Time to Prepare

by Thomas A. Droleskey

God is so very merciful. He chooses in His inscrutable ways sometimes to give even the most hardened and unrepentant of public sinners an opportunity to repent before he dies. United States Senator Edward Moore Kennedy (D-Massachusetts) certainly is being given a chance to repent of his public support for, among other things, both chemical and surgical baby-killing under cover of law and the "rights" of those steeped in unrepentant acts of perversity opposed to the Sixth and Ninth Commandments, being only one of five United States Senators to support "marriage" for those steeped in perversity. Indeed, Senator Edward Moore Kennedy has been passionately demagogic in his support for legalized baby-killing under cover of law and for his support of other evils.

Despite this, however, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ loves Edward Moore Kennedy, who supports His own mystical dismemberment in the persons of preborn children in their mothers' wombs. Our Lord shed every single drop of His Most Precious Blood on the wood of the Holy Cross just to redeem the youngest son of Joseph Patrick Kennedy and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy. Our Lady suffered Seven Swords of Sorrow to be pierced through and through her Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart to help bring Edward Moore Kennedy to a spiritual rebirth as she stood by the foot of the Holy Cross and participated in the work of her Divine Son's Redemption of his immortal soul, as Pope Leo XIII noted in Iucunda Semper Expectatione, September 8,1894:

The recourse we have to Mary in prayer follows upon the office she continuously fills by the side of the throne of God as Mediatrix of Divine grace; being by worthiness and by merit most acceptable to Him, and, therefore, surpassing in power all the angels and saints in Heaven. Now, this merciful office of hers, perhaps, appears in no other form of prayer so manifestly as it does in the Rosary. For in the Rosary all the part that Mary took as our co-Redemptress comes to us, as it were, set forth, and in such wise as though the facts were even then taking place; and this with much profit to our piety, whether in the contemplation of the succeeding sacred mysteries, or in the prayers which we speak and repeat with the lips. First come the Joyful Mysteries. The Eternal Son of God stoops to mankind, putting on its nature; but with the assent of Mary, who conceives Him by the Holy Ghost. Then St. John the Baptist, by a singular privilege, is sanctified in his mother's womb and favored with special graces that he might prepare the way of the Lord; and this comes to pass by the greeting of Mary who had been inspired to visit her cousin. At last the expected of nations comes to light, Christ the Savior. The Virgin bears Him. And when the Shepherds and the wise men, first-fruits of the Christian faith, come with longing to His cradle, they find there the young Child, with Mary, His Mother. Then, that He might before men offer Himself as a victim to His Heavenly Father, He desires to be taken to the Temple; and by the hands of Mary He is there presented to the Lord. It is Mary who, in the mysterious losing of her Son, seeks Him sorrowing, and finds Him again with joy. And the same truth is told again in the sorrowful mysteries.

In the Garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus is in an agony; in the judgment-hall, where He is scourged, crowned with thorns, condemned to death, not there do we find Mary. But she knew beforehand all these agonies; she knew and saw them. When she professed herself the handmaid of the Lord for the mother's office, and when, at the foot of the altar, she offered up her whole self with her Child Jesus -- then and thereafter she took her part in the laborious expiation made by her Son for the sins of the world. It is certain, therefore, that she suffered in the very depths of her soul with His most bitter sufferings and with His torments. Moreover, it was before the eyes of Mary that was to be finished the Divine Sacrifice for which she had borne and brought up the Victim. As we contemplate Him in the last and most piteous of those Mysteries, there stood by the Cross of Jesus His Mother, who, in a miracle of charity, so that she might receive us as her sons, offered generously to Divine Justice her own Son, and died in her heart with Him, stabbed with the sword of sorrow.

