No Pot O'Gold At The End of This Rainbow

by Thomas A. Droleskey

Much has been made of the news that the pro-abortion, pro-perversity, pro-nanny-state, self-described "billionaire playboy" and otherwise all around reprobate, Michael Rubens Bloomberg, has mandated classroom instruction in matters pertaining to the Sixth and Ninth Commandments for all students between eleven and eighteen years of age whose parents have had the great misfortune to entrust their "education" to the concentration camps known as public schools. Part of this program, which includes an "opt out" provision for students whose parents do not want them exposed to discussion of "birth control methods," but not from its parts, will include discussions of the bill passed by the New York State Legislature that was signed into law by its champion, the pro-abortion, pro-perversity public sinner Governor of the State of New York, Andrew Mark Cuomo, that "legalized" "marriage" between persons of the same gender (see Memo To Howard Hubbard: Public Scandal Is Never A Private Matter, Perverting the Month of the Most Sacred Heart, To Do The Will Of The People, Not Of God, and Still Little Word About God And His Law, None About His Justice or His Wrath).

Michael Rubens Bloomberg, a Talmudist of the "reform" variety who goes to the synagogue only on rare occasions to engage in what is devil worship in actual point of fact, is a real little "caesar" worthy of the title character in Edward G. Robinson's in the 1931 motion picture, Little Caesar.

Here is a little reprise about the background of this nefarious agent of social evil who is wrapped in what are, objectively speaking, all manner of personal evils.

Michael Bloomberg was once sued by a female employee of his Bloomberg financial and media conglomerate for harassment when he responded as follows upon learning she was expecting a child, "Kill it! Kill it!" (See New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg Testifies in Pregnancy Discrimination Case .) This episode was even too much for the pro-abort protege of Ralph Nader, Mark Green, who brought it up in a campaign advertisement when running as the Democrat Party nominee for Mayor of the City of New York, New York, in 2001 against Bloomberg, who had the endorsement of Republican Party even though he had been a lifelong Democrat until earlier that year and declared himself in 2008 to be an "independent." One of the first things that Michael Bloomberg attempted to do as Mayor of the City of New York in 2002 was to impose mandatory training in methods of surgical baby-killing in all of the obstetrics/gynecological residency programs in all of the city's public hospitals, permitting no one to opt out of the program as a matter of conscience (see Kathryn Jean Lopez on Med Students and Abortion).

Bloomberg, as is well known, is also an anti-smoking fascist who has campaign vigorously as the quintessential food nazi to ban transfat cooking oil in restaurants, trying also to ban salt shakers from the tables of restaurants, believe it or not. Sure, those who commit what are Mortal Sins in the objective order of things in their own lives and who promote such sins under cover of the civil law in the name of "human rights" have an inner drive, whether or not they realize it, to "prove" to themselves and to the world that they are "good" and "moral" human beings who have our bodily concerns so much at heart that they can seek to impose under the cover of the civil law what they "know" is best for us even though we are too dumb to recognize this on our own.

There is little that is actually new about Mayor Bloomberg's latest foray into what he thinks is social progressivism in the name of "protecting" children because they are, after all, "gonna do it anyway" (see Forty-Three Years After Humanae Vitae, Always Trying To Find A Way and Planting Seeds of Revolutionary Change). The only real difference between this new mandate is that students will taught how to use a certain prophylactic in order to engage in natural vice against purity without "fear" of pregnancy and to engage in both natural and unnatural vice without "fear" of contracting diseases that are transmitted almost entirely, if not exclusively, by unchaste behavior, admitting that those who are so infected can pass such diseases to others in several other ways.

It was in the early-1990s that the members of the New York City Board of Education held hearings on two of then New York City Schools Chancellor Joseph Fernandez's proposal to propagandize in behalf of his corruption of the innocence and purity of children.

The first program involved a scheme, called the "SAFE" Plan, proposed in 1990, involved the distribution of a certain the prophylactic device upon the request of students and without parental knowledge or consent. This generated a storm of controversy:

The very qualities that had made Fernandez such a promising leader, however, proved his undoing. Within a year of becoming chancellor, he introduced a plan to distribute [prophylactics] in the city’s high schools. For reasons known only to him, he decided to dispense with the niceties of private, conciliatory discussions on such a delicate issue; some central board members first heard about the plan when journalists called them to ask for their statements. Still, in February 1991, the measure was passed after a bitter debate, but only by a 4-to-3 vote. Queens representative Carol Gresser, a mother and one-time PTA president who had opposed the [prophylactic] distribution plan, proposed instituting a parental opt-out clause similar to the ones now in place in other urban schools around the country. It appeared at first that Fernandez was willing to live with this, but at the last minute both the mayor and the chancellor brought pressure on Westina Matthews, a mayoral appointee, and Ninfa Segarra, the wavering Bronx representative, to oppose the opt-out provision. In September 1991 it was defeated, again by a 4-to-3 vote.

According to conventional wisdom, the 4-to-3 breakdown was just about writ in cement. The four members in the majority—two blacks, mayoral appointees Matthews and Carl McCall, and two Hispanics, Segarra and Manhattan representative Luis Reyes—were thought to be a reliable voting bloc. The three dissenters, representing Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island, were assumed to be effectively powerless. With Mayor Dinkins’s office whispering in one ear and the newspapers whispering in the other, Fernandez was able to treat the minority as a mere nuisance, out of touch with the enlightened and progressive social programs that were about to become the focus of his tenure. When angry demonstrators began to appear in front of 110 Livingston [Street, in the Borough of Brooklyn] carrying signs reading “Jews Say No,” “Muslims Say No,” and “Christians Say No,” almost everyone in the bureaucracy and on the metro desks shrugged them off as religious extremists, hardly worth noting.  (The Futile Crusade.)

