All is quicksand without Our Lady, she who made possible our very salvation by her perfect fiat God the Father's Most Holy Will, which was announced to her by Saint Gabriel the Archangel at the Annunciation. Yes, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI once again ignored the Mother of God in the "homily" that he gave in the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo service at Yankee Stadium in the Borough the Bronx, City of New York, New York, yesterday, April 20, 2008. All is quicksand without Our Lady.
Alas, conciliarism is a veritable pit of quicksand upon which has been attempted to be built a false church that has sought alternately to make a "reconciliation" with the fundamental principles of Modernity (separation of Church and State, religious liberty, pluralism) while at the same claiming to continue the Catholic Church's work of spreading the Gospel of the Divine Redeemer, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Conciliarism's false foundations can never be redeemed by the occasional expressions of Catholicity, no matter with what sobriety and sincerity they may be conveyed, as it is impossible to do the work of the Catholic Church while embracing even one single proposition that has been condemned by her over the centuries. Each of the foundational principles of Modernity noted parenthetically two sentences ago has been embraced and propagated as social "goods" compatible with the Gospel of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
The conciliar revolutionaries, including Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, do not realize this. They are committed to this "reconciliation" as they give marks of public respect and esteem to false religions and their sacrilegious symbols and as they engage in the condemned practice of inter-religious "prayer" and the fruitless of "inter-religious" dialogue without insisting that those outside of the Catholic Church convert unconditionally so as to have access to her life-giving sanctifying offices found in the Sacraments and so as to submit themselves without one iota of dissent from the Deposit of Faith that her Divine Bridegroom has entrusted solely to her for Its eternal safekeeping and infallible explication.
As the conciliar revolution is founded in a condemned notion of the nature of dogmatic truth, all of the appeals made by its leaders, whether young or old, to follow Our Lord as the Way, the Truth and the Life, ring hollow. How can people follow Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ as the Way, the Truth and the Life when the leaders of the conciliar revolution, including Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, ignore the truths contained in the Catholic Church's condemnations of religious liberty and the separation of Church and State and false ecumenism and inter-religious prayer? How can Our Lord be the Way, the Truth and the Life if His truths can be understood differently at different times in light of the "changed" circumstances of "modern" men? In other words, how can God exist at all if what He has revealed is subject to constant change and reinterpretation in ways that make it possible for a putative "pontiff" to justify a supposed "hermeneutic" of "continuity in discontinuity"?
These questions do not arise in the minds of men such as Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI as they have abandoned the clarity provided by the Catholic Church's official philosophy, Scholasticism, in order to embrace and to propagate the paradoxes and the internal contradictions of the New Theology. Several true popes have warned what would happen to those who would be so foolish and so bold as to abandon Scholasticism for any other alleged "system" of philosophy."
But, furthermore, Our predecessors in the Roman pontificate have celebrated the wisdom of Thomas Aquinas by exceptional tributes of praise and the most ample testimonials. Clement VI in the bull "In Ordine;" Nicholas V in his brief to the friars of the Order of Preachers, 1451; Benedict XIII in the bull "Pretiosus," and others bear witness that the universal Church borrows luster from his admirable teaching; while St. Pius V declares in the bull "Mirabilis" that heresies, confounded and convicted by the same teaching, were dissipated, and the whole world daily freed from fatal errors; others, such as Clement XII in the bull "Verbo Dei," affirm that most fruitful blessings have spread abroad from his writings over the whole Church, and that he is worthy of the honor which is bestowed on the greatest Doctors of the Church, on Gregory and Ambrose, Augustine and Jerome; while others have not hesitated to propose St. Thomas for the exemplar and master of the universities and great centers of learning whom they may follow with unfaltering feet. On which point the words of Blessed Urban V to the University of Toulouse are worthy of recall: "It is our will, which We hereby enjoin upon you, that ye follow the teaching of Blessed Thomas as the true and Catholic doctrine and that ye labor with all your force to profit by the same." Innocent XII, followed the example of Urban in the case of the University of Louvain, in the letter in the form of a brief addressed to that university on February 6, 1694, and Benedict XIV in the letter in the form of a brief addressed on August 26, 1752, to the Dionysian College in Granada; while to these judgments of great Pontiffs on Thomas Aquinas comes the crowning testimony of Innocent VI: "His teaching above that of others, the canonical writings alone excepted, enjoys such a precision of language, an order of matters, a truth of conclusions, that those who hold to it are never found swerving from the path of truth, and he who dare assail it will always be suspected of error."
The ecumenical councils, also, where blossoms the flower of all earthly wisdom, have always been careful to hold Thomas Aquinas in singular honor. In the Councils of Lyons, Vienna, Florence, and the Vatican one might almost say that Thomas took part and presided over the deliberations and decrees of the Fathers, contending against the errors of the Greeks, of heretics and rationalists, with invincible force and with the happiest results. But the chief and special glory of Thomas, one which he has shared with none of the Catholic Doctors, is that the Fathers of Trent made it part of the order of conclave to lay upon the altar, together with sacred Scripture and the decrees of the supreme Pontiffs, the "Summa" of Thomas Aquinas, whence to seek counsel, reason, and inspiration.
A last triumph was reserved for this incomparable man -- namely, to compel the homage, praise, and admiration of even the very enemies of the Catholic name. For it has come to light that there were not lacking among the leaders of heretical sects some who openly declared that, if the teaching of Thomas Aquinas were only taken away, they could easily battle with all Catholic teachers, gain the victory, and abolish the Church. A vain hope, indeed, but no vain testimony. (Pope Leo XIII, Aeterni Patris, August 4, 1879.)
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 Dominici Gregis, September 8, 1907.)
Unfortunately these advocates of novelty easily pass from despising scholastic theology to the neglect of and even contempt for the Teaching Authority of the Church itself, which gives such authoritative approval to scholastic theology. This Teaching Authority is represented by them as a hindrance to progress and an obstacle in the way of science. Some non Catholics consider it as an unjust restraint preventing some more qualified theologians from reforming their subject. And although this sacred Office of Teacher in matters of faith and morals must be the proximate and universal criterion of truth for all theologians, since to it has been entrusted by Christ Our Lord the whole deposit of faith -- Sacred Scripture and divine Tradition -- to be preserved, guarded and interpreted, still the duty that is incumbent on the faithful to flee also those errors which more or less approach heresy, and accordingly "to keep also the constitutions and decrees by which such evil opinions are proscribed and forbidden by the Holy See," is sometimes as little known as if it did not exist. What is expounded in the Encyclical Letters of the Roman Pontiffs concerning the nature and constitution of the Church, is deliberately and habitually neglected by some with the idea of giving force to a certain vague notion which they profess to have found in the ancient Fathers, especially the Greeks. The Popes, they assert, do not wish to pass judgment on what is a matter of dispute among theologians, so recourse must be had to the early sources, and the recent constitutions and decrees of the Teaching Church must be explained from the writings of the ancients. (Pope Pius XII, Humani Generis, August 12, 1950.)
