Yet Another Pretext for the Monsters of Modernity to Tighten Their Grip on Us All

As is always the case after some nihilist decides to become an executioner, the usual suspects in the Kommentariat attempt to elucidate why a particular tragedy has occurred without understanding anything about remote and proximate root causes.

None—and I mean none—of those who get paid lots and lots of money to discourse to the masses ever speak about First and Last Things as each views the world through some sort of naturalist lens. The leftists among these babbling heads of naturalism pontificate about “gun control” and, in the current instance of the massacre at two mosques in the city of Christchurch, New Zealand, on Friday, March 15, 2019, Ember Friday in Lent, about necessity of “diversity” and of having “tolerance” for those who come from different cultures and have “unique” religious beliefs. The rightists among the chattering class may touch directly or tangentially about the consequences of liberal migration laws upon native-born citizens in a particular country, but they will never admit that the anti-Incarnational world of Modernity in which we live was built on the bloodletting of Catholics of the sort practiced by the adherents of Martin Luther and John Calvin and, of course, sponsored officially by the brute power of the state under King Henry VIII. This anti-Incarnational world of Modernity There is no need to pay any attention to these well-paid fools who are ignorant of true history and who believe that there is some secular, nondenominational or interdenominational way to avoid tragedies that are the result of a series of forces.

New Zealand Reaps the Rotten Fruit of Henry Tudor’s Bloody Revolution

It is not any kind of exaggeration to state that the country of New Zealand is now reaping the rotten fruit of its colonization by the descendants of King Henry Tudor’s bloody revolution against the Catholic Church, believing Catholics and the Social Reign of Christ the King that he started in 1534 and took the lives of 72,000 Catholics who remained faithful in face of the drunken, lecherous, murderous apostate’s raging threats. Indeed, New Zealand was colonized by the English three hundred seven years after Henry VIII hand Parliament declare himself to be the “supreme head of the church in England,” meaning that the Englishmen who colonized the Pacific Ocean island were committed to the false beliefs of a false church that had (and still has) false and sacramentally barren liturgical rites. It is no accident, therefore, that there are fewer Anglicans in New Zealand as of the country’s 2013 census than there are adherents of another false church with equally false doctrines and equally and sacramentally barren liturgical rites, namely, the counterfeit church conciliarism.

Still and all, however, Catholics constitute only thirteen percent of the population of New Zealand while forty-one percent of New Zealanders profess adherence to no religion at all, meaning that paganism is rife there. Men who are “educated” by the pagan civil state are, barring a miraculous bestowal of Actual Graces upon them, destined for lives of material acquisitiveness and carnal licentiousness, which predisposes them to accept falsehoods of one sort or another, including some overarching ideology that seeks to explain human existence and to provide supposed “remedies” to “solve” this or that problem. The human capacity for seeking salvation in one or another form of naturalism is limitless if men are not grounded in the firm foundation provided by the Catholic Church.

It would appear that the man who has been accused of the premeditated attacks upon two different Mohammedan mosques in the very misnamed city of Christchurch, New Zealand, on Friday, March 15, 2019, Brenton Harrison Tarrant, a twenty-eight year-old body builder who came from a broken home, was steeped in the myths of “white supremacy” and desired to foment further conflict in the United States of America on the basis of race and religion. His acts of violence upon the two mosques that killed fifty people have already achieved their stated purpose as the usual suspects in this country who blame President Donald John Trump for snowstorms and outbreaks of acne on their children’s faces are blaming the president for creating the atmosphere that caused Brenton Harrison Tarrant to commit his well-planned massacres.

In truth, of course, Brenton Harrison Tarrant alone is to blame for his actions, no one else, for his murderous acts that dispatched the souls of fifty believers in a false religion to hell without any chance, no matter how remote or unlikely in human terms, that even one of these souls to convert to the true Faith.

Tarrant was inspired by the adversary to be filled with hatred for Mohammedans and to seek “revenge” for the acts of terror committed by faithful adherents of the blasphemous Koran. Bereft of any understanding of First and Last Things, this sad, sad creature of Modernity never understood that there is a difference between opposing the precepts of a false religion and willing harm upon its adherents. Believing Catholics, for example, pray for the conversion of all non-Catholics, including Mohammedans, understanding that the presence of the followers of the false and debauched “prophet” Mohammed is a chastisement that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour is permitting us to endure as a punishment upon nations that have rejected His authority to reign over them and whose leaders hate the very mention of His Holy Name.

The use of armed force as a regrettable last resort upon any nation or group of people deemed to pose a legitimate threat to national security or public safety domestically is reserved to a duly constituted civil authority after a due consideration of the relevant circumstances according to the principles of the Just War Theory, One is never authorized to serve as the judge and executioner of anyone, and even those who act in their own self-defense does so as a result of an immediate threat to his own bodily safety.

To be sure, those who have fostered the George Soros policy of “open borders” in the name of “diversity” and “multiculturalism” have used the presence of Mohammedans to encourage men who are not informed by right principles to act as Brenton Harrison Tarrant has done to further their narrative that people of European descent are naturally hateful of those who are “different” and to thus end all criticism of false religions and the role that they play in promoting social discord and violence. The leaders of civil governments today may claim that they are “shocked” by the actions of a Brenton Harrison Tarrant, but they really want such conflict to occur as it gives them the pretext to term anyone who opposes Mohammedanism as a false religion as a “hater” and as the excuse that they need to seize legally-owned guns by law-abiding citizens so as to secure for themselves more and more control over their legitimate Natural Law property rights and to tighten the screws of the “soft” totalitarianism that is already well upon us.

Too strong?

Well, consider the fact that some gun owners in New Zealand, perhaps expecting that their government’s Parliament will pass new legislation soon, are voluntarily surrendering their firearms to show that they are “peace-loving” folk and good “citizens of the world”:

Some New Zealand gun owners are voluntarily surrendering their firearms after 50 people were killed in a mass shooting there last week — while the country’s government is plowing forward with gun reform, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said Monday.

