A Brief Reflection on the Commemorated Feasts of Saint Peter's Chains and the Holy Machabees

Today, August 1, 2021, the Tenth Sunday after Pentecost and the Commemoration of  Saint Peter's Chains , the Commemoration of Saint Paul,  and the Commemoration of the Holy Machabees.

Saint Peter was rescued from imprisonment by an angel after he had been arrested upon the orders of Herod. Our first pope was in chains. He was rescued miraculously:

[1] And at the same time, Herod the king stretched forth his hands, to afflict some of the church. [2] And he killed James, the brother of John, with the sword. [3] And seeing that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to take up Peter also. Now it was in the days of the Azymes. [4] And when he had apprehended him, he cast him into prison, delivering him to four files of soldiers to be kept, intending, after the pasch, to bring him forth to the people. [5] Peter therefore was kept in prison. But prayer was made without ceasing by the church unto God for him.

[6] And when Herod would have brought him forth, the same night Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains: and the keepers before the door kept the prison. [7] And behold an angel of the Lord stood by him: and a light shined in the room: and he striking Peter on the side, raised him up, saying: Arise quickly. And the chains fell off from his hands. [8] And the angel said to him: Gird thyself, and put on thy sandals. And he did so. And he said to him: Cast thy garment about thee, and follow me. [9] And going out, he followed him, and he knew not that it was true which was done by the angel: but thought he saw a vision. [10] And passing through the first and the second ward, they came to the iron gate that leadeth to the city, which of itself opened to them. And going out, they passed on through one street: and immediately the angel departed from him.

[11] And Peter coming to himself, said: Now I know in very deed, that the Lord hath sent his angel, and hath delivered me out of the hand of Herod, and from all the expectation of the people of the Jews. [12] And considering, he came to the house of Mary the mother of John, who was surnamed Mark, where many were gathered together and praying. [13] And when he knocked at the door of the gate, a damsel came to hearken, whose name was Rhode. [14] And as soon as she knew Peter's voice, she opened not the gate for joy, but running in she told that Peter stood before the gate. [15] But they said to her: Thou art mad. But she affirmed that it was so. Then said they: It is his angel.

[16] But Peter continued knocking. And when they had opened, they saw him, and were astonished. [17] But he beckoning to them with his hand to hold their peace, told how the Lord had brought him out of prison, and he said: Tell these things to James, and to the brethren. And going out, he went into another place. [18] Now when day was come, there was no small stir among the soldiers, what was become of Peter. [19] And when Herod had sought for him, and found him not; having examined the keepers, he commanded they should be put to death; and going down from Judea to Caesarea, he abode there. [20] And he was angry with the Tyrians and the Sidonians. But they with one accord came to him, and having gained Blastus, who was the king's chamberlain, they desired peace, because their countries were nourished by him. (Acts 12: 1-19.)

It was Our Lady who had prayed for our first pope while he was in chains. Her prayers secured the angel who rescued him miraculously from the clutches of Herod and the Jews. The event was so miraculous that the mother of Saint Mark the Evangelist, Saint Peter's trusted disciple, saw that our first pope stood before her. Those with her refused to believe her. They refused to believe that the first pope had been miraculously rescued. Saint Peter had to continue to knock to gain entry!

Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., wrote of this miraculous rescue of Saint Peter as follows:

Rome, making a god of the man who had subjugated her, consecrated the month of August to Caesar Augustus. When Christ had delivered her, she placed at the head of this same month, as a trophy of her regained liberty, the feast of the chains wherewith, in order to break hers, Peter the Vicar of Christ had once been bound. O divine Wisdom, who hadst a better claim to reign over this month than had the adopted son of Caesar, Thou couldst not have more authentically inaugurated Thy empire. Strength and sweetness are the attributes of Thy works, and it is in the weakness of Thy chosen ones that Thou triumphest over the powerful. Thou Thyself, in order to give us life, didst swallow death; Simon, son of John, became a captive, to set free the world entrusted to him. First Herod and then Nero, sowed him the cost of the promise he had once received, of binding and loosing on earth as in heaven: he had to share a love of the supreme Shepherd, even to allowing himself, like Him, to be bound with chains for the sake of the flock, and led where he would not.

