Ever Endeavoring To Make Judas Seem Admirable
by Thomas A. Droleskey
Each of us, if we are honest with ourselves, have played many of the roles of the "supporting characters" during Holy Week, as I wrote ten years ago now in the printed pages of Christ or Chaos:
Human beings were created out of a pure act of love by Love Himself. All God wanted of our first parents, Adam and Eve was for them to choose to love Him in return for His having created them out of nothing. They rebelled, choosing to serve the Prince of Darkness rather than to love the One who had created them, setting themselves at enmity with Him and closing the Gates of Heaven. Ever omniscient, God knew that this rebellion would occur, but He permitted it in order to show forth the depth of His love for us by becoming Incarnate in Our Lady's virginal and immaculate womb to take our place on the wood of the Cross so that He could pay back the blood-debt we owed because of our sins.
Our Lord undertook His fearful Passion out of love for us. Although we were not there physically when the events of Passiontide took place, our sins spoke for us. For Our Lord suffered in His Sacred Humanity because of the sins of every human being who had lived before Him, who lived at the same time in history as He did, and who would ever live until the end of time. That includes each one of us. And even though Our Lord cannot suffer any longer in His glorified Body which sits at the Father’s right hand, Our Lord meant it when He said, “Whatsoever you do to the least of My brethren, that you do unto Me.” Our sins continue to wound Our Lord in the persons of the members of His Mystical Body, the Church Militant here on earth.
Therefore, it is good for us to reflect upon the role that we played by means of our sins, both during Passiontide and in the ordinary events of our own lives today. Sin is no laughing matter. It is what caused Our Lord to embrace the wood of the Cross, and it is why each of us must bear our share of the hardship which the Gospel entails. If we are honest with ourselves, a good examination of our lives will reveal that we have played many different roles in the events of Passiontide. Permit me an opportunity to explain.
The Crowd
The crowd. The fickle, fickle crowd. Those who comprised the crowd that welcomed Our Lord on Palm Sunday were pretty much the same people who condemned Him five days later. We were in that crowd on Palm Sunday, welcoming the miracle worker, hoping to see Him perform some spectacular feat. We welcomed Him without really understanding Who He was or how radically our lives must be conformed to Him and the wood of His Cross.
Truth be told, folks, there are a lot of us today who want to find Him in the spectacular, racing here, there and everywhere to visit the site of some as of yet unapproved, if not condemned, apparition. Never mind the fact that there are plenty of approved apparitions worthy of pilgrimages (Fatima, Lourdes, Guadalupe). No, a lot of highly emotional people, who believe very wrongly that religion is supposed to produce some kind of continuous mystical feeling of euphoria and joy, spend all manner of money and time racing after apparitions and consulting alleged seers.
Our Lord performed miracles to manifest the power of His Sacred Divinity. But He did so using ordinary elements. Simple words. A touch of the ears or of the legs or of a withered hand. The use of dirt and spittle to restore sight to the man born blind. Bread and wine, the fruits of the earth, to institute the Eucharist. And He has commissioned His Holy Church to do miraculous things by the power He entrusted to bishops and their co-workers, priests.
Yes, Our Lord is to be found in the ordinary, not in the spectacular, not in the sensational. Ordinary words spoken by ordinary men forgive sins. Ordinary words spoken by ordinary men over the elements of bread and wine make Our Lord incarnate on altars of sacrifice. Ordinary words spoken by ordinary men, who use the ordinary elements of water and oil, give birth to souls in the baptismal font.
However, the crowd on Palm Sunday was not satisfied with what they saw. The “miracle worker” was much too ordinary for them. In like manner, many people have gotten used to a false "Mass" that is all too frequently nothing other than some sort of hand-waving spectacular, full of emotion and noise. Calvary was no spectacular. It was the most solemn, somber event in the entirety of human history, which is what is conveyed in the very spirit of the Immemorial Mass of Tradition.
Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ lived most of His life in Nazareth doing ordinary things. We must be satisfied with seeing Our Lord in the ordinary, not be part of contemporary crowds in the counterfeit church of conciliarism who demand new and “exciting” innovations designed to "improve" that which inherently cannot be improved, the unbloody re-presentation of Our Lord’s Sacrifice to the Father in Spirit and in Truth.
We were in the crowd on Good Friday, too. It was our sins which motivated the crowd to cry out “Give us Barabbas! Give us Barabbas!” Barabbas was a political zealot who believed that he could free the Jewish people from their cruel political bondage to the Romans. How many times have we believed in the power of politics and political ideologies to resolve our own problems? How many times have we failed to invoke the Holy Name of our Blessed Lord and the authority of His Holy Church in public debate and even personal discourse with our family and friends?
Beyond that, however, we are crying out “Give us Barabbas!” every time we sin. We are demanding Our Lord’s crucifixion with even our venial sins, no less our mortal sins. Whether it be lust or envy or pride or gluttony or covetousness or anger or sloth—and the many evils which flow from each of these capital sins, we are choosing to crucify Our Lord when we seek to satisfy ourselves at the expense of the salvation of our immortal souls.
Gossip? Idle chatter? As I wrote in the September 1997 issue of Christ or Chaos, reputations are destroyed daily by orthodox Catholics engaging in idle speculation about the lives of other orthodox Catholics. We crucify Our Lord anew in the persons of those we gossip about. And how many orthodox, believing Catholics waste time in idle chatter, which has become quite common with the proliferation of so many "chat rooms" on the Internet? So many people waste day after day in idle chatter when they could have been spending time before Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. If a person honestly assesses how much time he spends in idle chatter, he will discover that he has plenty of time to adore Our Lord in His Real Presence.