“You can surrender your gun to the police at any time. In fact, I’ve seen reports that people are already doing this,” Ardern told reporters.

Several Kiwis have taken to Twitter to announce they’ve given up their weapons after a gunman opened fire on two mosques in Christchurch on Friday.

“Since I first heard about the atrocity on Friday afternoon I have reflected and reserved my thoughts,” tweeted user @SirWB alongside a photo of a New Zealand police “arms surrender form.”

“Monday morning – this is one of the easiest decisions I have ever made. Have owned a firearm for 31 years.”

Ardern met with cabinet ministers Monday and said they were “completely unified” in moving forward with reforming the country’s laws.

She was expected to announce specific proposals after last week promising reforms within a day of the terror attack — but emerged from the meeting saying only that the cabinet had made several “in principle decisions,” the Guardian reports.

She vowed to announce the reforms “within 10 days of this horrific act of terrorism,” noting that neighboring Australia “took 12 days to make a decision” on gun reform after a mass shooting there in 1996.

“These aren’t simple areas of law. So that’s simply what we’ll be taking the time to get right,” she added.

Ardern’s government is a coalition between her Labour Party, fellow lefties the Green Party and the conservative New Zealand First party.

New Zealand First has not supported previous gun reform attempts, but its leader, Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters, said Monday, “Our world changed forever and so will some of our laws,” the Guardian reports.

Alleged white supremacist gunman Brenton Tarrant purchased the five guns he used in the massacre legally, according to Ardern.

On Monday, New Zealand’s largest online auction site, TradeMe, banned the sale of semi-automatics and “associated” accessories.

“We’ve had a lot of contact from Kiwis over the weekend about this issue, and many felt that we should stop the sale of these items in the wake of this attack,” said TradeMe CEO Jon Macdonald.

“We’ve listened to these sentiments and we’ve put this ban in place while we await clear direction from the government.” (New Zealand Gun Owners Voluntarily Giving Up Firearms in Wake of Mosque Massacre.)

Yet it is the case that no amount of “gun control” can stop the irrational hatred of men in a world where the blood of the most innocent of us all, the innocent preborn, flows freely in the supposedly “civilized” United States of America and around the world in the name of “women’s reproductive rights” and “women’s health care.” Killing an innocent preborn baby is not “health care,” and killing any innocent human being, no matter how “different” he may be or who much he stands for or promotes that which may be injurious even to himself, is always proscribed by the binding precepts of the same Fifth Commandment that prohibits the direct, intentional taking of any innocent human life at any time from conception to the point of death.

Illogic and sentimentality must prevail in a world without Christ the King. The myth of civil liberty must lead to the forfeiture of all legitimate Natural Law rights to the civil state. Modernity was born of conflict and bloodshed and it has been sustained by conflict and bloodshed. The world keeps crying “Give us Barabbas,” and continues to suffer the horrible consequences of rejecting the Social reign of Christ the King as it must be exercised by His true Church, the Catholic Church, outside of which there is no salvation and without which there can be no true social order.

Reviewing Basic Truths Yet Again

At the root of all true hatred of human beings in the world is the devil's hatred of the true God of Divine Revelation, the Most Blessed Trinity. The adversary inspired Eve and, through her wiles, Adam, into disobeying God as they ate of the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden.

Original Sin disordered man's relationship with God. It disordered man's relationship with his fellow man. It even disrupted the balance and harmony of nature itself. 

Each of the problems that we face in the world has Original Sin as its remote cause and the Actual Sins of men as its proximate cause. That is why, my good and few readers, who keep dwindling away, it appears, there is no electoral, political, economic, legal, constitutional, secular, naturalistic, ideological or philosophical way to ameliorate the effects of fallen human nature. The state of the world depends upon the state of souls. Despite the fact that there will be disorder and disharmony in the world until the Second Coming of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ at the end of time, the extent to which there is more order in the world at any given time is the result of the extent to which the very inner life of the Most Blessed Trinity, Sanctifying or Habitual Grace, dwells in the souls of men as they seek to make reparation for their sins and grow in virtue as members of the Catholic Church.

Once again, let me turn to Pope Saint Pius X and Pope Pius XI to drive home this fundamental point that so many Catholics all across and up and down the vast expanse of the ecclesiastical divide seem eager to ignore during the diabolical assaults that afflict their immortal souls every time the false opposites of naturalism engage in their mock contests that are called elections: 

Here we have, founded by Catholics, an inter-denominational association that is to work for the reform of civilization, an undertaking which is above all religious in character; for there is no true civilization without a moral civilization, and no true moral civilization without the true religion: it is a proven truth, a historical fact. (Pope Saint Pius X, Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15, 1910.)

20. Every true and lasting reform has ultimately sprung from the sanctity of men who were driven by the love of God and of men. Generous, ready to stand to attention to any call from God, yet confident in themselves because confident in their vocation, they grew to the size of beacons and reformers. On the other hand, any reformatory zeal, which instead of springing from personal purity, flashes out of passion, has produced unrest instead of light, destruction instead of construction, and more than once set up evils worse than those it was out to remedy. No doubt "the Spirit breatheth where he will" (John iii. 8): "of stones He is able to raise men to prepare the way to his designs" (Matt. iii. 9). He chooses the instruments of His will according to His own plans, not those of men. But the Founder of the Church, who breathed her into existence at Pentecost, cannot disown the foundations as He laid them. Whoever is moved by the spirit of God, spontaneously adopts both outwardly and inwardly, the true attitude toward the Church, this sacred fruit from the tree of the cross, this gift from the Spirit of God, bestowed on Pentecost day to an erratic world. (Pope Pius XI, Mit  Brennender Sorge, March 17, 1937.)

Yes, we must reform our own lives with every beat of our hearts, consecrated as they must be to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary. In order to do this, of course, we love God as He has revealed Himself to us exclusively through His Catholic Church with our whole mind, our whole soul, our whole body, our whole heart and our whole strength. We must love others for love of Him, Who wills the good of all men, which is the salvation of their immortal souls as members of the Catholic Church.

To love God, therefore, we must hate what he hates.

