The Greatest Coup Plotters of Them All

Readers of this site know that I a critic of President Donald John Trump’s for a variety of very justifiable reasons, although I have always striven to give credit where credit was due, noting that a good many of the troubles that he has experienced since his election on November 8, 2016, have been caused by his own ignorance of the governmental system, his overconfidence to schmooze the likes of the coup-plotter named James Brien Comey and the poor personnel decisions that he made that put in place the likes of the hapless Jefferson Beauregard Sessions as the United States Attorney General. Trump has also done himself no favor over the years by choosing to confide in sleazy yes men such as the vulgar and ever-amoral Roger Stone and the criminally corrupt Michael Cohen.

President Donald John Trump has lowered the bar of national discourse to such an extent that it is now more “acceptable” than ever before for people to vent their spleens on the instrument designed to obliterate the binding precepts of the Eighth Commandment, something called “twitter,” and for his use of obscenities, scurrilities and profanities in public. The latter has become so widespread that profanities once reserved to naval ships, to longshoremen, construction workers and athletes are now being used by authors in their commentaries without any sense of shame. These are not good developments, ladies and gentlemen.

Perhaps of greatest concern to me is the fact that President Donald John Trump is a completely owned subsidiary of the synagogue of satan, which is why he is so reflexively supportive of the Zionist State of Israel and so reliant upon the advice given him by his Kabbalist daughter, Ivanka Trump Kushner and her husband, Jared Kushner. The fact that these two are Kabbalists is very important as Kabbalism is but a particular work of the adversary in behalf of his forces of darkness in the world, a point made with great clarity by Father Edward Cahill in his essays on Judeo-Masonry in the Irish Ecclesiastical Review ninety years ago:

The second main source of the religion of modern Judaism, or at least of a certain section of modern Jews, is the Cabala. The term Cabala (Kabalah) was originally used to indicate that portion of the Mosaic Law which was handed down by tradition, and consigned to writing b the Jewish prophets and others. Since the thirteenth century, however, this ancient use of the term has fallen into desuetude, so that in modern times the Cabala means the colonization of the esoteric or occult doctrines of Judaism. These latter are mainly founded on the Neo-Platonic philosophy and the doctrines of the early Gnostics, and are closely connected with the occult worship of the Eastern sectaries of both ancient and modern times, which have continued since the the early ages of the Christian era and even before that period, to infiltrate through the medium of the rabbinical writings of the Jewish religious system. The philosophic and religious teachings of the Cabala illustrate and explain the strong tendency to occultism and false mysticism, which a section of the Jews have always manifested, and which they and the Freemasons have helped so much to propagate in the modern world.

The whole system of occultism, which is so elusive and difficult to define, is sometimes called Hermeticism, from Hermes, the Greek name of the go of wisdom–partially corresponding to the Latin god Mercury–to whom was ascribed the authorship of the sacred books of Eastern occultism. Hermeticism is commonly taken to include Theosophism, Christian Scientism, Neo-Platonism, Philonic Judaism and Jewish and pagan Cabalism. It is in a large part a revival of the heresies of of the Gnostics, Maniceans, Albigenses, Waldenses, etc., and aims at providing the modern European race with some acceptable substitute for Christianity.

The evidence of a connexion between Freemasonry and certain aspects of Judaism, refer principally to the Calabla and the Cabalistic section of the Jews. That there exists a close affinity between the Cabala and the doctrines and practices of esoteric Freemasonry is clear form what we have written in a previous article of the nature of the latter. One school of writers indeed maintains that Freemasonry is an instrument invented and utilized by the Jewish leaders for the destruction of Christianity. This view of anti-Jewish writers, and many Catholic apologists, hardly accords with well-known facts, and is almost certainly false as regards the origin of Freemasonry. For a long time the Jews were excluded from most of the German, English, and French lodges; and up to the end of the eighteenth century the total number of Jewish Freemasons was quite inconsiderable. Again, the assertion that the real founders of German Illuminism and French Martinism, which are the sources of the worst and most destructive elements in Freemasonry, has not been and, probably, cannot be proved. Elias Ashmole (1617-1646), the celebrated English antiquarian, and the founder of the Oxford Museum to whom is probably due the first introduction of Hermeticism into the English lodges in the seventeenth century, long before the formal inauguration of speculative Freemasonry was not a Jew. Again, it cannot be proved that Weishaupt, or Martinez, Pasqualis, or Joseph Balsamo, commonly known as Cagilostro, were Jews, although to these were large due the Illuminist and Martinist influences in the Freemasonry of the eighteenth century. Even at the present day it is well-known (although the fact does not prove much) that many Masonic lodges refuse to admit Jews, as they fear their dominating influence, and find by experience that Jews, once admitted, soon acquire the mastery of the lodge.

On the other hand, it is certain that the Jewish Cabalistic tradition was one of the principal mediums through which Eastern occultism (which has so many times come to the surface in European history) has been transmitted to modern Europe; and that many, if not all, of the recognized founders of the eighteenth-century Illuminism (including Weishaupt, Pasqualis, and Cagliostro) were initiated into its secrets by Jewish Cabalists or drew their inspiration and their methods from the Jewish esoteric writings. The Jewish apologist, Bernard Lazare, states that ‘there were Cabalistic Jews around the cradle of Freemasonry, as certain rites still in existence conclusively show.’

From Pike’s Morals and Dogma of Freemasonry, which we have already referred to as one of the most authoritative works on Masonic teaching, it is clear that the doctrines of esoteric Freemasonry, on such subjects as the nature of God, and his supposed identity with the universe, the nature of the human soul, the true interpretation of the these subjects contained in the Jewish Cabala. The authoritative works of Ragon, ‘the sacred author’ of Masonry, who was himself a Jew, illustrate the same theme. So do many other Jewish writings.

Are Ave to wonder [writes the pious Jewish rabbin, Benamozegh] that Judaism has been accused of forming a branch of Freemasonry? It is quite certain that Masonic theology is at root nothing else than Theosophy, and that it corresponds to the theology of the Cabala. Besides, a deep study of the rabbinical movements of the early ages of the Christian era supply numerous proofs that the aggada was the popular form of an esoteric science, which presents, in its methods of initiation, the most striking resemblance to the Masonic system. Those willing to go to the trouble of carefully examining the question of the relations between Judaism and philosophic Freemasonry, Theosophy, and occultism in general, will, we are convinced, lose their superb disdain for the Cabala. They will no longer smile in pity at the suggestion that the Cabalistic theology may have a role to play in the religious transformation of the future.

Besides the existence of the Cabalistic element in Masonic morals and dogma there are numerous other indications which point to the important influence of Judaism on the early formation and development of Freemasonry. We mention a few. The Masonic coat-of-arms still used by the Grand Lodge of England is of Jewish design. Some of the more important legends of Freemasonry, especially the Legend of Hiram, on which much of Masonic rite is founded, are Jewish.’ The technical language, symbolism, and rites of Masonry are full of Jewish ideas and terms. . . . In the Scottish rite, the dates of all the official documents are given according to the Hebrew month and the Jewish era ; and use is made of the older forms of the Jewish alphabet.’ Hence, approved Jewish writers generally recognize that the Masonic ritual is of Jewish origin.

Although during the eighteenth century the number of Jews in the Masonic lodges were few, the prejudice against them was lessened or eliminated as a result of the movement towards Jewish emancipation, which was itself largely due to Liberal and Masonic influence; and since the middle of the nineteenth century the Cabalistic Jewish element has become predominant at least in Continental Freemasonry. Thus, while Jews are still excluded from the so-called ‘Christian’ lodges of Germany, the influence of the latter is now overshadowed by those lodges which admit Jews, and in which the Jewish element more or less prevails. Even in 1900 there were at least 800 such lodges in the German Empire exclusive of the B’ne Berith lodges, which are entirely Jewish. So marked, indeed, is the dominance of the Jewish element in German Freemasonry that the Masonic Journal Latomia (February, 1928) quotes a saying of Ludendorf: ‘The Freemasons are the henchmen of the Jews.’

It was Jews that introduced Freemasonry into the United States of America; and Jews have always been a powerful influence in the American Masonic organizations. Again, the Masonic rite of Mizraim which includes no less than ninety degrees and is, perhaps, the most esoteric and highly elaborated of all the Masonic rites, has been founded by Jews. So also has been the order of B’ne Berith (‘Sons of the Alliance ‘), and several other organizations of a similar type. The Masonic rite of Mizraim belongs mainly to Europe, and some of its lodges are exclusively Jewish. The order of B’ne Berith, which is altogether Jewish, is (or rather was up to some twenty years ago) mainly American, and if not formally and professedly Masonic, bears a striking resemblance to Freemasonry, in its organization and avowed objects, and is in intimate alliance with Masonry.

The indications of a close connexion or working alliance between Freemasonry and important sections of the Jews are innumerable.

Masonry [writes the Jewish Chronicle (October 29, 1889) ] tolerates everything except a narrow clericalism [viz. Catholicisim] and it possesses a special attraction for the Jews. . . . Clericalism has always persecuted Masonry everywhere it can . . . and the spirit of persecution has attracted the Jews towards Masonry by an invisible but potent bond of sympathy. There exists between them a natural alliance against a common enemy, . . . Together they fight, oftentimes with success, against religious fanaticism and racial antipathies. In London there are no less than five Jewish lodges. There are some also at Birmingham, Liverpool and Manchester.

It is nearly half a century ago since a well-known British review called attention to the dominant influence of the Jews, not only in politics, the press, and international finance, but also in the revolutionary outbreaks of the century.

The influence of the Jews at the present time is more noticeable than ever. That they are at the head of European capitalism, we are all aware. … In politics many of the Jews are in the front rank. . . . That their excessive wealth, used as it has been, acts as a solvent influence in modern society cannot be questioned. . . . But while on the one hand the Jews are thus beyond dispute the leaders of the autocracy of Europe . . . another section of the same race form the leaders of that revolutionary propaganda which is making way against that very capitalist class, representing their own fellow Jews. Jews, more than any other men . . . are acting as the leaders in the revolutionary movement which I have endeavoured to trace. (Father E. Cahill, S.J., “Freemasonry: VI: The Jewish Element in Freemasonry, Irish Ecclesiastical Record, 1929.)

Why is this important?

So glad that you asked.

Donald John Trump will do almost anything that the recently re-elected Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamim Netanahyu asks of him.

Move the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem?

Done deal. After all, to quote the president himself, “Jerusalem is the eternal capital of the Jewish people.

Get American support for more Israeli settlements on the West Bank?

Build as many new settlements as you want, Bibi?

Bang the American war drums against Iran?

Loud and clear, Bibi. John Bolton’s never met a Middle Eastern war he did not want to start.

Yes, Father Cahill’s insights about Judeo-Masonry are very important. Very.

Remember, one of the great unacknowledged realities of our present time is that the apparent “conflicts” that exist in the world are but the work of the adversary to blow smoke in the faces of the masses as his anti-Catholic agenda gets advanced no matter who is in public office. The so-called “progressives” (let’s be honest, Communists), the “never Trump” neoconservatives (many of whom are Trotskyite, war-hawk Talmudists who took over the organized crime family of the false opposite of the naturalist “right” during the Cold War and came into the fullness of their temporal power during the administration of the ignoramus named President George Walker Bush) and the partisans of Donald John Trump are, whether or not they realize it, marching on different roads to the same destination, namely, the coming of Antichrist. The entirety of the modern civil state is premised upon finding, as Father Cahill noted ninety years ago, “an acceptable substitute for Christianity.”

While it is incontestably true that the administration of President Barack Hussein Obama/Barry Soetoro worked with deep state apparatchiks and non-state agents provocateur (James Brien Comey, Andrew McCabe, Loretta Lynch, Sally Yates, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, John Brennan, James Clapper, Bruce Ohr, Nellie Ohr, Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton, Glenn Simpson, Christopher Steele, Joseph Mifsud, Alexander Downer, Stefan Halper, et al.) to protect Madame Defarge and then to undercut the election of President Donald John Trump before “transitioning” to the post-election “insurance policy” of conspiring to make it appear as though the Trump campaign colluded with the Russian government to steal the 2016 presidential election, I want to remind the readers of this site that this has been and continues to be a gigantic distraction to keep people riveted to events that are designed to make it appear that there are “good guys” and “bad guys” in a world that is premised upon finding an “acceptable substitute for Christianity,” that is, a world without Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and His true Church.

The report that special persecutor Robert Mueller submitted to United States Attorney General William Barr is thus pretty superfluous in the larger scheme of things, and it is nothing other than truly diabolical that the competing forces of naturalism will be debating the report’s findings, first as summarized by Barr and after the redacted version of the full report is released on Maundy Thursday at the beginning of the Paschal Triduum—the most solemn days of the entire liturgical year during which God in the very Flesh paid back the debt of our sins on the wood of the Holy Cross and then rose from the dead on Easter Sunday.

Enough is enough.

Let the different factions of the synagogue have their meaningless battles. We have not been baptized and confirmed to bear witness to one set of naturalists as opposed to another. Evil gets advanced, either in lesser or greater implements, by both sets of naturalists.

We have been baptized and confirmed to bear witness to the Light of the World, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, He Who is the King of men and their nations, and we must remember that we are soldiers in the Army of Christ the King and His true Church, not partisans of some naturalist cause.

Why spend one’s time, especially during Holy Week, on the details of who did what to whom and when?

We know that a coup d’etat was attempted and that it is still being attempted by members of the false opposite of the naturalist “left” in the United States House of Representatives, aided and abetted by the true obstructors of justice in deep state (National Security Agency, Central Intelligence Agency, career apparatchiks in the United States Department of Justice, elements within the Federal Bureau of Investigation), who rely upon their conduits, propagandists and apologists in the mainslime media and Kommentariat class. What else is there to know?

Oh, you want to see Obama/Soetoro and his confederates indicted, prosecuted, convicted and sent to a Federal penitentiary for an attempt to overthrow a legitimately elected President of the United States of America?

Great.

That would be wonderful.

By the way, whatever happened to Lois Lerner and her targeting of “conservative” groups applying for tax-exempt status from the United States Internal Revenue Service?

What ever happened to Eric Himpton Holder for the Fast and Furious scandal that resulted in the assassination of United States Border Patrol Officer Brian Terry on December 10, 2017, by Heraclio Osorio-Arellanes, a member of a Mexican drug cartel, after guns sold to “straw” representatives of the cartel who bought them in gun shops in Phoenix, Arizona, that had been provided by the United States Department of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms in a sting operation that wound up losing track of 1,400 of 2,000 guns sold to the cartel’s middlemen?

By the way, whatever happened to Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton for the coverup of the Benghazi attack?

That’s right, nothing. Nothing happened to the Clintons over Whitewater, Filegate, Travelgate and Chinagate.

Don’t hold your breath waiting for the nogodniks to get theirs this time around. The nogoodniks will use whatever morsels they can find in the Mueller Report to continue their conflict, and thus it will continue throughout the course of the next five hundred days between now and the next presidential election on Tuesday, November 3, 2020.

Remember, this is Holy Week. Forget about the naturalists and their sideshows that are run by forgettable who have forgotten to remember that they are but contingent beings who must answer to Christ the King when their die for their actions, whether just or unjust.

What is more important to remember is that each of these naturalists will face the Divine Judge at the moment of their Particular Judgment. Their acts of injustice in this life, including their acts against the binding precepts of the Divine Positive Law and the Natural Law and their constant mocking of God by their twisted pronouncements on matters of theology and morality, will be punished if they die unrepentant and outside the bosom of Holy Mother Church. Our Divine Judge, Christ the King, desires their salvation and Our Lady wants them to participate in her Divine Son’s Easter victory over the power of sin and eternal death, which is why we need to pray—by name—for their conversion. Such a conversion is unlikely in merely human terms. Then again, which among the Apostles and the first Catholics believed that their fire-breathing persecutor, Saul of Tarsus, would be converted by the prayers of Saint Stephen the Protomartyr? Remember, “With men this is impossible: but with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19: 26).

