Do you think that you have sufferings from family members or associates?

The saint whose feast is celebrated today, Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, was favored with visions of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ in her childhood, and he believed this to have been a normal experience that any child might have. Even as a child, therefore, this favored child of Our Lord's was blessed with tremendous sufferings from a pair of domineering paternal aunts, who persecuted her and her mother after her father's death. This early childhood suffering, which was accompanied by a physical affliction that left her bedridden for four years, was just a preparation for the suffering that Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque endured to spread public devotion to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus at the specific request of Our Lord Himself.

The hearts of men had grown cold because of Jansenism when Our Lord revealed the secrets of His Most Sacred Heart to Sister Margaret Mary Alacoque in the Visitation Convent in Paray le Monial, France, between December of 1673 and June of 1685. We cannot let our own love for the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus grow cold in our hearts. We must forgive as we are forgiven, and we must remember the high price of infidelity that France paid for the refusal of King Louis XIV to consecrate the whole of France, and not just Paris, to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus (as is related in an appendix to this article).

A new article is being written. Part of its initial text was sent out to be vetted. Work will continue today. Thank you.

Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, an intimate of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus and a faithful client of Our Lady through her Most Holy Rosary, pray for us.

Tooday is the Feast of the Divine Maternity of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

The Council of Ephesus (431 A.D.) declared Our Lady to be the Mother of God. This is a doctrine that that the devil particularly hates, which is why he has raised up all manner of Protestant sects to attack it with a fury, requiring us to defend the doctrine of the Divine Maternity of Our Lady with all of the graces that she sees fit to send us through her loving hands as the Mediatrix of All Graces.

As Father Benedict Baur, O.S.B., explained in The Light of the World, Volume II:

"Fifteen hundred years have passed since Nestorius, a Patriarch of Constantinople, launched the heresy which taught that the person of Christ was different from the person of the Son of God. Nestorius asserted that Mary did not conceive nor bring forth the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, but only the man Christ. According to his teaching she was not the Mother of God, not a God-bearer, but only the mother of a mere man, in whom God dwelt only as in a temple.

A few years later after the beginning of the Nestorian heresy, a council was assembled at Ephesus (431 A.D.), which proclaimed that Mary had given birth to Jesus, who was, at one and the same time, God and man, having two natures but one person. God does not live in Him merely as in a temple, but the man Jesus is at the same time God. Mary is mother, not only of the humanity of Christ, but of the Son of God also. She is the Mother of God. The people of Ephesus awaited the decision of the council hall were opened and the decision was made known, the people greeted the Fathers with great rejoicing and accompanied them to their dwellings with flaming torches, crying out: 'Mary is the bearer of God; Mary is the Mother of God.' 

