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CDC finds ‘likely’ link between heart inflammation and Pfizer, Moderna COVID vaccines |
Posted by: Stone - 06-25-2021, 07:54 AM - Forum: COVID Vaccines
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CDC finds ‘likely’ link between heart inflammation and Pfizer, Moderna COVID vaccines
During today’s meeting, members of a CDC advisory committee acknowledged 1,200 cases of heart inflammation in 16- to 24-year-olds, and said mRNA COVID vaccines should carry a warning statement — but physicians and other public commenters accused the CDC of exaggerating the risk to young people of COVID, and minimizing the risk of the vaccines.
June 24, 2021 (Children’s Health Defense) – The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) said Wednesday there is a “likely association” of “mild” heart inflammation in adolescents and young adults after vaccination with an mRNA COVID vaccine and a warning statement is warranted.
According to a report by the COVID-19 Vaccine Safety Technical (VaST) Work Group, the risk of myocarditis or pericarditis following vaccination with the mRNA-based shots in adolescents and young adults is notably higher after the second dose and in males.
“Clinical presentation of myocarditis cases following vaccination has been distinct, occurring most often within one week after dose two, with chest pain as the most common presentation,” said Dr. Grace Lee, co-chair of VaST.
There have been more than 1,200 cases of myocarditis or pericarditis in 16- to-24-year-olds who received an mRNA COVID vaccine, according to a series of slide presentations published Wednesday at the ACIP meeting.
Myocarditis is inflammation of the heart muscle that can lead to cardiac arrhythmia and death. According to researchers at the National Organization for Rare Disorders, myocarditis can result from infections, but “more commonly the myocarditis is a result of the body’s immune reaction to the initial heart damage.”
Pericarditis is often used interchangeably with myocarditis and refers to inflammation of the pericardium, the thin sac surrounding the heart.
According to the CDC, men under 30 make up the bulk of the cases and most cases appeared to be mild. Of the 295 people who developed the condition and have been discharged, 79% have fully recovered, according to the presentation. Nine people were hospitalized, with two in intensive care as of June 11, according to the CDC.
The agency said through June 11 there have been 267 cases of myocarditis or pericarditis reported after receiving one dose of the mRNA vaccines and 827 reported cases after two doses. There are 132 additional cases where the number of doses received is unknown.
Dr. Tom Shimabukuro, deputy director of the CDC’s Immunization Safety Office, said in a presentation that data from one of the agency’s safety monitoring systems — Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD) — suggests a rate of 12.6 cases per million in the three weeks after the second shot in 12- to 39-year-olds.
Dr. Meryl Nass, an internal medicine physician, pointed out several flaws in the data used during the ACIP’s presentation:
Quote:“As of now, two major ways the rate of myocarditis were minimized [during the presentation] was to lump people from age 39 and down –– even though the highest rates [of myocarditis] are in the youngest kids. This waters down the rate. The other method was to only include a very narrow window of time after vaccinations started in the 12-15 age group, thus omitting the vast majority of second doses, which is when about 75% or more of the myocarditis cases occur. Also, the genders were sometimes mixed. And rates in girls are much lower than boys.”
During the presentation, Dr. Megan Wallance stated the overall efficacy of Pfizer’s COVID vaccine in the 12 to 15 age group is 100% and Moderna’s was comparable. Wallace then did a risk/benefit analysis comparing myocarditis cases versus hospitalization rates for COVID in people between the ages of 12 and 29.
“The problem with her analysis is that now the myocarditis rate used is too low. But the risk from COVID is magnified,” Nass said.
Nass further questioned why the ACIP did not include any of the almost 6,000 deaths reported to the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) in the risk pool when determining risk and benefits.
During the presentation, a CDC spokesperson said vaccine considerations for people with a history of myocarditis and pericarditis will be updated:
- People with a history of pericarditis will be encouraged to receive any FDA-authorized COVID vaccine.
- Anyone with a history of myocarditis will be encouraged to receive an FDA-authorized COVID vaccine if their heart has recovered.
- People with a history of myocarditis after the first dose of an mRNA vaccine will be encouraged to defer the second dose until more information is known, but if the heart has healed, a second dose could be considered.
CDC officials said they are gathering more data to fully understand the potential risks, how to manage them and whether there are any long-term issues.
Officials emphasized the benefits of vaccines outweigh the risks, and noted that for every million doses of mRNA vaccine given, there are far more COVID cases and hospitalizations prevented compared to the number of potential myocarditis cases.
Public commenters chastise CDC for overstating risks of COVID for children
Public commenters — during the public comment session — chastised the CDC and its advisory committee for adopting the stance that benefits of experimental COVID vaccines outweigh the risks in teens, when teens have a relative zero risk of dying from COVID, and are at a very low risk of experiencing adverse events.
According to the CDC, COVID adolescent hospitalization rates in the 12-17 age group was 2.1 per 100,000 in early January 2021, and 1.3 per 100,000 in April. Of 204 hospitalizations assessed by the CDC from March 1, 2020 to April 24, 2021, no deaths occurred.
According to CDC data, the death rate among adolescents ages 0 to 17 who get COVID and are subsequently hospitalized is 0.7%, with many experiencing either mild or no symptoms at all. The COVID death rate in all adolescent age categories is less than 0.1%, according to the CDC.
Two papers published May 19 in the journal of Hospital Pediatrics found pediatric hospitalizations for COVID were overcounted by at least 40%, carrying potential implications for nationwide figures used to justify vaccinating children.
Another study, referenced by a public commenter, showed in many cases COVID diagnosis was incidental to the underlying reason the patient was hospitalized — meaning there was no documentation of COVID symptoms prior to hospitalization.
The first public commenter said [time stamp: 3:38]:
Quote:“As of June 11, looking at myocarditis and pericarditis alone, there have been 197 reports in 30-39 year olds, 392 reports in 19-29 year olds and 279 reports in 18 years and younger. Looking at the Harvard Pilgrim study which states that less than 1% of adverse events were reported to VAERS, it is reasonable to assume that these numbers are much higher than are being reported. From the meeting here today, we heard that there have been more than 1,200 cases of myocarditis and pericarditis, mostly in people under 30. The numbers are growing quickly. This should ring the alarm for all of you. It certainly does for me.”
William Houston, associated with a public research organization focused on public health and safety, said during public comment the CDC is withholding VAERS data and delaying publishing adverse event reports. Actual numbers, Houston estimated, are 3 to 14 times higher than what’s been made public to date.
This is consistent with several stories of myocarditis in teens recently covered by The Defender — all of whom reported to VAERS and were given I.D. numbers, but are not yet published in the VAERS database.
Another public commenter [time stamp 3:56:28], a parent and parent advocate, expressed concern that ACIP members were instructed to vote during a previous meeting, even though data were not yet available. She also questioned why the different reporting systems are using different age group ranges.
She chastised the committee’s canceling of the emergency meeting on heart inflammation scheduled for June 8 and noted that in December, the ACIP met multiple times during weekends when the manufacturers wanted their vaccine approvals.
Public commentator [time stamp 3:59:30] Dr. Leslie Moore, physician and mother, said the data on COVID vaccines are atrocious and frightening. Moore said vaccines are still investigational and there is no comprehensive monitoring and data collection.
“People get shot up and left to deal with the consequences on their own,” Moore said.
Moore continued:
Quote:“All we have is the VAERS system, which is voluntary self-reporting. We know VAERS only captures 1-10% of all adverse events. Adverse events are grossly under-reported for a variety of reasons. I looked at open VAERS this morning. These products have amassed 6,000 deaths and 20,000 hospitalizations in the U.S, alone –– which is more than the other 70 vaccines for the last 30 years combined. That is with gross under-reporting and a two-month backlog. Let’s face it, these vaccines are not safe.
“Now let’s consider these products for children. What is the risk-benefit analysis? Children are at a statistically insignificant risk from COVID-19, so there is no benefit to vaccination, and you can’t vaccinate them to benefit others. These shots don’t work that way. They don’t prevent infection or transmission. Your shot, at best, protects you from severe symptoms, no one else.
“Children have no benefit, only risks from these products. Any child injured or killed by the shot likely would have done fine with the virus and received broad and lasting natural immunity.”
Natural immunity is always better than vaccine immunity — anyone who says otherwise needs to go back to medical school, Moore told the committee members.
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Police investigate after two Catholic churches burn on British Columbia tribal lands |
Posted by: Stone - 06-25-2021, 07:37 AM - Forum: Anti-Catholic Violence
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Police investigate after two Catholic churches burn on British Columbia tribal lands
St. Gregory Mission, Osoyoos Indian Reserve, British Columbia, Canada/ Roman Catholic Parish of Christ the King, Oliver, British Columbia, Canada
CNA | Jun 24, 2021
Two Catholic churches in the same region of British Columbia burned down in suspicious circumstances early Monday morning.
“On behalf of The Diocese of Nelson, I am very saddened by the recent fires that destroyed two Catholic churches – Sacred Heart Mission at Penticton Indian Band and St. Gregory Mission at Osoyoos Indian Band – and for the hurt that it has caused,” Bishop Gregory J. Bittman of Nelson said June 23.
“For many years, our priests have been welcomed to minister in these mission churches and it is our hope that this ministry will continue. Our thoughts and prayers are with everyone affected by the fires and we are grateful that no one died or was physically injured,” he said.
The churches, located in the southern Okanagan region of British Columbia, served some indigenous First Nations families, but there are concerns the fires could have been targeted attacks.
Investigators are considering whether arson caused the attacks. Possible motives could include someone targeting the Indigenous communities, or someone angry at the Catholic Church after the discovery of the undocumented graves of 215 Indigenous children at the grounds of a former Catholic-run residential school in Kamloops, British Columbia.
Penticton Indian Band Chief Greg Gabriel spoke at the burned remains of Sacred Heart Mission Church, Parksville Qualicum Beach News reported.
“This church has been here since 1911. It was a fixture in our community,” he said June 21. “Many in our community were members and involved in services. Some of our elders are attached to the church and have come here today very sad. They are hurting but also they understand.”
“There are some mixed feelings. I understand there is a lot of anger in our community with the discovery of those 215 innocent, poor children’s graves. There is a lot of hurt,” said Gabriel. “But this type of action doesn’t help if in fact it is found to be deliberate.”
At 3:10 a.m. on Monday, over an hour after Sacred Heart Church burned down, Oliver Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) were notified that St. Gregory’s Church on Nk’mip Road was on fire. Sacred Heart is located on Penticton Indian Band, while St. Gregory’s is on Osoyoos Indian Band land about a 40-minute drive away.
The Penticton Indian Band responded in a statement, saying: “We, along with the Osoyoos Indian Band ... are in disbelief and anger over these occurrences as these places of worship provided service to members who sought comfort and solace in the church.”
Father Thomas Kakkaniyil, whose parish churches include St. Gregory’s, said that Sunday marked the first Mass at the church in over a year due to the coronavirus epidemic. While the church had provided daytime security for the Mass, there was no security on the premises later that night.
“Somebody from outside came and burned it as I understand it,” Fr. Kakkaniyil said, according to the Vancouver Sun. “It was done on the Osoyoos First Nation land but not by those people. It was somebody else.”
Gabriel told the New York Times that some are upset at the history of Catholic relations with Canada’s Indigenous peoples, including the recent discovery at Kamloops; others are also upset that a place of worship and integral part of the community had been burned down. Many families, including his own, held funerals, marriages and baptisms in the church that burned.
Chief Clarence Louie of the Osoyoos Indian Band also addressed the burnings.
“I don’t believe in the church. I don’t believe in those symbols, but some of our people do,” he said.
Sgt. Jason Bayda, media relations officer for the Penticton South Okanagan RCMP, said that if an investigation deems the fires to be arson, the police “will be looking at all possible motives and allow the facts and evidence to direct our investigative action.”
“We are sensitive to the recent events, but won’t speculate on a motive,” he said, according to Parksville Qualicum Beach News.
The Penticton Indian Band rejected speculation that the person or persons responsible “had any connection to the Indigenous communities in our region,” adding, “all we can do is to be there for one another in this unbelievably hard time.”
“Please do not approach our Indigenous members and ask how we feel about it,” said Dawn Russell, communications coordinator for the Penticton Indian Band.”
“This is a fresh wound that needs time to heal and contextualize our feelings as we will support the investigative efforts,” she said.
Gabriel said there’s “anger across Canada” in response to the discovered graves. “Myself, I’m very angry. I will do whatever I can in our leadership to make sure people are held accountable for those atrocities. It has to be a criminal investigation because that evil act is criminal. There needs to be a full criminal investigation and people need to be held criminally responsible,” he said.
Father Sylvester Obi Ibekwe, the parish priest of the Catholic parishes of Penticton, including Sacred Heart Mission, had announced a candlelight vigil for June 18 at St. Ann Church, “during which we will honor and pray for the repose of the souls of the 215 children who died in Kamloops and for their families.”
The priest asked people to bring teddy bears or children’s shoes to place on the steps of St. Ann Church or the nearby St. John Vianney Church.
In a June 1 message, posted on the parish website, he reported waking up one morning to find a sheet spray-painted in orange letters covering the church sign board. Its message said: “Your assets should be seized; have you no response?”
He said he had spoken by phone with a chief at the Penticton Indian Reserve “to express our sadness over the tragic event that happened in Kamloops. We stand in solidarity with all our Indigenous brothers and sisters.
On the weekend of May 22, the remains of 215 Indigenous children were found in unmarked graves at the Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia. The discovery was made with ground-penetrating radar. It is unclear how the children died.
A previous government commission report found that 51 children had died at the school, which operated from 1890 until 1978. The school was established by the federal government and was initially overseen by lay Catholics. The Oblates of Mary Immaculate ran the school beginning in 1893. In 1969, the government took back control of the school.
The Kamloops school was at one point the largest school in the entire residential school system, which was established in Canada beginning in the 1870s, with many schools operated by Catholic organizations or Protestant denominations. The last operating residential school closed in 1996.
Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which operated from 2008 until 2015, reported on a history of abuses in the system and faulted both the churches and the government.
Children from First Nations and other Indigenous communities were separated from their families and placed in the residential schools as a means of forcible assimilation, which was meant to strip them of family and cultural ties. The children suffered from poorly built, poorly heated and unsanitary housing and facilities, which the report attributed largely to government efforts to cut costs. Many students had no access to trained medical staff and faced harsh, often abusive punishments.
An estimated 4,100 to 6,000 First Nations and other Indigenous children died as a result of neglect or abuse in the system, the commission found. In 1945, the death rate for children at residential schools was nearly five times higher than other Canadian schoolchildren. In the 1960s, residential school children suffered a mortality rate double that of their peers, the commission report said.
Pope Francis on June 6 expressed sorrow over the discovery of the unmarked graves at the site of the Kamloops school and prayed for all children who died in the residential school system.
“These difficult times are a strong call for all to turn away from the colonizing model, and even the ideological colonizations of today, and walk side by side in dialogue, mutual respect, and recognition of the rights and cultural values of all the daughters and sons of Canada,” Pope Francis said after the Sunday Angelus in St. Peter’s Square.
The archbishop of Ottawa-Cornwall on June 17 apologized for the role of the Catholic Church in administering the country’s residential school system, and requested a formal apology by Pope Francis, joining calls from Indigenous groups and others.
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US bishops say they won’t issue ‘national policy’ on Communion for pro-abortion politicians |
Posted by: Stone - 06-24-2021, 06:13 PM - Forum: Vatican II and the Fruits of Modernism
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US bishops say they won’t issue ‘national policy’ on Communion for pro-abortion politicians
‘There will be no national policy on withholding Communion from politicians,’ the bishops’ conference clarified.
WASHINGTON, June 24, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) — As the dust settles after the U.S. bishops gathered online for their Spring Assembly last week, the bishops’ conference has released a brief clarifying note on the proposed document on the meaning of the Eucharist in the life of the Church, stating, “There will be no national policy on withholding Communion from politicians.”
The three-day conference, livestreamed online, was marked by debate and division on the matter of the Eucharistic document proposed by the Doctrine Committee of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). Proposing the document, Bishop Kevin Rhoades, head of the Doctrine Committee, stated that there was a need for a “unified and strong revival of the meaning of the Eucharist in the life of the Church,” which was “more critical now than ever.”
However, in the wake of strong protest from a number of cardinals and bishops, as well as from mainstream media reports and pro-abortion self-described Catholic politicians, Rhoades added that the purpose of the document was not to single out select groups of people, particularly pro-abortion politicians such as Joe Biden.
“It was never our thought to present national norms for denying Catholics Holy Communion,” stated Rhoades, who ruled out creating a “national policy.” Instead, he described the document’s purpose as seeking to “present a clear understanding of why the Church has these laws.”
The document, which was given the approval to be drafted, has piqued interest from Catholic and non-Catholic media alike, with the suspicion that despite avoiding singling out any particular group, it might nevertheless affirm teaching which would prohibit abortion supporters from receiving Holy Communion.
Such a thought was evidently on the minds of the virtually assembled clerics, as Cardinals Blaise Cupich, Joseph Tobin, and Wilton Gregory, as well as Bishop Robert McElroy, attacked the document, opposing any policy of denying the Eucharist to individuals, saying it would even be out of line with the Gospel.
