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  Feast of the Transfiguration - August 6th
Posted by: Stone - 08-06-2021, 07:20 AM - Forum: Pentecost - Replies (4)

August 6 – Transfiguration of Our Lord
Taken from The Liturgical Year by Dom Prosper Guéranger  (1841-1875)

[Image: MiZwaWQ9QXBp]

“O God, who in the glorious transfiguration of thine only-begotten Son, didst confirm the mysteries of the faith by the testimony of the fathers: and who, in the voice which came from the bright cloud, didst in a wonderful manner fore-signify our adoption as sons: mercifully vouchsafe to make us fellow-heirs of that King of glory, and the sharers of his bliss.” Such is the formula which sums up the prayer of the Church and shows us her thoughts on this day of attestation and of hope.

We must first notice that the glorious transfiguration has already been twice brought before us on the sacred cycle, viz.: on the second Sunday of Lent, and on the preceding Saturday. What does this mean, but that the object of the present solemnity is not so much the historical fact already known, as the permanent mystery attached to it; not so much the personal favor bestowed on Simon Peter and the sons of Zebedee, as the accomplishment of the great message then entrusted to them for the Church? Tell the vision to no man, till the Son of man be risen from the dead. The Church, born from the open Side of the Man-God on the Cross, was not to behold him face to face on earth; after his Resurrection, when he had sealed his alliance with her in the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, it is on faith alone that her love was to be fed. But by the testimony which takes the place of sight, her lawful desires to know him were to be satisfied. Wherefore, for her sake, giving truce, one day of his mortal life, to the ordinary law of suffering and obscurity he had taken upon him for the world’s salvation, he allowed the glory which filled his blessed soul to transpire. The King of Jews and Gentiles revealed himself upon the mountain, where his calm splendor eclipsed forevermore the lightning of Sinai: the covenant of the eternal alliance was declared, not by the promulgation of a law of servitude engraven upon stone, but by the manifestation of the Lawgiver himself, coming as Bridegroom to reign in grace and beauty over hearts. Elias and Moses, representing the prophets and the Law whereby his coming was prepared, from their different starting points, met beside him, like faithful messengers reaching their destination; they did homage to the Masters of their now finished mission, and effaced themselves before Him at the voice of the Father: This is my beloved Son! Three witnesses the most trustworthy of all assisted at this solemn scene: the disciple of faith, the disciple of love, and that other son of thunder who was to be the first to seal with his blood both the faith and the love of an Apostle. By his order they kept religiously, as beseemed them, the secret of the King, until the day when the Church could be the first to receive it from their predestined lips.

But did this precious mystery take place on the 6th of August? More than one Doctor of sacred rites affirms that it did. At any rate, it was fitting to celebrate it in the month dedicated to eternal Wisdom. It is she the brightness of eternal light, the unspotted mirror and image of God’s goodness, who, shedding grace upon the Son of man, made him on this day the most beautiful amongst all his brethren, and dictated more melodiously than ever to the inspired singer the accents of the Epithalamium: My heart hath uttered a good word: I speak my works to the king.

Seven months ago, the mystery was first announced by the gentle light of the Epiphany; but by the virtue of the mystical seven here revealed once more, the “beginnings of blessed hope” which we then celebrated as children with the Child Jesus, have grown together with him and with the Church; and the latter, established in unspeakable peace by the full growth which gives her to her Souse, calls upon all her children to grow like her by the contemplation of the Son of God, even to the measure of the perfect age of Christ. We understand then why the Liturgy of today repeats the formulas and chants of the glorious Theophany: Arise, be enlightened, O Jerusalem: for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee: it is because on the mountain together with our Lord the Bride also is glorified, having the glory of God.

While the face of Jesus shone as the sun, his garments became white as snow. Now these garments so snow-white, as St. Mark observes, that no fuller on earth could have bleached them so, are the just men, the royal ornament inseparable from the Man-God, the Church, the seamless robe woven by our sweet Queen for her Son out of the purest wool and most beautiful linen that the valiant woman could find. Although our Lord personally has now passed the torrent of suffering and entered forever into his glory, nevertheless the bright mystery of the Transfiguration will not be complete until the last of the elect, having passed through the laborious preparation at the hands of the Divine Fuller, and tasted death, has joined in the Resurrection of our adorable Head. O Face of our Savior that dost ravish the heavens, then will all glory, all beauty, all love shine forth from thee. Expressing God by the perfect resemblance of true Son by nature, thou wilt extend the good pleasure of the Father to that reflection of his Word, which constitutes the sons of adoption, and reaches in the Holy Ghost even to the lowest fringes of his garment which fills the temple below him. According to the doctrine of the Angel of the schools, the adoption of sons of God, which consists in being conformable to the image of the Son of God by nature, is wrought in a double manner: first by grace in this life, and this is imperfect conformity; and then by glory in patria, and this is perfect conformity, according to the words of St. John: We are now the sons of God; and it hath not yet appeared what we shall be. We know that when he shall appear, we shall be like to him: because we shall see him as he is. The word of eternity, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee, has had two echoes in time, at the Jordan and on Thabor; and God, who never repeats himself, did not herein make an exception to the rule of saying but once what he says. For although the terms used on the two occasions are identical, they do not tend, as St. Thomas says, to the same end, but show the different ways in which man participates in the resemblance of the eternal filiation. At the baptism of our Lord, where the mystery of the first regeneration was declared, as at the Transfiguration which manifested the second, the whole Trinity appeared: the Father in the voice, the Son in his Humanity, the Holy Ghost under the form, first of a dove, and afterwards of a bright cloud; for if in baptism this Holy Spirit confers innocence symbolized by the simplicity of the dove in the Resurrection he will give to the elect the brightness of glory and the refreshment after suffering, which are signified by the luminous cloud.

But without waiting for the day when our Savior will renew our very bodies conformable to the bright glory of his own divine Body, the mystery of the Transfiguration is wrought in our souls already here on earth. It is of the present life that St. Paul says and the Church sings today: God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, in the face of Christ Jesus. Thabor, holy and divine mountain rivalling heaven, how can we help saying with Peter: “It is good for us to dwell on thy summit!” For thy summit is love, it is charity which towers above the other virtues, as thou towerest in gracefulness, and loftiness, and fragrance over the other mountains of Galilee, which saw Jesus passing, speaking, praying, working prodigies, but did not know him in the intimacy of the perfect. It is after six days, as the Gospel observes, and therefore in the repose of the seventh which leads to the eighth of the resurrection, that Jesus reveals himself to the privileged souls who correspond to his love. The Kingdom of God is within us; when, leaving all impressions of the senses as it were asleep, we raise ourselves above the works and cares of the world by prayer, it is given us to enter with the Man-God into the cloud: there beholding the glory of the Lord with open face, as far as is compatible with our exile, we are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord. “Let us then,” cries St. Ambrose, “ascend the mountain, let us beseech the Word of God to show himself to us in his splendor, in his beauty; to grow strong and proceed prosperously, and reign in our souls. For behold a deep mystery! According to thy measure, the Word diminishes or grows within thee. If thou reach not that summit, high above all human thought, Wisdom will not appear to thee; the Word shows himself to thee as in a body without brightness and without glory.”

If the vocation revealed to thee this day be so great and so holy, “reverence the call of God,” says St. Andrew of Crete: “do not ignore thyself, despise not a gift so great, show not thyself unworthy of the grace, be not so slothful in thy life as to lose this treasure of heaven. Leave earth to the earth, and led the dead bury their dead; disdaining all that passes away, all that dies with the world and the flesh, follow even to heaven, without turning aside, Christ who leads the way through this world for thee. Take to thine assistance fear and desire, lest thou faint or lose thy love. Give thyself up wholly; be supple to the Word in the Holy Ghost, in order to attain this pure and blessed end: thy deification, together with the enjoyment of unspeakable goods. By zeal for the virtues, by contemplation of the truth, by wisdom, attain to Wisdom, who is the principle of all, and in whom all things subsist.”

The feast of the Transfiguration has been kept in the East from the earliest times. With the Greeks, it is preceded by a Vigil and followed by an Octave, and on it they abstain from servile work, from commerce, and from lawsuits. Under the graceful name of Rose-flame, rosæ coruscatio, we find it in Armenia at the beginning of the fourth century, supplanting Diana and her feast of flowers, by the remembrance of the day when the divine Rose unfolded for a moment on earth its brilliant corolla. It is preceded by a whole week of fasting, and counts among the five principal feasts of the Armenian cycle, where it gives its name to one of the eight divisions of the year. Although the Menology of this Church marks it on the sixth of August like that of the Greeks and the Roman Martyrology, it is nevertheless always celebrated there on the seventh Sunday after Pentecost; and by a coincidence full of meaning, they honor on the preceding Saturday the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord, a figure of the Church.

The origin of today’s feast in the West is not so esy to determine. But the authors who place its introduction into our countries as late as 1457, when Callixtus III promulgated by precept a new Office enriched with indulgences, overlook the fact that the Pontiff speaks of the feast as already widespread and “commonly called of the Savior.” It is true that in Rome especially the celebrity of the more ancient feast of St. Sixtus II, with its double Station at the two cemeteries which received respectively the relics of the Pontiff-Martyr and those of his companions, was for a long time an obstacle to the acceptation of another feast on the same day. Some Churches, to avoid the difficulty, chose another day in the year to honor the mystery. As the feast of our Lady of the Snow, so that of the Transfiguration had to spread more or less privately, with various Offices and Masses, until the supreme authority should intervene to sanction and bring to unity the expressions of the devotion of different Churches. Callixtus III considered that the hour had come to consecrate the work of centuries: he made the solemn and definitive insertion of this feast of triumph on the universal Calendar the memorial of the victory which arrested, under the walls of Belgrade in 1456, the onward march of Mahomet II, conqueror of Byzantium, against Christendom.

Already in the ninth century, if not even earlier, martyrologies and other liturgical documents furnish proofs that the mystery was celebrated with more or less solemnity, or at least with some sort of commemoration, in diverse places. In the twelfth century, Peter the Venerable, under whose government Cluny took possession of Thabor, ordained that “in all the monasteries or churches belonging to his Order, the Transfiguration should be celebrated with the same degree of solemnity as the Purification of our Lady;” and he gave for his reason, besides the dignity of the mystery, the “custom, ancient or recent, of many Churches throughout the world, which celebrate the memory of the said Transfiguration with no less honor than the Epiphany and the Ascension of our Lord.”

