Theotokos: On the Feast of the Divine Maternity of the Blessed Virgin Mary

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

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

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

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

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

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

My next original article is almost completed. However, I have run out of steam late on the Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost (and the commemoration of Saint Francis Borgia, S.J.). I have to finish the commentary's conclusion this afternoon and this post the commentay a few hours thereafter. 

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

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us

On the Feast of the Holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary

We must never tire of reminding our fellow Catholics that Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary is, after the perfect prayer, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the most powerful prayer we have to make reparation for our own sins and those of the whole world as we seek the conversion of all men to the true Faith, the Catholic Faith, before they die and to fight the heresies of Modernity in the world and Modernism in the counterfeit church of conciliarism.

We must promote the Rosary and pray it with fervor and devotion. Our Lady implored us at Fatima to pray the Rosary daily. How can we refuse her?

Finally, Naturally Absurd, part six—Welcome to East Germany was published yesterday, and I ask patience while I work on my next article, which is already being delayed as a result of being rear-ended while stopped at a traffic light around Angelus time last evening. Penance is indeed better than ever in 2021! Deo gratias! (Also, please remember the Go Fund Me appeal that I have created to fund hernia repair surgeries scheduled to take place on the Feast of Saint Luke the Evangelist, Monday, October 18, 2021, if I can raise the needed amount to pay for them. Thank you.)

Once again, I do not resort to these public appeals much any longer. However, I must do so now. 

Thank you.

A blessed Feast of Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary to you all.

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Pope Saint Mark I, pray for us. 

Saints Sergius, Bacchus, Marcellus, and Apuleius, pray for us.

Naturally Absurd, part six: Welcome to East Germany

This commentary took longer to complete because it is longer that I expected to be.

However, this new commentary is a comprehensive examination of the root causes responsible for the rise of an East Germany-like totalitarianism that is pervading every aspect of social life today here in the United States of America.

Many issues are covered in this commentary, including President in Name Only Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr.’s, mendacity, efforts by members of the organized crime family of the naturalist “left” to statutorily enshrine Roe v. Wade (an effort that is of dubious constitutionality as the only legitimate means to restrict the power of state governments is by the proposal and then ratification of constitutional amendments), to require young women to register with the Selective Service System for the military draft, and United States Attorney General Merrick Garland’s brutal effort to intimidate parents who are opposing the Marxist-based ideology of “critical race theory.”

The next original article on this website will be yet another plandemic-themed commentary. However, that may take five full days to complete.

Finally, although I am reluctant to post news of this matter here on my website as I do not want any of those who have donated to us after private entreaties had been made last month to do so again, there might be others who have the means to make donations, which is why I am hereby linking to a Go Fund Me appeal for two hernia surgeries that will take place at the Surgery Center of Oklahoma on Monday, October 18, 2021, the Feast of Saint Luke the Evangelist, if the requisite funds have been raised to proceed with the surgeries. Thank you for your consideration.

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Saint Bruno, pray for us.

On the Feast of Saint Francis of Assisi, Who Left Riches to Embrace Lady Poverty

Today, Monday, October 4, 2021, is the Feast of the Seraphic Saint, Saint Francis of Assisi, who was born as Giovanni di Bernardone in 1182 (some say 1181).

This revised article is a poor way to pay tribute to the follower of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ who gave up earthly riches to embrace Lady Poverty, earning himself eternal riches in the process, eternal riches that helped to save the Church Militant on earth from falling down at a time of great clerical corruption. It is my hope, however, that this poor tribute to Saint Francis, a saint of profound Eucharistic piety and deep, tender devotion to the Mother of God who rejoiced in the midst of trials and sufferings and insults and even the rejection of his own father and brother, will provide some food for meditation about the glorious life of this joyful saint of prayer and penance.

The writing of my next and long-delayed original commentary is almost complete. Barring any unforeseen problems, it should be posted by around this time tomorrow on the Feast of Saints Placidus and Companions, the Protomartyrs of the Order of Saint Benedict. 

Saint Francis of Assisi, pray for us!

A blessed feast day to our friends to all Franciscans, including those of the Third Order.

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Saint Francis of Assisi, pray for us.

On the [Commemorated] Feast of Saint Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face

Marie-Frances Therese Martin was born to the holiest of parents, Louis and Zelie Martin, who endeavored to shield their children as much as possible from the influences of the world.

The sacrifices made by Louis and Zelie Martin produced five vocations to the consecrated religious life. Zelie Martin's prayers from eternity after her death assisted her husband as he raised one canonized saint and four other daughters who served Holy Mother Church as brides of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

The simplicity and love of the Little Flower teaches each of us to pursue holiness as befits redeemed creatures, seeking the things of Heaven in this life so that we may spend our Heaven doing good here on earth. Saint Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face was raised in a family that stressed the importance of withdrawing from the world. Louis and Zelie Martin were very protective of their daughters, making sure to instill within them a firm commitment to the Virtue of Modesty.