God hates sin. So must we.

God hates heresy. So must we.

God hates falsehood any kind. So must we.

God hates false religions and has nothing to do with them. So must we.

To hate sin is not to hate the sinner.

To hate heresy is not to hate the heretic.

To hate falsehood is not to hate those who propagate it.

To hate false religions is not to hate those to adhere to them.

Catholics know all of this.

Granted.

Unfortunately, we live in a topsy-turvy world that is suffering the effects of the overthrow of the Social Reign of Christ the King wrought by the Protestant Revolution and the subsequent rise and triumph of Judeo-Masonry and its multiplicity of "ideas" that have enshrined naturalism as the foundation of personal and social life. Men fall prey to sentimentality and emotionalism, illogic and passion. They are prone to believe everything except the true religion, prone to make excuses for their own sins and to seek to enable family members and friends who are living lives of unrepentant sin.

As the devil hates God but knows that he cannot destroy Him, he wants to do the next best thing: to convince men to hate God and His Holy Church and the binding precepts of the Divine Positive Law and the Natural Law so that they will wind up hating themselves and their fellow men, becoming instruments of disorder and violence in the world

The errors of pluralism have divided people needlessly into warring camps as a permanently-established political class, composed of competing sets of naturalists, each of which believes that the Incarnation of the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity in the Virginal and Immaculate Womb of His Most Blessed Mother by the power of the Third Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, God the Holy Ghost at the Annunciation is, at best, a matter of complete indifference to personal and social order. So many Americans live from election to election, always believing that "change," whether it be in the direction of "progress" for naturalists of the "left" or in the direction of "constitutionalism" or "liberty" or "limited government" for naturalists of the "right."

Although divisions on some matters will always occur until the General Judgment of the Living and the Dead on the Last Day at the Second Coming of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, it is also true that men today have been needlessly divided about matters pertaining to First and Last Things, oblivious to the fact that they have been given a spotless mother, Holy Mother Church, to serve as their mater and magister (mother and teacher) in this passing, mortal vale of tears. Most men today believe that they are automatons, either independent of any concept of God or "free" from the "dictates" of a hierarchical church.

Personal and social disaster cannot but be the result of such a brew of error. Men resort more and more to violence today because they do not know of the tender mercies of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. They do not know that they have a Blessed Mother who made possible their salvation by her perfect fiat to the will of God the father at the Annunciation. They do not realize that the supernatural helps they need to overcome all sin in their lives and to pray for the conversion of those who are promoting evil in society flow through the loving hands of that same Blessed Mother, who gave the Rosary with her own blessed hands to Saint Dominic de Guzman so that we could be more closely united to her Divine Son, Christ the King, through the mysteries contained in her psalter, the Rosary.

Most men today do not realize that there is nothing that any of us can suffer, whether personally or socially, that is equal of what one of our least Venial Sins caused Our Lord to suffer in His Sacred Humanity on the wood of the Holy Cross and that caused those Seven Swords to be thrust through and through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary. They tend, therefore, to dwell on their own pain, whether real or imagined, and to stew in their own juices as they conjure up hatred for their fellow human beings, each of whom is made in the image and likeness of the Most Blessed Trinity and for whose salvation we must pray fervently as one of the Spiritual Works of Mercy.

Living in a world that has been deprived of a superabundance of Sanctifying and Actual Graces as a result of the barren liturgical rites of the counterfeit church of conciliarism, most men today are "catechized" by television or the internet or what passes for "entertainment" in popular culture. They are tossed about from one thing to another without having any clear, coherent understanding of their identity as redeemed creatures and that each of us will have to make an accounting of our lives at the moment of our Particular Judgments. Men who lack the Catholic Faith, you see, must descend more and more into a coarseness of life and culture that produces a class of neo-barbarians who are not only at the gates but who are well inside of the fort of the city.

We are living a world that was born of Modernity’s bloody revolution against the true Church five hundred years ago and has been nurtured and sustained in blood as one social revolution after another has based its particular prescriptions for a “just world” on hate.

Hatred of God.

Hatred of His true Church.

Hatred of those who profess the Holy Faith publicly.

Hatred of anyone who refuses to submit to the Judeo-Masonic “new world order” that was made possible by Martin Luther’s Protestant Revolution five centuries ago.

Modernity has produced a veritable bloodbath of victims, including the unseen victims of the chemical and surgical abortions and, as noted nearly two years ago (see Chronicling the Adversary's Global Takeover of the Healthcare Industry), the untold tens of millions of innocent human beings who are being killed in hospitals, hospices, nursing homes and even in their own homes.

The defense of the Social Reign of Christ the King, a doctrine that is rejected in its entirety by the lords of the counterfeit church of conciliarism, including, of course, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who has been posing as "Pope Francis" for the six years, five days, is not something that carries an "expiration date" according to Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's false, philosophically absurd and dogmatically condemned "hermeneutic of continuity and discontinuity" that has been dissected numerous times on this site. Pope Pius XI explained in this first encyclical letter, Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, December 23, 1922, that it is ever to be our duty to do so:  

Many believe in or claim that they believe in and hold fast to Catholic doctrine on such questions as social authority, the right of owning private property, on the relations between capital and labor, on the rights of the laboring man, on the relations between Church and State, religion and country, on the relations between the different social classes, on international relations, on the rights of the Holy See and the prerogatives of the Roman Pontiff and the Episcopate, on the social rights of Jesus Christ, Who is the Creator, Redeemer, and Lord not only of individuals but of nations. In spite of these protestations, they speak, write, and, what is more, act as if it were not necessary any longer to follow, or that they did not remain still in full force, the teachings and solemn pronouncements which may be found in so many documents of the Holy See, and particularly in those written by Leo XIII, Pius X, and Benedict XV.

There is a species of moral, legal, and social modernism which We condemn, no less decidedly than We condemn theological modernism.