How does this apply to Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI? Just a quick reminder for those tempted to believe that a "homily" containing some "elements" of Catholic teaching, especially about the fact that true freedom is that from sin as a result of Our Lord's Redemptive Act on the wood of the Holy Cross, is reflective of a man who is a Catholic. It is the despising of Scholasticism and its clarity that can lead a man to utter very Catholic remarks in some instances, albeit laced with references to the heresy of religious liberty and to the conciliarist notion of the faith, and then engage in acts of complete apostasy and betrayal on others:
In the two years Ratzinger spent at the diocesan seminary of Freising, he studied literature, music, modern philosophy, and he felt drawn towards the new existentialist and modernist theologies. He did not like St. Thomas Aquinas. The formation described does not correspond to the exclusively Catholic formation that is necessary to one called to be a priest, even taking into account the extenuating circumstances of the time, that is, anti-Christian Nazism, the war and defeat, and the secularization of studies within seminaries. It seems that His Eminence, with all due respect, gave too much place to profane culture, with its "openness" to everything, and its critical attitude...Joseph Ratzinger loved the professors who asked many questions, but disliked those who defended dogma with the crystal-clear logic of St. Thomas. This attitude would seem to us to match his manner of understanding Catholic liturgy. He tells us that from childhood he was always attracted to the liturgical movement and was sympathetic towards it. One can see that for him, the liturgy was a matter of feeling, a lived experience, an aesthetically pleasing "Erlebnis," but fundamentally irrational (op. cit. passim.). (The Memories of a Destructive Mind: Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger's Milestones.)
The New Theology's rejection of Scholasticism is what has made it possible for Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict to jettison those things about Catholic teaching that he does not "like," statements and decrees, even from the Church's dogmatic councils, each of which were guided infallibly by God the Holy Ghost, the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity, consigning papal reiterations of the Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries on the consistent Social Teaching of the Catholic Church to a status of having a "core nucleus" of truth but a character of obsolescence in their "particulars" because they were formulated according to the subject circumstances of their time (which imprisoned those popes in the paradigms of the moments in which they lived). Paradox and contradiction mark Catholic theology and teaching in the mind of Joseph Ratzinger, not clarity and certainty.
Paradox was certainly evident in what could termed as the prototype for the "reform of the reform" service, which was coordinated by the "papal" master of ceremonies, Monsignor Guido Marini, and orchestrated by pro-abortion Hollywood producers and political advance teams, that was offered at Yankee Stadium yesterday, where the "traditional" and the "contemporary" were "happily combined." A lot of Latin, sometimes interspersed in the prayers of the service and sometimes used in the various hymns, including the Panis Angelicus, with a lot of the vernacular and, of course, with the various assortment of laity, mostly women, on the "stage."
This combination of the "traditional" and the "contemporary," mixed in with a lot of staged theatrical effects, is what the future holds for the "high churchers" in the Novus Ordo. "Low churchers" can look forward to what transpired at Nationals Park in Washington, District of Columbia, on Wednesday, April 17, 2008. Guido Marini is just as conscious as his predecessor, Piero Marini, in using these staged events to established "precedents" for the Novus Ordo establishment. Piero Marini did so as an agent of the liturgical revolution's brazen novelties. Guido Marini is doing so to provide the framework for the "reform of the reform" of the hideous abomination that is the Novus Ordo.
Remember, a Menshevik revolutionary and a Bolshevik revolutionary have their differences. Both are still revolutionaries bent on establishing a "new order" of things. And Mikhail Gorbachev's "perestroika" meant to save Communism, not to end it. Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI and Guido Mario are engaged in their own efforts at perestroika, which are meant to save the Novus Ordo and conciliarism, not to replace it by means of Summorum Pontificum and a restoration of the the Catholic Faith as it has been handed down to us from time immemorial.
Also full of the paradox caused by the New Theology's rejection of Scholasticism was Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's "homily" at the Yankee Stadium production. It was evocative of the the most Catholic sounding of Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II's "homilies." Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's sermon evoked the mixture of Catholicism and conciliarism that was the consistent theme of his predecessor's false "pontificate," giving the illusion of a pure commitment to Catholic doctrinal orthodoxy that does not in fact exist.
As has been the case throughout his American visit, Ratzinger/Benedict once again extolled the heresy of religious freedom and the "vibrant" democracy that is alleged to be the United States of America, interspersing such bits of poison and positivism in with some genuinely Catholic truths:
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
In the Gospel we have just heard, Jesus tells his Apostles to put their faith in him, for he is "the way, and the truth and the life" (Jn 14:6). Christ is the way that leads to the Father, the truth which gives meaning to human existence, and the source of that life which is eternal joy with all the saints in his heavenly Kingdom. Let us take the Lord at his word! Let us renew our faith in him and put all our hope in his promises!
With this encouragement to persevere in the faith of Peter (cf. Lk 22:32; Mt 16:17), I greet all of you with great affection. I thank Cardinal Egan for his cordial words of welcome in your name. At this Mass, the Church in the United States celebrates the two hundredth anniversary of the creation of the Sees of New York, Boston, Philadelphia and Louisville from the mother See of Baltimore. The presence around this altar of the Successor of Peter, his brother bishops and priests, and deacons, men and women religious, and lay faithful from throughout the fifty states of the Union, eloquently manifests our communion in the Catholic faith which comes to us from the Apostles.
Our celebration today is also a sign of the impressive growth which God has given to the Church in your country in the past two hundred years. From a small flock like that described in the first reading, the Church in America has been built up in fidelity to the twin commandment of love of God and love of neighbor. In this land of freedom and opportunity, the Church has united a widely diverse flock in the profession of the faith and, through her many educational, charitable and social works, has also contributed significantly to the growth of American society as a whole.
This great accomplishment was not without its challenges. Today's first reading, taken from the Acts of the Apostles, speaks of linguistic and cultural tensions already present within the earliest Church community. At the same time, it shows the power of the word of God, authoritatively proclaimed by the Apostles and received in faith, to create a unity which transcends the divisions arising from human limitations and weakness. Here we are reminded of a fundamental truth: that the Church's unity has no other basis than the Word of God, made flesh in Christ Jesus our Lord. All external signs of identity, all structures, associations and programs, valuable or even essential as they may be, ultimately exist only to support and foster the deeper unity which, in Christ, is God's indefectible gift to his Church.
The first reading also makes clear, as we see from the imposition of hands on the first deacons, that the Church's unity is "apostolic". It is a visible unity, grounded in the Apostles whom Christ chose and appointed as witnesses to his resurrection, and it is born of what the Scriptures call "the obedience of faith" (Rom 1:5; cf. Acts 6:7).
"Authority" … "obedience". To be frank, these are not easy words to speak nowadays. Words like these represent a "stumbling stone" for many of our contemporaries, especially in a society which rightly places a high value on personal freedom. Yet, in the light of our faith in Jesus Christ - "the way and the truth and the life" - we come to see the fullest meaning, value, and indeed beauty, of those words. The Gospel teaches us that true freedom, the freedom of the children of God, is found only in the self-surrender which is part of the mystery of love. Only by losing ourselves, the Lord tells us, do we truly find ourselves (cf. Lk 17:33). True freedom blossoms when we turn away from the burden of sin, which clouds our perceptions and weakens our resolve, and find the source of our ultimate happiness in him who is infinite love, infinite freedom, infinite life. "In his will is our peace".
Real freedom, then, is God's gracious gift, the fruit of conversion to his truth, the truth which makes us free (cf. Jn 8:32). And this freedom in truth brings in its wake a new and liberating way of seeing reality. When we put on "the mind of Christ" (cf. Phil 2:5), new horizons open before us! In the light of faith, within the communion of the Church, we also find the inspiration and strength to become a leaven of the Gospel in the world. We become the light of the world, the salt of the earth (cf. Mt 5:13-14), entrusted with the "apostolate" of making our own lives, and the world in which we live, conform ever more fully to God's saving plan.