 

The "SAFE" Plan was ultimately ruled unconstitutional by an Appellate Division of the New York State Supreme (the lowest court in the New York State court system) in the 1993 case of Alfonso v. Fernandez 606 N.Y.S. 259 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. 1993).

Joe Fernandez, however, plugged right along, proposing an "AIDS education" program in 1992 that was to involve instructing fourth graders in the use of the prophylactic in question and then by means of his so-called "Rainbow Curriculum" in 1993 to seek to "educate" students about the "alternative lifestyles. Included in this curriculum were such books as Heather Has Two Mommies and Daddy's Roommate:

As the furor over the Rainbow Curriculum intensified, Fernandez fought his battle, not as an educator concerned with the delicate relationship between schools and families, but as a crusader who branded his detractors as virulent enemies of a great cause. His supporters first tried painting the Catholic Church as the central command of his opponents, a task made feasible by the Catholic makeup of the most vocally rebellious local board, District 24 in Queens, and by the press’s convenient soft-pedaling of the objections of other, less homogenous boards. Fernandez accused his opponents of a “malicious, highly organized campaign to distort [the curriculum’s] contents.” Days after this first shrouded reference to organized Catholic opposition, the Times published an article by Sam Roberts which attempted to confirm the chancellor’s view. But Roberts’s evidence was thin: Two lawyers who represented District 24 had on occasion worked for the Archdiocese, and John Cardinal O’Connor, who had praised Segarra for refusing to resign, was planning to officiate at her wedding. Fernandez’s accusations later took in a wider ken: “This is a highly organized group of the extreme religious right wing,” he told National Public Radio, perhaps alluding to the Latino Pentecostalists who had also passionately opposed the curriculum.

The truth is that the opposition to the Rainbow Curriculum—as well as to the AIDS education and [prophylactic] programs—was far broader than either Fernandez, the press, or most Manhattan politicians wanted to admit. Some of the opposition was based on religious belief, but it was hardly limited to Catholics: Jews, Muslims, and Christians of other denominations were also saying no. For a detailed article about Joseph Fernandez that is not for general reading as it contains descriptions of sort of programs that caused one of the board members, Ninfa Segarra, to change her mind and vote down the programs, please see The Futile Crusade.)

 

Thus, the "new" program is "different" only that it takes control for curricular decisions out of the hands of the members of the local school boards, who had the ability to decide which programs, if any, to use in their districts, for the past twenty years. With there being complete mayoral control over the city's public schools at this time, Nanny State Bloomberg can just dictate away. Many district school boards have chosen to have such graphic classroom instruction in matters pertaining to the Sixth and Ninth Commandments in the past twenty years while others have not. The whole business is now mandated by Michael Rubens Bloomberg.

Substantively, however, the differences between such programs in the past and now is simply a mind of degrees, not kind, as this rot, including the propagandizing in behalf of the lavender agendas that has included representatives of various "human rights" organizations speaking to students, has been robbing children of their innocence and purity for five decades now, admitting the antecedent roots of such instruction go back as far as 1929.

Such graphic classroom instruction in matters pertaining to the Sixth and Ninth Commandments begins today in some places as early as private and public pre-school programs as the natural psychological resistance of children to that which is age inappropriate is taught them in the most graphic terms and images imaginable. Obviously, the job of the "sex instructors" today is a lot easier because so many parents have received such "instruction" themselves and are fully immersed in the impure, indecent, vulgar "entertainment" that the Talmudists put out to destroy our souls, thinking nothing of exposing their children to this "entertainment" on a regular basis. That there is any parental objection at all to the latest variation of the "rainbow curriculum" is nothing other than miraculous. Such parental objections, however, are not going to "win the day" now. Joseph Fernandez, who was fired shortly after a public outcry over his elitism and contempt for public opposition, has won the day over the course of time. Such must ever be the case in our world of naturalism.

It is not surprising at all that this is occurring in the New York City public schools system. No, the focus of this article is on the reaction of the conciliarists in the Archdiocese of New York to the new mandate:

NEW YORK, August 11, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The mayor of New York City plans to force all public middle and high school students to participate an explicit sex education regimen, a mandate the Archdiocese of New York is calling on Catholic parents to fight.

The New York Times reports that New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg will require that each student take a semester of sexual education in either 6th or 7th grade, and again in 9th or 10th grade in both middle school and high school.

The city government is promoting two curriculum programs, entitled HealthSmart and Reducing the Risk. The materials promote abstinence alongside lessons for contraceptive methods, such as how to put on a condom, and explicit information on vaginal, anal and oral sex.

“HIV in semen, blood or vaginal fluids passes between partners through the thin mucus membranes of the penis, vagina, rectum or mouth,” states one pamphlet called “HIV Facts.”

In a pamphlet called “Birth Control Choices,” the company lists the “strong points” and “weak points” of various methods such as male and female condoms, hormonal contraceptives, and the temporary sterilizing drug Depo-provera. Abstinence is also listed as a form of “birth control” whose weak points include: “May feel pressured by friends, boyfriend or girlfriend.”

The Health Smart middle school curriculum also includes material aimed at “HIV, STD & pregnancy prevention.” The Times reports that parents will be allowed to opt children out of lessons on birth control methods.