On the other hand at Bologna, in 1233, in the juridical instruction preliminary to the canonization of St. Dominic, the death of the Saint is declared to have taken place on the feast of St. Sixtus, without mention of any other. It is true, and we believe this detail is not void of meaning, that a few years earlier, Sicardus of Cremona thus expressed himself in his Mitrale: “We celebrate the Transfiguration of our lord on the day of St. Sixtus.” Is not this sufficient indication that while the feast of the latter continued to give its traditional name to the eighth of the Ides of August, it did not prevent a new and greater solemnity from taking its place beside it, preparatory to absorbing it altogether? For he adds, “Therefore on this same day, as the Transfiguration refers to the state in which the faithful will be after the resurrection, we consecrate the Blood of our Lord from new wine, if it is possible to obtain it, in order to signify what is said in the Gospel: I will not drink from henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I shall drink it with you new in the kingdom of my Father. But if it cannot be procured, then at least a few ripe grapes are pressed over the chalice, or else grapes are blessed and distributed to the people.”

[Image: the-transfiguration-giovanni-battista-moroni.jpg]

The author of the Mitrale died in 1215; yet he was only repeating the explanation already given in the second half of the preceding century by John Beleth, Rector of the Paris University. We must admit that the very ancient benedictio uvæ found in the Sacramentaries on the day of St. Sixtus has nothing corresponding to it in the life of the great Pope which could justify our referring it to him. The Greeks, who have also this blessing of grapes fixed for the 6th of August, celebrate on this day the Transfiguration alone, without any commemoration of Sixtus II. Be it as it may, the words of the Bishop of Cremona and of the Rector of Paris prove that Durandus of Mende, giving at the end of the thirteenth century the same symbolical interpretation, did but echo a tradition more ancient than his own time.

St. Pius V did not alter the ancient Office of the feast, except the Lessons of the first and second Nocturns, which were taken from Origen, and the three Hymns for Vespers, Matins, and Lauds, which resembled somewhat in structure the corresponding Hymns of the Blessed Sacrament. The Hymn now used for Vespers and Matins, which we here give, is borrowed from the beautiful Canticle of Prudentius on the Epiphany in his Cathemerinon:


Hymn

Quicumque Christum quæritis
Oculos in altum tollite:
Illic licebit visere
Signum perennis gloriæ.


All ye who seek Christ, life up your eyes to heaven; there ye may behold the token of his eternal glory.


Ullustre auiddam cernimus,
Quod nesciat finem pati,
Sumblime, celsum, interminum,
Antiquius cœlo et chao.


A certain brilliance we perceive that knows no ending, sublime, noble, interminable, older than heaven and chaos.


Hic ille Rex est Gentium,
Populique Rex Judaici
Promissus Abrahæ patri,
Ejusque in ævum semini.


This is the King of the Gentiles, and King of the Jewish people, who was promised to Abraham our father, and to his seed for ever.


Hunc et prophetis testibus
Iisdemque signatoribus
Testator et Pater jubet
Audire nos et credere.


The prophets testify to him, and the Father, who testifies with them for his own witnesses, bids us hear and believe him.


Jesu, tibi sit gloria,
Qui te revelas parvulis
Cum Patre et almo Spiritu
In sempiterna sæcula. Amen.


O Jesus, glory be to thee who revealest thyself to little ones, with the Father and with the Holy Spirit, through everlasting ages. Amen.



[Image: ?u=https%3A%2F%2Fi0.wp.com%2Fillustrated...f=1&nofb=1]

Adam of St. Victor has also sung of this glorious mystery:

Sequence

Lætabundi jubilemus
Ac devote celebremus Hæ sacra solemnia;
Ad honorem summi Dei
Hujus laudes nunc diei
Personet Ecclesia.


Come, let us sing with joy, and devoutly celebrate these sacred solemnities; let the Church resound with the praises of this day to the honor of the Most High God.


In hac Christus die festa
Suæ dedit manifesta Gloriæ indicia;
Ut hoc possit enarrari
Hic nos suos salutari Repleat et gratia!


For on this festal day did Christ give manifest signs of his great glory; that we may recount the same, may he give us his aid and fill us with his grace.


Christus ergo, Deus fortis,
Vitæ dator, victor mortis, Versus sol justitiæ,
Quam assumpsit carnem de Virgine,
Transformatus in Thabor colmine,
Glorificat hodie.


Christ, then, the mighty God, the giver of life, and conqueror of death, the true Sun of justice, today transfigured on Thabor’s height, did glorify the flesh he had taken of the Virgin.


O quam felix sors bonorum!
Talis enim beatorum Erit resurrectio.
Sicut fulget sol pleni luminis,
Fulsit Dei vultus et hominis,
Teste Evangelio.


O how happy the lot of the good! For such will be the resurrection of the blessed. As shines the sun in fulness of his light, so shone the countenance of God and Man, as the Gospel testifieth.


Candor quoque sacræ vestis
Deitatis fuit testis Et futuræ gloriæ.
Mira, Deus, tuæ nimis Virtus est potentiæ.


The brightness, too, of his sacred robe gave testimony of his Godhead and of the glory to come. Wondrous the honor and sublime: wondrous exceedingly, O God, is the power of thine almightiness.


Cumque Christus, virtus Dei,
Petro, natis Zebedæi Majestatis gloriam
Demonstraret manifeste,
Ecce vident, Lucca teste, Moysem et Eliam.


And when Christ, the power of God, to Peter and the sons of Zebedee did clearly show the glory of his majesty, lo! they beheld, as Luke doth testify, Moses and Elias.


Hoc hamemus ex Matthæo,
Quod loquentes erant Deo Dei Patris Filio: Vere sanctum, vere dignum
Loqui Deo et benignum, Plenum omni gaudio.


This we learn of Matthew, that they were seen speaking with God, the Son of God the Father. Oh! how noble and how holy, how good and full of all joy, to speak to God!


Huhus magna laus diei,
Quæ sacratur voce Dei, Honor est eximius;
Nubes illos obumbravit,
Et vox Patris proclamavit: Hic est meus Filius.


Great is the glory of this day, consecrated by the voice of God, and exceeding is its honor; a cloud did overshadow them, and the Father’s voice proclaimed: “This is my Son.”


Hujus vocem exaudite:
Habet enim verba vitæ, Verbo potens omnia.
Hic est Christus, rex cunctorum,
Mundi salus, lux Sanctorum,
Lux illustrans omnia.


Hear ye his voice: for the words of life hath he, who can do all things by his word. This is Christ, the King of all, the world’s salvation and the light of Saints, the light enlightening all things.


Hic est Christus, Patris Verbum,
Per quem perdit jus acerbum
Quod in nobis habuit
Hostis nequam, serpens dirus,
Qui, fudendo suum virus Evæ, nobis nocuit.


This is Christ, the Father’s Word, by whom he destroys the bitter law set in us by the wicked enemy, the cruel serpent, who, pouring out his poison upon Eve, did work our ruin.


Moriendo nos sanavit
Qui surgendo reparavit
Vitam Christus et damnavit Mortis magisterium.
Hic est Christus, Pax æterna,
Ima regens et superna,
Cui de cœlis vox paterna Confert testimonium.


Christ by dying healed us, who by rising restored our life and condemned the tyranny of death. This is Christ, the eternal peace, ruling both depths and height; to whom from heaven the Father’s voice bore testimony.


Cujus sono sunt turbati
Patres illi tres præfati
Et in terram sunt prostrati Quando vox emittitur.
Surgunt tandem, annuente
Sibi Christo, sed intente
Circumspectant, cum repente
Solus Jesus cernitur.


At his voice those three aforesaid fathers were afraid, and prostrated on the earth when the word was uttered. At length they rise, Christ bidding them; they gaze around intently, but at once see none but Jesus.


Volens Christus hæc celari
Non permisit enarrari,
Donec, vitæ reparator,
Hostis vitæ triumphator, Morte victa, surgeret.
Hæc est dies laude digna
Qua tot sancta fiunt signa;
Christus, splendor Dei Patris
Prece sancta suæ matris Nos a morte liberet.


Wishing these things to be concealed, Christ suffers them not to be uttered, until the restorer of life and conqueror of life’s enemy should rise triumphant over death. This is the day so worthy of praise, whereon are wrought so many holy signs; may Christ, the splendor of God the Father, by the prayer of his holy Mother, deliver us from death.


Tibi, Pater, tibi, Nate, Tibi, Sancte Spiritus,
Sit cum summa potestate
Laus et honor debitus! Amen.


To thee, O Father, thee, O Son, and thee, O Holy Ghost, be, together with highest power, the praise and honor due! Amen.




The Menæa of the Greeks offers us these stanzas from St. John Damascene:

Mensis Augusti Die VI
In Matutino.

Qui manibus invisibilibus formasti secundum imaginem tuam, Christe, hominem, archetypam tuam in figmento pulchristudinem ostendisti non ut in imagine, sed ut hoc ipse existens per substantiam, Deus simul et homo.

O Christ, who with invisible hands didst form man to thine own image, thou hast shown thine original beauty in the human frame, not as in an image, but as being this thyself, both God and Man.


Quam magnum et terribile visum est spectaculum hodie! e c&oelo sensibilis, e terra vero incomparabilis effulsit sol justitiæ, intelligibilis, in monte Thabor.

How grand and awful was the spectacle beheld this day! from heaven the visible sun, but from earth the incomparable spiritual Sun of justice shone upon Mount Thabor.


Regnantium es Rex pulcherrimus, et ubique dominantium Dominus, princeps beatus, et lumen habitans inaccessibile, cui discipuli stupefacti clamabant: Pueri, benedicite; sacerdotes, concinite; populus, superexaltate per omnia sæcula.

Thou art the King of kings most beautiful, and Lord of all lord, O blessed Prince, dwelling in inaccessible light; to thee the disciples, beside themselves, cried out: Ye children, bless him; ye priests, sing to him; ye people, exalt him above all for ever.


Tamquem cœlo dominanti, et terræ regnanti, et subterraneorum dominium habenti, Christe, tibi adstiterunt: e terra quidem apostoli: tamquam e cœlo autem, Thesbites Elias; Moyses vero ex mortuis, canentes incessanter: Pueri, benedicite; sacerdotes, concinite; populus, superexaltate per omnia sæcula.

As before the Lord of heaven and King of earth and Ruler of the regions under the earth, before thee, O Christ, there stood the Apostles as from the earth, Elias the Thesbite as from heaven, Moses as from the dead; and they sang unceasingly: Ye children, bless him; ye priests, sing to him; ye people, exalt him above all for ever.


Segnitiem parientes curæ in terra derelictæ sunt, apostolorum delectu, o humane, ut te secuti sunt ad sublimem e terra divinam politiam, unde et jure divinæ tuæ manifestationis participes effecti, canebant: Pueri, benedicite; sacerdotes, concinite; populus, superexaltate per omnia sæcula.

Leaving to the earth its wearying cares, the chosen Apostles having followed thee, O loving one, to the divine city far above the earth, are justly admitted to behold thy divine manifestation, singing: Ye children, bless him; ye priests, sing to him; ye people, exalt him above all for ever.