Clarifying note rules out any national policy on Holy Communion
Now, however, the USCCB has issued a one-page note in an apparent attempt to regain control of the media narrative, a concern which was even raised by certain bishops during the meeting. The note addresses certain key questions on the Eucharistic document, namely why it is being drafted, whether the USCCB voted to ban pro-abortion politicians from Holy Communion, if there will be a policy on such a question, and whether the move is in line with the Vatican.
The document notes that there was no vote or even debate on banning pro-abortion politicians, or indeed anyone, from Holy Communion.
Instead, the bishops wrote in the note:
Quote:“Each Catholic — regardless of whether they hold public office or not — is called to continual conversion, a
nd the U.S. bishops have repeatedly emphasized the obligation of all Catholics to support human life and dignity and other fundamental principles of Catholic moral and social teaching.”
Furthermore, the note clearly stipulates what Rhoades mentioned at the Spring Assembly: There will be no new national policy on the reception of the Eucharist in the Eucharistic document.
“There will be no national policy on withholding Communion from politicians. The intent is to present a clear understanding of the Church’s teachings to bring heightened awareness among the faithful of how the Eucharist can transform our lives and bring us closer to our creator and the life he wants for us.”
Taking the statement at face value, it leads to as yet unanswered questions about what the USCCB does in fact intend to do on the matter of giving Holy Communion to pro-abortion politicians. If the much-anticipated section on “Eucharistic consistency” in the Eucharistic document does not address this question, then the clerical and media hype about a future rebuttal of Biden would appear to be groundless. The Eucharistic document would also be avoiding a significant element of the meaning of the Eucharist in the life of the Church by sidestepping such statements.
Indeed, Rhoades himself already mentioned in comments to the press after the second day of the Spring Assembly that “I can’t answer” whether Biden would be allowed to receive Holy Communion. It would be a matter for Biden’s own bishop, Rhoades added.
Eucharistic document, much ado about nothing? Church’s law already binds
With regards to the upcoming Eucharistic document, it seems that in light of the June 21 note, the issue of giving Communion to supporters of abortion will not be covered, even though abortion is a grave sin, and one which instantly bars one from receiving Holy Communion — a significant issue in a discussion of the Eucharist and the Church.
The Catholic Church teaches that abortion is always wrong because it kills an innocent human being, thus violating the Church’s prohibition on murder, a teaching which “remains unchangeable.”
“Formal cooperation in an abortion constitutes a grave offense,” reads the Catechism of the Catholic Church. “The Church attaches the canonical penalty of excommunication to this crime against human life.”
Any state which deprives a certain category of persons of their inalienable rights, particularly the right to life from conception until death, is thus “denying the equality of all before the law,” and undermines its own foundations.
Furthermore, the Church’s Canon Law stipulates that under no circumstances are those who persist in manifest grave sin to receive the Holy Eucharist. “Those who have been excommunicated or interdicted after the imposition or declaration of the penalty and others obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to holy communion.”
It was based on this very directive of Canon Law that Fr. Robert E. Morey of St. Anthony Catholic Church in Florence, South Carolina, refused to give Biden Holy Communion in 2019. In comments to media in the aftermath, Morey explained his reasons: “Holy Communion signifies we are one with God, each other and the Church. Our actions should reflect that.”
“Any public figure who advocates for abortion places himself or herself outside of Church teaching,” he added.
Hence, as the USCCB looks set to studiously avoid the topic of Holy Communion to pro-abortion politicians, most especially in the form of drafting a “national policy,” the Eucharistic document would appear to be already moot, since it will avoid one of the most pressing issues of the Church in the U.S., namely, having a “Catholic” president who supports and promotes the murder of the unborn, and still presents himself for Holy Communion.
In fact, while the USCCB attempt to avoid this topic by rejecting any national policy, the Church has already spoken for the bishops in a universal manner, through the official texts and laws which bind all Catholics, both clerical and lay.
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June 24th - Nativity of St. John the Baptist |
Posted by: Stone - 06-24-2021, 07:37 AM - Forum: June
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June 24 – The Nativity of St John the Baptist
The Voice of one crying in the wilderness: “Prepare ye the way of the Lord; behold thy God!” Oh! in this world of ours grown now so cold, who can understand earth’s transports at hearing these glad tidings so long expected? The promised God was not yet manifested; but already have the heavens bowed down to make way for his passage. No longer was he “the One who is to come,” he for whom our fathers, the illustrious saints of the prophetic age ceaselessly called, in their indomitable hope. Still hidden, indeed, but already in our midst, he was resting beneath that virginal cloud compared with which, the heavenly purity of Thrones and Cherubim wax dim; yea, the united fires of burning Seraphim grow faint, in presence of the single love wherewith she alone encompasses him in her human heart, she that lowly daughter of Adam whom he had chosen for his mother. Our accursed earth, made suddenly more blessed far than yonder heaven so long inexorably closed to suppliant prayer, awaited only that the august mystery should be revealed; the hour was come for earth to join her canticles to that eternal and divine praise, which henceforth was ever rising from her depths, and which being itself no other than the Word Himself, would celebrate God condignly. But beneath the veil of humility where his divinity, even after as well as before his birth, must still continue to hide itself from men, who may discover the Emmanuel? who, having recognized him in his merciful abasements, may succeed in making him accepted by a world lost in pride? who may cry, pointing out the Carpenter’s Son, in the midst of the crowd: Behold Him whom your fathers have so wistfully awaited!
For such is the order decreed from on high, in the manifestation of the Messias. Conformably to the ways of men, the God-Man would not intrude himself into public life; he would await, for the inauguration of his divine ministry, some man who having preceded him in a similar career, would be hereby sufficiently accredited, to introduce him to the people.
Sublime part for a creature to play, to stand guarantee for his God, witness for the Word! The exalted dignity of him who was to fill such a position, had been notified, as had that of the Messias, long before his birth. In the solemn liturgy of the Age of types, the Levite choir, reminding the Most High of the meekness of David and of the promise made to him of a glorious heir, hailed from afar the mysterious lamp prepared by God for his Christ. Not that, to give light to his steps, Christ should stand in need of external help: he, the Splendor of the Father, had only to appear in these dark regions of ours, to fill them with the effulgence of the very heavens; but so many false glimmerings had deceived mankind, during the night of these ages of expectation, that had the true Light arisen on a sudden, it would not have been understood, or would have but blinded eyes now become well nigh powerless, by reason of protracted darkness, to endure its brilliancy. Eternal Wisdom therefore decreed that just as the rising sun is announced by the morning-star, and prepares his coming by the gently tempered brilliancy of aurora; so Christ, who is Light should be preceded here below by a star, his precursor; and his approach be signalized by the luminous rays which he himself (though still invisible) would shed around this faithful herald of his coming. When, in by-gone days, the Most High vouchsafed to light up, before the eyes of his prophets, the distant future, that radiant flash which for an instant shot across the heavens of the old covenant, melted away in the deep night, and ushered not in as yet the longed-for dawn. The “morning-star” of which the psalmist sings shall know naught of defeat: declaring unto night that all is now over with her, he will dim his own fires only in the triumphant splendor of the Sun of Justice. Even as aurora melts into day, so will he confound with Light Increated, his own radiance; being of himself, like every creature, nothingness and darkness, he will so reflect the brilliancy of the Messias Shining immediately upon him, that many will mistake him even for the very Christ.
The mysterious conformity of Christ and his Precursor, the incomparable proximity which unites one to the other, are to be found many times marked down in the sacred scriptures. If Christ is the Word, eternally uttered by the Father he is to be the Voice bearing this divine utterance whithersoever it is to reach; Isaias already hears the desert echoing with these accents, till now unknown; and the prince of prophets expresses his joy, with all the enthusiasm of a soul already beholding itself in the very presence of its Lord and God. The Christ is the Angel of the Covenant; but in the very same text wherein the Holy Ghost gives Him this title, for us so full of hope, there appears likewise bearing the same name of angel, the inseparable messenger, the faithful ambassador, to whom the earth is indebted for her coming to know the Spouse: Behold, I send my angel, and he shall prepare the way before my face. And presently the Lord whom ye seek, and the Angel of the testament whom you desire, shall come to his Temple; behold he cometh, saith the Lord of hosts. And putting an end to the prophetic ministry, of which he is the last representative, Malachias terminates his own oracles by the words which we have heard Gabriel addressing to Zachary, when he makes known to him the approaching birth of the Precursor.
The presence of Gabriel, on this occasion, of itself shows with what intimacy with the Son of God, this child then promised shall be favored; for the very same Prince of the heavenly hosts came again, soon afterwards, to announce the Emmanuel. Countless are the faithful messengers that press around the throne of the Holy Trinity, and the choice of these august ambassadors usually varies according to the dignity of the instructions to be transmitted to earth by the Most High. Nevertheless, it was fitting that the same archangel charged with concluding the sacred Nuptials of the Word with the Human Nature, should likewise prelude this great mission by preparing the coming of him whom the eternal decrees had designated as the Friend of the Bridegroom. Six months later, on his deputation to Mary, he strengthens his divine message, by revealing to that purest of Virgins, the prodigy, which had by then already given a son to the sterile Elizabeth; this being the first step of the Almighty towards a still greater marvel. John is not yet born; but without longer delay, his career is begun: he is employed to attest the truth of the angel’s promises. How ineffable this guarantee of a child hidden as yet in his mother’s womb, but already brought forward as God’s witness, in that sublime negotiation which at that moment is holding heaven and earth in suspense! Illumined from on high, Mary receives the testimony and hesitates no longer. Behold the handmaid of the Lord, says she to the archangel, be it done unto me, according to thy word.
Gabriel has retired, bearing away with him the divine secret which he has not been commissioned to reveal to the rest of the world. Neither will the most prudent Virgin herself tell it; even Joseph, her virginal Spouse, is to receive no communication of the mystery from her lips. Yet fear not; the woeful sterility beneath which earth has been so long groaning is not to be followed by an ignorance more sorrow-stricken still, now that it has yielded its fruit. There is one from whom Emmanuel will have no secret, nor reserve; it were fitting to reveal the marvel unto him. Scarce has the Spouse taken possession of the sanctuary all spotless wherein the nine months of his first abiding amongst men, must run their course, yea, scarce has the Word been made Flesh, than Our Lady, inwardly taught what is her Son’s desire, arising makes all haste to speed into the hill country of Judea. The voice of my Beloved! Behold he cometh, leaping upon the mountains, skipping over the hills. His first visit is to the “Friend of the Bridegroom,” the first out-pour of his graces is to John. A distinct feast will allow us to honor in a special manner the precious day on which the divine Child, sanctifying his Precursor, reveals himself to John by the voice of Mary; the day on which Our Lady, manifested by John, leaping within the womb of his mother, proclaims at last the wondrous things operated within her by the Almighty, according to the merciful promise which he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his seed for ever.
But the time is come when the good tidings are to spread, from children and mothers, through all the adjacent country, until at length they reach the whole world. John is about to be born, and while still himself unable to speak, he is to loosen his father’s tongue. He is to put an end to that dumbness with which the aged priest, a type of the old law, had been struck by the angel; and Zachary, himself filled with the Holy Ghost, is about to publish in a new canticle, the blessed visit of the Lord God of Israel.
The chants of Holy Church in honor of the Precursor’s Nativity have fairly begun; and already everything about the feast is telling us that it is one of those solemnities dearest to the heart of the Bride. But what would it be, if going back to the good days of yore, we were able to take our share in the olden manifestations of Catholic instinct on this day! In those grand ages wherein popular piety followed with docile step the inspiration of the one Mother Church, such demonstrations suggested by a common faith, on the recurrence of each loved anniversary, kept alive in every breast, the understanding of the divine Work and its mystic harmonies, thus gorgeously displayed on the cycle. Nowadays, when the liturgical spirit has fallen to a lower standard in the minds of the multitude, the Catholic verve, which used to urge on the mass of the people, is no longer felt in the same marked way. Left to itself, and hence without unity of view, popular devotion but too often lacks justness of proportion: nevertheless, these regrettable inconsistencies cannot impair the spirit of piety itself ever inherent in Holy Church; she is ever guided aright by the Spirit of Prayer that is within her; she ever holds the sure hand of her unerring authority on all the varieties of pious demonstrations of a non-liturgical character, as well as on the diminutions of the former solemnity of her own sacred rites; hence she is ever on the watch to prevent her maternal condescension becoming a pretext for opening the way to error. We are far, however, from the days when two rival armies meeting face to face on St. John’s Eve, would put off the battle till the morrow of the feast [q.v., The Battle of Fontenay, Saturday, 25th June, 841]. In England, though no longer kept as a day of obligation, the feast of St. John is still marked in the Calendar as a double of first class with an octave; and gives place to no other, save to the festival of Corpus Christi: it is, moreover, a “day of devotion,” and continues thus to attract the attention of the Faithful, as one of the more important feasts of the year.
Another festival is yet to come, at the end of August, calling for our renewed homage to the son of Zachary and Elizabeth; the feast, that is to say, of his glorious martyrdom. But ”venerable” as it has every right to be in our eyes (so the Church expresses herself in the Collect on that day), its splendor is not to be compared with that of this present festival. The reason is because this day relates less to John himself than to Jesus, whom he is announcing; whereas the feast of the Decollation, though more personal to our Saint, has not in the divine plan that same importance which his Birth had, inasmuch as it preludes that of the Son of God.
There hath not risen among them that are born of women a greater than John the Baptist, are the words to be spoken by the Man-God of his Precursor; and already has Gabriel, when announcing both of them, declared the same thing of each, that he shall be great. But the greatness of Jesus is that He shall be called the Son of the Most High, and the greatness of John is that he shall go before Him. The name of John brought down from heaven, like that of his Master, proclaims the grace which Jesus, by saving mankind, is to bring to the world. Jesus who cometh front above in person, is above all it is He and He alone whom all mankind is expecting; John who is of earth, on the contrary, hath nothing but what he hath received; but he hath received to be the friend of the Bridegroom, his usher; so that the Bridegroom cometh not to the Bride, but by him.
Yea, the Bride even cannot come to know herself, nor to prepare herself for the sacred nuptials, but by him: his preaching awakens her, in the wilderness; he adorns her with the charms of penitence and all virtues; his hand, in the one baptism, at last unites her to Christ beneath the waters. Sublime moment! in which, raised far above all men and angels, John, in the midst of the Holy Trinity, as it were, in virtue of an authority that is his, invests the Second Person Incarnate with a new title; the Father and the Holy Ghost acting the while, in concert with him! But presently, coming down from those lofty heights, more than human, to which his mission had raised him, he is fain to disappear altogether: the Bride is become the Bridegroom’s own; the joy therefore of John is full, his work is done; he has now but to efface himself and to decrease. To Jesus here manifested, it henceforth alone belongs to appear and to increase. Thus too, the day-star, from the feast of John’s Nativity when he beams his rays upon us in all his splendor, will begin to decline from the heights of his solstice, towards the horizon; whereas Christmas will give him signal to return, to resume that upward movement which progressively restores all his fiery effulgence.
Verily, Jesus alone is Light, the Light without which earth would remain dead; and John is but the man sent from God, without whom the Light would have remained unknown. But Jesus being inseparable from John, even as day is from aurora, it is by no means astonishing that earth’s gladness at John’s birth should partake of something of that excited by the coming of our Redeemer. Up to the fifteenth century, the Latin Church, together with the Greeks who still continue the custom, celebrated, in the month of September, a feast called the conception of the Precursor; not that his conception was in itself holy, but because it announced the beginning of mysteries. Just in the same way, the Nativity of Saint John Baptist indeed made holy, is celebrated with so much pomp merely because it seems to enfold within itself the Nativity of Christ, our Redeemer. It is as it were Midsummer’s “Christmas Day.” From the very onset, God and his Church brought about, with most delicate care, many such parallel resemblances and dependences between these two solemnities. These we are now about to study.
God, who in his Providence seeks in all things the glorification of His Word made Flesh, estimates men and centuries by the measure of testimony they render to Christ; and this is why John is so great. For, Him whom the Prophets announced as about to come, whom the Apostles preached as already come, John, at once prophet and apostle, pointed out with his finger, exclaiming “Behold, this is He!” John, being then the witness by excellence, it is fitting that he should open that glorious period during which, for three centuries, the Church was to render to her Spouse that testimony of blood, whereby the Martyrs, after the Prophets and Apostles, whereon she is built up, hold the first claim to her gratitude. Just as Eternal Wisdom had decreed that the tenth and last great struggle of that epoch, should be forever linked with the Birthday of the Son of God whose triumph it secured, by the memory of the Martyrs of Nicomedia on the 25th of December, 303; so likewise does John’s birthday mark the beginning of the first of those giant contests. For the 24th of June in the Roman Martyrology is sacred likewise to the memory of those soldiers of Christ, who first entered upon the arena opened to them by pagan Rome in the year 64. After the proclamation of the Nativity of the Precursor, the Church’s record runs thus: “At Rome the memory of many holy Martyrs who under the Emperor Nero being calumniously accused of setting fire to the city, were at the command of the same, most cruelly put to death by divers torments; some of whom were sown up in beasts’ skins and so exposed to be torn by dogs; others crucified; others set on fire, so that at the decline of day they might serve as torches to light up the night. All these were disciples of the Apostles; and first fruits of the Martyrs offered to the Lord by the Roman Church, the fertile field of Martyrs, even before the death of the Apostles.”