This magnificent vision of a world being transformed by the liberating truth of the Gospel is reflected in the description of the Church found in today's second reading. The Apostle tells us that Christ, risen from the dead, is the keystone of a great temple which is even now rising in the Spirit. And we, the members of his body, through Baptism have become "living stones" in that temple, sharing in the life of God by grace, blessed with the freedom of the sons of God, and empowered to offer spiritual sacrifices pleasing to him (cf. 1 Pet 2:5). And what is this offering which we are called to make, if not to direct our every thought, word and action to the truth of the Gospel and to harness all our energies in the service of God's Kingdom? Only in this way can we build with God, on the one foundation which is Christ (cf. 1 Cor 3:11). Only in this way can we build something that will truly endure. Only in this way can our lives find ultimate meaning and bear lasting fruit.
Today we recall the bicentennial of a watershed in the history of the Church in the United States: its first great chapter of growth. In these two hundred years, the face of the Catholic community in your country has changed greatly. We think of the successive waves of immigrants whose traditions have so enriched the Church in America. We think of the strong faith which built up the network of churches, educational, healthcare and social institutions which have long been the hallmark of the Church in this land. We think also of those countless fathers and mothers who passed on the faith to their children, the steady ministry of the many priests who devoted their lives to the care of souls, and the incalculable contribution made by so many men and women religious, who not only taught generations of children how to read and write, but also inspired in them a lifelong desire to know God, to love him and to serve him. How many "spiritual sacrifices pleasing to God" have been offered up in these two centuries! In this land of religious liberty, Catholics found freedom not only to practice their faith, but also to participate fully in civic life, bringing their deepest moral convictions to the public square and cooperating with their neighbors in shaping a vibrant, democratic society. Today's celebration is more than an occasion of gratitude for graces received. It is also a summons to move forward with firm resolve to use wisely the blessings of freedom, in order to build a future of hope for coming generations.
"You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people he claims for his own, to proclaim his glorious works" (1 Pet 2:9). These words of the Apostle Peter do not simply remind us of the dignity which is ours by God's grace; they also challenge us to an ever greater fidelity to the glorious inheritance which we have received in Christ (cf. Eph 1:18). They challenge us to examine our consciences, to purify our hearts, to renew our baptismal commitment to reject Satan and all his empty promises. They challenge us to be a people of joy, heralds of the unfailing hope (cf. Rom 5:5) born of faith in God's word, and trust in his promises.
Each day, throughout this land, you and so many of your neighbors pray to the Father in the Lord's own words: "Thy Kingdom come". This prayer needs to shape the mind and heart of every Christian in this nation. It needs to bear fruit in the way you lead your lives and in the way you build up your families and your communities. It needs to create new "settings of hope" (cf. Spe Salvi, 32ff.) where God's Kingdom becomes present in all its saving power.
Praying fervently for the coming of the Kingdom also means being constantly alert for the signs of its presence, and working for its growth in every sector of society. It means facing the challenges of present and future with confidence in Christ's victory and a commitment to extending his reign. It means not losing heart in the face of resistance, adversity and scandal. It means overcoming every separation between faith and life, and countering false gospels of freedom and happiness. It also means rejecting a false dichotomy between faith and political life, since, as the Second Vatican Council put it, "there is no human activity - even in secular affairs - which can be withdrawn from God's dominion" (Lumen Gentium, 36). It means working to enrich American society and culture with the beauty and truth of the Gospel, and never losing sight of that great hope which gives meaning and value to all the other hopes which inspire our lives.
And this, dear friends, is the particular challenge which the Successor of Saint Peter sets before you today. As "a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation", follow faithfully in the footsteps of those who have gone before you! Hasten the coming of God's Kingdom in this land! Past generations have left you an impressive legacy. In our day too, the Catholic community in this nation has been outstanding in its prophetic witness in the defense of life, in the education of the young, in care for the poor, the sick and the stranger in your midst. On these solid foundations, the future of the Church in America must even now begin to rise!
Yesterday, not far from here, I was moved by the joy, the hope and the generous love of Christ which I saw on the faces of the many young people assembled in Dunwoodie. They are the Church's future, and they deserve all the prayer and support that you can give them. And so I wish to close by adding a special word of encouragement to them. My dear young friends, like the seven men, "filled with the Spirit and wisdom" whom the Apostles charged with care for the young Church, may you step forward and take up the responsibility which your faith in Christ sets before you! May you find the courage to proclaim Christ, "the same, yesterday, and today and for ever" and the unchanging truths which have their foundation in him (cf. Gaudium et Spes, 10; Heb 13:8). These are the truths that set us free! They are the truths which alone can guarantee respect for the inalienable dignity and rights of each man, woman and child in our world - including the most defenseless of all human beings, the unborn child in the mother's womb. In a world where, as Pope John Paul II, speaking in this very place, reminded us, Lazarus continues to stand at our door (Homily at Yankee Stadium, October 2, 1979, No. 7), let your faith and love bear rich fruit in outreach to the poor, the needy and those without a voice. Young men and women of America, I urge you: open your hearts to the Lord's call to follow him in the priesthood and the religious life. Can there be any greater mark of love than this: to follow in the footsteps of Christ, who was willing to lay down his life for his friends (cf. Jn 15:13)?
In today's Gospel, the Lord promises his disciples that they will perform works even greater than his (cf. Jn 14:12). Dear friends, only God in his providence knows what works his grace has yet to bring forth in your lives and in the life of the Church in the United States. Yet Christ's promise fills us with sure hope. Let us now join our prayers to his, as living stones in that spiritual temple which is his one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church. Let us lift our eyes to him, for even now he is preparing for us a place in his Father's house. And empowered by his Holy Spirit, let us work with renewed zeal for the spread of his Kingdom.
"Happy are you who believe!" (cf. 1 Pet 2:7). Let us turn to Jesus! He alone is the way that leads to eternal happiness, the truth who satisfies the deepest longings of every heart, and the life who brings ever new joy and hope, to us and to our world. Amen.(Homily at Yankee Stadium, April 20, 2008.)
A few observations are in order, based upon the sections of the "homily" highlighted in bold print.
A land of freedom and opportunity? A land of religious liberty? A false dichotomy between faith and the political life? Putting on the mind of Christ?
Well, there is no true "freedom" in the United States of America. The false "god of liberty" has enslaved Americans of all denominations, including Catholics, to the notion that it is advantageous to the temporal good of man for there to be a separation of Church and State, which must result in the triumph of materialism and relativism and positivism and practical atheism as the lowest common denominators of social life. As a speaker, noted for his fine and excellent defense of the Social Reign of Christ the King and his thorough opposition to Americanism, at a conference I organized and hosted at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Washington, D.C., in November of 1999 said so simply, "False ideas lead to bad consequences." The false premises of the American founding, much critiqued on this site, had to lead to the current triumph of materialism and hedonism and positivism and practical atheism.