We cannot spend our time during Holy Week meditating on the back-and-forth of the political side shows. This is not only a waste of our good Catholic time. To meditate and stew upon the never-ending—and never to end in this life—back and forth between competing factions of the synagogue is to mock and to  crown Our Lord with more thorns, mystically speaking, as we pay attention to Barabbas and his followers in this passing, mortal vale of tears.

The Coups That Should Really Matter to Us

No, the coups plotted by the powerful of this world, no matter how real and how unjust to their targets, pale into insignificance when compared the coups that should really matter to us. Permit me, therefore, to work backward in time to describe the truly important coups that are directed against Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, His Sacred Deposit of Faith and His true Church that are designed to institute the reign of man as a preparation for the reign of Antichrist.

The most significant of these coups, contemporaneously speaking, is that which took place at the “Second” Vatican Council and has been unraveling for the past five and one-half decades.

There is so very little that needs to be said about this coup that has not been said literally thousands of times before except to say that Jorge Mario Bergoglio is simply bringing it to its logical conclusion as an open, unapologetic apologist for the One World Ecumenical Religion (see, for example, Jorge Signs Off on the One World Ecumenical Religion), something that was on display during Passion Week after he had returned from his trip to Morocco (see        for an analysis of the Argentine Apostate’s general audience of Wednesday, April 10, 2019). The false “pontiff’s quest in this regard is a particular goal of Kabbalism, which is why there is more that unites him to many in Trumpworld, starting with the Kushners, that he himself would recognize or admit:

The national aims and ideals here attributed to-—although they belong, probably, only to a comparatively small section of — the Jewish nation, are practically identical with those of Freemasonry. Hence, an international Jewish synod held at Leipsic, 1869, passed the following resolution:

This Synod recognizes that the development and realization of modern ideas are the surest guarantee in favour of the Jewish race for the present and future.

It seems clear that the ‘modern ideas’ here referred to are those of un-Christian Liberalism, of which Freemasonry has been the protagonist for the past two centuries.

The professed objects of the Universal Israelite Alliance founded in 1860 (whose headquarters are in Paris, and which is probably the most influential and most representative body of the Jewish nation), are similar to the professed aims of Freemasonry. These objects are thus summarized by its founder, the Jew, Adolphe Cremieux, who for many years held the position of Grand Master of the Supreme Council of the Ancient Scottish Rite of Freemasonry: — –

The Universal Israelite Alliance . . . addresses itself to every type of worship. It wishes to interpenetrate all religions, as it has found access to all countries. . . . Let all men of enlightenment, without distinction of sect, find a means of union in the Universal Israelite Association, whose aims are so noble, so broad, and so highly civilizing. . . . To reach out a friendly hand to all who, although born in a different worship from ours, offer us the hand of fellowship, acknowledging that all religions which are based on morality and acknowledge God ought to be friendly towards one another: thus to destroy the barriers separating what is destined one day to be united— that is the grand and supreme object of our Alliance. … I summon to our Association our brethren of every form of worship. Let them come to us . . . Our grand mission is to put the Jewish population in touch with the authorities in every country … to make our voices heard in the cabinets of ministers and in the ears of princes, whatever be the religion that is despised, persecuted, or attacked.

The striking similarity between this programme and the religious ideals of Freemasonry (humanitarianism, cosmopolitanism, and non-sectarianism, or religious indifference) needs no elaboration. (Father Edward Cahill, S.J., Freemasonry and the anti-Christian Movement, Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged, published originally by M. H. Gill and Son, Ltd., in Dublin, Ireland, 1930, and republished by Kessinger Legacy Reprints, pp. 90-91,)

This is a perfect expression of the sort of syncretism was advanced by Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Montini/Paul VI that Senor Jorge is bringing to its logical conclusions to advance, whether wittingly or unwittingly, the manifestation of Antichrist. Consider what “Saint Paul VI” wrote in Populorum Progressio, March 25, 1967:

42. What must be aimed at is complete humanism.[44] And what is that if not the fully-rounded development of the whole man and of all men? A humanism closed in on itself, and not open to the values of the spirit and to God Who is their source, could achieve apparent success. True, man can organize the world apart from God, but “without God man can organize it in the end only to man’s detriment. An isolated humanism is an inhuman humanism”.[45] There is no true humanism but that which is open to the Absolute and is conscious of a vocation which gives human life its true meaning. Far from being the ultimate measure of all things, man can only realize himself by reaching beyond himself. As Pascal has said so well: “Man infinitely surpasses man“.[46]

43. There can be no progress towards the complete development of man without the simultaneous development of all humanity in the spirit of solidarity. As We said at Bombay: ” Man must meet man, nation meet nation, as brothers and sisters, as children of God. In this mutual understanding and friendship, in this sacred communion, we must also begin to work together to build the common future of the human race“.[47] We also suggested a search for concrete and practical ways of organization and cooperation, so that all available resources be pooled and thus a true communion among all nations be achieved. (Giovanni Montini/Paul VI, Populorum Progressio, March 26, 1967.)

This is completely Judeo-Masonic as it celebrates “man” and his “humanism,” albeit with some generic reference to God without an insistence that Catholicism is the one and only foundation of personal and social order. Giovanni Eugenio Antonio Maria Montini/Paul VI’s false “pontificate” was dedicated to the celebration of “man” and his “progress.” Jorge Mario Bergoglio continues to celebrate the “joy” of the “progress” that has been made in the world and in his false church since the “Second” Vatican Council. God Himself has shown us in very graphic terms what He thinks of the false religion and its abominable liturgical rites as the fire that destroyed a part of the beautiful Cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris today is but a tragic symbol of how God deals with those who mock him and who dare to profane houses dedicated to His Most Blessed Mother with liturgical rites that are centered around “man” and “humanism.” It is nothing other than a work of His ineffable mercy that the Crown of Thorns and relics of many the saints were saved, although it appears as though the incorrupt head of Saint Denis, the Protomartyr of Paris, and a relic of Saint Genevieve that were placed in the center spire that has collapsed have been lost.

The spirit of Judeo-Masonry that infects the entirety of the conciliar ethos is itself a mystical crowning of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and it was examined in detail by Monsignor Henri Delassus commented upon in Americanism and The Antichristian Conspiracy.

Echoing  Louis Edouard “Cardinal” Pie, who was the Bishop of Poitiers, France from from May 23, 1849, to the time of his death on May 18, 1880, and anticipating the work of Fathers Cahill and Fahey in Ireland, Monsignor Henri Delassus saw the direction connection between Talmudism and the rot the modern religiously indifferentist civil state of Modernity that has been embraced with such zeal by the conciliar “popes,” including Jorge Mario Bergoglio.

As Monsignor Delassus demonstrated, the spirit of Father Isaac Thomas Hecker, the founder of the Society of Saint Paul, and other Americanists fit very well into the goals of Talmudic Judaism to undermine the Faith of individual Catholics so that their first loyalties would be to the false concepts of Modernity, including Americanism, and then to their Church, which, if all went according to the plan, would itself one day “adopt” the false concepts of Modernity and make its “peace” with the revolutions of 1776 and 1789:

How so? Fr. Hecker tells us: “A call is made to men who possess this new synthesis of truth who are able to solve the problems of eliminating antagonisms, of being reconciled with the need of our era; of men who will take hold of all the aspirations of modern genius effected by science, of social activity, of politics, of spirituality (accordingly, spirituality itself would be called upon to defend the Church and to procure her universal triumph), of religion, and of the transformation of everything by means of the defense and universal triumph for the Church” (The Life of Fr. Hecker.)

Those who are not made aware of the world’s current direction by the information that they derive from the newspaper–and this is the vast majority–will undoubtedly be surprised, in speaking to them of “Americanism” and of an “American Catholicism,” we begin by calling their attention to the “Universal Israelite Alliance,” entering through there upon a question, the Jewish Question, that presently fascinates the world and that is studied under every point of view, but which does not take into account, appears to be removed from, American Catholicism. This is nevertheless not imaginary on our part. The Universal Israelite Alliance is the center, the home, the bond of the antichristian conspiracy, by which Americanism seems to us to provide a support that it is not aware of which would not be given if it were understood and upon which this book is determined to direct its attention …

One of the most malicious men of this [19th] century, the Jew [Jules Isaac] Cremieux, who was made grand Master of the French Grand Orient, who profited by the Revolution of 1848 [in France] by being raised to the Ministry of Justice, and by the disasters of 1870 which gave French citizenship to all the Jews of Algeria, founded in 1860 a cosmopolitan society which he endowed with the name of Universal Israelite Alliance. This association is not, as its name would have one believe, one of international Jewry, a bond to better facilitate links between Jews scattered around the surface of the globe; its aims bear upon something much more higher. It is an association open to all men without distinction of nationality nor of religion, under the high direction of Israel.

In order to be convinced of this, it is sufficient to open the publication that represents it, The Israelite Archives. “The Universal Israelite Alliance,” it says there (xxx, pp. 514-515, for the year 1861), “must enter into all religions as it has penetrated all countries. I call to our association the brothers of every religion, that they would come to us! … That enlightened men of all cults will unite themselves with this Universal Israelite Alliance” (ibid.) And why? “To break down the barriers which separate that which ONE DAY MUST BE UNITED. See there, Messieurs, the beauty, the great mission of Our Universal Israelite Alliance (ibid.)

Profiting from their dispersion over every point of the globe, the Jews wish to be in humanity as a sort of leaven, in order to make of human society, presently divided into nations and various religions, “one sole and solid fraternity,”–the Israelite Archives say it less hypocritically: “A Jerusalem of new order, a holy extension from the East to the West, that must EXIT IN ITSELF in the double city of the Caesars and the Popes” (XXV, PP. 600-651, 1861) …

The Jewish race “Jerusalem” intends to establish its reign over the entire world. “East and West,” by establishing its authority upon the ruins of all existing powers. “Caesars and Popes.” All authority must disappear in order to make way for the domination of Juda, which “will take the place” of all the existing powers in the spiritual order as well as in the temporal order  …

… We see here that other idea advanced, the idea of the United States of Europe, parallel to the United States of America  …

Here again, one could compare a strange accord between the ideas of the Americanists and the tendencies of those who obey the promptings given by the Universal Israelite Alliance. A most ardent promoter of Americanism, in a discourse given in 1894 to the International Scientific Congress of Catholics at Brussels, had this to say:

“We have thought that the opportunity has been provided us of giving to the ENTIRE WORLD a great lesson. When we study the map of Europe, we see there, marks of small divisions. Lines traversing these maps in every sense. They do not indicate only territorial divisions, they signify also: jealousy, hatred, hostility, divisions of hearts, that commits God knows how many millions of armed men for the destruction of the world. Thus, from all these nations, Providence has allowed immigration among us. All nations find themselves at home here [in the USA]; they have been living among themselves, fraternally, without any hostility. This is the privilege that God has granted to America, that of destroying the traditions of national jealousies that of that you have perpetuated in Europe, by melting them down in America unity.”

Read on: “Americanism” [this pompous Americanist continues] “has received from God the mission of giving to the entire world this lesson: the time has come to put an end to the past: abolish frontiers, place all the people in the melting pot of the rights of man by the molding of united humanity, as we [in America] have been founded, we emigrants from all countries, in American unity. And peace shall reign in the world.”

Yes, the peace of the slave under the tyranny of one man or of one race.

As of all the other ideas of the Americanists, that of he abolition of frontiers seems to appeal to our Christian democrats. . . .

So then, if the Talmudists [Orthodox Jews] differ from the liberals [Reform Jews], it is only upon knowing which is the better means to employ in order to accomplish the mission that Israel claims to have received … The Talmudists continue to await a messiah of flesh and bone, who will make them masters of the universe; the liberals say that they do not have any other messiah to expect than the Revolution, “the principles” of which are dissolving of all society and preparing it for their rule. In order to spread these modern “principles,” in order to have them bring about the fruits that they are awaiting, they deem it necessary to separate themselves from those observances to which their fathers had been attached, when they believed that their fidelity would hasten the coming of the personal messiah. This is a cumbersome burden, and what’s more the Jew of this old way could not “make himself acceptable.” He would nevertheless make himself acceptable in the eyes of the people among whom he wished to exercise a “proselytization.”

And in what does this conversion consist? Is it to encourage the faithful of various religions to enter into Judaism? The Jews have never had the thought of making a conversion of this sort; they are a people a race apart, “the premier aristocracy of the world,” the only ones who are truly men; they would never hear of elevating beings such as those who are human only in appearance …

In the first place [The Universal Israelite Alliance] acts upon kings and parliaments in order to apply pressure on them, “this singular, indefatigable influence” that [Gourgenot] des Mousseaux already noted in 1869 [see, The Jew, Judaism and The Judaization of the Christian People, by Mousseaux].

What over and above does it demand? LAICIZATION.

There is no person, who is not blind, who cannot fail to see the prodigious efforts that are being made over the last century towards secularization, that is to say, efforts to remove all religious character from everywhere and everyone. Already, on the very origin of the Revolution, [Count Joseph] de Maistre, had remarked that his had been its essential character. “Examine,” he said, “all the enterprises of this century, you have to see (these men of the Revolution) constantly occupied in the separation from divinity.” It would take too long to show here the many aspects under which the question of laicization or secularization is presented: it spreads itself among all, and in every governmental organ, accordingly, all the forces of society are employed in the success of this work …

Could Americanism, itself also, have come to lend itself to this work that is certainly not intentional? This is what we have already said is to be feared. It is well to examine this thing more closely.

What is certain, what is incontestable, is that between the Jewish spirit and the Americanist spirit there is a point of contact with the principles of ’89 [i.e., the principles of the French Revolution].

We have heard the Jews proclaim and declare the course they are drawing. For the Americans their social and even religious state rests entirely upon these principles; they highly praise them, and the Americanists themselves would have us that “American ideas are those in which GOD wants all the civilized people of our time to be at home.” So they conscientiously make of themselves evangelists.” (Monsignor Henri Delassus, Americanism and the Anti-Christian Conspiracy, translated by Mr. Daniel Leonardi and published by Mr. Hugh Akins of Catholic Action Resources Center, Orlando, Florida, October, 2007–first printing in France, 1899, pp. 2-8.)

No, the path to the travesties that have been unleashed by the “Second” Vatican Council did not just happen overnight. Anyone who believes that this is so is utterly blind to history as there were numerous, interrelated factors, each born of Protestantism and Judeo-Masonry, that made possible the infiltration of the Catholic hierarchy under our true popes with scores of “sleeper agents,” if you will, whose agenda of spiritual destruction was to make itself manifest over the course of time.

Moreover, those who deny the role of the “American experience” in serving as an essential building block of conciliarism’s “reconciliation” with a “new world order” is choosing to believe in nationalistic myths rather than the cold, hard facts as brought out by the likes of Fathers Edward Cahill and Denis Fahey in Ireland and Louis Edouard “Cardinal” Pie, Monsignor Henri Delassus and Father Theotime de Just in France. Anyone who does this is also turning a blind eye to the fact that Jorge Mario Bergoglio is as much as an end product of the Protestant and Judeo-Masonic spirit of Americanism that this wretched little apostate, who worked recently to promote the repeal of laws in the country of Belize that criminalized sodomite acts but who is completely silent about laws permitting infanticide and never intervenes in any legislation designed to curb the killing of the innocent preborn, promotes with a ready abandon at every opportunity imaginable.

Humanly speaking, therefore, we are cooked. Done for. As I wrote a few months ago, Prepare for the Coming Persecution.