Glorious chains! never will yet make Peter’s successors tremble any more than Peter himself; before the Herods and the Caesars of all ages ye will be the guarantee of the liberty of souls. With what veneration have the Christian people honoured you, ever since the earliest times! One may truly say of the present feast that its origin is lost in the darkness of ages. According to ancient monuments, St. Peter himself first consecrated on this date the basilica on the highest of the seven hills, where the citizens of Rome are gathered to-day. The title of Eudoxia, by which the venerable Church is often designated, seems to have arisen from certain restorations made on occasion of the events mentioned in the lessons. As to the sacred chains which are its treasure, the earliest mention now extant of honour being paid to them occurs in the beginning of the second century. Balbina, daughter of the tribune Quirinus, keeper of the prisons, had been cured by touching the chains of the holy Pope Alexander; she could not cease kissing the hands that had healed her. ‘Find the chains of blessed Peer, and kiss them rather than these,’ said the pontiff. Balbina, therefore, having fortunately found the apostle’s chains, lavished her pious veneration upon them, and afterwards gave them to the noble Theodora, sister of Hermes.

The irons which had bound the arms of the Doctor of the Gentiles, without being able to bind the word of God, were also after his martyrdom treasured more than jewels and gold. From Antioch in Syria, St. John Chrysostom, thinking with holy envy of the lands enriched by these trophies of triumphant bondage, cried out in a sublime transport: ‘What more magnificent than these chains? Prisoner for Christ is a more beautiful name than that of Apostle. Evagelist, or Doctor. To be found for Christ’s sake is better than to dwell in the heavens; to sit upon the twelve thrones is not so great an honour. He that loves can understand me; but who can better understand these things than the holy choir of apostles? As for me, if I were offered my choice between these chains and the whole of heaven, I should not hesitate; for in them is happiness. Would that I were now in those places, where it is said the chains of these admirable men are still kept! If it were given me to be set free from the care of this church, and I had a little health, I should not hesitate to undertake such a voyage only to see Paul’s chains. If they said to me: Which wouldst thou prefer, to be the angel who delivered Peter or Peter himself in chains? I would rather be Peter because of his chains’

Though always venerated in the great basilica which enshrines his tomb, St. Paul’s chain has never been made, like those of St. Peter, the object of a special feast in the Church. This distinction was due to the preeminence of him ‘who alone received the keys of the kingdom of heaven to communicate them to others,’ and who alone continues, in his successors, to bind and loose with sovereign power throughout the whole word. The collection of letters St. Gregory the Great proves how universally, in the sixth century, was spread the cultus of these holy chains, a few filings of which enclosed in gold or silver keys was the richest present of the Sovereign Pontiffs were wont to offer to the principal churches, or to princes whom they wished to honour. Constantinople, at some point not clearly determined, received a portion of these precious chains; she appointed a feast on January 16, honouring the day the Apostle Peter, as the occupant of the first See, the foundation of the faith, the immovable basis of dogma. (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year: Time After Pentecost Book IV—Volume 13, pp. 229-231.)

The following is the account of the feast in the Roman Breviary:

In the year of our Lord 439, in the reign of the Emperor Theodosius the younger, his wife went to Jerusalem in fulfilment of a vow, and there was gifted with many presents. Among other things, they gave her in especial an iron chain, adorned with gold and precious stones, which they affirmed to be the same wherewith the Apostle Peter had been bound by King Herod. Eudocia, with godly reverence, afterwards sent this chain to Rome, to her daughter Eudoxia, who brought it to the Pope, and the Pope in return showed to her another chain wherewith the same Apostle had been shackled under the Emperor Nero.

When then the Pope put together the Roman chain and that which had been brought from Jerusalem, it came to pass that they got so entangled the one with the other that they seemed no longer two but one chain. From this wonder these holy fetters began to receive such honour, that Eudoxia's Church of St. Peter on the Esquiline Mount was dedicated under the name of St. Peter in Chains, and a Feast - Day instituted upon the first day of August in memory of it.

From that time forth the honour which before had used to be paid to the profane festivity of the Gentiles, (held in memory of the dedication of the temple of Mars, and of the birth of Claudius,) began to be turned to the Chains of Peter, whose very touch healed the sick, and drove out devils. Among other such cases there befell in the year of man's Redemption 969, that of a certain Count, a servant of the Emperor Otho, who was possessed by an unclean spirit, and tore himself with his own teeth. This man the Emperor ordered to be taken to Pope John, and as soon as he had touched the Count's neck with the hallowed chains, the foul spirit came out of him, and left him free. And thenceforward the reverence for these holy chains greatly increased ein the City. (Matins, the Divine Office, August 1, Feast of Saint Peter’s Chains)