It is necessary ever to keep in mind these teachings and pronouncements which We have made; it is no less necessary to reawaken that spirit of faith, of supernatural love, and of Christian discipline which alone can bring to these principles correct understanding, and can lead to their observance. This is particularly important in the case of youth, and especially those who aspire to the priesthood, so that in the almost universal confusion in which we live they at least, as the Apostle writes, will not be "tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the wickedness of men, by cunning craftiness, by which they lie in wait to deceive." (Ephesians iv, 14) (Pope Pius XI, Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, December 23, 1922.)

No one on the face of this earth has any right to "dissent" from this teaching. The Social Reign of Christ the King binds all men and all nations at all times.

The lords of Modernity, enabled by the lords of conciliarism, believe in the "Rights of Man" and that mere man can make the world "better" by naturalistic means without any reference to the Incarnation, Nativity, Hidden Life, Public Ministry, and Passion, Death and Resurection of the Second Person of the Most Blessed, Christ the King Himself. The lords of Modernity in the world and of Modernism in the counterfeit church of conciliarism are thus as one in rejecting the truth that Catholicism is indeed the one and only foundation of personal and social order.

Catholicism is not a panacea for personal and social order. Each us of is wounded by the vestigial after-effects of Original Sin and and our own Actual Sins. The Middle Ages of Christendom was marked with various episodes of wars among Catholic kingdoms and even against popes themselves,. The fact that individual Catholics fail to cooperate with the graces won for them on the wood of the Holy Cross by the shedding of every single drop of the Most Precious Blood of Christ the King, Our Divine Redeemer, and that flow into our hearts and souls through the loving hands of Our Lady, she who is the Mediatrix of All Graces, is to the discredit of individual Catholics who added to social disorder by means of their sins, not to the discredit of the Faith or any of Its immutable doctrines, including the Social Reign of Christ the King.

Pope Pius XII made this point in his first encyclical letter, Summi Pontificatus, October 10, 1939:

It is true that even when Europe had a cohesion of brotherhood through identical ideals gathered from Christian preaching, she was not free from divisions, convulsions and wars which laid her waste; but perhaps they never felt the intense pessimism of today as to the possibility of settling them, for they had then an effective moral sense of the just and of the unjust, of the lawful and of the unlawful, which, by restraining outbreaks of passion, left the way open to an honorable settlement. In Our days, on the contrary, dissensions come not only from the surge of rebellious passion, but also from a deep spiritual crisis which has overthrown the sound principles of private and public morality. (Pope Pius XII, Summi Pontificatus, October 10, 1939.)

We are to see in each person the very impress of the Divine Redeemer and to treat Him accordingly, rendering unto each person that which is his due. We are to discriminate unjustly (we must discriminate justly in many circumstances of our lives as we choose which merchant to patronize, which person to employ, who to admit to a seat in a college or a professional school, to deny employment or privileges to those steeped in public scandal, etc.) against no one nor must we use the external characteristics of a human being to extend privileges that are undeserving and/or would result in an injustice to someone else.

Human beings are supposed to be bound together by the common bonds of the Catholic Faith, not to break into warring tribes along ethnic or racial or geographic lines, seething with hatred and resentment at those who have "more" (power, money, fame, prestige, accomplishment) than they do. We are to help each other get home to Heaven as members of the Catholic Church who aspire to make reparation to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary for our sins, fulfilling these words of Saint Paul in his Epistle to the Ephesians as we seek to build up each other as members of the Mystical Body of Christ on earth: 

[16] From whom the whole body, being compacted and fitly joined together, by what every joint supplieth, according to the operation in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body, unto the edifying of itself in charity. This then I say and testify in the Lord: That henceforward you walk not as also the Gentiles walk in the vanity of their mind, [18] Having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their hearts. [19] Who despairing, have given themselves up to lasciviousness, unto the working of all uncleanness, unto the working of all uncleanness, unto covetousness. [20] But you have not so learned Christ;

[21] If so be that you have heard him, and have been taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus: [22] To put off, according to former conversation, the old man, who is corrupted according to the desire of error. [23] And be renewed in the spirit of your mind: [24] And put on the new man, who according to God is created in justice and holiness of truth. [25] Wherefore putting away lying, speak; ye the truth every man with his neighbour; for we are members one of another.

[26] Be angry, and sin not. Let not the sun go down upon your anger. [27] Give not place to the devil. [28] He that stole, let him now steal no more; but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have something to give to him that suffereth need. [29] Let no evil speech proceed from your mouth; but that which is good, to the edification of faith, that it may administer grace to the hearers. [30] And grieve not the holy Spirit of God: whereby you are sealed unto the day of redemption.

[31] Let all bitterness, and anger, and indignation, and clamour, and blasphemy, be put away from you, with all malice. [32] And be ye kind one to another; merciful, forgiving one another, even as God hath forgiven you in Christ.  (Ephesians 4: 16-32.)

We are to be bound together by the common bonds of the Catholic Faith. We advocate Christ the King, nothing else. Christ the King, nothing else.

The massacre in New Zealand on March 15, 2019, is yet another tragic example of how blood flows so freely today in a world that does not subordinate itself to the Social Reign of Christ the King as It must be exercised by His Holy Catholic Church in all that pertains to the good of souls. We have sunk into an abyss of lawlessness wherein men, having no concept of Who created them, Who redeemed them, or Who sanctifies them, must resort to wanton killing to “solve” the “problems” posed by others who they believe to be “inferior” to themselves.

Writing in his first encyclical letter, Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, December 23, 1922, Pope Pius XI noted the longstanding hatreds that lingered over four years after the armistice that ended fighting in what is known now as World War I, a needless and unjust war that was about nothing other than nationalism and the protection of spheres of influence of power, and over three years after the Versailles Peace Treaty had been signed on June 28, 1919:

Men today do not act as Christians, as brothers, but as strangers, and even enemies. The sense of man's personal dignity and of the value of human life has been lost in the brutal domination begotten of might and mere superiority in numbers. Many are intent on exploiting their neighbors solely for the purpose of enjoying more fully and on a larger scale the goods of this world. But they err grievously who have turned to the acquisition of material and temporal possessions and are forgetful of eternal and spiritual things, to the possession of which Jesus, Our Redeemer, by means of the Church, His living interpreter, calls mankind.