The solemnity of the 24th of June, therefore, throws a double light on the early days of Christianity. There never were even then, days evil enough for the Church to belie the prediction of the Angel, that many should rejoice in the birth of John; together with joy, his word, his example, his intercession brought courage to the Martyrs. After the triumph won by the Son of God over pagan negation; when to the testimony of blood succeeded that of confession by works and praise, John maintained his part as Precursor of Christ in souls. Guide of monks, he conducts them far from the world, and fortifies them in the combats of the desert; Friend of the Bridegroom, he continues to form the Bride, by preparing unto the Lord a perfect people.
In the divers states and degrees of the Christian life, his ever needful and beneficent influence makes itself felt. At the beginning of the fourth Gospel, in the most dogmatic passage of the New Testament, not by mere accident is John brought forward, even as heretofore at Jordan, as one closely united with the operations of the Adorable Trinity, in the universal economy of the Divine Incarnation: There was a man sent from God whose name was John, saith the Holy Ghost; he came for a witness, to give testimony of the light, that all might believe through him. “Precursor at his birth, Precursor at his death, St. John still continues,” says St. Ambrose, “to march in front, before the Lord. More perhaps than we are aware of, may his mysterious action be telling on this present life of ours. When we begin to believe in Christ, there comes forth virtue, as it were, from St. John, drawing us after him: he inclines the steps of the soul towards faith; he rectifies the crooked ways of life, making straight the road of our earthly pilgrimage, lest we stray into the rugged wilds of error; he contrives so, that all our valleys be filled with the fruits of virtue, and that every elevation be brought low before the Lord.”
But if the Precursor maintains his part in each progressive movement of faith which brings souls nearer to Christ, he intervenes still more markedly in each baptism conferred, whereby the Bride gains increase. The baptistry is especially consecrated to him. It is true, the baptism which he gave to the crowds pressing day by day, on Jordan’s banks, had never power such as Christian baptism possesses; but when he plunged the Man-God beneath the waters, they were endowed with a virtue of fecundity emanating directly from Christ, whereby they would be empowered until the end of time to complete, by the accession of new members, the Body of Holy Church united to Christ.
The faith of our fathers never ignored the great benefits for which both individuals and nations are indebted to Saint John. So many neophytes received his name in baptism, so efficacious was the aid afforded by him in conducting his clients to sanctity, that there is not a day in the Calendar on which there may not be honored the heavenly birthday of one or other so named. Amongst nations, the Lombards formerly claimed Saint John as Patron, and French Canada does the same nowadays. But whether in East or West, who could count the countries, towns, religious families, abbeys, and churches placed under this same powerful patronage: from the temple which, under Theodosius, replaced that of the ancient Serapis in Alexandria with its famous mysteries, to the sanctuary raised upon the ruins of the altar of Apollo, on the summit of Monte Cassino, by the Patriarch of monks; from the fifteen churches which Byzantium, the new Rome, consecrated within her walls in honor of the Precursor, to the august Basilica of Lateran, well worthy of its epithet, the golden Basilica, and which in the Capital of Christendom remains forever Mother and Mistress of all churches, not alone of the City, but of the whole world! Dedicated at first to our Savior, this latter Basilica added at an early date another title which seems inseparable from this sacred name, that of the Friend of the Bridegroom. Saint John the Evangelist, also a “friend of Jesus,” whose precious death is placed by one tradition on the Twenty-fourth day of June, has likewise had his name added to the other two borne by this Basilica; but all the same, it is nonetheless certain that common practice is in keeping with ancient documents, in referring, as it does, more especially to the Precursor, the title of Saint John Lateran, whereby the patriarchal Basilica of the Roman Pontiffs is always designated in these days.
“Fitting it was,” says Saint Peter Damian “that the authority of the Bride should subscribe to the judgment of the Bridegroom, and that this latter should see his greatest Friend raised in glory there, where she is enthroned as queen. A remarkable choice is this, to be sure, whereby John is given the primacy, in the very city that is consecrated by the glorious death of the two lights of the world. Peter from his cross, Paul beneath the blade, both behold the first place held by another; Rome is clad in the purple of innumerable martyrs, and yet all her honors go straight to the blessed Precursor. Everywhere John is the greatest!”
On this day, therefore, let us too imitate Mother Church; let us avoid that obliviousness which bespeaks ingratitude; let us hail, with thanksgiving and heartfelt gladness, the arrival of him who promises our Savior unto us. Yea, already Christmas is announced. On the Lateran Piazza (or Square), the faithful Roman people will keep vigil tonight, awaiting the hour which will allow the eve’s strict fast and abstinence to be broken, when they may give themselves up to innocent enjoyment, the prelude of those rejoicings wherewith, six months hence, they will be greeting the Emmanuel.
Saint John’s Vigil is no longer of precept, in a great many Churches. Formerly, however, not one day’s fasting only, but an entire quarantine was observed at the approach of the Nativity of the Precursor, resembling in its length and severity that of the Advent of our Lord! The more severe had been the holy exactions of the preparation, the more prized and the better appreciated would be the festival. After seeing the penance of Saint John’s fast equaled to the austerity of that preceding Christmas, it is not surprising to behold the Church in her Liturgy making the two Nativities closely resemble one another, to a degree that would be apt to stagger the limping faith of many a one nowadays.
The Nativity of Saint John was celebrated by three Masses, just as is that of Him whom he made known to the Bride: the first, in the dead of night, commemorated his title of Precursor; the second, at daybreak, honored the Baptism he conferred; the third, at the hour of Tierce, hailed his sanctity. The preparation of the Bride, the consecration of the Bridegroom, his own peerless holiness; a threefold triumph, which at once linked the servant to the Master, and deserved the homage of a triple sacrifice to God the Thrice-Holy, manifested to John in the plurality of His Persons, and revealed by him to the Church. In like manner, as there were formerly two Matins on Christmas Night, so in many places was there a double office celebrated on the feast of Saint John, as Durandus of Mende, following Honorious of Autun, informs us. The first Office began at the decline of day; it was without Alleluia, in order to signify the time of the Law and the Prophets which lasted up to Saint John. The second office, begun in the middle of the night, terminated at dawn; this was sung with Alleluia, to denote the opening of the time of grace and of the kingdom of God.
Joy, which is the characteristic of this Feast, outstripped the limits of the sacred precincts and shed itself abroad, as far even as the infidel Mussulmans. Though at Christmas, the severity of the season necessarily confined to the domestic hearth all touching expansion of private piety, the lovely summer nights, at Saint John’s tide, gave free scope to popular display of lively faith among various nationalities. In this way, the people seemed to make up for what circumstances prevented in the way of demonstrations to the Infant God, by the glad honors they could render to the cradle of his Precursor. Scarce had the last rays of the setting sun died away, than all the world over, from the far East to the furthest West, immense columns of flame arose from every mountain top; and in an instant, every town and village and smallest hamlet was lighted up. “Saint John’s fires,” as they called them, were an authentic testimony, repeating over and over again the truth of the words of the Angel and of prophecy, whereby that universal gladness was announced which would hail the Birth day of Elizabeth’s son. Like to a burning and shining light, to use the expression of our Lord, he had appeared in the midst of endless night, and for a time, the Synagogue was willing to rejoice in his light; but disconcerted by his fidelity which prevented him from giving himself out as the Christ and the true Light, irritated at the sight of the Lamb that he pointed out as the salvation of the whole world, and not of Israel alone, the Synagogue had presently turned back again into night, and had drawn across her own eyes that fatal bandage which suffers her to remain, up to this day, in her sad darkness. Filled with gratitude to him who had neither wished to diminish nor to deceive the Bride, the gentile world, on her side, exalted him all the more for his having lowered himself; gathering together and applying to herself those sentiments which ought to have animated the repudiated Synagogue, she was fain to manifest by all means in her power, that without confounding the borrowed light of the Precursor with that of the Sun of Justice Himself, she nonetheless hailed with enthusiasm this light which had been to the entire human race a very aurora of nuptial gladness.
It may almost be said of the “Saint John’s fires,” that they date, like the festival itself, from the very beginning of Christianity. They made their appearance, at least, from the earliest days of the period of peace, like a sample fruit of popular initiative; but not indeed without sometimes exciting the anxious attention of the Fathers and of Councils, ever on the watch to banish every superstitious notion from manifestations, which otherwise so happily began to replace the pagan festivities proper to the solstices. But the necessity of combating some abuses, which are just as possible in our own days as in those, did not withhold the Church from encouraging a species of demonstration which so well answered to the very character of the feast. “Saint John’s fires” made a happy completion to the liturgical solemnity; testifying how one and the same thought possessed both the mind of Holy Church and of the terrestrial city; for the organisation of these rejoicings originated with the civil corporations and the expenses thereof were defrayed by the municipalities. Thus the privilege of lighting the bonfire was usually reserved to some dignitary of the civil order. Kings themselves taking part in the common merry-making would esteem it an honour to give this signal to popular gladness; Louis XIV, as late as 1648, for example, lighted the bonfire on the “place de Grève,” as his predecessors had done. In other places, as is even now done in Catholic Brittany, the clergy were invited to bless the piles of wood, and to cast thereon the first brand; whilst the crowd, bearing flaming torches, would disperse over the neighboring country, amidst the ripening crops, or would march along the ocean side, following the tortuous cliff-paths, shouting many a gladsome cry, to which the adjacent islets would reply by lighting up their festive fires.
In some parts, the custom prevailed of rolling a “burning wheel;” this was a self-revolving red-hot disk that, rolling along the streets or down from the hill-tops, represented the movement of the sun, which attains the highest point in his orbit, to begin at once his descent; thus was the word of the Precursor brought to mind, when speaking of the Messias, he says: He must increase, and I must decrease. The symbolism was completed by the custom then in vogue, of burning old bones and rubbish on this day which proclaims the end of the Ancient Law, and the commencement of the New Covenant, according to the holy Scripture, where it is written: … And new store coming on, you shall cast away the old.
Blessed are those populations amongst whom is still preserved something of such customs, whence the old simplicity of our forefathers drew a gladness assuredly more true and more pure than their descendants seek in festivities wherein the soul has no part!
To the Office of Lauds, on this day, a special importance is to be attached, because the Canticle Benedictus, which is sung during Lauds all the year round, is the very expression itself of the sentiments inspired by the Holy Ghost to the father of Saint John the Baptist, on the occasion of that Birthday which gave joy both to God and man. Wherefore, being unable to insert the entire Office, we give at least this Canticle which will be found below, after the Hymns for Matins and Lauds, composed by Paul the Deacon, and forming the sequel to that already given above, for Vespers. The Antiphons, Capitulum, and Versicle used at Lauds are the same as those marked, further on, for second Vespers.
Hymn at Matins
Antra deserti teneris sub annis,
Civium turmas fugiens, petisti,
Ne levi posses maculare vitam Crimine linguæ.
The desert cavern didst thou seek, in tenderest age, fleeing betimes the crowded city, lest by the slightest sin of tongue, thy life should e’er be sullied.
Præbuit durum tegumen camelus
Artubus sacris, strophium bidentes;
Cui latex haustum, sociata pastum
Mella locustis.
Unto thy sacred body, rough garment the camel did afford,—victims, a cincture; the running stream supplied thy drink, honey with locusts, a repast.
Cæteri tantum cecinere vatum
Corde præsago jubar affuturum:
Tu quidem mundi scelus auuferentem
Indice prodis.
Other Prophets but sang, with heart inspired, the Light that was to come: while thou didst with thy finger point out Him who taketh the world’s dark sin away.
Non fuit vasti spatium per orbis
Sanctius quisquam genitus Johanne,
Qui nefas sæcli meruit lavantem
Tingere lymphis.
Not in all the wide world was one born holy as this John, who was deemed worthy to plunge beneath the wave, e’en Him, that washeth away earth’s crimes.
Sit decus Patri, genitæque Proli,
Et tibi, compar utriusque virtus
Spiritus semper, Deus unus, omni
Tempore ævo. Amen.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Only-Begotten Son, and to Thee, O Power, eternally equal to them both, O Spirit, One God, for ever and ever.
Amen.
Hymn at Lauds
O nimis felix, meritique celsi,
Nesciens labem nivei pudoris,
Præpotens martyr, nemorumque cultor,
Maxime vatum.
O most happy Thou, and of merit high; unknowing stain upon thy snowy purity; Martyr all potent! Man of prayer, hid in dark thicket’s shade! Of Prophets mightiest thou!
Serta ter denis alios coronant
Aucta crementis, duplicata quosdam;
Trina te fructu cumulata centum
Nexibus ornant.
With wreaths by works increased thrice threefold, some, and e’en with double that, are others crowned; whilst tripled fruits a hundred-fold accumulate, with radiant bands thy brow bedeck.
Nunc potens nostri meritis opimis
Pectoris duros lapides revelle,
Asperum planans iter, et reflexos
Dirige calles.
Now, O potent one, these copious merits thine, asunder rend these stony breasts of ours! Make plain the rugged way, and the diverging path make straight!
Ut pius mundi Sator et Redemptor,
Mentibus culpæ sine labe puris,
Rite dignetur veniens beatos
Ponere gressus.
So that the compassionate Creator and Redeemer of the world, finding our souls clean and pure from every stain of sin, at it behoves, may thereon vouchsafe, at His coming, to set His blessed feet.
Laudibus cives celebrent superni
Te, Deus simplex pariterque trine,
Supplices et nos veniam precamur:
Parce redemptis. Amen.
With praiseful song, let all the heavenly citizens hail Thee, O God simple and three in Persons; whilst we suppliants implore pardon: Thy redeemed ones spare! Amen.
℣. Iste puer magnus coram Domino.
℣. This child shall be great before the Lord.
℟. Nam et manus ejus cum ipso est.
℟. For His hand is with him.
Ant. Apertum est os Zachariæ, et prophetavit, dicens: Benedictus Deus Israel.
Ant. The mouth of Zachary was opened, and he prophesied, saying: Blessed be the God of Israel.
Canticle of Zachary
Benedictus Dominus Deus Israel: * quia visitavit, et fecit redemptionem plebis suæ.
Blessed be the Lord God of Israel: because he hath visited and wrought the redemption of his people.
Et erexit cornu salutis nobis: * in domo David pueri sui.
And hath raised up a horn of salvation to us, in the house of David his servant.
Sicut locutus est per os Sanctorum: * qui a sæculo sunt Prophetarum ejus.
As he spoke by the mouth of his holy Prophets, who are from the beginning.
Salutem ex inimicis nostris: * et de manu omnium qui oderunt nos.
Salvation from our enemies, and from the hand of all that hate us.
Ad faciendam misericordiam cum patribus nostris: * et memorari testamenti sui sancti.
To perform mercy to our fathers, and to remember his holy testament.
Jusjurandum quo djuravit ad Abraham patrem nostrum: * daturum se nobis.
The oath which he swore to Abraham, our father; that he would grant to us,
Ut sine timore de manu inimicorum nostrorum liberati: * serviamus illi.
That being delivered from the hand of our enemies we may serve him without fear.
In sanctitate et justitia coram ipso: * omnibus diebus nostris.
In holiness and justice before him, all our days.
Et tu puer, Propheta Altissimi vocaberis: * præibis enim ante faciem Domini parare vias ejus.
And thou child, Precursor of the Emmanuel, shalt be called the Prophet of the Most High: for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord, to prepare his ways.
Ad dandam scientiam salutis plebi ejus: * in remissionem peccatorum eorum.
To give unto his people the knowledge of salvation, unto the remission of their sins.
Per viscera misericordiæ Dei nostri: * in quibus visitavit nos Oriens ex alto.
Through the bowels of the mercy of our God, in which the Orient from on high hath visited us:
Illuminare his, qui in tenebris et in umbra mortis sedent: * ad dirigendos pedes nostros in viam pacis.
To enlighten them that sit in darkness, and in the shadow of death; to direct our feet in the way of peace.
Tierce
The Hymn and the three Psalms of which the Office of Tierce is composed, are to be found here.
Ant. Innuebant patri ejus quem vellet vocari eum: et scripsit dicens: Johannes est nomen ejus.
Ant. They made signs to his father, how he would have him called: and he wrote saying: John is his name.
The Capitulum is the same as in First Vespers.
℟. Brev. Fuit homo, * Missus a Deo. Fuit.
℟. Brev. There was a man * sent from God. There was.
℣. Cui nomen erat Johannes. * Missus. Gloria Patri. Fuit.
℣. Whose name was John. * Sent. Glory be to the Father. There was.
℣. Inter natos mulierum non surrexit major.
℣. Among them that are born of women, there hath not risen a greater.
℟. Johanne Baptista.
℟. Than John the Baptist.
The Prayer is the Collect of the Mass.
Mass
The Mass is composed of diverse passages from the Old and New Testaments. The Church, as liturgical authors say, wishes hereby to remind us that John forms the link binding together both Testaments, he himself sharing in each. He is the precious clasp, which fastens the double mantle of Law and of Grace, across the breast of the eternal Pontiff.