The Coup Against God by His First Rational Creatures

Holy Week has begun. It is thus time to reflect upon the simple fact that far more important than the coups launched by factions of contingent beings against each other are the coups that the sins of men—including our own many sins—have plotted and executed since the time of the fall of our first parents, Adam and Eve, which is recorded in the Book of Genesis as follows:

Now the serpent was more subtle than any of the beasts of the earth which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman: Why hath God commanded you, that you should not eat of every tree of paradise? And the woman answered him, saying: Of the fruit of the trees that are in paradise we do eat: But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of paradise, God hath commanded us that we should not eat; and that we should not touch it, lest perhaps we die. And the serpent said to the woman: No, you shall not die the death. For God doth know that in what day soever you shall eat thereof, your eyes shall be opened: and you shall be as Gods, knowing good and evil.

And the woman saw that the tree was good to eat, and fair to the eyes, and delightful to behold: and she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave to her husband who did eat. And the eyes of them both were opened: and when they perceived themselves to be naked, they sewed together fig leaves, and made themselves aprons. And when they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in paradise at the afternoon air, Adam and his wife hid themselves from the face of the Lord God, amidst the trees of paradise. And the Lord God called Adam, and said to him: Where art thou? And he said: I heard thy voice in paradise; and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.

And he said to him: And who hath told thee that thou wast naked, but that thou hast eaten of the tree whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldst not eat? And Adam said: The woman, whom thou gavest me to be my companion, gave me of the tree, and I did eat. And the Lord God said to the woman: Why hast thou done this? And she answered: The serpent deceived me, and I did eat. And the Lord God said to the serpent: Because thou hast done this thing, thou art cursed among all cattle, and beasts of the earth: upon thy breast shalt thou go, and earth shalt thou eat all the days of thy life. I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel.

To the woman also he said: I will multiply thy sorrows, and thy conceptions: in sorrow shalt thou bring forth children, and thou shalt be under thy husband's power, and he shall have dominion over thee. And to Adam he said: Because thou hast hearkened to the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldst not eat, cursed is the earth in thy work; with labour and toil shalt thou eat thereof all the days of thy life. Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herbs of the earth. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return to the earth, out of which thou wast taken: for dust thou art, and into dust thou shalt return. And Adam called the name of his wife Eve: because she was the mother of all the living.

And the Lord God made for Adam and his wife, garments of skins, and clothed them. And he said: Behold Adam is become as one of us, knowing good and evil: now, therefore, lest perhaps he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever. And the Lord God sent him out of the paradise of pleasure, to till the earth from which he was taken. And he cast out Adam; and placed before the paradise of pleasure Cherubims, and a flaming sword, turning every way, to keep the way of the tree of life. (Genesis 3: 1-23)

This coup, which was hatched the master of lies and the prince of darkness and executed by our first parents at his bidding to Eve, the adversary’s revenge against God for his being defeated when he, the devil, rebelled against Him in Heaven as is recorded in Saint John the Evangelist’s Book of the Apocalypse:

[7] And there was a great battle in heaven, Michael and his angels fought with the dragon, and the dragon fought and his angels:[8] And they prevailed not, neither was their place found any more in heaven. [9] And that great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, who seduceth the whole world; and he was cast unto the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. (Apocalypse 12: 7-9.)

It is important to remember that all the problems in the world, bar none, are caused by Original Sin and our own Actual Sins, which are the consequence of the vestigial after-effects of Original Sin—the darkened intellect, the weakened will, the overthrow of the higher, rational faculties in favor of the lower sensual passions, and that there is nothing more horrible than sin in the sight of the Most Blessed Trinity.

All problems in the world, personal and social, are the result, both remotely and proximately, of Original Sin and of the Actual Sins of men. No one can claim to be able to "build" the better world who is indifferent to the horror of personal sin or, worse yet, who is committed, whether personally in his own life or as a matter of perverse "principle," to its promotion under cover of the civil law and in every aspect of a nation's popular culture. No one can claim to love Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ if he is indifferent to the horror of personal sin or, worse yet, is committed, whether personally or as a matter of perverse "principle," to its promotion under cover of the civil law and in every aspect of a nation's popular culture.

Original Sin was man’s declaration of war against God, and that warfare has continued ever since. All order that existed at the Creation was overturned. Man declared warfare upon God, and it a short time thereafter that brother, Cain, slew his own brother, Abel, thus presaging the conflicts that have taken place between and among men even since.

The perfect balance and order of things in nature itself was overturned. All geological and atmospheric problems are caused by Original Sin and the Actual Sins of men, meaning that all earthquakes, floods, violent weather and extremes of temperatures are the result of the rupture between man and God that occurred because of Original Sin, which also is the root cause of all disease and the physical infirmity. Everything in the world is disordered and imbalanced because of Original Sin, and this disorder and imbalance is worsened by the Actual Sins of men over the course of time.

The Coup Against Christ the King in our Modern World

Those who are forgetful—or ignorant—of Original Sin and the harm of the Actual Sins of men will wind up looking for “salvation” in all the wrong places, and it has become a particular blood spot within the past forty years or so for Catholics and non-Catholics alike to look to some political leader to “save” the United States of America. Yet it is that social problems here and around the world keep multiplying because men sin wantonly because they are following Luther’s instructions to “sin, and sin boldly” or because they have grown up in a world suffering from the consequences of Luther’s revolution against the Divine Plan that God Himself instituted to effect man’s return to Him through His Catholic Church, worship at the altar of their own carnal desires. It is madness to expect that some secular, nondenominational, ideological, nationalistic, constitutional, legal or political “solution” can be found to the simple fact it is impossible to realize temporal prosperity and peace when men persist in sins that are repugnant to the peace and happiness of eternity:

The more closely the temporal power of a nation aligns itself with the spiritual, and the more it fosters and promotes the latter, by so much the more it contributes to the conservation of the commonwealth. For it is the aim of the ecclesiastical authority by the use of spiritual means, to form good Christians in accordance with its own particular end and object; and in doing this it helps at the same time to form good citizens, and prepares them to meet their obligations as members of a civil society. This follows of necessity because in the City of God, the Holy Roman Catholic Church, a good citizen and an upright man are absolutely one and the same thing. How grave therefore is the error of those who separate things so closely united, and who think that they can produce good citizens by ways and methods other than those which make for the formation of good Christians. For, let human prudence say what it likes and reason as it pleases, it is impossible to produce true temporal peace and tranquillity by things repugnant or opposed to the peace and happiness of eternity. (Silvio Cardinal Antoniano, quoted by Pope Pius XI in Divini Illius Magistri, December 31, 1929.)

A book, Cross and Crown, that contains three essays by a Swiss priest, Father Robert Mader (1875-1945), that were published in Das Neus Volk in Switzerland between 1926 and 1934, amplifies this point by reminding us that all is lost if men do not realize that we have a Divine King Who has redeemed us from Adam’s sin and has made it possible for us to know eternal life in Heaven if we amend our lives and seek to make reparation for our sins until the day we die as members of His true Church. Men can never be at peace with each other if they are at war with God by means of their unrepented sins. Father Mader quotes Desire-Joseph Cardinal Mercier as saying that the refusal of nations to honor their Divine King is the official apostasy of our times:

If one knows Who Jesus is: the Creator and the Conserver, the Savior, the Owner of the earth, then one must regard the liberal sin, that of fundamental social refusal to recognize the spiritual monarchy of Christ over society, as the most grievous sin committed since Good Friday. It is deicide, God-murder, committed in the name of law and of Satan, true Antichristianity. Cardinal Mercier therefore rightly called the official apostasy of the nations the greatest crime of our times.

At present this is the situation of the Sign of the Son of Man. They do not want it to shine in the heavens. Just like back then on Good Friday: We will not have Him reign over us!

Father Robert Mader himself described that man’s forgetfulness of Christ the King can lead to nothing other than social disaster:

The world is a book. Every creature is a sentence in it. The Author and Publisher is the Triune God, with the co-operation of the angels and the human beings. It is the task of human intelligence to read God's thoughts from this book.

Every book has its basic theme, its dominant idea, its soul, a word that says everything, because it contains everything. The word that represents theme and content of the entire creation and the history of the world is called Jesus the King.

One can only understand this completely when the book has been read to the end and one can look back. Only Judgment Day, the final chapter of the book, will bring complete clarity as to the meaning of creation. Only when the Sign of Man appears in the heavens, when the lightning flashes from the beginning to the end, shall we understand the mysterious why and whererfore of all that happens in Jesus, the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, the immortal King of the centuries.

When the Sign of the Son of Man does not shine in heaven, then the world is robbed of its Light. Sun, moon and stars are of no use. One sees nothing, one understands nothing. One stumbles about in the dark and trips on all the paths. It is like a spiritual eclipse of the sun over the universe.

St. John painted for us the image of the eclipse of the sun as the great fact of the world without Christ in masterful strokes. Through Jesus, the Word, "all things were made...and without him was made nothing that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it" (Jn. 1:3-5).

Certainly, the spiritual eclipses apply to the time before Jesus. Yet despite two thousand years of Christianity, it exists still today for a great part of Christendom. The words of St. John the Baptist are still valid: "...there hath stood one in the midst of you, whom you know not" (Jn. 1:26).

Jesus is by no means so well-known and loved as one ought to expect after nineteen centuries. Oh yes, they preach and talk and write a great deal about religious problems in our days. But the central Truth of our Religion: Jesus the Redemption of the world, the Life of souls and of nations, the Head and the Heart of society, Jesus the King, is perceived in the immense, general, exclusively saving implications of that Truth only barely and only by a few.

The sign of the Son of Man indeed can still be found in the churches, in the homes of Christian families, int he cemeteries and on the breasts of a few pious souls. However, it is not, as it once was, the sun that lights the day, that directs and influences all of public life, the thoughts and works of people. We are living in a period of spiritual night, cold, Christ-less night.

This ignorance is a world disaster. For it is always a precursor of serious catastrophes when leaders of the peoples have become so blind that they cannot distinguish between day and night, true and false, the path and the chasm. Even worse than blindness, not being able to see, is not wanting to see anymore.

Right now this is the state of a large part of the human race. Whatever name it may carry, whether liberalism, neutrality, non-denominationalism or laicism, the sin of the modern world is that it does not want to see the Sign of the Son of Man int he heavens anymore.

Jesus is no longer recognized as public, commanding, life-giving Power. According to the valid constitutions, He has officially nothing more to say in the parliaments, in the halls of ministries, in the courts, in the schools and in the workshops. At most His participation in the discussion is occasionally tolerated.

If one knows Who Jesus is: the Creator and the Conserver, the Savior, the Owner of the earth, then one must regard the liberal sin, that of fundamental social refusal to recognize the spiritual monarchy of Christ over society, as the most grievous sin committed since Good Friday. It is deicide, God-murder, committed in the name of law and of Satan, true Antichristianity. Cardinal Mercier therefore rightly called the official apostasy of the nations the greatest crime of our times.

At present this is the situation of the Sign of the Son of Man. They do not want it to shine in the heavens. Just like back then on Good Friday: We will not have Him reign over us!

But someday it will be otherwise. The world will not remain liberal forever. The artificial stars of earthly dimensions that want to eclipse the Sun of Our Lord will fall from heaven. Then will the Sign of the Sun of Man flare up in the heavens, and they shall see "the Son of man sitting on the right hand of the power of God, and coming in the clouds of heaven" (Mt. 26:64).

The Judgment Day will be the day of great revelations, not only in the sense that there will be no secrets anymore between persons, but also because it will reveal the secret of Jesus the King to all of the world. It will be a sort of new Epiphany, a Feast of the Appearing of the Lord, but more grandiose, more general than the Feast of the Three Kings. It will be a sort of Coronation before all the nations of the earth and all the hosts of heaven.

The notion of the absolute, exclusive, unlimited Kingship of Jesus over the entire human race and the entire universe is one of the most noble, but unfortunately also one of the most forgotten truths of our faith.

We have called the world a book. In this book, Jesus is not only the most interesting and most beautiful chapter, but also the central, dominating idea of the book in its entirety. We must search out this Holy Name on every page and regard everything in its light. When God wanted to call creation into being, He had only one great thought, an immense plan, a dominant idea, one Word: the Word Jesus Christ. Everything that exists has value and meaning in God, only insofar as it is member and organ of the holy Humanity of Jesus, an ornament of the robe of His glory, an image of His perfection, or a footstool for His feet.

St. Paul described the central thought of creation in firm strokes at the beginning of his Epistle to the Colossians: He "is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature: For in him were all things created on heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones, or dominations, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him and in him. And he is before all, and by him all things consists" (1 Col. 1: 14-17).

Similar expressions are used in the Epistle to the Hebrews: "God...hath spoken to us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the world...For in that he heath subjected all things to him, he left nothing not subject to him" (Heb. 1:1-2; 2-8).

This language leaves us in no doubt. The Kingship of Jesus is not just one chapter, but rather the whole theme of the history of creation and the world. Jesus is all in all.

This idea is even more sharply delineated in St. Paul's teaching on the Church. The Church is the Body of Christ, Christ the Head of the Church. Head and Body together form an inseparable, mystical, mysterious Unity. The name of this inseparable, mystical Unity is (because it is taken from the Head) Christ. Christ and HIs Church, Head and Body bound to one another, says St. Augustine, are only one being, a single Christ. We have not only become Christians. "We are Christ."

"Church" is just another name of Christ united with the members. The Church has its being only in and with and through Him. Christ is all in all, Way, Truth and Life in the Church. The same is true of Church history.

Jesus will be all in all in the fullest sense on Judgment Day. From that day on there will be no more lords and no more kings, there will not even be any more popes. Only one will be Lord, one will be King, one will be the High Priest, "when he shall have brought to naught principality, and power, and virtue" (I Cor. 15:24). Even the temple will be superfluous in the City of God. "For the Lord God Almighty is the temple thereof, and the Lamb. And the city hath no need of the sun, nor of the moon, to shine in it. For...the Lamb is the lamp thereof" (Apoc. 21: 22-23). So it is written. Everything belongs to Christ. Jesus is all in all. The theme of creation will have reached its completion. Cosmology will become Christology, the study of the world will become the teaching of Christ.

Creation is a book about Jesus the King. "And I saw in the right hand of him that sat on the throne, a book written within and without, sealed with seven seals. And I saw a strong angel, proclaiming with a loud voice: Who is worthy to open the book, and to loose the seals thereof? And no man was able, neither in heaven, nor on earth, nor under the earth, to open the book, nor to look on it. And I wept much, because no man was found worthy to open the book, nor to see it. And one of the ancients said to me: Wee not, behold the lion of Juda, the root of David, hath prevailed to open the book, and to loose the seven seals thereof.

"An the Lamb...came and took the book out of the right hand of him that son on the throne. And when he had opened the book...they sung a new canticle, saying: Thou art worthy, O Lord, to take the book, and to open the seals thereof; because thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God, in thy blood, out of every tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation...And every creatures, which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them: I heard all saying: To the Lamb benediction, and honor, and glory, and power, for ever and ever" (Apoc. 5: 1-5, 7, 9, 13).

Either science will humbly return to Jesus, or the book of creation and history will remain for science an absolute riddle. For they tell of Christ. May the song of creation become also the song of mankind: Jesus my King! My Jesus, my All!

Come, let us go there and make Him King, Him alone, King of minds and hearts, the King of the nations as well! Do you hear the bells ringing for the immortal King of the centuries? The world is gradually growing tired of being liberal, far from God and shy of Christ. It is seeking the Sign of the Son of Man. It is the seeking the King. (Father Robert Mader, Cross and the Crown, edited and translated by Dr. Eileen Kunze, Sarto House, 1999, pp. 51-55.)

Father Mader was merely echoing the voice of our true popes, who spoke as one concerning the necessity of the Social Reign of Christ the King and what must happen to men when It is not recognized and obeyed. They must fall apart.