Joseph Zwilling, Director of Communications for the Archdiocese, called the decision “troubling.”

“Parents have the right and the responsibility to be the first and primary educators of their children.  This mandate by the city usurps that role, and allows the public school system to substitute its beliefs and values for those of the parents,” said Zwilling in a statement Wednesday.

Archdiocesan attorney Edward Mechmann told the New York Times that he would encourage parents to exercise the opt-out option for explicit material and to inspect lesson contents.

Brooklyn bishop Nicholas DiMarzio also said he would work with Catholic families to shore up parents’ rights against the mandate, according to the Times.

Following a tumultuous campaign, New York state legislators in June passed the same-sex “marriage” law that went into effect late last month. Weeks later, the New York Post reported that top city school officials were already planning on how to work the new marriage definition into the state’s official school curriculum.

“We have to do it. We have to think of where to do it,” said New York State Board of Regent Chancellor Merryl Tisch. “We have to think of, how we do discuss gay marriage thoughtfully, respectfully and sensitively. There has to be age-appropriateness.”

Even summer vacation has proved no impediment: city summer school teachers have already begun discussing homosexual “marriage” In their civics classes, the Post reported. (New York to implement mandatory sex ed in all public middle; see also New York Archdiocese Criticizes Sex-Ed Mandate.)

 

This is all very nice. One would even think the Archdiocese of New York was defending parental rights and the innocence and purity of children by protesting against the Michael Rubens Bloomberg mandate.

One would be thinking erroneously to come to such a conclusion.

Permit me to introduce you to the disgusting, impure and indecent classroom "instruction" programs in matters pertaining to the Sixth and Ninth Commandment found in various nooks and crannies of the website of the Archdiocese of New York. Each of these programs are just as bad as the ones being mandate by the City of New York and each one is just as injurious to the temporal and eternal welfare of the young:

1) There is a link in the Family Life/Respect Life office's website for 2010 conference held by the "Theology of the Body" Institute (I supposed updating the site now and again is not possible).

 

07/28/2010 - 7/30/2010  The National Theology of the Body Congress

will be the most expansive gathering of experts and popularists in the history of this extraordinary teaching. Held in the Philadelphia area from July 28-30, 2010 and hosted by The Theology of the Body Institute, the world’s leading experts and members of the Church hierarchy will gather to teach and network with educators, activists and devotees to apply this teaching to many facets of the Catholic Faith and everyday life. Click here for more information.

 

What's wrong with the "theology of the body"? Well, please read the following IF you desire the information that is not really necessary to have. All you need to know is that the some of the old "pioneers" in moral theology in the 1950s and the 1960s would have been pleased to see the "frontiers" of the ends of marriage pushed out more and more: The Phenomenology of Dietrich von Hildebrand and His Novel Teaching on Marriage and Theology of the Body, a book on the subject that was written by Mrs. Randy Engel and is available for purchase on her website.

2) The Archdiocese of New York's "safe environment" website lists the following nefarious programs to keep children "safe" from clerical predators:

VIRTUS-Protecting God’s Children™

Online "Safer Spaces" Training (www.archny.org/pastoral/safe-environment-program.)

 

Noting the sensitive nature of the material covered, those interested in a critique of these naturalist exercises in breaking down a child's psychological resistance to inappropriate material that entices them into lives of sin, please read the following:  “Catholic Medical Association Repudiates Child Safety” Programs, although there are other "critiques" available online that suffer from even more of the conciliar confusion to be found the report of the Catholic Medical Association, which accepts Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II's letter on the "truth and meaning of human sexuality," as they attempt to justify their quite correct opposition to these programs by using their "pope's" guidelines, which conflict with these words of Pope Pius XI as found in Divini Illius Magistri, December 29, 1929:

65. Another very grave danger is that naturalism which nowadays invades the field of education in that most delicate matter of purity of morals. Far too common is the error of those who with dangerous assurance and under an ugly term propagate a so-called sex-education, falsely imagining they can forearm youths against the dangers of sensuality by means purely natural, such as a foolhardy initiation and precautionary instruction for all indiscriminately, even in public; and, worse still, by exposing them at an early age to the occasions, in order to accustom them, so it is argued, and as it were to harden them against such dangers.

66. Such persons grievously err in refusing to recognize the inborn weakness of human nature, and the law of which the Apostle speaks, fighting against the law of the mind; and also in ignoring the experience of facts, from which it is clear that, particularly in young people, evil practices are the effect not so much of ignorance of intellect as of weakness of a will exposed to dangerous occasions, and unsupported by the means of grace.

67. In this extremely delicate matter, if, all things considered, some private instruction is found necessary and opportune, from those who hold from God the commission to teach and who have the grace of state, every precaution must be taken. Such precautions are well known in traditional Christian education, and are adequately described by Antoniano cited above, when he says:

Such is our misery and inclination to sin, that often in the very things considered to be remedies against sin, we find occasions for and inducements to sin itself. Hence it is of the highest importance that a good father, while discussing with his son a matter so delicate, should be well on his guard and not descend to details, nor refer to the various ways in which this infernal hydra destroys with its poison so large a portion of the world; otherwise it may happen that instead of extinguishing this fire, he unwittingly stirs or kindles it in the simple and tender heart of the child. Speaking generally, during the period of childhood it suffices to employ those remedies which produce the double effect of opening the door to the virtue of purity and closing the door upon vice.

