowledge“ find themselves handed over
Quote:“to a reprobate sense, to do those things which are not convenient, being filled with all iniquity, malice, fornication, avarice, wickedness, full of envy, murder, contention, deceit, malignity, whisperers, detractors, hateful to God, contumelious, proud, haughty, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, foolish, dissolute, without affection, without fidelity, without mercy. Who, having known the justice of God, did not understand that they who do such things are worthy of death: and not only those who do them, but they also who consent to them that do them” (Rom. 1:18 ff.)
All the while exhorting his bedazzled colleagues to “get real!” and confront the real world, modern man thus plunges ever more deeply into error and illusion. If permitted he would bring the world to dissolution, for having been created by God from absolutely nothing, he and the whole universe are subject to an ineradicable, innate tendency to return to the void whence they sprang. This tendency underlies every sin, which in the final analysis is nothing but an attempt to turn away from the real to the non - existent lying outside God’s law. Lucifer gave in to it in heaven when he chose to do his own will rather than God’s, and Adam and Eve did the same in Eden when they followed his suggestion to eat the forbidden fruit. Shorn of the preternatural gifts originally bestowed on them to shield them from concupiscence, suffering and death, they and all their descendants were left to cope at ground level with the primordial urge to unreality and annihilation which grows stronger with every sin committed. “The just man lives by faith,” as St. Paul says, if he is to live at all (Rom. 1:17).
Only faith can tell us exactly where reality is to be found. The Apostle tells us that “the things which are seen are temporal,” whereas “the things which are not seen are eternal,” and will never cease to be (2 Cor. 4:18). The decisions made in this life pass away with it, but their consequences are eternal.
Immoral acts lead to hell, which is not only a place for the souls and resurrected bodies of the damned, but like heaven, it too is eternal. Hell and heaven begin in time, but for them to have an end, their inhabitants would have to be re-inserted into time, which cannot be. Scripture tells us that after the blowing of the Sixth Trumpet in the Apocalypse, the Angel seen “standing upon the sea and upon the land” by St. John “lifted his hand to heaven : And he swore by him that liveth for ever and ever . . . that time shall be no longer” (Apo. 10: 5-6). Whatever passes into eternity becomes eternal and cannot end.
This led St. John Chrysostom to lament that
Quote:“there are those so foolish and dull that they long only for the things of the present, saying such senseless things as, ‘Let me enjoy now what I have; later I shall think about what is not certain.’. . . They who say such things, in what way do they differ from goats and swine. . . who speak of such things as uncertain which are clearer than what the eye sees. . . . But you will say: who has ever come from hell and told us these things? Who has ever come from heaven and told us there is a God who has made all things? That we have a soul: whence was that made known to us? For if you only believe the things you see, you may then doubt about God and the angels, and about the mind and the soul, and in that way all teaching will be emptied of its truth. If you believe what you take in by your senses, then all the more should you believe in the invisible world rather than in the visible. And if what I say seems contradictory, it is nevertheless true and may without question be accepted by intelligent men. For our eyes are often deceived, not with regard to invisible things, for as to these they cannot judge, but in the things that men seem to see, their accuracy being disturbed by distance, by distractions, by anger, by care and countless other things. But the reflections of the soul, especially if it has received the light of the divine Scriptures, will arrive at a more accurate and certain judgment of things.” [2]
The most the material world can do is to point us in the direction of the greater reality. Far from being unreal, the supernatural is actually a super-reality,
Quote:“added to nature,” says Fr. Scheeben, “as a new, higher reality, a reality that is neither included in nature, nor developed from it, nor in any way postulated by it. As God exhibits two kingdoms for us to contemplate, one plainly visible and one full of mystery, so, too, in the creature we discern two distinct kingdoms, as it were two worlds, which are erected one on top of the other, one visible and one invisible, one natural and the other supernatural. The profounder reaches of even the first of these worlds is unfathomable for purely natural reason; the second is unattainable and unsearchable in every respect, and is therefore mysterious in the absolute sense of the word.” [3]
The unseen world is far more real than anything our senses can apprehend because it is closer to God, who as the only self-subsistent being, is Reality itself. He is, in fact, the only reality, for as He told St. Catherine of Siena, “I am He who is; you are she who is not.” To “get real” in the true sense of the word can therefore only mean to come closer to Him, who is pure spirit, by becoming more spiritual. This does not mean, however, that matter can be despised or ignored. Under no circumstances can it be by-passed, as Buddhism and Hinduism and other false doctrines would have us believe, for, far from being an obstacle, matter is indispensable to our salvation.
Not only is matter destined to take part in the final transfiguration at the end of time, but it actually opens the way to it, being part and parcel of the economy of grace. Our one and only means to God is through the Sacred Humanity of Jesus Christ our Lord, who as Second Person of the Blessed Trinity became incarnate for the express purpose of providing us with the necessary material link to His divinity. Inviting us to share in His own eternal life through the Sacraments, outward tangible signs conveying grace to our souls, He became flesh in order to tell us face to face, “No man cometh to the Father but by me. . . . I am the door “(John 14:6; 10:7).