Yes, our very lives are lived in the crowd, choosing to ignore how our words and actions are not consonant with the divine election as adopted sons and daughters of the Blessed Trinity by which we were favored in the baptismal font. We should see ourselves in the crowd on Palm Sunday and on Good Friday. We should see ourselves mocking Our Lord in the Via Dolorosa. We should see ourselves jeering Him as He hung on the wood of the Holy Cross. And we should see ourselves in the persons of those who passed by the scene of the Crucifixion on Good Friday, nodding their heads and jeering as they did so. How many times have we passed by a Catholic church without making the Sign of the Cross or nodding our heads? How many times have we passed by a Catholic church and not stopped in for even a momentary visit?
Pontius Pilate
Most of us will never hold political office. However, we have exhibited Pilate’s cowardice from time to time in our lives. We have washed our hands figuratively of any responsibility to defend Our Lord and His Church in conversation with family and friends and coworkers. We may have even supported candidates for office who, though nominally pro-life, have been ashamed of the fullness of Our Lord’s truth, to say nothing of being afraid to speak out in behalf of His social kingship over us. We have done so thinking that some good will come from being “realistic” and “pragmatic” in the midst of the “real” world. But the real world is the world of the faith.
Pontius Pilate sought the path of careerist expediency when he let the crowd determine the fate of Truth Incarnate. He knew that Our Lord had committed no crime deserving the death penalty. But he needed the cooperation of the Sanhedrin against the Zealot party to which Barabbas belonged. Pilate chose the path of least resistance, letting our sins be heard in the exclamations of the crowd demanding Our Lord’s Crucifixion. But we have done the same, whether at home or at work or in the company of total strangers. We have sought the path of least resistance. We have been no better than Pontius Pilate, assuring ourselves that our careers and our plans require just a “little” compromise now and then. After all, we have to get ahead, right?
Simon of Cyrene
It was with reluctance that Simon of Cyrene helped Our Lord carry His cross. He had to be forced to do so. How many times are we slow in helping others carry their crosses? Are we slow to help our family members in times of need? Do we do little things around the house to ease the burden of others? Do we go out of our way to smile and be friendly to those who serve us at the cash register in various establishments? Indeed, do we bring a cheerful image of Our Lord to everyone we see and meet? Are we solicitous of those we know to be ill or lonely? And if we are lonely ourselves, do we unite ourselves with the loneliness of Our Lord as He underwent His Passion and Death (and do we reflect on how many tabernacles have no one in front of them in adoration)?
Sure, we are Simon of Cyrene a good deal of time. Yes, we will help others, but frequently with great reluctance. We don’t want to be bothered. We complain. We make demands. We ask for favors in return. But a true disciple of Our Lord helps others without complaint, offering up whatever inconveniences may be experienced in union with Our Lord’s own sufferings—and in reparation for our own sins and the coldness of our indifference and hard-heartedness.
Saint Peter and Judas Iscariot
The Rock upon which our Church is built, Simon bar Jonah, three times denied He knew Our Lord. We have done so more than three times. Mortal Sin is of its nature a denial of Our Lord and a rebellion against Him. Like Peter, however, we do not despair of Our Lord’s forgiveness. We seek that forgiveness in the Sacrament of Penance, never giving up the struggle to grow in holiness despite our weakness, our selfishness, our backsliding. We know that Our Lord stands ready to forgive us seven times seventy times, as He told the first Pope himself, if only we turn to Him with contrition and a sincere purpose of amendment.
Unlike Judas Iscariot, we do not hang ourselves on a tree limb for taking the silver pieces which accrue to us as the baubles of sin. No, while we are ashamed of our sins, both Mortal and Venial, and understand how they make us less capable of shining forth the love of Our Lord to those around us, we always have access to the Divine Mercy which flows from the Sacred Heart and is available to us in the Sacred Tribunal of Penance.
St. John and Mary Magdalene
Yes, we have been on the wrong side of the Cross many times in our lives. But we have also been on the right side of It, too. Every time we have attended a true offering the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass we have been present at the unbloody re-presentation of Calvary, making reparation for the fact that our sins placed us on the wrong side of the Cross nearly 2,000 years ago. In every Mass we have had the opportunity to offer a solemn thanksgiving for being fed with the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of the One who stretched forth His arms on the wood of the Holy Cross to redeem us. Just as St. John took our place at the foot of the Cross to keep Our Lady company as her Son died to redeem us, so can we keep company mystically with the Beloved Disciple and the Mother of God in every Mass.
St. John the Evangelist stayed with Our Lord when all of the other Apostles, the first bishops of the Church, had abandoned Him. There are times in our lives when we have been relatively alone in our defense of the faith. There are times when we have been misunderstood, slandered, and persecuted. There are times when our witness to the faith has cost us a lot in terms of friends, family relationships, career success, or material comfort. Sure, we have been unfaithful—and it is that infidelity which caused Our Lord to undergo His Passion and Death. But there have been times when we have been faithful to the point of truly living a life united to the wood of the Cross. We keep company mystically with St. John as we do so.
St. Mary Magdalene? St. John the Evangelist was as pure as the driven snow. St. Mary Magdalene was not. But she loved Our Lord and reformed her life. It is possible for a horrible sinner to repent and to bear witness to the saving truth of Our Lord’s Holy Cross. We are horrible sinners. Some of us may have had the same temptations as Saint Mary Magdalene. Others have had different struggles. But we can turn to her at the foot of the Cross to recognize that we, weak vessels of clay that we are, belong there with her, unworthy though we are to be there.