Father Mader also sounded a theme that had been expressed so clearly by Louis-Edouard-François-Desiré Cardinal Pie, the Bishop of Poitiers, France, from 1849 to 1880, whose writing had the support of Popes Pius IX, Leo XIII, St. Pius X and Benedict XV (the latter two long after Cardinal Pie's death, having studied his writings in great depth and approving of them without any complaint), wrote in the Nineteenth Century:

That we are vitally permeated with the actual presence of our King is characteristic of our religion. Catholicism is not merely a marvellous teaching, a wonderful moral system, an unexcelled organization. It is more. It is the real, living, present Jesus with His Mystical Body, i.e., the faithful united with Him. It is not so much a theory as it is something living. A Catholicism that would not be united with Jesus would be nothing but a phantom in the mist, a soulless shell with another name and another outlook than its own.

That is why it is perhaps dangerous to faith if we use misunderstood words like Christianity and Catholicism somewhat too often. Let us repeat: Catholicism is not a theory, not a teaching, Christianity is the invisible but truly living presence of Christ among us, the Kingship of Jesus. To be Catholic means to stand in vital communication, through faith, hope and love, with the invisibly present Redeemer, the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

Thus it is that there, where Jesus is not present in the Host and no living communication with Him takes place, there can be no living Christianity. In that moment when Luther rejected the Sacrament of the Altar and therewith Christ present, he rejected Christianity.

Christianity equals Christ with the Christians! What does Jesus do when He is with the Christians? The same thing he did for three years in Palestine: be King. We often have no real concept of the life and the effectiveness of Jesus in the tabernacle. We think that because our eyes and ears are too weak to observe the divine-human activity of Jesus in the tabernacle, only the stillness of death reigns there. That is a gross deception.

His activity depends neither upon the greatness of his work room nor the loudness of sounds. What gigantic work is done by sun and nature, although no eye and ear can observe its progress! The Jesus of the tabernacle is the same as the Jesus in the Gospels, the same in Holiness, in Might, in Wisdom, in Omniscience, in Mercy and in Love. St. Paul writes in Hebrews (13:8) that "Jesus Christ, yesterday, and to-day; and the same for ever."

So what is Jesus doing in the tabernacles? He exercises His priestly office. The King prays. He holds perpetual adoration. He holds services in the name of the parish. He celebrates the Holy Mass. The visible Mass is over with the Ite missa est. The invisible Mass continues day and night since Jesus is present in the tabernacle, as an offering of praise and thanks and reparation. The parish priest is obliged by canon law to "read" Holy Mass for the congregation every Sunday. That is called "application." Jesus does more than the visible priest. He prays and makes application for HIs people continually.

What else Jesus do in the tabernacle? He exercises His office Shepherd. He does pastoral care of souls. The King keeps watch. The eyes of the Good Shepherd never sleep. They see everything that happens in the parish, in the houses and in the hearts. The eyes of the Good Shepherd take note of every longing for help and every danger. The Heart of the Good Shepherd beats for all with unending love, and that is the soul of pastoral work.

What else does Jesus do in the tabernacle? He exercises the preaching office, a preaching that penetrates deeper than just to the ears and without the preaching of the clergy in the pulpit remains nothing but sounding brass and tinkling cymbal. The King speaks. The angels are His parish helpers. They visit the individual souls of the parishioners on assignment from the Saviour and with the power of the Holy Spirit. That proves what ought to be proven: that Christianity is not empty theory. Christianity is Christ with the Christians! The King lives!

Christianity should not be anything for us than it was for the Apostles: a living relationship to Jesus present. This personal relationship expresses itself in faith, hope and love for Jesus the King. Above all it is the Christian with Christ through love! Take for example in thought. Love expresses itself in its domination of the entire world of our thoughts. The world of thoughts usually is preoccupied with business, pleasure, the latest sensation, exaggerated worries and often just dirt. It is materialistic, money-grabbing, sensual, alcoholic, worldly. It is the thought of a baptized heathen. If we want to call ourselves Christians, then we ought to think of nothing but Christ Who is present among us. Neither work nor politics, neither the press nor sports ought to occupy us in the least in comparison to the occupation of our memory and our understanding by Jesus. That's Christianity!

The same applies to the world of feelings. Measure your temperature in Church, near to Jesus. It is much lower than when you are in a theater, a restaurant, in the office. That's not normal. You must have a heart defect. And today it seems that cardiac defects have become the mass epidemic of Christianity. We love everything, only not for Jesus. I repeat: that's not normal! A patient whose temperature has sunk so low is very ill. Christianity is the Christian with Christ. Not only with his thoughts and his feelings, but in all his doings must he be with Him. The church, the house where Jesus lives, ought to be a stronger attraction for every genuine Christian than any other house in in town, even during the week. Tell me where I can find you most often, and I will tell you who are are.

We want to be Christians again! Yet a little while, and we shall see Jesus. The Invisible will become visible. The hidden King of the tabernacle is Judge over punishment or reward for eternity! The great movement of decision over heaven and hell has come. What is heaven? The place of blessed happiness in love. It is clear that whoever does not know the great law of Christianity, the law of love between the Christian and Christ, cannot enter into heaven. Not want to love Christ, Who is Love, is the sins of sins! Whoever does not love will be damned. We want to become Christians again. We want to love again, love and die for Christ the King. (Father Robert Mader, Cross and the Crown, edited and translated by Dr. Eileen Kunze, Sarto House, 1999, pp. 92-94.)

As we know, the ineffable Sacrifice of the Cross is not offered universally today as it was when Father Mader wrote eighty-five years ago. Our Lord is not present in His Real Presence in most tabernacles in the world today. The new religion wrought by conciliarism has reduced the days of mandatory fast and abstinence during Lent to two, Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. That’s it. Forty days of Lent. Only two days of mandatory fast and abstinence under penalty of sin. A religion that eschews the necessity of fasting and abstinence during Lent has nothing to do with Catholicism. Nothing. The lack of sacrifice in the conciliar sect has led to a loss of faith in the souls of millions and to the actual celebration of sin in one conciliar-controlled parish, school, university and seminary after another. The “popes” of the conciliar sect have celebrated “religious liberty” and the “separation of the Church and State,” which were the goals of Protestantism and Judeo-Masonry, and had already produced a mess in the world by the time that the “Second” Vatican Council took place.

Father Mader explained how things had degenerated in his own time from 1914 to 1934 because nations had revolted against Christ the King and His true Church:

What happened? World War I began in 1914. In the whole world there was no Catholic government. All of them without exception had become more or less liberal. It seemed as though Jesus Himself had become "liberal" in order to punish the nations. He did not "interfere in the political affairs of the nations." He apparently did what all the popular assemblies and the newspapers had been demanding of Him for more than a hundred years. And now look at the paradox! The nations which had been liberal for a century and which had given themselves liberal constitutions and elected liberal representatives now accused God of committing a crime, because He did not want to interfere in politics! If one is liberal, then one has no right to accuse God of non-intervention. If the liberals want to be consistent, then they have to keep silence on our question.

A word to the sentimental souls: The World Wars and the revolutions with all their injustices that cry to heaven and their cruelties are supposed to be proof that there is no God, and that Jesus is a failure. Answer: The world has not only become unbelieving and liberal; it is godless. Of course there have always been godless individuals. But it has been reserved to modern times to raise godlessness to public power. And what is worse, godlessness had turned into actual glowing hatred of God. It became a fury. Mankind fell upon God in order to strangle Him, kill Him and eradicate Him.

Whoever casts a glance into the secrets of modern Freemasonry knows that we are not exaggerating. Freemasonry is the secret government behind most of the earth's governments. What we are experiencing since the French Revolution is the radical, implacable, irreconcilable war against God, the revolution of earth against heaven.

If this is the case, what did God have to do? All graces had been thrown to the wind, all warnings were ridiculed. The world had become unteachable and incapable of conversion. God's mercy and patience were taken as an excuse for more impertinence and new ridicule. And it must be emphasized that we stood it! We watched the outbreaks of hatred against God and had no laws and no courts with which to defend the rights of God and His Christ. We made ourselves accomplices. (Father Robert Mader, Cross and the Crown, edited and translated by Dr. Eileen Kunze, Sarto House, 1999, pp. 63-64.)

The same can be said of Catholics here in the United States of America. We have been accomplices to placing the godless in power, those who curse and who revile their opponents as they seek to revenge every slight and injustice, whether real or imagined. We have trusted in the ability of politics to keep “bad guys” out even though anyone who does not acknowledge Christ the King is advancing evil whether or not they realize it. Even fully believing Catholics

Following the destruction of Jerusalem, the Romans covered the places of hallowed memory to the Christian with rubble. The cave of the Holy Sepulchre was buried under such rubble, and over as well Golgotha pagan images and temples were erected in honor of Venus and Jupiter. For this reason the Christians did not go there anymore, in order not to be mistaken for idol-worshippers. Emperor Constantine ordered the temples and images torn down and the rubble carried away. After long and hard work the cave of the Holy Sepulchre was found. Not found away three crosses with nails were discovered, and along with them the superscription, which, however, lay separate from the cross.

Without doubt one of the these must be the Cross of the Savior, but there was no certain sign that would differentiate it from the crosses of the two thieves. This was given when a mortally il woman was suddenly cured by touching the true Cross. The Holy Cross was then encased in silver and precious gems, and a church was built over it, which according to Emperor Constantine's order was to be more magnificent than anything ever seen before. In memory of these events, the Church recalls the Finding of the Most Holy Cross on May 3, in order that on every day until the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross (September 14), land and people with be blessed with a splinter, a particle of the Cross.

We have every reason to remember these events. Christianity is the religion of the Crucified One. In his first letter to the Corinthians the Apostle of the Nations, St. Paul, declares: "For I judged not myself to know anything among you, but Jesus Christ, and him crucified (1 Cor. 2:2). St. Paul's preaching, no matter how many-sided it appears, always returns to the central Sun of Christendom: Jesus on the Cross, King of the World! Everything else is either a ray from this Sun, or it is nothing. In the Crucifix lies our entire dogmatic and moral theology, our entire teaching on faith and morals, our catechism. The Cross is our library. Every other book has value only inasmuch as the spirit of the Cross speaks in it.

Modernists have attempted to ban the old preaching of St. Paul, the Gospel of the Cross, to oblivion. The Cross means the teaching of the necessity of sacrifice and of grace, and this now lies under the rubble on which a new paganism has erected once again the pagan images and temples of Jupiter, Mercury, Venus and Bacchus--in other words, the absolutist state, capitalism, immorality, and addiction to pleasure. A certain superficial Christianity, which puts more value on being modern than on being Catholic and Biblical, and for which the imitation of the spirit of the times is more understandable than the imitation of Christ, has made itself a willing accomplice.

We have lost the Cross. We have a Christianity that no longer understands sacrifice and there is no Christianity or only a soulless version of Christianity. We need Constantines and Helens who will once again dig out the the Cross from under the rubble and make it their shrine and their sign, and who believe that the King's throne is the Cross.

The crucified King! In the family we must have a Finding of the the Most Holy Cross! The modern family has lost the crucifix, and in its place it has raised up the political hero, the artist, old pagan gods, nudity and the prostitute. The crucifix does not fit into the modern home. The modern living room preaches money-grabbing, pride, vanity, lasciviousness, laziness. The modern living room is the exaltation of the seven deadly sins. At least one is honest enough to feel the Cross no longer fits into this milieu and has got rid of it because in the long run the crucifix can only remain there where the spirit of the Crucified One remains, and the spirit of the Crucified is no longer there.

The spirit of the Crucified is the spirit of love and sacrifice, but the spirit of the modern family is the spirit of selfishness and enjoyment. The speech of the Crucified says: First the others, I come last! The speech of selfishness is: First I, then again I, the others come last! The Christian family is built on the notion of sacrifice and devotion. The concept of the Christian father is: Work from morning to evening for others. The concept of the Christian mother is: Care for others! Let the self always come last! The concept of the Christian child is: Respect, love, obedience. Father and mother first, only then I!

The notion of sacrifice is dying out in the modern family. The modern family is built upon the law of egotism. The modern family takes as its motto: "As much enjoyment and as little sacrifice as possible!" This is the source of Malthusianism. That is where characterless education comes from. And that is the doom of the family. Only the Cross and its sermon of self-discipline, self-denial and devotion can save the dying family. (Father Robert Mader, Cross and the Crown, edited and translated by Dr. Eileen Kunze, Sarto House, 1999, pp. 117-119.) 

Only the Cross and its sermon of self-discipline, self-denial and devotion can save a world gone mad by means of its crowning Our Lord anew mystically by choosing figurative Barabbases constantly over Him.

Sober Reflections from Saint Robert Bellarmine for Holy Week

Saint Robert Bellarmine, who lived from 1542 to 1621, gave as series of very long sermons to university students and professors in the latter part of the Sixteenth Century. As Father Kenneth Baker, S.J., who translated these sermons (as well as Saint Robert Bellarmine’s Disputations or Controversies), noted in his preface to these works, the length of the holy doctor’s sermons would not be suitable for parish life today. However, long sermons were not unusual in the centuries when men were not preoccupied with the labors of the industrialized—and the technologized—world of Modernity and when men had not had their attention spans snapped by radio, television and the internet. People were willing to listen. More importantly, people were willing to reflect on what they heard.

It is useful, I believe, to provide the readers of this site with a few excerpts from Saint Robert Bellarmine’s Passion Sunday sermon that discussed the events of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ’s Passion, Death and Resurrection to help them distance themselves from the distractions of a world gone mad because even most Catholics alive today believe that the Faith has nothing to do with their own private lives and less yet with the lives of their nations and the world-at-large.

Holy Week is a time for us to reflect upon our own sins and how they inflicted such unspeakable punishments on the Second Person of the Most Blessed Trinity made Man in Our Lady’s Virginal and Immaculate Womb by the power of the Third Person of the Most Holy Trinity, God the Holy Ghost, at the Annunciation. Saint Robert Bellarmine explained in the incomparable nature of these sufferings after he had prefaced his sermon with an Ignatian summary of its major points:

The severity of the punishments of the Lord was so great, my dear listeners, that it surpassed the powers of the human and angelic mind, and only Christ, who endured it, and only God, who arranged it for our salvation, can really understand how great its vileness and bitterness were. Indeed the split rocks and open tombs, and the torn veil of the temple, and the sun covered with darkness, and finally the whole world signified with terrifying and until that time unknown prodigies that it had not known such wickedness previously. And there is no doubt also that the angels of peace, according to the prophet weep out of love, and cover their faces with their wings, when the ministers of iniquity attack the Lord of majesty with shameless deeds and insults. Nevertheless, the Son of God appeals to the Father alone, as the only one who knows fully the magnitude of the situation; You know, he said, my reproach, and my shame and my dishonor. For only the Father fully understood what Christ his Son was suffering, because only he knew the infinite sublimity and majesty of the same Christ, and what great reverence and obedience was owed to him by all created things, and especially by men. Therefore only you he said, have known my reproach and my shame because you alone know my dignity. But although that is the case, and although the magnitude of the Lord's passion surpasses all created understanding, still the Lord exhorts us to try as much as we can to understand the vehemence of those sorrows and sufferings: O all you, he said, who pass by, who complete the course of human life, who do not cling to the mire of earthly passion, but hasten with wings of desire to the heavenly Jerusalem with eager steps: You, I say, do not simply listen, but look and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow. Therefore on this day, both that we may give due and just thanks to Christ, and suffer with Christ our head as his true and live members, and that we may arm ourselves for the endurance of labors, and that we may follow the footsteps of the Lord bravely, we will speak, with the assistance of the Lord, about the magnitude and severity of the Lord's passion. But so that we may explain such a serious and useful matter in some order, and whatever we have said you will be able easily not only to understand but also to commit to memory, we will open up four as it were sources of founts, from which the magnitude and vehemence of the Lord's passion may flow like a swift river, so that we may draw out abundant water, according to the prophecy of Isaiah,  from the wells of salvation. (Saint Robert Bellarmine, Sermon Twenty-eight: On Passion Sunday or the Holy Week on the Greatness of the Passion of the Lord. As found in Sermons of St. Robert Bellarmine, S.J., Part I: From Advent to Passion Sunday, p. 307. Translated from the Latin by Father Kenneth Baker, S.J.)