 

How do children learn to grow in purity? By being taught to love God with their whole hearts, minds, bodies, souls, and strength. By eliminating, as far as is humanly possible, the incentives to sin as found in popular culture (eliminating the television as a starting point, of course), refusing to expose children to the near occasions of sin represented by immodestly dressed relatives or friends, refusing to permit them to associate with playmates whose innocence and purity have been undermined by the culture and by "education" programs that serve in public schools to be instruments of promoting sin and that serve in conciliar schools as the means of justifying it. By keeping our children close to the Sacraments, which means, of course, getting them out of the counterfeit church of conciliarism, and making sure that the family Rosary is prayed every day with fervor and devotion.

Do we need "theft instruction" in order to keep our children from stealing. Do children, who are naturally curious, have to learn about the various forms of thievery available to them in order to know that it is wrong to violate the Seventh Commandment? Might such "theft instruction" actually serve as an incentive to the mischievous to steal?

The conciliar "popes" and their "bishops" have indeed undermined the Natural Law right of parents to educate their children as they have countenance the undermining of the innocence and purity of the young.

3) Other programs to be found on the Archdiocese of New York website include "Life Teen" and textbooks published by Harcourt Religion, such as its "Growing in Love" series of impure instruction manuals(successors of the horrific New Creation instruction manuals of the 1980s) that has been critique in various places, including: Author Criticizes Growing in Love and a report prepared by well-meaning parents in the Archdiocese of New Orleans, Growing in Love: A Critique. Readers can access these critiques, some of which are pretty graphic, all on their own. It is unfortunately the case that most of the parents who try to fight these programs from "within" the conciliar structures do not realize that the very thing they are fighting is what the conciliar "popes" want taught. They just can't fathom that this is the case. If it weren't, their "white knights" in Rome would come to the rescue. And yet they languish in the trenches wondering when "help" will arrive. I know. I was there for a long time in those trenches. I know. This battle is over. Done with. Through.

My point is this: the innocence and purity of children is just as much under attack in the schools and "religious education" programs administered by the conciliar revolutionaries as they are in the concentration camps known as the New York City public schools. Catholic schools in their conciliar captivity have been engaging in such instruction since a protege of the morally, doctrinally and liturgically corrupt Father Joseph Bernardin, Father James T. McHugh of the Archdiocese of New York began working with Mary Calderone of S.I.E.C.U.S, and organization founded to promote such education (see Mrs. Randy Engel, The McHugh Chronicles and her definitive Sex Education - The Final Plague. Mrs. Engel has also written a pretty graphic review of the Growing in Love series, which she terms, quite rightly, as Growing in Filth: The Sodimization of Innocence).

None of this can come form the Catholic Church. Not one wretched bit of it.  The well-meaning parents fighting these programs in the conciliar schools simply do not realize that the fact that such programs exist at all is a sign of apostasy and betrayal that should cause them to consider the true state of Church Militant on earth at this time.

Lost on the caesars of the nanny state and the revolutionaries of the conciliar church is the simple reality that all of this "instruction" has contributed to an in increase in promiscuous behavior in violation of the Sixth and Ninth Commandments, the spread of various diseases, surgical abortions, single-family parents and a sense of hopelessness among so many students that an epidemic of teen suicides is now upon us. The spread of aberrant behavior and social deviation among so many teens and young adults today precisely because of this "instruction" and the sins that it has made more possible, noting also, of course, the undeniable role played by the paucity of Sanctifying and Actual Graces in the world as a result of the sacramental barrenness of the counterfeit church of conciliarism. More and more human beings must descend to barbarism when the world is unsupported by the graces that should be there to help men to see themselves and everything in their lives clearly the truths of the true Faith with the supernatural eyes of the soul.

No, the "professional educators" of the false church and the civil state assure us that we need more of what has failed. It is not the premise that is wrong, it is the failure to do more of what the false premise has shown itself to worsen rather than cure, as must be the case with any program based in naturalism and upon complete rejection of and contempt for the binding precepts of the Divine Positive Law and the Natural Law as they have been entrusted by Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ 

This is pure Lockean liberalism, something that I have explained on many occasions in the past, that is, the belief that we can "solve" problems by our own unaided powers, and that, rather examining the false premises that have worsened a problem or a set of problems, the reasonable individual needs to do "more" of what has been shown to have failed already.

In other words, this is the equivalent of Barack Hussein Obama's saying that we need to have another "economic stimulus" to grow the economy when the first two such programs have resulted in the squandering of hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars and the worsening of an economic situation. No, we need another stimulus package to "create jobs" even though the last two have been complete failures. It's the same thing with classroom instruction in matters pertaining to the Sixth and Ninth Commandments.

Well, unfortunately for the revolutionaries of the civil state and the counterfeit church of conciliarism, there is no pot o'gold at the end of their rainbow curricula. Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ taught us very explicitly that those who lead the little ones astray are heading for a bad end:

[6] But he that shall scandalize one of these little ones that believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone should be hanged about his neck, and that he should be drowned in the depth of the sea. [7] Woe to the world because of scandals. For it must needs be that scandals come: but nevertheless woe to that man by whom the scandal cometh. (Matthew 18: 6-7.)

