Without Any Originality

Although the point has been made endlessly on this site, Modernists are without any originality whatsoever. They keep repeating the same old revolutionary clichés repeatedly as they are expressing brand new thoughts that they had never expressed before. Jorge Mario Bergoglio is particularly egregious in this regard, but he has a cast of thousands within his false religious sect who bask in their own “creativity” and “innovativeness” that have done nothing but wreak havoc by misleading Catholics and depriving them of the true Sacraments, driving many into the waiting arms of Protestant sects, Orthodox churches and even into the depths of rank unbelief.

One of the most unoriginal of the unoriginal cast of heresiarchs within the counterfeit church of conciliarism is Kurt “Cardinal” Koch, who is seventy years of age and is not a priest, no less a true bishop and “cardinal.” He has been sitting in the “Walter Kasper Chair of Religious Indifferentism and Syncretism” (otherwise known as the President of the so-called “Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity) since July 1, 2010, and he has used that platform on a number of occasions to advance a synthesis between what are called the “extraordinary” and “ordinary” forms of the “one Roman Rite” of the false religious sect that is conciliarism. Koch’s multiple—and almost identical—calls (including one analyzed on Novus Ordo Watch)  for such a synthesis has provided the fodder for numerous commentaries on this website in the past ten years. Although not part of this commentary, one does wonder where the “Anglican Use” liturgy falls within the spectrum of the “one” Roman Rite in the conciliar church.

Kurt “Cardinal” Koch was not the first conciliar official to call for such a “synthesis” between the modernized 1961/1962 version of the Immemorial Mass of Tradition as none other than “Father” Federico Lombardi, S.J., who was the spokesflack for Joseph Alois Ratzinger and Jorge Mario Bergoglio from July 11, 2006, to August 1, 2016, did so in 2007, followed Vaticanologist Sandro Magister, who was very close to Ratzinger/Benedict XVI:

"Neither the Missal of Pius V and John XXIII -- used by a small minority -- nor that of Paul VI -- used today with much spiritual fruit by the greatest majority -- will be the final 'law of prayer' of the Catholic Church." ("Father" Federico Lombardi, Zenit, July 15, 2007.)

From this point of view, then, the new prayer for the Jews in the liturgy in the ancient rite does not weaken but postulates an enrichment of the meaning of the prayer in use in the modern rite. Exactly like in other cases, it is the modern rite that postulates an enriching evolution of the ancient rite. In a liturgy that is perennially alive, as the Catholic liturgy is, this is the meaning of the coexistence between the two rites, ancient and modern, as intended by Benedict XVI with the motu proprio "Summorum Pontificum."

This is a coexistence that is not destined to endure, but to fuse in the future "in a single Roman rite once again," taking the best from both of these. This is what then-cardinal Ratzinger wrote in 2003 – revealing a deeply held conviction – in a letter to an erudite representative of Lefebvrist traditionalism, the German philologist Heinz-Lothar Barth. (Sandro Magister, A Bishop and a Rabbi Defend the Prayer for the Salvation of the Jews.)

“Monsignor” Guido Pozzo, then the Secretary of the “Pontifical” Commission Ecclesia Dei, continued this theme in 2010:

Q: Pope Benedict asked for “charity and pastoral care” for traditionalist believers. And so the PCED are now watchmen of a sort for those cases in which that does not happen. Where have you found resistance?

A: “The expression “watch” translates the ancient Greek “episcopein”. The primary task of a bishop is to watch. In this sense the PCED exercises the office of oversight and watching over the application of the motu proprio. Certainly, there is still prejudice and resistance against the Mass in the old rite, whether it be on ideological grounds, or because the demand for mass in the old form is seen partly an expression of an antithesis – of an opposition even – to the reform of the liturgy as the Second Vatican Council wanted it. Clearly, these prejudices – still widespread – are to be taken on and overcome. Above all, we have to restore the unity of liturgical history, the unity of the lex orandi as an expression of the unity of the lex credendi, within the unique character of the liturgical forms of the one Roman Rite". . . .

A: The motu proprio says nothing about education for priests who wish to learn to celebrate the Mass according to the old books. Many regard this as a gap, insofar as the celebration of the old liturgy requires rigorous preparation. How would you advise interested priests?

Q: “The problem of priests apt to celebrate the old rite is certainly important and urgent. I have to say that the reason why the bishops often have difficulty in fulfilling the desire for a Mass in the old form is, in fact, the lack of qualified priests who can properly celebrate this mass. Here, then, those faithful affected must have understanding and much patience. I am of the opinion that seminarians in the priestly seminaries should be offered the opportunity appropriately to learn to celebrate in the Extraordinary Form – not as a duty, but rather as a possibility. Where it is possible, one could call on those institutes who come under the jurisdiction of the Commission Ecclesia Dei and who follow the traditional liturgical discipline to assist in the training of priests. In any case, what is essential is a liturgical and theological education which decisively does away with the idea that there is a preconciliar liturgy in opposition to a postconcilar one, or that there is a preconciliar ecclesiology in opposition to a postconciliar one. Rather, there is a growth and a deepening in the history of the faith and liturgy of the Church, but always in continuity, and in essential unity, which can and may never be lost or narrowed.” (Interview with Ecclesia Dei Secretary - Full Text.) 

Pozzo’s comments repeated the same assertion that Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI made in his Explanatory Letter to the "Bishops" that accompanied the Motu Proprio Summorum:

There is no contradiction between the two editions of the Roman Missal. In the history of the liturgy there is growth and progress, but no rupture. What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful. It behooves all of us to preserve the riches which have developed in the Church's faith and prayer, and to give them their proper place.cilia matter of principle, exclude celebrating according to the new books. The total exclusion of the new rite would not in fact be consistent with the recognition of its value and holiness (Explanatory Letter on "Summorum Pontificum".)

Pozzo, however, refused to take any cognizance of the fact that his “pope,” who openly admits that he was under suspicion of Modernism not long after his priestly ordination on June 29, 1951, during the pontificate of Pope Pius XII (see New Biography Confirms Ratzinger Once Viewed as 'Dangerous  Modernist" Under Pope Pius XII), had said previously, including in his own memoirs, that there had been a rupture between the Immemorial Mass of Tradition and the Novus Ordo’s “renewed” liturgy:

What happened after the Council was something else entirely: in the place of liturgy as the fruit of development came fabricated liturgy. We abandoned the organic, living process of growth and development over centuries, and replaced it--as in a manufacturing process--with a fabrication, a banal on-the-spot product. Gamber, with the vigilance of a true prophet and the courage of a true witness, opposed this falsification, and thanks to his incredibly rich knowledge, indefatigably taught us about the living fullness of a true liturgy. As a man who knew and loved history, he showed us the multiple forms and paths of liturgical development; as a man who looked at history form the inside, he saw in this development and its fruit the intangible reflection of the eternal liturgy, that which is not the object of our action but which can continue marvelously to mature and blossom if we unite ourselves intimately with its mystery. (Joseph "Cardinal: Ratzinger, Preface to the French language edition of Monsignor Klaus Gamber's The Reform of the Roman Liturgy.)

The prohibition of the missal that was now decreed, a missal that had known continuous growth over the centuries, starting with the sacramentaries of the ancient Church, introduced a breach into the history of the liturgy whose consequences could only be tragic. It was reasonable and right of the Council to order a revision of the missal such as had often taken place before and which this time had to be more thorough than before, above all because of the introduction of the vernacular.

But more than this now happened: the old building was demolished, and another was built, to be sure largely using materials from the previous one and even using the old building plans. There is no doubt that this new missal in many respects brought with it a real improvement and enrichment; but setting it as a new construction over against what had grown historically, forbidding the results of this historical growth. thereby makes the liturgy appear to be no longer living development but the produce of erudite work and juridical authority; this has caused an enormous harm. For then the impression had to emerge that liturgy is something "made", not something given in advance but something lying without our own power of decision. (Joseph "Cardinal" Ratzinger, Milestones.)

Thus, Kurt “Cardinal” Koch was not being at all original when he said the following for the first time in 2011:

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI's easing of restrictions on use of the 1962 Roman Missal, known as the Tridentine rite, is just the first step in a "reform of the reform" in liturgy, the Vatican's top ecumenist said.

The pope's long-term aim is not simply to allow the old and new rites to coexist, but to move toward a "common rite" that is shaped by the mutual enrichment of the two Mass forms, Cardinal Kurt Koch, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, said May 14.

In effect, the pope is launching a new liturgical reform movement, the cardinal said. Those who resist it, including "rigid" progressives, mistakenly view the Second Vatican Council as a rupture with the church's liturgical tradition, he said.

Cardinal Koch made the remarks at a Rome conference on "Summorum Pontificum," Pope Benedict's 2007 apostolic letter that offered wider latitude for use of the Tridentine rite. The cardinal's text was published the same day by L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper.

Cardinal Koch said Pope Benedict thinks the post-Vatican II liturgical changes have brought "many positive fruits" but also problems, including a focus on purely practical matters and a neglect of the paschal mystery in the Eucharistic celebration. The cardinal said it was legitimate to ask whether liturgical innovators had intentionally gone beyond the council's stated intentions.

He said this explains why Pope Benedict has introduced a new reform movement, beginning with "Summorum Pontificum." The aim, he said, is to revisit Vatican II's teachings in liturgy and strengthen certain elements, including the Christological and sacrificial dimensions of the Mass.

Cardinal Koch said "Summorum Pontificum" is "only the beginning of this new liturgical movement."

"In fact, Pope Benedict knows well that, in the long term, we cannot stop at a coexistence between the ordinary form and the extraordinary form of the Roman rite, but that in the future the church naturally will once again need a common rite," he said.

"However, because a new liturgical reform cannot be decided theoretically, but requires a process of growth and purification, the pope for the moment is underlining above all that the two forms of the Roman rite can and should enrich each other," he said.

Cardinal Koch said those who oppose this new reform movement and see it as a step back from Vatican II lack a proper understanding of the post-Vatican II liturgical changes. As the pope has emphasized, Vatican II was not a break or rupture with tradition but part of an organic process of growth, he said.

On the final day of the conference, participants attended a Mass celebrated according to the Tridentine rite at the Altar of the Chair in St. Peter's Basilica. Cardinal Walter Brandmuller presided over the liturgy. It was the first time in several decades that the old rite was celebrated at the altar. (Reform of the Reform in the Liturgy to Continue.) 

“Growth and purification”?

In other words, traditionally-minded Catholics in the conciliar structures had to forget about their “attachment” to the “1962 Missal” and the Jacobin/Bolsheviks amongst the conciliar revolutionaries had to forget about  some of the “excesses” in liturgical “abuses” in the greatest liturgical abuse of all, the Protestant and Judeo-Masonic Novus Ordo liturgical abomination.

Kurt “Cardinal” Koch’s comments in early 2011 were echoed nine months later by one of the great heroes of “traditionalists” and “conservatives” within the conciliar structures, Raymond Leo “Cardinal” Burke:

Cardinal Burke said greater access to the traditional Latin Mass, now know as the "extraordinary form" of the Roman rite, has helped correct the problem.

"The celebration of the Mass in the extraordinary form is now less and less contested," he noted, "and people are seeing the great beauty of the rite as it was celebrated practically since the time if Pope Gregory the Great" in the sixth century.

Many Catholics now see that the Church's "ordinary form" of Mass, celebrated in modern languages, "could be enriched by elements of that long tradition."

In time, Cardinal Burke expects the Western Church's ancient and modern forms of Mass to be combined in one normative rite, a move he suggests the Pope also favors.

"It seems to me that is what he has in mind is that this mutual enrichment would seem to naturally produce a new form of the Roman rite – the 'reform of the reform,' if we may – all of which I would welcome and look forward to its advent." (Cardinal Burke reflects on his first year in the Sacred College.)

Although I am not following events in the counterfeit church of conciliarism as carefully or as regularly as I used to precisely because little new is being said and done, I did happen to go on Novus Ordo Watch last week and, as noted just above, discovered that Kurt Koch has been at it again: “In the long term, the two forms cannot continue to co-exist.” (Koch Calls for Synthesis in Liturgy Once Again.)

These Modernists do not have an original thought in their skulls full of anathematized propositions and delusions of their own making.

Although I doubt that Jorge Mario Bergoglio would want to synthesize anything about even the modernized version of the Immemorial Mass that was promulgated in 1961 by Angelo Roncalli/John XXIII to codify his suppression of various feasts in 1960 that was only in existence universally in the conciliar church from Sunday, December 3, 1961, the First Sunday of Advent 1961, to Sunday, November 29, 1964, before being replaced by Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria/Paul VI’s Ordo Missae as part of a “reform of the reform,” it is important to point out that the liturgical changes in the 1950s and thereafter were meant to lead to “Mass of Ecumenism,” that is, the “Mass” of One World Religion that neither care for doctrine nor for the authentic liturgical tradition of the Catholic Church.