Agite mihi, parete mihi, populi ascendentes in montem sanctum, cœlestem: abjecta materia stemus in civitate viventis Dei, et inspiciamus mente divinitatem materiæ expertem Patris et Spiritus, in Filio unigenito effulgentem.

Come to me, attend to me, ye people, ascending the holy, heavenly mountain; casting away material things, let us stand in the city of the living God, and mentally behold the immaterial divinity of the Father and the Spirit, shining forth in the only-begotten Son.


Demulsisti desiderio me, Christe, et alterasti divino tuo amore, sed combure igne a materia remoto peccata mea, et impleri eis quæ in te deliciis dignum fac, ut duos saltando magnificem, o bone, adventus tuos.

Thou, O Christ, has won me with desire, and inebriated me with thy divine love; but burn away my sins with immaterial fire, and make me worthy to be satiated with the delights that are in thee; that exulting I may sing thy two comings, O thou who art so good.


[Image: ?u=https%3A%2F%2Fi.pinimg.com%2Foriginal...f=1&nofb=1]

It will be well to borrow also from the Church of Armenia, which celebrates this feast with so much solemnity:

In Transfiguratione Domini

Qui transfiguratus in monte vim divinam osterdisti, te glorificamus, intelligibile Lumen.
O Light intelligible, who, transfigured on the mountain, didst show thy divine power, we glorify thee.

Ast ipsum deitatis ineffabile Lumen propriis visceribus provide portasti, Maria Mater Virgoque: te glorificamus et benedicimus.
But this ineffable Light of the Godhead thou didst happily bear in thy womb, O Mary, Mother and Virgin: we glorify and bless thee.

Lumine abbreviato chorus Apostolorum terretur; ast in te plenius habuisti ignem divinitatis, Maria Mater Virgoque: te glorificamus et benedicimus.
The choir of the Apostles trembled before the diminished Light; but in thee dwelt fully the fire of the divinity, O Mary, Mother and Virgin: we glorify and bless thee.

Apostolis nubes lucida tenditur desuper; ast in te Spiritus Sanctus, virtus Altissimi, diffunditor obumbrans, sancta Dei Mater: te glorificamus et benedicimus.
A bright cloud was spread over the Apostles; but upon thee was poured the Holy Spirit, the Power of the Most High, overshadowing thee, O holy Mother of God: we glorify and bless thee.

Christe, Deus noster, da ut cum Petro et filiis Zebedæi tua divina visione digni habeamur.
O Christ our God, grant that with Peter and the sons of Zebedee, we may be deemed worthy of thy divine vision.

Ultra montem terrenum aufer nos ad intelligibile tabernaculum cœlo celsius.
Lift us above the earthly mountain to the spiritual tabernacle higher than the heavens.

Excultant hodie montes Dei Creatori obviam procedentes, Apostolorum agmina et Prophetarum montibus æternis sociata.
Today the mountains of God exult, going to meet the Creator, the troops of Apostles and Prophets associated to the divine mountains.

Hodie sponsa Regis immortalis, Sion excelsa lætatur, adspiciens, cœlestem Sponsum lumine decorum in gloria Patris.
Today the bride of the immortal King, the lofty Sion rejoices, beholding her heavenly Spouse adorned with light in the glory of the Father.

Hodie virga de radice Jesse floruit in monte Thabor. Today the rod of the root of Jesse blossomed on Mount Thabor.
Hodie immortalitatis odore manat, inebrians discipulos.

Today it breathes forth the perfume of immortality, inebriating the disciples.
Te benedicimus, consubstantialem Patri, qui venisti salvare mundum. We bless thee, O Consubstantial Son of the Father, who didst come to save the world.


Let us conclude by addressing to God this prayer of the Ambrosian Missal:

Oratio Super Sindonem

Illumina, quæsumus Domine, populum tuum, et splendore gratiæ tuæ cor eorum semper accende: ut Salvatoris mundi, æterni luminis gloria famulante, manifestata, celebritas mentibus nostris reveletur semper, et crescat. Per eumdem Dominum.
Enlighten, we beseech thee, O Lord, thy people, and ever kindle their hearts by the brightness of thy grace: that through the glory of the Savior of the world, the Eternal Light, the mystery here manifested may be ever more and more revealed, and may grow in our souls. Through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

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  'Proof of vaccination requirement': Yelp adding businesses' COVID-19 guidelines to listings
Posted by: Stone - 08-05-2021, 02:35 PM - Forum: Pandemic 2020 [Secular] - No Replies

Of course, this works both ways: some could use this to determine which businesses NOT to patronize...



'Proof of vaccination requirement': Yelp adding businesses' COVID-19 guidelines to listings

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Yahoo News [adapted] | August 5, 2021

Yelp is adding details to listings, so users can see what COVID-19 guidelines businesses have implemented.

Starting Thursday, Yelp users can filter businesses based on two new attributes: "Proof of vaccination required" and "All staff fully vaccinated," the app announced.

Yelp plans to proactively monitor the pages of businesses that add these attributes to prevent any potential backlash.

"Yelp’s Content Guidelines require that all reviews be based on a first-hand consumer experience," Noorie Malik, Yelp's vice president of operations, said in a blog post Thursday. "However, in recent weeks, we’ve seen a rise in reviews focused on people’s stance on COVID vaccinations rather than their actual experience with the business."

Yelp said that whenever a business experiences unusual activity on its listing such as "review bombing," a coordinated effort to post negative reviews to drive down its rating, Yelp will temporarily disable posting and place an alert until activity slows.

Yelp businesses can detail amenities such as mask requirements and whether all staffers wear masks.

As the delta variant of the coronavirus spreads, governments and businesses have pushed for stricter vaccination requirements. Companies including Facebook and United Airlines will require their employees to get vaccinated before they return to the office.

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  Prayer Request on behalf the Tannersville, PA Coordinator
Posted by: Stone - 08-05-2021, 02:19 PM - Forum: Appeals for Prayer - Replies (1)

Please pray for the critically ill family member of the Tannersville, Pennsylvania coordinators. May God bless you for your charity.




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Our Lady, Health of the Sick, pray for us.

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  Please pray for the seriously ill Fr. Chazal
Posted by: Stone - 08-05-2021, 11:27 AM - Forum: Appeals for Prayer - Replies (1)

Taken from here [slightly adapted]: 

PRAYERS FOR THE SERIOUSLY SICK FATHER CHAZAL
Father Chazal, superior of the Company of Mary St Pius X, has just published the following message:

Dear faithful,

As I told you, what we could expect, in the long term, from Covid vaccines, was the formation of more severe and dangerous pathogens.

What I didn't expect was that one of them would catch me. I now have severe pneumonia, my lungs are more and more damaged, but if I don't move, and with the help of our good doctor here, their condition is stable.

My last resort is ivermectin, one of the effective drugs sidelined by criminal governments today. My uncle, Father Aulagnier, recently died because he was denied this prescription. I don't want to follow the same path. Pray that it is not too late for the ivermectin to attack the virus.

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I'm not saying goodbye to you yet, but God's holy will be done anyway.

Francois Chazal +

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  August 5th - St. Oswald, King and Martyr
Posted by: Stone - 08-05-2021, 10:40 AM - Forum: August - No Replies

ST. OSWALD, KING AND MARTYR

THE English Saxon kingdom of the Northumbers was founded by Ida in 547. After his death the northern part called Bernicia was preserved by his children; but Deira, that is, the southern part, comprising Yorkshire and Lancashire, was occupied by Ælla or Alla, and after his death was recovered by Ethelfrid, grandson of Ida, who ruled the whole kingdom of the Northumbers twenty-four years. He being slain in battle by Redwald, king of the East-Angles, in 617, his sons Eanfrid, Oswald, and Oswi took refuge among the Scots, where they were instructed in the Christian faith, and received the sacrament of regeneration. In the mean time, Edwin, the son of Alla, reigned seventeen years over both kingdoms; but in 633 was killed fighting against the united forces of Penda the Mercian, and Cadwalla king of the Britons or Welsh, a Christian by profession, but a stranger to the maxims of his religion; in his manners a barbarian, and an implacable enemy to the English Saxons. Upon this revolution the three sons of Ethelfrid returned from Scotland; and Eanfrid, the eldest, obtained the kingdom of the Deira, whilst Osric, cousin-german to Edwin, was chosen king of Bernicia. Both these princes loved the glory of men more than God, and apostatized from the faith which they had embraced; but were both slain the same year by Cadwalla; Osric in battle, and the other soon after by treachery. Hereupon Oswald was called to the crown, both of Deira and Bernicia, he being the son of Ethelfrid, and nephew of Edwin, whose sister Acca was his mother. This prince had embraced the faith with his whole heart, and far from forsaking Christ, as his unhappy brothers had done, to court the favor of his subjects, he had no other view than to bring them to the spiritual kingdom of divine grace, and to labor with them to secure a crown of eternal glory.

At that time Cadwalla ravaged all the Northumbrian provinces, not as a conqueror, but as a cruel tyrant, laying everything waste with fire and sword, at the head of a vast army, which he boasted nothing could resist. Oswald assembled what troops he was able, and being fortified by faith in Christ, marched confidently, though with a small force, against this mighty enemy, who had by that time proceeded as far as the Picts’ wall. Oswald gave him battle at a place called by Bede Denis-burn,* that is, the brook Denis, adjoining to the Picts’ wall on the north side. Being come near the enemy’s camp, the evening before the engagement, the pious king caused a great wooden cross to be made in haste, and he held it up himself with both his hands whilst the hole dug in the earth to plant it in was filled up round the foot. When it was fixed, St. Oswald cried out to his army, “Let us now kneel down, and jointly pray to the Omnipotent, and only true God, that he would mercifully defend us from our proud enemy; for he knows that we fight in a just war in defence of our lives and country.” All the soldiers did as he commanded them.1 The place where this cross was set up was called in the English tongue Hevenfelth, that is, Heaven’s field, by a happy omen, says Bede, because there was to be erected the first heavenly trophy of faith; for, before that time, no church or altar was known to have been raised in the whole kingdom of the Bernicians. 