The Divine Office for the Feast of Saint Peter’s Chains contains a reflection on the importance of our first pope’s fetters that was written by none other than Saint Augustine of Hippo:

Peter was the only one of the Apostles who was worthy to hear the words Amen, I say unto thee that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church. Worthy indeed must he be, who, when the nations are to be built up into a Temple of God, is chosen as the ground-stone whereon the building is to stand the pillar whereby it is to be held up, and the key wherethrough entrance is to be made into the kingdom. Concerning him the Word of God saith That they brought forth the sick into the streets, and laid them on beds and couches, that at the least the shadow of Peter passing by might overshadow some of them. (Acts v. 15.) If the shadow of his body then could give help, how much more shall the fulness of his strength give help now If the very air, as he passed by, was then profitable to such as besought him, how much more shall his favour profit where now he abideth It is with reason that, throughout all the Churches of Christ, the iron chains wherewith he was afflicted are reckoned more precious than gold.

If his shadow as a visitor was so healthful, what is his chain now that he bindeth and looseth If his empty image in the air had healing power, how much power must have been contracted from his body by those chains, whose iron weight sank into his holy limbs during his suffering If, before he testified, he was so mighty to aid them that called upon him, how much mightier is he now since his victory Blessed were the links, doomed to be changed from fetters and shackles, into a crown, which by touching the Apostle, made him a Martyr. Blessed were the chains, whose prisoner left them for the Cross of Christ, and which brought him thither, not as the instruments of condemnation, but of sanctification. (Saint Augustine of Hippo, as found in The Divine Office, Feast of Peter’s Chains, August 1.)

Dom Prosper Gueranger composed a prayer to Saint Peter that is important for us to consider at this time when the See of Peter has been vacant as pretenders who dare to do the sorts of things that our true popes or even the Holy Machabees, whose feast is commemorated on August 1, refused at the point of their very lives:

Put thy feet into the fetters of Wisdom, and thy neck into her chains, said the Holy Spirit under the ancient alliance . . . and be not grieved with her bands. . . . For in the latter end thou shalt find rest in her, and she shall be turned to thy joy. Then shall her fetter be a strong defence for thee . . . and her bands are a healthful binding. Thou shalt put her on as a robe of glory. Incarnate Wisdom, applying the prophecy to thee, O prince of apostles, declared that in testimony of thy love the day would come when thou shouldst suffer constraint and bondage. The trial, O Peter, was a convincing one for eternal Wisdom, who proportions her requirements to the measure of her own love. But thou, too, didst find her faithful; in the days of the formidable combat, wherein she wished to show her power in thy weakness, she did not leave thee in bands; in her arms thou didst sleep in Herod’s prison; and, going down with thee to the into the pit of Nero, she faithfully kept thee company up to the hour when, subjecting the persecutors to the persecuted, she placed the sceptre in thy hands, and of thy brow the triple crown.

From the throne where thou reignest with the Man-God in heaven, as thou didst following Him on earth in trials and anguish, loosen our bands which, alas! are not glorious ones such as thine; break these fetters of sin which bind us to Satan, these ties of all the passions which prevent us from soaring towards God. The world, more than ever enslaved in the infatuation of its false liberties which make it forget the only true freedom, has more need now of enfranchisement than in the times of pagan Caesars; be once more its deliverer, now that thou art more powerful than ever. May Rome, especially, now fallen lower because precipitated from a greater height, learn again the emancipating power which lies in thy chains; they have become a rallying standard for her faithful children in these latter trials. Make good the word once uttered by her poets, ‘encircled with these chains she will ever be free.’ (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year: Time After Pentecost Book IV—Volume 13, pp. 232-233.)

It is no accident that the wreteched Modernist, Angelo Roncalli/John XXIII, abolished the feast of Saint Peter's Chains in 1960. Roncalli's action could have been a subtle way for the devil to boast that the papacy at that time was itself in chains, where it remains sixty-one years later. The last thing in the world that the adversary would want to do is have Catholics reminded of this true but nevertheless still prophetic event in the chapter of Holy Mother Church in her infancy.

Additionally, Roncalli was very sensitive to the feelings of the Jews, and the account in the Acts of the Apostles at Holy Mass on June 29, the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul and on the Feast of Saint Peter’s Chains, August 1, speaks to us of the fact that Saint Peter's captivity was done at the behest of the Jews, who very pleased to see the first pope imprisoned. Well, the Talmudists of today are just as happy to have played the role in holding the papacy itself captive and in attacking those who seek to defend the truths of the Holy Faith, including the truth that Judaism is a false religion and that those who adhere to its false tenets and who observe its abolished liturgical rites need to be exhorted to convert unconditionally to the true Faith before they die. No, it is no accident at all that this feast was abolished in 1960 at the very dawning of the age of conciliarism under the Judaizer Roncalli.