Montini/Paul VI boasted that changes that began in 1951 that had been engineered by his revolutionary comrades named Fathers Annibale Bugnini, C.M., and Ferdinando Antonelli, O.F.M., and represented falsely to Pope Pius XII as “restorations” of antiquity were meant to prepare the way for the “new mentality” of a “new Mass” for a new religion with its new theology, new moral teaching, new Scriptural exegesis and new ways of dealing with false religions and the world itself:

This renewal has also shown clearly that the formulas of the Roman Missal ought to be revised and enriched. The beginning of this renewal was the work of Our predecessor, this same Pius XII, in the restoration of the Paschal Vigil and of the Holy Week Rite, which formed the first stage of updating the Roman Missal for the present-day mentality. (Giovanni Montini/Paul VI, April 3, 1969.)

Noting that the definitive review of how the Liturgical Movement that had started with Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., before being hijacked by Dom Lambert Beauduin, O.S.B., has been written by sedeplentist Dr. Carol A. Byrne (The Start of The New Liturgical Movement), it is useful for purposes of this brief commentary to remind readers of this site that the “gold standard” for use in the counterfeit church of conciliarism, the 1961/1962 Missal of Angelo Roncalli/John XXIII, contained the anti-liturgical Jansenist changes that the first in the current line had made in 1960, among which were the chief characteristics:

1.   Reduction of Matins to three lessons. Archbishop Vintimille of Paris, a Jansenist sympathizer, in his reform of the Breviary in 1736, "reduced the Office for most days to three lessons, to make it shorter." In 1960 John XXIII also reduced the Office of Matins to only three lessons on most days. This meant the suppression of a third of Holy Scripture, two-thirds of the lives of the saints, and the whole of the commentaries of the Church Fathers on Holy Scripture. Matins, of course, forms a considerable part of the Breviary.

2.   Replacing ecclesiastical formulas style with Scripture. "The second principle of the anti-liturgical sect," said Dom Guéranger, "is to replace the formulae in ecclesiastical style with readings from Holy Scripture." While the Breviary of St. Pius X had the commentaries on Holy Scripture by the Fathers of the Church, John XXIII's Breviary suppressed most commentaries written by the Fathers of the Church. On Sundays, only five or six lines from the Fathers remains.

3.   Removal of saints' feasts from Sunday.Dom Gueranger gives the Jansenists' position: "It is their [the Jansenists'] great principle of the sanctity of Sunday which will not permit this day to be 'degraded' by consecrating it to the veneration of a saint, not even the Blessed Virgin Mary. A fortiori, the feasts with a rank of double or double major which make such an agreeable change for the faithful from the monotony of the Sundays, reminding them of the friends of God, their virtues and their protection — shouldn't they be deferred always to weekdays, when their feasts would pass by silently and unnoticed?"

John XXIII, going well beyond the well-balanced reform of St. Pius X, fulfills almost to the letter the ideal of the Janenist heretics: only nine feasts of the saints can take precedence over the Sunday (two feasts of St. Joseph, three feasts of Our Lady, St. John the Baptist, Saints Peter and Paul, St. Michael, and All Saints). By contrast, the calendar of St. Pius X included 32 feasts which took precedence, many of which were former holy days of obligation. What is worse, John XXIII abolished even the commemoration of the saints on Sunday.

4.   Preferring the ferial office over the saint’s feast. Dom Guéranger goes on to describe the moves of the Jansenists as follows: "The calendar would then be purged, and the aim, acknowledged by Grancolas (1727) and his accomplices, would be to make the clergy prefer the ferial office to that of the saints. What a pitiful spectacle! To see the putrid principles of Calvinism, so vulgarly opposed to those of the Holy See, which for two centuries has not ceased fortifying the Church's calendar with the inclusion' of new protectors, penetrate into our churches!"

John XXIII totally suppressed ten feasts from the calendar (eleven in Italy with the feast of Our Lady of Loreto), reduced 29 feasts of simple rank and nine of more elevated rank to mere commemorations, thus causing the ferial office to take precedence. He suppressed almost all the octaves and vigils, and replaced another 24 saints' days with the ferial office. Finally, with the new rules for Lent, the feasts of another nine saints, officially in the calendar, are never celebrated. In sum, the reform of John XXIII purged about 81 or 82 feasts of saints, sacrificing them to "Calvinist principles."

Dom Gueranger also notes that the Jansenists suppressed the feasts of the saints in Lent. John XXIII did the same, keeping only the feasts of first and second class. Since they always fall during Lent, the feasts of St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Gregory the Great. St. Benedict, St. Patrick, and St. Gabriel the Archangel would never be celebrated. (Liturgical Revolution)

As mentioned before, what is the “1962 Missal” was in effect for precisely three years prior to its being supplanted in various parts of the world, including here in the United States of America, with the aforementioned Ordo Missae of 1965. This important bridge or stepping-stone to the Protestant and Judeo-Masonic Novus Ordo liturgical abomination permitted Holy Mass to be offered in the vernacular and facing people if the celebrant chose to do so. It also eliminated the Judica me (Psalm 42), meaning that every Mass began as do Masses in Passiontide and Masses offered for the dead. This “simplification” meant that priest would go directly from Introibo ad altare Dei to Adjutorium nostrum in nomine Domini. The Last Gospel, whose reading had been mandated by Pope Saint Pius V when he issued the Missale Romanum in 1570 and had been a common practice throughout Christendom for the preceding four to five centuries depending upon local custom, and the Prayers after Low Mass, which had become merely optional in the 1962 Missal, was eliminated entirely

After all, there wasn't any need for to pray for the conversion of Russia or for the freedom of the Church in Russia in the "enlightened" 1960s, was there? And the last thing that the conciliar revolutionaries believed that what they thought was the Catholic Church needed was any kind of intercessory prayer made to Saint Michael the Archangel. (For a review of the text of the Ordo Missae of 1965, please see 1965 Missal, Part 1 and 1965 Missal, Part 2.)

Moreover, the Ordo Missae of 1965, which permitted local adaptations to be made by the new entities called episcopal conferences, instituted what is called the Prayer of the Faithful” after the recitation of the Credo on Sundays and as an option after the Gospel (or the “homily”) on weekdays. As a battle-scarred veteran of the “let's fight from within to stop liturgical abuses” in the counterfeit church of conciliarism,  I can attest as how to this supposed "restoration" of an ancient practice opened the doors wide to Pentecostalism as members of the laity, particularly at weekday liturgies where they were asked by the presider, who introduced the prayers before sitting down until their completion, to state their petitions, some of which went on interminably and were nothing other than exercises in maudlin self-pity.

A review of the following excerpt from Inter Oecumenici, which was issued by the then named Sacred Congregation for the Rites, will reveal that many of the revolutionary elements of the Novus Ordo were in place at least five years before the implementation of this liturgical abomination on Sunday, November 30, 1969, the First Sunday of Advent:

48. Until reform of the entire Ordo Missae, the points that follow are to be observed:

a. The celebrant is not to say privately those parts of the Proper sung or recited by the choir or the congregation. 

b. The celebrant may sing or recite the parts of the Ordinary together with the congregation or choir.

c. In the prayers at the foot of the altar at the beginning of Mass Psalm 42 is omitted. All the prayers at the foot of the altar are omitted whenever there is another liturgical rite immediately preceding.

d. In solemn Mass the subdeacon does not hold the paten but leaves it on the altar.
e. In sung Masses the secret prayer or prayer over the gifts is sung and in other Masses recited aloud.
f. The doxology at the end of the canon, from Per ipsum through Per omnia saecula saeculorum. R. Amen, is to be sung or recited aloud. Throughout the whole doxology the celebrant slightly elevates the chalice with the host, omitting the signs of the cross, and genuflects at the end after the Amen response by the people.
g. In recited Masses the congregation may recite the Lord's Prayer in the vernacular along with the celebrant; in sung Masses the people may sing it in Latin along with the celebrant and, should the territorial ecclesiastical authority have so decreed, also in the vernacular, using melodies approved by the same authority.
h. The embolism after the Lord's Prayer shall be sung or recited aloud.
i. The formulary for distributing holy communion is to be, Corpus Christi. As he says these words, the celebrant holds the host slightly above the ciborium and shows it to the communicant, who responds: Amen, then receives communion from the celebrant, the sign of the cross with the host being omitted.
j. The last gospel is omitted; the Leonine Prayers are suppressed.
k. It is lawful to celebrate a sung Mass with only a deacon assisting.
l. It is lawful, when necessary, for bishops to celebrate a sung Mass following the form used by priests. (Inter Oecuemnici, Sepember 26, 1964.)

This was the start of what the conciliarists have called “full, active and conscious participation in the liturgy,” which implies that Catholics who assisted at the Mass prior to the “Second” Vatican Council did were not fully conscious of what was happening in the ineffable Sacrifice of the Cross offered in an unbloody manner by an alter Christus acting in persona Christi and thus could not only participate “passively” as “spectators.” This assertion has become so common that it is once again necessary to explain that scores of canonized saints who were neither priests nor consecrated religious nor Latinist nor theologians nor liturgists had no idea what was happening in Holy Mass for around fifteen hundred years.

This outrageous lie flies in the face of the reality that Catholics understood very well that the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass was the unbloody re-presentation or perpetuation of the bloody Sacrifice that  Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ offered once in time, on Good Friday, to His Co-Equal, Co-Eternal God the Father in atonement for our sins and that Holy Mass is thus Calvary and a foretaste of Heavenly joys at one and the same time. Catholics understood that all the angels and saints in Heaven and the souls in the Church Suffering in Purgatory are present mystically at every Mass.

Catholics prior to the “Second” Vatican Council were catechized about the Holy Mass both at home and in school. They understood basic Catholic doctrine, reverenced the Most Blessed Sacrament in the tabernacle, made the Sign of the Cross when walking or driving past a Catholic church and took every opportunity available to them to make even a short visit to Our Lord in His Real Presence.

Writing in Mediator Dei, November 20, 1947, Pope Pius XII, explained that the silence of the Immemorial Mass of Tradition does not connote an lack of participation of the faithful in the Mass as they knew full well that they, through the common priesthood of the baptized, add their own prayers and intentions to those of the priest at the Memento for the living and the Memento for the dead in the Canon of the Mass. Moreover, many Catholics were very aware of the theological significance of each part of Holy Mass and could explain this to others, including possible converts and to their own children:

24. But the chief element of divine worship must be interior. For we must always live in Christ and give ourselves to Him completely, so that in Him, with Him and through Him the heavenly Father may be duly glorified. The sacred liturgy requires, however, that both of these elements be intimately linked with each another. This recommendation the liturgy itself is careful to repeat, as often as it prescribes an exterior act of worship. Thus we are urged, when there is question of fasting, for example, “to give interior effect to our outward observance.”[28] Otherwise religion clearly amounts to mere formalism, without meaning and without content. You recall, Venerable Brethren, how the divine Master expels from the sacred temple, as unworthily to worship there, people who pretend to honor God with nothing but neat and wellturned phrases, like actors in a theater, and think themselves perfectly capable of working out their eternal salvation without plucking their inveterate vices from their hearts.[29] It is, therefore, the keen desire of the Church that all of the faithful kneel at the feet of the Redeemer to tell Him how much they venerate and love Him. She wants them present in crowds — like the children whose joyous cries accompanied His entry into Jerusalem — to sing their hymns and chant their song of praise and thanksgiving to Him who is King of Kings and Source of every blessing. She would have them move their lips in prayer, sometimes in petition, sometimes in joy and gratitude, and in this way experience His merciful aid and power like the apostles at the lakeside of Tiberias, or abandon themselves totally, like Peter on Mount Tabor, to mystic union with the eternal God in contemplation.

25. It is an error, consequently, and a mistake to think of the sacred liturgy as merely the outward or visible part of divine worship or as an ornamental ceremonial. No less erroneous is the notion that it consists solely in a list of laws and prescriptions according to which the ecclesiastical hierarchy orders the sacred rites to be performed.

26. It should be clear to all, then, that God cannot be honored worthily unless the mind and heart turn to Him in quest of the perfect life, and that the worship rendered to God by the Church in union with her divine Head is the most efficacious means of achieving sanctity. (Pope Pius XII, Mediator Dei, November 20, 1947.)