It is, therefore, with great humility that we must recognize how many times we have been on the wrong of the Cross. It is with great gratitude that we most approach the Paschal Triduum of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ's Passion, Death and Resurrection, recognizing, of course, that we have denied Him as did Saint Peter, that we have washed our hands of our own guilty as did Pontius Pilate, that we have sold Him out for thirty pieces of silver rather repeatedly as Judas Iscariot did just once on this very day, Spy Wednesday. We must never kid ourselves into believing that we have not played--and sometimes continue to play--the roles of a Saint Peter or a Pontius Pilate or a Judas Iscariot in our lives. What matters, of course, is that we recognize the fact of betrayals and get ourselves to a true bishop or a true priest in the Sacred Tribunal of Penance very week.
What we cannot do, of course, is to persist in our sins unrepentantly or, worse yet, to revel in them or to deny that our objectively sinful behavior is in fact displeasing to God and harmful to the cause of the salvation of our immortal souls. (See just two articles of mine on this subject, Caring Not for the Souls Who Have Been Betrayed and
Apostasy Has Consequences.)
The lords of the counterfeit church of conciliarism are intent, it appears, on endeavoring to make Judas Iscariot seem admirable by comparison, especially during Passiontide. These lords of a false church, one that is but an apostate ape of the Catholic Church, are ceaseless in their efforts to promote the new ecclesiology (see Bishop Donald Sanborn's
The New Ecclesiology: An Overview and
The New Ecclesiology: Documentation) and false ecumenism and inter-religious "prayer meetings" and religious liberty and the separation of Church and State.
These lords of conciliarism ceaselessly offend God by means of the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo service, which is offensive to God in se and has spawned endless variations, both those "permitted" and not "permitted" by the terms of the General Instruction to the Roman Missal, that have included liturgical "dances" at "papal" liturgies, "clown Masses," "folk Masses," "rock Masses," "eco Masses," "feminist Masses," "healing Masses," "charismatic Masses" and "hip-hop Masses," among other variations.
The Novus Ordo, which was presaged by the liturgical revolution of the 1950s that gutted the traditional liturgy of Holy Week starting on Palm Sunday in 1956, March 25, is an offense that is "offered" to God in the name of the Catholic Church that has enshrined the ethos of the conciliar religion and thus reaffirmed Catholics in the false spirit of the world as immodesty, indecency, profanity, blasphemy and minimalism have accompanied the desecration of formerly Catholic sanctuaries and the proliferation of the laity within its the confines of this "holy of holies." The Roman Rite of the Catholic Church has been sold out for thirty pieces of silver in the form of applause from Protestants and other non-Catholics as what passes for Catholic "worship" has been gutted of ancient prayers to reflect a false religion that deifies man and, more or less, "canonizes" a spirit of "universal salvation."
The liturgical revolution planned by Judases such as Annibale Bugnini and Ferdinando Antonelli, building on the work of Pius Parsch and Dom Lambert Beauduin and other revolutionary "prophets," institutionalized many of the Jansenistic principles that were advanced by the false "synod" of Pistoia and condemned by Pope Pius VI in Auctorem Fidei, August 28, 1794, a fact that Pope Pius XII noted in Mediator Dei, November 20, 1947:
The same reasoning holds in the case of some persons who are bent on the restoration of all the ancient rites and ceremonies indiscriminately. The liturgy of the early ages is most certainly worthy of all veneration. But ancient usage must not be esteemed more suitable and proper, either in its own right or in its significance for later times and new situations, on the simple ground that it carries the savor and aroma of antiquity. The more recent liturgical rites likewise deserve reverence and respect. They, too, owe their inspiration to the Holy Spirit, who assists the Church in every age even to the consummation of the world. They are equally the resources used by the majestic Spouse of Jesus Christ to promote and procure the sanctity of man.
Assuredly it is a wise and most laudable thing to return in spirit and affection to the sources of the sacred liturgy. For research in this field of study, by tracing it back to its origins, contributes valuable assistance towards a more thorough and careful investigation of the significance of feast-days, and of the meaning of the texts and sacred ceremonies employed on their occasion. But it is neither wise nor laudable to reduce everything to antiquity by every possible device. Thus, to cite some instances, one would be straying from the straight path were he to wish the altar restored to its primitive tableform; were he to want black excluded as a color for the liturgical vestments; were he to forbid the use of sacred images and statues in Churches; were he to order the crucifix so designed that the divine Redeemer's body shows no trace of His cruel sufferings; and lastly were he to disdain and reject polyphonic music or singing in parts, even where it conforms to regulations issued by the Holy See.
Clearly no sincere Catholic can refuse to accept the formulation of Christian doctrine more recently elaborated and proclaimed as dogmas by the Church, under the inspiration and guidance of the Holy Spirit with abundant fruit for souls, because it pleases him to hark back to the old formulas. No more can any Catholic in his right senses repudiate existing legislation of the Church to revert to prescriptions based on the earliest sources of canon law. Just as obviously unwise and mistaken is the zeal of one who in matters liturgical would go back to the rites and usage of antiquity, discarding the new patterns introduced by disposition of divine Providence to meet the changes of circumstances and situation.
This way of acting bids fair to revive the exaggerated and senseless antiquarianism to which the illegal Council of Pistoia gave rise. It likewise attempts to reinstate a series of errors which were responsible for the calling of that meeting as well as for those resulting from it, with grievous harm to souls, and which the Church, the ever watchful guardian of the "deposit of faith" committed to her charge by her divine Founder, had every right and reason to condemn. For perverse designs and ventures of this sort tend to paralyze and weaken that process of sanctification by which the sacred liturgy directs the sons of adoption to their Heavenly Father of their souls' salvation.