In this mortal life even matters of faith can be seen and understood only from what is relayed to us by our senses. As St. Paul insists, “Faith comes by hearing.” How can men believe in Christ “of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? ” (Rom. 10:17,14). The holy Bishop of Geneva explained,
Quote:“As the mirror contains not the thing we see in it but only the representation and species of it (which representation, stayed by the mirror, produces another in the beholding eye), so the word of faith does not contain the things which it announces, but only represents them, and this representation of divine things which is in the word of faith produces another representation of them, which our understanding, helped by God’s grace, accepts and receives as a representation of holy truth, and our will takes delight in it and embraces it as an honorable, profitable, lovely and excellent truth. Thus the truths signified in God’s word are by it represented to the understanding as things expressed in the mirror represented to the eye.” [4]
As long as reason rests exclusively on sense perception without following where that perception is designed to lead, it cannot rise to the full truth about anything. Where only material explanations for life’s mysteries are considered valid, man is content to view his own immaterial, immortal soul as a “psyche” which is simply a part of his body, and his conscience as a “super-ego” conditioned by his environment. His most spiritual acts of thinking, loving and remembering, by which the image of God in which he was created is specifically projected, thus become merely higher bodily functions and God no more than a universal “life force” identified as often as not with matter itself.
Needless to say, the Incarnation of the Son of God, which constitutes the core event upon which all history turns, must be systematically disregarded by the materialist as irrelevant fancy, for this singular occurrence brought the supernatural world definitively into the natural one once and for all. Not only was explosive testimony to the existence of the supernatural provided by the Resurrection of the Sacred Humanity from the dead, but that same Sacred Humanity remained among us under the appearances of bread and wine as a hidden Presence which is specifically characterized as Real, and instituted so that both body and soul may be fed on the ultimate divine Reality even in this life.
Presented to the senses under material species are nothing less than the Body and Blood of God, which sight, touch and taste are powerless to reveal. “Visus, tactus, gustus in te fallitur,“ as St. Thomas says in Adoro Te devote, his famous eucharistic hymn, “sed auditu solo tuto creditur,” only hearing being a sure guide for our faith, because “I believe everything the Son of God has said.” In the words of the hymn, “Only the Godhead was hidden on the Cross, but here the Humanity is hidden as well, yet I believe and acknowledge them both.” It closes with the prayer Jesu, quem velatum nunc aspicio, “Jesus, as I look on Thy veiled presence, I pray that what I long for so ardently may come about, and that I may see Thy face unveiled and be happy in the vision of Thy glory.”
This is what St. Paul was talking about when he told his Corinthian congregation that in this life, “We see now through a glass in an obscure manner,” for only in eternity shall we see “face to face”(1 Cor. 13:12).
Quote:“In heaven – oh, my God, what a favor! ” exclaims St. Francis de Sales, “the Divinity will unite itself to our understanding without the mediation of any species or representation at all, but it will apply itself to our understanding, making itself in such sort present unto it, that the inward presence shall be instead of a representation or species.” [5]
Only in heaven will we experience creation and all it contains as it really is, for only there will we enjoy immediate contact with God, seeking reality no longer through the senses, but directly in God’s Word, who in this life reveals how things really are only insofar as we are equipped to understand them through faith.
In this sense the contemplative shut off from the world in his cell alone at prayer is closer to reality than the busiest captain of industry or media mogul immersed in the business of the world, let alone the astronaut in the farthest reaches of space. Through faith, loving contemplation provides the closest contact with reality possible in this life, with what the mystics could only express by means of mysterious contradictions. St. Denis the Areopagite called it “a ray of darkness;” St John of the Cross spoke of “silent music” and “sounding solitude.” Union with God brings us into the great invisible spiritual world in which we are at all times unconsciously immersed and on which we and the entire material universe depend for sustenance and our very existence.
Our Lord granted a glimpse of this real world on Mount Tabor to His apostles Peter, James and John, fulfilling the promise He made to His disciples about a week previously that “there are some standing here that shall not taste death, till they see the kingdom of God.” Appearing transfigured before them, He allowed them to behold, as the Byzantine liturgy puts it, “as much of His glory as they could hold,” for what took place was not so much a miracle as the momentary suspension of the continuing miracle which ordinarily veiled our Lord’s true aspect from weak mortal eyes while He was on earth. The synoptic Evangelists tell us that while our Lord was at prayer not only “the appearance of his countenance was altered,“ so that “his face did shine as the sun,” but likewise “his raiment became white and glittering. . . His garments became white as snow,” they “became shining and exceedingly white as snow, so as no fuller on earth can make them white” (Matt. 17:1-2; Mk. 9:1-2; Luke 9:27-29). In other words, in this preview of the kingdom of God, not only the Sacred Humanity, but matter itself shares in heavenly glory.
The Eastern Office celebrates the fact that God on this occasion, “As witnesses to this grace and partakers of this joy . . . raised up Moses and Elias, the forerunners of the glorious and saving Resurrection made possible by the Cross of Christ.” Moses from among the dead and Elias still alive in his own body, as representatives of both categories of the redeemed, thus testify to the ongoing Communion between the saints in heaven and those on earth. Shown not only “appearing in majesty,” but taking an active interest in current history, Moses and Elias were heard speaking with our Lord about His coming Passion “which he was to accomplish in Jerusalem”(Luke 9:30-31). Materialists, for whom the immortal soul is pious fiction, would of course assume that these two great figures had long ago been dissolved into the great “all,” never to re-appear as the same individuals, their substance recycled according to the dictates of chance into other evolving forms.
Until the end comes, when the Son of God “will reform the body of our lowness, made like to the body of his glory” (Phil. 3:21), the man without faith lives out his life deaf, dumb and blind, totally unaware of the higher realities both human and angelic which not only surround him at all times, but take a personal interest in his problems. Even though possessing faith, the average Catholic adverts as rarely to the ever present holy guardian angels laboring to keep him on the sure path to salvation as to the malevolent demons plotting his destruction – not to mention the souls in Purgatory and the host of sainted relatives, forbears, friends and acquaintances who have now entered, or are about to enter fully into their eternal vocations, which they began pursuing in time only in order to bring them to fruition in eternity.