Pope Pius XII did commend the efforts of those who produced missals to make the texts of the Mass easily accessible to the faithful, and he also noted that the faithful could join in the singing at High Masses. However, he also wrote that the absence of these accidentals do not detract in any way from the efficacy of a Mass offered validity by a true priest:

105. Therefore, they are to be praised who, with the idea of getting the Christian people to take part more easily and more fruitfully in the Mass, strive to make them familiar with the “Roman Missal,” so that the faithful, united with the priest, may pray together in the very words and sentiments of the Church. They also are to be commended who strive to make the liturgy even in an external way a sacred act in which all who are present may share. This can be done in more than one way, when, for instance, the whole congregation, in accordance with the rules of the liturgy, either answer the priest in an orderly and fitting manner, or sing hymns suitable to the different parts of the Mass, or do both, or finally in high Masses when they answer the prayers of the minister of Jesus Christ and also sing the liturgical chant.

100. These methods of participation in the Mass are to be approved and recommended when they are in complete agreement with the precepts of the Church and the rubrics of the liturgy. Their chief aim is to foster and promote the people’s piety and intimate union with Christ and His visible minister and to arouse those internal sentiments and dispositions which should make our hearts become like to that of the High Priest of the New Testament. However, though they show also in an outward manner that the very nature of the sacrifice, as offered by the Mediator between God and men,[102] must be regarded as the act of the whole Mystical Body of Christ, still they are by no means necessary to constitute it a public act or to give it a social character. And besides, a “dialogue” Mass of this kind cannot replace the high Mass, which, as a matter of fact, though it should be offered with only the sacred ministers present, possesses its own special dignity due to the impressive character of its ritual and the magnificence of its ceremonies. The splendor and grandeur of a high Mass, however, are very much increased if, as the Church desires, the people are present in great numbers and with devotion.

107. It is to be observed, also, that they have strayed from the path of truth and right reason who, led away by false opinions, make so much of these accidentals as to presume to assert that without them the Mass cannot fulfill its appointed end. (Pope Pius XII, Mediator Dei, November 20. 1947.)

The conciliar revolutionaries have made the accidentals essential to the “fullness” of the liturgy, which is what Inter Oecumenici sought to accomplish

One can see that all of this "innovation," which was more or less being conducted ad experimentum in various parts of the world, especially here in the United States of America, was incorporated directly into the Protestant and Judeo-Masonic Novus Ordo liturgical abomination itself, and it was accepted with barely a peep of protest by most Catholics. The only ones who did have the prophetic insight to recognize apostasy for what it was and remain were castigated by family members and shunned by friends as being "outside of the Church."

The nature and the extent of the changes were bound to—and did in fact—bewilder at least a few ordinary Catholics. This is why the following announcement was inserted into the parish bulletin of Saint Matthew's Church in Norwood, Ohio, a facility that is now Immaculate Conception Church, which operates under the auspices of the Society of Saint Pius V, on November 29, 1964,  to tell the sheep just to do what they were told as a revolution unfolded before their very eyes and with their own "full, active and conscious participation:"

Today is the First Sunday of Advent and the beginning of the Church's new liturgical year. Today we begin our "New Liturgy". Beginning today many parts of Holy Mass will be said in English. We ask each of you to do your very best to join the priest in the prayers of the Mass. Leaflets with the official text of these prayers were given most of your last Sunday. (For those of you who were unable to obtain your copies last Sunday, you may obtain one at the bulletin stands today.) For the Masses with singing (including the 9:45 a.m. High Mass), you are asked to use the cards found in the pews. Kindly stand, sit and kneel, according to the directions on your leaflet or the card. At the Masses today, seminarians will be on hand to help and guide you in this new participation. We wish to thank Msgr. Schneider, Rector of Mt. St. Mary's Seminary, for his kindness in sending us his students; and also the young men themselves for their generosity in helping us. We know that it will take a while (perhaps even months) before we have this new method of participating in Holy Mass perfected; we earnestly ask each one to cooperate loyally and faithfully to the best of his or her ability to make the public worship of God in St. Matthew Parish a true and worthy "sacrifice of praise." [Historical note: The Mount Saint Mary's Seminary referred to in the bulletin was known as Mount Saint Mary's Seminary of the West, located in Norwood, Ohio.]

Such unceasing changes in the liturgy in the 1950s and 1960s conditioned Catholics to accept “changes” in Catholic doctrine, including rationalist “explanations” to eradicate belief in the miracles of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, including His very Bodily Resurrection on Easter Sunday, moral teaching and pastoral praxis. Most of the “changes” in these areas were accepted as the sheep went “baa, baa,” coming to view the “changes” themselves as what constitutes authentic Catholic doctrine while viewing all that happened before the “Second” Vatican Council as “outdated.”

Every fight within the conciliar structures to “correct” liturgical “abuses” and to provide Catholics with the “option” of fleeing from the Novus Ordo abomination and then by means of an “indult” to “legally” attend the modernized and modernizing “1962  Mass” was premised upon the acceptance of the Novus Ordo as valid but “defective” and failed to recognize that the Catholic Church, guided as she is by the Third Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, God the Holy Ghost, can never give her children a “defective” liturgy. Moreover, these fights failed to take account of the simple truth that the Novus Ordo abomination was meant to be and is to this very day an expression of a different “faith” that is forever seeking “syntheses” with Protestants, the Orthodox and the world.

Indeed, the old Hegelian from Bavaria, Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, whose whole false belief system is based on “finding” “syntheses” of one sort or another, explained in the letter that accompanied the issuance of Summorum Pontificum, July 7, 2007, and in his letter to his conciliar “bishops” explaining his lifting of his “sainted” predecessor’s ban of excommunication on the bishops that had been consecrated by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre on June 30, 1988, that  he was motivated not by a desire to restore the Catholic Faith but solely as a means to  “pacify” the spirits of those who had “difficulty” accepting the “Second” Vatican Council and the “reformed” liturgy:

Leading men and women to God, to the God Who speaks in the Bible: this is the supreme and fundamental priority of the Church and of the Successor of Peter at the present time. A logical consequence of this is that we must have at heart the unity of all believers. Their disunity, their disagreement among themselves, calls into question the credibility of their talk of God. Hence the effort to promote a common witness by Christians to their faith - ecumenism - is part of the supreme priority. Added to this is the need for all those who believe in God to join in seeking peace, to attempt to draw closer to one another, and to journey together, even with their differing images of God, towards the source of Light - this is inter-religious dialogue. Whoever proclaims that God is Love 'to the end' has to bear witness to love: in loving devotion to the suffering, in the rejection of hatred and enmity - this is the social dimension of the Christian faith, of which I spoke in the Encyclical 'Deus caritas est'.

"So if the arduous task of working for faith, hope and love in the world is presently (and, in various ways, always) the Church's real priority, then part of this is also made up of acts of reconciliation, small and not so small. That the quiet gesture of extending a hand gave rise to a huge uproar, and thus became exactly the opposite of a gesture of reconciliation, is a fact which we must accept. But I ask now: Was it, and is it, truly wrong in this case to meet half-way the brother who 'has something against you' and to seek reconciliation? Should not civil society also try to forestall forms of extremism and to incorporate their eventual adherents - to the extent possible - in the great currents shaping social life, and thus avoid their being segregated, with all its consequences? Can it be completely mistaken to work to break down obstinacy and narrowness, and to make space for what is positive and retrievable for the whole? I myself saw, in the years after 1988, how the return of communities which had been separated from Rome changed their interior attitudes; I saw how returning to the bigger and broader Church enabled them to move beyond one-sided positions and broke down rigidity so that positive energies could emerge for the whole. Can we be totally indifferent about a community which has 491 priests, 215 seminarians, 6 seminaries, 88 schools, 2 university-level institutes, 117 religious brothers, 164 religious sisters and thousands of lay faithful? Should we casually let them drift farther from the Church? I think for example of the 491 priests. We cannot know how mixed their motives may be. All the same, I do not think that they would have chosen the priesthood if, alongside various distorted and unhealthy elements, they did not have a love for Christ and a desire to proclaim Him and, with Him, the living God. Can we simply exclude them, as representatives of a radical fringe, from our pursuit of reconciliation and unity? What would then become of them?

"Certainly, for some time now, and once again on this specific occasion, we have heard from some representatives of that community many unpleasant things - arrogance and presumptuousness, an obsession with one-sided positions, etc. Yet to tell the truth, I must add that I have also received a number of touching testimonials of gratitude which clearly showed an openness of heart. But should not the great Church also allow herself to be generous in the knowledge of her great breadth, in the knowledge of the promise made to her? Should not we, as good educators, also be capable of overlooking various faults and making every effort to open up broader vistas? And should we not admit that some unpleasant things have also emerged in Church circles? At times one gets the impression that our society needs to have at least one group to which no tolerance may be shown; which one can easily attack and hate. And should someone dare to approach them - in this case the Pope - he too loses any right to tolerance; he too can be treated hatefully, without misgiving or restraint. (Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church concerning the remission of the excommunication of the four Bishops consecrated by Archbishop Lefebvre, March 10, 2009.)

Fr Federico Lombardi, S.J., Director of the Holy See Press Office: What do you say to those who, in France, fear that the "Motu proprio' Summorum Pontificum signals a step backwards from the great insights of the Second Vatican Council? How can you reassure them?

Benedict XVI: Their fear is unfounded, for this "Motu Proprio' is merely an act of tolerance, with a pastoral aim, for those people who were brought up with this liturgy, who love it, are familiar with it and want to live with this liturgy. They form a small group, because this presupposes a schooling in Latin, a training in a certain culture. Yet for these people, to have the love and tolerance to let them live with this liturgy seems to me a normal requirement of the faith and pastoral concern of any Bishop of our Church. There is no opposition between the liturgy renewed by the Second Vatican Council and this liturgy.

On each day [of the Council], the Council Fathers celebrated Mass in accordance with the ancient rite and, at the same time, they conceived of a natural development for the liturgy within the whole of this century, for the liturgy is a living reality that develops but, in its development, retains its identity. Thus, there are certainly different accents, but nevertheless [there remains] a fundamental identity that excludes a contradiction, an opposition between the renewed liturgy and the previous liturgy. In any case, I believe that there is an opportunity for the enrichment of both parties. On the one hand the friends of the old liturgy can and must know the new saints, the new prefaces of the liturgy, etc.... On the other, the new liturgy places greater emphasis on common participation, but it is not merely an assembly of a certain community, but rather always an act of the universal Church in communion with all believers of all times, and an act of worship. In this sense, it seems to me that there is a mutual enrichment, and it is clear that the renewed liturgy is the ordinary liturgy of our time. (Interview of the Holy Father during the flight to France, September 12, 2008.)

Liturgical worship is the supreme expression of priestly and episcopal life, just as it is of catechetical teaching. Your duty to sanctify the faithful people, dear Brothers, is indispensable for the growth of the Church. In the Motu Proprio “Summorum Pontificum”, I was led to set out the conditions in which this duty is to be exercised, with regard to the possibility of using the missal of Blessed John XXIII (1962) in addition to that of Pope Paul VI (1970). Some fruits of these new arrangements have already been seen, and I hope that, thanks be to God, the necessary pacification of spirits is already taking place. I am aware of your difficulties, but I do not doubt that, within a reasonable time, you can find solutions satisfactory for all, lest the seamless tunic of Christ be further torn. Everyone has a place in the Church. Every person, without exception, should be able to feel at home, and never rejected. God, who loves all men and women and wishes none to be lost, entrusts us with this mission by appointing us shepherds of his sheep. We can only thank him for the honour and the trust that he has placed in us. Let us therefore strive always to be servants of unity! (Meeting with the French Bishops in the Hemicycle Sainte-Bernadette, Lourdes, 14 September 2008.)

All the angst over the future of Summorum Pontificum is just an extension of the old “fight from within” battles that many of us fought for decades to preserve “reverence” in an liturgy that is irreverent of its very false and sacramentally barren nature, and it is all quite silly in the human order of things as Ratzinger/Benedict himself admitted that his extension of the Abhinc Quattor Annos, October 3, 1984 and Ecclesia Dei Adflicta, July 2, 1988,insults was about the “pacification of spirits” and not about the integrity of a Holy Faith whose very integrity He has attacked throughout his entire life and has been mocked throughout his successor’s legendary career as a lay Jesuit revolutionary. Ratzinger/Benedict, however, remained fully committed to the “liturgical  renewal” that produced such devastating consequences in the souls of millions upon millions of Catholics worldwide—and deprived the world of a superabundance of Sanctifying and Actual Graces, thus harming the state of the world in the process—shortly before his announced resignation had taken effect:

To wit, Ratzinger/Benedict cited the "Liturgical Movement" as a prime force in the "renewal of the liturgy" as anticipated in and defended in the "Second" Vatican Council's first document, Sacrosanctum Concilium, November 1, 1963. This "Liturgical Movement," which was led by Modernist revolutionaries who hijacked the original Liturgical Movement that had commenced with the work of Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B,, the author of The Liturgical Year, in the Nineteenth Century, attempted to revive the antiquarian principles of Jansenism that were condemned Pope Pius VI in Auctorem Fidei, August 28,1794.