This cross of St. Oswald remained afterward very famous. Bede tells us, that to his time, many cut little chips of it, which they steeped in water, which being drank by sick persons, or sprinkled upon them, many recovered their health. He adds, that after the death of king Oswald, the monks of Hexham used to come to the place on the day before the anniversary of his death, there to watch the night in prayer, reciting the office with many psalms for his soul,† and the next morning to offer the victim of the holy oblation. A church was built on the spot some time before Bede wrote, who mentions that one of the monks of Hexham, named Bothelm, then living, having broken his arm by falling on the ice as he was walking in the night, and having suffered a long time much anguish from the hurt, was perfectly cured in one night by applying a little of the moss which was taken off from this cross, and brought him. The learned Alcuin, in his poem on the bishops and saints of York, published by Mr. Thomas Gale, at Oxford,2 relates how the pious king, no ways daunted at the multitude and ferocity of his enemies, encouraged his soldiers to a confidence in Christ, and exhorted them to implore his protection prostrate with him on their faces before the cross which he had set up.* This author likewise adds an account of several miracles wrought down to his time in 780, at the relics of St. Oswald, and at this cross; or by chips cut from it infused in water, by drinking which, many sick were cured, even in Ireland, and other distant countries. So great was the veneration of the people for this cross, that the abbey of Durham used for its seal, during several ages, this cross on one side, and on the reverse the figure of St. Oswald’s head, as Mr. Smith exhibits it from several ancient records. Almighty God was pleased to bless the king’s faith and devotion by granting him and his small army a complete victory over Cadwalla, who was killed in the battle, and his forces, with those of his allies, entirely routed.

St. Oswald, after giving thanks to God, immediately set himself to restore good order throughout his dominions, and to plant in them the faith of Christ. By his ambassadors he entreated the king and bishops in Scotland to send him a bishop and assistants, by whose preaching the people whom he governed might be grounded in the Christian religion, and receive baptism. Aidan,† a native of Ireland, and a monk of the celebrated monastery of Hij, was chosen for the great and arduous undertaking; and by his mildness soon repaired the mischief done by another monk sent thither before him, whose harshness had alienated many from the sweet law of the gospel. The king bestowed on Aidan the isle of Lindisfarne for his episcopal seat; and was so edified with his learning and zeal, that this great prince, before the bishop could sufficiently speak the English language, would be himself his interpreter, and explain his sermons and instructions to the people.

Oswald filled his dominions with churches and monasteries, and whilst he was governing his temporal kingdom, was intent only to labor and pray for an eternal crown. He very often continued in prayer from the time of matins (at midnight, to which he rose with the monks) till day-light; and by reason of his frequent custom of praying or giving thanks to our Lord at all times, it is said that wherever he was sitting he would have his hands on his knees turned upwards toward heaven. Bede says that he reigned over Britons, Picts, Scots, and English. The kingdom of Northumberland was then extended as far as the Frith of Edinburgh; but by this expression of Bede some other provinces of the Picts, and others in Wales must have paid homage to him. Penda, the Mercian, being one of the allies of Cadwalla, and, according to Malmesbury, present at his defeat, Mercia also paid him a kind of submission; and so great was his power, that all the other kings of the Heptarchy acknowledged a certain dependence; whence Adamnan, abbot of Hij, in the life of St. Columba, styles him emperor of Britain.

Wonderful was the humility, affability, and charity of this great king amidst his prosperity; of which Bede gives us the following instance. One Easter-day, whilst he was sitting down to dinner, an officer, whose business it was to take care of the poor, came in, and told him there was a great multitude of poor people at his gate desiring alms. Whereupon the king sent them a large silver dish full of meat from his own table, and ordered the dish to be broken into small pieces, and distributed among them. Upon this, St. Adian, who happened to be at table, taking him by the right hand, said, “Let this hand never corrupt.” Bede adds, that this arm being cut off from his body after he was slain, remained uncorrupt till his time, and was then kept, being honored by all with due veneration, in the church of St. Peter, at the royal castle of Bebbaborough (so called from Bebba, a former queen), now Bamborough in Northumberland. Simon of Durham, and Ingulphus, testify that his arm was afterward kept at Peterborough.

When St. Oswald had reigned eight years in great prosperity, Penda, the barbarous pagan king of Mercia, who nine years before had slain the pious king Edwin, uncle to St. Oswald by his mother, but had been vanquished by our saint in the beginning of his reign, found means again to raise a great army, and invade the Christian dominions of our holy king. St. Oswald met him with an inferior force, and was killed in the battle that was fought between them. When he saw himself surrounded with the arms of his enemies, he offered his prayer for the souls of his soldiers. Whence it became a proverb; “O God be merciful to their souls, said Oswald when he fell.” He was slain in the thirty-eighth year of his age, of our Lord 642, on the 5th of August, in a place called Maserfield. This seems to have been at Winwick in Lancashire, where is a well still called St. Oswald’s, which was formerly visited out of devotion; and that this territory was called Maserfelte, appears from an old inscription in Winwick church. Nevertheless, Oswaldtry, that is, Oswald’s cross, a market town, seven miles from Shrewsbury, is supposed by some to have also been formerly called Maserfelth; and Capgrave, Camden, and others, think this the place where St. Oswald was slain; for, he might before this, say they, when he defeated Penda, have added that part of Shropshire to his kingdom. The famous church of St. Oswald there stands without the New gate. Leland, in his Itinerary, says it was once a monastery; this must have been in the Saxon times; but soon after the Norman conquest this church of Oswaldtry or Oswald’s cross, was a parish when it was given to the monastery of Shrewsbury, to which it afterward belonged, and was impropriate. See Tanner, in his monastic history; who says, the town called Album monasterium, or White-minster, was not Oswaldtry, but Whit-church, which was once a monastery. 

The church of Oswaldtry was probably so called from St. Oswald’s cross, of which it was probably possessed; but Winwick in Masserfelth in Lancashire more justly claims the honor of his martyrdom.* The inhuman tyrant caused the saint’s head and arms to be struck off, and fixed on poles; but St. Oswald’s brother and successor Oswi took them away the year following, and carried the arms to his own royal palace, and sent the head to Lindisfarne. The head was afterward put in the same shrine with the body of St. Cuthbert, and with it translated to Durham, as Malmesbury and others assure us. The rest of St. Oswald’s body was translated by his niece Osfrida, wife of Etheldred, king of Mercia, to the monastery of Bardney in Lincolnshire. During the Danish irruptions these relics were removed, by the care of Edilred, king of the Mercians, to Gloucester, where Elfleda, countess of Mercia, and daughter to king Alfred, built the church of St. Peter. The monument erected to St. Oswald there is still to be seen in a chapel of this cathedral, between two pillars; but part of the relics were translated to the abbey of St. Winoc’s Berg in Flanders, in 1221, and deposited there with great solemnity by Adam, bishop of Terouanne.* The barbarous king Penda, after he had slain five pious kings, Edwin, Oswald, Sigebert, Egric, and Annas, turned his arms against Oswi, who tried in vain to soften him by presents and the most favorable proposals. Seeing himself rejected by man, he turned his gifts into prayers, and bound himself by vow, in case he should be victorious, to consecrate to God his daughter Enfleda, then only one year old, and give with her twelve portions of laud (each of which was sufficient to maintain ten families) to build and endow monasteries. God heard his vow: and Oswi, with an inferior army, defeated and slew the tyrant near Loyden, now Leeds, in Yorkshire, in 655. The place of this battle was called Winwidfield, or Field of Victory; situated on the river Winuaed, now Aire. With Penda, who was then eighty years old, of which he had reigned thirty, fell thirty commanders of royal blood. See the Saxon Chronicle, ad an. 655. Bede, Hist. Angl., 1. 3, c. 1, 2, 3; 6, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13; and Alcuin, Poem. de Pontificibus et Sanctis Eborac., published by Gale, t. 2.

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  Feast of Our Lady of the Snow - August 5th
Posted by: Stone - 08-05-2021, 09:54 AM - Forum: Our Lady - Replies (2)

August 5 – Our Lady of the Snow
Taken from The Liturgical Year by Dom Prosper Guéranger  (1841-1875)

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Rome, delivered from slavery by Peter on the first of this month, offers to the world a wonderful spectacle. O Wisdom, who since the glorious Pentecost, hast spread over the whole world, where could it be more true to sing of thee that thou hast trodden the proud heights under thy victorious feet? On seven hills had pagan Rome set up her pageantry and built temples to her false gods; seven churches now appear at the summits on which purified Rome rests her now truly eternal foundations.

By their very site, the basilicas of St. Peter and St. Paul, of St. Laurence and St. Sebastian, placed at the four outer angles of the city of the Cæsars, recall the long siege continued for three centuries around the ancient Rome, while the new Rome was being founded. Helena and her son Constantine, recommencing the work of the foundations of the holy City, carried the trenches further out; nevertheless, the churches which were their own peculiar work, viz., Holy Cross in Jerusalem, and St. Savior’s on the Lateran, are still at the very entrance of the pagan stronghold, close to the gates, and leaning against the ramparts; just as a soldier, setting foot within a tremendous fortress which has been long invested, advances cautiously, surveying both the breach through which he has just passed, and the labyrinth of unknown paths opening before him.

Who will plant the standard of Sion in the center of Babylon? Who will force the enemy into his last retreat and, casting out the vain idols, set up his palace in their temples? O thou to whom was said this word of the Most High: “Thou art my son, I will thee the Gentiles for thy inheritance,” thou mighty One, with thy sharp arrows routing armies, listen to the cry re-echoing from the whole redeemed world: “With thy comeliness and thy beauty set out, proceed prosperously and reign!” But the Son of the Most High has a Mother on earth; the song of the Psalmist inviting him to the triumph extols also the Queen standing at his right hand in a vesture of gold; if it is from his Father that he holds his power, it is from his Mother that he receives his crown, and he leaves her in return the spoils of the mighty. Go forth then, ye daughters of the new Sion, and behold King Solomon in the diadem wherewith his Mother crowned him on the joyful day when, taking possession through her of the capital of the world, he espoused the Gentile race.

Truly that was a day of joy, when Mary, in the name of Jesus, claimed her right as sovereign and heiress of the Roman soil! To the East, at the highest point of the eternal City, she appeared on that blessed morning literally like the rising dawn; beautiful as the moon shining by night; more powerful than the August sun, surprised to see her tempering his heat, and doubling the brightness of his light with her mantle of snow; more terrible than an army; for from that date, daring what neither Apostles nor Martyrs had attempted, and what Jesus himself would not do without her, she dispossessed the deities of Olympus of their usurped thrones. As was fitting, the haughty Juno whose altar disgraced the Esquiline, the false queen of these lying gods, was the first to flee before Mary’s face, leaving the splendid columns of her polluted sanctuary to the only true Queen of earth and heaven.

Forty years had passed since the days of St. Sylvester, when the “image of our Savior, depicted on the walls of the Lateran, appeared for the first time to the Roman people.” Rome, still half pagan, beheld today the Mother of our Savior; under the influence of the pure symbol at which she gazed in surprise, she felt die down within her the evil ardor which made her once the scourge of nations, whereas now she was to become their mother; and in the joy of her renewed youth she beheld her once-sullied hills covered with the white garment of the Bride.