Whether aware of it or not, the living collaborate with them, for the Mystical Body of Christ is one body, whose members, both living and dead, were created to work together both here and hereafter in perfect harmony according to the mind of Christ their head. “For as in one body we have many members, “ says St. Paul, “all the members have not the same office: So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members of one another, and having gifts different according to the grace that is given” (Rom. 12:4-6). And again, “God hath tempered the body together . . . that there might be no schism in the body, but the members might be mutually careful for one another” (1 Cor. 12:24-25).
In view of this, how is it possible to ignore the greater part of that Body, merely because it is unseen? Far from severing the spiritual ties between heaven and earth, death only draws them closer. Didn’t the little Ste. Therese look forward to spending her heaven doing good on earth? How many ideas enter our heads which are presumed to be self-generated but are actually inspired, for good or ill, by the holy (or the malevolent) inhabitants of the vast intangible world lying just out of sight? How many successes and failures are due to the participation of any number of unknown participants in our efforts? Truly, “Our conversation,” if it is to be real conversation, can only be, as St. Paul says, “in heaven” (Phil. 3:20).
The liturgy of the Eastern Rite says that Christ at His Transfiguration also revealed “through His Person that human nature is re-established in its original splendor.” This is fraught with practical consequences for the believing Catholic, for our father Adam possessed not only bodily powers, but angelic ones. He was created with an aptitude for purely spiritual communication by virtue of his immaterial soul, which with the body forms an integral part of human nature. According to Anne Catherine Emmerich this constitutes “a mystery of a nature very difficult for fallen man to comprehend, one by which the pure in soul and body are brought into intimate and mysterious communication with one another.” Sr. Emmerich’s biographer Fr. Schmöger explains,
Quote:“The undimmed splendor of baptismal grace is then according to her the first, the chief condition for the reception of the light of prophecy, for the developing of a faculty in man obscured by Adam’s fall: viz., capability of communicating with the world of spirit without interrupting the harmonies and natural relation of body and soul. Every man possesses this capability; but, if we may so speak, it is hidden in his soul; he cannot of himself overleap the barrier which separates the regions of sense from those beyond. God alone by the infusion of superior light can remove this barrier from the path of His elect; but seldom is such light granted, for few there are who rigorously fulfill the conditions exacted.”[6]
The thinking soul, being the form of the body as defined by the Council of Vienne in 1311, contains the body as a higher form contains a lower one, much as a polygon contains the square, the triangle and the pentagon. Resting on the authority of St. Thomas, the Trappist theologian Dom Alois Wiesinger explains that this means that “the human soul is not wholly submerged in the body nor completely enclosed by it, a thing which because of its higher degree of perfection is inconceivable, and that in consequence there is nothing to prevent it from reaching out beyond the body in its effective power, despite the fact that with its substance it remains essentially in the body.” Although it is true that “insofar as it is united with the body, the soul can form no thought except with the aid of the mental pictures created by the imagination . . . the soul is not a form of the body which can be completely submerged in matter, and that because of its perfection. There is therefore nothing that stands in the way of certain of its faculties not being acts of the body. . . .People have forgotten that the soul is a spirit and that it does not cease to be a spirit when it is united to the body, and that it requires no material connecting links for its activities.”
This semi-freedom of the soul from the body was present in Adam as a normal condition, which permitted him to hear “the voice of God walking in Paradise at the afternoon air” (Gen. 3:8) and to name the animals, not only by abstraction from sensual perception, but “cognizing things intuitively by the light that God had infused into him at the time of his creation.” It was presumably through the same kind of direct communication without the mediation of images, which is like that of the angels, that God counseled Adam and Eve. Scripture tells us,
Quote:“He created in them the science of the spirit, he filled their heart with wisdom and showed them both good and evil. . . Moreover he gave them instructions and the law of life for an inheritance. . . And their eye saw the majesty of his glory and their ears heard his glorious voice, and he said to them: Beware of all iniquity!” (Ecclus. 17:5-11).
Unfortunately, they did not, and their fall from grace caused their souls to be weighed down by their bodies, depriving them and all their descendants of their original powers of intuition. This happened gradually, for even after his sin, Cain was still able to communicate directly with God, but since the Flood, the faculty became nearly extinct, existing only in exceptional souls. St. Bernard says,
Quote:“It was only through sin that reason was thus imprisoned in the senses; once man also had a spiritual eye that did not need the senses in order to know God, but this has now been clouded and darkened by sin and can only be cleansed for contemplation by asceticism.”
Vestiges of man’s primordial gift for spiritual communication nonetheless does survive to a greater or lesser degree in individuals, for as Dom Wiesinger notes,
Quote:“There remained to man his soul as such, with all its powers and faculties, though it was now constrained within the physical bounds of his body.” Believing that “the scholastic doctrine concerning the soul is the only one that provides a satisfactory solution for the problems of modern psychology and parapsychology,” he maintains that even now “the spirit soul can in certain circumstances partially withdraw itself and its body-bound part from the life of the senses and allow its activity to reach out beyond the body. From this there result phenomena such as we encounter in occultism and to some extent in the mystic life.” [7]
The Benedictine spiritual master Dom John Chapman, Abbot of Downside, was firmly persuaded that the supernatural contemplative prayer which goes by the name of “mysticism” is based on this natural human faculty, given that God always works in us according to our nature. As he put it,
Quote:“The door to the unseen is connatural to integral nature as possessed by Adam, but filled up with lumber by original sin. But, in some souls there is a little light shining through, and if they blow out or shade their terrene candles and lamps [which is the work of Christian mortification], they begin to perceive this light. Once they use it, God can increase it and communicate with them in this new and higher way. Thus the door is a part of the perfection of human nature; the blocking of it is from the imperfection of our nature; the light through the door is supernatural, and all communication through it is from God – therefore a grace, a gift, and from the Holy Ghost.” [8]
Another Benedictine, the German Fr. Mager in Theosophie und Christentum, concluded that all baptized persons should therefore be thought of as mystics, inasmuch as “Christianity is in its innermost being essentially mystical, for it proceeds from the fact that there is a direct connection between spirit-soul and God. The activity of the soul as a pure spirit is mystical, an activity that goes hand in hand with the elimination of the corporal-sensual and of the functions of the corporal soul.”