Here is the counterfeit church of conciliarism's outgoing "pope's" elegy of praise in behalf of the the hijacked "Liturgical Movement:"

Referring to the reform of the liturgy, the Pope recalled that "after the First World War, a liturgical movement had grown in Western Central Europe," as "the rediscovery of the richness and depth of the liturgy," which hitherto was almost locked within the priest’s Roman Missal, while the people prayed with their prayer books "that were made according to the heart of the people", so that "the task was to translate the high content, the language of the classical liturgy, into more moving words, that were closer to the heart of the people. But they were almost two parallel liturgies: the priest with the altar servers, who celebrated the Mass according to the Missal and the lay people who prayed the Mass with their prayer books”. " Now - he continued - "The beauty, the depth, the Missal’s wealth of human and spiritual history " was rediscovered as well as the need more than one representative of the people, a small altar boy, to respond "Et cum spiritu your" etc. , to allow for "a real dialogue between priest and people," so that the liturgy of the altar and the liturgy of the people really were "one single liturgy, one active participation": "and so it was that the liturgy was rediscovered, renewed."

The Pope said he saw the fact that the Council started with the liturgy as a very positive sign, because in this way "the primacy of God” was self evident”. Some – he noted - criticized the Council because it spoke about many things, but not about God: instead, it spoke of God and its first act was to speak of God and open to the entire holy people the possibility of worshiping God, in the common celebration of the liturgy of the Body and Blood of Christ. In this sense - he observed - beyond the practical factors that advised against immediately starting with controversial issues, it was actually "an act of Providence" that the Council began with the liturgy, God, Adoration.

The Holy Father then recalled the essential ideas of the Council: especially the paschal mystery as a centre of Christian existence, and therefore of Christian life, as expressed in Easter and Sunday, which is always the day of the Resurrection, "over and over again we begin our time with the Resurrection, with an encounter with the Risen One. " In this sense - he observed - it is unfortunate that today, Sunday has been transformed into the end of the week, while it is the first day, it is the beginning: "inwardly we must bear in mind this is the beginning, the beginning of Creation, the beginning of the re-creation of the Church, our encounter with the Creator and with the Risen Christ. " The Pope stressed the importance of this dual content of Sunday: it is the first day, that is the feast of the Creation, as we believe in God the Creator, and encounter with the Risen One who renews Creation: "its real purpose is to create a world which is a response to God's love. "

The Council also pondered the principals of the intelligibility of the Liturgy - instead of being locked up in an unknown language, which was no longer spoken - and active participation. "Unfortunately – he said - these principles were also poorly understood." In fact, intelligibility does not mean "banalizing" because the great texts of the liturgy - even in the spoken languages ​​ - are not easily intelligible, "they require an ongoing formation of the Christian, so that he may grow and enter deeper into the depths of the mystery, and thus comprehend". And also concerning the Word of God - he asked - who can honestly say they understand the texts of Scripture, simply because they are in their own language? "Only a permanent formation of the heart and mind can actually create intelligibility and participation which is more than one external activity, which is an entering of the person, of his or her being into communion with the Church and thus in fellowship with Christ." (Blame the Media, Not the Council, Not Me or My Apostate Views.) 

Rediscovering the "richness and depth of the liturgy"?

To believe this, of course, one must believe that the Immemorial of Mass of Tradition, which has been the principal rite of the Catholic Church throughout her history, had hidden the "richness and depth of the liturgy, a notion that is blasphemous and absurd.

" 'The beauty, the depth, the Missal’s wealth of human and spiritual history' was rediscovered as well as the need more than one representative of the people, a small altar boy, to respond 'Et cum spiritu your' etc. , to allow for "a real dialogue between priest and people," so that the liturgy of the altar and the liturgy of the people really were 'one single liturgy, one active participation': "and so it was that the liturgy was rediscovered, renewed"?

Sickening beyond description. 

Ratzinger/Benedict would have us believe that the countless number of souls, no less canonized saints, who were edified and sanctified by glories of the Immemorial Mass of Tradition, even admitting regional variations prior to the issuance of the Missale Romanum in 1570 by Pope Saint Pius V, over the course of over nineteen centuries had been deprived of the "richness and depth of the liturgy." In other words, the leaders of the hijacked "Liturgical Movement" had "secret" knowledge somewhat akin to Gnosticism. They had "rediscovered" what had been lost in the past just as Ratzinger/Benedict himself had to "discover" for us that doctrinal truth can never be formulated precisely at any one time given the imprecision of human language and the vicissitudes of changing historical circumstances.

This all calls to mind Pope Saint Pius X's description of the overweening pride possessed by Modernists:

40. To penetrate still deeper into the meaning of Modernism and to find a suitable remedy for so deep a sore, it behooves Us, Venerable Brethren, to investigate the causes which have engendered it and which foster its growth. That the proximate and immediate cause consists in an error of the mind cannot be open to doubt. We recognize that the remote causes may be reduced to two: curiosity and pride. Curiosity by itself, if not prudently regulated, suffices to account for all errors. Such is the opinion of Our predecessor, Gregory XVI, who wrote: "A lamentable spectacle is that presented by the aberrations of human reason when it yields to the spirit of novelty, when against the warning of the Apostle it seeks to know beyond what it is meant to know, and when relying too much on itself it thinks it can find the truth outside the Catholic Church wherein truth is found without the slightest shadow of error."

But it is pride which exercises an incomparably greater sway over the soul to blind it and lead it into error, and pride sits in Modernism as in its own house, finding sustenance everywhere in its doctrines and lurking in its every aspect. It is pride which fills Modernists with that self-assurance by which they consider themselves and pose as the rule for all. It is pride which puffs them up with that vainglory which allows them to regard themselves as the sole possessors of knowledge, and makes them say, elated and inflated with presumption, "We are not as the rest of men," and which, lest they should seem as other men, leads them to embrace and to devise novelties even of the most absurd kind. It is pride which rouses in them the spirit of disobedience and causes them to demand a compromise between authority and liberty. It is owing to their pride that they seek to be the reformers of others while they forget to reform themselves, and that they are found to be utterly wanting in respect for authority, even for the supreme authority. Truly there is no road which leads so directly and so quickly to Modernism as pride. When a Catholic layman or a priest forgets the precept of the Christian life which obliges us to renounce ourselves if we would follow Christ and neglects to tear pride from his heart, then it is he who most of all is a fully ripe subject for the errors of Modernism. For this reason, Venerable Brethren, it will be your first duty to resist such victims of pride, to employ them only in the lowest and obscurest offices. The higher they try to rise, the lower let them be placed, so that the lowliness of their position may limit their power of causing damage. Examine most carefully your young clerics by yourselves and by the directors of your seminaries, and when you find the spirit of pride among them reject them without compunction from the priesthood. Would to God that this had always been done with the vigilance and constancy which were required!

41. If we pass on from the moral to the intellectual causes of Modernism, the first and the chief which presents itself is ignorance. Yes, these very Modernists who seek to be esteemed as Doctors of the Church, who speak so loftily of modern philosophy and show such contempt for scholasticism, have embraced the one with all its false glamour, precisely because their ignorance of the other has left them without the means of being able to recognize confusion of thought and to refute sophistry. Their whole system, containing as it does errors so many and so great, has been born of the union between faith and false philosophy.

42. Would that they had but displayed less zeal and energy in propagating it! But such is their activity and such their unwearying labor on behalf of their cause, that one cannot but be pained to see them waste such energy in endeavoring to ruin the Church when they might have been of such service to her had their efforts been better directed. Their artifices to delude men's minds are of two kinds, the first to remove obstacles from their path, the second to devise and apply actively and patiently every resource that can serve their purpose. They recognize that the three chief difficulties which stand in their way are the scholastic method of philosophy, the authority and tradition of the Fathers, and the magisterium of the Church, and on these they wage unrelenting war. Against scholastic philosophy and theology they use the weapons of ridicule and contempt. Whether it is ignorance or fear, or both, that inspires this conduct in them, certain it is that the passion for novelty is always united in them with hatred of scholasticism, and there is no surer sign that a man is tending to Modernism than when he begins to show his dislike for the scholastic method. Let the Modernists and their admirers remember the proposition condemned by Pius IX: "The method and principles which have served the ancient doctors of scholasticism when treating of theology no longer correspond with the exigencies of our time or the progress of science." They exercise all their ingenuity in an effort to weaken the force and falsify the character of tradition, so as to rob it of all its weight and authority. But for Catholics nothing will remove the authority of the second Council of Nicea, where it condemns those "who dare, after the impious fashion of heretics, to deride the ecclesiastical traditions, to invent novelties of some kind...or endeavor by malice or craft to overthrow any one of the legitimate traditions of the Catholic Church"; nor that of the declaration of the fourth Council of Constantinople: "We therefore profess to preserve and guard the rules bequeathed to the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, by the Holy and most illustrious Apostles, by the orthodox Councils, both general and local, and by everyone of those divine interpreters, the Fathers and Doctors of the Church." Wherefore the Roman Pontiffs, Pius IV and Pius IX, ordered the insertion in the profession of faith of the following declaration: "I most firmly admit and embrace the apostolic and ecclesiastical traditions and other observances and constitutions of the Church.''

The Modernists pass judgment on the holy Fathers of the Church even as they do upon tradition. With consummate temerity they assure the public that the Fathers, while personally most worthy of all veneration, were entirely ignorant of history and criticism, for which they are only excusable on account of the time in which they lived. Finally, the Modernists try in every way to diminish and weaken the authority of the ecclesiastical magisterium itself by sacrilegiously falsifying its origin, character, and rights, and by freely repeating the calumnies of its adversaries. To the entire band of Modernists may be applied those words which Our predecessor sorrowfully wrote: "To bring contempt and odium on the mystic Spouse of Christ, who is the true light, the children of darkness have been wont to cast in her face before the world a stupid calumny, and perverting the meaning and force of things and words, to depict her as the friend of darkness and ignorance, and the enemy of light, science, and progress.'' This being so, Venerable Brethren, there is little reason to wonder that the Modernists vent all their bitterness and hatred on Catholics who zealously fight the battles of the Church. There is no species of insult which they do not heap upon them, but their usual course is to charge them with ignorance or obstinacy. When an adversary rises up against them with an erudition and force that renders them redoubtable, they seek to make a conspiracy of silence around him to nullify the effects of his attack. This policy towards Catholics is the more invidious in that they belaud with admiration which knows no bounds the writers who range themselves on their side, hailing their works, exuding novelty in every page, with a chorus of applause. For them the scholarship of a writer is in direct proportion to the recklessness of his attacks on antiquity, and of his efforts to undermine tradition and the ecclesiastical magisterium. When one of their number falls under the condemnations of the Church the rest of them, to the disgust of good Catholics, gather round him, loudly and publicly applaud him, and hold him up in veneration as almost a martyr for truth. The young, excited and confused by all this clamor of praise and abuse, some of them afraid of being branded as ignorant, others ambitious to rank among the learned, and both classes goaded internally by curiosity and pride, not infrequently surrender and give themselves up to Modernism. (Pope Saint Pius X, Pascendi Dominci Gregis, September 8, 1907.)

Pope Saint Pius X was known to have mystical experiences. Could he have foreseen Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict and/or Jorge Mario Bergoglio themselves words such as those written by Ratzinger and repeated in different way by the likes of Bergoglio and Ratzinger/Benedict’s protégé, Kurt Koch?

Perhaps not.

However, Ratzinger’s words in 2013 described the then outgoing conciliar "pope" and his entire methodology with laser-sharp accuracy. The entirety of Ratzinger/Benedict's life's work and thus of the valedictory address that he delivered eighty-seven years ago had been condemned a little less than twenty years prior to his birth in Bavaria.

One does not need to spend much time dispensing with the standard conciliar Sciptural exegesis that contained in the German Modernist’s rhetorical question seven years ago about the inability to understand Sacred Scripture even if its text has been translated into one's own language. I will let Saint Paul dispense with this in no uncertain terms: 

[16] All scripture, inspired of God, is profitable to teach, to reprove, to correct, to instruct in justice, [17] That the man of God may be perfect, furnished to every good work. (2 Timothy 3: 16.)