Even from the times of the Apostolic preaching, the elect, who gathered in large numbers in Rome in spite of herself, knew Mary and paid to her in those days of martyrdom a homage such as no other creature could ever receive; witness in the catacombs those primitive frescoes of our Lady, either alone or holding her divine Child, but always seated, receiving from her place of honor the praise, messages, prayers or gifts of prophets, Archangels, and kings. In the Trastevere, where in the reign of Augustus a mysterious fountain of oil had sprung up, announcing the coming of the Anointed of the Lord, Callixtus in 222 had built a church in honor of her who is ever the true fons olei, the source whence sprang Christ, and together with him all unction and all grace. The basilica raised by Liberious, the beloved of our Lady, on the Esquiline, was not then the most ancient monument dedicated by the Christians of Rome to the Mother of God; but it at once took, and has always kept, the first place among our Lady’s churches in the City, and indeed in the world, on account of the solmen and miraculous circumstances of its origin.

Hast thou entered, said the Lord to Job, into the storehouses of the snow, or has thou beheld the treasures of the hail; which I have prepared for the time of the enemy, against the day of battle and war? On the 5th of August, then, at God’s command the treasures were opened, and the snow was scattered like birds lighting upon the earth, and its coming was the signal for the lightnings of his judgments upon the gods of the nations. The Tower of David now dominates over all the towers of the earthly city; from her impregnable position our Lady will never cease her victorious sallies till she has taken the last hostile fort. How beautiful will thy steps be in these warlike expeditions, O daughter of the prince, O Queen, whose standard, by the will of thine adorable Son, must wave over the whole world rescued from the power of the cursed serpent. The ignominious goddess, overthrown from her impure pedestal by one glance of thine, left Rome still dishonored by the presence of many vain idols. But thou, all-conquering Lady, didst continue thy triumphal march. The Church of St. Mary in Ara cœli replaced on the Capitol the odious temple of Jupiter; the sanctuaries and groves dedicated to Vesta, Minerva, Ceres, and Proserpine hastened to take the title of one who had been shown in their fabulous history under disfigured and degraded forms. The deserted Pantheon awaited the day when it was to receive the noble and magnificent name of St. Mary ad Martyres.
What a preparation for thy glorious Assumption is the series of earthly triumphs which this day inaugurates! The basilica of St. Mary of the Snow, called also of Liberius, from its founder, and also of Sixtus, after Sixtus III, who restored it, owed to this last the honor of becoming the monument of the divine Maternity proclaimed at Ephesus; the name of St. Mary Mother, which it received on that occasion, became under Theodore I, who enriched it with the most precious relic, St. Mary of the crib: all these noble titles were afterwards gathered into that of St. Mary Major, which is amply justified by the facts we have related, by universal devotion, and by the pre-eminence always assigned to it by the Sovereign Pontiffs. Thou the last in order of time of the seven churches upon which Christian Rome is founded, it nevertheless ranked in the Middle Ages next to that of St. Savior; in the procession of the greater Litanies on April 25th the ancient Roman Ordo assigned to the Cross of St. Mary’s its place between that of St. Peter’s, below it, and that of the Lateran, which followed it. The important and numerous liturgical Stations appointed at the Basilica on the Esquiline testify to the devotion of the Romans and of all Catholics towards it. It was honored by having councils celebrated and Vicars of Christ elected within its walls; the Pontiffs for a time made it their residence, and were accustomed on the Ember Wednesdays, when the Station is always held there, to publish there the names of the Cardinal Deacons or Cardinal Priests whom they had resolved to create.

As to the annual solemnity of its dedication, which is the object of the present feast, there can be no doubt that it was celebrated on the Esquiline at a very early date. It was, however, not yet kept by the whole Church in the thirteenth century; for Gregory IX, in the bull of canonization of St. Dominic, whose death occurred on the 6th of August, anticipated his feast on the 5th of the month, as being at that time vacant, whereas the 6th was already occupied, as we shall see tomorrow by another solemnity. It was Paul IV who in 1558 definitively fixed the feast of the holy founder on the 4th of August; and the reason he gives is that the feast of St. Mary of the Snow, having since been made universal and taking precedence of the other, the honor due to the holy patriarch might be put in the shade if his feast continued to be kept on the same day. The breviary of St. Pius V soon after promulgated to the entire world the Office, of which the following is the legend:

Quote:Under the Pontificate of Liberius, John, a Roman patrician, and his wife, who was of an equally noble race, having no children to whom they might leave their estates, vowed their whole fortune to the Blessed Virgin Mother of God, begging her most earnestly and continually to make known to them by some means in what pious work she wished them to employ the money. The Blessed Virgin Mary graciously heard their heartfelt prayers and vows, and answered them by a miracle.

On the Nones of August, usually the hottest time of the year in Rome, a part of the Esquiline hill was covered with snow during the night. That same night the Mother of God appeared in a dream to John and his wife separately, and told them to build a church on the spot they should find covered with snow, and to dedicate it to the Virgin Mary; for it was in this manner that she wished to become their heiress. John related this to Pope Liberius, who said he had dreamt the same thing.

He went, therefore, with a solemn procession of priests and people to the snow-clad hill, and chose the site of a church, which was built with the money of John and his wife. It was afterwards rebuilt by Sixtus III. At first it was called by different names, the Liberian basilica, St. Mary at the Crib. But, since there are many churches in Rome dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, and as this one surpasses all other basilicas in dignity, and by its miraculous beginning, it is distinguished from them also by its title of St. Mary Major. On account of the miraculous fall of snow, the anniversary of the dedication is celebrated by a yearly solemnity.

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What recollections, O Mary, does this feast of thy greatest basilica awaken within us! And what worthier praise, what better prayer, could we offer thee today than to remind thee of the graces we have received within its precincts, and implore thee to renew them and confirm them forever? United with our Mother-Church in spite of distance, have we not, under its shadow, tasted the sweetest and most triumphant emotions of the cycle now verging on to its term?

On the first Sunday of Advent, it was here that we began the year, as in the place “most suitable for saluting the approach of the Divine Birth, which was to gladden heaven and earth and manifest the sublime portent of a Virgin Mother.” Our hearts were overflowing with desire on that holy Vigil, when from early morning we were invited to the bright basilica, where the “mystical Rose was soon to bloom and fill the world with its fragrance. The grandest of all the churches which the people of Rome have erected in honor of the Mother of God, it stood before us rich in its marble and gold, but richer still in possessing, together with the portrait of our Lady painted by St. Luke, the humble yet glorious Crib of Jesus, of which the inscrutable designs of God have deprived Bethlehem.

During that blessed night an immense concourse of people assembled in the basilica awaiting the happy moment when that monument of the love and the humiliation of a God was to be brought in, carried on the shoulders of the priests as an ark of the New Covenant, whose welcome sight gives the sinner confidence and makes the just man thrill with joy.” Alas! a few months passed away, and we were again in the noble sanctuary, this time compassionating our “holy Mother whose heart was filled with poignant grief at the foresight of the sacrifice which was preparing.” But soon the august basilica was filled once more with new joys, when Rome “justly associated with the Paschal solemnity the memory of her who, more than all other creatures, had merited its joys, not only because of the exceptional share she had had in all the sufferings of Jesus, but also because of the unshaken faith wherewith, during those long and cruel hours of his lying in the tomb, she had awaited his Resurrection.”

Dazzling as the snow which fell from heaven to mark the place of thy predilection on earth, O Mary, a white-robed band of neophytes coming up from the waters formed thy graceful court and enhanced the triumph of that great day. Obtain for them and for us all, O Mother, affections as pure as the white marble columns of thy loved church, charity as bright as the gold glittering on its ceiling, works shining as the Paschal Candle, that symbol of Christ the conqueror of death, which offered thee the homage of its first flames.

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  Incredible Discovery: Music Found Hidden on the Mantle of Our Lady of Guadalupe
Posted by: Stone - 08-05-2021, 08:59 AM - Forum: Our Lady - Replies (4)

Incredible Discovery: Music Found Hidden on the Mantle of Our Lady of Guadalupe

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ChurchPop | December 11, 2020

Did you know this existed? This is amazing!

Believe it or not, there is music in Our Lady of Guadalupe’s mantle! How is that? This is the incredible discovery of a mathematical accountant.

“The Instituto Superior de Estudios Guadalupanos gives me the mission of studying the image by applying the only science that had not been done before in image studies, Mathematics,” Mexico resident and mathematical accountant Fernando Ojeda said.


Previous studies, already astonishing

“Previous studies made to the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe, I reasoned the following: if the stars of the mantle are the constellations of the sky at the time of its impregnation, the dress represents proportionally the main hills and volcanoes of the orography of Mexico, if the whole image keeps the golden ratio, then it has perfect symmetry, therefore it has music,” Fernando Ojeda said.

“[The mathematician] Pythagoras pointed out that where there is perfect symmetry there is music.”

“As their positions were different” he continues, “I considered that each star, according to its position, and each flower center, according to its position, was a certain musical note “.

He placed the image inside the drawing of a golden rectangle. A music expert then superimposed the drawing of a piano and documented the notes expressed by each point of the flowers and stars.

Here’s the model used to discover the music in the mantle of the Virgin of Guadalupe:

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Fernandoojeda.com
Finally, Fernando Ojeda loaded the notes into a music computer program. It was an incredible discovery: he obtained a perfect harmony melody!

Here’s the music from Our Lady of Guadalupe’s mantle:



Here’s symphonic piece inspired by Our Lady of Guadalupe’s mantle:


Isn’t it amazing?!

Our Lady of Guadalupe, pray for us!

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  Schneider Has the Proof: Not A Single Infection Through Reception of Holy Communion
Posted by: Stone - 08-05-2021, 08:49 AM - Forum: Pandemic 2020 [Spiritual] - No Replies

Schneider Has the Proof: Not A Single Infection Through RECEPTION of Holy Communion

gloria.tv | August 5, 2021

It is an episcopal abuse of power to impose grabbing Communion with the hand under the pretext of Covid-19, Bishop Schneider told Mia Barhouche in a French interview during a recent visit in Lebanon (video below).

Schneider stresses that grabbing is not "safer" than receiving Holy Communion and doesn't protect better against a virus infection, on the contrary. In Kazakhstan, the bishops have only allowed receiving Holy Communion: “No one has been infected until now. Not a single case of a contamination.” Schneider calls this an “empirical demonstration” and an “undeniable fact.”

Forcing the faithful to grab Communion with the hand is a spiritual tragedy, dangerous, minimalist and “very close to desacralisation,” Schneider explains, “We cannot treat our God like this.” He points out that grabbing Communion causes particles of the host to fall on the floor so that they are trampled upon [which IS a desacralisation].

Further, Schneider observed that Covid-19 vaccinations (20:00) are all contaminated with cell-lines from aborted children which will be the base for a horrible foetal industry. Therefore “it is not possible to take this vaccine.” Schneider also noticed that the vaccines are not tested sufficiently and that they can be a health hazard.