There is no secular, religiously indifferentist, non-denominational or inter-denominational way to retard social evils. Catholicism is the one and only foundation of personal and social order. Authentic liberty must be confounded with license in a land where the Catholic Church is not recognized by the civil state as the true religion and thus where she is unable to exercise the Social Reign of Christ the King. This Social Reign of Christ the King is not merely an extension of the reign of Christ in individual hearts, as Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI seeks as a means of permitting more and more citizens to compete in the "public square" as Catholics. The Social Reign of Christ the King is the right of the Catholic Church to interpose herself as a last resort, following the exhausting of her Indirect Power of teaching and preaching and exhortation, with civil officials when the good of souls demands her motherly intervention. This is not at all what Joseph Ratzinger means when he speaks of the extension of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ's reign. For him, you see, it is "enough" that the Church has a "voice" in "political life," principally by means of the participation of her members in the institutions of civil governance.
This is not "enough," however for Christ the King. While noting, as I have consistently when writing on this subject, that the Catholic Church will indeed adapt her pastoral praxis to the concrete circumstances in which her children find themselves, exhorting to indeed make the best of the circumstance that are not in accord with the Deposit of Faith, she does not accept, no less praise, false premises as the foundation of social order. The Catholic Church makes no compromise with evil. She never ceases to exhort her children to re-establish the Catholic City.
Father Frederick Faber noted once "Where there is no Mass there is no Christianity." And where Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ does not reign as King of nations as well as the hearts of men, you see, there it is that atheism must triumph, as the late Louis-Edouard-François-Desiré Cardinal Pie wrote over 120 years ago:
"If Jesus Christ," proclaims Msgr. Pie in a magnificent pastoral instruction, "if Jesus Christ Who is our light whereby we are drawn out of the seat of darkness and from the shadow of death, and Who has given to the world the treasure of truth and grace, if He has not enriched the world, I mean to say the social and political world itself, from the great evils which prevail in the heart of paganism, then it is to say that the work of Jesus Christ is not a divine work. Even more so: if the Gospel which would save men is incapable of procuring the actual progress of peoples, if the revealed light which is profitable to individuals is detrimental to society at large, if the scepter of Christ, sweet and beneficial to souls, and perhaps to families, is harmful and unacceptable for cities and empires; in other words, if Jesus Christ to whom the Prophets had promised and to Whom His Father had given the nations as a heritage, is not able to exercise His authority over them for it would be to their detriment and temporal disadvantage, it would have to be concluded that Jesus Christ is not God". . . .
"To say Jesus Christ is the God of individuals and of families, but not the God of peoples and of societies, is to say that He is not God. To say that Christianity is the law of individual man and is not the law of collective man, is to say that Christianity is not divine. To say that the Church is the judge of private morality, but has nothing to do with public and political morality, is to say that the Church is not divine."
In fine, Cardinal Pie insists:
"Christianity would not be divine if it were to have existence within individuals but not with regard to societies."
Fr. de St. Just asks, in conclusion:
"Could it be proven in clearer terms that social atheism conduces to individualistic atheism?" (See Catholic Action Resource Center for information on ordering this most important book.)
Pope Leo XIII had made quite a similar point in Immortale Dei, November 1, 1885:
To hold, therefore, that there is no difference in matters of religion between forms that are unlike each other, and even contrary to each other, most clearly leads in the end to the rejection of all religion in both theory and practice. And this is the same thing as atheism, however it may differ from it in name. Men who really believe in the existence of God must, in order to be consistent with themselves and to avoid absurd conclusions, understand that differing modes of divine worship involving dissimilarity and conflict even on most important points cannot all be equally probable, equally good, and equally acceptable to God.
So, too, the liberty of thinking, and of publishing, whatsoever each one likes, without any hindrance, is not in itself an advantage over which society can wisely rejoice. On the contrary, it is the fountain-head and origin of many evils. Liberty is a power perfecting man, and hence should have truth and goodness for its object. But the character of goodness and truth cannot be changed at option. These remain ever one and the same, and are no less unchangeable than nature itself. If the mind assents to false opinions, and the will chooses and follows after what is wrong, neither can attain its native fullness, but both must fall from their native dignity into an abyss of corruption. Whatever, therefore, is opposed to virtue and truth may not rightly be brought temptingly before the eye of man, much less sanctioned by the favor and protection of the law. A well-spent life is the only way to heaven, whither all are bound, and on this account the State is acting against the laws and dictates of nature whenever it permits the license of opinion and of action to lead minds astray from truth and souls away from the practice of virtue. To exclude the Church, founded by God Himself, from the business of life, from making of laws, from the education of youth, from domestic society is a grave and fatal error. A State from which religion is banished can never be well regulated; and already perhaps more than is desirable is known of the nature and tendency of the so-called civil philosophy of life and morals. The Church of Christ is the true and sole teacher of virtue and guardian of morals. She it is who preserves in their purity the principles from which duties flow, and, by setting forth most urgent reasons for virtuous life, bids us not only to turn away from wicked deeds, but even to curb all movements of the mind that are opposed to reason, even though they be not carried out in action.
Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI said in his "homily" at Yankee Stadium yesterday that new horizons open up when we "put on the mind of Christ." He should try looking in a mirror as he has not put on the mind of Christ. How ironic it is that the name of Pope Pius VII was mentioned by Edward "Cardinal" Egan, the conciliar "archbishop" of New York, in his address welcoming Ratzinger/Benedict to the home of the incarnation of all evil, the Bronx Bombers (aka the New York Yankees). Pope Pius VII elevated the Diocese of Baltimore to an Archdiocese two hundred years ago yesterday, that is, on April 20, 1808, and created the suffragan dioceses of Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Bardstown, Kentucky. (The Bardstown see was later moved to Louisville. Oh, yes, it should be noted that the foul-mouthed creatures known as fans of the New York Yankees actually booed, that's right, booed the mention of the word "Boston" by Edward Egan!)
Why is this ironic? It is ironic because Pope Pius VII who used the phrase " a never sufficiently condemned heresy" to refer to the the very principle of "religious liberty" that Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI praised from the time he was on the South Lawn of the White House on Wednesday, April 16, 2008, to his "homily" at Yankee Stadium yesterday--and almost at every other opportunity presented before him, including before the United Masonic Nations organizations. He believes in an evil. He believes that false religions have a civil right--a fundamental civil right--to propagate their false beliefs publicly and that those false beliefs can contribute to the betterment of nations and the world. This is a blasphemy against God, Who does want the souls for whom He shed every single drop of His Most Precious Blood confused by error and swept out of the true Church by falsehoods to die without the sacraments. This is a crime against the souls of men and the good of social order.
Pope Pius VII used the following very clear words to denounce the very concept that is at the heart of conciliarism's fundamental revolution against the Mind of the Divine Redeemer as It has expressed Itself through the Catholic Church's consistent teaching about the Social Reign of Christ the King:
But a much more grave, and indeed very bitter, sorrow increased in Our heart - a sorrow by which We confess that We were crushed, overwhelmed and torn in two - from the twenty-second article of the constitution in which We saw, not only that "liberty of religion and of conscience" (to use the same words found in the article) were permitted by the force of the constitution, but also that assistance and patronage were promised both to this liberty and also to the ministers of these different forms of "religion". There is certainly no need of many words, in addressing you, to make you fully recognize by how lethal a wound the Catholic religion in France is struck by this article. For when the liberty of all "religions" is indiscriminately asserted, by this very fact truth is confounded with error and the holy and immaculate Spouse of Christ, the Church, outside of which there can be no salvation, is set on a par with the sects of heretics and with Judaic perfidy itself. For when favour and patronage is promised even to the sects of heretics and their ministers, not only their persons, but also their very errors, are tolerated and fostered: a system of errors in which is contained that fatal and never sufficiently to be deplored HERESY which, as St. Augustine says (de Haeresibus, no.72), "asserts that all heretics proceed correctly and tell the truth: which is so absurd that it seems incredible to me." (Pope Pius VII, Post Tam Diuturnas, April 29, 1814.)