22. It is in the very nature of material objects that an inordinate desire for them becomes the root of every evil, of every discord, and in particular, of a lowering of the moral sense. On the one hand, things which are naturally base and vile can never give rise to noble aspirations in the human heart which was created by and for God alone and is restless until it finds repose in Him. On the other hand, material goods (and in this they differ greatly from those of the spirit which the more of them we possess the more remain to be acquired) the more they are divided among men the less each one has and, by consequence, what one man has another cannot possibly possess unless it be forcibly taken away from the first. Such being the case, worldly possessions can never satisfy all in equal manner nor give rise to a spirit of universal contentment, but must become perforce a source of division among men and of vexation of spirit, as even the Wise Man Solomon experienced: "Vanity of vanities, and vexation of spirit." (Ecclesiastes i, 2, 14)

23. The same effects which result from these evils among individuals may likewise be expected among nations. "From whence are wars and contentions among you?" asks the Apostle St. James. "Are they not hence from your concupiscences, which war in your members?" (James iv, 1, 2)

24. The inordinate desire for pleasure, concupiscence of the flesh, sows the fatal seeds of division not only among families but likewise among states; the inordinate desire for possessions, concupiscence of the eyes, inevitably turns into class warfare and into social egotism; the inordinate desire to rule or to domineer over others, pride of life, soon becomes mere party or factional rivalries, manifesting itself in constant displays of conflicting ambitions and ending in open rebellion, in the crime of lese majeste, and even in national parricide.

25. These unsuppressed desires, this inordinate love of the things of the world, are precisely the source of all international misunderstandings and rivalries, despite the fact that oftentimes men dare to maintain that acts prompted by such motives are excusable and even justifiable because, forsooth, they were performed for reasons of state or of the public good, or out of love for country. Patriotism -- the stimulus of so many virtues and of so many noble acts of heroism when kept within the bounds of the law of Christ -- becomes merely an occasion, an added incentive to grave injustice when true love of country is debased to the condition of an extreme nationalism, when we forget that all men are our brothers and members of the same great human family, that other nations have an equal right with us both to life and to prosperity, that it is never lawful nor even wise, to dissociate morality from the affairs of practical life, that, in the last analysis, it is "justice which exalteth a nation: but sin maketh nations miserable." (Proverbs xiv, 34)

26. Perhaps the advantages to one's family, city, or nation obtained in some such way as this may well appear to be a wonderful and great victory (this thought has been already expressed by St. Augustine), but in the end it turns out to be a very shallow thing, something rather to inspire us with the most fearful apprehensions of approaching ruin. "It is a happiness which appears beautiful but is brittle as glass. We must ever be on guard lest with horror we see it broken into a thousand pieces at the first touch." (St. Augustine de Civitate Dei, Book iv, Chap. 3)

27. There is over and above the absence of peace and the evils attendant on this absence, another deeper and more profound cause for present-day conditions. This cause was even beginning to show its head before the War and the terrible calamities consequent on that cataclysm should have proven a remedy for them if mankind had only taken the trouble to understand the real meaning of those terrible events. In the Holy Scriptures we read: "They that have forsaken the Lord, shall be consumed." (Isaias i, 28) No less well known are the words of the Divine Teacher, Jesus Christ, Who said: "Without me you can do nothing" (John xv, 5) and again, "He that gathereth not with me, scattereth." (Luke xi, 23)

28. These words of the Holy Bible have been fulfilled and are now at this very moment being fulfilled before our very eyes. Because men have forsaken God and Jesus Christ, they have sunk to the depths of evil. They waste their energies and consume their time and efforts in vain sterile attempts to find a remedy for these ills, but without even being successful in saving what little remains from the existing ruin. It was a quite general desire that both our laws and our governments should exist without recognizing God or Jesus Christ, on the theory that all authority comes from men, not from God. Because of such an assumption, these theorists fell very short of being able to bestow upon law not only those sanctions which it must possess but also that secure basis for the supreme criterion of justice which even a pagan philosopher like Cicero saw clearly could not be derived except from the divine law. (Pope Pius XI, Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, December 23, 1922.)

That last paragraph, number twenty-eight, says it it all. The gist of the two hundred thirty-seven articles linked at the top of this article can be summarized in the following words written by Pope Pius XI  eighty-eight years, three months ago:

They waste their energies and consume their time and efforts in vain sterile attempts to find a remedy for these ills, but without even being successful in saving what little remains from the existing ruin. (Pope Pius XI, Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, December 23, 1922.)

Alas, hatred and violence must reign supreme in a world that has rebelled against Its loving, merciful King, Christ the King, Whose Most Sacred Heart beats with burning love in the tabernacles of Catholic churches served by true priests who offer the ineffable Sacrifice of Calvary in an unbloody manner in a valid rite of the Catholic Church. The only remedy to help make the rise of such poor, troubled men as ignorant Brenton Harrison Tarrant less possible, noting that there will always be difficulties even in a world governed by true principles because of the vagaries of fallen human nature, is to seek with urgency the conversion of all men to the One, True Faith, outside of which there is no salvation and without which there can be no true social order.

No believing Catholic “hates” other human beings. A believing Catholic hates his own sins and he hates the public promotion of the sins of others, for whose conversion he prays, and it is not to “hate” a sinner who flaunts his sins publicly by seeking his conversion from his life of unrepentant sin.

No believing Catholic “hates” women because he opposes the killing of the very fruit of their wombs in violation of the binding precepts of the Divine Positive Law and the Natural Law.

No believing Catholic “hates” others because of their race, adherence to a false religion, ethnicity, gender, or nationality. 