The papacy is held in chains today. Our Lady will rescue the papacy just as miraculously as she rescued our first pope by means of her prayers. We must believe that she will do so as the Church Militant undergoes her Mystical Passion, Death and Burial in these our days. She is indeed our life, our sweetness and our hope. Saint Peter relied upon her. So must we!

We can plant the change for true change, that is, of a conversion of all men and their nations to the Catholic Faith, outside of which there is no salvation and without which there can be no true social order, by relying upon Our Lady just as Saint Peter did. She has given us the Brown Scapular of Mount Carmel as our shield and her Most Holy Rosary as our spiritual weapon. Let us use them wear as we fulfill the pledges associated with the Brown Scapular and pray as many Rosaries each day as our state-in-life permits.

The Holy Machabees

August 1 is, as noted just above, the Commemoration of the Holy Machabees, whose relics are enshrined in the Church of Saint Peter’s Chains in Rome. Dom Prosper Gueranger commented on the heroic sacrifice of the seven holy brothers while noting also that August contains more feasts than any other month in Holy Mother Church’s liturgical calendar:

The August heavens glitter with the brightest constellations of the sacred cycle. Even in the sixth century, the Council of Tours remarked that this month was filled with filled with the feasts of the saints. My delights are to b with the children of men, says Wisdom: and in the month which echoes with her teachings she seems to have made it her glory to be surrounded with blessed ones, who, walking with her in the midst of the paths of judgment, have in finding her found life and salvation from the Lord. This noble court is presided over by the Queen of all grace, whose triumph consecrates this month and makes it the delight of that Wisdom of the Father, who, once enthroned in Mary, never quitted her. What a wealth of divine favours do the coming days promise to our souls! Never were our Father’s barns so well filled as at this season, when the earthly as well as the heavenly harvests are ripe.

While the Church on earth inaugurates these days by adorning herself with Peter’s chains as with a precious jewel, a constellation of seven stars appears for the third time in the heavens. The seven brothers Machabees preceded the sons of Symphorosa and Felicitas in the bloodstained arena; they followed divine Wisdom even before she had manifested her beauty in the flesh. The sacred cause of which they were the champions, their strength of soul under the tortures, their sublime answers to the executioners were so evidently the type reproduced by the latter martyrs, that the Fathers of the first centuries with one accord claimed for the Christian Church these heroes of the synagogue, who could have gained such courage from no other source than their faith in the Christ to come. For this reason they stand alone of all holy persons of the ancient covenant have found a place on the Christian cycle; all martyrologies and calendars of the East and West attest the universality of their cultus, while its antiquity is such as to rival that of St. Peter’s chains in that same basilica of Eudoxia where their precious relics lie.

At the time when in the hope of a better resurrection they refused under cruel torments to redeem their lives, other heroes of the same blood, inspired by the same faith, flew to arms and delivered their country from a terrible crisis. Several children of Israel, forgetting the traditions of their nation, had wished it to follow the customs of strange peoples; and the Lord, in punishment, had allowed Judea to feel the whole weight of a profane rule to which it had guiltily submitted. But when King Antiochus, taking advantage of the treason of a few and the carelessness of the majority, endeavoured  by his ordinances to blot out the divine law which alone gives power to power over man, Israel, suddenly awakened, met the tyrant with the double opposition of revolt and martyrdom. Judas Macabeus in immortal battles reclaimed for God the land of his inheritance, while by the virtue of their generous confession, the seven brothers also, his rivals in glory, recovered, as the Scripture says, the law out of his hands of the nations, and out of the hands of the king. Soon afterwards, craving mercy under the hand of God, Antiochus died, devoured by worms., just as later on were to die the first and last persecutors of the Christians, Herod Agrippa and Galerius Maximian.