Pope Gregory XVI reiterated this condemnation eighteen years later:
But, although we have not omitted often to proscribe and reprobate the chief errors of this kind, yet the cause of the Catholic Church, and the salvation of souls entrusted to us by God, and the welfare of human society itself, altogether demand that we again stir up your pastoral solicitude to exterminate other evil opinions, which spring forth from the said errors as from a fountain. Which false and perverse opinions are on that ground the more to be detested, because they chiefly tend to this, that that salutary influence be impeded and (even) removed, which the Catholic Church, according to the institution and command of her Divine Author, should freely exercise even to the end of the world -- not only over private individuals, but over nations, peoples, and their sovereign princes; and (tend also) to take away that mutual fellowship and concord of counsels between Church and State which has ever proved itself propitious and salutary, both for religious and civil interests.
For you well know, venerable brethren, that at this time men are found not a few who, applying to civil society the impious and absurd principle of "naturalism," as they call it, dare to teach that "the best constitution of public society and (also) civil progress altogether require that human society be conducted and governed without regard being had to religion any more than if it did not exist; or, at least, without any distinction being made between the true religion and false ones." And, against the doctrine of Scripture, of the Church, and of the Holy Fathers, they do not hesitate to assert that "that is the best condition of civil society, in which no duty is recognized, as attached to the civil power, of restraining by enacted penalties, offenders against the Catholic religion, except so far as public peace may require." From which totally false idea of social government they do not fear to foster that erroneous opinion, most fatal in its effects on the Catholic Church and the salvation of souls, called by Our Predecessor, Gregory XVI, an "insanity," viz., that "liberty of conscience and worship is each man's personal right, which ought to be legally proclaimed and asserted in every rightly constituted society; and that a right resides in the citizens to an absolute liberty, which should be restrained by no authority whether ecclesiastical or civil, whereby they may be able openly and publicly to manifest and declare any of their ideas whatever, either by word of mouth, by the press, or in any other way." But, while they rashly affirm this, they do not think and consider that they are preaching "liberty of perdition;" and that "if human arguments are always allowed free room for discussion, there will never be wanting men who will dare to resist truth, and to trust in the flowing speech of human wisdom; whereas we know, from the very teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ, how carefully Christian faith and wisdom should avoid this most injurious babbling." (Pope Gregory XVI, Mirari Vos, August 15, 1832.)
And, since where religion has been removed from civil society, and the doctrine and authority of divine revelation repudiated, the genuine notion itself of justice and human right is darkened and lost, and the place of true justice and legitimate right is supplied by material force, thence it appears why it is that some, utterly neglecting and disregarding the surest principles of sound reason, dare to proclaim that "the people's will, manifested by what is called public opinion or in some other way, constitutes a supreme law, free from all divine and human control; and that in the political order accomplished facts, from the very circumstance that they are accomplished, have the force of right." But who, does not see and clearly perceive that human society, when set loose from the bonds of religion and true justice, can have, in truth, no other end than the purpose of obtaining and amassing wealth, and that (society under such circumstances) follows no other law in its actions, except the unchastened desire of ministering to its own pleasure and interests? (Pope Pius IX, Quanta Cura, December 8, 1864.)
Pope Saint Pius X explained that in Vehementer Nos, February 11, 1906, that the concept of the separation of Church and State, which Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI believes in with all of his Modernist heart, was a thesis absolutely false. Something that is absolutely false in 1906 cannot become true in 2008. Only one possessed of the belief in the intrinsic evolution of dogma can believe in the absurdity of such a proposition, thereby making a mockery, whether or not he realizes it, of the immutability of God Himself:
That the State must be separated from the Church is a thesis absolutely false, a most pernicious error. Based, as it is, on the principle that the State must not recognize any religious cult, it is in the first place guilty of a great injustice to God; for the Creator of man is also the Founder of human societies, and preserves their existence as He preserves our own. We owe Him, therefore, not only a private cult, but a public and social worship to honor Him. Besides, this thesis is an obvious negation of the supernatural order. It limits the action of the State to the pursuit of public prosperity during this life only, which is but the proximate object of political societies; and it occupies itself in no fashion (on the plea that this is foreign to it) with their ultimate object which is man's eternal happiness after this short life shall have run its course. But as the present order of things is temporary and subordinated to the conquest of man's supreme and absolute welfare, it follows that the civil power must not only place no obstacle in the way of this conquest, but must aid us in effecting it.
This is the Mind of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI should have the humility to abjure his Modernist errors and to put on the Mind of Our Lord Jesus Christ for himself. All of his own exhortations to the Catholic faithful to on the Mind of Our Lord are absurd in light of how he himself has described the nature of doctrinal truth:
The text [of Gaudium et Spes] also presents the various forms of bonds that rise from the different degrees of magisterial teaching. It affirms -- perhaps for the first time with this clarity -- that there are decisions of the Magisterium that cannot be a last word on the matter as such, but are, in a substantial fixation of the problem, above all an expression of pastoral prudence, a kind of provisional disposition. Its nucleus remains valid, but the particulars, which the circumstances of the times have influenced, may need further ramifications.
“In this regard, one may think of the declarations of Popes in the last century about religious liberty, as well as the anti-Modernist decisions at the beginning of this century, above all, the decisions of the Biblical Commission of the time. As a cry of alarm in the face of hasty and superficial adaptations, they will remain fully justified. A personage such as Johann Baptist Metz said, for example, that the Church's anti-Modernist decisions render the great service of preserving her from immersion in the liberal-bourgeois world. But in the details of the determinations they contain, they become obsolete after having fulfilled their pastoral mission at the proper moment.” (Joseph Ratzinger, L'Osservatore Romano, July 2, 1990)
Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI defies, openly and brazenly, the Mind of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ as He has discharged It in the Catholic Church that He founded upon the Rock of Peter, the Pope. He believes that he is "free" to use his Hegelian sleight of mind, if you will, to promote condemned propositions that deny the immutability of doctrinal truth--and hence of God Himself--and thus harm souls and their societies. All of his talk of necessity of obedience to "Church authority" is absurd as he is one of the most singularly disobedient men to God on the face of this earth, feeling free to disparage, ignore or deconstruct anything and everything about the Catholic "past" that he does not "like."
There cannot help but be a division between "faith and political life" in nations that do not recognize the Catholic Church and accord her the favor and the protection of the laws. No amount of "involvement" of Catholics in the "public square" will ever build a more "just" society. The false, naturalistic, Judeo-Masonic, anti-Incarnational and semi-Pelagian premises that are the foundation of the modern civil state, including that of the government created by the Constitution of the United States of America, are based on a specific rejection of the Mind of Our Lord Jesus Christ as He has discharged It in the Deposit of Faith entrusted to Holy Mother Church. Naturalists knew better than God in the very Flesh. Such a system will always frustrate the realization of an "integration" between "faith and political life" (see
A World of Sisyphuses). Always. Without fail.