Only someone who is willfully blind, intellectually dishonest and/or seeking to advance his own "career" in the conciliar structures can deny that the "process of sanctification by which the sacred liturgy directs the sons of adoption to their Heavenly Father of their souls' salvation" has indeed been weakened and paralyzed by the Novus Ordo service and all of the innovations and sacrileges it has engendered in its heretical wake.
Indeed, the liturgical revolutionaries sought to implement the Novus Ordo service and all of its subsequent and ceaseless "mutations" over the last four decades in a blitzkrieg so as to accustom Catholics in the pews to "change" as an "immutable" fact of a Catholic's liturgical and devotional lives. As the only contact that most Catholics have with the Faith is what passes for Holy Mass, the liturgical revolutionaries knew that a steady diet of change and innovation would lead most Catholics in their conciliar structures.to believe that doctrine itself is mutable, that we can "understand" articles of the Faith differently now than in the past, which leads, of course, to the conclusion, however inchoately held by most Catholics in the conciliar structures who bother to go to the Novus Ordo service at all, that God Himself is mutable, that He is capable of His Divine Nature of changing or, at the very least, of revealing His Sacred Truth in such an obscure and contingent manner that it is necessary to "review" and "revise" what was taught in the past.
Thus it is that most Catholics in the conciliar structures do not bat a single eyelash when a putative "pontiff" esteems the symbols of false religions, as Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI has done on innumerable occasions, including in Washington, District of Columbia, on April 17, 2008, or when a putative "bishop" of the counterfeit church of conciliarism describes these false religions as pleasing to God in the very presence of the putative "pontiff," as occurred on April 17, 2008, as Milwaukee auxiliary "bishop" Richard Sklba, a clerical creature of the morally, liturgically and doctrinally corrupt Rembert G. Weakland, described five false religions as follows in the presence of Ratzinger/Benedict:
A silver menorah with seven lights. It symbolizes the perennial validity of God’s covenant of peace. Silver is frequently used in the Eastern European Jewish tradition. The menorah recalls the seven branched lamp stand used in the temple in Jerusalem.
A small, finely crafted edition of the Qur’an, in green leather and gold leaf edging. The Qur’an is the revered word of God, proclaiming God’s message of peace. Green is the traditional Islamic color.
A metallic cube representing the Jain principles of non-violence and respect for a diversity of viewpoints as a way to peace through self-discipline and dialogue.
The sacred syllable Om on a brass incense burner. Om is the primordial sound of creation itself, by which God’s liberating peace is made known. Bronze or brass are widely used for Hindu liturgical ornaments. Incense sticks are used in ritual worship among Hindu believers.
A bronze bell cast in Korea. In various Buddhist cultures, the sound of the bell demarcates the times of meditation, which leads to inner peace and enlightenment.
(USCCB - (Office of Media Relations) - Jewish, Islamic, Buddhist, Jain, Hindu Leaders To Meet With Pope Benedict XVI)
As I wrote last year in
Making Judas Seem Admirable:
Please tell me that Saint Patrick or Saint Benedict or Saint Boniface or Saint Francis of Assisi or Saint Francis Xavier would have accepted such "gifts" or that Pope Saint Pius X, for example, would have permitted such an event to be placed on his schedule? Just a simple case of "diabolical disorientation"? Or is this simply an indication of the apostate nature of men who have lost the sensus Catholicus and who have no sense of the honor and glory of God, thereby projecting onto Him their own Modernist views as to how "tolerant" He is of false religions, views that must mean that every pope and numerous canonized saints, including scores of martyrs, prior to Angelo Roncalli/John XXIII in 1958 had it all wrong.
Remember, and this cannot be stressed enough, ladies and gentlemen, Joseph Ratzinger is on record throughout the course of his priesthood in support of the belief that dogmatic truth can be understood in different ways at different times. Anyone who dares to contest this is either a very stupid individual or one who is engaged in a deliberate act of deception in order to try to paint Ratzinger as something that he is not, a Catholic who is in good standing with God.
Once again, let's just present the facts for people to see so that the bluster of the intellectually dishonest, including some who used to make the exact same points about Ratzinger's view of dogmatic truth in their books and articles, is nothing other than the use of smoke and mirrors designed to divert attention from the absolute irreconcilability of Ratzinger's view of dogmatic truth and the Catholic Church's firm and consistent rejection of that Modernist view:
It is precisely in this combination of continuity and discontinuity at different levels that the very nature of true reform consists. In this process of innovation in continuity we must learn to understand more practically than before that the Church's decisions on contingent matters - for example, certain practical forms of liberalism or a free interpretation of the Bible - should necessarily be contingent themselves, precisely because they refer to a specific reality that is changeable in itself. It was necessary to learn to recognize that in these decisions it is only the principles that express the permanent aspect, since they remain as an undercurrent, motivating decisions from within.
On the other hand, not so permanent are the practical forms that depend on the historical situation and are therefore subject to change.
(Christmas greetings to the Members of the Roman Curia and Prelature (December 22, 2005.)
Hence, that meaning of the sacred dogmata is ever to be maintained which has once been declared by Holy Mother Church, and there must never be an abandonment of this sense under the pretext or in the name of a more profound understanding.... If anyone says that it is possible that at some given time, given the advancement of knowledge, a sense may be assigned to the dogmata propounded by the Church which is different from that which the Church has always understood and understands: let him be anathema. [Vatican Council, 1870.]