Bishop Richard Challoner explained how Sacred Scripture has been understood and taught by Holy Mother Church: 

[16] All scripture,: Every part of divine scripture is certainly profitable for all these ends. But, if we would have the whole rule of Christian faith and practice, we must not be content with those Scriptures, which Timothy knew from his infancy, that is, with the Old Testament alone: nor yet with the New Testament, without taking along with it the traditions of the apostles, and the interpretation of the church, to which the apostles delivered both the book, and the true meaning of it. (Douay-Rheims Bible.)

Who can really understand Sacred Scripture even if it is rendered into his own language, said Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI?

Well, Holy Mother Church, guided infallible by the very Third Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, God the Holy Ghost, under Whose inspiration every word of Sacred Scripture was written, has done so from her very beginning, and she has never needed the "great discoveries" of Protestants or any other heretic or infidel to discharge her duties as our magistra. 

Saint Jerome also had a pretty good understanding of Sacred Scripture, something that Pope Benedict XVI made clear in Spiritus Paraclitus, September 15, 1920: 

57. "As a matter of fact, mere loquacity would not win any credit unless backed by Scriptural authority, that is, when men see that the speaker is trying to give his false doctrine Biblical support" (Tit. 1:10). Moreover, this garrulous eloquence and wordy rusticity "lacks biting power, has nothing vivid or life-giving in it; it is flaccid, languid and enervated; it is like boiled herbs and grass, which speedily dry up and wither away."[106]

On the contrary the Gospel teaching is straightforward, it is like that "least of all seeds" -- the mustard seed -- "no mere vegetable, but something that 'grows into a tree so that the birds of the air come and dwell in its branches'."[107] The consequence is that everybody hears gladly this simple and holy fashion of speech, for it is clear and has real beauty without artificiality:

"There are certain eloquent folk who puff out their cheeks and produce a foaming torrent of words; may they win all the eulogiums they crave for! For myself, I prefer so to speak that I may be intelligible; when I discuss the Bible I prefer the Bible's simplicity[108]. . . A cleric's exposition of the Bible should, of course, have a certain becoming eloquence; but he must keep this in the background, for he must ever have in view the human race and not the leisurely philosophical schools with their choice coterie of disciples."[109] (Pope Benedict XV, Spiritus Paraclitus, September 15, 1920.)

Those who have read Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's Jesus of Nazareth trilogy know that he specializes in making Sacred Scripture complex, depriving It of Its holy simplicity whereas Bergoglio and his brand of Jacobin/Bolshevik revolutionaries simply dismiss its authenticity and state that we cannot know with certainty anything that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ said and did. This is, however, only Modernists do with the entirety of the Deposit of Faith, thereby not-so-implicitly denying one of God's essential properties, His simplicity. His commands are simple. They are intelligible.

The supposed restorer of tradition who is much beloved for his Summorum Pontificum was unbent in his support of hideous Novus Ordo abomination when he was on his way out the door, which he enters now and again to throw rotten eggs in the direction of his successors, was in 2013 and remains in 2020 unbent in his support for the “liturgical renewal.”

The Protestant and Judeo-Masonic Novus Ordo travesty has, in addition to depriving Catholics in the conciliar church of sacramental graces, robbed the lion's share of Catholics in the world of the sensus fidei to such an extent that the no longer believe in His Real Presence, something that is but a logical by-product of the fact that Our Blessed Lord and Savior Jesus Christ does not become present in the Novus Ordo service and is not in their tabernacles. And for Ratzinger/Benedict XVI to have contended that the faithful did not truly "understand" the Sacred Liturgy prior to the "liturgical renewal" ignores the simple fact that the "full, active and conscious participation" institutionalized in the Novus Ordo, whose "true spirit" he believes he has found at last, has produced nothing other than the very banality that he, lacking a Scholastic mind, decries, seeing no connection between the banality he decries and the very "liturgical renewal" he praises so much.

It was no “council of journalists” who "reformed" Lenten practices to such an extent that there are only only two obligatory fast days during the six weeks of Lent in the Novus Ordo, Ash Wednesday and Good Friday.

It was no “council of journalists” who eliminated most references to a God Who judges and of Hell and the possibility of eternal damnation from the collects of the Novus Ordo service by contending that "certain practices of outward penance" belong to "a different age in the history of the Church." (Paragraph Fifteen, General Instruction to the Roman Missal.)

No, it was the conciliar revolutionaries themselves who did such things, and did them proudly and openly, explaining their intentions quite publicly during and after the "Second" Vatican Council: 

We must strip from our Catholic prayers and from the Catholic liturgy everything which can be the shadow of a stumbling block for our separated brethren that is for the Protestants." (Annibale Bugnini, L'Osservatore Romano, March 19, 1965.)

Certainly we will preserve the basic elements, the bread, the wine, but all else will be changed according to local tradition: words, gestures, colors, vestments, chants, architecture, decor. The problem of liturgical reform is immense. (Archbishop Karol Wojtyla, 1965, Quoted and footnoted in Assault on the Roman Rite. This has also been noted on this site in the past, having been provided me by a reader who had access to the 1980 French book in which the quote is found.)

"[T]he intention of Pope Paul VI with regard to what is commonly called the Mass, was to reform the Catholic liturgy in such a way that it should coincide with the Protestant liturgy.... [T]here was with Pope Paul VI an ecumenical intention to remove, or at least to correct, or at least to relax, what was too Catholic in the traditional sense, in the Mass, and I, repeat, to get the Catholic Mass closer to the Calvinist mass" (Dec. 19, 1993), Apropos, #17, pp. 8f; quoted in Christian Order, October, 1994. (Jean Guitton, a close friend of Giovanni Montini/Paul VI. The quotation and citations are found in Christopher A. Ferrara and Thomas E. Woods, Jr., The Great Facade, The Remnant Publishing Company, 2002, p. 317.)

Let it be candidly said: the Roman Rite which we have known hitherto no longer exists. It is destroyed. (Father Joseph Gelineau, an associate of Annibale Bugnini on the Consilium, 1uoted and footnoted in the work of a John Mole, who believed that the Mass of the Roman Rite had been "truncated," not destroyed. Assault on the Roman Rite)

Ratzinger/Benedict's much vaunted “liturgical movement” was meant from its beginning to enshrine false ecumenism. Suffice it to say for the moment, however, that, as noted above, Pope Pius VI condemned its antiquarian propositions while Pope Pius XII condemned those propositions and many of its “innovations:” 

31. The proposition of the synod enunciating that it is fitting, in accordance with the order of divine services and ancient custom, that there be only one altar in each temple, and therefore, that it is pleased to restore that custom,—rash, injurious to the very ancient pious custom flourishing and approved for these many centuries in the Church, especially in the Latin Church.

32. Likewise, the prescription forbidding cases of sacred relics or flowers being placed on the altar,— rash, injurious to the pious and approved custom of the Church.

33. The proposition of the synod by which it shows itself eager to remove the cause through which, in part, there has been induced a forgetfulness of the principles relating to the order of the liturgy, "by recalling it (the liturgy) to a greater simplicity of rites, by expressing it in the vernacular language, by uttering it in a loud voice"; as if the present order of the liturgy, received and approved by the Church, had emanated in some part from the forgetfulness of the principles by which it should be regulated,— rash, offensive to pious ears, insulting to the Church, favorable to the charges of heretics against it. (Pope Pius VI, Auctorem Fidei, August 28, 1794

The Church is without question a living organism, and as an organism, in respect of the sacred liturgy also, she grows, matures, develops, adapts and accommodates herself to temporal needs and circumstances, provided only that the integrity of her doctrine be safeguarded. This notwithstanding, the temerity and daring of those who introduce novel liturgical practices, or call for the revival of obsolete rites out of harmony with prevailing laws and rubrics, deserve severe reproof. It has pained Us grievously to note, Venerable Brethren, that such innovations are actually being introduced, not merely in minor details but in matters of major importance as well. We instance, in point of fact, those who make use of the vernacular in the celebration of the august eucharistic sacrifice; those who transfer certain feast-days -- which have been appointed and established after mature deliberation -- to other dates; those, finally, who delete from the prayer books approved for public use the sacred texts of the Old Testament, deeming them little suited and inopportune for modern times.

The use of the Latin language, customary in a considerable portion of the Church, is a manifest and beautiful sign of unity, as well as an effective antidote for any corruption of doctrinal truth. In spite of this, the use of the mother tongue in connection with several of the rites may be of much advantage to the people. But the Apostolic See alone is empowered to grant this permission. It is forbidden, therefore, to take any action whatever of this nature without having requested and obtained such consent, since the sacred liturgy, as We have said, is entirely subject to the discretion and approval of the Holy See.

The same reasoning holds in the case of some persons who are bent on the restoration of all the ancient rites and ceremonies indiscriminately. The liturgy of the early ages is most certainly worthy of all veneration. But ancient usage must not be esteemed more suitable and proper, either in its own right or in its significance for later times and new situations, on the simple ground that it carries the savor and aroma of antiquity. The more recent liturgical rites likewise deserve reverence and respect. They, too, owe their inspiration to the Holy Spirit, who assists the Church in every age even to the consummation of the world. They are equally the resources used by the majestic Spouse of Jesus Christ to promote and procure the sanctity of man.

Assuredly it is a wise and most laudable thing to return in spirit and affection to the sources of the sacred liturgy. For research in this field of study, by tracing it back to its origins, contributes valuable assistance towards a more thorough and careful investigation of the significance of feast-days, and of the meaning of the texts and sacred ceremonies employed on their occasion. But it is neither wise nor laudable to reduce everything to antiquity by every possible device. Thus, to cite some instances, one would be straying from the straight path were he to wish the altar restored to its primitive table form; were he to want black excluded as a color for the liturgical vestments; were he to forbid the use of sacred images and statues in Churches; were he to order the crucifix so designed that the divine Redeemer's body shows no trace of His cruel sufferings; and lastly were he to disdain and reject polyphonic music or singing in parts, even where it conforms to regulations issued by the Holy See.

Clearly no sincere Catholic can refuse to accept the formulation of Christian doctrine more recently elaborated and proclaimed as dogmas by the Church, under the inspiration and guidance of the Holy Spirit with abundant fruit for souls, because it pleases him to hark back to the old formulas. No more can any Catholic in his right senses repudiate existing legislation of the Church to revert to prescriptions based on the earliest sources of canon law. Just as obviously unwise and mistaken is the zeal of one who in matters liturgical would go back to the rites and usage of antiquity, discarding the new patterns introduced by disposition of divine Providence to meet the changes of circumstances and situation.

This way of acting bids fair to revive the exaggerated and senseless antiquarianism to which the illegal Council of Pistoia gave rise. It likewise attempts to reinstate a series of errors which were responsible for the calling of that meeting as well as for those resulting from it, with grievous harm to souls, and which the Church, the ever watchful guardian of the "deposit of faith" committed to her charge by her divine Founder, had every right and reason to condemn. For perverse designs and ventures of this sort tend to paralyze and weaken that process of sanctification by which the sacred liturgy directs the sons of adoption to their Heavenly Father of their souls' salvation. (Pope Pius XII, Mediator Dei, November 20, 1947.)

 "For perverse designs and ventures of this sort tend to paralyze and weaken that process of sanctification by which the sacred liturgy directs the sons of adoption to their Heavenly Father of their souls' salvation."

Anyone who cannot see that this one sentence describes the effects of the innovations of the abomination that is the Protestant and Judeo-Masonic Novus Ordo liturgical abomination is not being intellectually honest. The Novus Ordo abomination of desolation is of its very nature as much a revolution against Catholic Faith and Worship as that represented by the liturgies of Protestant sects, no matter what the conciliar revolutionaries contend. Although Jorge Mario Bergoglio and Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI may have different styles and preferences, they have much in common, starting with the fact that each rejects the Faith of our Fathers. Neither apostate believes that the Sacred Liturgy is about the honor and glory of God and the sanctification of souls.

An “aesthetic” Novus Ordo service is just as abomination in the sight of the true God of Divine Revelation as any of the hootenannies staged by Karol Josef Wojtyla/John Paul II, Ratzinger/Benedict or the infamous Argentine Apostate.

No, Modernists say nothing original even though the Girondists/Menshiviks among them different in styles and areas of emphasis from the Jacobins/Bolsheviks.