Francis' Traditionis custodes (38:00) is for Schneider "tragic," a "wound," "unjust" and so drastic that TC will finally suppress the Roman Mass. He notices that within its first days, some bishops completely banned the Roman Mass in their dioceses. However, Schneider expects the Mass to continue in the catacombs and to be victorious because it is a work of God.

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  The Diabolical Secret of the New Mass of Pope Paul VI
Posted by: Stone - 08-05-2021, 08:43 AM - Forum: Vatican II and the Fruits of Modernism - Replies (2)

Much of what the Freemasons in this video are quoted as saying are with respect to their blueprint for their upending of the Catholic Church are also echoed in this series by Dr. Carol Byrne, who traces their roots back to at least the 1920's and which finally culminated in the travesties of Vatican II and the New Mass.





P. S. This is the same New Mass that Bishop Fellay wrote was legitimately promulgated in his 2012 Doctrinal Declaration:

Quote:7. We declare that we recognise the validity of the sacrifice of the Mass and the Sacraments celebrated with the intention to do what the Church does according to the rites indicated in the typical editions of the Roman Missal and the Sacramentary Rituals legitimately promulgated by Popes Paul VI and John-Paul II.



P.P.S. This is the same New Mass that Bishop Williamson has repeatedly said is acceptable. A few examples of this:

· The new religion can build your Faith.

· Attending the New Mass can build your Faith.

· Do whatever you think you need to do to keep the Faith, which can include attending the Novus Ordo Mass.

· If you attend the Novus Ordo Mass you have to be careful, but you can find the grace of God there and sanctify your soul.

· Not everyone needs to avoid the Novus Ordo Mass.

· Attending the Novus Ordo may do more good than harm spiritually.

· Not every priest needs to leave the Conciliar church or stop saying the Novus Ordo Mass.

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  Dialing the Fear To 11 As Emerging 'Lambda' Strain Appears More Resistant To Vaccine
Posted by: Stone - 08-05-2021, 08:29 AM - Forum: Pandemic 2020 [Secular] - Replies (1)

'A Variant Worse Than Delta': Fauci Dials Fear To 11 As Emerging 'Lambda' Strain Appears More Resistant To Vaccine

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ZH |  AUG 05, 2021

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country's top infectious disease specialist who funded controversial coronavirus research in Wuhan, China - and is now managing the coronavirus pandemic response for the US government, says the country could be "in trouble" unless everyone who hasn't been vaccinated gets the jab.

"What we’re seeing, because of this increase in transmissibility, and because we have about 93 million people in this country who are eligible to get vaccinated who don’t get vaccinated — that you have a significant pool of vulnerable people," said Fauci, who added that delta variant cases are rising in a "very steep fashion" and may hit 200,000 cases per day.

"And so when you look at the curve of acceleration of 7-day averages of cases per day, it is going up in a very steep fashion."

No stats from Fauci on who's dying, who's getting hospitalized, or who's the most vaccine 'hesitant' of course.



And while the Biden administration is now framing this as a "pandemic of the unvaccinated," McClatchy notes that "recent data shows that vaccinated people who still get infected with the delta variant also have high viral loads and can spread it to others, even when they aren’t showing symptoms or are experiencing mild disease."

Quote:Fauci said that data shows people infected with the delta variant have viral levels “about 1,000 times higher in quantity” than were recorded in people who were infected with the alpha variant, also known as the U.K. variant, which earlier this year became predominant in the United States.

Studies have emerged in recent weeks indicating that vaccinated individuals are at risk of “long COVID” — a series of conditions associated with infection such as fatigue, shortness of breath and loss of smell that can last for weeks or months — even if they are largely protected from severe illness and death, Fauci said.

“We already know that people who get breakthrough infections and don’t go on to get advanced disease requiring hospitalization, they too are susceptible to long COVID,” Fauci said. “You’re not exempt from long COVID if you get a breakthrough infection.” -McClatchy

Fauci also said he fears strains which are even scarier than delta!

"If we don’t crush the outbreak to the point of getting the overwhelming proportion of the population vaccinated, then what will happen is the virus will continue to smolder through the fall into the winter, giving it ample chance to get a variant which, quite frankly, we’re very lucky that the vaccines that we have now do very well against the variants — particularly against severe illness," he said, adding "We’re very fortunate that that’s the case. There could be a variant that’s lingering out there that can push aside delta."

"If another one comes along that has an equally high capability of transmitting but also is much more severe, then we could really be in trouble," Fauci continued. "People who are not getting vaccinated mistakenly think it’s only about them. But it isn’t. It’s about everybody else, also."

Lambda evading vaccine?

While the highly infectious Lambda variant of Covid-19 may or may not be deadlier than any of the other strains - meaning the vast majority who contract it won't be hospitalized or die - researchers at the University of Tokyo have warned in a new study that it may be vaccine-resistant, according to Newsweek.

Quote:Like the Delta variant, Lambda is highly transmissible but Japanese researchers believe that three mutations in the variant's spike proteins make it more resistant to antibodies induced by vaccination.

Lambda, which is also known as the C.37 variant, is responsible for 1,037 cases of COVID-19 in the U.S., according to data from the GISAID Initiative, which promotes the rapid sharing of information about influenza and coronaviruses.

The variant was first identified in Peru in August, 2020, where it has now become the dominant strain of the virus, and it has been reported in 29 countries including the U.S. -Newsweek

"...because the Lambda variant is relatively resistant to the vaccine-induced antisera, it might be possible that this variant is feasible to cause breakthrough infection," reads the paper, with "Vaccine-induced antisera" referring to antibodies which arise from vaccination.

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  "They Can't Arrest Us All" - Sen. Rand Paul Urges Americans To "Resist" Pelosi & The Petty Tyrants
Posted by: Stone - 08-05-2021, 08:13 AM - Forum: General Commentary - No Replies

"They Can't Arrest Us All" - Sen. Rand Paul Urges Americans To "Resist" Pelosi & The Petty Tyrants


ZH [Emphasis in the original] |  AUG 05, 2021 
Authored by Rand Paul, op-ed via Fox News


Resist.

They can’t arrest us all. They can’t keep all your kids home from school. They can’t keep every government building closed – although I’ve got a long list of ones they should.


We don’t have to accept the mandates, lockdowns, and harmful policies of the petty tyrants and feckless bureaucrats. We can simply say no, not again.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi — you will not arrest or stop me or anyone on my staff from doing our jobs. We have all either had COVID, had the vaccine, or been offered the vaccine. We will make our own health choices. We will not show you a passport, we will not wear a mask, we will not be forced into random screening and testing so you can continue your drunk with power rein over the Capitol.

President Biden — we will not accept your agencies’ mandates or your reported moves toward a lockdown. No one should follow the CDC’s anti-science mask mandates. And if you want to shutdown federal agencies again — some of which aren’t even back to work fully — I will stop every bill coming through the Senate with an amendment to cut their funding if they don’t come to work.

No more.

Local bureaucrats and union bosses — we will not allow you to do more harm to our children again this year. Children are not at any more risk from COVID than they are for the seasonal flu. Every adult who works in schools has either had the vaccine or had their chance to. There is no reason for mask mandates, part time schools, or any lockdown measures.

Children are falling behind in school, and are being harmed physically and psychologically by the tactics you have used to keep them from the classroom last year. We won’t allow it again.

If a school system attempts to keep the children from full-time, in-person school, I will hold up every bill with two amendments. One to defund them, and another to allow parents the choice of where the money goes for their child’s education.

Do I sound fed up to you? That’s because I am.

I’m not a career politician. I’ve practiced medicine for 33 years. I graduated from Duke Medical School, worked in emergency rooms, studied immunology and virology, and ultimately chose to become a surgeon.

I have been telling everyone for a year now that Dr. Anthony Fauci and other public health officials were NOT following science, and I’ve been proven right time and time again.

But I’m not the only one who is fed up.

I can’t go anywhere these days — from work, to events, to airports and Ubers, restaurants and stores, without people coming up to me thanking me for standing up for them.

For standing up for actual science. For standing up for freedom. For standing against mandates, lockdowns, and bureaucratic power grabs.

I think the tide has turned, and more and more people are willing to stand up. I see stories from across the country of parents standing up to teacher unions and school boards.

I see members of Congress refusing to comply with Petty Tyrant Pelosi.

We are at a moment of truth and a crossroads. Will we allow these people to use fear and propaganda to do further harm to our society, economy, and children?

Or will we stand together and say, absolutely not. Not this time. I choose freedom.

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  How is the Delta Variant Spreading If There is No Direct Delta Variant Test?
Posted by: Stone - 08-05-2021, 08:09 AM - Forum: Pandemic 2020 [Secular] - No Replies

How is the Delta Variant Spreading If There is No Direct Delta Variant Test?
GP |  August 4, 2021


The Delta variant of COVID 19 is the latest twist in the Chinese bioweapon unleashed on the World.  But I find one thing very troubling–news media, pundits and some health organizations insist the culprit behind the latest breakout of COVID cases is the DELTA variant but there is no test for the DELTA variant. It would be one thing if the media reports told the story of people being tested and then, a day or two later, learn belatedly they are carrying the dreaded DELTA variant. But that is not what is being reported.

The testing for the DELTA variant is presented as an article of faith. This is an example:

Quote:Data from Public Health England (PHE) shows that, while the overall chances of getting reinfected are very low, the Delta variant, first identified in India and which accounts for around 99% of cases in the UK, poses a higher risk.

It came as new figures showed the breakdown of how many people in hospital with the Delta variant have had one or both doses of a Covid-19 vaccine.

From June 21 to July 19, some 1,788 people were admitted to hospital after testing positive for Delta.

Of these, 970 (54%) were unvaccinated, while 530 (30%) had received both doses.

So how does the testing occur? It apparently requires some rather sophisticated laboratory analysis:

Although there are no direct Delta variant tests, PCR tests that are positive for SARS-CoV-2 can undergo genetic analysis such as ‘genomic sequencing’ which tells us if it is the Delta (or another) variant. This means it is possible to accurately identify if someone is unwell with the Delta variant of Covid-19.

While it is “possible” to identify that someone may have the DELTA variant, THERE IS NO DIRECT TEST.

So, I repeat my question–how the hell do we know that most of the new cases are “DELTA” when there is no DIRECT test?

This is a serious question to you, the readers. If you have any evidence or citation to clear up this confusion I welcome your input.

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  August 4th – Saint Dominic, Confessor
Posted by: Stone - 08-04-2021, 09:37 AM - Forum: August - No Replies

August 4 – Saint Dominic, Confessor
Taken from The Liturgical Year by Dom Prosper Guéranger  (1841-1875)

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“In that clime
Where springs the pleasant west-wind to unfold
The fresh leaves, with which Europe sees herself
New-garmented; nor from those billows far,
Beyond whose chiding, after weary course,
The sun doth sometimes hide him; safe abides
The happy Callaroga under guard
Of the great shield, wherein the lion lies
Subjected and supreme. And there was born
The loving minion of the Christian faith,
The hallow’d wrestler, gentle to his own,
And to his enemies terrible. So replete
His soul with lively virtue, that when first
Created, eve in the mother’s womb,
It prophesied. When, at the sacred font,
The spousals were complete ‘twixt faith and him,
Where pledge of mutual safety was exchanged,
The dame, who was his surety, in her sleep
Beheld the wondrous fruit, that was from him
And from his heirs to issue. And that such
He might be construed, as indeed he was,
She was inspired to name him of his owner,
Whose he was wholly; and so call’d him Dominic.