He goes on to explain, however, that “this so called mystical contemplation is not the same as the contemplation of the blessed in heaven. It is the same kind of knowledge as, according to Catholic doctrine, is possessed by the departed soul in Purgatory, when it is not yet healed of all the wounds incurred during its association with the body. As long as the soul in its mode of being is still imprisoned in the body, the apprehensions of the spirit-soul cannot be direct, but only partially so.”
Fr. Mager insists that “the mystical life does not imply anything unusual or exceptional that is reserved for specially privileged people.” It begins with ordinary vocal prayer, which can continue for a lifetime, and is rather “a part of that great transformation that must take place in man as he approaches his final perfection. It begins at that point where the soul, still bound to the body, begins to function as a pure spirit, that is to say, independently of the body. It means therefore the spiritualization of man, a withdrawal within himself, the attainment of independence by his purely spiritual part, the re-establishment of the spirit in its original sovereignty over the body” once naturally enjoyed by Adam. [9]
The entry into the invisible, real world is therefore not far to seek. Didn’t our Lord tell us plainly, “Lo, the kingdom of God is within you?” (Luke 17:21) This is not pious metaphor, but a revelation of the very core of reality, to be found at the very center of our being. In our present earthly condition, this is as real as it gets. Not to believe it is to be hopelessly out of touch with what is actually going on in the world, a misfortune which led St. John of the Cross to exclaim in his Spiritual Canticle, “O souls created for these grandeurs and called thereto! What are you doing? Wherein do you occupy yourselves?”
[1] Bk. III, Ch. 11
[2] PG 57 hom.13
[3] The Mysteries of Christianity, B. Herder Book Co., St. Louis, Mo., 1948, p. 202.
[4] Op. cit., p. 155
[5] Ibid.
[6] Vol. 2, Ch. 1.
[7] Dom Alois Wiesinger, OCSO, Occult Phenomena, Roman Catholic Books, Fort Collins CO 80522, passim pp. 55-81, 268.
[8] The Spiritual Letters of Dom John Chapman, O.S.B. Sheed and Ward, London, 1954, p.71.
[9] Quoted by Dom Wiesinger, pp.271-282.
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| We're being lied to at every turn and the reasons why |
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Posted by: SAguide - 01-29-2021, 02:54 PM - Forum: COVID Vaccines
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Dr. Lee Merrit explains why non-vax treatments are left out of the discussion for treating or preventing Covid-19 - be they natural or pharmaceutical drug remedies which are well known and being used by plenty of doctors. It seems to me good medical professionals should start with preventions of which she touches on also in this video. Wouldn't any sane person agree with that?
The interview has already been shut down on some youtube channels, therefore included in this post is a vimeo link HERE
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| Pregnant or under 18? Don’t get Moderna’s COVID vaccine, WHO says |
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Posted by: Stone - 01-29-2021, 08:26 AM - Forum: COVID Vaccines
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Pregnant or under 18? Don’t get Moderna’s COVID vaccine, WHO says
Citing insufficient data, the World Health Organization’s latest guidance on Moderna’s COVID vaccine recommends most pregnant women, and anyone under age 18, not get the vaccine.
January 28, 2021 (Children’s Health Defense) — Pregnant women (unless they are at high risk of exposure to the COVID virus) and people under age 18 should not get Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine until further studies are completed, according to new guidance issued today by the World Health Organization (WHO).
In its interim recommendations for the Moderna mRNA-1273 vaccine in people 18 years and older, the WHO Strategic Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE) said:
“While pregnancy puts women at a higher risk of severe COVID-19, the use of this vaccine in pregnant women is currently not recommended, unless they are at risk of high exposure (e.g. health workers).”
In an online briefing, as Reuters reported, WHO director of immunisation Kate O’Brien said, “There is no reason to think there could be a problem in pregnancy, we are just acknowledging the data is not there at the moment.”
Earlier this month, the WHO similarly recommended against administering the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID vaccine to pregnant women, also citing insufficient data.
WHO continues to recommend that “health workers at high risk of exposure and older people should be prioritized for vaccination.”
However, today’s recommendations also included this list of people who should not get the Moderna vaccine:
“Individuals with a history of severe allergic reaction to any component of the vaccine should not take this or any other mRNA vaccine.
“While vaccination is recommended for older persons due to the high risk of severe COVID-19 and death, very frail older persons with an anticipated life expectancy of less than 3 months should be individually assessed.
“The vaccine should not be administered to persons younger than 18 years of age pending the results of further studies.”
Last week, The Defender reported that allergic reactions had caused California health officials to hit pause on a large batch of Moderna vaccines. A few days later, Moderna said it was okay to resume using that batch.
Also last week, China health experts called for the suspension of Moderna’s and Pfizer’s COVID vaccines after reports that Norway and Germany were investigating the deaths of at least 43 elderly people (33 in Norway, 10 in Germany) who had received the COVID vaccine.