Catholics hate only sin and error, starting with their own sins and errors. He prays for eternal good of all men, which is the salvation of his immortal soul as a member of Christ the King’s Catholic Church that He founded upon the Rock of Peter, the Pope. Hatred and the violence it spawns in its demonic wake are the consequence of the world’s hatred of Christ the King as He has revealed Himself to us exclusively through His true Church and His Sovereignty over men and their nations at all times. It this most fundamental hatred of all that makes possible the irrational violence of the sort committed by Brenton Harrison Tarrant on Friday, March 15, 2019, is fueling the horrific violent attacks of all sorts around the world, including by the faithful adherent of Mohammedanism in The Netherlands who killed three people just today, Monday, March 18, 2019, the Feast of Saint Cyril of Alexandria and the Commemoration of Monday in the Second Weeks of Lent, around the world.

The solution?

The solution is to seek the conversion of all non-Catholics to the true Faith and then to see the Divine impress in all other human beings, treating them as we would true Our Lord Himself in the very Flesh.

Such a conversion, though, is deemed unnecessary and is actually opposed by the lords of the counterfeit church of conciliariasm, and thus it is that the world will be consigned to the madness of the abyss, consumed with the pursuit of material pleasures and self-interest to exclusion of all else, and that it will be stained by public crime as prophesied, respectively, by Pope Gregory XVI, Mirari Vos, August 15, 1832, Pope Pius IX, Quanta Cura, December 8, 1864,and Pope Leo XIII,Tametsi Futura Prospicientibus, November 1, 1900:

This shameful font of indifferentism gives rise to that absurd and erroneous proposition which claims that liberty of conscience must be maintained for everyone. It spreads ruin in sacred and civil affairs, though some repeat over and over again with the greatest impudence that some advantage accrues to religion from it. “But the death of the soul is worse than freedom of error,” as Augustine was wont to say. When all restraints are removed by which men are kept on the narrow path of truth, their nature, which is already inclined to evil, propels them to ruin. Then truly “the bottomless pit” is open from which John saw smoke ascending which obscured the sun, and out of which locusts flew forth to devastate the earth. Thence comes transformation of minds, corruption of youths, contempt of sacred things and holy laws — in other words, a pestilence more deadly to the state than any other. Experience shows, even from earliest times, that cities renowned for wealth, dominion, and glory perished as a result of this single evil, namely immoderate freedom of opinion, license of free speech, and desire for novelty. (Pope Gregory XVI, Mirari Vos, August 15, 1832.)

For you well know, venerable brethren, that at this time men are found not a few who, applying to civil society the impious and absurd principle of “naturalism,” as they call it, dare to teach that “the best constitution of public society and (also) civil progress altogether require that human society be conducted and governed without regard being had to religion any more than if it did not exist; or, at least, without any distinction being made between the true religion and false ones.” And, against the doctrine of Scripture, of the Church, and of the Holy Fathers, they do not hesitate to assert that “that is the best condition of civil society, in which no duty is recognized, as attached to the civil power, of restraining by enacted penalties, offenders against the Catholic religion, except so far as public peace may require.” From which totally false idea of social government they do not fear to foster that erroneous opinion, most fatal in its effects on the Catholic Church and the salvation of souls, called by Our Predecessor, Gregory XVI, an “insanity,” viz., that “liberty of conscience and worship is each man’s personal right, which ought to be legally proclaimed and asserted in every rightly constituted society; and that a right resides in the citizens to an absolute liberty, which should be restrained by no authority whether ecclesiastical or civil, whereby they may be able openly and publicly to manifest and declare any of their ideas whatever, either by word of mouth, by the press, or in any other way.” But, while they rashly affirm this, they do not think and consider that they are preaching “liberty of perdition;” and that “if human arguments are always allowed free room for discussion, there will never be wanting men who will dare to resist truth, and to trust in the flowing speech of human wisdom; whereas we know, from the very teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ, how carefully Christian faith and wisdom should avoid this most injurious babbling.”

And, since where religion has been removed from civil society, and the doctrine and authority of divine revelation repudiated, the genuine notion itself of justice and human right is darkened and lost, and the place of true justice and legitimate right is supplied by material force, thence it appears why it is that some, utterly neglecting and disregarding the surest principles of sound reason, dare to proclaim that “the people’s will, manifested by what is called public opinion or in some other way, constitutes a supreme law, free from all divine and human control; and that in the political order accomplished facts, from the very circumstance that they are accomplished, have the force of right.” But who, does not see and clearly perceive that human society, when set loose from the bonds of religion and true justice, can have, in truth, no other end than the purpose of obtaining and amassing wealth, and that (society under such circumstances) follows no other law in its actions, except the unchastened desire of ministering to its own pleasure and interests?” (Pope Pius IX, Quanta Cura, December 8, 1864.)

God alone is Life. All other beings partake of life, but are not life. Christ, from all eternity and by His very nature, is "the Life," just as He is the Truth, because He is God of God. From Him, as from its most sacred source, all life pervades and ever will pervade creation. Whatever is, is by Him; whatever lives, lives by Him. For by the Word "all things were made; and without Him was made nothing that was made." This is true of the natural life; but, as We have sufficiently indicated above, we have a much higher and better life, won for us by Christ's mercy, that is to say, "the life of grace," whose happy consummation is "the life of glory," to which all our thoughts and actions ought to be directed. The whole object of Christian doctrine and morality is that "we being dead to sin, should live to justice" (I Peter ii., 24)-that is, to virtue and holiness. In this consists the moral life, with the certain hope of a happy eternity. This justice, in order to be advantageous to salvation, is nourished by Christian faith. "The just man liveth by faith" (Galatians iii., II). "Without faith it is impossible to please God" (Hebrews xi., 6). Consequently Jesus Christ, the creator and preserver of faith, also preserves and nourishes our moral life. This He does chiefly by the ministry of His Church. To Her, in His wise and merciful counsel, He has entrusted certain agencies which engender the supernatural life, protect it, and revive it if it should fail. This generative and conservative power of the virtues that make for salvation is therefore lost, whenever morality is dissociated from divine faith. A system of morality based exclusively on human reason robs man of his highest dignity and lowers him from the supernatural to the merely natural life. Not but that man is able by the right use of reason to know and to obey certain principles of the natural law. But though he should know them all and keep them inviolate through life-and even this is impossible without the aid of the grace of our Redeemer-still it is vain for anyone without faith to promise himself eternal salvation. "If anyone abide not in Me, he shall be cast forth as a branch, and shall wither, and they shall gather him up and cast him into the fire, and he burneth" john xv., 6). "He that believeth not shall be condemned" (Mark xvi., 16). We have but too much evidence of the value and result of a morality divorced from divine faith. How is it that, in spite of all the zeal for the welfare of the masses, nations are in such straits and even distress, and that the evil is daily on the increase? We are told that society is quite able to help itself; that it can flourish without the assistance of Christianity, and attain its end by its own unaided efforts. Public administrators prefer a purely secular system of government. All traces of the religion of our forefathers are daily disappearing from political life and administration. What blindness! Once the idea of the authority of God as the Judge of right and wrong is forgotten, law must necessarily lose its primary authority and justice must perish: and these are the two most powerful and most necessary bonds of society. Similarly, once the hope and expectation of eternal happiness is taken away, temporal goods will be greedily sought after. Every man will strive to secure the largest share for himself. Hence arise envy, jealousy, hatred. The consequences are conspiracy, anarchy, nihilism. There is neither peace abroad nor security at home. Public life is stained with crime.