Hence it is quite impossible to maintain that they [dogmatic statements and papal pronouncements] absolutely contain the truth: for, in so far as they are symbols, they are the images of truth, and so must be adapted to the religious sense in its relation to man; and as instruments, they are the vehicles of truth, and must therefore in their turn be adapted to man in his relation to the religious sense. But the object of the religious sense, as something contained in the absolute, possesses an infinite variety of aspects, of which now one, now another, may present itself. In like manner he who believes can avail himself of varying conditions. Consequently, the formulas which we call dogma must be subject to these vicissitudes, and are, therefore, liable to change. Thus the way is open to the intrinsic evolution of dogma. Here we have an immense structure of sophisms which ruin and wreck all religion.
It is thus, Venerable Brethren, that for the Modernists, whether as authors or propagandists, there is to be nothing stable, nothing immutable in the Church. Nor, indeed, are they without forerunners in their doctrines, for it was of these that Our predecessor Pius IX wrote: "These enemies of divine revelation extol human progress to the skies, and with rash and sacrilegious daring would have it introduced into the Catholic religion as if this religion were not the work of God but of man, or some kind of philosophical discovery susceptible of perfection by human efforts." On the subject of revelation and dogma in particular, the doctrine of the Modernists offers nothing new. We find it condemned in the Syllabus of Pius IX, where it is enunciated in these terms: ''Divine revelation is imperfect, and therefore subject to continual and indefinite progress, corresponding with the progress of human reason"; and condemned still more solemnly in the Vatican Council: ''The doctrine of the faith which God has revealed has not been proposed to human intelligences to be perfected by them as if it were a philosophical system, but as a divine deposit entrusted to the Spouse of Christ to be faithfully guarded and infallibly interpreted. Hence also that sense of the sacred dogmas is to be perpetually retained which our Holy Mother the Church has once declared, nor is this sense ever to be abandoned on plea or pretext of a more profound comprehension of the truth." Nor is the development of our knowledge, even concerning the faith, barred by this pronouncement; on the contrary, it is supported and maintained. For the same Council continues: "Let intelligence and science and wisdom, therefore, increase and progress abundantly and vigorously in individuals, and in the mass, in the believer and in the whole Church, throughout the ages and the centuries -- but only in its own kind, that is, according to the same dogma, the same sense, the same acceptation." [Pope Saint Pius X, Pascendi Dominci Gregis, September 8, 1907.]
Anyone who believes that truth is "anchored" in one place for a time in accordance with the particular subjective conditions of a moment in history before it is "anchored" in another place at another time in accordance with the particular subjective conditions of that moment in history does not believe in the nature of God as He has revealed Himself to be, indeed, as even natural reason itself proves that He must be of His very nature. All of the headlines that will appear on some websites in the next week trying to prove that Ratzinger is a Catholic ("Pope believes in the Eucharist," "Pope believes in Calvary," "Pope believes in the Resurrection") will prove nothing. Nothing. Modernists mix truth with error, and the Catholic Church teaches us that even one drop of poison dropped into the well of the Faith by one who defects from her teachings in even one matter, no less many, causes them to fall from the Faith in its entirety no matter how many other, if not the preponderance, of truths of the Faith they profess to adhere:
The Novus Ordo has so accustomed Catholics to change and innovation that those who bother to think about these matters at all just shrug their shoulders and say, "Well, why should we be bound by what past popes have said? We follow this 'pope.' That's all that matters. This 'pope' does and says things differently than popes prior to 1958, you say? That doesn't bother me. After all, we must follow the 'movements' of the spirit, do we not?"
The mentality and the ethos born of the Novus Ordo service have convinced most Catholics yet attached to the conciliar structures that the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity, God the Holy Ghost, can "lead" the Church in ways that have been condemned solemnly by the dogmatic authority of the Catholic Church consistently and without equivocation or variation throughout the centuries prior to 1958.
This is why most Catholics yet attached to the conciliar structures who pay any attention at all to "papal" pronouncements are not bothered by Joseph Ratzinger's philosophically absurd and dogmatically condemned "hermeneutic of continuity and discontinuity." And it is why most Catholics yet attached to the conciliar structures who pay any attention to the madness reported by the conciliar propaganda machine known as Zenit, which for years served as a ready enabler of the corrupt founder of the Legionaries of Christ, the late
Father Marcial Maciel Degollado, would have no problem at all with the apostasy and blasphemy contained in the following passage from a Lenten sermon written by the "preacher to the 'papal' household," the notorious apostate named Father Raniero Cantalamessa, O.F.M., Cap.:
Jesus says of the Paraclete, "He will make known to you the things to come" (John 16:14): That is, he will disclose the knowledge of the new order of things that comes from the Resurrection. Thus the Holy Spirit is the stimulus of Christian eschatology, the one who keeps the Church facing forward, toward the return of the Lord. This is just what current biblical and theological thought has tried to highlight. Moltmann writes that the new existence, inspired by the Spirit, is already eschatological, without waiting for the final moment of parousia, in the sense that it is the beginning of a life that will fully manifest itself only when the manner of existence determined by the Spirit is established, no longer held hostage by the flesh. The Spirit is not promise in only a static sense, but also the force of the promise, he who make us grasp the possibility of liberation, who makes the chains feel even heavier and more intolerable, and thus drives us to break them.