 

Yes, Edward Moore Kennedy has a Heavenly Mother, the Mother of God herself, who continues to pray for him, especially as he undergoes treatment for what may turn out to be the cause of his death, a malignant brain tumor. Edward Moore Kennedy is being given an opportunity by the Our Lord to prepare for a happy, holy and sacramentally-provided-for death. Whether he will use this opportunity to prepare for such a good death, especially by praying to Our Lady and her Most Chaste Spouse, Saint Joseph, remains to be seen. There is no doubt at all, however, about the fact that a man who has done much harm in his public life, especially to the innocent preborn and to the cause of the sanctification and salvation of souls, is being given a chance in a lifetime to repent publicly as his public sins demand in order to attempt to undo some of the harm that he has done in his senatorial career ever since he changed his position from being opposed to surgical abortion on demand (although he supported contraception and thus supported chemical abortions) as late as 1971 to being one of the most vile, despicable, contemptible and thoroughly demagogic supporters of unrestricted baby-killing in the history of the United States of America:

"While the deep concern of a woman bearing an unwanted child merits consideration and sympathy, it is my personal feeling that the legalization of abortion on demand is not in accordance with the value which our civilization places on human life. Wanted or unwanted, I believe that human life, even at its earliest stages, has certain rights which must be recognized – the right to be born, the right to love, the right to grow old.

"On the question of the individual's freedom of choice there are easily available birth-control methods and information which women may employ to prevent or postpone pregnancy. But once life has begun, no matter at what stage of growth, it is my belief that termination should not be decided merely by desire. ...

"When history looks back to this era it should recognize this generation as one which cared about human beings enough to halt the practice of war, to provide a decent living for every family, and to fulfill its responsibility to its children from the very moment of conception." (Letter of Senator Edward Moore Kennedy to Mr. Tom Dennelly of Great Neck, New York, August 3, 1971, A Tale of Two Teddies: Pro-choice Kennedy was pro-life in 1971.)

 

Edward Moore Kennedy browbeat United States Circuit Judge for the District of Columbia Judge Robert Bork just forty-five minutes after then President Ronald Wilson Reagan nominated him on July 1, 1987, to succeed during his confirmation hearings in 1987 before the Senate Judiciary Committee of the United States Senate to succeed retiring Supreme Court of the United States Associate Justice Lewis Powell, with these demagogic words:

Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists could be censored at the whim of the Government, and the doors of the Federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens. (Kennedy And Bork.)

 

Each of us is a sinner. Each of us is in need of seeking out the Mercy of the Divine Redeemer from a true priest acting in persona Christi in the Sacred Tribunal of Penance. None of us is any better than any of our fellow sinners in this regard. Senator Edward Moore "Ted" Kennedy's much-publicized scandalous behavior in his private life is well known and his contrition for same must be handled under the Seal of the Confessional when a truly ordained priest hears his Confession. That is none of our business. God alone serves as his judge at the moment of his Particular Judgment, as God will judge each of us particularly at the moment of our our deaths.

Senator Kennedy, however, has committed public sins in support of one abject evil under cover of law after another for which he needs to repent not only in the confessional but publicly so as to undo at least some of the harm he has done and to provide a salutary example to other Catholics in public life who support the same evils that it is necessary for them to repent with urgency of their support for the same evils. Indeed, many Catholics in public life have used Edward Moore Kennedy, among others (Mario Matthew Cuomo, Joseph Biden, Hugh Carey, Geraldine Ferraro, et al.), as an example to imitate when claiming to make a bifurcation between their "personal" beliefs and their public policy positions.

Pope Leo XIII, writing in Immortale Dei, November 1, 1885, made it clear that there is no such bifurcation whatsoever:

Hence, lest concord be broken by rash charges, let this be understood by all, that the integrity of Catholic faith cannot be reconciled with opinions verging on naturalism or rationalism, the essence of which is utterly to do away with Christian institutions and to install in society the supremacy of man to the exclusion of God. Further, it is unlawful to follow one line of conduct in private life and another in public, respecting privately the authority of the Church, but publicly rejecting it; for this would amount to joining together good and evil, and to putting man in conflict with himself; whereas he ought always to be consistent, and never in the least point nor in any condition of life to swerve from Christian virtue.