Put on the Mind of Christ? How did Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI put on the Mind of Christ when he addressed leaders of false religions on Thursday, April 17, 2008, without seeking their unconditional conversion to the true Faith?
Put on the Mind of Christ? How did Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI put on the Mind of Christ when he stood up from his "papal" chair at the "Pope" John Paul II Cultural Center in Washington, D.C., to receive with equanimity, respect, esteem and joy the symbols of false religions? How is breaking the First Commandment repeatedly putting on the Mind of Christ?
Oh, yes, there will be some who seek to minimize the offenses given to the honor and majesty of God when this abominable act of sacrilege and apostasy took place. Unlike what happened in 1999, when apologists of Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II defended him for kissing the Koran, which blasphemes Our Lord and His Most Blessed Mother, by saying the then false "pope" acted spontaneously, no defense plea of spontaneity can be made in the case of what Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI did four days ago now.
What happened four days ago was all carefully planned, well-publicized by the United States Conference of Conciliar "Bishops" and approved by those in the "papal" household coordinating Ratzinger/Benedict's visit. This was deliberate. It was planned. It was orchestrated. This was not the Mind of Christ? This was an unspeakable offense against the honor and majesty of God that reaffirmed Catholics and non-Catholics alike in an irenic "esteem" for the "value" of false religions. How can even those in the "resist and recognize" camp say to a fully-confirmed conciliarist enthusiast that God hates false religions when the "pope" esteems them?
Here is how an out of print book (no, I'm in no mood to use acronyms right now!), which rejects sedevacantism entirely and accepts legitimacy of the "pontiffs," described the kissing of the Koran incident that took place nine years ago with John Paul II:
For example, there is the incident in which the Vicar of Christ kissed a copy of the Koran, the Muslim holy book, presented to him during a visit by a delegation of Iraqi representatives. For this the Pope was praised by the Catholic patriarch of Iraq, Raphael I. The Koran condemns the Holy Trinity as a blasphemy worthy of eternal hellfire, and denies that Our Lord was crucified. One can easily imagine a line of Catholic martyrs going to their deaths rather than consenting to kiss that book. (out of print book, pp. 138-139.)
An interesting footnote is found on page 139 of the out of print book, one that says that sedevacantists made "too much" out of that 1999 act of apostasy (no, I am not making too much out of it, thank you very much) but also warns about minimizing the matter:
It seems clear enough that the Pope's gesture was impetuous, and not intended to bless the many errors and blasphemies of the Koran. But if the sedevacantists have made too much of the incident, neither can the scandal be minimized. Gestures like these hardly reinforce the Church's teaching that Christ, and He alone, is the savior of men. Is is well nigh impossible for any Vatican document to counter the impact of such papal conduct, which in this case was exploit to the hilt by the Iraqi mass media. Protestant fundamentalists have also exploited the incident to poison the minds of potential converts. See, e.g., David W. Cloud, Fundamentalist Baptist Information Service [an internet address given in the footnote no longer works.]
What happened on April 17, 2008, at the "Pope" John Paul II Cultural Center was no accident, not an act of impulse or impetuosity. It was planned and "papally" approved long in advance. Much more harm will be done to souls this time as the event was televised live (and is archived right here for you to watch if you care to do so (See for yourself, April 17, 2008 - 6:15 p.m. - Interreligious Gathering.)
What happened on April 17, 2008, was not putting on the Mind of Christ.
Put on the Mind of Christ? How did Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI put on the Mind of Christ at the United Masonic Nations organization on Friday, April 18, 2008, as he praised the thoroughly Judeo-Masonic Universal Declaration of Human Rights and when he referred to respect for "human rights" and "human dignity" as the foundation of world peace and not mention that the foundation of all peace, whether personal and social, is a respect for and due submission to the Deposit of Faith that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and a firm reliance upon the Sanctifying Graces that He won for men by the shedding of every single drop of His Most Precious Blood on the wood of the Holy Cross and that flow into the hearts and souls of men through the loving hands of Our Lady, the Mediatrix of All Graces?
Put on the Mind of Christ? How did Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI put on the Mind of Christ when he committed the excommunicable offense of walking into a Talmudic synagogue and esteemed a false religion that deeply offends God and in which and by which no one can save his immortal soul? How did he put on the Mind of Christ in that den of iniquity without doing what Saint Peter did on Pentecost Sunday, what Our Lord Himself did with Saul of Tarsus, what Our Lady did with Alphonse Ratisbonne, that is, to seek the conversion of those steeped in the blindness and the faithlessness of the Talmudic version of Judaism? (See for yourself,
April 18, 2008 - 5 p.m. - Park East Synagogue
Windows media format.)
Put on the Mind of Christ? How did Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI put on the Mind of Christ when he addressed representatives of Protestant sects and the various Orthodox confessions without urging them to return to the true Church, to abandon a way that does not assure for them their eternal salvation, as Pope Pius IX urged Protestants to do in Iam Vos Omnes, September 13, 1868, as Notre Dame de l'Osier herself did with
Pierre Port-Combet in 1656? (See for yourself, April 18, 2008 - 6 p.m. - Ecumenical Service
Windows media format.)
Put on the Mind of Christ? How did Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI put on the Mind of Christ when he uttered a "prayer" at the former site of the twin towers of the World Trade Center in the Borough of Manhattan without once mentioning the Holy Name of the Divine Redeemer, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and without even making the Sign of the Cross (!) before and after he prayed privately, no less after he uttered the Masonic prayer. Yes, he gave a blessing in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Fine. His simple act of refusing to make the Sign of the Cross in private prayer and in his non-denominational prayer is not the Mind of Christ. Our Lady herself made the Sign of the Cross when she appeared to Saint Bernadette Soubirous to lead her in the praying of the Rosary in the Grotto of Massabielle 150 years ago. The Sign of the Cross is the very sign of our Faith. (See for yourself,
April 20, 2008 - Ceremony at Ground Zero .)
Put on the Mind of Christ? How did Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI put on the Mind of Christ when he addressed young people at a "youth rally," featuring the devil's music itself, without telling those young Catholics that they had to rely on the maternal intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, especially by means of praying her Most Holy Rosary in order to be holy, in order to get home to Heaven? The message by omission was clear: You do not need Our Lady to be holy. You do not need Our Lady to get home to Heaven. You do not need Our Lady to be saved.
Put on the Mind of Christ? He made not one reference to the Mother of God in all of his public allocutions and "homilies," save for several references in the Wednesday, April 16, 2008, Novus Ordo vespers service in the Crypt Church of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, District of Columbia. Apart from those several references in an address to the conciliar "bishops," however, there were no exhortations to Catholics or to non-Catholics to fly to the patronage of Our Lady, especially by means of praying her Most Holy Rosary. Is this putting on the Mind of Christ?
Just think about this. Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI staged the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo service before approximately 103,000 human beings at Nationals Park in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, April 17, 2008, and Yankee Stadium in The Bronx, New York, yesterday, Sunday, April 20, 2008. He staged the Novus Ordo service at Saint Patrick's Cathedral in the Borough of Manhattan of the City of New York before approximately 3,000 conciliar "priests" and "religious" and invited dignitaries and guests. He spoke before 25,000 young Catholics at that youth rally at Saint Joseph's Seminary in the Dunwoodie section of Yonkers, New York. Over 131,000 souls heard him in person, millions more on television, radio and the internet. Not one mention to the the Mother of God or her Most Holy Rosary at any time in any of those well planned, well-orchestrated events.