The Introit is from Isaias; the text from which it is taken will occur again, and at greater length, in our Epistle. The Psalm formerly chanted with it is the 91st, the first verse alone of which is now used, although the primary motive of this choice lay in its following verse and in its thirteenth: It is good … to shew forth thy mercy in the morning, and thy truth in the night: … The just shall flourish like the palm tree; he shall grow up like the cedar of Libanus.
Introit
De ventre matris meæ vocavit me Dominus nomine meo: et posuit os meum ut gladium acutum: sub tegumento manus suæ protexit me, et posuit me quasi sagittam electam.
The Lord hath called me by my name, from the womb of my mother: and he hath made my mouth like a sharp sword; in the shadow of his hand he hath protected me, and hath made me as a chosen arrow.
Ps. Bonum est confiteri Domino: et psallere nomini tuo, Altissime. ℣. Gloria Patri. De ventre.
Ps. It is good to give praise to the Lord, and to sing to thy name, O Most High. ℣. Glory, &c. The Lord, &c.
The Collect gathers together the desires of the Faithful, upon this day, which is so great because hallowed by the birth of the Precursor. The voice of the Church implores herein an abundance of spiritual joy, which is the grace peculiar to this feast, as we learn from the very words of Gabriel. Bearing in mind the special part allotted to Zachary’s son, which consists in setting in order the paths of salvation the Church prays that not one of her Christian children may turn aside from the Way of Life Eternal.
Collect
Deus, qui præsentem diem honorabilem nobis in beati Johannis nativitate fecisti: da populis tuis spiratualium gratiam gaudiorum; et omnium fidelium mentes dirige in viam salutis æternæ. Per Dominum.
O God, who hast made this day glorious unto us on account of the Nativity of blessed John; grant to thy people the grace of spiritual joys; and direct the souls of all the Faithful into the way of eternal salvation. Through our Lord, &c.
Epistle
Lesson of the Prophet Isaias. Ch. XLIX.
Give ear, ye islands, and hearken, ye people from afar. The Lord hath called me from the womb, from the bowels of my mother he hath been mindful of my name. And he hath made my mouth like a sharp sword: in the shadow of his hand he hath protected me, and hath made me as a chosen arrow: in his quiver he hath hidden me. And he said to me: Thou art my servant Israel, for in thee will I glory. And now saith the Lord, that formed me from the womb to be his servant, that I may bring back Jacob unto him, and Israel will not be gathered together: and I am glorified in the eyes of the Lord, and my God is made my strength. And he said: It is a small thing that thou shouldst be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to convert the dregs of Israel. Behold, I have given thee to be the light of the Gentiles, that thou mayst be my salvation even to the farthest part of the earth. Thus saith the Lord the redeemer of Israel, his Holy One, to the soul that is despised, to the nation that is abhorred, to the servant of rulers: Kings shall see, and princes shall rise up, and adore for the Lord’ s sake, because he is faithful, and for the Holy One of Israel, who hath chosen thee.
Quote:Isaias, in these few lines, has directly in view the announcing of Christ; the application here made by the Church to Saint John Baptist once more shows us how closely the Messias is united with his Precursor in the work of the Redemption. Rome, once capital of the gentile world, now Mother of Christendom, delights in proclaiming, on this day, to the sons whom the Spouse has given her, the consoling prophecy which was addressed to them of yore, before she herself was founded upon the seven hills. Eight hundred years before the birth of John and of the Messias a voice had been heard on Sion, and, reaching beyond the frontiers of Jacob, had re-echoed along those distant coasts where sin’s darkness held mankind in the thraldom of hell: Give ear, ye islands; and hearken, ye people from afar! It was the Voice of Him who was to come, and of the Angel deputed to walk before him, the voice of John and of the Messias, proclaiming the one predestination, common to them both, which as servant and as Master, made them to be objects of the self-same eternal decree. And this voice, after having hailed the privilege which would designate each (though so diversely) from the maternal womb, as objects of complacency to the Almighty, went on to utter the divinely formulated oracle which was to be promulgated, in other terms, over the cradle of each by the respective ministry of Zachary and of Angels. And he said to me: Thou art my servant Israel, for in thee will I glory, in thee who art indeed Israel to Me; … And he said: It is a small thing that thou shouldst be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to convert the dregs of Israel, who will not hearken to thee, and of whom thou shalt bring back but a small remnant. Behold I have given thee to be the Light of the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation even to the farthest part of the earth; to make up for the scant welcome my people shall have given thee, kings shall see, and princes shall rise up, at thy word, and adore for the Lord’s sake, because he is faithful, and for the Holy One of Israel, who hath chosen thee as the negotiator of his alliance.
Children of the Bridegroom, let us enter into this thought of his; let us understand what ought to be the gratitude of us Gentiles to him to whom all flesh is indebted for its knowledge of the Redeemer. From the wilderness, where his voice stung the pride of the descendants of the patriarchs, he beheld us succeeding to the haughty Synagogue; without at all minimising the divine exactions, his stern language when addressed to the Bridegroom’s chosen ones, assumed a tone of considerateness which it never had for the Jews. “Ye offspring of vipers,” said he to these latter, “who hath shown you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth, therefore, fruits worthy of penance, and do not begin to say, We have Abraham for our Father. For I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children to Abraham. For in your case, already is the axe laid to the root of the tree. Every tree, therefore, that bringeth not forth good fruit, shall be cut down and cast into the fire.” But to the despised publican, to the hated soldier, to all those parched hearts of the gentile world, hard and arid as the desert rock, John the Baptist announced a flow of grace that would refresh their dried up souls making them fruitful in justice: “Ye publicans, do nothing more than what is appointed you, by the exigencies of the tax laws; ye soldiers, be content with your pay. The Law was given by Moses; but better is grace; grace and truth come by Jesus Christ whom I declare unto you: He it is who taketh away the sins of the world and of His fullness we have all received.”
What a new horizon was here opened out before these objects of reproach, held aloof so long by Israel’s scorn! But in the eyes of the Synagogue, such a blow aimed at Juda’s pretended privilege was a crime. She had borne the biting invectives of this son of Zachary; she had even, at one moment, shown herself ready to hail him as the Christ; but she who vaunted herself as pure, to be invited to go hand in hand with the unclean Gentile,—that she could never brook; it were too much: from that moment, John was judged of, by her, as his Master would afterwards be. Later on, Jesus will insist upon the difference of welcome given to the Precursor by those who listened to him. Yea, he will even make thereof the basis for his sentence of reprobation pronounced against the Jews: “Amen I say to you, that the publicans and harlots shall go into the kingdom of God before you; for John came to you in the way of justice, and you did not believe him. But the publicans and harlots believed him: but you seeing it, did not even afterwards repent, that you might believe him.”
Following in the train of Isaias, who has been prophesying the coming of John and of Christ, Jeremias, the figure of both, stands before us in the Gradual; he too was sanctified in his mother’s womb, and there prepared for the ministry which he was to exercise. The verse leaves the sense suspended, upon an announcement of a word of the Lord; according to the rite formerly in use it was completed by the repetition of the Gradual. The Alleluia Verse is taken from the Gospel. Its words occur in the Benedictus.
Gradual
Priusquam te formarem in utero, novi te: et antequam exires de ventre, sanctificavi te.
Before I formed thee in the bowels of thy mother, I knew thee: and before thou camest forth out of the womb, I sanctified thee.
℣. Misit Dominus manum suam, et tetigit os meum, et dixit mihi.
℣. The Lord put forth his hand, and touched my mouth: and said to me.
Alleluia, alleluia.
Alleluia, alleluia.
℣. Tu, puer, Propheta Altissimi vocaberis: præh;ibis ante Dominum parare vias ejus. Alleluia.
℣. Thou, child, shalt be called the Prophet of the Highest; thou shalt go before the Lord to prepare his ways. Alleluia.
Gospel
Sequel of the holy Gospel according to Luke. Ch. I.
Elizabeth’s full time of being delivered was come, and she brought forth a son. And her neighbours and kinsfolks heard that the Lord had shewed his great mercy towards her, and they congratulated with her. And it came to pass, that on the eighth day they came to circumcise the child, and they called him by his father’s name Zachary. And his mother answering, said: Not so; but he shall be called John. And they said to her: There is none of thy kindred that is called by this name. And they made signs to his father, how he would have him called. And demanding a writing table, he wrote, saying: John is his name. And they all wondered. And immediately his mouth was opened, and his tongue loosed, and he spoke, blessing God. And fear came upon all their neighbours; and all these things were noised abroad over all the hill country of Judea. And all they that had heard them laid them up in their heart, saying: What an one, think ye, shall this child be? For the hand of the Lord was with him. And Zachary his father was filled with the Holy Ghost; and he prophesied, saying: Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; because he hath visited and wrought the redemption of his people.
Quote:After the places hallowed by the sojourn, here below, of the Word made Flesh, there is no spot of greater interest for the Christian soul than that wherein were accomplished the events just mentioned in our Gospel. The town illustrated by the birth of the Precursor is situated about two leagues from Jerusalem, to the west; just as Bethlehem, our Savior’s birthplace, is at the same distance southwards from the Holy City. Going out by the gate of Jaffa, the pilgrim bound for St. John of the Mountain passes on his way the Greek monastery of Holy Cross, raised on the spot where the trees which formed our Lord’s cross were hewn down: then pursuing his course through the close-set woods of the mountains of Juda, he attains a summit whence he can descry the waters of the Mediterranean. The house of Obed-Edom, that for three months harbored the sacred Ark of the Covenant, stood here, whence a by-path leads by a short cut directly to the place where Mary, the true Ark, dwelt for three happy months in the house of her cousin Elizabeth. Two sanctuaries, distant about a thousand paces one from the other, are sacred to the memory of the two great facts just related to us by Saint Luke: in the one, John the Baptist was conceived and born; in the other, the circumcision of the Precursor took place eight days after his birth. The first of these sanctuaries stands on the site of Zachary’s town-house; its present form dates from a period anterior to the Crusades. It is a beautiful church with three naves and a cupola, measuring thirty-seven feet in length. The high Altar is dedicated to St. Zachary, and another altar, on the right, to Saint Elizabeth. On the left, seven marble steps lead to a subterraneous chapel hollowed out of the rock, which is identical with the furthermost apartment of the original house: this is the sanctuary of St. John’s Nativity. Four lamps glimmer in the darkness of this venerable crypt while six others, suspended beneath the altar slab itself, throw light on the following inscription engraved upon the marble pavement: hic præcursor domini natus est. Let us unite, on this day, with the devout sons of Saint Francis, guardians of those ineffable memories; more fortunate here than at Bethlehem with its sacred grotto, they have not to dispute with schism the homage which they pay in the name of the legitimate Bride to the Friend of the Bridegroom upon the very spot of his Nativity.
Local tradition sets at some distance from this first sanctuary, as we have said, the memorable place where the circumcision of the Precursor was performed. Besides a town house, Zachary was owner of another more isolated. Elizabeth had retired thither during the first months of her pregnancy, to taste in silence the gift of God. There did the meeting between herself and Our Lady on her arrival from Nazareth take place; there, the sublime exultation of the Infants and their Mothers; there the Magnificat proclaimed to heaven, that earth henceforth could rival, and even surpass, supernal songs of praise and canticles of love. It was fitting that Zachary’s song, the morning canticle, should be first intoned there, where that of evening had ascended like incense of sweetest fragrance. In the accounts given by ancient pilgrims, it is noticed that there were here two sanctuaries placed one above the other: in the lower one Mary and Elizabeth met; in the upper story of this same country house of Zachary, the greater portion of the facts just set before us by the Church were enacted.
Urban V, in 1368, ordered that the Credo should be chanted on the day of St. John Baptist’s Nativity and during the Octave, to prevent the Precursor’s appearing to be in any way inferior to the Apostles. The more ancient custom, however, of suppressing the Symbol on this feast has nevertheless prevailed: not that it is a mark of inferiority in regard of him who rises above all others that have ever announced the kingdom of God; but to show that he completed his course before the promulgation of the Gospel.
The Offertory is taken from the Introit Psalm; it is the verse which anciently formed the Introit of the Aurora Mass of this feast.
Offertory
Justus ut palma florebit: sicut cedrus, quæ in Libano est, multiplicabitur.
The just shall flourish like the palm tree: he shall grow up like the cedar of Libanus.
The Secret brings out in strong light the twofold character of Prophet and apostle, which makes John so great; the sacrifice which is being celebrated in his honor is to add new luster to his glory, by placing anew, before our gaze, the Lamb of God, whom he announced and whom he will still point out to the world.
Secret
Tua, Domine, muneribus altaria cumulamus, illius Nativitatem honore debito celebrantes, qui Salvatorem mundi et cecinit adfuturum, et adesse monstravit, Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum Filium tuum: qui tecum.
We cover thy altars with offerings, O Lord; celebrating with due honor his Nativity, who both proclaimed the coming of the Savior of the world, and pointed him out, when come, our Lord Jesus Christ, thy Son, who liveth and reigneth with Thee, &c.
The Bridegroom is in possession of the Bride, and it is John the Baptist who hath prepared the way; thus sings our Communion Antiphon. The moment of the Sacred Mysteries is that in which he repeats every day: He that hath the Bride is the Bridegroom: but the friend of the Bridegroom, who standeth and heareth him, rejoiceth with joy because of the Bridegroom’s voice. This my joy therefore is fulfilled.
Communion
Tu, puer, Propheta Altissimi vocaberis: præibis enim ante faciem Domini parare vias ejus.
Thou, child, shalt be called the Prophet of the Highest; for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways.
If the Friend of the Bridegroom is overflowing with gladness at this sublime moment of the Mysteries, how shall not the Bride herself be all joy and gratitude? Let her then extol, in the Postcommunion, him who has brought her to know her Redeemer and Lord!
Postcommunion
Sumat Ecclesia tua, Deus, beati Johannis Baptistæ generatione lætitiam: per quem suæ.; regenerationis cognovit auctorem, Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum Filium tuum: qui tecum.
May thy Church, O God, put on gladness in the Nativity of blessed John Baptist: by whom she hath known the author of her regeneration, our Lord Jesus Christ thy Son, &c.
Precursor of the Messias, we share in the joy which thy birth brought to the world. This birth of thine announced that of the Son of God. Now, each year, our Emmanuel assumes anew his life in the Church and in souls; and in our day, just as it was eighteen hundred years ago, he wills that this birth of his shall not take place without thy preparing the way, now as then, for that nativity whereby our Saviour is given to each one of us. Scarce has the sacred cycle completed the series of mysteries whereby the glorification of the Man-God is consummated and the Church is founded, than Christmas begins to appear on the horizon; already, so to speak, does John reveal by exulting demonstrations the approach of our Infant-God. Sweet Prophet of the Most High, not yet canst thou speak, when already thou dost outstrip all the princes of prophecy; but full soon the desert will seem to snatch thee for ever from the commerce of men. Then Advent comes and the Church will show us that she has found thee once more; she will constantly lead us to listen to thy sublime teachings, to hear thee bearing witness unto Him whom she is expecting. From this present moment, therefore, begin to prepare our souls; having descended anew on this our earth, coming as thou now dost, on this day of gladness, as the messenger of the near approach of our Saviour, canst thou possibly remain idle one instant, in face of the immense work which lies before thee to accomplish in us?
To chase sin away, subdue vice, correct the instincts falsified in this poor fallen nature of ours; all this would have been done within us, as indeed it should long ago, had we but responded faithfully to thy past labors. Yet, alas, it is only too true that in the greater number of us, scarce has the first turning of the soil been begun: stubborn clay, wherein stones and briers have defied thy careful toil these many years! We acknowledge it to be so, filled as we are with the confusion of guilty souls; yea, we confess our faults to thee and to Almighty God, as the Church teaches us to do, at the beginning of the great sacrifice; but at the same time, we beseech thee with her to pray to the Lord our God for us. Thou didst proclaim in the desert: From these very stones even, God is still able to raise up children of Abraham. Daily do the solemn formulæ of the Oblation wherein is prepared the ceaselessly renewed immolation of our Saviour tell of the honourable and important part which is thine in this august Sacrifice; thy name, again pronounced while the Divine Victim is present on the Altar, pleads for us sinners to the God of all mercy. Would that, in consideration of thy merits and of our misery, he would deign to be propitious to the persevering prayer of our mother the Church, change our hearts, and in place of evil attachments, attract them to virtue, so as to deserve for us the visit of Emmanuel! At this sacred moment of the Mysteries, when thrice is invoked, in the words of that formula taught us by thyself, the Lamb of God who taketh away the sins of the world, he, this very Lamb, will himself have pity upon us and give us peace: peace so precious, with heaven, with earth, with self, which is to prepare us for the Bridegroom by making us become sons of God, according to the testimony which, daily, by the mouth of the priest about to quit the altar, thou continuest to renew. Then, O Precursor, will thy joy and ours be complete; that sacred union, of which this day of thy Nativity already contains for us the gladsome hope, will become even here below and beneath the shadow of faith, a sublime reality, while still awaiting the clear vision of eternity.