 

A fearful judgment awaits each of us at the moment we die. Each one of our words and actions will be scrutinized with exactitude. We will see ourselves as we have been, not as we would like to think ourselves to have been while we were alive. Each of us, including those who have been and continue to be responsible for the undermining of the innocence and purity of the young, have a fearful judgment awaiting us, something that Saint Alphonsus de Liguori made very clear:

Beloved Christians, of all the goods of nature, of fortune, and of grace, which we have received from God, we are not the masters, neither can we dispose of them as we please; we are but the administrators of them; and therefore we should employ them according to the will of God, who is our Lord. Hence, at the hour of death, we must render a strict account of them to Jesus Christ, our Judge. "For we must all be manifested before the judgment seat of Christ, that every one may receive the 'proper things of the body as he hath done, whether it  be good or evil"--II. Cor., v. 10. This is the precise meaning of that "give an account of thy stewardship", in the gospel of this day. "You are not," says St. Bonaventure, in his comment on these words, "a master, but a steward over the things committed to you; and therefore you are to render an account of them". I will place before your eyes to-day, the rigour of this judgment, which shall be passed on each of us on the last day of our life. Let us consider the terror of the soul, first, when she shall be presented to the Judge; secondly, when she shall be examined; and thirdly; when she shall be condemned.

First point. Terror of the souls when she shall be presented to the Judge.

1. "It is appointed unto men once to die, and, after this, the judgment"--Heb., ix. 27. It is of faith that we shall die, and that, after death, a judgment shall be passed on all the actions of our life. Now, what shall be the terror of each of us, when we shall be at the point of death, and shall have before our eyes the judgment which must take place the very moment the soul departs from the body? Then shall be decided our doom to eternal life, or to eternal death. At the time of the passage of their souls from this life to eternity, the sight of their past sins, the rigour of God's judgment, and the uncertainty of their eternal salvation, have made the saints tremble. St. Mary Magdalene de Pazzi trembled in her sickness, through the fear of judgment; and to her confessor, when he endeavoured to give her courage, she said, Ah, father, it is a terrible thin to appear before Christ in judgment. After spending many years in penance in the desert, St. Agatho trembled at the hour of death, and said: What shall become of me when I shall be judged? The venerable Father Louis de Ponte was seized with such a fit of trembling at the thought of the account which he should render to God, that he shook the room in which he lay. The thought of judgment inspired the venerable Juvenal Ancina, Priest of the Oratory, and afterwards the Bishop of Saluzzo, with the determination to leave the world. Hearing the Dies Irae sung, and considering the terror of the souls when presented before Jesus Christ, the Judge, he took, and afterwards executed, the resolution of giving himself entirely to God.

2. It is the common opinion of theologians, that, at the very moment and in the very place in which the soul departs from the body, the divine tribunal is erected, the accusation is read, and the sentence is passed by Jesus Christ, the Judge. At this terrible tribunal each of us shall be presented, to give an account of all our thoughts, of all our words, and of all our actions. "For we must all be manifested before the judgment seat of Christ, that every one may receive the proper things of the body, according as he heath done, whether it be good or evil"--II. Cor., v. 10. When presented before an Earthly judge, criminals have been seen to fall into a cold sweat through fear. It is related of Piso, that, so great and insufferable was the confusion which he felt at the thought of appearing as a criminal before the senate, that he killed himself. How great is the pain of a vassal, or of a son, in appearing before an angry prince or an enraged father, to account for some crime which he has committed! Oh! how much greater shall be the pain and confusion of the soul in standing before Jesus Christ enraged against her for having despised him during her life! Speaking of judgment, St. Luke says, "Then they shall see the Son of Man"--Luke, xxi. 27. They shall see Jesus Christ as man, with the same wounds with which he ascended into Heaven. "Great joy of the beholders!" says Robert the Abbot, "great terror of those who are in expectation!" These wounds shall console the just, and shall terrify the wicked. In them sinners shall see the Redeemer's love for themselves, and their ingratitude to him.

3. "Who," says the Prophet Nahum, "can stand before the face of his indignation?--i. 6. How great, then, shall be the terror of a soul that finds himself in sin before this Judge, the first time she shall see him, and shall see him full of wrath! St. Basil says that she shall be tortured  more by her shame and confusion than by the very fire of Hell. "Horridior quam ignis, erit udor". Philip the Second rebuked one of his domestics for having told a lie. "Is it thus", said the kin to him, "you deceive me?" The domestic, after having returned home, died of grief. The Scripture tells us, that when Joseph, reproved his brethren, saying, "I am Joseph, whom you sold", they were unable to answer for fear, and remained silent. "His brethren could not answer him, being struck with exceeding great fear"--Gen., xlv. 3.Now, what answer shall sinners make to Jesus Christ when he shall say to them: I am your Redeemer and your Judge, whom you have so much despised? Where shall the miserable beings fly, says St. Augustine, when they shall see an angry Judge above, Hell open below, on one side their own sins accusing them, and on the other devils dragging them to punishment, and their conscience burning them within? "Above shall be an enraged Judge; below a horrid chaos; on the right, sins accusing him; on the let, demons dragging him to punishment; within, a burning conscience. Whither shall a sinner, beset in this manner, fly?" Perhaps he will cry for mercy? But how, asks Eusebius Emissenus, can he dare to implore mercy, when he must first render an account of his contempt for the mercy which Jesus Christ had shown to him? "With what face will you who are to be first judged for contempt of mercy, ask for mercy?" But let us come to the rendering of the accounts.

Second point. Terror of the soul when she shall be examined.