In the U.S., as of Jan. 15, 181 deaths had been reported to the U.S. government’s Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System as possibly being related to COVID vaccines. A 2010 study by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services concluded that “fewer than 1% of vaccine injuries” are reported to VAERS and experts say the government’s reporting system is “broken.” Both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines use mRNA technology, never before used in vaccines. In the U.S., both are approved for emergency use only, which by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s definition, means that they are experimental.
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| March 10th - The Forty Martyrs of Sebaste |
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Posted by: Elizabeth - 01-28-2021, 11:46 PM - Forum: March
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The Forty Martyrs of Sebaste
(† 320)
The Forty Martyrs were soldiers quartered at Sebaste in Armenia, about the year 320. When their legion was ordered to offer sacrifice to idols, they refused to betray the faith of their baptism, and replied to all persuasive efforts, We are Christians! When neither cajolings or threats could change them, after several days of imprisonment they were chained together and taken to the site of execution. It was a cruel winter, and they were condemned to lie without clothing on the icy surface of a pond in the open air until they froze to death.
The forty, not merely undismayed but filled with joy at the prospect of suffering for Jesus Christ, said: No doubt it is difficult to support so acute a cold, but it will be agreeable to go to paradise by this route; the torment is of short duration, and the glory will be eternal. This cruel night will win for us an eternity of delights. Lord, forty of us are entering combat; grant that we may be forty to receive the crown!
There were warm baths close by, ready for any among them who would deny Christ. One of the confessors lost heart, renounced his faith, and went to cast himself into the basin of warm water prepared for that intention. But the sudden change in temperature suffocated him and he expired, losing at once both temporal and eternal life. The still living martyrs were fortified in their resolution, beholding this scene.
Then the ice was suddenly flooded with a bright light; one of the soldiers guarding the men, nearly blinded by the light, raised his eyes and saw Angels descend with forty crowns which they held in the air over the martyrs' heads; but the fortieth one remained without a destination. The sentry was inspired to confess Christ, saying: That crown will be for me! Abandoning his coat and clothing, he went to replace the unfortunate apostate on the ice, crying out: I am a Christian! And the number of forty was again complete. They remained steadfast while their limbs grew stiff and frozen, and died one by one.
Among the forty there was a young soldier named Meliton who held out longest against the cold, and when the officers came to cart away the dead bodies they found him still breathing. They were moved with pity, and wanted to leave him alive, hoping he would still change his mind. But his mother stood by, and this valiant woman could not bear to see her son separated from the band of martyrs. She exhorted him to persevere, and lifted his frozen body into the cart. He was just able to make a sign of recognition, and was borne away, to be thrown into the flames with the dead bodies of his brethren. Their bones were cast into the river, but they floated and were gathered up by the faithful.
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| March 9th - St. Frances of Rome |
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Posted by: Elizabeth - 01-28-2021, 11:43 PM - Forum: March
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Saint Frances of Rome
Widow
(1384-1440)
Frances was born in Rome in 1384. Her parents, of high rank, overruled her desire to become a nun, and when she reached the age of twelve, married her to Lorenzo Ponziano, a Roman noble. During the forty years of their married life they never had a disagreement. While spending her days in retirement and prayer, Saint Frances attended promptly to every household duty, saying, A married woman must leave God at the altar to find Him in her domestic cares. She once found the verse of a psalm, at which she had been four times thus interrupted, completed for her in letters of gold. Her ordinary food was dry bread, and secretly she would exchange with beggars good food for their hard crusts.
Two of her children died young. Her son was nine years old when he foretold his father's death wound and his own coming departure for heaven; and then he returned a year later with an Angel whom she saw clearly. He said he had come for his little five year-old sister, that she might be placed among the Angels with him. He left the Angel with her in exchange, to remain always.
During the invasion of Rome in 1413, Lorenzo was banished, his estates confiscated, his house destroyed, and his eldest son taken as a hostage. Frances saw in these losses only the hand of God, and blessed His holy Name. When peace was restored Ponziano recovered his estates, and after her husband's death, Saint Frances founded a Community of Benedictine Oblate nuns. At the age of forty-three, barefoot and with a cord about her neck she asked admission to the community, and was soon elected Superior.
She lived at all times in the presence of God, and among many visions was given constant sight of her Angel, who shed such a brightness around him that the Saint could read her midnight Office by this light alone. He shielded her in time of temptation, and directed her in every good act. But when she fell into some fault, he faded from her sight, and whenever any unsuitable words were spoken before her, he covered his face in shame. Saint Frances died on the day she foretold, March 9, 1440.
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| March 8th - St. John of God |
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Posted by: Elizabeth - 01-28-2021, 11:41 PM - Forum: March
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Saint John of God
Founder
(1495-1550)
Nothing in the early life of John Ciudad, born of a poor couple in a town of Portugal, foreshadowed his future sanctity. Following a traveler whose description of Madrid had captivated his imagination, this only son of his parents ran away from his home. Soon regret and misery overtook him, but he was ashamed to return to his abandoned parents. In effect his mother, struck with a fever, but advised by an Angel that John would have to undergo long trials which would strengthen his virtue, departed this life only a few days after his adventure began.
For several years the renegade was engaged in tending sheep and cattle in Spain; his employer eventually offered him his only daughter in marriage and thereby a rich heritage, but John was interiorly advised that such was not his vocation. He left in secret the next day, joined the army of Spain against the French, later against the Turks. When he was about forty years of age, feeling profound remorse for his life which lacked order and purpose, he returned to his home village, only to learn of the death of both his parents. I am not worthy to see the light of day! exclaimed the grief-stricken voyager. He visited the cemetery, suffocated by his sobs, and cried out, Pardon, pardon! O mother! Eternal penance!