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Pope Francis again signals his distaste for traditional communities |
Posted by: Stone - 06-24-2021, 06:47 AM - Forum: Pope Francis
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Pope Francis: You Can Recognize False Christians by Their ‘Inflexibility’
Pope Francis talks to nine newly-ordained priests as they pose for a group photo, asking them them to take off their face mask, at the end of an ordination mass on April 25, 2021
at St. Peter's Basilica in The Vatican, during which Pope Francis ordained nine new priests.
Breitbart | Jun 20210
ROME — Pope Francis warned Wednesday against Christians who are overly attached to tradition and “disturb communities” through their inflexibility.
There is no shortage of preachers today who, especially through the new means of communication, “disturb communities,” the pope said during his weekly General Audience. “They present themselves not primarily to announce the Gospel of God who loves man in Jesus, Crucified and Risen, but to insist, as true ‘keepers of the truth’ — so they call themselves — on the best way to be Christians.”
This sort of people “strongly affirm that the true Christianity is the one they adhere to, often identified with certain forms of the past, and that the solution to the crises of today is to go back so as not to lose the genuineness of the faith,” Francis said.
As he has done on numerous occasions, the pope warned against conservative Christians who cling to past traditions and do not accept the freedom the gospel offers.
Today “there is a temptation to close oneself up in some of the certainties acquired in past traditions,” the pontiff said. “But how can we recognise these people? For example, one of the traces of this way of proceeding is inflexibility.”
[NB: It seems that this is again a clear message from Conciliar Rome that unless Vatican II is accepted with all it's "reforms," there is NO 'recognition' of traditional communities. This was the case for the Ecclesia Dei communities. This is what Archbishop Lefebvre saw in his dealings with Rome. And Pope Francis continues, though speaking more plainly, what his Conciliar predecessors laid down as the foundation for a 'recognition.' What an interesting place this puts the SSPX since they HAVE already accepted Vatican II and it's reforms in the 2012 Doctrinal Declaration, since they have already placed themselves in the position of 'requesting permission' to perform marriages, ordinations, etc. - The Catacombs]
“Faced with the preaching of the Gospel that makes us free, that makes us joyful, these people are rigid,” he said. “Always the rigidity: you must do this, you must do that… Inflexibility is typical of these people.”
The Apostle Paul indicated the way forward is “the liberating and ever-new path of Jesus, Crucified and Risen,” Francis said.
It is “the path of proclamation, which is achieved through humility and fraternity — the new preachers do not know what humility is, what fraternity is,” he asserted.
“It is the path of meek and obedient trust — the new preachers know neither meekness nor obedience,” he concluded. “And this meek and obedient way leads forward in the certainty that the Holy Spirit works in the Church in every age.”
[Emphasis mine.]
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June 23rd - Vigil of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist |
Posted by: Stone - 06-23-2021, 08:10 AM - Forum: June
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June 23 – The Vigil of St. John the Baptist
There was in the days of Herod the King of Judea, a certain priest named Zachary, of the course of Abia, and his wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name Elizabeth. And they were both just before God, walking in all the commandments and justifications of the Lord without blame. And they had no son, for that Elizabeth was barren, and they both were well advanced in years. And it came to pass, when he executed the priestly function in the order of his course before God, according to the custom of the priestly office, it was his lot to offer incense, going into the temple of the Lord; and all the multitude of the people was praying without, at the hour of incense. And there appeared to him an Angel of the Lord, standing on the right side of the altar of incense. And Zachary seeing him was troubled, and fear fell upon him; but the Angel said to him: Fear not, Zachary, for thy prayer is heard; and thy wife Elizabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John: and thou shalt have joy and gladness, and many shall rejoice in his nativity. For he shall be great before the Lord: and shall drink no wine nor strong drink: and he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost even from his mother’s womb. And he shall convert many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God. And he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias; that he may turn the hearts of the fathers unto the children, and the incredulous to the wisdom of the just, to prepare unto the Lord a perfect people.
This page which the Church reads to us today is precious in the annals of the human race, for here begins the Gospel itself, here we have the first word of the good tidings of salvation. Not that man had up to this, received no knowledge of Heaven’s designs for the lifting up of our fallen race and the giving of a Redeemer: but weary and long had been this period of expectancy, since the day when first the sentence pronounced against the accursed serpent pointed out to Adam and Eve a future wherein man should be healed by the “Son of the woman,” and God also by him should be avenged. Age upon age rolled on, and the promise, all unaccomplished still, gradually assumed certain developments. Each generation saw the Lord, by means of the prophets, adding some new feature to the characteristics of this Brother of our race; in himself so great that the Most High would call him my Son; so impassioned for justice, that he would shed the last drop of his blood to ransom earth’s whole debt. A Lamb in his immolation, he would rule the earth by his gentleness, though springing from Jesse’s root, yet was he to be the desired of the gentiles; more magnificent than Solomon, he would graciously hearken to the love of these poor ransomed souls: taking the advance of their longing desires, he is fain to announce himself as the Spouse descending from the everlasting hills. The Lamb laden with the crimes of the world, the Spouse awaited by the Bride; such was to be this Son of Man, Son likewise of God, the Christ, the Messias promised unto earth. But when will he come, he, this desired of nations? Who will point out, unto earth, her Savior Who will lead the Bride to the Bridegroom?
Mankind, gone forth in tears from Eden, had stood with wistful gaze fixed on futurity. Jacob, when dying, hailed from afar this beloved Son whose strength would be that of the lion, whose heavenly charms, still more enhanced by the blood of the grape (Oh! mystery ineffable!) rapt him in inspired contemplation on his funeral couch In the name of the gentile world, Job seated on the dung-hill, whereon his flesh was falling to pieces, gave response to ruin, in an act of sublime hope in his Redeemer and his God Breathlessly panting under the pressure of his woe and the fever of his longing desires, mankind beheld century roll upon century; the while consuming death suspended not its ravages; the while his craving for the expected God ceased not to wax hotter within his breast. Thus, from generation to generation, what a redoubling of imploring prayer, what a growing impatience of entreaty! Oh! that thou wouldst rend the heavens, and wouldst come down! “Enough of promises,” cries out the devout St. Bernard, together with all the Fathers, speaking in the name of the Church of the expectation, and commenting the first verse of the Canticle of Canticles: “enough of figures and of shadows, enough of others’ parleying! I understand no more of Moses; no voice have the prophets for me; the Law which they bear has failed to restore life to my dead. What have I to do with the stammerings of their profane mouths, I to whom the Word hath announced himself? Aaron’s perfumes may not compare with the Oil of gladness poured out by the Father on him whom I await. No more deputies, no more servants for me: after so many messages, let him come at last, let him come himself!”
Yea, prostrate, in the person of the worthiest of her sons, upon the heights of Carmel, the Church of the expectation will not raise herself, up till appears in the heavens the proximate sign of salvation’s rain cloud. Vainly, even anon seven times, shall it be answered her that as yet naught can be descried “arising seawards;” prolonging still her prayer and her tears, her lips parched by the ceaseless drought, and cleaving to the dust, she will yet linger on, awaiting the appearance of that fertilizing cloud, the light cloud that beareth her God under human features. Then, forgetting her long fasts and weary expectant years, she will rise upon her feet, in all the vigor and beauty of her early youth; filled with the gladness the angel announceth to her, in the joy of that new Elias, whose birthday this Vigil promises on the morrow, she will follow him, the predestined Precursor, running (more truly than did the ancient Elias) before the chariot of Israel’s king.
We borrow from the Mozarabic Breviary the following beautiful Liturgical formula, which will put us thoroughly into the spirit of the feast:
Capitula
Adsunt, Domine, principia christianæ lætitiæ, quibus olim nasciturum in carne Verbum vox sanctificata præcessit, et luminis ortum lucis protestator insigniter nuntiavit: ex quo et christianæ lavacri prodierunt insignia: cujus conceptus miraculum, cujus nativitas gaudium approbatur: quæsumus ergo, ut qui natalem nunc Præcursoris tui ovantes suscipimus, ad festum quque natalis tui purgatis cordibus accedamus: ut vox, quæ te prædicavit in eremo, nos purget in sæculo; et qui viam venturo Domino præparans corpora viventium suo lavit baptismate, nostra nunc corda suis precibus a vitiis et errore depurget: qualiter Vocis sequentes vestigia, ad Verbi mereamur pervenire promissa.
Lo! the first beginnings of Christian joy, O Lord, whereby erstwhile, the sanctified Voice preceded the Word about to be born in flesh, and the herald of light signally announced the rising of the Day-Star, himself had witnesses: by him, both Faith’s mysteries have produced marvels: he is approved whose conception is miracle, whose birth is joy; therefore do we beseech thee, that we who with glad ovations hail the birthday of thy Precursor, may with purified hearts draw nigh likewise unto thine own Nativity: so that the Voice which preached thee in the desert, may cleanse us in the world; and he who preparing the way for the coming Lord, washed in his baptism the bodies of living men, may now, by his prayers, purify our hearts from vices and errors; so that, following in the foot-prints of the Voice, we may deserve to come to the promises of the Word.
Let us here add two Prayers from the Sacramentary of Gelasius.
Prayer
Beati nos, Domine, Baptistæ Johannis oratio, et intelligere Christi tui mysterium postulet et mereri.
May the prayer of Blessed John Baptist, O Lord, plead for us, that we may both understand and merit the mystery of thy Christ.
Omnipotens, sempiterne Deus, qui instituta legalia et sanctorum præconia Prophetarum in diebus beati Baptistæ Johannis implesti: præsta quæsumus, ut, cessantibus significationum figuris, ipsa sui manifestatione Veritas eloquatur, Jesus Christus Dominus noster.
O Almighty and Eternal God, who in the days of Blessed John Baptist, didst fulfill the institutions of the Law and the declarations of the holy Prophets, grant we beseech thee, that figures and signs being ended, Truth Himself, by his own manifestation, may speak, Jesus Christ our Lord.
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Vatican warns against ‘exceptional’ becoming ‘ordinary’ at St. Peter's |
Posted by: Stone - 06-23-2021, 07:26 AM - Forum: Pope Francis
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Vatican warns against ‘exceptional’ becoming ‘ordinary’ while easing some Mass restrictions at St. Peter’s
Concelebration or 'commmunal celebration' should be the norm, the Basilica's Archpriest stressed, while hinting at more access for traditional or private Masses.
Cardinal Mauro Gambetti, O.F.M.
ROME, June 22, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) – The Archpriest of St. Peter’s Basilica issued a Note today regarding the recent restrictions on the celebration of Mass there, heavily promoting concelebration as the desired norm for the Church while also hinting at a slight easing of the severe ban on the traditional and private Masses.
Cardinal Mauro Gambetti, O.F.M., who was appointed to the post by Pope Francis on February 20, wrote in relation to the March 12 Note from the Vatican Secretariat of State detailing new restrictions of “individual” or private Masses, as well as further restrictions for the Traditional Latin Mass.
Cardinal Gambetti wrote that his own Note should be “useful in understanding the guidelines” issued in the March letter “and in choosing how and when to celebrate the Eucharist in the first part of the morning.”
March 12 directives, and cessation of private Masses
Under the March 12 restrictions, which came into effect March 22, priests were required to participate in “concelebrated” Masses between 7 a.m. and 9 a.m. at just two altars. Individual Masses would be considered exceptions to the rule and were “suppressed.”
Groups who were traveling with a bishop or priest were “assured” of a Mass offered by their accompanying cleric, but only in the Crypt instead of the main Basilica.
Furthermore, priests wishing to celebrate the Extraordinary Form would be given four time slots, between 7 a.m. and 9 a.m., and only at the Clementine Chapel of the Crypt. That letter bore the stamp of the Secretariat but was not signed.
Reporting on the directive at the time, Vatican journalist Diane Montagna wrote,
Quote:“Effectively, what today’s letter appears to suggest is that (1) at least for the foreseeable future, in the main body of St. Peter’s Basilica, priests and faithful will only experience the Holy Mass concelebrated in the Novus Ordo; and (2) the Extraordinary Form [Tridentine Mass] will go underground.”
Gambetti’s promotion of concelebration
Now, Gambetti has sought to offer clarification about the brief letter circulated in March and caused an outcry among lay Catholics and members of the College of Cardinals. He wrote that the directives were “inspired” by two principles: “to order the celebrations from the point of view of their temporal scansion and quality; to accommodate and integrate particular and legitimate wishes of the faithful, as far as possible.”
He noted that some exceptions would be made in regard to the place of the liturgical celebration, with priests allowed to offer Mass at different altars than the ones prescribed on the occasion of a saint’s feast or memory if his remains are kept in the Basilica.
Gambetti also wrote that the restrictions outlined in March were in relation to the specific time slot between 7-9 a.m.
The purpose of the ban on private Masses, Gambetti revealed, was to ensure that concelebration became more widely used and to “recall the meaning and value of Eucharistic concelebration.” He selectively quoted from the Second Vatican Council document Sacrosanctum Concilium (SC), noting the lines promoting concelebration but leaving out prescriptions for the times when concelebration would be allowed, as well as the stipulation that a priest would “always retain his right to celebrate Mass individually,” though not while a concelebrated Mass was occurring in the same church.
Appealing once more to Sacrosanctum Concilium, Gambetti further stated that a “communal celebration” of sacrifice of the Mass was to “be preferred, as far as possible, to individual and almost private celebration.”
The 55-year-old cardinal also referenced the celebration of the laity, a theme heavily promoted in the Second Vatican Council’s documents, writing that greater fruit from the sacrament is drawn “from participation in the same action.”
“In the Mass concelebrated by several priests, there is no diminution of the value and fruits of the Eucharistic sacrifice, but rather a full exaltation of them,” he stated. “When possible, it is more than appropriate for priests to concelebrate, also in view of the fact that there is a regular alternation of presidency for the concelebrations that ordinarily take place in St. Peter’s Basilica.”
Meanwhile, Gambetti revealed why the laity were also directed to take part in the concelebrated Masses rather than seeking a private Mass, declaring that the concelebrated Mass was “an expression of fraternity” rather than “of particularisms that do not reflect the sense of ecclesial communion manifested by the Eucharistic celebration.”
Moderate easing of Mass restrictions
The second part of Gambetti’s Note contained some welcome news for clerics and laity seeking to attend Mass in the Vatican, with the cardinal noting the Church stipulates “that exceptions to the situations in which concelebration is recommended are those cases in which the benefit of the faithful does not require or advise otherwise.”
He revealed that he had already received requests from groups with “special and legitimate needs” that would be allowed in the 7-9 a.m. slot “as far as possible.”
In line with this, the cardinal noted the “pastoral value” of the Mass as celebrated in line “with the existing Rites,” and highlighted the “importance of understanding the language in the liturgy,” an issue that would lead to additional Masses for those who did not understand the Italian of the concelebrated Masses.
This could be accommodated due to the size of St. Peter’s, which could cater for such Masses taking place “without overlapping with the concelebration taking place in the main liturgical places.”
Cardinal Gambetti revealed also that he was aware that between 7 and 9 a.m. the congregational size in the Basilica was “numerically limited.”
With regard to individual Masses, or private Masses, Gambetti wrote that such requests would “be discerned on a case-by-case basis.” However, the cardinal was careful not to allow too much freedom in this phrase, adding that “everything should take place in an atmosphere of recollection and decorum, and taking care to ensure that what is exceptional does not become ordinary, distorting the intentions and meaning of the [Conciliar] Magisterium.”
Traditional Mass permissions
Gambetti also addressed the issue of the relegation of the traditional liturgy to the crypt, an action that led to Montagna previously describing the Latin Mass as having to go underground.
In a somewhat different tone than the March directive, Gambetti’s words hinted at easier accessibility to the Extraordinary Form, at least in theory.
“For celebrations with the Missale Romanum of 1962, everything possible must be done to fulfil the wishes of the faithful and priests as laid down in the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum,” he wrote.
There was no further detail about precisely what would be done to fulfill such wishes, and careful analysis of the text might suggest that allowance of the traditional liturgy could also be included in the warning Gambetti makes later when he writes against the “exceptional” becoming the “ordinary.”
“I am confident that the path that has been embarked upon can encourage every priest and every member of the faithful to experience celebrations in Saint Peter’s in a way that is ever more ordered to goodness, beauty and truth,” closed the cardinal’s text.
Concelebration remains the new normal at the Vatican
Despite this note from the Archpriest of St. Peter’s, it appears that the availability of Masses, and the freedom of clerics to offer Masses, either privately or publicly, remains significantly curtailed compared with the period before March 22. Of particular note is Gambetti’s firm preference for concelebration, as heavily promoted by the Second Vatican Council, as the more proper way to offer Mass.
Yet shortly after the restrictions were originally announced in March, the prefect emeritus of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Gerhard Muller, slated the directives, saying that “nobody can be forced to concelebrate, because the normal form of the holy Mass is one priest is celebrating, representing Christ.”
He was supported by Cardinal Robert Sarah, former prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments who presented the arguments of St. Thomas Aquinas and Pope Pius XII on the graces reduced through concelebration, noting that “there is at least the serious possibility that, by forcing priests to concelebrate and thus reducing the number of Masses celebrated, there will be a decrease in the gift of grace given to the Church and to the world.”