An oft-repeated theme on this site over the years—and even in my college classrooms decades before the launching of the eponymous printed journal that preceded its launching on February 20, 2004—has been that there is nothing we can suffer in this passing, mortal vale of tears that is the equal of what one of our least Venial Sins caused Our Lord to suffer in His Sacred Humanity during the events of His Passion and Death. This is the point that Saint Robert Bellarmine made with far greater detail and much more eloquence in the passage quoted just above.

Nothing we can suffer in this life is the equal to what Our Lord Himself endured out of love for His Co-Equal, Co-Eternal God the Father and for us miserable, ungrateful, recidivist sinners who keep offending God repeatedly despite our many resolutions to amend our lives and to sin no more. Our Lady herself made this point to the Venerable Mary of Agreda as recorded in The New English Edition of The Mystical City of God:

393. Having celebrated the Transfiguration the Blessed Mother was transported back to her house in Nazareth. Her divine Son descended the mountain and immediately came to visit Her in order to take final leave of his parental province and set out for Jerusalem; there, on the following Pasch, which was to be his last upon earth, He would enter upon his Passion. Having spent only a few days at Nazareth, He departed with his Mother, his Apostles and disciples, and some of the holy women, traveling about through Galilee and Samaria before entering Judea and Jerusalem. The Evangelist St. Luke writes of this journey when he says the Lord steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem (Lk. 9:51), for He journeyed to Jerusalem with a joyous countenance and full of desire to enter upon his sufferings in order to sacrifice Himself for the human race according to his own most ardent and generous desire. He was not to return to Galilee where He had wrought so many miracles. Knowing this at his departure from Nazareth He glorified his eternal Father, and in the name of his sacred humanity He gave thanks for having in that house and neighborhood received the human form and existence which He was now to deliver over to suffering and death. Of the prayers of Christ our Lord on this occasion I shall record as far as I can the following one:

393. “My eternal Father, in compliance with thy will I gladly hasten to satisfy thy justice by suffering even unto death; thus shall I reconcile to Thee all the children of Adam (Rom. 5:10), paying their debts and opening to them the gates of heaven which have been closed against them. I shall seek those who have turned away and lost themselves (Lk. 19:10), so they may be restored by the force of my love. I shall find and gather together the lost of the house of Jacob (Is. 56:8), raise up the fallen, enrich the poor, refresh the thirsty, cast down the haughty, and exalt the humble. I desire to vanquish hell and enhance the glories of the triumph over Lucifer and the vices which he has sown into the world (I Jn. 3:8). I desire to raise up the standard of the Cross, beneath which virtue all those who put themselves under its protection are to fight their battles (Mt. 16:24). I desire to satiate my Heart with insults and affronts (Lam. 3:30) which are so estimable in thy eyes. I desire to humiliate Myself even unto death (Philip. 2:8) at the hands of my enemies, so our chosen friends may be consoled in their tribulations and may be honored by high rewards whenever they choose to humiliate themselves in suffering the same persecutions. O beloved Cross! When shalt thou receive Me in thy arms? O sweet ignominies and affronts! When shalt thou bear Me on to overcome death through the sufferings of my entirely guiltless flesh (Heb. 2:14)? Ye pains, affronts, ignominies, scourges, thorns, torments and death, come to Me, who desires to embrace thee; yield thyselves to my welcome, since I well understand thy value. If the world abhors thee, I long for thee; if the world in its ignorance despises thee, I, who am truth and wisdom love and embrace thee. Come then to Me, for in welcoming thee as man, I exalt thee as the true God and am ready to efface the touch of sin from thee and from all who shall embrace thee. Come to Me ye pains, and disappoint Me not. Heed not my omnipotence, for I shall permit thee to exert thy full force upon my humanity. Thou shalt not be rejected and abhorred by Me as thou art by mortals. Now shall be banished the deceitful and lying enthrallment of the children of Adam, who serve vanity and lying (Ps. 4:3), judging as unhappy the poor, afflicted and affronted of this world; for if they see their true God, their Creator, Master and Father, suffering horrible insults, scourges, and the ignominious torment and destitution of the Cross, they shall understand their error and esteem it as an honor to follow their crucified God.”

394. These are some of the sentiments which I have been made to perceive in the Heart of the Master of life, our Savior. The sufferings of his death on the Cross show (as my words cannot express) how great was the love with which He sought and underwent them. Notwithstanding all this, our hearts are weighed down by sin and entangled in vanities (Ib.). Though we have life and truth before our eyes, we are nevertheless carried away by our pride and repelled by humility, ravished by what is pleasurable and full of abhorrence for what is painful. O lamentable errorTo labor much in order to avoid laboring a little, to entirely exhaust ourselves merely in order to avoid a small inconvenience, to foolishly resolve on suffering eternal shame and confusion just in order to evade a slight dishonor, or in order not to give up one hour of vain and apparent honor! Who that claims the use of his reason can say he loves himself by following such a course? No mortal enemy of his can ever do him a greater harm than he does himself by doing what is displeasing to God. We hold those as our enemies who flatter and entertain us while they have treason in their hearts, and we would call those foolish who would allow themselves to be betrayed by an insignificant pleasure and delight. If we judge correctly in this, as we really do, what shall we say of the judgment of those who are devotees of the world? Who has intoxicated them? Who has thus deprived them of their reason? O how great is the number of fools (Eccles. 1:15)!

395. Most holy Mary alone of all the children of Adam adjusted her whole life according to the will and conduct of her Son, without departing in the least from the closest imitation of his life and fulfillment of his doctrine. She was most prudent, knowledgeable, and full of wisdom, who could make up for our ignorance and foolishness and gain for us eternal truth in the midst of our darkness. This happened also on the occasion of which I have spoken, for the heavenly Lady saw in the mirror of the most holy soul of her Son all the actions and affections wrought in his interior. Since this was also the guide of her actions, conforming Herself to Him She prayed in conjunction with Him his prayer to the eternal Father, and in her interior said: “Most high God and Father of mercies, I confess thy infinite and immutable essence. Eternally do I praise and exalt Thee, for in this place, after Thou didst create me, Thou didst deign to glorify the power of thy arm by raising me to the dignity of Mother of thy Onlybegotten, and in the plenitude of thy Spirit and ancient mercies Thou hast magnified Thyself in me, thy humble slave, and because thy and my Onlybegotten in the flesh, which He assumed from my substance, has condescended to retain me in his most delightful company for thirty-three years, permitting me to enjoy his graces, his teachings, and his guidance for the enlightenment of the soul of thy handmaid. Today, my Lord and eternal Father, I leave my country and joyfully follow my Son and Master in order to be present at the sacrifice of his life and human existence for mankind. There is no sorrow like unto my sorrow (Lam. 1:12) at seeing the Lamb, who taketh away the sins of the world, delivered over to bloodthirsty wolves (Jer. 11:19); at seeing Him subjected to suffering, torments and death, who is the living image and figure of thy substance (Heb. 1:3), who is engendered of Thee from all eternity and equal to Thee through all the ages; at seeing Him, whom I have given life in my womb, subjected to insults and the death of the cross; and at seeing the beauty of that countenance, which is the joy of my eyes and the delight of all the angels, obscured by filth and wounds (Is. 53:2). O would it were possible that I receive the pains and sorrows which await Him, and that I could suffer death in order to save his life! Accept, heavenly Father, the sacrifice of my sorrowing affection, which I offer in union with Him, so thy holy will and pleasure may be fulfilled. O how quickly flee the days and hours which shall end in the night of my sorrow and bitterness! It shall be a fortunate day for the children of men, but a night of affliction for my sorrow-laden heart, so soon to be deprived of its illuminating Sun. O children of Adam, so deeply lost in error and so forgetful of yourselves! Awaken at last from your heavy slumber and recognize the weight of your sins in the devastation they are about to cause in your God and Creator! See their dire effects in my mortal sorrow and the bitterness of my soul! Begin at last to take heed of the damage wrought by sin!” (The New English Edition of The Mystical City of God, Book Six: The Transfixion, Chapter VI.)

We never suffer as we deserve to suffer. Only a handful of mystics have been permitted to enter into the depths of Our Lord’s sufferings. They did not complain. They rejoiced. So must we. There is no room in the life of a Catholic for self-pity or for ruing the will of God, Who has fashioned each cross that we are asked to bear in our lifetimes to suit us individually, and He has done so from all eternity.

Sin causes all disorder in the world, and it was the thought of coming into contact with sin, the very antithesis of His Sacred Divinity, that caused Our Lord to sweat droplets of His Most Precious Blood during His Agony in the Garden of Gethsemane. Saint Robert Bellarmine discussed the sufferings that Our Lord endured in His Agony because of our sins:

Consider with me that the Lord Jesus, in his agony in the garden of Gethsemane, was like another Isaac being offered in sacrifice; and in whatever direction he turned the eyes of his mind he saw that everything was filled with crosses, and from all sides these voices rang in his ears: Away with him, away with him, crucify him! If he looked at his disciples, he saw their hearts full of fear and sadness: if he looked at the Jews, he saw that they desired nothing other than his death, and that they were already planning with Judas, the betrayer, how to capture him. If he thought of the holy fathers resting in the bosom of Abraham, he saw that they were pleading for his death; finally, if he raised his eyes to heaven, he saw God the Father as another one with a bare sword prepared to sacrifice him; and at the same time he understood that now one of the angels would not come to stop his being killed, as he came formerly to prevent the death of Isaac, and that now a ram was not to be found, who could be offered as a holocaust in his place, Hence the bloody sweat flowed so abundantly; and what, I ask, will be the nature of the tortures that will follow, when in the beginning of his passion he is already constituted in the agony of death? What will he feel then, when he really suffers all those torments, when the consideration of them alone causes his bloody sweat?  Certainly in this place when you being to think about these things, if your heart is not moved and tears do not come to your eyes when you think about the bloody sweat coming from the Lord's body, you should know that you have a heart of stone and not a heart of flesh. For it you cannot weep from love and compassion, why will you not weep at least because of the multitude of your sins, since the thought of them alone forced the Lord to sweat his blood? The swords of the impious did not strike the Lord's body in the garden: there were no scourges or thorns or nails, which brought forth that blood, but your sins – they were the thorns that cruelly penetrated the Lord's head; they were that heavy load that bore down on the Lord, and that he could not carry without sweat. O with what a great price, Lord Jesus, you willed to purchase the remedy for my soul! O my true Adam, who not because of you sins, but mine, having been driven from paradise, by the sweat of your brow you gain the bread, by which you have decreed to nourish and sustain me. Therefore may heaven bless you and may the earth and every one of your creatures praise you and glorify you forever(Saint Robert Bellarmine, Sermon Twenty-eight: On Passion Sunday or the Holy Week on the Greatness of the Passion of the Lord. As found in Sermons of St. Robert Bellarmine, S.J., Part I: From Advent to Passion Sunday, p. 312. Translated from the Latin by Father Kenneth Baker, S.J.)

There is no sense of this reality in the midst of the world. We must have such a sense of this reality at all times, recognizing that there is no “hope” to be found for a just social order in men who herald sin in their own lives and who promote it socially under the cover of the civil law.

Saint Robert Bellarmine made it clear that Our Lord saw clearly during His Agony that we would sell Him out for far less than the thirty pieces of silver that the Jews gave to Judas Iscariot:

Therefore the Lord suffered another very grave torment when he saw that he was old, like a slave, for a sum of silver. It is a great misfortune, when what has been born noble and free, still is sold for a sum of money, like cattle and beasts of burden. But how great would it be, if he is sold not only by friends, but is sold to cruel enemies, who buy him for no other reason than that they want to crucify him? The Lord Christ was sold and he was sold by the man whom he had placed in the highest grade of honor and dignity; for there is nothing on earth greater than the apostolic dignity. And he was sold to very cruel merchants, who were thirsting for nothing but his blood. But at what price was he bought? The cheapness of the price greatly increases the magnitude of the injury. Tell us, Judas, you wicked merchant, for what price did you sell Christ? For thirty denarii. Do you esteem your Lord at such a low price? Could you not sell a cow or a horse in the marketplace at a better price? Believe me, the Lord Christ does not value you at such a low price. O the price of man! O what a low price for God! God was sold for thirty denarii, and man is bought with the blood of God. And you fornicator, adulterer, miser –how much do you think the Lord is worth? For how much will you sell him? What if I were to show you that you are selling Christ as a lower price than Judas sold him? Judas sold Christ for thirty denarii; it is a low price, but still the price contains something good –silver. But at what price do you sell him? You do it for one fornication, for one brief pleasure, which often many labors and expenses precede, and sorrow and bitterness always follow. Therefore are not thirty pieces of silver better, which do hard to no one and can provide much benefit if a person uses them well, than one act of fornication, which drains your wallet, weakens your body, kills the soul and only can do harm, and no one can make good use of it? Therefore if Judas for eternity is suffering just and deserved punishments for this wicked sale, what will happen to you? What house will receive you except hell itself? And if the Lord in the garden, while considering the heat of those flames, out of compassion sweat blood, what will you suffer, whose members those flames will feed on for eternity? Now let us move on to the other points. (Saint Robert Bellarmine, Sermon Twenty-eight: On Passion Sunday or the Holy Week on the Greatness of the Passion of the Lord. As found in Sermons of St. Robert Bellarmine, S.J., Part I: From Advent to Passion Sunday, p. 313. Translated from the Latin by Father Kenneth Baker, S.J.)

The holy doctor, who was canonized by Pope Pius XI in 1930, continued at a later point in his sermon to discuss the how Our Lord suffered during His Sacred Passion, including a vivid description of His being crowned with thorns, which was nothing other than a mockery of His Kingship over men and their nations:

Now we will consider the fifth kind of punishment and torture, which has no less ignominy and shame, than it has of sorrow and torment, God out, therefore, Christian souls after those severe scourges, and look at King Solomon, with the crown with which his mother crowned him: look at how the cruel executioners, and truly the ministers not of men but of demons, as if the previous blows, and the immediately following death and such an abundance of spilled blood were not enough, they fashioned a crown of thorns, and while pretending to adore him they pressed it onto his head, so that the wounds of the thorns would force out the blood, which the blows and scourges had spared. Who ever saw, or heard about, or read about a crown of this kind? Who ever thought up such a cruel device whereby men are tortured and mocked? Certainly Pilate did not order this; the customs and laws of the Romans did not have anything like this and it was not a custom among the Jews. Has human cruelty come to this point, that to afflict the savior of the world with unjust punishments the ole torments did not suffice, but new ones had to be invented? This work of art, O devil, is yours. You are king over all the children of pride, you wanted to be seen as the king of glory, a ridiculous king, you fashioned the crown of thorns in the workshop of hell. But you will obtain nothing, your raging cruelty will accomplish nothing. For those thorns will make your eyes blind, and they will make a medicine for us, and after three days they will be changed by Christ into rays of bright light(Saint Robert Bellarmine, Sermon Twenty-eight: On Passion Sunday or the Holy Week on the Greatness of the Passion of the Lord. As found in Sermons of St. Robert Bellarmine, S.J., Part I: From Advent to Passion Sunday, pp. 315. Translated from the Latin by Father Kenneth Baker, S.J.)