He resolved to devote himself to the ransom of Christian slaves in Africa, and on his way served the sick in a hospital. Meeting an aged nobleman at Gibralter, unjustly exiled and on his way to Africa, John offered to go there as his servant, to remain with him and his family and support them by his labor. Count DaSilva fell ill in the new climate and soon died, thanking John for his unfailing aid, and predicting he would some day be one of Spain's greatest apostles. His family received amnesty and returned to Spain.
John, too, returned there by the advice of his confessor, and sought to do good by selling holy pictures and books at low prices. Finally the hour of grace struck. At Granada a sermon by the celebrated John of Avila shook his soul to its depths, and his expressions of self-abhorrence were so extraordinary that he was taken to the asylum as one insane. For a time he acted this role purposely, in order to be whipped daily as a remedial measure. His confessor was John of Avila, who when he learned of this told him to cease his pretense and do something useful. Thereafter he employed himself in ministering to the sick.
He began to collect homeless poor, and to support them by his work and by begging. One night Saint John found in the streets a poor man who seemed near death, and, as was his wont, he carried him to the hospital, laid him on a bed, and went to fetch water to wash his feet. When he had washed them, he knelt to kiss them, but was awestruck: the feet were pierced, and the print of the nails shone with an unearthly radiance. He raised his eyes, and heard the words, John, it is to Me that you do all that you do for the poor in My name. It is I who reach forth My hand for the alms you give; you clothe Me; Mine are the feet that you wash. And then the gracious vision disappeared, leaving Saint John filled at once with confusion and consolation.
The bishop became the Saint's patron and gave him the name of John of God. When his hospital was on fire, John was seen rushing about uninjured amid the flames until he had rescued all his poor. After ten years spent in the service of the suffering, the Saint's life was fitly closed when he plunged into a river to save a drowning boy, and died in 1550 of an illness brought on by the attempt. He was fifty-five years old.
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| Blessed Mother Marie Leonie |
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Posted by: Hildegard of Bingen - 01-28-2021, 10:32 PM - Forum: The Saints
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![[Image: 0504-24.jpg]](https://stevenwood.com/reflections/franciscan/images/0504-24.jpg)
May 12th, 1840 - May 3rd, 1912
Few might know the name Élodie Paradis, but many know the name Mother Marie-Léonie. She was a Marianite Sister of Holy Cross and founder of the Little Sisters of the Holy Family and today is her feast day.
Elodie was born May 12 1840 in L’Acadie, Lower Canada, the only daughter among the six children of Joseph Paradis and Émilie Grégoire.
In the mid 1840s Élodie Paradis’s father moved to the concession of La Tortue, near the village of Saint-Philippe-de-Laprairie, in order to support his family. There he rented a disused mill in which he sawed lumber, ground grain, and carded wool. When Élodie was nine years old, her mother sent her to a boarding-school run by the Congregation of Notre-Dame in La Prairie while her father was working in California. Her studies with the congregation of Notre Dame were interrupted when the family lived temporarily in Napierville. She returned to the school in La Prairie in 1850. Having heard from her youthful neighbour, the Holy Cross priest Camille Lefebvre that there was a community of nuns within the Holy Cross family, Élodie presented herself at the noviciate of the Marianite Sisters of Holy Cross in Saint-Laurent, near Montreal, on Feb. 21 1854. She was not yet 14. When her father came back from California, he tried to bring her home, without success.
Under the name of Sister Marie-de-Sainte-Léonie she was accepted as a novice. In 1856 she taught at Sainte-Scholastique (Mirabel) and on 22 Aug. 1857 she made her vows. She would then be a teacher, monitor, and secretary to the mother superior at Varennes, Saint-Laurent, and Saint-Martin (Laval). In 1862 she was sent to New York, where the Marianites operated an orphanage, a workroom, and a school for poor children in the parish of St Vincent de Paul. Eight years later she joined the American branch of the order and went to Indiana to teach French and needlework to the nuns who were slated to become teachers.
After a short stay in Michigan, in 1874 Sister Marie-Léonie was chosen to direct a group of novices and postulants at the College of Saint Joseph in Memramcook, N.B. This college, which had been founded in 1864 by her compatriot Camille Lefebvre, needed recruits for “housekeeping tasks and maintenance of the culinary department.” There Élodie Paradis could heed what she considered her calling at that moment: to be an auxiliary and assistant to the Holy Cross Fathers in the mission of educating young Acadians. Several factors strengthened her resolve: the precarious situation of the college in the absence of support personnel essential to its smooth operation; the Acadians’ low level of education; and the lack of institutions for young women eager to enter the religious life. Fourteen Acadian girls taken into the workroom that she directed began wearing their own unique habit on 26 Aug. 1877. In 1880 the general chapter of the Holy Cross Fathers accepted the idea of a new foundation for the needs of the colleges, the Little Sisters of the Holy Family. Alfred-Valère Roy, who succeeded Lefebvre, thought the actions taken by his predecessor and Sister Marie-Léonie helped “to save the Acadian nationality, threatened and doomed to anglification” as much by Irish Roman Catholics as by Protestants.
Appointed superior of the new community, Mother Marie-Léonie tried on many occasions to persuade Bishop John Sweeny of Saint John, N.B., to give his approval to her religious family, but in vain. In 1895 she met Bishop Paul Laroque of Sherbrooke, who was looking for domestic staff for his seminary. He agreed to receive the mother house and the novitiate of the Little Sisters into his diocese and to give them his approval. On 5 Oct. 1895, after 21 years in Acadia, Mother Marie-Léonie returned to Quebec. She and her community moved to 10 Rue Peel in Sherbrooke, and on 26 Jan. 1896 Larocque granted canonical approval, official church recognition.