O happy father! Felix rightly named.
O favor’d mother! rightly named Joanna;
If that do mean as men interpret it.

Then, with sage doctrine and good will to help,
Forth on his great apostleship he fared,
Like torrent bursting from a lofty vein;
And dashing ‘gainst the stocks of heresy,
Smote fiercest, where resistance was most stout.
Thence many rivulets have since been turn’d,
Over the garden Catholic to lead
Their living waters, and have fed its plants.”

This eulogium, truly worthy of heaven, is placed by Dante, in his Paradiso, on the lips of the most illustrious son of the poor man of Assisi. In the great poet’s journey through the upper world, it was fitting that Bonaventure should extol the Patriarch of the Preachers as in the preceding Canto, Thomas of Aquin, Dominic’s son, had celebrated the father of the family humbly girt with the cord.

In depth of counsel by created ken
Unfathomable, to the end that she,
Who with loud cries was ‘spoused in precious Blood,
Might keep her footing toward her well-beloved,
Safe in herself and constant unto him,
Hath two ordain’d, who should on either hand
In chief escort her: one, seraphic all
In fervency; for wisdom upon earth,
The other, splendor of cherubic light.”

O Wisdom of the Father, thou wast the one love of both; Francis’ poverty, the true treasure of the soul, and Dominic’s faith, the incomparable light of our exile, are but two aspects of thee from below, expressing to us, in our time of trial and shadow, thy adorable beauty. Speaking with no less profoundness and with greater authority, the immortal Pontiff Gregory IX says: “The Fountain of Wisdom, the Word of the Father, our Lord Jesus Christ, whose nature is goodness, whose work is mercy, does not abandon in the course of ages the vine he has brought out of Egypt; he comes to the aid of wavering souls by new signs, he adapts his wonders to the weakness of the incredulous. When therefore the day was declining towards evening, and while charity was becoming frozen by the abundance of wickedness, the light of justice was beginning to wane, the Father of the family gathered together workmen fitted for the labors of the eleventh hour; to clear his vineyard of the thorns that had overgrown it, and to drive away the multitude of mischievous little foxes that were doing their best to destroy it, he raised up the companies of Friars Preachers and Minors with the chiefs armed for battle.” In this expedition of the Lord of hosts, Dominic was “his glorious charger, full of fire in his faith, fearlessly neighing by preaching the divine word.” In October we shall see the great share in the combat taken by his brother-at-arms, who appeared as a living standard of Christ crucified, in the midst of a society where the triple concupiscence was in league with every error, striving to overthrow Christianity itself.

Finding everywhere this union of sensuality with heresy, which was henceforth to be the principal strength of false preachers, Dominic, like Francis, prescribed to his sons the most absolute renunciation of this world’s goods, and he too became a beggar for Christ’s sake. The time was past when the people, rejoicing in all the consequences of the Incarnation, made over to the Man-God the most extensive territorial domain that ever was, and at the same time placed his Vicar at the head of kings. The unworthy descendants of these high-minded Christians, after having vainly attempted to humiliate the Bride by subjecting the priesthood to the empire, reproached the Church with possessing those goods of which she was but the depository in the name of our Lord; the time had come for the Dove of the Canticle to begin, by abandoning the earth, her return journey towards heaven.

But if the two leaders of the campaign which arrested for a time the progress of the enemy, were but one in their love of holy poverty, this last was the special choice of the Assisian Patriarch. Dominic’s more direct means for obtaining the glory of God and the salvation of souls, was science; this was his excellent portion, more fertile than that of Caleb’s daughter. Less than fifty years after Dominic had bequeathed this inheritance to his descendants, the wisely combined irrigation, by the upper and the nether waters of faith and reason, had brought to full growth the tree of theological science, with its powerful roots and branches loftier than the clouds, whereon the birds of all tribes under heaven loved to perch without fear and gaze upon the sun.

“The father of the Preachers,” said the Eternal Father to St. Catherine of Sienna, “established his principle on the light, by making it his aim and his armor; he took upon him the office of the Word my Son, sowing my word, dispelling darkness, enlightening the earth; Mary, by whom I gave him to the world, made him the extirpator of heresies.” In the same way, as we have already seen, spoke the Florentine poet half a century earlier. The Order, called to become the chief support of the Sovereign Pontiff in uprooting pernicious doctrines, ought, if possible, to justify that name even more than its Patriarch: the first of the tribunals of Holy Church, the Holy Roman Universal Inquisition, the Holy Office, truly invested with the Office of the Word with his two-edged sword, to convert or to chastise, could find no instrument more trusty or more sure.

Little thought the virgin of Sienna, or the illustrious author of the Divina Commedia, that the chief title of the Dominican family to the grateful love of the people, would be discussed in a certain apologetic school, and there discarded as insulting, or dissembled as unpleasant. The present age glories in a liberalism which has given proofs of its power by multiplying ruins, and which rests on no better philosophical basis than a strange confusion between license and liberty; only such intellectual grovelling could have failed to understand that, in a society which has faith for the basis of its institutions as well as the principle of salvation for all, no crime could equal that of shaking the foundation on which thus rest both social interest and the most precious possession of individuals. Neither the idea of justice, nor still less that of liberty, could consist in leaving to the mercy of evil or evil men, the weak who are unable to protect themselves: this truth was the axiom and the glory of chivalry: the brothers of Peter the Martyr devoted their lives to protect the safety of the children of God against the surprises of the strong armed one, and the business that walketh about in the dark: it was the honor of the “saintly flock led by Dominic along a way, where they thrive well who do not go astray.”

Who could be truer knights than those athletes of the faith (as Honorius III referred to them) taking their sacred vow in the form of allegiance, and choosing for their Lady, her who, terrible as an army, alone crushes heresies throughout the whole world. To the buckler of truth and the sword of the word, she who keeps in Sion the armor of valiant men, added for her devoted liege-men the Rosary, the special mark of her own militia; she, as being their true commander-in-chief, assigned them the habit of her choice, and in the person of Blessed Reginald, anointed them with her own hands for the battle. She herself too watched over the recruiting of the holy band, attracting to it from among the elite youth of the universities, souls the purest, the most generously devoted, and of the noblest intellect. At Paris, the capital of theology, and Bologna, of law and jurisprudence, masters and scholars, disciples of every branch of science, were pursued and overtaken by the sweet Queen amid incidents more heavenly than earthly. How grateful were those beginnings, wherein Dominic’s virginal serenity seemed to surround all his children! It was indeed in this the Order of light that the Gospel word was seen verified: Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God. Eyes enlightened from above beheld the foundations of the Friars Preachers under the figure of fields of lilies; and Mary, by whom the Splendor of Eternal Light came down to us, became their heavenly mistress, and led them from every science to wisdom, the friend of pure hearts. She came accompanied by Cecilia and Catherine, to bless their rest at night, and covered them all with her royal mantle beside the throne of our Lord. After this we are not astonished at the freshness and purity, which continued even after St. Dominic, under the generalship of Jordan of Saxony, Raymund of Pegnafort, John the Teutonic, and Humbert de Romans, in those Lives of the Brethren, and Lives of the Sisters, so happily handed down to us. It is instructive to note that in the Dominican family, apostolic in its very essence, the Sisters are founded ten years before the Brethren, which shows how, in the Church of God, action can never be fruitful unless preceded and accompanied by contemplation, which obtains for it every blessing and grace.

Notre Dame de Prouille, at the foot of the Pyrenees, was not only by this right of primogeniture, the beginning of the whole Order; it was here also that the first companions of St. Dominic made with him their choice of a Rule, and divided the world amongst them, going from here to found the Convents of St. Romanus at Toulouse, St. James at Paris, St. Nicholas at Bologna, St. Sixtus and St. Sabina in the Eternal City. About the same period, the establishment of the Militia of Jesus Christ, placed under the direction of the Friars Preachers secular persons, who undertook to defend, by all the means in their power, the goods and liberty of the Church against the aggressions of heresy; when the sectaries had laid down their arms leaving the world in peace for a time, the association did not disappear: it continued to fight with spiritual arms, and changed its name into that of Third Order of Brothers and Sisters of Penance of St. Dominic.

Let us read in the Church’s book the abridged life of the holy Patriarch.

Quote:Dominic was born at Calaruega, in Spain, of the noble family of the Gusmans, and went through his liberal the theological studies at Palencia. He made great progress in learning, and became a Canon Regular of the Church of Osma, and afterwards instituted the Order of Friars Preachers. While his mother was with child, she dreamt she was carrying in her womb a little dog, holding a torch in his mouth, with which, as soon as he was born, he would set fire to the world. This dream signified that he would enkindle Christian piety among the nations by the splendor of his sanctity and teaching. Events proved its truth: for he fulfilled the prophecy both in person, and later on by the brethren of his Order.

His genius and virtue shone forth especially in confounding the heretics who were attempting to infect the people of Toulouse with their baneful errors. He was occupied for several years in this undertaking. Then he went to Rome for the Council of Lateran, with the bishop of Toulouse, to obtain from Innocent III the confirmation of the Order he had instituted. But while the matter was under consideration the Pope advised Dominic to return to his disciples, and choose a rule. On his return to Rome, he obtained the confirmation of the Order of Preachers from Honorius III, the immediate successor of Innocent. In Rome itself he founded two Monasteries, one for men and the other for women. He raised three dead to life, and worked many other miracles, in consequence of which, the Order of Preachers began to spread in a wonderful manner.

Monasteries were built by his means in every part of the world, and through his teaching numbers of men embraced a holy and religious manner of life. At length in the year of Christ, 1221, he fell into a fever at Bologna. When he saw he was about to die, calling together his brethren and children, he exhorted them to innocence and purity of life, and left them as their true inheritance the virtues of charity, humility, and poverty. While the brethren were praying round him, at the words, “Come to his aid, ye Saints of God, run to meet him, O ye Angels,” he fell asleep in the Lord, on the eighth of the Ides of August. Pope Gregory IX placed him among the Saints.