This Pauline vision of the Holy Spirit as a promise and first fruit allows us to discover the true sense of the Tradition of the Church. Tradition is not primarily a collection of things that have been "transmitted," but rather, it is in the first place the dynamic principle of transmission. What is more, it is the very life of the Church, in as much as it unfolds in fidelity to Jesus Christ, driven by the Spirit under the guide of the Magisterium. St. Irenaeus writes that revelation is "like a precious deposit held in a valuable vase, that thanks to God's Spirit, renews itself always and even renews the vase that holds it." The valuable vase that renews itself along with what it contains is precisely the preaching of the Church and Tradition.
Because of this, the Holy Spirit is the soul of Tradition. If the Holy Spirit is removed or forgotten what remains is just dead letter. If, as St. Thomas Aquinas says, "Without the grace of the Holy Spirit even the precepts of the Gospel would be letter that kills," what can we say about Tradition?
Tradition is, therefore, a force of permanence and conservation of the past, but it is also a force of innovation and growth; it is both memory and anticipation. It is like the wave of apostolic preaching that advances and propagates throughout the centuries. The wave cannot be understood without movement. Freezing tradition in a certain moment of history would mean making it a "dead tradition," no longer a "living tradition" as St. Irenaeus calls it. (Father Cantalamessa's 4th Lenten Sermon)
Most Catholics yet attached to the structures of the counterfeit church of conciliarism would not recognize this as utter apostasy and blasphemy against God the Holy Ghost as they have become so accustomed to change and "innovation," something that the Catholic Church has always condemned. Most Catholics yet attached to the structures of the counterfeit church of conciliarism would dismiss Pope Saint Pius X's prophetic description of the Modernist view of Tradition, later incorporated into The Oath Against Modernism, September 1, 1910, they have come to believe, once again no matter how inchoately, that God is mutable and that what was taught in one era can be understand anew in another.
Catholics who are removed themselves from the apostate conciliar church recognize that the Novus Ordo and the false religion that gave it birth and which it sustains recognize that these words of Pope Saint Pius X in Pascendi Dominci Gregis, September 8, 1907, and that he authorized to be contained in The Oath Against Modernism apply to and condemn categorically the apostate views of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI and Raniero Cantalamessa, the latter of whom goes about his dirty little apostate business without a word of correction or criticism from the former:
They [the Modernists] 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.'' (Pope Saint Pius X, Pascendi Dominci Gregis, September 8, 1907.)
Fourthly, I sincerely hold that the doctrine of faith was handed down to us from the apostles through the orthodox Fathers in exactly the same meaning and always in the same purport. Therefore, I entirely reject the heretical' misrepresentation that dogmas evolve and change from one meaning to another different from the one which the Church held previously. . . .
Finally, I declare that I am completely opposed to the error of the modernists who hold that there is nothing divine in sacred tradition; or what is far worse, say that there is, but in a pantheistic sense, with the result that there would remain nothing but this plain simple fact-one to be put on a par with the ordinary facts of history-the fact, namely, that a group of men by their own labor, skill, and talent have continued through subsequent ages a school begun by Christ and his apostles. I firmly hold, then, and shall hold to my dying breath the belief of the Fathers in the charism of truth, which certainly is, was, and always will be in the succession of the episcopacy from the apostles. The purpose of this is, then, not that dogma may be tailored according to what seems better and more suited to the culture of each age; rather, that the absolute and immutable truth preached by the apostles from the beginning may never be believed to be different, may never be understood in any other way.
I promise that I shall keep all these articles faithfully, entirely, and sincerely, and guard them inviolate, in no way deviating from them in teaching or in any way in word or in writing. Thus I promise, this I swear, so help me God. (The Oath Against Modernism, September 1, 1910.)
There is no way to "reconcile" Father Raniero Cantalamessa's view of "tradition" with the Catholic Faith. Most, although not all, Catholics attached as of yet to the structures of the counterfeit church of conciliarism have been "conditioned" by the very ethos and ambiance of the Novus Ordo to accept change as compatible with a belief in the God of Revelation Who has entrusted His Deposit of Faith exclusively to the Catholic Church for Its eternal safekeeping and infallible explication.
After all, it's relatively easy to accept doctrinal change when one can accept one liturgical "change" after another ("Mass" in the vernacular, "Mass" facing the people, lay readers, "extraordinary ministers of the Eucharist," altar girls, what passes for "Holy Communion" distributed in the hand and under both kinds) without recognizing how the distinctions between the sacerdotal priesthood of the ordained priest and the common priesthood of the lay faithful are blurred, if not obliterated in most instances, in the Novus Ordo service and without realizing that the Novus Ordo itself, stripped of ancient prayers and devoid of any references in its "collects" to a God Who judges and the possibility of the eternal loss of our immortal souls, has contributed to the loss of the Faith and the rise of abject indifference to the homage paid to false religions by one conciliar "pope" and "bishop" after another.
Steeped in the sentimentality and irrationality of illogic of conciliarism, most Catholics attached as of yet to the structures of the counterfeit church of conciliarism would not recognize the apostate and blasphemous nature of the following "message" sent to the Catholic-hating and Catholic-killing Buddhist devil-worshipers by Jean-Louis "Cardinal" Tauran of the "Pontifical" Council for Interreligious Dialogue" that was issued on the Feast of the Seven Dolors of Our Lady in Passiontide, Friday, April 3, 2009:
Dear Buddhist friends,
1. The forthcoming feast of Vesakh/Hanamatsuri offers a welcome occasion to send you, on behalf of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, our sincere congratulations and cordial best wishes: may this feast once again bring joy and serenity to the hearts of all Buddhists throughout the world. This annual celebration offers Catholics an opportunity to exchange greetings with our Buddhist friends and neighbours, and in this way to strengthen the existing bonds of friendship and to create new ones. These ties of cordiality allow us to share with each other our joys, hopes and spiritual treasures.