In addition to the move away from individual Masses (even with a congregation) to concelebration, Cardinal Gambetti has also maintained the Vatican’s March 12 attack on private Masses, maintaining that it is more fitting for the congregation to be present at Mass in order to celebrate as a community. Such a concept was condemned by Pius XII’s encyclical Mediator Dei, in which he described how erroneous the positioned presented below is:
Quote:“They assert that the people are possessed of a true priestly power, while the priest acts only in virtue of an office committed to him by the community. Wherefore they look on the eucharistic sacrifice as a ‘concelebration’ in the literal meaning of that term and consider it more fitting that priests should ‘concelebrate’ with the people present than that they should offer the sacrifice privately when the people are absent.”
It remains to be seen whether Gambetti’s clarifying Note will indeed lead to the “goodness, beauty and truth” that he wishes the Mass to be ordered to.
[Emphasis mine.]
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WHO: ‘Children should not be vaccinated for the moment’ |
Posted by: Stone - 06-23-2021, 07:01 AM - Forum: COVID Vaccines
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WHO: ‘Children should not be vaccinated for the moment’
In updated guidance, the World Health Organization said children have milder disease compared to adults and there is not enough evidence to recommend vaccinating children against COVID.
June 22, 2021 (Children’s Health Defense - adapted (not all hyperlinks included below) — The World Health Organization’s (WHO) latest guidance clarifying who should get the COVID vaccine states, “Children should not be vaccinated for the moment.”
According to the WHO website: “There is not yet enough evidence on the use of vaccines against COVID-19 in children to make recommendations for children to be vaccinated against COVID-19. Children and adolescents tend to have milder disease compared to adults.”
The WHO had previously said vaccinating children against COVID was not a priority given the limited global supply of doses, Fox News reported.
During a social media session June 3, Dr. Kate O’Brien, a pediatrician and director of the WHO’s vaccines department, said children should not be a focus of COVID immunization programs, even as increasing numbers of wealthy countries authorize the shots for teens and children.
“Children are at [a] very, very low risk of actually getting COVID disease,” said O’Brien. She said the rationale for immunizing children was to stop transmission rather than to protect them from getting sick or dying.
O’Brien added it wasn’t necessary to vaccinate children before sending them back to school safely.
“Immunization of children in order to send them back to school is not the predominant requirement for them to go back to school safely,” O’Brien said. “They can go back to school safely if what we’re doing is immunizing those who are around them who are at risk.”
The U.S., Canada and European Union have all given the green light to some COVID vaccines for children 12 to 15 years old. In the U.K., a decision to vaccinate all 12- to 17-year-olds is unlikely to be recommended by experts anytime soon, BBC NEWS reported.
One argument for not vaccinating children against COVID is they get relatively little benefit from it.
“Fortunately one of the few good things about this pandemic is children are very rarely seriously affected by this infection,” said Adam Finn, who sits on the U.K.’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation.
Infections in children are nearly always mild or asymptomatic, which is in sharp contrast to older age groups who have been prioritized by vaccination campaigns.
A study across seven countries — including the U.S. — published in the Lancet, found that fewer than two out of every 1 million children died with COVID during the pandemic.
Even children with medical conditions that would raise the risks of COVID infection in adults are not being vaccinated in the U.K. Only those at “very high risk of exposure and serious outcomes” are recommended to be vaccinated.
For kids, benefits of COVID vaccines don’t outweigh risks
As The Defender reported, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on June 10 held a meeting to discuss granting Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for COVID vaccines for children under 12. Numerous experts spoke out against the plan saying the benefits don’t outweigh the risks for young children.
Peter Doshi, Ph.D., associate professor at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy and senior editor of The BMJ, said during the open public hearing session there is no emergency that would warrant using EUA to authorize COVID vaccines for children.
Pointing to Pfizer’s trial of 12- to 15-year-olds which supported the recent EUA, Doshi said the harms outweighed the benefits, and those who had the placebo were “better off” than those who received the vaccine.
In terms of the benefits, Doshi said “the reported 100% efficacy in Pfizer’s trial was based on 16 COVID cases in the placebo group versus none in the fully vaccinated group. But there were about 1,000 placebo recipients so just 2% got COVID. Put another way, 2% of the fully vaccinated avoided COVID, whereas 98% of the vaccinated wouldn’t have gotten COVID anyway.”
On the other side of the ledger, Doshi said, side effects were common:
Quote:Three in 4 kids had fatigue and headaches, around half had chills and muscle pain, around 1 in 4 to 5 had fever and joint pain. The list goes on. In sum, all the fully vaccinated 12- to 15-year-olds avoided symptomatic COVID but most wouldn’t have gotten COVID even without the vaccine. So, the benefit is small but it came at the price of side effects that were mild to moderate in severity and lasted a few days.
Doshi pointed to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) showing 23% of 0- to 4-year-olds and 42% of 5- to 17-year-olds have already had COVID and have robust natural immunity.
Kim Witczak, an FDA consumer representative, expressed great concerns over the premature approval of COVID vaccines for children. Witczak said data shows children are neither in danger or dangerous, and the growing evidence of harm caused by COVID vaccines should not be ignored.
Witczak and Doshi were two of 27 researchers and clinicians around the world who launched a citizen’s petition demanding the FDA withhold full approval of COVID vaccines until efficacy and safety measures are met.
Dr. Sidney Wolf, founder and senior advisor of Health Research Group, also pointed out during the FDA meeting that CDC data from Jan. 1 to March 31 showed only 204 hospitalizations and 0 deaths in the 12- to 17-year-old age group due to COVID.
As The Defender reported May 26, two papers recently published in the journal of Hospital Pediatrics, found pediatric hospitalizations for COVID were overcounted by at least 40%, carrying potential implications for nationwide figures used to justify vaccinating children.
COVID vaccine causing heart inflammation in teens
Dr. Tom Shimabukuro, deputy director of the CDC’s Immunization Safety Office, said during the June 10 FDA meeting, “there are ‘very few’ reports of myocarditis or pericarditis in 12- to 15-year-olds who have been given coronavirus vaccines.”
However, the CDC data Shimabukuro presented showed a higher-than-expected number of cases of heart inflammation among young people recently vaccinated with their second doses of mRNA vaccine. The agency identified 226 reports that might meet the agency’s “working case definition” of myocarditis and pericarditis following the shots.
Among 16- to 17-year-olds through May 31, 79 cases of myocarditis and pericarditis were reported. The expected rate among people in this age group is between two and 19 cases, Shimabukuro said during his presentation.
CDC data also showed that among 18- to 24-year-olds, there were 196 reports of myocarditis and pericarditis. The expected rate is between eight and 83 cases.
The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) scheduled an emergency meeting for June 18 to update data and further evaluate myocarditis following vaccination with Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. However, the CDC delayed the meeting until the June 23-25 ACIP meeting in observation of the Juneteenth National Independence Day holiday.
According to the latest data from VAERS, there have been 1,117 cases of myocarditis and pericarditis (heart inflammation) in all age groups reported in the U.S. following COVID vaccination between Dec.14, 2020 and June 11, 2021. Of those, 109 reports occurred in children 12-to-17-years-old with 108 attributed to Pfizer.
Currently, Pfizer’s COVID vaccine is authorized for emergency use in people as young as age 12. Moderna is authorized for people 18 and older, although the company has asked the FDA to authorize its use in children as young as 12. Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine is authorized in people 18 and older.
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Austria: SSPX District Superior Abjures |
Posted by: Stone - 06-22-2021, 07:13 AM - Forum: Pandemic 2020 [Spiritual]
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Austria: PiusX District Superior Abjures
Gloria.tv | June 21, 2021
Father Stefan Frey, the PiusX District Superior in Austria, has recanted his "urgent" April warning against Covid-19 vaccinations. Now he says the opposite.
In the Pius X June newsletter, Frey adopted the pro-vaccination position of his confrere Arnaud Sélégny, and even recommends the "solid official documents of the Vatican" on vaccination, calling it a "rich source of information." Frey explains that an ethically questionable vaccine can be used under four criteria:
- there must be a clear emergency,
- no approved alternative must be available,
- the benefit of a vaccination must be greater than the harm, in case a person is not vaccinated,
- there must be opposition to abortion-tainted vaccine research.
At least, Frey admits that one can come to different conclusions on this issue and that nobody should force his opinion on anyone else. It seems however, that Frey himself was pushed by his superiors to swing to the PiusX party line on vaccinations.
The problem with Frey's change of opinion is that his four arguments against vaccination remain in place despite his retraction, unless PiusX also intends to adopt the Vatican's position that — depending on political opportunism — what was true yesterday can suddenly be "wrong" today.
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Archbishop Viganò Responds to Roberto de Mattei's accusation regarding the use of a 'ghostwriter' |
Posted by: Stone - 06-22-2021, 07:08 AM - Forum: Archbishop Viganò
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De Mattei Attacks: Viganò Turns the Table Around
Gloria.tv | June 22, 2021
Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò is “astonished” that the famous Catholic historian Roberto de Mattei has deemed it necessary to attack him by claiming that a "ghost writer" is behind Viganò's 2020-2021 publications.
"There is no ghost writer," Viganò insists, "By the grace of God I am still in full possession of my faculties, I am not manipulated by anyone and I am absolutely determined to continue my apostolic mission for the salvation of souls.”
Viganò confirms that "all my writings, statements and interviews are the result of a maturation of convictions of which I proudly claim full authorship,” calling De Mattei's allegations "totally unfounded," “bold" and "fanciful."
He turns the table around by saying that De Mattei's theory must be “the result of some advisor” and was “composed by a grey official regime obedient to the mainstream narrative, and not by the sharp mind and genuine faith of de Mattei I knew.”
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Vatican academy to co-host pro-vaccination conference with secular medical associations |
Posted by: Stone - 06-22-2021, 06:53 AM - Forum: Pandemic 2020 [Spiritual]
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Vatican academy to co-host pro-vaccination conference with secular medical associations
One of the secular medical associations has actively lobbied for legal abortion in a pro-life country.
VATICAN CITY, June 21, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) — A Vatican academy will be hosting a conference with two secular medical associations, one of which has lobbied for legal abortion in a pro-life country.
The revamped Pontifical Academy for Life has partnered with the German Medical Association (GMA) and the World Medical Association (WMA) in planning the online “International Roundtable on Vaccination.” This will take place on July 1, 2021 and will result in a joint declaration to be presented to the media on July 2. The conference is open to members of the Pontifical Academy for Life, the Pontifical Academy for Sciences, and the WMA, as well as to other invited “experts and stakeholders in the field,” and to accredited media.
Among the invited speakers are Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, the Chief Scientist of the World Health Organization (WHO); Dr. Andrea Ammon, the Director of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control; and Dr. Stefano Semplici, a professor of social ethics at the Tor Vergata public university in Rome.
In a press release about the conference, the Pontifical Academy for Life described the experimental inoculations for COVID-19 as if they were ordinary, approved, and established vaccines.
“One of the greatest achievements of modern medicine, vaccines have been proven to save millions of lives and protect millions more from getting sick each year. And never in our lifetimes has the development of safe, effective vaccines taken center stage in the global arena as prominently as it has during the devastating COVID-19 pandemic,” it stated.
“The current pandemic has amplified some of the challenges already associated with vaccination – from the hurdles that impede equitable global distribution of vaccine doses to unfounded vaccine skepticism and mistrust.”
The Pontifical Academy for Life (PAV) stated that it had teamed up with the WMA and the GMA to “address these issues and send a clear message to the world about the necessity and life-saving potential of vaccines.” It promised that “a small group of leading experts in the field of immunization” would take part.
There is no indication that there will be debate or even dialogue about the use of human fetuses in vaccine research or the use of fetal cell lines in the development and testing of new vaccines. But the subject may not be of much concern to the World Medical Association, which in 2009 and again in 2019 urged the pro-life Nicaraguan government to legalize abortion.
In its “Resolution on Legislation against Abortion in Nicaragua,” the WMA urged the Nicaraguan government to “repeal its penal code criminalizing abortion and develop in its place a legislation that promotes and protects women’s human rights, dignity and health, including adequate access to reproductive healthcare, and that allows physicians to perform their duties in line with medical ethics and particularly medical confidentiality.”
Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, who joined the WHO as its Deputy Director in 2017, is also unlikely to raise the issue of fetal experimentation and exploitation in the making of vaccines. Last October Swaminathan said that there was a “need” for improved access to “safe” abortions in her native India.
The Chief Scientist of the WHO’s “health division” created in 2019 is, however, likely to echo the PAV’s assertion that there is “unfounded” skepticism and mistrust of COVID-19 vaccines, at the very least. In an October 2020 article, Swaminathan described online concerns about the new treatments as an “infodemic” and the WHO’s collusion with Big Tech to suppress them.
“False or misleading information leads to harmful behaviours, and mistrust in governments and the public health response,” Swaminathan wrote in the Indian newspaper The Hindu. “In the last eight months we [at the WHO] have done an incredible amount of work with many tech companies.”
“But infodemic management is not straightforward,” she continued, adding, “it is linked to people’s beliefs and behaviour. Therefore, we’ve set up a behavioural insights group to provide advice on behaviour change.”
Old PAV: Use “conscientious objection” regarding vaccines developed with fetal cell-lines
Not all vaccine experts, let alone all doctors, are convinced that COVID-19 vaccines are “safe” and “effective.” Last week, a Canadian MP hosted a Parliament Hill press conference featuring a researcher and two doctors who spoke up against the harsh censorship of debate around COVID-19 vaccines and the effective treatment of the virus with vitamin D and Ivermectin. Dr. Byram W. Bridle, a viro-immunologist from the University of Guelph, is very concerned that the inadequately tested vaccines are going to be used on children.
The Pontifical Academy for Life was not always so cavalier about the use of fetal cell-lines in vaccines. In 2005, it condemned the practice and said the following in a paper entitled “Moral Reflections on Vaccines Prepared from Cells Derived from Aborted Human Foetuses”:
Quote:… [D]octors and fathers of families have a duty to take recourse to alternative vaccines (if they exist), putting pressure on the political authorities and health systems so that other vaccines without moral problems become available. They should take recourse, if necessary, to the use of conscientious objection with regard to the use of vaccines produced by means of cell lines of aborted human foetal origin. Equally, they should oppose by all means (in writing, through the various associations, mass media, etc.) the vaccines which do not yet have morally acceptable alternatives, creating pressure so that alternative vaccines are prepared, which are not connected with the abortion of a human foetus, and requesting rigorous legal control of the pharmaceutical industry producers.
The Pontifical Academy for Life, formerly a bastion of Catholic orthodoxy and a firm defender of human life from conception until natural death, was thoroughly overhauled by Pope Francis between 2016 and 2017. In 2016, the pontiff nominated Archbishop Vicenzo Paglia the new head of the academy founded by St. John Paul II. Shortly afterwards, members were no longer required to sign a declaration that they uphold the Church’s pro-life doctrines and the PAV’s remit included environmental concerns. By the end of the year, Pope Francis had dismissed every member, and in 2017 he appointed new members, including one not opposed to abortion.
LifeSiteNews reached out to the PAV with questions regarding the use of human fetuses in vaccine development and was directed to a 2017 PAV statement on vaccines in general, a 2020 PAV statement on the “moral responsibility” of taking COVID-19 vaccines, and the December 2020 statement by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith outlining why and when it believes taking the COVID-19 vaccines is moral. While speaking cavalierly about the deaths of the two fetuses whose cells were harvested and used in vaccine development, the PAV suggested that the earlier document on the topic “could soon be revised and updated.”
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Massachusetts records nearly 4,000 positive COVID-19 tests among fully vaccinated |
Posted by: Stone - 06-22-2021, 06:46 AM - Forum: Pandemic 2020 [Secular]
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Massachusetts records nearly 4,000 positive COVID-19 tests among fully vaccinated
The number could be higher, but the CDC's new reporting guidelines only include individuals who are hospitalized or died.
BOSTON, Massachusetts, June 21, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) – The Massachusetts Department of Public Health (DPH) listed 150 new COVID-19 positive test results in one week among individuals who are “fully vaccinated,” NBC10 Boston reported, bringing the June 12 breakthrough case total to almost 4,000 in the state.
Breakthrough COVID cases have been defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as the detection of COVID-19 RNA in an individual at least 14 days after they have “completed all recommended doses of a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-authorized COVID-19 vaccine.”
The 3,791 Bay Staters confirmed as breakthrough cases represent just over 0.1 percent of the 3,720,037 people in Massachusetts considered to be fully vaccinated. However, the CDC’s new guidelines on post-vaccination viral breakthrough may have suppressed reports, since only hospitalizations and deaths are now to be recorded when dealing with vaccinated individuals, leaving the majority of symptomatic breakthrough cases of the virus unreported.
LifeSiteNews contacted the Massachusetts DPH for clarification on the number of hospitalizations and deaths recorded among the reported breakthrough cases, as well as the proportion of breakthrough cases of COVID-19 compared with positive tests among the unvaccinated, but did not receive a reply in time for publication.