Mother Marie-Léonie then applied herself to the tasks of giving her institution a rule of life and helping the nuns develop a spirit of cheerful simplicity and sisterly generosity. Their generosity was even extended to other countries and was symbolized by their adoption of a little girl from Kabylia. “She was all heart,” Bishop Larocque would say of Mother Marie-Léonie. After providing for the education of the sisters who were illiterate, she pursued their human and spiritual formation in her correspondence with them after they left Sherbrooke for other provinces and the United States.
Mother Marie-Léonie died on 3 May 1912, just before her 72nd birthday. In the course of her life she had overseen 38 establishments in Quebec, New Brunswick, Ontario, and the United States, most of them in colleges and a few in episcopal households. At the time of her death, the Little Sisters of the Holy Family had some 635 members. Élodie Paradis was beatified in Montreal on 11 Sept. 1984, during Pope John Paul II’s visit. The church thereby recognized an “avant-garde woman” who had met the needs of her time by founding the first institute to help priests in their educational work. Without this assistance, some colleges would have been unable to survive, since they did not have the means to hire lay personnel.
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| Sister Marie Rose Durocher |
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Posted by: Hildegard of Bingen - 01-28-2021, 10:27 PM - Forum: The Saints
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I am posting the story of this sister, since I was a child my parents had a picture of this Sister on the wall beside their crucifix. My mother always said there were promises that if you have this picture in your home it will not burn down. Cleaning out my holy cards, finding this picture I researched her and found out why?
Sister Marie Rose Durocher
Born 6 October 1811, Saint-Antoine-sur-Richelieu, Lower Canada, British Empire - Died 6 October 1849 (aged 38)
Longueuil, Province of Canada, British Empire (is now known in the Province of Quebec)
Venerated in Roman Catholic Church
(Canada and the United States)
Beatified 23 May 1982, Rome, Italy by Pope John Paul II
Major shrine Chapelle Marie-Rose
Co-cathedral of St. Anthony of Padua in Longueuil, Quebec, Canada
Feast October 6
Marie-Rose Durocher (6 October 1811 – 6 October 1849) was a Canadian Roman Catholic religious sister, who founded the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary. She was beatified by the Roman Catholic Church in 1982.
Contents
Early life
She was born Eulalie Mélanie Durocher in the village of Saint-Antoine-sur-Richelieu, Quebec, on 6 October 1811. She was the tenth of eleven children born to Olivier and Geneviève Durocher, a prosperous farming family. Three of her siblings died in infancy. Her brothers Flavien, Théophile, and Eusèbe entered the Roman Catholic priesthood, and her sister Séraphine joined the Congregation of Notre Dame.[1]
Durocher was home-schooled by her paternal grandfather Olivier Durocher until the age of 10. Upon his death in 1821, she became a boarding pupil at a convent run by the Congregation of Notre Dame in Saint-Denis-sur-Richelieu until 1823, where she made her First Communion aged 12. After leaving the convent she returned home to be privately tutored by Jean-Marie-Ignace Archambault, a teacher at the Collège de Saint-Hyacinthe.[1] During this time she owned a horse named Caesar and became a competent equestrian.[2]
In 1827, aged 16, Durocher entered the boarding school of the Congregation of Notre Dame in Montreal in 1827, where she intended to enter the novitiate as her sister Séraphine had earlier done. However, her health proved too poor to allow her to complete her education there and after two years she returned home.[1] A contemporary of Durocher's from her time at boarding school later wrote:
"[Durocher] was wonderful; she alone was unaware of her own worth, attributing all to God that was found favourable in her, and asserting that of herself she was only weakness and misery. She possessed charming modesty, was gentle and amiable; attentive always to the voice of her teachers, she was still more so to the voice of God, who spoke to her heart."[3]
In 1830, Durocher's mother Geneviève died, and Durocher assumed her mother's role as homemaker. In 1831, Durocher's brother Theophile, who at that time was curate of Saint-Mathieu Parish in Belœil, persuaded his father and Durocher to move from the family farm to the presbytery of his parish.[1] At the presbytery, Durocher worked as housekeeper and secretary to Theophile between 1831 and 1843.[1] During the course of this work she was made aware of the severe shortage of schools and teachers in the surrounding countryside (in 1835 Quebec was home to only 15 schools)[3] and discussed with her family and acquaintances the need for a religious community specifically dedicated to the education of children both rich and poor.[1]
Foundress: Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary
In 1841, Louis-Moïse Brassard, parish priest of Longueuil, entered discussions with Charles-Joseph-Eugène de Mazenod, Bishop of Marseilles, France, for the establishment of a mission to Quebec by a French religious congregation known as the Sœurs des Saints-Noms de Jésus et de Marie. Durocher learned of the proposed mission through Brassard. Along with her friend Mélodie Dufresne, Durocher applied in advance to join the novitiate of the new congregation upon its arrival in Canada.[3] However, the mission ultimately did not go ahead, and Mazenod instead advised Ignace Bourget, Bishop of Montreal, whom Mazenod had met during Bourget's European visit of that year, to establish a similar congregation in Canada, based upon the two women who had been eager to be part of the French group.[1]