 

Although Senator Kennedy may not realize it, he is being given a wonderful opportunity by God to get straight with Him before he dies. Part of getting straight with God in his case involves an unequivocal public recanting of his support for abortion and other evils. Whether Sean "Cardinal" O'Malley, the conciliar archbishop of Boston, will make this clear to him remains to be seen.

No one in the conciliar structures has ever told Edward Moore Kennedy that he has excommunicated himself as a result of his support for baby-killing under cover of law. No one n the conciliar structures has ever told Edward Moore Kennedy that it is impossible to say that one loves Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ while promoting under cover of law and as a "civil right" the very thing that caused Him to suffer in His Sacred Humanity during His Passion and Death and that caused His Most Blessed Mother's Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart to be thrust through and through with Seven Swords of Sorrow.

No one in the conciliar structures has told Edward Moore Kennedy that it is one thing to sin and to be sorry, seeking out the Mercy of the Divine Redeemer in the Sacred Tribunal of Penance. It is quite another to persist in sin unrepentantly, worse yet to promote it actively under cover off law and in every aspect of popular culture.

It remains the case, however, that there is every likelihood, most sadly, that Edward Moore Kennedy, who is in perfectly "good standing" in the structures of the counterfeit church of conciliarism and who received what purported to be Holy Communion in Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's Novus Ordo service at Nationals Park in Washington, District of Columbia, on Thursday, April 17, 2007 (and who distributed what purported to be the Most Precious Blood to family members at a Novus Ordo service on Saturday, July 17, 1999 at the Kennedy family compound in Hyannisport, Massachusetts), will be buried as a Catholic in "good standing" in the counterfeit church of conciliarism even if he does not repent publicly of his public sins and renounce his support for chemical and surgical baby-killing and his support for the "rights" of those engaged in unrepentant acts of perversity against the Sixth and Ninth Commandments.

We must, however, pray for Senator Kennedy and his family at this time, as many of us have been doing every day for many years. Why? Because Our Lord loves him. Our Lord died for him. Our Lord wants him in Heaven for all eternity. That is why. Our Lord Himself taught us this in the Sermon on the Mount:

But I say to you, Love your enemies: do good to them that hate you: and pray for them that persecute and calumniate you: That you may be the children of your Father who is in heaven, who maketh his sun to rise upon the good, and bad, and raineth upon the just and the unjust.

For if you love them that love you, what reward shall you have? do not even the publicans this? And if you salute your brethren only, what do you more? do not also the heathens this? Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect. (Matt. 5: 44-46.)

 

Senator Edward Moore Kennedy is being given a chance to prepare for death. We must help him to do so by means of our prayers. Each of us should be so blessed as to have the opportunity that God has chosen in His ineffable Mercy to bestow upon Senator Kennedy and his family.

This brief passage from Saint Alphonsus de Liguori's Preparation for Death will serve as a good reminder to us all that we should pray to Our Lady and Saint Joseph that we will have the opportunity that God is giving Senator Kennedy at this time to prepare for death:

Seeing that on this earth so many miscreants live in prosperity, and that so many saints live in tribulations, the very Gentiles, by the sole aid of the light of nature, have known this truth,--that, since there is a just God, there must be another life, in which the wicked are punished and the good rewarded. But what the Gentiles learned by the light of reason, we Christians know by faith. We have not here a lasting city, but we week one that is to come. This earth is not our country; it is for us a place of passage, from which we shall soon go to the home of eternity. "Man shall go into the house of his eternity." The house, then, dear reader, which you inhabit, is not your house; it is a hospital, from which you will soon, and when you least expect, be dislodged. Remember, that when the time of death has arrived, your dearest relatives will be the first to banish you from it; and what will be your true house? The house of your body will be a grave, in which it will remain till the day of judgment; but your poor soul will go to the house of eternity--either to heaven or to hell. St. Augustine tells us that you are a stranger, a traveller, a spectator. It would be foolishness in a traveller to spend all his patrimony in purchasing a villa or a house in a country through which he merely passes, and which he must leave in a few days. Reflect, says the saint, that in this world you are only on a journey; fix not your affections on what you see; look and pass on, and labor to procure a good house, in which you will have to dwell forever.