4. As soon as the soul shall be presented before the tribunal of Jesus Christ, he will say to her: "Give an account of thy stewardship": render instantly an account of thy entire life. The Apostle tells us, that to be worthy of eternal glory, our lives must be found conformable to the life of Jesus Christ. "For whom he foreknew, he also predestinated to be made conformable to the image of his Son;...them he has also glorified"--Rom., viii.. 29, 30. Hence St. Peter has said, that in the judgment of Jesus Christ, the just man, who has observed the divine law, has pardoned enemies, has respected the saints, has practised chastity, meekness and other virtues, shall scarcely be saved. "The just man scarcely shall be saved." The Apostles adds: "Where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?"--I. Pet. iv., 18. What shall become of the vindictive and the unchaste, of blasphemers, and slanderers? What shall become of those whose entire life is opposed to the life of Jesus Christ?

5. In the first place, the Judge shall demand of sinners an account of all the blessings and graces which he bestowed upon them in order to bring them to salvation, and which they have rendered fruitless. He will demand an account of the years granted to them that they might serve God, and which they have spent in offending him. "He hat called against me the time"--Lam., i. 15. He will then demand an account of their sins. Sinners commit sins, and afterwards forget them; but Jesus Christ does not forget them: he keeps, as Job says, all our iniquities numbered, as it were in a bag. "Thou has sealed up my iniquities, as it were in a bag"--Job, xiv. 17. And he tells us that, on the day of accounts, he will take a lamp to scrutinize all the actions of our life. "And it shall come to pass at that time, that I will search Jerusalem with lamps"--Soph., i. 12. The lamp, says Mendoza on this passage, penetrates all the corners of the house--that is, God will discover all the defects of our conscience, great and small. According to St. Anselm, an account shall be demanded of every glance of the eyes. "Exigitur usque ad ictum oculi". And, according to St. Matthew, of every idle word. "Every idle word that men shall speak, they shall render an account for it on the day of judgment"--Matt., xii. 36.

6. The Prophet Malachy says, that as gold is refined by taking away the dross, so on the day of judgment, all our actions shall be examined; and every defect which may be discovered shall be punished. "He shall purify the sons of Levi, and shall refine them as gold"--Mal. iii. 3. Even our justices--that is, our good words, confessions, communions, and prayers--shall be examined. "When I shall take a time, I will judge justices"--Ps., lxxiv. 3. But, if every glance, every idle word, and even good works, shall be judged, with what rigour shall immodest expressions, blasphemies, grievous detractions, theft, and sacrileges be judged? Alas! on that day every soul shall, as St. Jerome says, "see to her own confusion, all the evils which she has done. "videbit unusquisque quod fecit."

7. "Weight and balance are judgments of the Lord"--Prov., xvi. 11. In the balance of the Lord, a holy life and good works make the scale descend; but nobility, wealth, and science, have no weight. Hence, if found innocent, the peasant, the poor, and the ignorant, shall be rewarded. But the man of rank, of wealth, or or learning, if found guilty, shall be condemned."Thou art weighted in the balance", said Daniel to Balthassar, "and art found wanting"--Dan., v. 27. "Neither his gold, nor his wealth", says father Alvares, "but the king alone was weighed."

8. At the divine tribunal, the poor sinner shall see himself accused by the Devil, who, according to St. Augustine, "will recite the words of our profession, and will charge us before our face with all that we have done, will state the day and the hour in which we sinned"--Con. jud., tom. VI. He will recite the words of our profession; that is, he will enumerate the promises which we have made to God, and which we afterwards violated. He will charge us before our face; he will upbraid us with all our wicked deeds, pointing to the day and hour in which they were committed. And he will, as the same saint says, conclude his accusation by saying: "I have suffered neither stripes nor scourges for this man." Lord, I have suffered nothing for this ungrateful sinner, and to make himself my salve, he has turned his back on thee, who hast endured so much for his salvation. He, therefore, justly belongs to me. Even his angel-guardian will, according to Origen, come forward to accuse him, and will say" I have laboured so many years for his salvation; but he has despised all my admonitions. "Unusquisque angelorum perhibet testimonium, quot annis circa eum laboraverit sed ille monita sprevit"--hom., lxvi. Thus, even friends shall treat with contempt the guilty soul. "All her friends have despised her"--Lamen., i. 2. Her ver sins shall, says St. Bernard, accuse her. "And they shall say: You have made us; we are your work; we shall not desert you"--Lib., Medit., cap. ii. We are your offspring; we shall not leave you; we shall be your companions in Hell for all eternity.

9. Let us now examine the excuses which the sinner will be able to advance. He will say, that the evil inclinations of nature had drawn him to sin. But he shall be told that, if concupiscence impelled him to sins, it did not oblige him to commit them; and that, if he had recourse to God, he should have received from him grace to resist every temptation. For this purpose Jesus Christ has left us the sacraments; but, when we do not make use of them, we can complain only of ourselves. "But," says the Redeemer, "now they have no excuse for their sin"--John, xv. 22. To excuse himself, the sinner shall also say, that the Devil tempted him to sin. But, as St. Augustine says, "The enemy is bound like a dog in chains, and can bite only him who has united himself to him with a deadly security." The Devil can bark, but cannot bit, unless you adhere and listen to him. Hence the saint adds: " See how foolish is the man whom a dog loaded with chains bites". Perhaps he will advance his bad habits as an excuse; but this shall not stand; for the same St. Augustine says, that though it is difficult to resist the force of an evil habit, "if any one does not desert himself, he will conquer it with the divine assistance". If a man does not abandon himself to sin, and invokes God's aid, he will overcome evil habits. The Apostle tells us, that the Lord does not permit us to be tempted beyond our strength. "God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that which you are able."--I. Cor., x. 13.