All is quicksand without Our Lady. One does not put on the Mind of Christ without honoring His Most Blessed Mother at every possible opportunity. Imagine what a message is conveyed when the man who believes himself to be the Vicar of Christ makes no mention of the Mother of God at putative "Masses" and other events.
Although I typed in this quotation for yesterday's article, it is worth repeating again. Only sorrow can fill the heart of a Catholic to see Mary our Immaculate Queen so dishonored, to see so many souls walk away from "papal" events without their having been exhorted to pray the Rosary, to offer all to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary.
To Father Faber once again:
Oh, for the sake of Jesus we must learn to increase in our love of Mary. It must be a devotion growing in us like a grace, strengthening like a habit of virtue, and waxing more and more fervent and tender until the hour when she shall come to help us to die well, and to pass safely through the risk of doom.
Do we think sufficiently of this--that devotion to our Blessed Lady is not a thing which, like the possession of a book or a rosary, we have once for all, final and complete? It would be no less untrue to say that when we have received from God the grace of humility, we have simply to hold fast what we have got, and never dream of getting more, than to say that devotion to Mary was an ungrowing thing. I repeat, it must grow like a virtue, and strengthen like a habit, or it is worth nothing at all. Nay, it is worse than worth nothing, as a little thought will show you. Love of Mary is but another for, and divinely appointed one, of love of Jesus: and, therefore, if you love of Him must grow, so must love of her. If a person were to say, "You must not mingle prayer to Mary with prayer to Jesus," he would show that he had no true idea of this devotion, and that he was already on the brink of a very dangerous error. Yet people sometimes thoughtlessly speak as if devotion to the Mother was a little trifle allowably cut off from devotion to the Son, that it was something surrendered by Jesus to Mary; that Jesus was one thing, and Mary was another, and that devotion to the two was to be divided between them proportionately to their respective dignities, say a pound to Him, and an ounce to her. If such persons really saw what they mean, which they do not, they would perceive that they were talking impiety. Love of Mary is an intrinsic part of love of Jesus, and to imagine that the interests of the two can be opposed is to show that we do not understand Jesus or the devotion due to Him. If devotion to Mary is not already, and in itself, devotion to Jesus, then when we show devotion to her we are consciously subtracting something from Him and so actually robbing God, which is sacrilege. So that when people tell us to keep within bounds or to moderate our devotion and not to go too far or to do too much for Mary, they are not, as they fancy, securing to Jesus His rightful honor, but they are making the horrible confession that they themselves do take something from Jesus to give to Mary, though they are careful it should not be very much. How dreadful this sounds, when put in plain words! Devotion to Mary can get wrong in kind; it can never err in degree. If the love of Mary be not love of Jesus, if devotion to Mary be not one of His own appointed devotions to Himself, aye, and the chief one too, then my theology as well as my love tells me I can have no room for Mary at all, for my heart cannot adequately hold Jesus as it is. Dearest Mother! how little I should know of you, if I could think of you so dishonorably! And what a poor, low notion should I have of God Himself! I might as well think grace kept me from God, or Sacraments enabled me to do without Jesus, as imagine that you did aught else but gloriously magnify His love of me, and wonderfully intensify my love of Him!
Now we see what materials the life of the Blessed Lady presents to us, that we may offer them again to God! Is there any disclosure of His love to a simple creature, or to all creatures together, equal to the grace of her Immaculate Conception, or of her election to the Divine Maternity? Whether we go through her life by the sixty-three Mysteries of which it is composed, or sum it up in what theologians call her three sanctifications, at her Immaculate Conception, the moment of the Incarnation and the descent of the Holy Ghost at Pentecost, it furnishes us with innumerable motives most dear and persuasive to the Heart of Jesus. Every act is full of His grace and of her heroic love; every one is more pleasing to Him than all the heroism of His saints; and out of every one of them, because of the supreme love that was in her soul, God gains more glory than out of all the services of three hierarchies of Heaven.
The two devotions, to her Dolors and her Joys, might furnish illustrations of this. Passing over the devotion to her dolors as better known, and hoping to treat of it in another work [which he did so marvelously!--note of Thomas A. Droleskey--in The Foot of the Cross/The Dolors of Mary]. I will speak only of the devotion to her joys, which may be called the Franciscan devotion. It was the practice of our own St Thomas of Canterbury to say the Ave Maria three times in the day, in honor of Our Lady's seven earthly joys: the Visitation, the Nativity, the Epiphany, the Finding in the Temple, the Resurrection and the Ascension. One day our Blessed Mother appeared to him, and said, "Thomas, your devotion is most acceptable to me; but why do you only call to mind the joys which I had on earth? Henceforth remember those also which I now enjoy in Heaven; for everyone who honors both of these I will console, exhilarate and present to my most dear Son at the hour of death." St. Thomas felt his heart filled with a marvelous exultation, and he cried out, "And how, my sweetest lady, can I do this, when I do not so much as know what these joys are?" Our Blessed Lady then told him that he was to "honor with seven Hail Marys the following joys: her joy first, because the Most Holy Trinity honors her above all creatures, secondly, because her virginity has set her above all angels and saints, thirdly, because the great light of her glory illuminates the heavens, fourthly, because all the blessed worship her as the Mother of God, fifthly, because of the grace given her on earth and the glory prepared for her clients in Heaven, and lastly, because her accidental glory goes on increasing to the day of doom." St. Thomas is said to have composed a sequence, "Gaude flore virginali," on these joys, which was sung in some churches, and which is quoted in the Parnassus Marianus (p. 207, ap. Lancis, 2:51) In the life of St. Catherine of Bologna, we read that she had a great devotion to St. Thomas and used to practice this devotion. Br. Francis of the Cross relates also of the Blessed Ranulph, that while he was commemorating Our Lady's seven earthly joys, she appeared to him,. and revealed to him her heavenly joys, the same, but in different order, as those revealed to St. Thomas.
There is another revelation, to the Blessed Joseph Herman, the Premonstratensian, which shows how dear to our Blessed Lady is this devotion to her joys. There were at that time constant instances of sacrilegious plunder of churches, and it often fell to the lot of the Blessed Joseph to act as sentinel in the church. This caused him occasionally to intermit one of his usual devotions, which consisted in reciting certain Hail Marys in honor of Mary's joys. She appeared to him and not as usual, in youth and beauty, but old and wrinkled. He ventured to inquire the reason of the change, and she replied, "I am become old to you; where is now the representation of my joys? Where those Hail Marys? Where those exercises of piety, by which I was made young to you and you to me? Do not intermit my service under the pretext of guarding the monastery, for I am its best guardian." Whereupon the Blessed Joseph returned to his usual exercises, much consoled at finding how much his Blessed Mother rejoiced in this devotion to her joys. St. Peter Damian also, in his Epistle (Lib. 3, Ep. 10), mentions a similar incident. There was a certain monk who every day as he passed in front of Our Lady's altar, used to salute her with the following antiphon, "Rejoice, O Mother of God, Immaculate Virgin, rejoice with the joy thou receivedst from the angel; rejoice thou who didst bring forth the brightness of eternal light; rejoice, O mother, rejoice Virgin Mother of God, rejoice thou the sole Virgin Mother; all creation praised thee; Mother of Light intercede for us." One day, as he was crossing the church, he heard a voice from the altar, saying, "Thou announcest joy to me, and joy shall to thyself."