The Holy Ghost, who would Himself had down to posterity the acts of the protomartyr of the New Law, did the same with regard to the passion of Stephen’s glorious predecessors in the ages of expectation. Indeed, it was he who then, as under the law of love, inspired with both words and courage these valiant brothers, and their still more admirable mother, who, seeing her seven sons one after the other suffering the most horrible tortures, utter nothing but burning exhortations to die. Surrounded by their mutilated bodies, she mocked the tyrant who, in false pity, wished her to persuade at least the  youngest to save his life; she bent over the last child of her tender love and said to him: My son, have pity upon me, that bore thee nine months in my womb, and gave thee such three years, and nourished thee, and brought thee up to this age. I beseech thee, my son, look upon heaven and earth, and all that is in them: and consider that God made them out of nothing and mankind also: so thou shalt not fear this tormentor, but being made a worthy partner with thy brethren, receive death, that in thy mercy I may receive thee again with thy brethren. And the intrepid youth ran in his innocence to the tortures; and the incomparable mother followed her sons. (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year: Time After Pentecost Book IV—Volume 13, pp. 234-236.)

Consider how the Holy Machabees refused to violate the tenets of Judaism, which was the true religion at the time they lived. They were willing to make any and all sacrifices, including their own lives, and to endure all torments rather than even give the appearance of simulating anything approaching respect to a false religion. The Holy Machabees knew that false religions are hideous in the sight of the true God.

Time after time, though, we have been eyewitnesses to an endless parade of men who have claimed to be Successors of Saint Peter or of the Apostles engage in acts of the sort that the Holy Machabees refused to do upon the penalty of torments and death. The apostates of the counterfeit church of conciliarism have not only not dared to esteem false idols, to engage in false worship and to give credence to every false religion on the face of the earth and to rank unbelief but to claim that their doing such unspeakable acts of sacrilege and apostasy in the service of what they claim is the Gospel’s call to “dialogue,” a “call” that is nonexistent.

Pope Leo XIII explained that we must give no respect to false religions whatsoever:

Everyone should avoid familiarity or friendship with anyone suspected of belonging to masonry or to affiliated groups. Know them by their fruits and avoid them. Every familiarity should be avoided, not only with those impious libertines who openly promote the character of the sect, but also with those who hide under the mask of universal tolerance, respect for all religions, and the craving to reconcile the maxims of the Gospel with those of the revolution. These men seek to reconcile Christ and Belial, the Church of God and the state without God. (Pope Leo XIII, Custodi Di Quella Fede, December 8, 1892.)

While noting the distinctions between tolerating false religions in order not to disturb the common temporal good and the necessity of never giving any credence to those false religions, Pope Pius XII provided a pithy summary of the Catholic Church’s abject refusal to make any compromises on matter of religious truth and her own claim on being the one and only true religion:

Thus the two principles are clarified to which recourse must be had in concrete cases for the answer to the serious question concerning the attitude which the jurist, the statesman and the sovereign Catholic state is to adopt in consideration of the community of nations in regard to a formula of religious and moral toleration as described above. First: that which does not correspond to truth or to the norm of morality objectively has no right to exist, to be spread or to be activated. Secondly: failure to impede this with civil laws and coercive measures can nevertheless be justified in the interests of a higher and more general good. . . .

The Church must live among them and with them [the nations and peoples of the world]; she can never declare before anyone that she is "not interested." The mandate imposed upon her by her divine Founder renders it impossible for her to follow a policy of non-interference or laissez-faire. She has the duty of teaching and educating in all the inflexibility of truth and goodness, and with this absolute obligation she must remain and work among men and nations that in mental outlook are completely different from each other.

Let Us return now, however, to the two propositions mentioned above: and in the first place to the one which denies unconditionally everything that is religiously false and morally wrong. With regard to this point there never has been, and there is not now, in the Church any vacillation or any compromise, either in theory or in practice.

Her deportment has not changed in the course of history, nor can it change whenever or wherever, under the most diversified forms, she is confronted with the choice: either incense for idols or blood for Christ. The place where you are now present, Eternal Rome, with the remains of a greatness that was and with the glorious memories of its martyrs, is the most eloquent witness to the answer of the Church. Incense was not burned before the idols, and Christian blood flowed and consecrated the ground. But the temples of the gods lie in the cold devastation of ruins howsoever majestic; while at the tombs of the martyrs the faithful of all nations and all tongues fervently repeat the ancient Creed of the Apostles.