How many sons and daughters surround thee on the sacred cycle! This very month, Rose of Lima and Hyacinth keep thee company, and thy coming has long since been heralded in the Liturgy by Raymund of Pegnafort, Thomas of Aquin, Vincent Ferrer, Peter the Martyr, Catherine of Sienna, Pius V, and Antoninus. And now at length appears in the firmament the new star whose brightness dispels ignorance, confounds heresy, increases the faith of believers. O Dominic, thy blessed mother, who preceded thee to heaven, now penetrates in all its fullness the happy meaning of that mysterious vision which once excited her fears. And that other Dominic, the glory of ancient Silos, at whose tomb she received the promise of thy blessed birth, rejoices at the tenfold splendor given by thee for all eternity to the beautiful name he bequeathed thee. But what a special welcome dost thou receive from the Mother of all grace, who heretofore, embracing the feet of her angered Son, stood surety that thou wouldst bring back the world to its Savior! A few years passed away; and error, put to confusion, felt that a deadly struggle was engaged between itself and thy family; the Lateran Church saw its walls, which were threatening to fall, strengthened for a time; and the two Princes of the Apostles, who had bidden thee go and preach, rejoice that the word has gone forth once more into the whole world.

Stricken with barrenness, the nations, which the Apocalypse likens to great waters, seemed to have become once for all corrupt; the prostitute of Babylon was setting up her throne before the time; when, in imitation of Eliseus, putting the salt of Wisdom into the new vessel of the Order founded by thee, thou didst cast this divine salt into the unhealthy waters, neutralize the poison of the beast so soon risen up again, an din spite of the snares which will never cease, didst render the earth habitable once more. How clearly thy example shows us that they alone are powerful before God and over the people, who give themselves up to him without seeking anything else, and only give to others out of their own fullness. Despising, as thine historians tell us, every opportunity and every science where Eternal Wisdom was not to be seen, thy youth was charmed with her alone; and she, who prevents those that seek her, inundated thee from thy earliest years with the light and the anticipated sweetness of heaven. It is from her that overflowed upon thee that radiant serenity, which so struck thy contemporaries, and which no occurrence could ever alter. In heavenly peace thou didst drink long draughts from the ever-flowing fountain springing up into eternal life; but while tine inmost soul was thus slaking the thirst of its love, the divine source produced a marvellous fecundity; and its streams becoming thine, why fountains were conveyed abroad in the streets, thou didst divide thy waters. Thou hadst welcomed Wisdom, and she exalted thee; not content to adorn thy brow with the rays of the mysterious star, she gave thee also the glory of patriarchs, and multiplied thy years and thy works in those of thy sons. In them thou hast not ceased to be one of the strongest stays of the Church. Science has made thy name wonderful among the nations, and because of it their youth is honored by the ancients; may it ever be for them, as it was for their elders, both the fruit of Wisdom and the way that leads to her; may it be fostered by prayer; for thy holy Order so well keeps up the beautiful traditions of prayer, as to approach the nearest, in that respect, to the ancient monastic Orders. To praise, to bless, and to preach will be to the end its loved motto; for its apostolate must be, according to the word of the Psalm, the overflowing of the abundance of sweetness tasted in communication with God. Thus strengthened in Sion, thus blessed in its glorious role of propagator and guardian of the truth, thy noble family will ever deserve to hear, from the mouth of our Lady herself, that encouragement above all praise: “Fortiter, fortiter, viri fortes! Courage, courage, ye men of courage!”

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  F.D.A. Aims to Give Final Approval to Pfizer Vaccine by Early Next Month
Posted by: Stone - 08-04-2021, 09:10 AM - Forum: Pandemic 2020 [Secular] - No Replies

From the MSM NYT:


F.D.A. Aims to Give Final Approval to Pfizer Vaccine by Early Next Month
The Food and Drug Administration’s move is expected to kick off more vaccination mandates for hospital workers, college students and federal troops.

NYT | August 3, 2021

WASHINGTON — With a new surge of Covid-19 infections ripping through much of the United States, the Food and Drug Administration has accelerated its timetable to fully approve Pfizer-BioNTech’s coronavirus vaccine, aiming to complete the process by the start of next month, people involved in the effort said.

President Biden said last week that he expected a fully approved vaccine in early fall. But the F.D.A.’s unofficial deadline is Labor Day or sooner, according to multiple people familiar with the plan. The agency said in a statement that its leaders recognized that approval might inspire more public confidence and had “taken an all-hands-on-deck approach” to the work.

Giving final approval to the Pfizer vaccine — rather than relying on the emergency authorization granted late last year by the F.D.A. — could help increase inoculation rates at a moment when the highly transmissible Delta variant of the virus is sharply driving up the number of new cases.

A number of universities and hospitals, the Defense Department and at least one major city, San Francisco, are expected to mandate inoculation once a vaccine is fully approved. Final approval could also help mute misinformation about the safety of vaccines and clarify legal issues about mandates.

Federal regulators have been under growing public pressure to fully approve Pfizer’s vaccine ever since the company filed its application on May 7. “I just have not sensed a sense of urgency from the F.D.A. on full approval,” Dr. Ashish K. Jha, the dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, said in an interview on Tuesday. “And I find it baffling, given where we are as a country in terms of infections, hospitalizations and deaths.”

Although 192 million Americans — 58 percent of the total population and 70 percent of the nation’s adults — have received at least one vaccine shot, many remain vulnerable to the ultracontagious, dominant Delta variant. The country is averaging nearly 86,000 new infections a day, an increase of 142 percent in just two weeks, according to a New York Times database.

Recent polls by the Kaiser Family Foundation, which has been tracking public attitudes during the pandemic, have found that three of every 10 unvaccinated people said that they would be more likely to get a shot with a fully approved vaccine. But the pollsters warned that many respondents did not understand the regulatory process and might have been looking for a “proxy” justification not to get a shot.

Moderna, the second most widely used vaccine in the United States, filed for final approval of its vaccine on June 1. But the company is still submitting data and has not said when it will finish. Johnson & Johnson, the third vaccine authorized for emergency use, has not yet applied but plans to do so later this year.

Full approval of the Pfizer vaccine will kick off a patchwork of vaccination mandates across the country. Like most other employees of federal agencies, civilians working for the Defense Department must be vaccinated or face regular testing. But the military has held off on ordering shots for 1.3 million active-duty service members until the F.D.A. acts.

The City of San Francisco has said its roughly 44,500 employees must be fully vaccinated within 10 weeks of F.D.A. approval. The State University of New York, with roughly 400,000 students, is on a parallel track.

A number of health care systems have issued similar mandates to employees, including Beaumont Health, the largest health provider in Michigan, with 33,000 employees, and Mass General Brigham in Massachusetts, with about 80,000 workers.

Full approval typically requires the F.D.A. to review hundreds of thousands of pages of documents — roughly 10 times the data required to authorize a vaccine on an emergency basis. The agency can usually complete a priority review within six to eight months and was already working on an expedited timetable for the Pfizer vaccine. The F.D.A.’s decision to speed up was reported last week by Stat News.

In a guest essay in The Times last month, Dr. Peter Marks, the agency’s top vaccine regulator, wrote that undue haste “would undermine the F.D.A.’s statutory responsibilities, affect public trust in the agency and do little to help combat vaccine hesitancy.”

The regulators want to see real-world data on how the vaccine has been working since they authorized it for emergency use in December. That means verifying the company’s data on vaccine efficacy and immune responses, reviewing how efficacy or immunity might decline over time, examining new infections in participants in continuing clinical trials, reviewing adverse reactions to vaccinations and inspecting manufacturing plants.

At the same time, senior health officials at the F.D.A. and other agencies are grappling with whether at least some people who are already vaccinated need booster shots. Several officials are arguing that boosters will be widely needed before long, while others contend that the scientific basis for them remains far from settled.

Two people familiar with the deliberations, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that if booster shots are needed, the administration wants a single strategy for all three vaccines currently authorized for emergency use.

Different recommendations on boosters for different vaccines, they said, could confuse the public. Fully approving a vaccine and then authorizing a booster for it soon after might also offer conflicting messages about its effectiveness.


Understand the State of Vaccine Mandates in the U.S.

College and universities. More than 400 colleges and universities are requiring students to be vaccinated for Covid-19. Almost all are in states that voted for President Biden.

Hospitals and medical centers. Many hospitals and major health systems are requiring employees to get the Covid-19 vaccine, citing rising caseloads fueled by the Delta variant and stubbornly low vaccination rates in their communities, even within their work force. In N.Y.C., workers in city-run hospitals and health clinics will be required to get vaccinated or else get tested on a weekly basis.

Federal employees. President Biden announced that all civilian federal employees must be vaccinated against the coronavirus or be forced to submit to regular testing, social distancing, mask requirements and restrictions on most travel. State workers in New York will face similar restrictions.
Can your employer require a vaccine? Companies can require workers entering the workplace to be vaccinated against the coronavirus, according to recent U.S. government guidance.

While research is continuing, senior administration officials increasingly believe that at the least, vulnerable populations like those with compromised immune systems and older people will need them, according to people familiar with their thinking. But when to administer them, which vaccine to use and who should get shots are all still being discussed.

In a study posted online last week, Pfizer and BioNTech scientists reported that the effectiveness of Pfizer’s vaccine against symptomatic disease fell from about 96 percent to about 84 percent four to six months after the second shot, but continued to offer robust protection against hospitalization and severe disease.

Administration officials said Moderna and Johnson & Johnson needed to present data as well and Moderna had been asked to do so quickly. Officials have said other studies will also influence their decision-making, including data that the government is collecting on the rate of breakthrough infections among tens of thousands of people, including health care workers.

Pfizer is expected to submit an application for a booster shot to the F.D.A. this month. While the F.D.A. could authorize such shots, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would need to recommend them after a meeting of its outside committee of experts.

A decision to fully approve Pfizer’s vaccine will give doctors more latitude to prescribe additional shots at least for certain Americans, including those with weakened immune systems. The C.D.C. had been exploring possible special programs for that group, but administration officials said it became clear that by the time any such initiative got underway, the Pfizer vaccine would already be fully approved and doctors could prescribe a third shot.

Roughly 3 percent of Americans — or about 10 million people, by some estimates — have compromised immune systems as a result of cancer, organ transplants or other medical conditions, according to the C.D.C. While studies indicate that the vaccines work well for some of them, others do not produce the immune response that would protect them from the virus.

Some people are trying to get booster shots from pharmacies or other providers on their own, without waiting for the federal government’s blessing. Officials in Contra Costa County, home to 1.1 million people in Northern California, were so eager to offer boosters that on July 23 they told vaccine providers to give extra shots to people who asked for them “without requiring further documentation or justification.”

Then, realizing that policy violated the F.D.A. rules on vaccines authorized for emergency use, the county reversed it this week.

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  Victory in Alberta, Canada - All Covid Restrictions have been dropped
Posted by: Stone - 08-04-2021, 08:06 AM - Forum: Pandemic 2020 [Secular] - No Replies

Interview with man responsible: https://www.bitchute.com/video/euMT6jUwXhym/

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