10. "For what shall I do", said Job, "when God shall rise to judge me? and when he shall examine, what shall I answer him?"--Job., xxxi. 14. What answer shall the sinner give to Jesus Christ? How can he, who sees himself so clearly convicted, give an answer? He shall be covered with confusion, and shall remain silent, like the man found without the nuptial garment. "But he was silent"--Matt., xxii. 12. His very sins shall shut the sinner's mouth. "And all iniquity shall stop her mouth"--Ps., cvi. 42. There, says St. Thomas of Villanova, there shall be no intercessors, to whom the sinner can have recourse. "There, there is no opportunity of sinning; there, no intercessor, no friend, no father shall assist". Who shall then save you? Is it God? But how, asks St. Basil, can you expect salvation from him whom you have despised? "Who shall deliver you? Is it God, whom you have insulted?"--S. Bas., Or. 4, de Pen. Alas, the guilty soul that leaves this world in sin, is condemned by herself before the Judge pronounces sentences. Let us come to the sentence of the Judge.

Third point. Terror of the soul when she shall be condemned.

11. How great shall be the joy of a soul when, at death, she hears from Jesus Christ these sweet words: "Well done, good and faithful servant; because thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will place thee over many things. Enter into the joy of thy Lord"--Matt., xxv. 21. Equally great shall be the anguish and despair of a guilty soul, that shall see herself driven away by the Judge with the following words: "Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire"--verse 41. Oh! what a terrible thunderclap shall that sentence be to her! "O how frightfully", says the Carthusian, "shall that thunder resound!" Eusebius writes that, the terror of sinners at hearing their condemnation shall be so great, that, if they could, they would die again. "The wicked shall be seized with the terror at the sight of the Judge pronouncing sentence, that, if they were not immortal, they should die a second time" But, brethren, let us, before the termination of this sermon, make some reflections which will be profitable to us. St. Thomas of Villanova says, that some listen to discourses on the judgment and condemnation of the wicked, with as little concern as if they themselves were secure against these things, or as if the day of judgment were never to arrive for them. "Heu quam securi haec dicimus et audimus, quasi nos non tangeret haec sententia, aut quasi dies haec nunquam esset venturus!" Cone. i., de Jud. The saint then asks: Is it not great folly to entertain security in so perilous an affair? "Quae est ista stulta securitas in discrimine tanto?" There are some, says St. Augustine, who, though they live in sin, cannot imagine that God will send them to Hell. "Will God" they say, "really condemn us?" Brethren, adds the saint, do not speak thus. So many of the damned did not believe that they should be sent to Hell; but the end came, and, according to the threat of Ezechiel, they have been cast into that place of darkness. "The end is come, the end is come. . . and I will send my wrath upon thee, and I will judge thee"--Ezec., vii. 2, 3. Sinners, perhaps vengeance is at hand for you, and still you laugh and sleep in sin. Who will not tremble at the words of the Baptist, "for now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree, therefore, that doth not yield good fruit, shall be cut down and cast into the fire"?--Matt., iii. 10. He says, that every tree that does not bring forth good fruit, shall be cut down, and cast into the fire: and he promises that, with regard to the trees, which represent sinners, the axe is already laid to the roots--that is, the chastisement is at hand. Dearly beloved brethren, let us follow the counsel of the Holy Ghost--"Before judgment, prepare thee justice"--Eccl., xviii. 19. Let us adjust our accounts before the day of accounts. Let us seek God, now that we can find him; for the time shall come when we will wish, but shall not be able to find him. "you shall seek me and shall not find me"--John, vii. 36. "Before judgment," says St. Augustine, "the Judge can be appeased, but not in judgment". By a change of life, we can now appease the anger of Jesus Christ, and recover his grace; but when he shall judge, and find us in sin, he must execute justice, and we shall be lost. (Saint Alphonsus de Liguori, Sermon XXVII, Sermon for the Eighth Sunday after Pentecost, pp. 276-285.)

 

We have much reparation to make to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary for our sins and for those of the whole world. Much reparation to make. We might not save our souls. We might not have true and perfect contrition for our sins. We might not have the grace of Final Perseverance.

If we are honest with ourselves, we await a terrible judgment upon our souls, regardless of the one that those who have devised and implemented programs that have sought of their very diabolical nature will face for leading Our Lord's little ones astray. That having been noted, however, those who have devised and implemented the programs discussed in passing in this brief commentary can be assured that they do indeed face a terrible judgment of their very own if they do not repent and make reparation before they die as members of the Catholic Church.

With Our Lady as our sure guide and intercessor, may we indeed be ever earnest about making reparation for our own many sins, each of has contributed to the worsening of the state of the Church Militant here on earth and of the world-at-large. Once again, make no mistake about it: our own sins and our ingratitude and our lukewarmness have exacerbated, that is, worsened, the state of the Church Militant on earth. We cannot be content to wallow in spiritual mediocrity. We must accept whatever penances and humiliations that God chooses to send us so that we can give them back to His Most Sacred Heart through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of His Most Blessed Mother as her consecrated slaves, especially by means of praying as many Rosaries as our states-in-life permit.