So great is this struggle of the passions and so serious the dangers involved, that we must either anticipate ultimate ruin or seek for an efficient remedy. It is of course both right and necessary to punish malefactors, to educate the masses, and by legislation to prevent crime in every possible way: but all this is by no means sufficient. The salvation of the nations must be looked for higher. A power greater than human must be called in to teach men's hearts, awaken in them the sense of duty, and make them better. This is the power which once before saved the world from destruction when groaning under much more terrible evils. Once remove all impediments and allow the Christian spirit to revive and grow strong in a nation, and that nation will be healed. The strife between the classes and the masses will die away; mutual rights will be respected. If Christ be listened to, both rich and poor will do their duty. The former will realise that they must observe justice and charity, the latter self-restraint and moderation, if both are to be saved. Domestic life will be firmly established ( by the salutary fear of God as the Lawgiver. In the same way the precepts of the natural law, which dictates respect for lawful authority and obedience to the laws, will exercise their influence over the people. Seditions and conspiracies will cease. Wherever Christianity rules over all without let or hindrance there the order established by Divine Providence is preserved, and both security and prosperity are the happy result. The common welfare, then, urgently demands a return to Him from whom we should never have gone astray; to Him who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and this on the part not only of individuals but of society as a whole. We must restore Christ to this His own rightful possession. All elements of the national life must be made to drink in the Life which proceedeth from Him- legislation, political institutions, education, marriage and family life, capital and labour. Everyone must see that the very growth of civilisation which is so ardently desired depends greatly upon this, since it is fed and grows not so much by material wealth and prosperity, as by the spiritual qualities of morality and virtue. (Pope Leo XIII, Tametsi Futura Prospicientibus, November 1, 1900.)

The world in which we live, good readers, is based upon one anti-Incarnational, naturalistic, religiously indifferentist and Pelagian lie after another. Bloodshed must become a common feature of life in a chaotic, nihilistic world where there is such an abundance of sin unfettered by qualms of rightly formed consciences and sanctioned by the civil law.

Our Lady herself, explaining the events of the Transfiguration of her Divine Son, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, explained the effects of sin upon men and their nations in no uncertain terms as she related to Venerable Mary of Agreda and as found 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 error! To 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.)

Sin causes all disorder in the world.

Our only hope is to be found by clinging tight to the Cross of the Divine Redeemer and by relying upon the intercessory powers of His Most Blessed Mother, she who is the Mediatrix of All Graces, as we pray the Sorrowful Mysteries of her Most Holy Rosary during Lent and beg her to help us keep the resolutions that we have made during this penitential season so that we will die to sin and disordered self-love to be better instruments of effecting the Triumph of her Immaculate Heart in whatever way we can.

On the Feast of Saint Cyril of Jerusalem

Although the time for first vespers for the Feast of Saint Joseph has begun, it is still Monday, March 18, 2019, and it is thus appropriate, I believe, to include the lesson about the life of Saint Cyril of Jerusalem contained in Matins for the Divine Office teach us about our saint’s unswerving fealty to the doctrine of the Catholic Church and his profound hatred of heresy, error and all sin:

Cyril of Jerusalem was given to the study of the Holy Scriptures from a child, and so learnt therein that he became an eminent champion of the orthodox faith. He embraced the monastic institute in perpetual continency, and all hardship of living. He was ordained Priest by holy Maximus, Patriarch of Jerusalem, and undertook with eminent success the task of preaching the word of God to the faithful and of instructing the catechumens. Thus did he compose those truly wonderful Catecheses, wherein he has embraced, clearly and fully, all the teaching of the Church, and stoutly defended every one of her doctrines against the enemies of the faith. His treatment of these subjects was such that he has overthrown therein, not only the heresies which had then come into being, but, by a kind of foreknowledge, even those which were to arise in later times. Of this an instance is his contention for the real Presence of the Body and Blood of Christ in the wondrous Sacrament of the Eucharist. After the death of holy Maximus, the bishops of the province chose Cyril in his place.

to endure many wrongs and sufferings at the hands of the Arian sect. The Arians could not bear that Cyril should steadfastly withstand their heresy. They assailed him with calumnies, deposed him in a pretended council, and drove him out of his see. To escape their rage he fled to Tarsus in Cilicia, and as long as Constantius lived he bore the hardships of exile. After his death and the accession to the imperial throne of the Apostate Julian, Cyril was able to return to Jerusalem, where he set himself with burning zeal to deliver his flock from false doctrine and from sin. He was driven into exile a second time under the Emperor Valens. But when peace was restored to the Church by Theodosius the Great, and the cruelty and insolence of the Arians were restrained, Cyril was received with honour by the Emperor as one of Christ's most eminent soldiers, and was restored to his see. With what earnestness and holiness he fulfilled the duties of his exalted office was made manifest by the flourishing state of the church of Jerusalem at that time, of which a picture hath been left for us by holy Basil, who dwelt there for a while when he went to worship at the holy places.