The devil has been tormenting and mocking Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ’s Kingship with great fury during various periods of the Renaissance, many elements of which gave rebirth to the moral relativism of the old Athenian Sophists of the Fifth Century before Christ, a period that was described as follows by Simone Weil in the late Dr. Russell Kirk’s The Roots of American Order:

"It is as though we had returned to the age of Protagoras and the Sophists, the age when the art of persuasion--whose modern equivalent is advertising slogans, publicity, propaganda meetings, the press, the cinema, and radio--took the place of thought and controlled the fate of cities and accomplished coups d'etat. So the ninth book of Plato's Republic looks like a description of contemporary events." (Simone Weil, quoted in Russell Kirk, The Roots of American Order.)

The period since the Renaissance became defined by the Protestant Revolution and the rise and institutionalization of Judeo-Masonry to such an extent that most Catholics alive today believe that the heresy of “religious liberty” is a protection for them when it has always been what it was it was designed to be: a trap to lull Catholics into silence about the horror of false religions and the harm that they do to souls and to the bodily politic as they offend God with false worship and false doctrines. “Religious liberty” also convinces even believing Catholics that is “good enough” for civil leaders to have “some” kind of belief, however inchoate, in God and to act as though the true Faith is irrelevant to social life and the laws.

Our Lord is thus crowned with thorns mystically repeatedly as His Kingship over men and their nations is mocked and reviled, and this, you see, is the greatest social coup of them all. It is a coup with which we can have no part, and it is the only coup that we must expose and to resist as we seek to plant a few seeds for the restoration of the Social Reign of Christ the King as one of the great consequences of the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

We have much reparation to make to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary for our sins and for those of the whole world. We have so very much reparation to make, especially as we approach the Paschal Triduum of Our Lord’s Passion, Death and Resurrection. Yes, you see, the truth is this: we are the greatest coup plotters of them all as our sins, some which have been calculated quite deliberately, have at times all too tragically overthrown the Reign of Christ the King in our own souls, thus making it less possible for us to bear witness to His Social Reign over men and nations. We have shown ourselves to be far more dangerous, far more cunning and far more effect in coup-plotting than any of the aforementioned coup-plotters who are still trying to undo a presidential election. We have tried to undo the effects of Our Lord's Redemptive Act in our own souls! Yes, we are the greatest coup plotters of them all. Bar none.

With Our Lady as our sure guide and intercessor, may we indeed be ever earnest about making reparation for our own many sins, each of has contributed to the worsening of the state of the Church Militant here on earth and of the world-at-large. Once again, make no mistake about it: our own sins and our ingratitude and our lukewarmness have exacerbated, that is, worsened, the state of the Church Militant on earth. We cannot be content to wallow in spiritual mediocrity. We must accept whatever penances and humiliations that God chooses to send us so that we can give them back to His Most Sacred Heart through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of His Most Blessed Mother as her consecrated slaves, especially by means of praying as many Rosaries as our states-in-life permit.

Our Lady stands by the tomb of her Divine Son, Who has been buried mystically by the world’s and the conciliarists' contempt for the truths that He has revealed exclusively through His Catholic Church and have been taught infallibly by her without any hint or shadow of change from Pentecost Sunday. We must keep her company at that tomb in our prayers, being ever willing to take on more penances and to renounce our own comfort and convenience and all attachment to human respect in order to help to usher in the day when the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary will make it possible for the enemies of her Divine Son in the modern world and in the conciliar sect to be vanquished by their conversion to the truths of the true Faith, thus permitting the restoration of all things in Christ the King as we honor her as our Immaculate Queen. 

Vivat Christus RexViva Cristo Rey!

Our Lady of Perpetual Help, pray for us.

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.

Saints Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, pray for us.

Appendix

Saint Robert Bellarmine

Sermon Twenty-Eight

On Passion Sunday

Or the Holy Week on the Greatness of the Passion of the Lord

 

Theme

All you who pass by, look and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow. (Lam. 1:12)

Synopsis

The beginning is taken from the greatness of the passion of Christ, which it is fitting to consider continually. The four sources are mentioned, from which that greatness is drawn, the first of which is God's infinite love for us, which also makes the gravest torments light, and this is proved by the example of the martyrs, especially of St. Ignatius. The second source takes its origin from the first, because he felt he was abandoned in his passion by all consolation, which was prefigured long ago in the book of Leviticus by the annual offering of two goats. The third source is what he suffered in the excellent body, with which he was endowed. The fourth, that he endured every kind of torment. Then nine main kinds of the passion of Christ are expressed graphically, and are as it were represented. The first kind is the sadness and trembling of Christ on the Mount of Olives, because he was surrounded on all sides by every difficulty, the cause of which was all the torments he knew he had to undergo, having present before his eyes all the sins of all men, the ingratitude of men, and the immense sorrow caused therefrom to his virgin mother.

In the second part, after making an excuse for his prolixity, he lists another five results of the passion of Christ. Therefore the second is that, instead of assistance from a man whom he had raised to the highest dignity, he was sold to his enemies for a paltry sum; there the prostitutes of Judah are proved to be worse, Third, that all the lashes were unleashed by the cruelty of the Jews and Gentiles, since their hearts were blinded and hardened by the devil, who suggested to them unusual kinds of torments; there fornicators are proved to be worse than Judas. The fourth is, the horrible scouring, which is the punishment of the vilest of men; this is worth pious meditation. The fifth is the crowning with thorns. The sixth is the carrying of the cross to the mount of Calvary, where we are taught how to carry our cross, that is, how we should follow Christ by suffering tribulations.

In the third part, after examining the mysteries of his death on Calvary, he goes on to the three remaining kinds of the passion; the seventh of these is the crucifixion itself, where first of all the cruel denuding of Christ is expressed, and then the crucifixion in its details. The eighth is the presence of his beloved mother, where the result of the passion both of them are explained. The ninth and last aspect of the passion of Christ is the mockery of the bystanders and drinking gall; there it is proved that on the cross all the senses of Christ suffered. The blood stained cloak of Joseph, who was sold by his brothers, was given to his father, and it is said to have been a figure of the body of Christ, and then it is shown how our sins contributed to his suffering on the cross. Next comes a grave exhortation to practice charity and gratitude, and to confess venial and mortal sins. Finally, the epilogue shows how much greater the punishment of hell is than the suffering of Christ and how certainly it threatens sinners.

The severity of the punishments of the Lord was so great, my dear listeners, that it surpassed the powers of the human and angelic mind, and only Christ, who endured it, and only God, who arranged it for our salvation, can really understand how great its vileness and bitterness were. Indeed the split rocks and open tombs, and the torn veil of the temple, and the sun covered with darkness, and finally the whole world signified with terrifying and until that time unknown prodigies that it had not known such wickedness previously. And there is no doubt also that the angels of peace, according to the prophet weep out of love, and cover their faces with their wings, when the ministers of iniquity attack the Lord of majesty with shameless deeds and insults. Nevertheless, the Son of God appeals to the Father alone, as the only one who knows fully the magnitude of the situation; You know, he said, my reproach, and my shame and my dishonor. For only the Father fully understood what Christ his Son was suffering, because only he knew the infinite sublimity and majesty of the same Christ, and what great reverence and obedience was owed to him by all created things, and especially by men. Therefore only you he said, have known my reproach and my shame because you alone know my dignity. But although that is the case, and although the magnitude of the Lord's passion surpasses all created understanding, still the Lord exhorts us to try as much as we can to understand the vehemence of those sorrows and sufferings: O all you, he said, who pass by, who complete the course of human life, who do not cling to the mire of earthly passion, but hasten with wings of desire to the heavenly Jerusalem with eager steps: You, I say, do not simply listen, but look and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow. Therefore on this day, both that we may give due and just thanks to Christ, and suffer with Christ our head as his true and live members, and that we may arm ourselves for the endurance of labors, and that we may follow the footsteps of the Lord bravely, we will speak, with the assistance of the Lord, about the magnitude and severity of the Lord's passion. But so that we may explain such a serious and useful matter in some order, and whatever we have said you will be able easily not only to understand but also to commit to memory, we will open up four as it were sources of founts, from which the magnitude and vehemence of the Lord's passion may flow like a swift river, so that we may draw out abundant water, according to the prophecy of Isaiah,  from the wells of salvation.

The first fount, which was the origin and beginning of the other founts, and rightly can be called the found of founts, is the infinite love, which burns perpetually in the heart of the Lord as in its own proper furnace. The Lord desired with this excellent was both to free the human race, and to satisfy divine justice fully and perfect. He desired in this way to cure many wounds, so that no traces, no signs would be left; and at the same time so to remove those great crimes against the wounded majesty, that from then on no reason for hostility and hatred between us and God would remain. He knew that the more he would suffer, the better he would be able to bring his works to their conclusion; at the same time, aware of his own powers and fortitude, he knew that he could carry on his strong shoulders any heavy weight or burden whatsoever. Therefore the result was that without measure he burdened himself with the weight of sorrows and labors. Give me the greatest power with the greatest wisdom, and the greatest power and greatest wisdom with the greatest love, and then comprehend, if you can, what will glow from that. The most common little men, when in their hearts love begins to burn and reign, what I ask you, do they think about? What do they prepare themselves for? What do they strive for? Certainly sometimes they so seem to glow that they want to do and suffer unlimited and huge things for those whom they love. When the patriarch Jacob served seven years for Rachel, and still had to serve another seven, that time did not seem to him to be fourteen years, but only the length of a few days, because of the love he had for her. But what the impure, unchaste lovers, like Jacob, always did for their mistresses, is known to everyone. But as I omit speaking about the lovers of women and other filth, consider the holy men, fiercely burning with the divine beauty, like the Apostle Paul, like the martyr Ignatius, and also St. Francis. All of them were so taken with love, and in a certain sense were rapt outside themselves by love that they sought martyrdom, blows, crosses, ignominies in the same was as merchants seek gold and gems and precious stones. Simple martyrdoms, and simple crosses, and simple death for the Lord were not enough for them, but they desired them again and again. Listen to what the blessed martyr Ignatius said in his letter to the Romans: Pardon me [in this]: I know what is for my benefit. Now I begin to be a disciple . . .Let fire and the cross; let the crowds of wild beasts; let tearings, breakings, and dislocations of bones; let cutting of members, let shatterings of the whole body; and let all the dreadful torments of the devil come upon me: only let me attain to Jesus Christ. All the pleasures of the world, and all the kingdoms of this earth, shall profit me nothing. It is better for me to die in behalf of Jesus Christ, than to reign over all the ends of the earth.

In the next place, who ever with such affection and such eagerness asked his friends that they should free him from an imminent violent death, as with such affection and eagerness the same glorious Ignatius asked the Romans that they should not try to stop his passion and death? Therefore those ardent lovers of God conceived in their heart the great things they desired to suffer for the Lord; but in the meantime they suffered lesser things, which did not respond to the power of their love. They desired to suffer immeasurable things, but they could not, and therefore God did not allow them to be tempted beyond their strength; but with the temptation he provided the way of escape that they might be able to endure it. But who does not know that the Lord Christ, the chief of martyrs and the singular teacher of patience, was aflame with much more intense love than any saint ever had? For love in Christ, as in a fountain, was as in a small brook in the other saints. For, from his fullness we have all received. Therefore he did not wish, he did not desire, but he burned with a passionate love to suffer for us; as a hart longs for flowing streams, so he longed for the chalice of his passion, as he said in these words: I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. And these:  I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how I am constrained until it is accomplished! What? It is this, that if to this infinite will to suffer, we add also the greatest power of suffering, what mass of suffering will be accomplished? Indeed, dear brethren, this one argument, if it is carefully and diligently considered alone suffices that a man will be carried away outside himself, and he will experience amazement and ecstasy of the mind; and then finally he will begin to understand what the Lord means when he says: Look and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow.

Another source from which the vehemence of the Lord's passion was born is this – that the Lord willed to endure the fiercest punishments without any kind of consolation. This is really the second source from the first source, as a stream flows from a fountain, without any hesitation. For the sovereign charity, which willed that Christ should suffer the greatest sorrows, the same, I say, blocked all the doors, by which any kind of consolation, either from heaven or from earth, could enter into his heart. Therefore, not only by his disciples, friends and relatives, but also by his own Father he was so abandoned and deserted that the man Christ alone would struggle with his great sorrows and sufferings. Therefore we have these words: I am a man who has no strength, like one forsaken among the dead. And, I sink in the deep mire, where there is no foothold. And, My God, my God look at me, why have you forsaken me? In the Old Testament an illustrious figure preceded this matter. For what did those two goats in Leviticus 16 signify, which were offered to the Lord for the sin of the people, and of which one was killed and the other was sent off into the wilderness, unless it was that great and divine sacrifice by which the God-ma, Jesus Christ, was offered to the Lord for the sins of the whole world? For as one of the goats was killed and the other was sent into solitude, so in Christ one of his natures, namely, only the human was crucified; however, the other divine nature in a certain sense withdrew, and left its partner alone in the sufferings and torments. For although, in what pertains to the hypostatic union, the Word of God never left the human nature which he had once assumed, still in what pertains to the consolation, which he could have brought to the suffering human nature, and with regard to the mitigation and moderation of those unbearable sorrows, he completely abandoned it. Hence, the holy martyrs in the midst of great suffering sang, glorified God, exulted: but why was the Lord, who gave that strength and constancy to the martyrs, so horrified because of him imminent passion, why did he so tremble and even sweat blood? Certainly it was for no other reason than that for the martyrs the Lord mixed the chalice of suffering with the honey of heavenly sweetness, and often a very sweet liquid filled a large part of the chalice, so that they could truly say with the prophet: When the cares of my heart are many, your consolations cheer my soul. And with the Apostle Paul: I am filled with comfort. With all our affliction, I am overjoyed. But the Lord, as we said before, closed all the doors for himself, through which consolation could have been brought to him. He did that for no other reason than that he might abundantly redeem us, who are so miserable and ungrateful. Consider now with me, what it means to drink a chalice of such suffering, full of gall, full of absinthe, full of foul liquids, without any moderation of sweetness? Consider this, how would you carry the cross, if you have a grave illness and you have no one to console you; if all abandon you, even your friends, even parents and wife, and even your children turn their back on you, and you would see greater compassion show to a dog lying wounded on the street, than to you? Rightly, therefore, such a one would say, look and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow.

Then the third source, which increased the passion of the Lord in a special way, was the delicateness and nobility of the body of the Lord. Who does not know how much difference there is between a hard and rustic farmer, whose body is accustomed to hard work, burned by the heat of the sun, often pounded by the rain, snow, and wind, and has put on as it were the solidity and hardness of the ground, and a noble and delicate youth who has been raised up in luxury? Would not some heavy blows, which the rustic would hardly feel, almost kill the delicate youth? Now the Lord Christ was not that youth raised in luxury, because he had chosen a mother lacking in earthly things, but rich in faith and in love and in the other virtues; nevertheless he had a body that was delicate, beautiful, noble, well formed and constituted, such as it rightly should have been, because it was formed and produced by the power of the Holy Spirit from the pure blood of the virgin. Therefore those fierce punishments, which would have affected any other body, no matter how hard, how solid, how rustic with the greatest sufferings, what, I ask, can we imagine took place in that body, which was the best of all bodies? Therefore could not the Lord deservedly and rightly say, look and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow?