Our Lady stands by the tomb of her Divine Son, Who has been buried mystically by the conciliarists' contempt for the truths that He has revealed exclusively through His Catholic Church and have been taught infallibly by her without any hint or shadow of change from Pentecost Sunday. We must keep her company at that tomb in our prayers, being ever willing to take on more penances and to renounce our own comfort and convenience and all attachment to human respect in order to help to usher in the day when the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary will make it possible for the enemies of her Divine Son in the modern world and in the grips of Modernism will be vanquished, permitting the restoration of all things in Christ the King as we honor her as our Immaculate Queen.

 

Vivat Christus Rex! Viva Cristo Rey!

Our Lady of Perpetual Help, pray for us.

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.

Saints Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, pray for us.

See also: A Litany of Saints

Appendix

Words of Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda as recorded in The Mystical City of God

INSTRUCTION WHICH THE GREAT QUEEN OF THE ANGELS, MOST HOLY MARY, GAVE ME.

427. My daughter, when in the course of this history I so often call thy attention to the lamentable state of the world and to that of the holy Church in which thou livest, and when I so often express my maternal solicitude that thou imitate me, remember, my dearest, that I have great reasons for obliging thee to lament with me and for wishing thee to weep over that which I bewailed in my mortal life; and which would afflict me in my present state, if in it I were capable of sorrow. I assure thee, soul, thou hast reached times, in which thou oughtest to shed tears of blood because of the calamities coming over the children of Adam. Since thou canst not at one and the same time attain a full knowledge of them all, I remind thee of what from my place in heaven I see going on in the whole world among the believers of the holy faith. Turn then thy eyes upon those multitudes and behold the greater part of the children of Adam in the darkness and errors of unbelief, rushing without hope of salvation to eternal perdition. Behold also the children of the faith and of the Church, how heedless and forgetful of this damage they continue to be, so that there are none who seem to deplore it. For in contempt of their own salvation, they care not about that of others and, their faith being dead and their love extinct, they sorrow not for the loss of souls created by God and redeemed by the blood of the incarnate Word.

428. All are the children of the eternal Father who is in heaven (Matth 23, 9) and all are obliged to have a care of their brethren according to each one's condition. This obligation rests more especially upon the children of the Church, who can live up to it by their prayers and supplications. But this duty lies still more directly upon those who have influence, upon those who are nourished by the Christian faith, and who enjoy more of the benefits of the liberal hand of the Almighty. Those who through the law of Christ are favored with temporal advantages and who make use of them for the service and the delights of the flesh, are they who, as the powerful, are to be more powerfully tormented (Matth 23, 9). If the pastors and the chiefs of the house of the Lord seek only a life of ease, without caring to engage in true earnest labor, they will make themselves accountable for the ruin of the flock of Christ and for the carnage brought on by the infernal wolves. O my daughter, into what a lamentable state has the Christian people been cast by the powerful, by the pastors, and by the wicked ministers, whom God has given them in his secret judgments ! O what confusion and chastisements await them! Before the tribunal of the just Judge they will have no excuse; since the Catholic truth undeceives them, their conscience loudly protests, while they wilfully remain deaf to all warnings.

429. The cause of God remains neglected and without a champion; his possessions, which are the souls, are left without increase; all as it were look but to their own interest and preservation, each one according to his own diabolical cunning and according to his state of life. Truth is obscured, flattery raises its voice, avarice is unbridled, the blood of Christ is trodden under foot, the fruits of the Redemption are held in contempt; no one wishes to risk his own comfort or interest in order to save what has cost the Savior his blood and life. Even the friends of God are influenced by the evils; for they do not make use of their charity and its holy liberty as they ought; and most of them allow themselves to be overcome by their cowardice and content themselves with working for themselves alone, forsaking the common cause of the souls of others. Hence thou mayest understand, my daughter, that now, after the evangelical Church has been established by my divine Son and fertilized by his own blood, those unhappy times have come, of which the Lord himself complains through his holy Prophets, saying : what the palmerworm hath left the locust has eaten, and what the locust left the bruchus consumed, and the residue is destroyed by the mildew; (Joel 1, 4) and in order to gather some fruits from his vineyard, the Lord goes about like the gleaner after the vintage, who seeks some remaining grape, or some olive, which is not dried up, or carried away by the demons (Is. 24, 13).

430. Tell me now, my daughter, how is it possible, if thou still hast a true love for my divine Son and for me, that thou find consolation or rest in thy heart at the sight of the loss of souls, which He redeemed by his blood and I have sought with blood-mingled tears? Even today, if I could shed them, I would begin to do so with new weeping and compassion; and since it is not possible for me now to weep over the dangers threatening the Church, I wish that thou do it and that thou spurn consolation in a misfortune so calamitous and so worthy of lament. Weep bitterly then, and lose not the merit of such a sorrow; and let it be so deep, that thou findst no relief except in affliction for the sake of the Lord whom thou lovest Think of what I did, in order to stave off the damnation of Herod and to prevent it for those who wish to avail themselves of my intercession. In the beatific vision I pray without ceasing for the salvation of my clients. Let not the labors and tribulations sent to thee by my divine Son intimidate thee from helping they brethren and acquiring them for the possession of Christ Amidst the injuries done to Him by the children of Adam, do thou labor to recompense them in some measure by the purity of thy soul, which I desire shall be rather that of an angel than of an earthborn woman. Fight the battles of the Lord against his enemies and in his name and mine, crush their head, reign over their pride and cast them into hell. Do thou also counsel the ministers of Christ with whom thou conversest, to use their power in doing the same, to defend the souls in lively faith and, in them, the honor and glory of the Lord; for thus shall they repress and vanquish them with divine power. (The Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God: Book IV: The Coronation, pp. 282-285.)