Indeed, Modernists are really unoriginal if one considers the germs of Gallicanism that were expressed even during the Council of Trent:

Cardinal Lorraine, who attended with fourteen bishops, three abbots, and eighty learned doctors of divinity on behalf of King Charles IX. of France, was charged with instructions from that monarch to entreat the Council to concede the following reforms and benefits: that in France the sacraments might be administered, the psalms sung, prayers offered up, and the catechism taught in the language of the people; and that the sacrament should be fully administered to the laity. Also that some strenuous means should be taken to check the licentious lives of the clergy; and that the Council should make any concessions tending towards peace and the abatement of schism which did not controvert or interfere with God's word. The French ambassadors also asked for clear instructions concerning the doctrines governing the uses of images, relics, and indulgences; and also they were instructed to urge argument against exacting fees for the sacrament, benefices without duties, and many other things which the more liberal minded and progressive of the prelates regarded as grave abuses in the Church. One astonishing objection which Renaud Ferrier, the then President of the Parliament in Paris, in company with Lansac, raised before the Council was to the dogma that the Pope's authority was supreme, their contention being that the Parliament was above the Pope! (Clive Holland, Tyrol and Its People, published by Methuen and Company, 36 Essex Street W.C., London, England, 1909, p. 240.)

Perhaps no comment is necessary. However, the spirit of accommodation to the liturgical “innovations” of the Protestant revolutionaries had gained ground in some circles within Holy Mother Church prior to the Council of Trent. The “Second” Vatican Council and its Protestant and Judeo-Masonic liturgical abomination is nothing other than such an accommodation, and it is no accident at all that the conciliar revolution is as pleasing to Talmudists as was that of Martin Luther and John Calvin as their ancestral haters of Christ the King and His Church had inspired Luther and Calvin and cooperated with them as suited their interests. Gallicanism was alive and well in 1563, and it is alive and well now in the midst of the resist while recognize movement. 

We Have Been Warned

We are witnessing the fulfillment of numerous prophecies contained in the writing of various mystics. These prophecies are remarkably similar. Let those with who have the spiritual eyes to see that the words below, which were sent by a reader of this site to his e-mail list after he had received them from a friend of his, describe our very days today:

St. Nicholas of Flue (1417-1487)

“The Church will be punished because the majority of her members, high and low, will become so perverted. The Church will sink deeper and deeper until she will at last seem to be extinguished, and the succession of Peter and the other Apostles to have expired. But, after this, she will be victoriously exalted in the sight of all doubters.”

St. Francis of Assisi (1181- 1226)

“There will be an uncanonically elected pope who will cause a great Schism, there will be divers thoughts preached which will cause many, even those in the different orders, to doubt, yea even agree with those heretics which will cause My order to divide, then will there be such universal dissentions and persecutions that if these days were not shortened even the elect would be lost.” (Culleton, p. 130).

Bl. Anna-Maria Taigi, (29 May 1769 - 9 June 1837) - was a stigmatist and mystic who received many revelations from Our Lord, she was beatified on May 30, 1920 by Pope Benedict XV

"After the three days of darkness, Sts. Peter and Paul, having come down from heaven, will preach throughout the world and designate a new pope.  A great light will flash from their bodies and will settle upon the cardinal, the future Pontiff.  Then Christianity will spread throughout the world.  Whole nations will join the Church shortly before the reign of Anti-Christ.  These conversions will be amazing.  Those who shall survive shall have to conduct themselves well.  There shall be innumerable conversions of heretics, who will return to the bosom of the Church; all will note the edifying conduct of their lives, as well as that of all other Catholics.  Russia, England, and China will come to the Church. 

"God will send two punishments; one will be in the form of wars, revolutions and other evils; it shall originate on earth. The other will be sent from Heaven. There shall come over the whole earth an intense darkness lasting three days and three nights. Nothing can be seen, and the air will be laden with pestilence which will claim mainly, but not only, the enemies of religion. It will be impossible to use any man-made lighting during this darkness, except blessed candles. He, who out of curiosity, opens his window to look out, or leaves his home, will fall dead on the spot. During these three days, people should remain in their homes, pray the Rosary and beg God for mercy. 

"All the enemies of the Church, whether known or unknown, will perish over the whole earth during that universal darkness, with the exception of a few whom God will soon convert. The air shall be infected by demons who will appear under all sorts of hideous forms. 

"Religion shall be persecuted, and priests massacred. Churches shall be closed, but only for a short time." 

"France shall fall into a frightful anarchy. The French shall have a desperate civil war in the course of which even old men will take up arms. The political parties, having exhausted their blood and their rage without being able to arrive at any satisfactory settlement, shall agree at the last extremity to have recourse to the Holy See. Then the Pope shall send to France a special legate. . . In consequence of the information received, His Holiness himself shall nominate a most Christian King for the government of France.

Venerable Elizabeth Canori-Mora,  (21 November 1774 – 5 February 1825) Professed nun of the Secular Trinitarians, declared Venerable in 1928 by Pope Pius XI: 

“Then a beautiful splendor came over the earth, to announce the reconciliation of God with mankind. 

“The small flock of faithful Catholics who had taken refuge under the trees will be brought before St. Peter, who will choose a new pope.  All the Church will be reordered according to the true dictates of the holy Gospel.  The religious orders will be reestablished and the homes of Christians will become homes imbued with religion. 

“So great will be the fervor and zeal for the glory of God that everything will promote love of God. And neighbor.  The triumph, glory and honor of the Catholic Church w2ill be established in an instant.  She will be acclaimed, venerated and esteemed by all. All will resolve to follow Her, recognizing the Vicar of Christ as the Supreme Pontiff.”

Anne Catherine Emmerich (8 September 1774 – 9 February 1824) Augustinian Nun, Mystic and Stigmatist: 

“The Church is in great danger…The Protestant doctrine and that of the schismatic Greeks are to spread everywhere. I now see that in this place (Rome) the (Catholic) Church is being so cleverly undermined, that there hardly remain a hundred or so priests who have not been deceived. They all work for the destruction, even the clergy. A great destruction is now at hand…I saw that many pastors allowed themselves to be taken up with ideas that were dangerous to the Church. They were building a great, strange, and extravagant Church. Everyone was admitted in it in order to be united and to have equal rights: Evangelicals, Catholics, sects of every description. Such was to be the new Church…I saw again a new and odd-looking Church which they were trying to build. There was nothing holy about it…” (Dupont Y. Catholic Prophecy: The Coming Chastisement. TAN Books, Rockford (IL), 1973, pp. 66, 71, 116)

"I see the Holy Father in great distress. *He lives in another palace and receives only a few in his presence. If the wicked party know their own great strength, they would even now have made an attack. I fear the Holy Father will suffer many tribulations before his death, for I see the black counterfeit church gaining ground, I see its fatal influence on the public. The distress of the Holy Father and of the Church is really so great that one ought to pray to God day and night. I have been told to pray much for the Church and the Pope...The people must pray earnestly for the extirpation (Rooting out, destruction) of the dark church." (Prophetic Vision of Anne Catherine Emmerich d. 1824 A.D., Augustinian Nun, Stigmatist - from the book, The Life of Anne Catherine Emmerich, by Very Rev. Carl E. Schmoger, C.SS.R, Vol. ii, pages [Ibid, pages 292-293])

"I saw the fatal consequences of this counterfeit church: I saw it increase; I saw heretics of all kinds flocking to the city. I saw the ever-increasing tepidity of the clergy, the circle of darkness ever widening. And now the vision became more extended. I saw in all places Catholics oppressed, annoyed, restricted, and deprived of liberty, churches were closed, and great misery prevailed everywhere with war and bloodshed." 

"I saw several churches, or rather meeting-houses surmounted by weather-cocks, the congregations, disunited from the Church, running here and there like beggars hurrying to places where bread is distributed, having no connection with either the Church Triumphant or the Church Suffering. They were not in a regularly founded, living Church, one with the Church Militant, Suffering, and Triumphant, nor did they receive the Body of the Lord, but only bread. They who were in error through no fault of their own and who piously and ardently longed for the Body of Jesus Christ, were spiritually consoled, but not by their communion. They who habitually communicated without this ardent love received nothing;...” 

“The Church will be bigger and more magnificent than ever.  I saw in the distance great legions approaching.  In the foreground I saw a man on a white horse.  Prisoners were set free and joined them.  All the enemies were pursued. Then I saw that the Church was being promptly rebuilt, and she was more magnificent than ever before.”

Those who do not want see that this has all happened in our time is not thinking clearly and have concluded, it would appear, that there is merit in believing that the Catholic Church, she who is the spotless mystical bride of her Divine Founder, Invisible Head and Mystical Bridegroom, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, can be confused in her doctrines and be headed by men who are heretics, apostates, pantheists, religious syncretists and agents of the One World Religion, which itself is subservient to the One World Government. 

Relying Upon Our Lady on this Pentecost Sunday as the Infant Church Did on the First Pentecost Sunday

Our Lady is our help in the midst of our present needs, and she prays for Holy Mother Church in this time of apostasy and betrayal as she did for the Church in her Mystical Infancy following the descent of God the Holy Ghost in tongues of flame upon her, the Apostles and Disciples in the Upper Room in Jerusalem, the Cenacle, where her Divine Son, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, had instituted the Holy Priesthood and the Holy Eucharist at the Last Supper fifty-three days before on Maundy Thursday.

Our Lady will protect us in the midst of the perilous circumstances in which we find ourselves just as she sought to protect the infant Church from the persecutions that her Divine Son explained were for the benefit of the faithful and to give a witness to future generations of the power of the Gift of Fortitude that they had received on Pentecost Sunday, something that the following excerpt from The New English Edition of The Mystical City of God makes clear:

135. Elevated to the highest degree of grace and sanctity possible in a mere creature, the great Lady of the world saw with the eyes of divine knowledge the little flock of the Church increasing day by day. As a most watchful Mother and Shepherdess, from the heights in which She was placed by the right hand of her omnipotent Son, She watched* with deepest insight lest any assault or attack from the ravenous wolves of hell threaten the little sheep of her fold, for She well knew their hatred against the newborn children of the Gospel. The watchfulness of the Mother of Light† served as a wall of defense to this holy family which the loving Queen had accepted as her own, and which She looked upon as the portion and inheritance of her divine Son, selected from the rest of men and chosen by the Most High. For some days the little ship of the Church, governed by this heavenly Teacher, proceeded prosperously onward, being assisted by her counsels, teachings and warnings, as well as her incessant prayers and petitions. Not for one moment did She remit her diligence in attending to all that was necessary for the consolation of the Apostles and the other faithful.

136. A few days after the coming of the Holy Ghost, while at her prayers, She spoke to the Lord thus: “My Son, the God of true love, I know, my Lord, that the little flock of thy Church, of which Thou hast made me the Mother and Defender, is of no less value to Thee than thy own life and blood by which Thou hast redeemed it from the powers of darkness (Col. 1:13). It is therefore reasonable that I also offer my life and all my being for the preservation and increase of what is so highly esteemed by Thee. Let me die, my God, if it is necessary for the enhancement of thy Name and for the spread of thy glory throughout the world. Receive, my Son, the offering of my lips and of my entire will in union with thy own merits. Look kindly upon thy faithful; receive those who hope solely in Thee and deliver themselves to thy holy faith. Govern thy vicar Peter that he may rightly direct the sheep Thou hast given him in charge. Watch over all thy Apostles, thy ministers and my masters. Meet them with the blessings of thy sweetness (Ps. 20:4) so we all may execute thy perfect and holy will.”

137. The Most High answered the petition of our Queen: “My Spouse and Beloved, I am attentive to thy desires and petitions. Yet Thou dost already know that my Church is to follow in my footsteps and my teachings, imitating Me in the way of suffering and of my Cross, which my Apostles, disciples, and all my intimate friends and followers are to embrace, for such they cannot be without this condition of labor and sufferings (Mt. 10:38). It is also necessary for my Church to bear the ballast of persecutions by which it shall pass securely through the prosperity of the world and its dangers. Such is demanded by my most high providence in regard to the faithful and predestined. Therefore attend and behold the manner in which this is to be brought about.” (The New English Edition of The Mystical City of God, Book 7, The Coronation, Chapter X.)

Why are we so fearful in the midst of the travails of the present time when it seems that all the power of hell have been unleashed upon us?

We must suffer for our sins.