On 2 December 1841, a mission of the Oblate Fathers arrived in Montreal,[4] and in August 1842 opened a church at Longueuil.[3] Among the Oblates was a Father Pierre-Adrien Telmon, who travelled to Belœil to conduct popular missions, where he met Durocher and became her spiritual director.[1] On 6 October 1843, Durocher traveled to Longueuil to witness her brother Eusèbe profess his religious vows, and there she met Bishop Bourget.[3] Together, Bourget and Telmon petitioned Durocher to take a leading role in the foundation of a new religious congregation dedicated to the Christian education of youth. Durocher agreed to this request, and on 28 October 1843, Durocher began her postulancy at Saint-Antoine Church in Longueuil under the direction of Father Jean-Marie François Allard, a member of the Oblates.[1] Two companions entered training alongside her: Durocher's friend Mélodie Dufresne, and Henriette Céré, a schoolteacher of Longueuil at whose school building Durocher and Dufresne roomed during their postulancy.[3]
On 28 February 1844, in a ceremony conducted by Bishop Bourget, the three postulants began their novitiate, assumed the religious habit and received their religious names. Durocher took the name Sister Marie-Rose, Dufresne became Sister Marie-Agnes and Céré became known as Sister Marie-Madeleine. Bishop Bourget gave the newly founded community diocesan approval[5] and named it the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary, after the French community Durocher had hoped to join.[1] The sisters adopted the rule and constitutions of their French namesakes, as well as a modified version of their habit. On 8 December 1844, Durocher, Dufresne, and Céré professed religious vows in the church at Longueuil. Bourget named Durocher as mother superior, mistress of novices, and depositary of the new congregation.[1]
The new congregation began teaching out of Henriette Céré's schoolhouse, but demand for their services was extraordinary and on 4 August 1844 they were forced to move to larger premises.[3] The number of prospective pupils continued to rise over the following years, with the result that between February 1844 and October 1849 the sisters established four convents (in Longueuil, Belœil, Saint-Lin and Saint Timothée) employing 30 teachers and enrolling (as of 6 October 1849) 448 pupils.[1] The sisters developed a course of study that provided equally for English and French pupils. Originally the sisters had planned to teach only girls but their missionary requirements eventually forced them to teach boys in some provinces.[5]
On 17 March 1845, the sisters were incorporated by an act of the Canadian Parliament.[5] During 1846, Durocher clashed with Charles Chiniquy, an outspoken priest who would eventually leave the Roman Catholic Church and become a Protestant. Chiniquy wished to take control of teaching in the sisters' schools, and when he was blocked in this aim by Durocher, he publicly disparaged the sisters.[1]
Death and beatification
Durocher, troubled throughout her life by ill health, died of a "wasting illness"[6] on 6 October 1849, aged 38. Her funeral was held the same day in the church of Longueuil, with Bishop Ignace Bourget presiding. Since 1 May 2004, Durocher's remains have been interred in the Chapelle Marie-Rose in the right transept of the Co-cathedral of St. Anthony of Padua in Longueuil.[1]
In a statement made in 1880, Bishop Ignace Bourget called for Durocher's canonization, saying: "I invoke her aid as a saint for myself, and I hope that the Lord will glorify her before men by having the church award her the honours of the altar."[1] On 9 November 1927, Alphonse-Emmanuel Deschamps, Auxiliary Bishop of Montreal, appointed an ecclesiastical tribunal to enquire into the possible canonisation of Durocher.[6] The tribunal was empowered by ecclesiastical mandate to collect anything written by Durocher, and called upon Roman Catholics of Montreal to produce any privately held documents in accordance with that mandate.[6] The evidence gathered by the tribunal was collected in a positio, which was then taken to Rome for presentation to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.
On 2 October 1972 the cause for her beatification was officially introduced by Pope Paul VI, bestowing upon Durocher the title of "Servant of God". On 13 July 1979 a declaration was made with respect to Durocher's heroic virtues, resulting in Durocher receiving the title "Venerable". On 23 May 1982 she was beatified by decree of Pope John Paul II.[7][8] The decree was made before a crowd in St Peter’s Square in Rome.[1] Beatification is the third of four steps on the path to Roman Catholic sainthood, and bestows the title of "Blessed" upon Durocher. Durocher's feast day is celebrated on 6 October.
Several alleged miracles have been posthumously connected with Durocher. In 1946, a Detroit man, Benjamin Modzell, was crushed against a wall by a truck and pronounced dead. He was reported to recover after prayers were made invoking Durocher. This incident was the primary miracle upon which Durocher's beatification was based.[9]
In 1973, sisters at their Spokane, Washington, convent claimed to have a stopped a fire at a chapel in Fort Wright College by invoking Durocher through prayer. The fire, which started in Spokane River gorge, was approaching the campus when the sisters tacked Durocher's picture to trees and prayed to her for help.[9] Flames were reportedly within 15 feet of the chapel, with smoke filling the interior, when the fire changed direction.[10] Similarly, in 1979, Frank Carr, the owner of a lake resort in Tonasket, Washington, observed an uncontrolled wildfire change direction after he tossed a picture of Durocher into the flames. Said Carr, "All I know is that we threw in the picture and the wind changed. There's no question the fire would have taken the orchard, some farm houses and the resort if it hadn't turned."[10]
Durocher is commemorated in a stained glass window in Mary, Queen of the World Cathedral in Montreal, where she is depicted alongside Frances Xavier Cabrini and Andre Bessette. The College Durocher St Lambert, Quebec, is named after Durocher,[11] as is the Eulalie Durocher High School in Montreal. Durocher Hall at Holy Names University Oakland, California, is one building named in her honor, as is Durocher Pavilion on the grounds of St. Cecilia Parish in San Francisco.
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