2. While renewing our sense of closeness to you, Buddhists, in this period, it becomes clearer and clearer that together we are able not only to contribute, in fidelity to our respective spiritual traditions, to the well-being of our own communities, but also to the human community of the world. We keenly feel the challenge before us all represented, on the one hand, by the ever more extensive phenomenon of poverty in its various forms and, on the other hand, by the unbridled pursuit of material possessions and the pervasive shadow of consumerism.
3. As recently stated by His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI, poverty can be of two very different types, namely, a poverty “to be chosen” and a poverty “to be fought” (Homily, 1st January 2009). For a Christian, the poverty to be chosen is that which allows one to tread in the footsteps of Jesus Christ. By doing so a Christian becomes disposed to receive the graces of Christ, who for our sake became poor although he was rich, so that by his poverty we might become rich (Cf. 2 Corinthians 8, 9). We understand this poverty to mean above all an emptying of self, but we also see it as an acceptance of ourselves as we are, with our talents and our limitations. Such poverty creates in us a willingness to listen to God and to our brothers and sisters, being open to them, and respecting them as individuals. We value all creation, including the accomplishments of human work, but we are directed to do so in freedom and with gratitude, care and respect, enjoining a spirit of detachment which allows us to use the goods of this world as though we had nothing and yet possessed all things (Cf. 2 Corinthians 6, 10).
4. At the same time, as Pope Benedict noted, “there is a poverty, a deprivation, which God does not desire and which should be fought; a poverty that prevents people and families from living as befits their dignity; a poverty that offends justice and equality and that, as such, threatens peaceful co-existence (l.c.).” Furthermore, “in advanced wealthy societies, there is evidence of marginalization, as well as affective, moral, and spiritual poverty, seen in people whose interior lives are disoriented and who experience various forms of malaise despite their economic prosperity” (Message for World Day of Peace 2009, n. 2).
5. Whereas we as Catholics reflect in this way on the meaning of poverty, we are also attentive to your spiritual experience, dear Buddhist friends. We wish to thank you for your inspiring witness of non-attachment and contentment. Monks, nuns, and many lay devotees among you embrace a poverty "to be chosen" that spiritually nourishes the human heart, substantially enriching life with a deeper insight into the meaning of existence, and sustaining commitment to promoting the goodwill of the whole human community. Once again allow us to express our heartfelt greetings and to wish all of you a Happy Feast of Vesakh/Hanamatsuri. (Message to Buddhists for the Feast of Vesakh/Hanamatsuri 2009, April 3, 2009.)
It is not an accident that this annual exercise in apostasy and blasphemy (see Francis "Cardinal" Arinze's Message for Vesakh 1998 that refers to the "nativity" of
Sakyamuni Buddha with a capital"N"!) was made on the feast day of the Seven Dolors of Our Lady in Passiontide. The devil knows very well how to mock the Catholic Faith and the woman whose heel has crushed his head. The devil knows how to take full advantage of the falsehoods spawned by conciliarism and propagandized by means of the Novus Ordo service to convince most Catholics in the world that there is not a single problem with the "message" issued by Jean-Louis Tauran to the Buddhists on their false feast that worships, him, the devil, most directly.
To assert that the "poverty" and "non-attachment" and "contentment" (a "contentment" to an emptiness of soul that is produced by an absence of Sanctifying Grace and an utter attachment to the devil's desire to keep souls out of such a state of Sanctifying Grace) of the false, diabolical religion of Buddhism "spiritually nourishes the human heart, substantially enriching life with a deeper insight into the meaning of existence, and sustaining commitment to promoting the goodwill of the whole human community" is both apostasy and blasphemy at the same time. All worship outside of the Catholic Church is false and of the devil. No false religion can "contribute" a thing to the true contentment of human souls or contribute one iota to the "goodwill of the whole human community." No false religion offers any "deeper insight to the meaning of human existence," which is to be found alone in the Deposit of Faith that Christ the King, betrayed this very day by Judas Iscariot for thirty pieces of silver, has entrusted exclusively to the Catholic Church.
Alas, the counterfeit church of conciliarism is awash in disciples of Judas Iscariot, right from the conciliar "popes" down to the conciliar "bishops" and including most, although
far from all, conciliar "priests." And those conciliar "priests" who know that conciliarism and its apostasies and blasphemies and sacrileges represent betrayals of the Faith but who remain silent are accomplices of these Judases by refusing to break from their association with them and to denounce the many ways in which they offend the Most Blessed Trinity and thrust sword after painful sword into the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary.
Yes, indeed, the lords of the counterfeit church of conciliarism endeavor very hard to make Judas Iscariot seem admirable by comparison.
While recognizing full well that we have played the role of Judas Iscariot very frequently in our lives, for which we must make constant reparation to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, especially in this week of weeks in which our salvation was wrought for us on the wood of the Holy Cross, we must, of course, recognize that the lords of conciliarism play the role of Judas Iscariot, perhaps without even realizing it, every day of their lives as they betray the Holy Faith and hand over countless souls to the devil as a result. This is just one of the many reasons that we can never be "una cum" any of the apostates in the false church of conciliarism who see fit to blaspheme God on deceive souls with one falsehood after another on a daily basis
Father Benedict Baur, O.S.B, wrote of the events of this day, Spy Wednesday, in The Light of the World:
The Church suffers with Christ. She has suffered similar experiences, for often in the course of her history many of her children have proved traitors to their Lord and Redeemer. This is as mysterious as it is terrifying--an apostle turned traitor. He who had been selected from among millions for the special love and esteem of Christ, sells his benefactor for thirty pieces of silver. He who stands, "let him take heed, lest he fall" (1 Cor. 10:12). "Watch ye and pray that ye enter not into temptation" (Matt. 26:41).