Our first pope, Saint Peter, who preached so eloquently on Pentecost Sunday (a sermon, incidentally that Joseph Alois Ratzinger does not believe took place) that converted over three thousand Jews from all over the Mediterranean, just the kind of “proselytism” that Jorge Mario Bergoglio and his predecessors have considered to be “anti-Semitic” and thus proscribed following the supposed “new Pentecost” represented by the “Second” Vatican Council and the false magisterium of the conciliar “popes,” explained that we must be refined like gold in the fire:

Wherein you shall greatly rejoice, if now you must be for a little time made sorrowful in divers temptations: [7] That the trial of your faith (much more precious than gold which is tried by the fire) may be found unto praise and glory and honour at the appearing of Jesus Christ: [8] Whom having not seen, you love: in whom also now, though you see him not, you believe: and believing shall rejoice with joy unspeakable and glorified; [9] Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls. [10] Of which salvation the prophets have inquired and diligently searched, who prophesied of the grace to come in you. (1 Peter 1: 6-10.)

Why do we think that we are exempt from persecutions?

Shouldn’t we rejoice that we are alive at a time when we may be called upon sooner rather than later to choose between earthly comforts, including life itself, and the Holy Faith?

What is happening at this time is only the logical result of the false premises upon which the modern civil state was founded and, no matter what one may have been taught by well-intentioned Americanists in the days before the “Second” Vatican Council, there is no “voting” ourselves out of chastisement. The chastisements we are facing at this time are earned by the extent to which men and their nations have abandoned the Social Reign of Christ the King and rebelled against His true Church, and there is not a single, solitary politician in either of the two organized crime families of naturalism in the United States of America who believes that “sin maketh nations miserable” and that the path to the reform of societies begins with the reform of the souls of men.

The chastisements facing us at this time are exacerbated greatly by the offenses given to the honor and glory of the Most Blessed Trinity by means of the false doctrines, the false liturgies, the false preaching, the false moral teaching, the false pastoral practices and the false Scriptural interpretations that continued  to emanate out of the minions of hell who are in control of the counterfeit church of conciliarism.

This is all the more reason to rely with great confidence upon Our Lady and her watchful protection over us at all times as she exercises now the same sort of care for us as she did for the Apostles and the disciples after Pentecost Sunday:

155. As the new law of grace continued to spread in Jerusalem, so the number of the faithful increased and the new evangelical Church was augmented day by day (Acts 5:14). In like manner did the solicitude and attention of its great Queen and Teacher, Mary most holy, expand toward the new children engendered by the Apostles through their preaching (I Cor. 4:15). Since they were the foundation stones of the Church (Eph. 2:20) upon which the security of that building was to depend, the most prudent Lady lavished special care upon the Apostolic College. Her heavenly solicitude increased in proportion to the wrath of Lucifer against the followers of Christ, and especially against the Apostles as the ministers of eternal salvation to the other faithful. It will never be possible to describe or estimate in this life the blessings and favors conferred by Her upon the Church and upon each of its mystical members. This happened especially in regard to the Apostles and disciples, for as has been revealed to me not a day or hour passed in which She did not work for them many wonders. I shall relate in this chapter some of the events which are very instructive due to the secrets of divine Providence therein contained; from them we can form an estimate of the most vigilant charity and zeal of most holy Mary for souls.

156. She loved all the Apostles and served them with incredible affection and reverence, both because of their extreme sanctity and their dignity as priests, ministers, preachers, and founders of the Gospel. During their entire stay in Jerusalem She attended upon them, counseled them, and directed them in the manner noted above (92, 102). With the increase of the Church they were obliged to go outside of Jerusalem in order to baptize and admit to the faith many of the inhabitants of the neighboring places, but they always returned to the city because they had intentionally delayed separating from each other or leaving Jerusalem until they received orders to do so. From the Acts of the Apostles (9:32ff.) we learn St. Peter went to Lydda and Joppe, where he raised Tabitha from the dead and performed other miracles, returning again to Jerusalem. Although St. Luke gives an account of these excursions after speaking of the death of St. Stephen (of which I shall speak in the following chapter), yet until that happened most of the time was spent converting much of Palestine, and it was necessary for the Apostles to go forth to preach to them and confirm them in the faith, always returning in order to give an account of their doings to their heavenly Teacher.

157. During all their journeys and preaching the common enemy of all sought to hinder the spread or the fruit of the divine word by rousing the unbelievers to many contradictions and altercations with the Apostles and their listeners or converts, for it seemed to the infernal dragon more easy to assault them when he saw them absent and far away from the refuge of their Protectress and Mistress. So formidable did the great Queen of the Angels appear to the hellish hosts that in spite of such eminent sanctity of the Apostles it seemed to Lucifer that without Mary he could seize upon them disarmed and at his mercy for his attacks and temptations. The furious pride of this dragon (as is written in Job [41:18-19]) esteems the toughest steel as weak straw and the hardest bronze as a stick of rotten wood. He fears not the dart nor the sling; however, he fears most holy Mary so much that in order to tempt the Apostles he waited until he believed they were absent from her protection.

158. Yet her protection did not fail them because of this, for the great Lady from the watchtower of her most exalted wisdom extended her vigilance in every direction. Like a most vigilant sentinel She discovered the assaults of Lucifer and hastened to the relief of her sons and ministers of her Lord. When in her absence She could not speak to the Apostles in any of their afflictions She immediately sent her holy Angels to their assistance in order to encourage, forewarn and console them, and sometimes also to drive away the assaulting demons. All this the celestial spirits executed promptly in compliance with the orders of their Queen. At times they would do it secretly by inspirations and interior consolations; at others, and more frequently, they manifested themselves visibly, assuming most beautiful and refulgent bodies, speaking with the Apostles about all that was proper or what their Teacher desired to advise. This happened very often due to the holiness and purity of the Apostles and the necessity of favoring them with such an abundance of consolation and encouragement. In all their difficulties and labors the most loving Mother thus assisted them, in addition offering up for them her continual prayers and thanksgiving. She was the strong Woman whose domestics were sheltered by double garments (Prov. 31:21), and the Mother of the family who supplied all with nourishment and who by the labors of her hands planted the vineyard of the Lord (Ib. 15-16).

159. With all the other faithful She proportionately exhibited the same care, and though there were many converts in Jerusalem and Palestine She remembered them all in their necessities and tribulations. She thought not only of the needs of the soul but of the body as well, and She cured many of their most grave sicknesses. Others, whom She knew were not to be cured miraculously, She visited and assisted in person. She took still greater care of the poor, with her own hand administering to them food on their beds of sickness and ensuring they were kept clean, as if She were the servant of all, infirm with the infirm. So great was the humility, charity and solicitude of the great Queen of the world that She refused no service, kindness or ministration to her children the faithful, no matter how lowly, humble and despised they were, since her service was for their solace. She filled each one with joy and most sweet consolation in their labors by which they were enabled to accomplish them more easily. Those She could not personally attend to because of their absence She assisted secretly through her holy Angels or by her prayers and petitions.  (The New English Edition of The Mystical City of  God, Book 7, The Coronation, Chapter X.)

Let us fly always unto Our Lady, she who was present in the Cenacle on this very day, she who want us to beseech her, especially through her Most Holy Rosary, as we pledge unto her Divine Son our very lives and whatever merit our prayers, sufferings, good works and patience endurance of persecution and calumny we might earn through her own Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart.

A blessed Pentecost Sunday to you all!

Vivat Christus Rex! Viva Cristo Rey!

Our Lady of the Cenacle, 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 Petronilla (whose feast is suppressed this year), pray for us.

Appendix

From the New English Edition of The Mystical City of God on Our Lady and Pentecost Sunday

In the company of the great Queen of heaven and encouraged by Her the twelve Apostles and the rest of the disciples and faithful joyfully waited for the fulfillment of the promise of the Savior that He would send them the Holy Ghost, the Consoler, who would instruct them and administer unto them all they had heard in the teaching of their Lord (Jn. 14:26). They were so unanimous and united in charity that during all these days none of them had any thought, affection or inclination contrary to those of the rest; they were of one heart and soul in thought and action. Although the election of St. Matthias had occurred, not the least movement or sign of discord arose among all those firstborn children of the Church, even though this was a transaction which is otherwise apt to arouse differences of opinion in the most excellently disposed, since each one ordinarily follows his own insight and does not easily yield to the opinion of another. But into this holy congregation no discord found entrance because they were united in prayer, fasting, and the expectation of the Holy Ghost, who does not seek repose in discordant and unyielding hearts. So it can be inferred how powerful was this union in charity not only for disposing them toward the reception of the Holy Ghost but for overcoming and dispersing the evil spirits, I will say the demons, who since the death of the Savior had lain prostrate in hell, felt in themselves a new kind of oppression and terror resulting from the virtues of those assembled in the Cenacle. Although they could not explain it to themselves they perceived a new and terrifying force emanating from that place, and they judged the destruction of their reign by those disciples of Christ had begun to operate by his doctrine and example.

59. The Queen of the Angels, most holy Mary, in the plenitude of her wisdom and grace, knew the time and predestined hour for the sending of the Holy Ghost upon the Apostolic College. When the days of Pentecost were about to be fulfilled (Acts 2:1), which happened fifty days after the Resurrection of our Lord and Redeemer, the Blessed Mother saw how in heaven the humanity of the Word conferred with the eternal Father concerning the promised sending of the divine Paraclete to the Apostles (Jn. 14:26), and that the time predetermined by his infinite wisdom for planting the faith and all his gifts in his holy Church was at hand. The Lord also referred to the merits acquired by Him in the flesh through his most holy life, Passion and Death; to the mysteries wrought by Him for the remedy of the human race; to the fact that He was the Mediator, Advocate and Intercessor between the eternal Father and men; and that among them lived his most sweet Mother, in whom the divine Persons were so well pleased. He besought his Father also that besides bringing grace and the invisible gifts the Holy Ghost appear in the world in visible form so the law of the Gospel would be honored before all the world, the Apostles and faithful who were to spread the divine truth would be encouraged, and the enemies of the Lord, who had in this life persecuted and despised Him unto the death of the cross, would be filled with terror.

60. This petition of our Redeemer in heaven was supported on earth by most holy Mary in a manner befitting the merciful Mother of the faithful. Prostrate upon the earth in the form of a cross in most profound humility She saw how in that consistory of the blessed Trinity the request of the Savior was favorably accepted, and how to fulfill and execute it the Persons of the Father and the Son, as the principle from which the Holy Ghost proceeds, decreed the active mission of the Holy Ghost, for to these Two is attributed the sending of the third Person because He proceeds from both, and the third Person passively took upon Himself this mission and consented to come into the world. Although all three divine Persons and their operations spring from the same infinite and eternal will without any inequality, yet the same powers which in all the Persons are indivisible and equal have certain operations ad intra in each Person which are not in the others; and thus the understanding engenders in the Father, but not in the Son, who is engendered, and the will breathes forth in the Father and the Son, but not in the Holy Ghost, who is breathed forth. For this reason the Father and the Son, as the active principle, are said to send the Holy Ghost ad extra, while to the latter is attributed being sent, as if in a passive manner.

61. Proceeding with the aforementioned prayers on the morning of the day of Pentecost, the most prudent Queen exhorted the Apostles, the disciples, and the pious women (in all numbering one hundred twenty persons [Acts 1:15]) to pray more fervently and renew their hopes, since very soon they would be visited by the divine Spirit from on high. At the third hour, when they were all together praying along with the heavenly Lady, the air resounded with a tremendous thunder and the blowing of a violent wind mixed with the brightness of fire or lightning, all centering on the house of the Cenacle. The house was enveloped in light and the divine fire was poured out over all of that holy gathering (Acts 2:2). Over the head of each of the one hundred twenty persons appeared a tongue of that same fire in which the Holy Ghost had come (Ib. 3), filling each one with divine influences and heavenly gifts, and causing at one and the same time the most diverse and contrary effects in the Cenacle and in the whole of Jerusalem according to the diversity of the persons affected.

62. In most holy Mary these effects were altogether divine and most wonderful in the sight of all the heavenly courtiers, for we men are incapable of understanding and explaining them. The purest Lady was transformed and exalted in God, for She saw intuitively and clearly the Holy Ghost, and for a short time enjoyed the beatific vision of the Divinity. Of his gifts and divine influences She by Herself received more than all the rest of the Saints, and her glory for that space of time exceeded that of the Angels and the Blessed. She alone gave to the Lord more glory, praise and thanksgiving than all the universe for the benefit of the descent of his divine Spirit upon the holy Church, and for his having pledged Himself so many times to send Him and through Him to govern it to the end of the world. The blessed Trinity was so pleased with the works of most holy Mary alone on this occasion that He considered Himself fully repaid and compensated for having created the world; and not only compensated, but God acted as if He were under a certain obligation of possessing such a peerless creature, whom the Father could look upon as his Daughter, the Son as his Mother, and the Holy Ghost as his Spouse, and whom (according to our way of thinking) He was now obliged to visit and enrich after having conferred upon Her such high dignity. In this exalted and blessed Spouse were renewed all the gifts and graces of the Holy Ghost, creating new effects and operations altogether beyond our capacity to understand.