Now we will examine the fourth source. How great fierceness was of the tortures of the Lord can easily be known from the fact that he suffered not just one kind of torment, but a certain common and general punishment, which comprehends as it were in the full sense all punishments. If you consider all those he suffered, you will find that all types of men, every sex, every age, every condition, Jews and Gentiles, masters and slaves, men and women, friends and enemies in a certain sense act together, and conspire in the killing and destruction of the Lord. If you consider the things someone can suffer you will see that there is absolutely nothing that a person could suffer, and which the Lord did not suffer. Indeed his loving mother was pierced with a sword of sorrow, his disciples and friends fled his clothes were torn from him, his dignity was injured, and his mind was overcome with grief. What shall I say about his body? Did not each of his limbs and each of his senses have its own tormentor? And so that you may understand or rather see more clearly than the light of the sun, that there was not a simple destruction or one kind of torment, by which the Lord was killed, but there was a certain bitter and fierce composition of innumerable sufferings; each one of them singly by themselves, if they are carefully considered, were abundantly sufficient to crush the Lord Christ with incredible sorrow and shame. I will list briefly the nine principal kinds of punishments, which, beside many other, that one passion of the Lord comprehends in itself.

Therefore the first kind of sorrow was that inner conflict, that great sadness, that anxiety of the heart, that cloud of mourning which so invaded and weighed down the heart of the Lord that it placed him as it were in the extreme agony of death. Not that alone, but it also brought it about that the Lord, who as often as he spent the night alone in a remote place, then so feared that he would be asked by his disciples not to leave them alone; so he said remain here and watch with me. And not only just that, but it also brought it about that a sweat of blood burst forth from his whole body, and so abundantly that from his face and garments it fell on the ground and moistened it. This event was so rare that in no century has anything newer or more monstrous or more extraordinary ever happened. But we will not be greatly astonished, dear listeners, if we understand what a just reason the Lord had for this internal sorrow. Indeed that blessed soul wanted to be scourged and crucified, and to taste gall and vinegar before the body actually suffered these things. Therefore the soul was fastened to an invisible cross, which had its own four arms and four invisible nails, which were four bitter kinds of thoughts. For first all the torments came to mind, which he was going to suffer that night and on the following day and which were going to strike his body in a certain order, one after the other at different hours, and all of them together like a line of battle flooded the mind of the Lord. And why is it surprising if such an army of sorrows, so serious, so pitiless, so long-lasting could fill that body with grief and sadness? Especially since the Lord knew the vehemence of the various sorrows, and he knew for certain that none of them would be taken away or diminished; but that whole chalice to the last drop, to the dregs, as Scripture says (Is. 51:17), had to be drunk by him. Then all sins came to his mind, both past, present and future, which ever were either committed by men against God, or would be committed. And he saw them so much in detail, so clearly, that all my sins and all yours, and all those individually of each and every man, were present to him. Therefore did he who with such ardor and zeal loved the honor of the Father, and was so vehemently attacked by critics, see such an innumerable multitude of evil deeds and abominable, filthy and execrable crimes that cry to heaven and offend the honor and majesty of God? Certainly the sins of one man could be sufficient that they would torment the Lord more than the punishment of the cross. What therefore would the sins of the whole world do? There is not intelligence, either human or angelic that can comprehend the force of this sorrow.

In the third place, that huge ingratitude came to mind, first of the Jews, then of many Christians, who were going to tread on his precious blood: and at the same time he saw both the horrible punishment by which after a few years the Jews were going to suffer, and the intolerable punishments of hell, which were being prepared for such a great multitude not only of Jews and pagans, but also of Christians. All of this vehemently afflicted his innocent heart which loves us so much. If thus a father or mother grieves over the death of a son, so that in no way can they find any consolation, how much more credible it is that the Lord Christ grieved over the loss of so many thousands of men, whom he loved much more ardently than a mother does her children, and for whom he was prepared not only to die a thousand times for all, but also for each one? Finally, he thought about that sharp sword, which pierced the heart of his loving mother; who can doubt that this thought broke and tore to pieces the heart of the Lord? After God the Father the Lord loved no one as much as he loved his excellent and very holy mother. Therefore, since he knew with what great vehemence of sorrow that holy and innocent heart should be honored, certainly the sword of maternal sorrow predicted by Simeon pierced the heart of the Son before it did the mother, and it did not reach the heart of the mother except by going through the heart of the Son. Therefore this is the interior cross, these are the nails, this is the lance that force the bloody sweat from the body of the Lord. Just as this sweat was the most singular and most horrible of all sweats, so it was a sign of unheard of sorrows and torments, and of such a kind that no other punishments could be compared to them.

Consider with me that the Lord Jesus, in his agony in the garden of Gethsemane, was like another Isaac being offered in sacrifice; and in whatever direction he turned the eyes of his mind he saw that everything was filled with crosses, and from all sides these voices rang in his ears: Away with him, away with him, crucify him! If he looked at his disciples, he saw their hearts full of fear and sadness: if he looked at the Jews, he saw that they desired nothing other than his death, and that they were already planning with Judas, the betrayer, how to capture him. If he thought of the holy fathers resting in the bosom of Abraham, he saw that they were pleading for his death; finally, if he raised his eyes to heaven, he saw God the Father as another one with a bare sword prepared to sacrifice him; and at the same time he understood that now one of the angels would not come to stop his being killed, as he came formerly to prevent the death of Isaac, and that now a ram was not to be found, who could be offered as a holocaust in his place, Hence the bloody sweat flowed so abundantly; and what, I ask, will be the nature of the tortures that will follow, when in the beginning of his passion he is already constituted in the agony of death? What will he feel then, when he really suffers all those torments, when the consideration of them alone causes his bloody sweat?  Certainly in this place when you being to think about these things, if your heart is not moved and tears do not come to your eyes when you think about the bloody sweat coming from the Lord's body, you should know that you have a heart of stone and not a heart of flesh. For it you cannot weep from love and compassion, why will you not weep at least because of the multitude of your sins, since the thought of them alone forced the Lord to sweat his blood? The swords of the impious did not strike the Lord's body in the garden: there were no scourges or thorns or nails, which brought forth that blood, but your sins – they were the thorns that cruelly penetrated the Lord's head; they were that heavy load that bore down on the Lord, and that he could not carry without sweat. O with what a great price, Lord Jesus, you willed to purchase the remedy for my soul! O my true Adam, who not because of you sins, but mine, having been driven from paradise, by the sweat of your brow you gain the bread, by which you have decreed to nourish and sustain me. Therefore may heaven bless you and may the earth and every one of your creatures praise you and glorify you forever.

PART TWO

Today's sermon will be somewhat longer than the others usually are; therefore now we will take a short break before we arrive at the end. But it should not be annoying for us to suffer some small thing, while we are hearing a sermon on the passion. And if the Lord hung on the cross for three whole hours in incredible pain, in order there to gain salvation for us, why should it seem troublesome to us to listen to a sermon for one brief hour for our salvation and the glory of God? Now as we return to our theme, we said that there are nine kinds of suffering contained in the passion of the Lord; but we have already briefly explained one of them, and now the rest will be not so much explained as enumerated. For it they had to be explained, none hours would not be enough for us to do it.

Therefore the Lord suffered another very grave torment when he saw that he was old, like a slave, for a sum of silver. It is a great misfortune, when what has been born noble and free, still is sold for a sum of money, like cattle and beasts of burden. But how great would it be, if he is sold not only by friends, but is sold to cruel enemies, who buy him for no other reason than that they want to crucify him? The Lord Christ was sold and he was sold by the man whom he had placed in the highest grade of honor and dignity; for there is nothing on earth greater than the apostolic dignity. And he was sold to very cruel merchants, who were thirsting for nothing but his blood. But at what price was he bought? The cheapness of the price greatly increases the magnitude of the injury. Tell us, Judas, you wicked merchant, for what price did you sell Christ? For thirty denarii. Do you esteem your Lord at such a low price? Could you not sell a cow or a horse in the marketplace at a better price? Believe me, the Lord Christ does not value you at such a low price. O the price of man! O what a low price for God! God was sold for thirty denarii, and man is bought with the blood of God. And you fornicator, adulterer, miser –how much do you think the Lord is worth? For how much will you sell him? What if I were to show you that you are selling Christ as a lower price than Judas sold him? Judas sold Christ for thirty denarii; it is a low price, but still the price contains something good –silver. But at what price do you sell him? You do it for one fornication, for one brief pleasure, which often many labors and expenses precede, and sorrow and bitterness always follow. Therefore are not thirty pieces of silver better, which do hard to no one and can provide much benefit if a person uses them well, than one act of fornication, which drains your wallet, weakens your body, kills the soul and only can do harm, and no one can make good use of it? Therefore if Judas for eternity is suffering just and deserved punishments for this wicked sale, what will happen to you? What house will receive you except hell itself? And if the Lord in the garden, while considering the heat of those flames, out of compassion sweat blood, what will you suffer, whose members those flames will feed on for eternity? Now let us move on to the other points.

The third suffering, or rather the fount of his many sufferings was what was permitted to the devil that night, so that through his ministers, Jews and Gentiles, he might inflict on Christ every kind of cruelty. That that is true can be known both from what the Lord says in Luke: This is your hour, and the power of darkness, and also that this was the due punishment for our sins, and the Lord wanted to undergo it, so that by it he might vindicate us. In times past God gave the devil power over the body of holy Job, but provided that he spared his life; but the body of the Lord without any exception of life or death was handed over to the power of the devil: from this were born new and previously never heard kinds of punishments by which that cruel beast tormented the Lord through his ministers: both in order to satisfy his hatred and anger, and to force that holy soul to fall into some kind of impatience, if at all possible. Hence there were those blows and slaps, with which they struck the Lord, as if he were a common slave; hence the spitting, that was done in a blasphemous way on the face of the Lord; also the garments, both white and purple, by which the Lord was clothed like a fool and a madman; hence the occasions, the ridicule, the ironic words, the feigned bows by which they mocked the Lord of glory as if her were a ridiculous king and prince of buffoons; hence finally it happened that with great ignominy they led the Lord bound, surrounded by lictors and armed soldiers, like a convicted thief through the public streets and squares. And whose work was it, I ask you, if it was not that of the devil, namely, the amazing contempt for the Son of God, when he was compared with the criminal Barabbas, and was considered more useless and more unworthy of life that that public assassin? What words can be found to explain such an outrageous crime? Who would believe that the author of life and the parent of the human race came down to earth, and in the city where he had cured so many sick persons, restored sight to so many blind persons, hearing to so many deaf persons, walking to so many lame, life to so many dead, whom all miserable and suffering people appealed to, and from whom all received the cure of all their maladies, that  he should be compared with a criminal man, and considered to be less useful to the state, less fitting for the city, and less to be preserved and retained, that the man who even in the opinion of parricides was a danger and threat to men? Who could so tear away the mind from those judges, and counsel from those men, and pour such darkness into their hearts that for light they would choose darkness, and for God an assassin, unless it was the prince of darkness? Think therefore, and admire, to what degree of humility that majesty descended for you, when he did not refuse to commit his body to the power of devils, which without doubt is the greatest of all evils Now we will move on to other points.

The fourth punishment was the cruel scourging, which the Lord received in the courtyard from the Roman executioners. This was so violent that it exceeded all the boundaries of customs and laws, so that Pilate thought that it would sufficiently satisfy the rage and madness of the Jews; and certainly it would have suffice, unless they had hearts of stone filled with an evil demon. This in one of the great wonders, dear listeners, and new spectacles, which the world would ever see or hear. Who could ever imagine that the shoulders of God would be punished with lashes? Holy David said Because you have made the Lord your refuge . . .no evil should befall you, no scourge come near your tent. For what is more unworthy of the sublimity and majesty of God, than the humiliation and ignominy of flagellation? This is not the kind of punishment given to good men, but it is for buffoons, for thieves, for vile slaves, and for those who are of low esteem. In Roman times it was so vile to be beaten with rods that no Roman, no matter how humble and poor, could be treated with this kind of punishment. But now the Lord of heaven, the creator of the world, the honor of men, the glory of angels, the wisdom and power of God the Father will be subjected to flogging? Indeed I believe that all the choirs of angels were gathered together for this spectacle, and shocked and stunned, when they saw the abyss of the goodness and humility of the Son of God, they filled the air with their voices and praises. For if they did that on the day of his birth, when they saw nothing but swaddling clothes and a manger, what were they now going to do when the also saw the whipping and the column? Neither the time nor my powers allow me to explain this mystery. But I beseech all of you, dear listeners, that no one will return home without carefully thinking about this powerful mystery. For what more can we do for the Lord than to meditate on his sorrows and sufferings? Therefore in your mind and thoughts enter into the courtyard of Pilate, and bring with you many tears: for certainly they are necessary to deplore what you will see there. And first look at how Pilate, in order to satisfy the raging people, commands that the Lord be dragged forth, stripped, bound and beaten with rods. Look at how those savage and cruel executioners without any sign of humanity proceed to carry out the commands. Look at how alone and how stripped, not only of his clothes, but also of any help you Lord was as he stood there among so many wicked and devil-filled guards; there he had no protector, no advocate, no one who could say a word in defense of the Lord. Indeed there was no eye to look upon him with mercy. Finally, look at how those soldiers, devoid of all humanity, begin violently to scourge his virginal and naked body, which was firmly tied to a column; they punished him with malicious blows and wounds from the bottom of his feet to the top of his heard. But the Lord amidst so many sorrows and blows did not threaten with words or signs, but he endured all of them as well merited with humility and patience. O what incredible patience! O what unusual crime! O what a hard heart we have, if we are not moved by this spectacle!

Now we will consider the fifth kind of punishment and torture, which has no less ignominy and shame, than it has of sorrow and torment, God out, therefore, Christian souls after those severe scourges, and look at King Solomon, with the crown with which his mother crowned him: look at how the cruel executioners, and truly the ministers not of men but of demons, as if the previous blows, and the immediately following death and such an abundance of spilled blood were not enough, they fashioned a crown of thorns, and while pretending to adore him they pressed it onto his head, so that the wounds of the thorns would force out the blood, which the blows and scourges had spared. Who ever saw, or heard about, or read about a crown of this kind? Who ever thought up such a cruel device whereby men are tortured and mocked? Certainly Pilate did not order this; the customs and laws of the Romans did not have anything like this and it was not a custom among the Jews. Has human cruelty come to this point, that to afflict the savior of the world with unjust punishments the ole torments did not suffice, but new ones had to be invented? This work of art, O devil, is yours. You are king over all the children of pride, you wanted to be seen as the king of glory, a ridiculous king, you fashioned the crown of thorns in the workshop of hell. But you will obtain nothing, your raging cruelty will accomplish nothing. For those thorns will make your eyes blind, and they will make a medicine for us, and after three days they will be changed by Christ into rays of bright light.

Then the sixth cruel punishment was the carrying of the cross. It was customary for those who were condemned to death that their eyes were covered before, so that they would not see the instrument which was used to kill them. But here every form of humanity is excluded; and not only did they not cover the Lord's eyes, so he could not see the cross, but they also put the cross itself on his shoulders, so that his heart and eyes would be fixed on the cross and tormented even before his body, The kind Lord did not refuse that heavy burden, which our sins made heavier than all iron and lead; indeed it was embraced with great eagerness, as if it were something sought and desired for a long time. For although it was very, still it seemed light to him because of his great love. Therefore although exhausted, weak, although covered with wounds, nevertheless with a ready and willing heart he subjected his neck to the heavy yoke, which his love for our salvation imposed on him: he took up the cross, and so he began his journey groaning, and doing penance for our sins, and everywhere he marked the road with his blood, so that if there were those who, having taken up their cross on their shoulders, wanted to follow in his footsteps, they would not wander from the right road. Also, Father and Son in a certain way divided up the burden between themselves: the Son like another Isaac brought the wood and the victim; the Father like another Abraham brought the fire and word. For these two are the fire and the word, the fire of love for our salvation and the sword of divine justice offered up the Son of God in a holocaust. O how happy we would be, if we knew how to carry our cross, and to follow Christ on this journey. Be consoled, be consoled all you who bear the cross of tribulations and hardships is this world. Count it all joy, brethren, when you meet various trial. Take the yoke of the Lord upon you . . .and you will find rest for your souls. The Lord Christ, when he needed the greatest consolation and refreshment, then embraced the cross place on him with eagerness and with outstretched arms of charity. O if we knew how to imitate his example, and in the misfortunes we experience in the worked, we would not seek consolation form the world, if we would patiently and freely embrace the cross of the Lord! How much rest we would find there, how much peace, how much sweetness! What else can all calamities do to us, except that we imitate Christ? In times past the cross was something filled with horror and fear, but now, since God thought so much of it that he wanted to carry it on his shoulders, certainly it can be only a matter of honor and splendor.