Indeed, Sister Genevieve of the Holy Face, Marie-Frances Celine Martin, was shocked at the immodesty that had overtaken France with the Allied bombing of Normandy forced the cloistered Carmelites of the Carmel out of their cloister and into the world in June of 1944. She noted this in a letter to Mother Agnes Mary that was dated July 7, 1944:

"After fifty years of eremetical living, to find myself all of a sudden uprooted and thrown into the midst of the world, with veil raised, is a true martyrdom for a recluse like me. It seems to me as if we're in a station where everybody is crowding around and intermingling. We sleep fully clothed on benches; we take our meals in haste, standing up in the dark; we look with astonishment and grief at the feminine styles stripped of all dignity." (As quoted in Celine: Sister Genevieve of the Holy Face, Sister and Witness of St. Therese of the Child Jesus, by Father Stephane-Joseph Piat, O.F.M., p. 130.)

What would Saint Therese and Sister Genevieve say today about the feminine attire that is considered "modest" and "acceptable" in Catholic chapels all across the vast expanse of the ecclesiastical divide where some version of the Immemorial Mass of Tradition is offered or simulated?

They would not have been approving, and that is because their holy parents taught them Catholic right from wordily wrong.

Why is this so difficult for many traditionally-minded Catholic parents to understand, accept and abide by today?

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Saint Therese of Lisieux, pray for us

On the Feast of Our Holy Guardian Angels

This reflection on our Holy Guardian Angels is brief. Our devotion to and reliance upon our Guardian Angels, however, must be lifelong. 

Work continues, albeit at a snail's pace, on the next original commentary. 

Our Lady of the Angels, pray for us.

Our Holy Guardian Angels, pray for us.

Saint Jerome Put Love of the True God, the Holy Trinity, Above All Else

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

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

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

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

Saint Jerome did.

What's our excuse?

Finally, I ask for your prayers for my dear wife, Sharon, who turns but a mere fifty-eight years of age of age today. June 7, 2021, marked our twentieth wedding anniversary, and Lucy, at nineteen years, six months, three days of age, is an accomplished trainer and exhibtor of miniature horses.

Indeed, they have been away for the past week at a show, which has left me pretty much a full-time, morning-to-night farmer. This is why the next original article is proceeding slowly as the "window of opportunity" to write is rather slim right now. However, I think that tomorrow, the Feast of Saint Remigius and the First Friday of the month of June, will provide me with more of an opportunity to make substantial progress on the next article. I thank you once again for your patience.

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Saint Jerome, pray for us.

Father Francis X. Weninger's Sermon on the Feast of the Dedication of the Church of Saint Michael the Archangel

As promised in my revised and expanded reflection on today's Feast of the Dedication of the Church of Dedication of Saint Michael the Archangel, I am hereby publishing Father Francis X. Weninger's sermon for today's feast. 

Our Lady of the Angels, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us and defend us.

Revised and Expanded: On the Feast of the Dedication of the Church of Saint Michael the Archangel

Today is the Feast of the Dedication of the Church of Saint Michael the Archangel in Mount Gargano, Italy. 

It is interesting to note that, given the rationalism that underlies Modernists' rejection of the supernatural, that this feast is not celebrated as such in the counterfeit church of conciliarism as it is based upon the apparition of Saint Michael the Archangel on May 8, 490. The architects of the Protestant and Judeo-Masonic Novus Ordo liturgical service went to great lengths to edit out almost all references to apparitions, Indeed, none other than the old Rosicurcian Mason himself, Angelo Roncalli/John XXIII, suppressed the Feast of the Apparition of Saint Michael the Archangel on May 8 entirely in the first wave of his Jansenist anti-liturgical changes that went into effect on Sunday, December 3, 1960, the First Sunday of Advent, and the feast that we celebrate today, was eliminated by Annibale Bugnini and company and replaced with the combined Feast of Saints Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael. 

Believing Catholics, however, know that Holy Mother Church cannot deceive us, and that her Sacred Liturgy is guided by none other than the Third Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, God the Holy Ghost. It is thus that we celebrated the Feast of Dedication of the Church of Saint Michael the Archangel today, Wednesday, September 29, 2021.

The next article is turning out to be very long, something that I know will come as a suprise to readers of this website. However, I promise that it will be worthwile reading, although I do not think that the pathological liars who live and work at or near 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, District of Columbia, will want to be put it on their reading lists once it is completed.

Our Lady of the Angels, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us and keep us.

Saint Wenceslaus of Bohemia: A King Who Was Always Prostated in Prayer Before the King of Kings, Christ the King

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

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Saint Wenceslaus, pray for us.

Pages

Subscribe to Christ or Chaos RSS