63. The Apostles, as St. Luke says (Ib. 4), were also replenished and filled with the Holy Ghost, for they received a wonderful increase of sanctifying grace of a most exalted degree, and they alone were confirmed in this grace in order never to lose it. In all of them, according to the degree befitting each one, were infused the habits of the seven gifts: Wisdom, Understanding, Knowledge, Piety, Counsel, Fortitude and Fear. In this magnificent blessing, as new as it was admirable in the world, the twelve Apostles were created fit ministers of the New Testament (II Cor. 3:6) and founders of the evangelical Church for the whole world, for this new grace and blessing communicated to them a divine strength most efficacious and sweet, which inclined them to practice the most heroic virtue and the highest sanctity. Thus strengthened they prayed, they labored willingly, and they accomplished the most difficult and arduous tasks, engaging in their labors not with sorrow or from necessity but with the greatest joy and alacrity (Ib. 9:7).

 64. In all the rest of the disciples and faithful who received the Holy Ghost in the Cenacle the Most High wrought proportionally and respectively the same effects, except they were not confirmed in grace like the Apostles. According to the disposition of each the gifts of grace were communicated in greater or less abundance in view of the ministry they were to hold in the holy Church. The same proportion was maintained in regard to the Apostles, yet St. Peter and St. John

were more singularly favored due the high offices assigned to them, the former to govern the Church as its head and the latter to attend upon and serve the Queen and Lady of heaven and earth, most holy Mary. The sacred text of St. Luke says the Holy Ghost filled the whole house in which this happy congregation was gathered (Acts 2:2), not only because all of them were filled with the Holy Ghost and his admirable gifts but because the house itself was filled with wonderful light and splendor. This plenitude of wonders and prodigies overflowed and communicated itself also to others outside of the Cenacle, for it caused diverse and various effects of the Holy Ghost among the inhabitants of Jerusalem and its vicinity. All those who with some piety had shown compassion for our Savior Jesus in his Passion and Death, deprecating his most bitter torments and reverencing his sacred Person, were interiorly visited with new light and grace which disposed them afterwards to accept the doctrine of the Apostles. Those who were converted by the first sermon of St. Peter were to a great extent of the number of those who by their compassion and sorrow at the death of the Lord had merited for themselves such a great blessing. Others of the just who were in Jerusalem outside of the Cenacle also felt great interior consolations by which they were moved and predisposed by new effects of grace wrought in each one respectively by the Holy Ghost.

65. Not less wonderful, though more hidden, were some contrary effects produced on that day by the Holy Ghost in Jerusalem. By the dreadful thunders, violent commotion of the atmosphere, and the lightning accompanying his advent He disturbed and terrified the enemies of the Lord in that city, each one according to his own malice and perfidy. This chastisement was particularly evident in those who had actively concurred in procuring the death of Christ, and who had signalized themselves in their rabid fury against Him; all these fell to the ground on their faces and remained thus for three hours. Those who had scourged the Lord were suddenly choked in their own blood which shot forth from their veins in punishment for shedding that of the Master. The audacious servant who had struck the Lord not only suddenly died but was hurled body and soul into hell. Others of the Jews, though they did not die, were chastised with intense pains and certain abominable sicknesses, which due to the blood of Christ which they loaded upon themselves has passed to their descendents, and even to this day continues among them who have these most unclean and horrible conditions. This chastisement became notorious in Jerusalem, though the priests and Pharisees diligently sought to cover it up, just as they had tried to conceal the Resurrection of the Savior; however, since these events were not so important, neither the Apostles nor the Evangelists wrote about them, and in the confusion of the city the multitude soon forgot them.

66. The chastisement and terror extended also to the depths of hell, where the demons felt themselves seized with new confusion and oppression for three days just as the Jews lay on the earth for three hours. During these three days Lucifer and his demons broke forth in tremendous howls, communicating new terror and confusion of torments to all the damned. O ineffable and powerful Spirit! The holy Church calls Thee the finger of God because Thou dost proceed from the Father and the Son as the finger from the arm and the body, but on this occasion it was manifested to me Thou holdest the same infinite power with the Father and the Son. At one and the same time by thy royal Presence heaven and earth are moved by such opposite effects in all its inhabitants, yet they are similar to those which shall happen at the Last Judgment. The saints and the just Thou dost fill with thy grace, thy gifts, and thy ineffable consolations, and the impious and the proud Thou dost chastise and overwhelm with confusion and pain. Truly I see here fulfilled what Thou sayest through the mouth of David, that Thou art a God of revenge and hath acted freely (Ps. 93:1), dealing out retribution to the wicked so they may not glory in their iniquitous malice, nor say in their heart Thou failest in perception or judgment while reproving and chastising their sins.

67. Let then the ignorant of this world understand and the foolish know the Most High knoweth the thoughts of men, that they are vain (Ps. 93:11); that if He is generous and most kind to the just, He is also rigid in punishing the impious and the wicked. It was appropriate for the Holy Ghost to manifest Himself in both of these ways on this occasion, for He proceeded from the incarnate Word, who had become man for the sake of men, had died in order to redeem them, and had suffered ignominies and torments without opening his mouth (Is. 53:7) or seeking retribution for those insults and offenses. In coming down into this world it was just for the Holy Ghost to manifest his zeal for the honor of that same incarnate Word; though He did not punish all of his enemies, yet He indicated in the punishment of the most wicked what all the others deserved, who in their stubborn perfidy had despised Him, if by the respite allowed them they did not return to the truth in heartfelt penance. It was also appropriate for the few who had received the Word and had followed Him as their Master and Redeemer, and for those who were to preach his faith and doctrine, to be rewarded and furnished with the proper means for establishing the Church and the evangelical law. The Apostle says that leaving one’s father and mother and uniting oneself with a wife (as Moses also said [Gen. 2:24]) is a great sacrament in Christ and in the Church (Eph. 5:32), because He descended from the bosom of the Father in order to unite Himself with the Church via his humanity. Hence since Christ came down from heaven in order to be with his spouse the Church, it follows that the Holy Ghost came down because of Mary most holy, who was not less his Spouse than Christ was of the Church, and who was not less beloved by the Holy Ghost than the Church was beloved by Christ.

INSTRUCTION GIVEN ME BY OUR LADY, THE GREAT QUEEN OF HEAVEN.

68. My daughter, in small esteem and gratitude do the children of the Church hold this blessing of the Most High by which, in addition to sending his Son as their Master and Redeemer, He sent also the Holy Ghost into his Church. So great was the love by which He sought to draw them to Himself that in order to make them sharers of his divine perfections He sent them first the Son (Jn. 3:16), who is Wisdom, and afterwards the Holy Ghost, who is Love, so all could be enriched in the manner of which they were capable. The divine Spirit, in coming for the first time upon the Apostles and the others gathered with them, intended it as a pledge and testimony that He would confer the same favor on the rest of the children of the Church, of the light, and of the Gospel, and that He was ready to communicate his gifts to all if all would dispose themselves for receiving them. In witness to this truth the Holy Ghost came upon many of the faithful in visible form and with visible effects (Acts 8:17; 10:44; 11:15), because they were truly faithful servants, humble and sincere, pure and ready of heart to receive Him. He likewise comes to many just souls in our times, though not with such open manifestations because it is neither necessary nor proper. The effects and interior gifts are all of the same nature according to the disposition and degree of each one who receives them.

69. Blessed is the soul who sighs and aspires after this blessing and seeks to participate in this divine fire which enkindles, enlightens, and consumes all that is terrestrial and carnal, which purifies and raises the soul up to a new existence, union and participation with God himself. As thy true and loving Mother I desire this happiness for thee, my daughter, and so thou mayest attain it in its fullness I again exhort thee to prepare thy heart by seeking to preserve inviolate tranquility and peace in all that may happen to thee. The divine clemency desires to raise thee to a habitation very exalted and secure, where the torments of thy spirit shall come to an end, where neither the assaults of the world nor of hell can reach, and where in thy own repose the Lord shall rest and find in thee a worthy dwelling place and a temple of his glory. Thou shalt not escape the attacks and temptations directed against thee by the dragon with the highest astuteness; hence, do thou live in continual wariness lest thou be disturbed or disquieted in the interior of thy soul. Guard thy treasure in the secrecy of the Lord and enjoy his delights, the sweet effects of his chaste love, and the influences of his holy science, for in this regard He has singled thee out from many generations in utmost liberality.

70. Take heed then of thy calling, and assure thyself that the Most High offers thee anew the participation and communication of his divine Spirit and his gifts; however, remember that when He confers them He does not take away the freedom of thy will, for He always leaves free the election of good or evil. Trusting thus in the divine favor thou must efficaciously resolve to imitate me in the works thou knowest of my life, and thou must never hinder the effects and the operations of the gifts of the Holy Ghost.In order for thee to better understand this doctrine, I shall explain to thee the effects of all his seven gifts.

71. The first gift, which is Wisdom, fills the mind with the knowledge and the delight of divine things, and moves the heart to a sincere love for the practice and exercise of all that is good, that is best, and most perfect and agreeable in the eyes of the Lord. With this impulse thou must concur, yielding thyself entirely to the pleasure of his divine will and despising all that might hinder thee, no matter how pleasing it may seem to thy will or alluring to thy appetite. Wisdom is aided by Understanding, the second gift, which gives special light to penetrate profoundly into the object presented to the understanding. With this gift thou must cooperate by diverting and turning aside thy attention and thoughts from all the illegitimate and foreign objects of knowledge which the demon, either by himself or through other creatures, shall present to thy mind in order to distract it and prevent it from penetrating deeply into the truth of divine things. This kind of distraction greatly embarrasses the mind, for the two kinds of knowledge are incompatible with each other, and whenever the limited faculties of man are divided in their attention to many objects they enter into them less and attend less than if all their operations were riveted on one alone. In this is experienced the truth of the Gospel teaching that no one can serve two masters (Mt. 6:24). When the whole attention of the soul has thus been riveted on understanding the good, Fortitude, the third gift, is necessary in order to execute resolutely all that the understanding has perceived as most holy, perfect and agreeable before the Lord. The difficulties and hindrances in the pursuit of the good are to be overcome by Fortitude, making the creature ready to suffer any labor or pain in order not to be deprived of the true and highest Good it has come to know.

72. But it often happens that natural ignorance and doubt added to temptation withhold the creature from following out the conclusions and consequences of the divine truth, and thus create hindrances in the execution of what is more perfect; in the midst of these whims offered by the prudence of the flesh, God furnishes the fourth gift, that of Knowledge, which gives light to distinguish between different kinds of good, teaches the most certain and secure way, and decides upon it when necessary. To this is joined the fifth gift, that of Piety, which inclines the soul with sweet urgency to all that is truly pleasing and of service to the Lord and of spiritual benefit to the creature who executes it. It inclines the creature to these things not by any natural passion but by a holy, perfect and virtuous motive. So in all things man can be guided by high prudence the Holy Ghost provides the sixth gift, that of Counsel, which supports his understanding so he can act with precision and without temerity, weighing the means and discreetly taking counsel with himself and with others in order to gain honest and holy ends by the selection of the proper means. To all these is added Fear, the last, which guards and sets the seal on all of them. This gift inclines the heart to flee and avoid all that is imperfect, dangerous or alien to the virtues and perfections of the soul, thus serving as a wall of defense. It is necessary to understand the object and the manner of this holy fear lest it grow excessive and cause the creature to fear where there is no occasion. Such has often happened to thee through the astuteness of the serpent when under the guise of holy fear he entangled thee in an inordinate love for the benefits of the Lord. But by this instruction thou art now informed how thou must put into practice the gifts of the Most High and prepare thyself for them. I remind and admonish thee that this science of holy fear is the accompaniment of the favors communicated to thee by the Most High, that it fills the soul with sweetness, peace and tranquility, and enables the creature properly to estimate and appreciate the gifts which come from the powerful hand of the Almighty. Neither are any of them unimportant, nor does this fear hinder a proper estimation of these gifts; rather, it induces the soul to render gratitude with all its powers and humiliate itself to the dust. In understanding these truths without error, and in suppressing the cowardly fear of slaves, thou shalt be filled with filial fear, which as thy guiding star shall help thee to navigate securely in this ocean of tears.  (New English Edition of The Mystical City of  God, Book 7, The  Coronation, Chapter V.)