Two persons, whom God loved more ardently than other, and preferred to all other things, were Christ and Mary. But in what, I ask you, are those signs of special love shown? Is it not in the fact that he imposed on those two the heaviest crosses of all? As there never was, and never will be among men someone better than Christ, not among women better than Mary, so there was not, and there will not be anyone here on earth more afflicted and harassed than Christ and Mary. But it should not move you and deter you from carrying your cross that you are perhaps suffering because of your sins. For a salutary cross. And if you suffer because of your sins, you are carrying the cross of the good thief; but if you are innocent, rejoice more. For you are imitating Jesus and Mary better and more perfectly. But woe to those, woe to those who honor a dead cross, and blaspheme the living cross, and are the like the Jews who persecuted the living prophets, and built magnificent tombs for the dead ones. For what else is it to honor and praise the cross, and in the meantime to fell from poverty and ignominy and tribulation and to curse them, than to honor a dead cross and blaspheme a living one? Those who have not carried their cross with Christ will not have a part with Christ; and they will not be able to be companions of consolation and of contemplations, who were not also companion of tribulations and sufferings; and those who were ashamed of the cross of Christ on earth, Christ will be ashamed of them in heaven in the sight of the angels.

PART THREE

Now we have arrived, dear hearers, at the holy top of the mount of Calvary, and so at the ultimate peak of the mysteries of human liberation. O how awesome this place is! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven. Here it seems to me that I see the sublime ladder, which in time past the patriarch Jacob saw, which joins together heaven and earth. Or rather, this is paradise and a place of delights. For what is the meaning of the beautiful tree growing in the middle of this garden, on which hangs the fruit of life? Whatever it is, here is the house of prayer, and the temple, and the altar at which many kindnesses are conferred on those who approach it. Therefore, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters. For this is that mystical rock from which water flows profusely. If you desire peace and friendship with Christ, here is the stone which Jacob set up as a pillar and he poured oil on it. If you need wine to cure your wounds, here is the grape brought from the promised lad, carefully trodden in the wine press of the cross, finally, here is the jar of oil, with which the widow mentioned by Elisha, namely the Church of Christ, easily discharged all her debts; for although it seems to be a small jar, nevertheless as long as the jars, which are filled, are not lacking, the precious liquid will never cease to flow. Therefore let us ascend the stained mountain of the Lord, the mountain on which the Lord is please, not only to dwell, to suffer and to die on it.

Therefore the seventh punishment was the crucifixion itself, which is a type of death not less shameful and infamous, than it is severe and long-lasting. And first of all look with the eyes of your mind at how the rough executioners again proceed to strip the Lord of all his garments, and with what great patience and gentleness he does not resist them, and he utters not one word of complaint about the injury inflicted by them. And this is for no other reason than so that he can clothe us, who have lost the garment of uprightness and innocence, with his own nakedness. O what a great light of charity and goodness would enlighten the eyes of your mind, if you began to think that he, who clothed heaven with cloud and earth with flowers, is now despoiled not only of his clothes, but also in a certain sense of his skin. Indeed, during the whole time of his life the Lord professed his love of poverty and want, but never more than in his death. For then, he was so poor that he did not have anything to cover himself with, and as he came naked into this world, so he wanted to go out of it naked; he tells us clearly that this world did not please him, nor did he desire for himself any of the things in this world, but despised all of them; and he said that they are deceived who think they are following the Lord, and at the same time do not know how to reject and despise earthly things.

Now continue on and consider how those cruel soldiers seize the Lord and stretch him out on the cross; how they grab those holy and divine hands and the splendid feet, worthy to be pressed perpetually with devout kisses, and they pierce them with rough nails driven in by a hammer, and fasten him to the cross. O what a great suffering the Lord endured in that hour, when the nails pierced those delicate hands and splendid feet, in which the sense of pain is very intense and with the hammer ruined the flesh, bones nerves, and whatever else is contained in those parts of the body. Finally, they raise up that dreadful banner, which before lay on the ground, and they let it drop not slowly they allow it to fall into the hole with great force. In that way the holy body raised up in the air trembled; the wounds of the hands and feet were made bigger and they poured out an abundant shower of blood. But this type of death is of such a nature, dear listeners, that those who die in this way do not die quickly, but with the vehemence alone and the long duration they change life into death.

After this came the eighth punishment which by the presence of his holy mother crucified not so much the body of the Lord as it did his heart. For who can explain how the hearts of mother and Son suffered the cross, when those two heavenly lights look at each other? Who can explain what happened, when the Son looked upon the face of his loving mother covered with the bitterness of the passion but her heart pierced with a sword of sorry, and when he saw the mental anxieties that she suffered, and the streams of tears flowing copiously from her eyes, and the groans with expressed the heavy wight of sorrow from the depths of her heart? For if those, who love Christ truly and from the heart, when they contemplate his passion, cannot contain the floods of tears, what can we believe Mary did, who was his mother, and was not contemplating with eyes of her mind the history of the passion, but with the eyes of her body was looking at her Son present before her actually suffering his passion? O how often did she raise her sad eyes to gaze on that divine face and then cast them down, because the tenderness of her heart could not sustain that sight! I for my part think that the tongues of both of them became as it were mute because of too much sorrow, or that they could say nothing or only very little. But the condition of the Son spoke many things to the heart of the Virgin, and so he said to her: Why did you come here, my dove, my love, because your sorrow increases my sorrow, and your sufferings torture me more than my own torments. Return, my dove, return to the ark until the waters of the flood begin to recede; for here you will not find any place where you can rest your foot; for there you will call out with prayer and contemplation, and you will raise yourself above yourself, and you will more easily bear the great force of this storm and tempest. Truly it should not be thought the heart of the mother responded with fewer words to the heart of her Son than he said to her. Why do you give me that command, beloved of my breasts? And how can I retreat from you, unless I retreat from myself, since you are the life of my life and the soul of my soul? But your sorrow has so occupied my heart that I cannot think about anything except it without you. Therefore my soul has been crucified with, and with you, and with you it is necessary to die and to be buried. This, dear listeners, the blessed virgin, although under the cross she suffered an unbearable cross, still she did not flee because of that, nor did she turn her back on it, in order to teach us not to abandon the cross of penance and hardships. Therefore she did not flee, but she persevered; and she did not sit or lie down, but she stood there like a strong and solid column, and a true column of the Church, and a teacher of the Apostles and the future martyrs; and just as Eve, looking at the tree with desire was present at the ruin of our death, so Mary, looking with sorrow at the tree of our life, was present at our liberation.

Now I come to the last, grave, unheard of and incredible punishment. For when the Son of God, while hanging on the cross, suffered extreme and innumerable sorrows and torments, and became as it were a sea of bitterness, and finally had the aspect and appearance that if a dog had the same he would move the hearts of men; still his enemies, crueler than wild beasts and harder than stones, not only were not moved, but they mocked him, and insulted him, and made jokes about him. And it was not just that, but when that holy body was weakened because of too much shedding of blood, and when his tongue, palate and inner organs were dried out, and so the Lord asked for a little water, in order to assuage his thirst and burning heat, those men, deprived of all human feeling, not only refused to give some water, but also they offered him gall and vinegar in place of water. O what intense cruelty! O you men more savage that wild beasts! And what, I ask you, can be heard or thought more cruel, what more inhumane, what more horrible! Certainly although water was denied to that rich feaster, who was being punished in hell, still bitter gall was not given to him to drink; but to the Son of God not only is what he asked for not given, but also his torment and punishment is increased. O sweet Saviour of the human race, who will tell us what you suffered on the cross? Certainly my ins were heavy, and your suffering clearly teaches that, I see you, my king, suspended on the cross, where you have nothing with which you can support your body, except the iron nails, I see the weight of your body dragging you down, and that the wounds in your hands and feet are constantly getting bigger and bigger causing you incredible pain. I see that you are placed in this anguish because of me, so that each member of your body and each sense has its own cross and its own executioner. Your eyes are tormented, not only because they saw your own wounds and your own blood, but also because they saw your holy and innocent mother weeping copiously, and they saw her standing there with her heart pierced with infinite sorrow. Your ears were tormented, because they were listening to those horrible blasphemies, which penetrated heaven, which obscured the Sun, which terrified the angels, which strongly incited the anger and fury of the Lord of Hosts. Your nostrils were tormented because they were in a very smelly place that gave off a strong odor because of the decayed bodies of dead men. Your tongue and palate were tormented because in your intense hunger and thirst they could obtain nothing but gall and vinegar. Also the sense of touch, which exists throughout the body, was also tormented with the whole body. I see that beautiful head, which should be venerated by both angels and men, pierced with sharp thorns; I see those powerful and kind hands which fashioned the heavens, which cured so many sick people, which multiplied the loaves and those splendid feet, which labored so hard on many journey, while they announce peace and salvation to men, these I say, the illustrious hands and the splendid feet were pierced through by nails. I also see the rest of his body dishonored by blows and full of bruises and wounds, so that now truly there is not in him form or comeliness, but he is a man of sorrow acquainted with grief, and he is afflicted with contempt and sorrows, which his enemies desired for him.

The divine Scripture recounts, dear listeners, that once the sons of Jacob removed the clothes from their brother Joseph and sold him for thirty pieces of silver, at the urging of Judah, to Madianite merchants; then they sprinkled his mantle with blood and gave that to his father. They said: See now whether it is your son's robe or not. But he recognized it and responded: It is my son's robe; a wild beast has devoured him. Joseph is without doubt torn to pieces.  What else does that robe of the chaste and innocent Joseph signify but the body of our Lord and Savior? This is that long robe, the robe made with many threads, which the Holy Spirit weaved out of gold and silver threads. The impious synagogue, brothers of the Lord according to the flesh, the seed of Abraham and Jacob, Judas being the leader and author, after having sold the Lord for thirty pieces of silver, tore this robe to pieces and sprinkled it with blood; and if someone should show this torn and disfigured robe in anger to God the Father, so that he might see whether or not it is the robe of his Son, certainly he will respond; It is my son's robe; a wild beast has devoured him. It is true, O Lord, it is true – an evil beast has devoured him, my iniquity, my ride, my disobedience has devoured your son, Joseph. O what a mournful birth! O what a poisonous offspring! Behold, listeners, behold we are giving birth when we are kindled with pride, when we disobey God and the Church, when we commit sin, when we fornicate, when we are intoxicated, we are giving birth to an evil beast, who by his venom extinguishes life itself. O if you only understood how true this is! O if your were to think deeply just once, that it was not so much the weapons of the Romans and the shouts of the Jews, but your sins, your fornications, your usuries, your perjuries, your lies, your crimes that killed the Son of God, and devoured him like a wild beast! O what would you not do, what would you not suffer, rather than give birth to sin, that very poisonous and savage wild beast?

Truly, good Jesus, if we are the ones who put you on the cross, and still for our sake you so freely poured out your life with your blood, what shall we turn to you for everything you have given us? Ask us, Lord, freely ask us and we will not be able to deny you anything: you have wounded our heart with your love. Therefore, Lord, what shall we do? What is your fee?

Do you want to hear, my brothers, what the Lord seeks? I will tell you, and it is truly so, there is no one who does not need faith. The Lord desires nothing, he seeks nothing, he thirst for nothing more than your salvation: this for him is more bitter than all gall namely, that he wants to bring you to heaven and you are falling into hell. The cross was painful, the nails were painful, the wounds were painful, but nothing is more painful to his heart than your perdition. Therefore who of us will be so ungrateful, so pitiless, so cruel that he would offer the bitter gall of sins to the Lord thirsting for the water of our salvation? By the cross of the Lord, and by the Lord hanging on it I prat and beseech you that each person enter into his ow heart and with great devotion and eagerness offer to God a sweet sacrifice, a contrite and humble heart. And let each one say to himself: Behold I have so often offended my Lord, and I have so often fallen and relapsed, and I have never truly acknowledged my sins, as I have never wept for them as I should have, but I have confessed them out of habit and only with external words. Now since I understand the gravity of sin and the magnitude of the passion which our Lord endured, since I see that this matter is very serious (for God did not become man for some paltry reason) and that the punishment is so fierce, now I can, I say, since I see and understand these things, pledge to God that I will begin a new way of life and that I will prepare myself for a true and perfect conversion and repentances, and that I will avoid this disease more than fire, water and serpents. O what a good resolution! O how blessed you will be, if you do this! For in this way you will also refresh the heart of the crucified Lord and I dare to promise you in the name of the Christ that today you will be with him in paradise: today, indeed at this very hour, in this moment you will feel yourself brought forth from hell, and your will begin to breathe in the light of the freedom of the children of God, provided that today you begin truly to hate your sins, and your former fornications and impure pleasures no longer pleasing to you.

But if all these things do not more you, if the flame of love, if the fire of charity, which Christ clearly showed to you today, and which splits stones, cannot break and soften your heart, at least may those formidable words move you, which the Lord spoke in his passion and which he wanted to fix deeply in our hearts, when he says: Do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves. For if they do this when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry? O what a formidable and incredible sentence that would be, unless it was pronounced by Truth itself! If they do this when the wood is green, he said, what will happen when it is dry? That is, if in me, since I am righteous, holy and innocent, and since I am always blooming with the moisture of grace, still because of sins of others the fire of passion has been so inflamed, and my heavenly Father, in order to show his implacable hatred for sin, has so reduced me, his natural and only son, to infirmity because of the sins of others so that he made me a man of sorrows and the least of men, who can think what sinful men will suffer because of their own crimes and sins?

We have heard about the passion of the Lord, and we are frightened, and we thought that nothing worse could be found. Therefore, what will be the nature of the pains of hell, which Truth itself says will be much greater and more fierce? And truly it will be so. But when nothing more is added but eternity, does not this suffice to greatly increase that punishment? The Lord hung for three hours on the cross, and we are all amazed, and rightly amazed, and rightly we are afraid and frightened. Therefore what will you do in the midst of much greater punishments, not for three hours, not for three years, not for three centuries, not for three thousand centuries, but without any end, and it will last as long as God lives and reigns? And do not allow yourself to be persuaded by the devil that the Lord is gentle and merciful and that he will in no way condemn you. What! Will you be so stupid that you allow yourself to be persuaded on this point – that you who are immersed in innumerable sins will not be condemned? Come here and touch the truth with your hands: did he spare his own Son, when ye found in him not his own sins, but our sins? You have heard today, how severely he treated his own Son, Therefore if he did not spare his own Son, and if he did this in the green wood, how will he treat you, dry wood prepared for the fire, unless you repent immediately and irrigated with fountains of tears, you begin to grow green and bloom, how, I say, will he spare you? Therefore this is the end of our sermon today, so that with true and serious repentance and a firm proposal to lead a better life we refresh the heart of the crucified Lord, who is blessed forever. Amen. (Saint Robert Bellarmine, Sermon Twenty-eight: On Passion Sunday or the Holy Week on the Greatness of the Passion of the Lord. As found in Sermons of St. Robert Bellarmine, S.J., Part I: From Advent to Passion Sunday, pp. 306-321.Translated from the Latin by Father Kenneth Baker, S.J.)