Tradition hath handed down that God Himself crowned with signs from heaven the holiness of this venerable Patriarch. Among these signs is numbered an apparition of a cross, more resplendent than the beams of the sun, which appeared at the beginning of his Patriarchate. Not only Cyril himself, but heathens and Christians alike were eye-witnesses of this marvel, and Cyril first gave thanks to God therefore in the church, and then sent news thereof by letter to the Emperor Constantius. A thing no less wonderful came to pass when the Jews were commanded by the profane Emperor Julian to attempt the restoration of the temple which had been destroyed by Titus. A great earthquake arose, and great masses of fire broke forth from the earth and consumed all the works, so that the Jews and Julian were dismayed and stayed their hand, all the which it can be proved that Cyril had foretold. A little while before his death he was present at the second Council of Constantinople; herein was condemned the heresy of Macedonius, and once more the Arian heresy. After his return to Jerusalem he died a holy death in the 69th year of his age and the 35th of his episcopate. The Supreme Pontiff Leo XIII. commanded that his office and Mass should be celebrated throughout the universal Church. (Matins, The Divine Office, Feast of St. Cyril of Jerusalem.)

Heresy and error never just “go away.” They must be fought by Catholics, who are soldiers in the Army of Christ by virtue of the Sacrament of Confirmation. Saint Cyril of Jerusalem understood this, which is why he fought vigorously against heresy and error and to provide catechumens with proper instructions in the Holy Faith so that they could withstand the temptations of the world, the flesh and the devil to stain their baptismal gown and thus to be more prone to embrace heresy and error.

Although I am going to use Dom Prosper Gueranger’s reflection on the life of Saint Cyril of Jerusalem in an upcoming commentary about the dangers of being educated in the cult of paganism as is the norm in the world today, the Abbot of Solesmes’s prayer to our saint, bishop and doctor will give us encouragement in a bloodthirsty world shaped by a rejection of the very true Faith that Saint Cyril fought so hard to defend and to propagate:

Thou wert a true child of the light, O Cyril. Thou didst give thy heart to Holy Wisdom, while yet a child, and she set thee up as a lighthouse at the entrance of the harbour to be the guide of unfortunate souls tossing on the sea of error. The Church confided to thee the mission of preparing for baptism those happy multitudes whom her recent victory had won for her from all ranks of society, and this mission was to be accomplished in a century rich in holy doctors and in the region consecrated by the mysteries of our redemption. Thou wast nourished by Holy Scripture and the teaching of the Mother of all mankind, and thy words flowed pure and abundant as water from a spring. History tells us that the many duties of thy holy ministry would not permit thee to devote thyself exclusively to the Catechumens, and thus thou wert led to improvise those admirable instructions wherein the science of salvation was the knowledge of God and of His Son Jesus Christ, contained in the creed of the Holy Church. Preparation for baptism, for life, for the love of God, was the acquisition of this knowledge, so deep, so far-reaching and so necessary. It was to be acquired, not by the impression of vain sentimentality, but the reception of the word of God in the right spirit, and by constant meditation, so that the souls comes to be firmly established in the fullness of truth, in moral rectitude, and in hatred of evil.

Thou wast sure of thy hearers and didst not fear to unveil before their eyes the arguments and abominable devices of their secret enemies. There are times and circumstances, only to be judged by the shepherds of the flock, when it is necessary to disregard the revulsion of feeling caused by such revelations in order to denounce the danger and warn the sheep against intellectual or moral scandals. Thus, O Cyril, thy invectives pursued Manicheism to its utmost secret haunts. Thou didst see in this heresy the principal agent of that mystery of iniquity which pursues its path of darkness and destruction throughout the ages, until it shall bring the world to decay. In these times the Manichee triumphs openly. The societies founded by him have gained power. The secret of the Lodges still hides from the uninitiated the sacrilegious symbols and dogmas brought once from Persia, but the prince of this world has cleverly united all social forces in the hands of this ally. The first use he makes of his power is attack the Church out of hatred for Christ. He assails her fruitfulness by denying her right to reach what she has received from her divine Head. The children, whom she has brought forth and who are hers in virtue of their baptism, are snatched from her by main force, and she is forbidden to preside over their education. Thou didst understand so well the claims of the sacrament of regeneration. Protect the baptism of so many innocent souls in which men seek to stifle the germ. Strengthen and rekindle the faith of Christian parents and each them that if it is their duty to defend their children from death at the risk of their own bodies, they must remember that the souls of these little ones are still more precious. It has greatly consoled us to see how many have understood this and, faithful to the dictates of their conscience, have suffered violence rather than yield to the regulations of a pagan state. Bless also, strengthen and multiply those faithful souls who devote themselves to the instruction of poor children whose spiritual interests are betrayed by the secular power. There is no mission to-day more urgent than that of catechists, and none, surely, dearer to thy heart.

Holy Church has just related to us the apparition of the holy Cross, which marked the beginning of thy episcopate, and similar marvels have been witnessed in our own time. But the apparition in thy day announced a triumph—the triumph thou didst foresee when St. Helena discovered the three of our redemption, the triumph which, at the time of thy death, had been confirmed by the fulfilled of the prophecies concerning the Jewish Temple. Can it be that our times are to witness only defeat and ruin? We have confidence in thy aid, O holy Pontiff. We remember that the triumph which thou didst witness was brought by the sufferings of the whole Church, in which thou thyself didst share by thy thrice-repeated deposition and twenty years of exile. The Cross, whose great anniversary is not approaching, is not conquered, but triumphs in the sufferings of the faithful and their patient endurance. It will appear once more, a sign of eternal victory, over the ruins of the world on the Day of Judgment. (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year, Volume V, Lent, pp. 419-420.)

Relying upon the help of Our Lady, Saint Joseph and Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, may we always lift high the standard of the Holy Cross in our own lives so that our soul will be in ruins when the day of the Particular Judgment comes for us. 

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us! 

Saint Joseph, pray for us. 

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us. 

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint John the Evangelist, 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. 

Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, pray for us.