But it is not only to our Blessed Lord that we may offer the sorrows, and the joys, the gifts, graces, and greatness of His Mother, but to herself also. One day, when St. Gertrude was invoking her with those words of the Church in the Salve Regina, "Ah! then: our advocate," she saw our dear Mother, as if drawn by ropes, incline toward her. By this she understood that as often as anyone names Mary his advocate with devotion, her motherly tenderness is so much moved by the name, that she is as it is were unable to prevent herself from granting his prayers. At these words, "Those thine eyes of mercy," Our Lady gently touched her Son, and turned Him toward the earth, saying to St. Gertrude, "These (meaning the eyes of Jesus) are those most merciful eyes of mine, which I can incline to the salvation of all who invoke me, from which they receive the most rich fruit of eternal salvation." Hence she learned from Our Lord at least once a day to invoke that most Kind Mother with these words: "Eja ergo, Advocata nostra, illos tuos misericordes oculos ad nos converte"; and she was assured by Him that she would thus secure for herself no little consolation in the hour of death. (Rev. lib. 4).
St. Bernard tells us to offer all our offerings to God through the hands of Mary; and though the passage is so well known, I must not omit it here. (De Aquaeductu). "Whatever you are going to offer, remember to commend it to Mary, that grace may return to the Giver of grace through the same channel whereby it flowed into you. Not that God was unable to infuse grace as He willed without this aqueduct, but He chose to provide a channel for you. For your hands, perhaps, are filled with blood, or soiled with gifts, which you have not altogether shaken off from them: therefore, that little which you are going to offer, take care, if you do not wish to be repulsed, to give it to Mary to offer with those most worthy and acceptable hands of hers. For those hands are whitest lilies, and the lover of lilies will never reprove as not found among the lilies what is found in Mary's hands." And Lancisius says we should do this for two reasons: first, because as God has willed that we should receive His gifts through Mary, so we should offer our gifts to Him through her; and secondly, because oblation through her implies the great esteem which God has for her, which is at once the essence of her interior veneration, and the origin of her public honor. (Father Frederick Faber, All for Jesus, first published in 1854, republished by TAN Books and Publishers, pp. 114-119.)
Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI mentioned Our Lady in one address, entrusting the country to her patroness and maternal intercession in the aforementioned Novus Ordo vespers service, and then he was done with her, at least publicly, for the rest of the trip, never once mentioning her Most Holy Rosary, not even during that Novus Ordo vespers service. This is exactly the same sort of dismissive attitude about Our Lady that was discussed by Father Faber in the excerpt above from All for Jesus.
Much damage has been done by this false "pontiff," who truly believes in the agenda of the conciliar revolution he helped to unleash and whose "direction" he seeks to chart "definitively" before he dies. The Novus Ordo service at Yankee Stadium is meant to be a step in that direction, a step in the direction of the "Mass of the future," a "high" Novus Ordo service with a bit of Latin in the service and a bit of Latin hymns added for good measure, all to "gussie up," if you will, the apostasies and betrayals of conciliarism that have nothing to do with the Catholic Faith whatsoever. (And I didn't see the Yankee Stadium warmup"show"!) Yes, it is the Yankee Stadium production of yesterday that represents the future of the "high church" segment counterfeit church of conciliarism, not Summorum Pontificum, which received no mention at all, at least not publicly, during the now mercifully concluded visit of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI to the United States of America.
As horrible as all of the outrages and offenses against God and His Holy truths were this past week, for which we must continue to make reparation for as the consecrated slaves of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, one can only imagine how displeased Our Lord Himself is at the neglect of His Most Blessed Mother by man who dares to speak of "Christian hope" without speaking of her, our very life, our sweetness, and our hope, vita, dulcedo, et spes nostra, salve!
In addition to our Rosaries of reparation, we must continue praying for multiple egregious offenses given to the Most Holy Trinity this past week, we should pray the Salve Regina (an additional one to the ones we pray in Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary) and the Magnificat daily until the feast of Our Lady of Good Counsel this Saturday, April 26, 2008, in reparation for the offenses committed against her by a Modernist committed to a campaign to advance propositions that are just as loathsome in her sight as they are in that of her Divine Son Himself:
Salve Regina
Salve, Regina, Mater misericordiae, vita, dulcedo, et spes nostra, salve. ad te clemamus exsules filii Evae, ad te suspiramus, gementes et flentes in hac lacrimarum valle. Eia, ergo, advocata nostra, illos tuos misericordes oculos ad nos converte; et Jesum, benedictum fructum ventris tui, nobis post hoc exilium ostende. O clemens, O pia, O dulcis Virgo Maria.
Ora pro nobis sancta Dei Genetrix. Ut digni efficiamur promissionibus Christi. Amen.
Oremus. Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, qui gloriosae Virginis Matris Mariae corpus et animam, ut dignum Filii tui habitaculum effici mereretur, Spiritu Sancto cooperante praeparasti: da, ut cujus commemoratione laetamur; ejus pia intercessione, ab instantibus malis, et a morte perpetua liberemur. Per eundem Christum Dominum nostrum. Amen.
Hail, holy Queen, Mother of Mercy,
our life, our sweetness and our hope.
To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve;
to thee do we send up our sighs,
mourning and weeping in this valley of tears.
Turn then, most gracious advocate,
thine eyes of mercy toward us;
and after this our exile,
show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary.
Pray for us O holy Mother of God,
that we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ. Amen.
Let us pray. Almighty, everlasting God, who by the co-operation of the Holy Ghost didst prepare the body and soul of the glorious Virgin-Mother Mary to become a dwelling-place meet for thy Son: grant that as we rejoice in her commemoration; so by her fervent intercession we may be delivered from present evils and from everlasting death. Through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.
Magnificat
My soul doth magnify the Lord. And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour. Because he hath regarded the humility of his handmaid; for behold from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed. Because he that is mighty, hath done great things to me; and holy is his name. And his mercy is from generation unto generations, to them that fear him. He hath shewed might in his arm: he hath scattered the proud in the conceit of their heart. He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the humble. He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich he hath sent empty away. He hath received Israel his servant, being mindful of his mercy: As he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his seed for ever.
We pray for the conversion to the true Faith of the conciliar revolutionaries, including Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, as they continue to offend God and dishonor His Most Blessed Mother so shamelessly and boldly, mindful first and foremost of making reparation for own many sins and seeking our own conversion away from those sins to a life a holiness that is enfolded into the two Hearts that beat as one, the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary. We must pray ceaselessly.
As we pray ceaselessly as the totally consecrated slaves of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, may we give thanks as well for being given true shepherds and true priests in the Catholic catacombs who make no concessions to conciliarism or to the nonexistent legitimacy of men who think nothing of giving grave offenses to God and who are willing to reaffirm souls in false religions while saying to Catholics in what purports to be Catholic liturgical services and events that they are putting on the Mind of Christ.
Our Lady of Good Counsel, pray for us!
Isn't it time to pray a Rosary now?
Vivat Christus Rex! Viva Cristo Rey!
Saint Joseph, pray for us.
Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.