Happy you, if you save your soul! Oh! how delightful is heaven! All the princely palaces of this world are but stables compared with the city of paradise, which alone can be called the city of perfect beauty. There you will have nothing to desire; for you will be in the society of the saints, of the divine Mother, and of Jesus Christ, and will be free from all fear of evil; in a word, you will live in a sea of delights, and in unceasing joy, which will last forever. Everlasting joy shall be upon their heads. This joy shall be so great, that at every moment for all eternity it will appear new. But unhappy you, if you are lost! You will be confined in a sea of fire and of torments, in despair, abandoned by all, and without God. And for how long? Perhaps, after the lapse of a hundred thousand years, your pains will have an end? A hundred and a thousand millions of years and ages will pass by, and you hell will always be at its commencement. What are a thousand years compared with eternity? Less than a day which is gone by. A thousand years in thy sight are as yesterday, which is past. Would you wish to know the house which will be your dwelling for eternity? it will be that which you merit, and which you choose for yourself by your works.

Thou, O Lord! behold the house which I have deserved by the life which I led. Alas! it is hell, in which, from the first sin I have committed, I ought to dwell, abandoned by Thee, and without having it ever in my power to love Thee. Blessed forever be Thy mercy, which has waited for me, and which now gives me time to repair the evil I have done. O my God! I will no longer abuse Thy patience. I am sorry above all thins for having offended Thee, not so much because I have merited hell, as because I have outraged Thy infinite goodness. Never more, my God! never more will I rebel against Thee: I desire death rather than offend Thee. O my Sovereign Good! were I now in hell, I could never love Thee, nor couldst Thou love me. I love Thee, and wish to be loved by Thee; this I do not deserve, but Jesus merits it, because he has offered himself to Thee in sacrifice on the cross, that Thou mightest be able to pardon and love me. Eternal Father! give me, then, for the sake of Thy Son, the grace to love Thee, and to love Thee intensely. I love Thee, O Son of God! who didst die for me. I love thee, O Mother of Jesus! who, by thy intercession, hast obtained for me time for repentance. O Mary! obtain for me sorrow for my sins, the love of God, and holy perseverance. (Saint Alphonsus de Liguori, Preparation for Death, pp. 144-146.)

 

Important words of counsel and direction for Senator Edward Moore Kennedy and his family. Important words of counsel and direction for us all. Bar none.

How about praying one Rosary right now for the conversion of Edward Moore Kennedy back to the true Faith at the hands of a true bishop or a true priest? Our Lady wants Senator Kennedy with her for all eternity in Heaven. Miracles are indeed possible. Isn't the soul of a man who has done much public harm worth just one Rosary to us? It was worth every single drop of the Most Precious Blood of the Divine Redeemer, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Can we not spare one Rosary, just one set of five mysteries of Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary, for the conversion of a public sinner so that he can have a happy and truly sacramentally-provided-death? Just one?

So what if Edward Moore Kennedy rejects the graces that Our Lady will send him as he nears death? So what? Our prayers will not be in vain. No prayer is ever wasted. Ever. Our Lady will use the merit of whatever prayers are offered to her by those of us who are consecrated to her Divine Son through her own Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart for the greater honor and glory of the Most Blessed Trinity and for the good of some other soul (or some other souls) if the person for whom we are praying at any given moment chooses to die in a state of final impenitence. No prayer is ever wasted. None. At any time.

Let us trust in Our Lady and in her Most Chaste Spouse as we pray for a modern-day King Henry VIII to convert before he dies and to give a salutary example of humility as he does so.

Our Lady of Sorrows, pray for us.

Saint Joseph, Patron of Departing Souls, pray for us.

 

Vivat Christus Rex! Viva Cristo Rey!

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.

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

See also: A Litany of Saints