Christ sees the traitor approaching, and although He knows his foul plan, He does not withdraw. He offers His cheek to be kissed. He has feelings only of love and kindness even for this traitor. He even calls him friend. In effect He says: Even if you no longer love Me, I will love you and am prepared to forgive you the injury you are doing to Me. Christ shows no bitterness; He has no harsh reproach even for Judas. For this fallen apostle He has only sympathy. What did Judas gain? Thirty pieces of silver and the curse of God. He received a small temporal reward for his treachery and was burdened with a remorse of conscience that drove him to eternal damnation. This is the mysterium iniquitatis, the mystery of iniquity. Sin, the blindness and perversity of the human heart, is indeed a mystery. If the Lord were not so full of kindness and understanding, if He did not love us much beyond our deserts, what would become of us? Even an apostle can become a traitor.
The Church makes a recompense to Christ for the disgrace heaped upon Him by Judas. "In the name of Jesus let every knee bow of those that are in heaven, on earth, and under the earth; for the Lord become obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Therefore the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father" (Introit). He is obedient to the Father, even submitting to the traitor. That was the will of the Father, and it was sufficient for Christ.
Why has the traitor come to betray Christ? What has brought Him? Poor blind apostle! Poor blind Christians! Why do they expend their energies on everlasting worries? Why do they toil so eagerly for money? Why do they seek so avidly for offices, high positions, and the esteem of men? Very often to achieve their ambitions they jeopardize their chances for eternal happiness. Often they forsake religion and neglect the sacraments. What remains to them from all the temporal advantages they may gain? They soon prove empty; this discovery drove Judas to despair and suicide.
"Simon, sleepest though? Could thou not watch one hour with Me?" With these words, spoken by Christ to Peter, the Church calls upon us at Lauds not to leave the Savior alone in His suffering and humiliation. At least during Holy Week let us remain close to Christ. That this may be easier for us, we are led to St. Mary Major. Behold the mother. Behold how Mary suffers with Jesus. Mary represents the Church suffering with Christ. Each of us should imitate Mary in her suffering with her Son.With her we should follow Him with sympathetic hearts and stand under His cross on Calvary. May not Christ address us the sad words "Couldst thou not watch one hour with Me? . . . He does not sleep, but hastens to betray Me to the Jews" (Responsory at Matins). It is often true that the friends of Jesus sleep while His enemies are hard at work. (Father Benedict Baur, The Light of the World, Volume I, pp. 420-421)
We must be sorry for our sins, making an especially good and thorough Confession of them this Holy Week, remembering that we are not better than--and are probably very much worse than--most others. As much as we may have done the bidding of the devil in our lives, however, the adversary knows that those of us who are trying to reform our lives are not his friends, that we hate our sins and that we want to grow in holiness so as to be more pleasing in the sight of the Most Blessed Trinity at all times and thus better able to oppose the schemes of the enemies of Christ the King in the counterfeit church of conciliarism who are always so hard at work to betray the true Faith by their unswerving fealty to the apostasies and blasphemies and sacrileges of their false religion.
We must pray to Our Lady for the courage to flee from the Judases in the counterfeit church of conciliarism so that we will not become their enablers in their constant betrayals of the Catholic Faith, begging her to help us to pray extra Rosaries for the conversion of the modern Judases, each of whom is loved by her Divine Son with an infinite love that wills their eternal salvation and would welcome them back to the fold of the true Faith if they repented of their crimes and abjured their errors before they died.
Our Lady is the archetype of Holy Mother Church. She is without stain of sin or the least trace of error of any kind. So is Holy Mother Church. Holy Mother Church takes refuge in the arms of Our Lady in her Basilica in Rome today, Saint Mary Major. Holy Mother Church rushes into the arms of the Blessed Mother to make reparation for the infidelity of the traitor Judas Iscariot and to plead for her children to be faithful always unto the point of their dying breaths. Holy Mother Church can no more give us error or blasphemy or sacrilege or be a participate in various apostasies than can the Blessed Virgin Mary. What more proof do we need that the counterfeit church of conciliarism is a Judas "church" filled with modern-day Judases, for whom we must pray but with whom we must have no association in the slightest at any time for any reason whatsoever.
The hour of shadows approaches. We are about to enter into the Paschal Triduum of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ's Passion, Death and Resurrection. May reject the ways of Judas Iscariot once and for all as we cleave to Our Lady with the purity of Saint John the Evangelist and the penitent spirit of Saint Mary Magdalene, praying as many Rosaries during this days on which our sins subjected the God-Man to unspeakable horrors and caused our dear Blessed Mother to be pierced through and through with the Fourth through Seventh Swords of Sorrow.
And may we always give thanks to God through Our Lady for the fact that He has given us true bishops and true priests who make no concessions to conciliarism or to the nonexistent legitimacy of its false shepherds, true bishops and true priests who maintain the Faith with purity and with a true apostolic zeal for the souls won for us at such a high cost on the wood of the Holy Cross
Our Lady of Sorrows, pray for us!
Vivat Christus Rex! Viva Cristo Rey!
Saint Joseph, pray for us.
Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.
Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.