Today, fifteen hundred years later, we make the same joyful confession. "Mary is the mother of Jesus, the Son of God. The Gospel recounts an incident of His childhood during which He first refers to His divine origin. When Jesus was twelve years old, Joseph and Mary went to Jerusalem to offer sacrifice. 'When they returned, the child Jesus remained in Jerusalem, and His parents knew it not.' They believed Him to be in the company of relatives. But they were mistaken. After a long and anxious search they found Him in the Temple, sitting among the doctors of the law. 'And His mother said to Him: Son, why hast Thou done to so us? Behold Thy father and I have sought Thee sorrowing.' This rebuke shows the concern of a mother who has borne suffering with love. But Jesus meekly answers: 'Did you not know that I must be about My Father's business?' He refers to His Heavenly Father, for He is Son of God. He was conceived, not by the power of man, but by the power of God (Offertory). When the angel had first brought the message to Mary, she had answered: Behold the handmaid of Lord; be it done unto me according to thy word" (Luke 1: 38). And at her word, the only-begotten Son of God was made flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mother. We pray tribute to this mystery at the Communion, when we confess, 'Blessed is the womb of the Virgin Mary, which bore the Son of the eternal Father.' Blessed art thou, O holy Mother of God, who wert united to the Son of God in a most intimate union when thou didst bear Him in thy womb. "Mary provided the body for the Son of God, and he in return Christ filled the soul of Mary with the fullness of His spirit. Mary became wholly absorbed in Him and became like Him. She became united to Him in a most intimate union. 'Alleluia, alleluia. Virgin Mother of God, He whom the whole world cannot contain, enclosed Himself in thy womb, being made man, Alleluia.' 'Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.' " 'As the vine, I have brought forth a pleasant odor, and my flowers are the fruit of honor and riches' (Epistle). The blossoms on this vine are the precious virtues of faith and humility which the Virgin exhibited when she received the message of the angel. She was resolute in her attachment to her virginity: "I know not man" (Luke 1: 34). Yet she is obedient to the will of God and speaks her fiat: "Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done unto me according to thy word" (Luke 1: 38). "My flowers are the fruit of honor and riches," Christ the Lord. "There shall come forth a rod out of the root of Jesse," Mary, who is sprung from the house of David; "and a flower shall rise up out of his root," Christ, the Son of Mary (Gradual). Humanity and divinity are united in this one person. 'Come over to me, all yet that desire me, and be filled with my fruits' (Epistle). Mary does not keep her child for herself; she bequeaths Him to us when He is born at Bethlehem, when He is offered in the Temple, and when He offers Himself up on the cross. She gives Him to us again daily in Holy Communion. Mary has borne Christ for us. Together with her Divine Son, she has given us salvation and an abundance of grace. She stands even today at the throne of God as our advocate and or all-powerful intercessor, armed with irresistible intercessory power, the mother of all those who are in the state of sanctifying grace. "We renew our faith in the mystery of Mary's divine motherhood. 'Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.' God is thy child, having taken His humanity from thy flesh. " 'Come over to me . . . and be filled with my fruits,' for it is Christ Jesus whom I give you. He was first given to us when we were reborn through baptism: He is given to us today at Mass and Holy Communion: 'Hath He not also with Him given us all things?' (Rom. 8: 32.) Since Mary has given us all things through Christ, we today express our gratitude to her." (Father Benedict Baur, O.S.B., The Light of the World, Volume II, B. Herder Book Company, Saint Louis, Missouri, 1954, pp. 440-442.) 

Finally, there has been an absence of articles on this site, including republished reflections, because of problems accessing the internet that were entirely beyond my control. This is the first day that I have had full access to the internet since September 30, 2019, although I have had more than enough work to do with trying to fix the vexing problems of formatting my next book. Nevertheless, however, I will devote time today and tomorrow to addressing the latest Eugenio Scalfari assertion that Jorge Mario Bergoglio denies that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ was indeed True God and True Man at the moment of His Incarnation or at any other time during thereafter prior to His death on the wood of the Holy Cross. This is simply a variation of Arianism. Thus, of course, I will prepare a little commentary about this for publication no later than Sunday, October 13, 2019. Thank you for your patience.

A blessed Feast of the Divine Maternity of the Blessed Virgin Mary to you all!

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us

An update on Saturday, October 12, 2019.

In the midst of dealing with a sudden onset of flu-like symptoms, I was trying to revise a reflection on the final apparition of Our Lady of Fatima when my notebook computer, which I purchased eleven months ago, died. There were problems with the electric power cord beforehand. Methinks the device's motherboard got fried.

Thus, I am typing this on my phone to inform you that I am offline yet again! Oh well, penance is the path to Heaven.

I hope to be online again soon.

Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us

This is a  reflection on the life and the work of Saint Jerome, the great great Dalmatian who put the love of God above all else. Consider just one quotation from the work of this prolific writer and translator of the Bible into the Latin Vulgate:

"It is a smaller sin to follow evil which you think is good, than not to venture to defend what you know for certain is good. If we cannot endure threats, injustice, poverty, how shall we overcome the flames of Babylon? Let us not lose by hollow peace what we have preserved by war. I should be sorry to allow my fears to teach me faithlessness, when Christ has put the true faith in the power of my choice." (Saint Jerome, Prologue to the Treatise Against the Pelagians.)