Overall in the United States, the CDC reported May 28 that, until April 30, 10,262 individuals had contracted COVID-19 in 46 states at least two weeks after receiving their second dose of an mRNA vaccine, around 10 percent of whom fell ill and were hospitalized. Before June 1, 535 of those died with the infection, up 375 from April 30, according to CDC data. The agency said “breakthrough cases are expected,” but will only occur in “a small fraction of all vaccinated persons and account for a small percentage of all COVID-19 cases.”
Though the CDC expects breakthrough cases to be low, the regulator stopped recording COVID infection in vaccinated people not long after numbers began rising more quickly. Shifting the goalposts, the CDC announced that it would no longer count positive infections among fully vaccinated individuals in its records, only counting COVID cases in the vaccinated if it leads to hospitalization or death from May 1.
Given that around 10 percent of vaccinated individuals were hospitalized with COVID-19, that leaves the remaining 90 percent of breakthrough cases to go unreported.
In the U.K., former chief scientific adviser to the government, Sir David King, himself pro-lockdown and pro-COVID-vaccine, said that “400 new (COVID) cases a day are people who had the vaccine twice,” meaning that “one in 25 new cases (of COVID-19) are people who have been vaccinated.”
New statistics emanating from Britain also suggest that the new variant of the virus currently at large, the Indian variant (also referred to as the Delta variant, originating in India), is responsible for a six-fold increase in deaths among those who have been double jabbed against COVID than those who have not.
Although low in both classes of individuals, 0.00636 percent of fully vaccinated Brits known to have contracted the virus died, which was six times higher than the 0.000957 percent of unvaccinated people who died after testing positive for the virus. Overall, Public Health England reported 73 deaths from the Indian variant in a June 18 briefing, describing the strain as the “dominant variant,” accounting for some “91 percent of sequenced cases” among Britons.
Additionally, hospitalizations for those carrying the Indian variant is higher among the vaccinated, with 2 percent of 4,087 COVID positive and fully vaccinated individuals being admitted to a hospital. This compares with 1.48 percent of 35,521 COVID positive individuals who were unvaccinated being admitted to hospital.
Despite a reported increase in infections, owing to the Indian variant, Britain has seen a 3.1 percent decrease in its five-year average death toll for the week ending May 28, according to figures by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). In fact, within the last three months, England and Wales have collectively reported 11 weeks under the five-year average death toll, even as the population ages, which usually gives rise to a slight increase in overall deaths.
As the proportion of infected individuals who become hospitalized and die with the virus plummets, the perceived need for a vaccine diminishes in concert. A research team from Cleveland Clinic in Ohio conducted a study into the necessity of vaccines, focusing on the benefit of the jab in previously infected people, finding that “(i)ndividuals who have had SARS-CoV-2 infection are unlikely to benefit from COVID-19 vaccination.”
The study revealed that all 2,154 infections recorded in the 52,238 participants were in those who had not previously been infected with SARS-CoV-2. The vast majority of these infections (2,139) were associated with unvaccinated individuals, whereas 15 infections were considered breakthrough cases in vaccinated individuals. Compounding these findings is another study into the long-term effects of contracting and recovering from COVID-19, which discovered “antibody-producing cells in people 11 months after first symptoms.”
“These cells will live and produce antibodies for the rest of people’s lives. That’s strong evidence for long-lasting immunity,” the authors concluded.
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June 22nd - Sts. Paulinus and Alban |
Posted by: Stone - 06-22-2021, 06:37 AM - Forum: June
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June 22 – St. Paulinus, Bishop and Confessor
While we were celebrating the Infancy of our divine Lord, Felix of Nola rejoiced our hearts with the sight of his sanctity at once so triumphant and yet so humble, revealing under gentlest aspects the potency of our Emmanuel. Illumined by the glow of Pentecostal fires, Paulinus now comes before us, from that very same town of Nola, by his glory doing honor to him of whom he was the happy conquest. For indeed the sublime path whereby he was at length to gain the heavenly mountain tops, was not at the first opened before him; and Felix it was who, at a somewhat tardy hour, cast into his soul the first seeds of salvation.
Paulinus, heir to an immense fortune, and at twenty-five years of age already Prefect of Rome, Senator and Consul, was far from supposing that there could be a career more honorable for himself or more profitable to the world, than that in which he was thus engaged by the traditions of his illustrious family. Verily, to the eyes of worldly men, no lot in life could be conceived better cast, surrounded as he was by noble connections, buoyed up by the well deserved esteem of great and little, and finding repose in the culture of letters which had already, from his earliest youth, rendered him the very pride of brilliant Aquitaine, where at Bordeaux he first saw the light. Alas! in our days how many who deserve it not are set up as models of a laborious and useful life!
The day came, however, when lo! these worldly careers which heretofore seemed so brimful of work and prospect, now offered to Paulinus but the spectacle of men “tossed to and fro in the midst of days of emptiness, and having for their life’s toil naught but the weaving of the spider-web of vain works!” What then had happened? It was this: once, when in the Campania, subject to his government, Paulinus happened to come to the hallowed spot where lay the tomb of Saint Felix, that humble priest heretofore proscribed by this very Rome, whose power was symbolized by the terrible fasces borne at that moment in front of him,—suddenly floods of new light inundated his soul; Rome and her power became dark as night before this apparition “of the grand rights of the awful God.” With his whole heart, this scion of many an ancient race that had brought the world to subjection, now pledges his faith to God; Christ revealing himself in the light of Felix has won his love. He has long enough sought and run in vain; at last has he found that nought is of greater worth than to believe in Jesus Christ.
In the uprightness of his lofty soul, he will go to the extreme consequences of this new principle which has now taken the place of every other. Jesus hath said: “If thou wilt be perfect, go, sell what thou hast and give to the poor: and then come and follow Me.” Paulinus hesitates not: not for a moment will he neglect what is best to prefer what is least; up to this, perfect in his worldly career, could he now endure not to be so for his God? Up then, and doing! no longer his, these vast possessions, styled even kingdoms; the various nations of the empire before which were displayed his incalculable riches are astounded at this new commerce: Paulinus sells all, in order to purchase the cross, and therewith, to follow his God. For he is well aware that the abandonment of earthly goods is but entering on the lists, and not the race itself; the athlete does not become victor by the mere fact of casting off his garments; but he strips himself, solely with the view of beginning combat; nor has the swimmer already breasted the flood because he stands prepared and stripped on the water’s brink.
In holy impetuosity, Paulinus has rather cut than unknotted the cable that moored his bark to land. Christ is his steersman: and amidst the glad applause of his noble wife Therasia (henceforth to be but his sister and imitatrix), he floats to the secure port of the monastic life, thinking only of saving his soul. One thought alone holds him in suspense: shall he retire to Jerusalem where so many memories seem to invite a disciple of Christ? Then Jerome, whom he has consulted, thus answers with all the frankness of strong friendship: “For clerks, towns; for monks, solitude. Utter folly verily would it be to quit the world in order to live in the midst of a crowd greater than before. If you wish to be what you are called, that is to say, a ‘Monk,’ that is to say ‘alone,’ what are you doing in towns, which surely are not the habitation for ‘Solitaries’ but for the multitude? Each kind of life has its models. Ours are a Paul and an Anthony, a Hilarion and a Macarius; our guides are Elias, Eliseus, and all those sons of the prophets who dwelt in country places and in solitudes, pitching their tents near Jordan’s banks.”
Paulinus followed the counsels of the solitary of Bethlehem. Preferring his title of Monk to the abiding even in the holy city, and seeking the “small field” of which Jerome had spoken, he chose a spot in the territory of Nola, outside the town, near to the glorious tomb where light had beamed upon him. Until his dying day, Felix will take place here below, of home, of honors, of fortune, of relatives. In his sanctuary, as in a downy nest, will he grow, changing, by virtue of the divine seed of the Word within him, his terrestrial form, and receiving in his new being celestial wings, the one object of his ambition, which may lift him up towards God. The world may no longer count on him, either to enhance her feasts or be the recipient of her appointments: absorbed in voluntary penance and humiliation, the former consul is nothing henceforth but the last of the servants of Christ, and the guardian of a tomb.
Great was the joy of the saints in heaven and of holy men on earth, at the news of such a spectacle of total renunciation given to the world. No less great was the indignant astonishment of scandalized politicians, of the prudent according to this world, of a host of men to whom the Gospel is tolerable only when its maxims chance not to jar with the shortsighted prejudices of their wisdom. “What will the great say?” wrote Saint Ambrose. “The scion of such a family, of such a race, one so gifted, so eloquent, to quit the senate! to cut off the succession of such an ancestral line! No, that is out of the question; quite intolerable! Ah! look at these very men, when their own whims are at stake; they then see nothing extraordinary in inflicting on themselves transformations the most ridiculous; but if a Christian anxious about perfection dares to change his costume, oh! he is cried down at once with indignation!”
Paulinus, unmoved, brooked all these attacks, and knew well that his example was not likely to be followed by many. He was aware how God manifests in the few, what might become profitable to the many, if they would but accept the same, and thus is divine Providence justified. Even as the traveler turns not aside from his road by reason of a few barking dogs, so those who enter on the narrow path of the Lord should despise the silly remarks of the worldly and profane; rejoicing the rather in that they are displeasing to those to whom even God is likewise displeasing. Scripture sufficeth to show us what to think of them and of ourselves! So far his own words.
Resolute in his silence and in his determination to leave the dead to bury their dead, the heart of our saint deemed it needful to make one exception, urged by delicacy of feeling in favor of his former master, Ausonius. Paulinus had ever remained the favorite pupil of this famous rhetorician, in whose school at that period even emperors were formed. Ausonius had always been to him as a friend and a father; and the old poet’s soul, transpierced with grief at the departure of this son of his love, was now pouring itself out in wails and complaints, enough to rend the heart of Paulinus. Paulinus wished to try to elevate this soul. so dear to him. above the senseless form of that mold. those mythological vanities in which his life was still cast/ He therefore chose to justify his recent step in a poem. the exquisite gracefulness of which was calculated to delight Ausonius and to win him over. perchance to taste the depth of that Christian sense whereby his former pupil was inspired with a poetry so new to a time-honored disciple of Apollo and the Muses.
He thus addresses him:
Quote: “Father, wherefore art thou fain to win me back to the worship of the Muses? Another power now pervades my soul, a God greater far than old Apollo. The true, the good have I found at the very source of Goodness and Truth,—even in God, beheld in his Christ. Exchanging his Divinity for our human nature in a sublime commerce, at once Man and God, he, the master of virtues, transforms our being and replaces former pleasures by delights wholly chaste. By means of faith in a future life, he subdues within us the vain agitations of present life. Even these riches which we seem to contemn, he does not reject as either impure or worthless; but, merely teaching us how to love them in a better way, he leads us to commit them to the care of God, who, in return, promises yet more. Call not stupid him who devotes himself to a merchandise the most advantageous and by far the most secure. And what of filial piety? can it be wanting in a Christian? could I possibly fail to pay it unto thee, O father, unto whom I owe everything, science, honors, renown; unto thee, who by thy care hast prepared me for Christ, by cultivating his gifts? Yea, verily, Christ is about to reward thee for this fruit nurtured by thy sap; reject not this his praise of thee, disown not the waters that have welled out from thy fountain. Thy tenderness is hurt at my withdrawing to a distance; but prithee, forgive one whom thou lovest, if he do but that which is expedient. I have vowed my heart to God, I have believed in Christ; on the faith of the divine counsels, I have with the goods of time bought an eternal recompense. Father, I cannot believe that thou shouldst tax me with folly for this. Such errors as these inspire me with no repentance, I rather rejoice to be held a fool by those who follow another path; it suffices me that the eternal King accounts me wise. All that is of man is short, frail, perishable, and (without Christ) but dust and shadow; whether he approve or condemn, the judgment is worth no more than the judge; he dieth, and his judgment fadeth away with himself. When at the supreme moment all is laid bare, tardy then will lamentation be, and of small avail the excuse of him who till then has cringed before the vain out cries of men’s tongues, and has not dreaded the wrathful vengeance of the divine Judge. For my part, I believe; and fear is my goad; I would not that the last day catch me asleep in darkness, or so laden as that I may not fly up on lightest wing to meet my King in mid-heaven. Wherefore, cutting short all hesitation, all ties, all pleasures of earth, I would fain be ready for any event. Alive still, I have nevertheless done with life’s cares; I have confided to God my goods for ages to come, in order to be able, with tranquil heart, to await grim death. If thou approve, congratulate a friend rich in high hope; if not, suffer that I look to Jesus Christ alone for approbation.”
Nothing better than such language as this could give an idea of what our fathers were of the olden time, with their simplicity replete at once with grace and force, and that logic of faith which, resting on the word of God, had need of nothing else for reaching heroism at one bound. Indeed one may ask where else could be found anything capable of deducing itself more naturally than the resolutions disclosed to us by Paulinus? What sound practical sense, in all the true and grand signification of the word does, this staunch Roman maintain in his holiness! Here is easily recognized Saint Augustine’s amiable correspondent, who, having been interrogated by the great Doctor on his opinion touching certain doubtful points of the future life, thus replied so charmingly: “Thou dost condescend to ask my opinion regarding the occupation of the Blessed after the resurrection of the flesh. But if thou didst only know how I disquiet myself far more about this present life, about what I am in it, about what I can do in it! Be thou rather my master and my physician; teach me to do the Will of God, to walk in thy footsteps, following Christ; would that, first of all, I may come to die, like thee, this evangelical death which precedes and secures the other.”
Our Saint, however, who was bent on nothing but imitating and learning, soon appeared as one of the most brilliant luminaries of Holy Church. The humble retreat where he thought to hide himself, became the rendezvous of illustrious patricians and their ladies, the center of attraction for all the choicest souls of that century. From places the most distant and the widest apart, an Ambrose, an Augustine, a Jerome, a Martin, together with their disciples, raised their voice in one concert of praise,—we were going to say unanimous, were it not that for the greater sanctification of his servant, God permitted one painful exception at the commencement. Certain members of the Roman clergy, moved (in a sense other than was fitting) by the marks of veneration lavished on this monk, had striven, and not without success, to circumvent, under specious pretexts, the supreme Pontiff himself; and Pope Siricius therefore was brought so far as to be almost on the point of separating Paulinus from his communion. But the meekness and longanimity of the servant of God were not slow in bringing Siricius back to himself, from the error into which his surroundings had led him: envy at last had to turn its teeth elsewhere.
Space does not permit us to descant longer on this his noble career. We must allow the Nocturn Lesson, short as it is, to complete these our pages. In conclusion, let us recollect that the Liturgy is greatly indebted to Saint Paulinus for the precious details contained in his letters and poems, chiefly as regards Christian architecture and the symbolism of its various parts, the cultus of images, the honor due to saints and to their sacred relics. A tradition, but one which unfortunately is not sufficiently established to exclude all doubt, attributes to him the first liturgical use of bells. It is said that by enlarging the dimensions of the ancient small bell, he transformed it into this noble instrument so well fitted to become the voice of the Church herself, and to which Campania and Nola have therefore bequeathed their names i.e. nolœ campanœ, both Latin designations of church bells.
Quote:Paulinus, Bishop of Nola, instructed in human letters and the holy Scriptures, composed, both in verse and prose, many elegant and remarkable works. The charity of this man was particularly celebrated: for when Campania was being ravaged by the Goths, he devoted all his substance to the feeding of the poor and the redeeming of captives, not reserving unto himself even the necessaries of life. At which time, as Saint Augustine writes, having from the greatest opulency, voluntarily come down to the utmost exigency, yet with all, most rich in sanctity, being now taken captive by the barbarians, he made this prayer to God: “Lord, suffer me not to be put to the torture for the sake of gold and silver; for verily, where all my riches are, thou well knowest.” Afterwards, when the Vandals were infesting these shores, he, being entreated by a widow to redeem her son, all his effects now being consumed in works of charity, delivered himself up to slavery in place of the young man.
Wherefore, being now taken into Africa, he received the charge of cultivating the garden of his master, who was son-in-law of the king. At length, by the gift of prophecy, having foretold to his master the death of the king, and the king himself having likewise in a dream beheld Paulinus, seated in the midst of two other judges, wrest from his hands the scourge which he held; how great a man he was, being thus made known, he was honorably dismissed, and was moreover granted the liberation of all his fellow citizens who had been led away captives with him. Being now returned to Nola and to his episcopal functions, by word and example he more and more inflamed all unto Christian piety, until at last, being seized by a pain in his side, presently the chamber wherein he lay was shaken by an earthquake, and shortly afterwards, he rendered up his soul unto God.
Thy goods are now all restored unto thee, O thou who didst believe the word of the Lord! At the very time, so many others vainly sought to retain their treasure, thine was already in safety! Ah! what lamentations reached thine ears amidst this frightful crumbling down of that mighty empire, of which thou hadst been so noble and powerful a magistrate! Thy colleagues in honor, as well as thine equals in wealth, were guilty, it is true, of no fault in not imitating thy voluntary renunciation; but when the terrific hour came wherein nobility was but a more sure title to greater woe, wherein riches brought naught to their possessors save despair and torture,—to how many, then, even in a worldly sense, did thy prudence appear the best! Thou hadst said to thyself that the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and that the violent only bear it away? but could that violence thou hadst imposed on thyself, by breaking for the sake of better bonds, thy fetters here below, be compared to that which more than one of thy former detractors had himself now to endure, and that without profit either for this life or the next? Thus does it often happen, even beyond those sad periods in which the universe seems delivered up to wreck and ruin. The privations demanded by God of those that are His, fall short of the sufferings frequently imposed by the world on its votaries.