Concerning the second proposition, that is to say, concerning tolerance in determined circumstances, toleration even in cases in which one could proceed to repression, the Church - out of regard for those who in good conscience (though erroneous, but invincibly so) are of different opinion - has been led to act and has acted with that tolerance, after she became the State Church under Constantine the Great and the other Christian emperors, always for higher and more cogent motives. So she acts today, and also in the future she will be faced with the same necessity. In such individual cases the attitude of the Church is determined by what is demanded for safeguarding and considering the bonum commune, on the one hand, the common good of the Church and the State in individual states, and, on the other, the common good of the universal Church, the reign of God over the whole world. In considering the "pro" and "con" for resolving the "question of facts," as well as what concerns the final and supreme judge in these matters, no other norms are valid for the Church except the norms which We have just indicated for the Catholic jurist and statesman. (Pope Pius XII, Ci Riesce, December 6, 1953.)

Our Lady herself explained there is no compromise between her Divine Son and Belial and that the source of every error, deceit and blasphemy none other than the adversary himself, which should teach us that nothing being taught by the conciliar authorities can come from Holy Mother Church, she who is the infallible, inerrant and spotless teacher of Faith and Morals:

229. Guard thyself, therefore, my dearest, against this deplorable error of the children of men, and disengage thy faculties so thou mayest clearly see the difference between the service of Christ and that of Belial. Greater is that difference than the distance between heaven and earth. Christ is the true light, the way, and eternal life (Jn. 14:6); those who follow Him He loves with imperishable love, and He offers them his life and his company, and with it an eternal happiness such as neither eyes have seen, nor ears have heard, nor ever can enter into the heart of man (Is. 64:4). Lucifer is darkness itself, error, deceit, unhappiness and death; he hates his followers and forces them into evil as far as possible, and in the end inflicts upon them eternal fire and horrid torments. Let mortals give testimony whether they are ignorant of these truths, since the holy Church teaches them and calls them to their minds every day. If men give credence to these truths, where is their good sense? Who has made them insane? Who drives from their remembrance the love which they ought to have for themselves? Who makes them so cruel to themselves? O insanity never sufficiently to be bewailed and so little considered by the children of Adam! All their life they labor and exert themselves to become more and more entangled in the snares of their passions, to be consumed in deceitful vanities, and to deliver themselves over to an inextinguishable fire, death, and everlasting perdition, as if all was a mere joke, and as if my most holy Son had not come down from heaven to die on a cross in order to merit for them this rescue! Let them but look upon the price and consider how much God himself paid for this happiness, He who knew the full value of it.

230. The idolaters and heathens are much less to blame for falling into this error, nor is the wrath of the Most High enkindled so much against them as against the faithful of his Church, who have such a clear knowledge of this truth. If the minds of men in our present age have grown forgetful of it, let them understand this happened by their own fault because they have given free reign to their enemy Lucifer. With tireless malice he labors to overthrow the barriers of restraint, so forgetful of the last things and of eternal torment men might give themselves over like brute beasts to sensual pleasures, and unmindful of themselves consume their lives in the pursuit of apparent good until, as Job says (21:13), in a moment they go down to hell, as in truth happens to an infinite number of fools who hate this science and discipline. Do thou, my daughter, allow me to instruct thee. Keep thyself free from such harmful deceit and from this forgetfulness of worldly people. Let the despairing groans of the damned, which begin at the end of their lives and the beginning of their eternal damnation, ever resound in thy ears: O we fools, who esteemed the life of the just as madness! O how are they numbered among the children of God, and their lot is among the saints! Therefore we have erred from the way of truth and justice. The sun has not arisen for us. We wearied ourselves in the ways of iniquity and destruction; we have sought difficult paths, ignoring by our own fault the way of the Lord. What hath pride profited us? What advantage hath the boasting of riches brought us? All those things are passed away from us like a shadow. O that we had never been born! This, my daughter, thou must fear and ponder in thy heart, so before thou goest to that land of darkness (as Job said [10:21]) and eternal dungeons, from whence there is no return, thou mayest provide against evil and avoid it by doing good. During thy mortal life and out of love do thou now perform that of which the damned in their despair are forced to warn thee by the excess of their punishment. (New English Edition of The Mystical City of God: Book Five: The Transfixion, Chapter XX.)

We must not have anything to do with a false church whose teachings are so unstable that they open to mockery within a very short space of time by those who succeed them. Despite our own sins and failings and mistakes, we must stand for the truths of the Holy Faith in all of their holy integrity no matter what anyone says about us or causes us to suffer. Period.

May our daily fidelity to praying as many Rosaries as our state-in-life permit as we pray the Litany of Loreto in her honor and that of Saint Joseph so that we can, despite our sins and failings, plant the seeds for the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary and the flowering once again of the true Catholic Faith in the hearts, minds and souls of everyone on the face of the earth.

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

The Holy Machabees, pray for us.