How many traditionally-minded Catholics who are as of yet attached to the structures of the counterfeit church of conciliarism who know for certain that it is not good to praise false religions or to enter places of false worship or to treat the "clergy" of false religions as having a mission from the true God of Divine Revelation to serve and save souls refuse to do what is good, that is, to defend the honor and glory and majesty God and His Sacred Deposit Faith in order to indemnify the author of Summorum Pontificum, Antipope Emeritus Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, whose successor, Jorge Mario Bergoglios, has laid bare for all the world to see that he is "worried" by those who "want to return to the past"?

We must always defend what we know to be true as servants of the greater honor and glory of God.

Saint Jerome did.

What's our excuse?

Finally, I ask for your prayers for my dear wife, Sharon, who turns but a mere fifty-six years of age of age today. Thank you.

As I am working on book projects full-time now, it will be a few weeks before the next original commentary is posted. Although I wrote voluminously about the Clinton impeachment proceedings in 1998 for The Wanderer and the printed pages of Christ or Chaos, I have learned much since then as I refuse to be drawn into the utter distraction represented by the totalitarianism of the "left" in their quest to eliminate the opposite camp of naturalism. This may appear to be a "struggle for liberty." 

However, it should be remembered that even the supposed "defender" of "liberty" in the White House believes that those who practice the sin of Sodom constitute a legitimate "identity" that must be recognized by the civil law. No matter the gross injustices in the natural order of things to which the president is being subjected by his fanatical opponents, the fact remains that no man who suppports the sin of Sodom as a civil right or who speaks profanely and blasphemously is going to enjoy the favor of Christ the King.  Our Lord i is leaving the naturalists to have after each other, and I, for one, am not going to contribute to the hysteria. A commentary about this situation will be written around the the Feast of Christ the King, but that commentary will center on the reasons for the current conflicts and not on the specifics of each twist and turn.

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Saint Jerome, pray for us.

Today is the feast of the great Saint Wenceslaus, King of Bohemia, who was murdered by his own brother, who hated the fact that that he, King Wenceslaus, was everything that he, Boleslaus, hated, namely, pious and devoted, a servant of Christ the King, a just ruler who ruled to advance the common temporal good in light of man's Last End. Boleslaus hated the fact that his brother, our dear saint, loved the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and baked the Eucharistic bread with his own hands. This should give us pause for reflection in our own circumstances today when so many of our own relatives and one-time friends and acquaintances might hate us simply for being Catholic, no less Catholics who try, despite our sins and failings, to adhere to everything taught by Holy Mother Church from time immemorial. Saint Wenceslaus was a king who was prostrate before THE King, Christ the King, in life who adores him in Heaven face to face. 

I have no less than two different professional publishers working on fixing the formatting problems in my forthcoming book,"To Live in the Light of Eternity, Volume 1." Stay tuned. 

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Saint Wenceslaus, pray for us.

Given the work that I have been doing on my newest book project, original articles are at a standstill for a little while longer. 

Indeed, I have come to the difficult and vexing problem of formatting the text of my forthcoming book, To Live in the Light of Eternity, Volume 1, and have to deal with the problems posed by page margins and the coordination of the pagination provided by the Table of Contents. Such technical matters may be quite easy for some. They are very difficult for this simpleton. It is my hope, though, to spend most of the Feast of Our Lady of Ransom, Tuesday, September 24, 2019, resolving these matters as the book itself is ready for publication.

Thus, you see, I have been very busy. There is as of yet, however, nothing tangible to present to readers at this time despite the work of recent days.

What I can present you, however, is a brief, republished reflection on the Feast of Our Lady of Ransom.

Our Lady of Ransom, pray for us.