Ill indeed did it beseem such men as an Albinus or a Symmachus to stigmatize as cowardly desertion thy retiring into solitude at Christ’s call, seeing that they themselves drew down upon Rome this deluge of wrath, by their obstinate attachment to expiring paganism! If the empire could have been saved, it would have been so by thine imitators such as Pammachius, Aper, and others, who, few as they were, made thee cry out: “O Rome, naught wouldst thou have to fear of the threats uttered against thee in the Apocalypse, if all thy senators understood as these do, the duty of their charge.” Verily, what a counterpoise would have been presented to divine vengeance if that spectacle had been less rare, such as thou hast described it, in one of thy finest poems! It was the morrow of the dread invasion of Radagasius; ancient Rome now expiring was invoking more vainly than ever her senseless gods; but from Nola there arose to the Most High the voice of praise, powerful as the living psaltery, by whose harmonious notes its accents were borne to heaven. Noble indeed was this instrument, the ten strings of which were named, on the one side, Æmilius, Paulinus, Apronianus, Penianus, Asterius; on the other, Albina, Therasia, Avita, Melania, Eunomia: all clear and bright, either following in the footsteps of Cecilia and Valerian, or vowed to God from infancy; all alike in virtue, though unlike in sex, and forming but one choir, at the tomb of Felix, singing sacred hymns. In their suite, and in union with them, was a numerous train of illustrious persons and virgins, all chanting alike to the same Lord, appeasing his ire against a cursed land, and at least retarding his wrathful blow. Ten just men could have saved Sodom; but more than ten were needed for this Babylon drunk with the blood of martyrs, for this mother of the fornications and the abominations of the earth. Nonetheless have ye gained your reward, and even beyond yourselves, your labor has not been fruitless. Faith can never be sterile; since the days of Abraham, faith has ever been the great element of fecundity for the whole world. If Rome’s degenerate sons refused to understand, in the fourth century, the lesson that was being read to them by the heirs of the noblest families of the empire, if they could not or would not see where alone salvation was to be found, by your faith, O illustrious companions of Paulinus, there is born unto Heaven a new race, doing honor to a new Rome, and far outdoing in mighty deeds the old patricians! Like thee, O Paulinus, “contemplating in light divine the primitive ages and then those that followed, we cannot but admire the depth of the Creator’s work, and this mysterious lineage prepared for the Romans of by-gone days during the night of ages.”
Glory then to thee, who didst not turn a deaf ear to the Gospel; and strong in faith, didst conquer the prince of this world. Restore to this age of ours, so like thine own in its utter ruin, that frank love of truth, that simplicity of faith, which in the fourth and fifth centuries saved the baptized world from shipwreck. There is not less light now than there was then; nay, rather, light has been increased by reason of the incessant labors of the Doctors of the Church and the further definitions of Pontiffs. The thing is, that truth, though always equally powerful to the saving of man, does not deliver any, save those who live by faith; and hence it is that dogma, though more and more fully defined, does not in these our days, raise men’s minds to a higher standard. The point is, dogma must not remain a dead letter; Jesus Christ did not transmit it to his Church in the form of a speculative theory; nor when the Church expounds it to her children does she aim merely at charming the ears of her auditors, by beauty of style or amplitude of development. God’s word is a seed; it is cast on the ground, not to be hidden there, but to germinate there, to grow up there, to tower above all other growths there, because its right as well as its might is to appropriate to itself the whole sap of the earth that has received it; so far even as to transform this same soil itself, so that it may yield all that God expects thereof. At least, O Paulinus, may this divine seed produce its full effect in all those who give thee their admiration and offer thee their prayers! Without diminishing truths of scripture, without pretending to interpret according to the whims of earthly fancies, the words of our Lord, thou didst take to the letter everything that should be so taken; and therefore art thou now a saint. Oh! may every word of God be thus also uncompromisingly accepted by us; may each word be the ruling principle of our thoughts and of our actions.
On this day which ushers in the Vigil of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist, we cannot but recall thine own tender devotion to the “Friend of the Bridegroom.” The place thou holdest on the cycle makes thee the herald of God’s precursor on earth. Prepare then our souls to hail the apparition of this brilliant star; may we, like thee, be warmed by his rays so as to celebrate with enthusiasm the great things thou hast already sung of him.
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June 21st - St. Aloysius Gonzaga |
Posted by: Stone - 06-22-2021, 06:31 AM - Forum: June
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June 21 – St Aloysius Gonzaga, Confessor
“Oh! how exceeding great is the glory of Aloysius, Son of Ignatius! Never could I have believed it, had not my Jesus shown it to me. Never could I have believed that such glory as that, was to be seen in heaven!” Thus cries out Saint Mary Magdalene de Pazzi, whose memory we were celebrating a month ago: she is speaking in ecstasy. From the heights of Carmel, whence her ken may reach beyond the heavens, she reveals to earth the splendor wherewith the youthful hero of this day shines amidst the celestial phalanxes.
Yet short was the life of Aloysius, and it had offered nothing to the superficial gaze of a vast majority, save the preliminaries, so to say, of a career broken off in its flower, before bearing fruit of any kind. Ah! God does not account of things as men do; of very slight weight are their appreciations in his judgment! Even in the case of the saints themselves the mere fractional number of years, or brilliant deeds, goes far less to the filling up of a lifetime, in his view, than does love. The usefulness of a human existence ought surely to be measured, as a matter of fact, by the amount produced in it of what is lasting. Now beyond this present time charity remains alone fixed forever at that precise degree of growth attained during this life of passage. Little matters it, therefore, if without any long duration or any apparent works, one of God’s Elect have developed in himself a love as great or greater than some others have done, in the midst of many toils, be they never so holy and throughout a long career admired of men.
The illustrious Society that gave Aloysius Gonzaga to holy Church owes the sanctity of her members and the benedictions poured upon their works to the fidelity she has ever professed to this important truth, which throws so much light on the Christian life. From the very first age of her history, it would seem that our Lord Jesus, not content to allow her to assume his own blessed Name, has been lovingly determined so to arrange circumstances in her regard that she may never forget wherein it is her real strength lies, in the midst of the actively militant career which he has especially opened before her. The brilliant works of Saint Ignatius her founder, of Saint Francis Xavier, the apostle of the Indies, of Saint Francis Borgia, the noble conquest of Christ’s humility, manifested truly wondrous holiness in them, and to the eyes of all; but these works of theirs had no other spring nor basis than the hidden virtues of that other glorious triumvirate, in which, under the eye of God alone, by the sole strength of contemplative prayer, Saints Stanislaus Kostka, Aloysius Gonzaga, and John Berchmans, rose to such a degree of love, and consequently to the sanctity of their heroic fathers.
Again it is by Mary Magdalene de Pazzi, the depositary of the secrets of the Spouse, that this mystery is revealed to us. In the rapture during which the glory of Aloysius was displayed before her eyes, she thus continues, while still under the influence of the Holy Ghost: “Who could ever explain the value and the power of interior acts? The glory of Aloysius is so great, simply because he acted thus, interiorly. Between an interior act and that which is seen, there is no comparison possible. Aloysius, as long as he dwelt on earth, kept his eye attentively fixed on the Word; and this is just why he is so splendid.
Aloysius was a hidden martyr; whosoever loveth Thee, my God, knoweth Thee to be so great, so infinitely amiable, that keen indeed is the martyrdom of such an one, to see clearly that he loves Thee not so much as he desireth to love Thee, and that Thou art not loved by Thy creatures, but art offended! … Thus he became a martyrdom unto himself. Oh! he did love, while on earth! Wherefore, now in heaven, he possesses God in a sovereign plenitude of love. While still mortal, he discharged his bow at the Heart of the Word; and now that he is in heaven, his arrows are all lodged in his own heart. For this communication of the Divinity which he merited by the arrows of his acts of love and of union with God, he now verily and indeed possesses and clasps forever.”
To love God, to allow His grace to turn our heart towards Infinite Beauty, which alone can fill it, such is then the true secret of highest perfection. Who can fail to see how this teaching of today’s feast answers to the end pursued by the Holy Ghost ever since his coming down, at our glorious Pentecost? This sweet and silent teaching was given by Aloysius, wheresoever he turned his steps, during his short career. Born to heaven in holy baptism, almost before he was born to earth, he was a very angel from his cradle; grace seemed to gush from him into those who bore him in their arms filling them with heavenly sentiments. At four years of age, he followed the marquess his father into the camps; and thus, some unconscious faults, which had not so much as tarnished his innocence, became for the rest of his life the object of a penitence that one would have thought rather beseemed some grievous sinner. He was but nine years old when, being taken to Florence, there to be perfected in the Italian language, he became the edification of the Court of duke Francis (it is of interest to recollect that Marie de Medicis, the future Queen of France, was at that time a child in the same court): but though the most brilliant in Italy, it failed to have any attraction for him, and rather served to detach him more decisively than ever from the world. During this period, likewise, at the feet of the miraculous picture of the Annunziata, he consecrated his virginity to Our Lady.
The Church herself, in the Breviary Lessons, will relate the other details of this sweet life, in which as is ever the case with souls fully docile to the Holy Ghost, heavenly piety never marred what was of duty in earthly things. It is just because he really was a model for all youth engaged in study that Aloysius has been proclaimed Protector thereof. Of a singularly quick intelligence, as faithful to work as to prayer in the midst of the gay turmoil of city life, he mastered all the sciences then exacted of one of his rank. Very intricate and ticklish negotiations of worldly interest were more than once confided to his management: and thus was opportunity afforded of realizing to what a high degree he might have excelled in government affairs. Here again, he comes forward as an example to such as have friends and relatives who would fain hold them back, when on the threshold of the religious state, under pretense of the “great good they may do in the world, and how much evil they may prevent.” Just as though the Most High must be contented with useless nonentities in that select portion of men he reserves to himself amidst nations; or, as though the aptitudes of the richest and most gifted natures may not be turned all the better, and all the more completely to God their very principle, precisely because they are the most perfect. On the other hand, neither State nor Church ever really loses anything by this fleeing to God, this apparent throwing away of the best subjects! If, in the old law, Jehovah showed himself jealous in having the very best of all kinds of goods offered at his altar, his intention was not to impoverish his people. Whether admitted or not, it is a certain fact that the chief strength of society, the fountain head of benediction and protection to the world, is always to be found in holocausts well pleasing to the Lord.
Quote:Aloysius was son of Ferdinand Gonzaga, Marquess of Castiglione delle Stivere. He was so hurriedly baptized on account of danger, that he seemed to be born to heaven, almost before he was born to earth, and he so faithfully kept this his first grace, that he seemed to have been well nigh confirmed therein. From his first dawn of reason, which he used in offering himself to God, he led a life more holy day by day. At Florence, when he was nine years old, he made a vow of perpetual virginity, before the altar of the Blessed Virgin, upon whom he always looked as a Mother; and by a remarkable mercy from God, he kept this vow wholly and without the slightest impure temptation, either of body or of mind, during his whole life. As for any other perturbations of the soul, he began at that age to check them so sternly, that he was never more pricked by even their first movements. His senses, and especially his eyes, he so restrained, that he never once looked on the face of Mary of Austria, whom for several years he saluted almost every day, while he was page of honor, in the court of the king of Spain; and he used the same reserve with regard to the face of even his own mother: wherefore he might truly be called a man without flesh, or an angel in human flesh.
To this custody of the senses, he added the maceration of the body. He kept three days as fasts, in every week, and that mostly upon a little bread and water. But indeed, he, as it were, fasted every day, for he hardly ever took so much as an ounce weight of food at his meal. Often also, even thrice a day, he would, with cords or chains scourge himself to blood: sometimes he would supply the place of a discipline or hair shirt, by dog-thongs or his own spurs. He secretly strewed his soft bed with pieces of broken wood or potsherds, that he might find it easier to wake to pray. He passed great part of the night even in the depth of winter clad only in his shirt, either kneeling on the ground, or lying prostrate, when too weary to remain upright, occupied in heavenly contemplation. Sometimes he would keep himself thus immovable for three, four, or five hours, until he had spent at least one, without any distraction of mind. Such constancy obtained for him the reward of being able to keep his understanding quite concentrated in prayer without any wandering of mind, as though rapt in God, in unbroken ecstasy. In order that he might henceforth adhere to Him alone, having overcome the bitter resistance of his father, in a sharp contest of three years’ duration, and having procured the transfer of his right to the Marquessate unto his brother, he joined, at Rome, the Society of Jesus, to which he had been called by a voice from heaven, when he was at Madrid.
In his very novitiate, he began to be held as a master of all virtues. His obedience even to the most trifling rules was absolutely exact, his contempt of the world extraordinary, and his hatred of self implacable. His love of God was so ardent, that it gradually undermined his bodily strength. Being commanded, therefore, to divert his mind for a while from divine things, he struggled vainly to distract himself from Him Who met him everywhere. From tender love towards his neighbor, he joyfully ministered to the sick in the public hospitals, and in the exercise of this charity, he caught the contagion. Whereby, being slowly consumed, on the very day he had predicted, the eleventh of the Kalends of July, in the twenty-fourth year of his age, he departed to heaven, having previously begged to receive the discipline and to be placed upon the ground to die. What the glory is which he there enjoys, St. Mary Magdalene de Pazzi was enabled by the revelation of God to behold; and she declared that it was such as she had hardly believed existed even in heaven, and that his holiness and love were so great that she could declare him to be a hidden Martyr. On earth, God glorified him by many miracles. These being duly proved, Benedict XIII inserted the name of this angelical youth in the Calendar of the Saints, and commended him to all young scholars, both as a pattern of innocence and of chastity, and as principal Patron.
Venerable old age is not that of long time, nor counted by the number of years: but the understanding of man is grey hairs; and a spotless life is old age. And therefore, Aloysius, thou dost hold a place of honor amidst the ancients of thy people! Glory be to the holy Society, in the midst whereof thou didst, in so short a space, fulfill a long course; obtain that she may ever continue to treasure, both for herself and others, the teaching that flows from thy life of innocency and love. Holiness is the one only thing when one’s career is ended, that can be called true again; and holiness is acquired from within. External works count with God only in as far as the interior breath that inspires them is pure; if occasion for exercising works be wanting, man can always supply that deficiency by drawing nigh unto the Lord, in the secret of his soul, as much and even more than he could have done by their means. Thus didst thou see and understand the question; and therefore, prayer, which held thee absorbed in its ineffable delights, succeeded in making thee equal to the very martyrs. What a priceless treasure was not prayer in thine eyes, what a heaven-lent boon, and one that is indeed in our reach too, just as it was in thine! But in order to find therein, as thou didst express it, “the shortcut to perfection,” perseverance is needed and a careful elimination from the soul, by a generous self-repression, of every emotion which is not of God. For how could muddy or troubled waters mirror forth the image of him who stands on their brink? Even so, a soul that is sullied, or a soul that without being quite a slave of passion, is not yet mistress of every earthly perturbation, can never reach the object of prayer, which is to reproduce within her the tranquil image of her God.
The reproduction of the one great model was perfect in thee; and hence it can be seen how nature (as regards what she has of good), far from losing or suffering, aught rather gains by this process of recasting in the divine crucible. Even in what touches the most legitimate affections, thou didst look at things no longer from the earthly point of view; but beholding all in God, far were the things of sense transcended, with all their deceptive feebleness, and wondrously did thy love grow in consequence! For instance, what could be more touching than thy sweet attentions, not only upon earth, but even from thy throne in heaven, for that admirable woman given thee by our Lord to be thine earthly mother? Where may tenderness be found equal to the affectionate effusions written to her by thee in that letter of a Saint to the mother of a Saint, which thou didst address to her shortly before thy quitting thine earthly pilgrimage? And still more, what exquisite delicacy thou didst evince, in making her the recipient of thy first miracle, worked after thine entrance into glory! Furthermore, the Holy Ghost, by setting thee on fire with the flame of divine charity, developed also within thee immense love for thy neighbor: necessarily so, because charity is essentially one; and well was this proved when thou wast seen sacrificing thy life so blithely for the sick and the pestiferous.
Cease not, O dearest Saint, to aid us in the midst of so many miseries; lend a kindly hand to each and all. Christian youth has a special claim upon thy patronage, for it is by the sovereign pontiff himself that this precious portion of the flock is gathered around thy throne. Direct their feeble steps along the right path, so often enticed as they are to turn into dangerous by-roads; be prayer and earnest toil, for God’s dear sake, their stay and safeguard; be they illumined in the serious matter before them of the choosing a state of life. We beseech thee, dearest Saint, exert strong influence over them during this most critical period of their opening years, so that they may truly experience all the potency of that fair privilege which is ever thine, of preserving in thy devout clients the angelical virtue! Yea, furthermore, Aloysius, look compassionately on those who have not imitated thine innocence, and obtain that they may yet follow thee in the example of thy penance; such is the petition of Holy Church this day!
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