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| The Liturgical Year: January 13th - The Octave of the Epiphany |
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Posted by: Stone - 01-13-2021, 08:50 PM - Forum: Christmas
- Replies (2)
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January 13 – The Octave of the Epiphany
The thoughts of the Church, today, are fixed on the Baptism of our Lord in the Jordan, which is the second of the three Mysteries of the Epiphany. The Emmanuel manifested himself to the Magi, after having shown himself to the Shepherds; but this manifestation was made within the narrow space of a stable at Bethlehem, and the world knew nothing of it. In the Mystery of the Jordan, Christ manifested himself with greater publicity. His coming is proclaimed by the Precursor; the crowd, that is flocking to the river for Baptism, is witness of what happens; Jesus makes this the beginning of his public life. But who could worthily explain the glorious circumstances of this second Epiphany?
It resembles the first in this, that it is for the benefit and salvation of the human race. The Star has led the Magi to Christ; they had long waited for his coming, they had hoped for it; now, they believe. Faith in the Messias’ having come into the world is beginning to take root among the Gentiles. But faith is not sufficient for salvation; the stain of sin must be washed away by water. He that believeth and is baptised, shall be saved. (St. Mark, xvi. 16.) The time is come, then, for a new manifestation of the Son of God, whereby there shall be inaugurated the great remedy, which is to give to Faith the power of producing life eternal.
Now, the decrees of divine Wisdom had chosen Water as the instrument of this sublime regeneration of the human race. Hence, in the beginning of the world, we find the Spirit of God moving over the Waters, (1 Gen. i. 2.) in order that they might “even then conceive “a principle of sanctifying power,” as the Church expresses it in her Office for Holy Saturday. (2 The Blessing of the Font.) But, before being called to fulfill the designs of God’s mercy, this element of Water had to be used by the divine justice for the chastisement of a sinful world. With the exception of one family, the whole human race perished, by the terrible judgment of God, in the Waters of the Deluge.
A fresh indication of the future supernatural power of this chosen element was given by the Dove, which Noe sent forth from the Ark; it returned to him, bearing in its beak an Olive-branch, the symbol that peace was given to the earth by its having been buried in Water. But, this was only the announcement of the mystery; its accomplishment was not to be for long ages to come.
Meanwhile, God spoke to his people by many events, which were figurative of the future Mystery of Baptism. Thus, for example, it was by passing through the waters of the Red Sea, that they entered into the Promised Land, and during the miraculous passage, a pillar of a cloud was seen covering both the Israelites, and the Waters, to which they owed their deliverance.
But, in order that Water should have the power to purify man from his sins, it was necessary that it should be brought in contact with the sacred Body of the Incarnate God. The Eternal Father had sent his Son into the world, not only that he might be its Lawgiver, and Redeemer, and the Victim of its salvation — but that he might also be the Sanctifier of Water; and it was in this sacred element that he would divinely bear testimony to his being his Son, and manifest him to the world a second time.
Jesus, therefore, being now thirty years of age, comes to the Jordan, a river already celebrated for the prophetic miracles which had been wrought in its waters. The Jewish people, roused by the preaching of John the Baptist, were nocking thither in order to receive a Baptism, which could, indeed, excite a sorrow for sin, but could not effect its forgiveness. Our divine King approaches the river, not, of course, to receive sanctification, for he himself is the author of all justice — but to impart to Water the power of bringing forth, as the Church expresses the mystery, a new and heavenly progeny. (The Blessing of the Font.) He goes down into the stream, not, like Josue, to walk dry-shod through its bed, but to let its waters encompass him, and receive from him, both for itself and for the Waters of the whole earth, the sanctifying power which they would retain for ever. The saintly Baptist places hit: trembling hand upon the sacred head of the Redeemer, and bends it beneath the water; the Sun of Justice vivifies this his creature; he imparts to it the glow of life-giving fruitfulness ; and Water thus becomes the prolific source of supernatural life.
But, in this the commencement of a new creation, we look for the intervention of the Three Persons of the Blessed Trinity. All Three are there. The heavens open; the Dove descends, not, as a mere symbol, prophetic of some future grace, but as the sign of the actual presence of the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of love, who gives peace to men and changes their hearts. The Dove hovers above the head of Jesus, overshadowing, at one and the same time, the Humanity of the Incarnate Word and the water which bathed his sacred Body.
The manifestation is not complete; the Father’s voice is still to be heard speaking over the Water, and moving by its power the entire element through- out the earth. Then was fulfilled the prophecy of David: The Voice of the Lord is upon the waters; the God of majesty hath thundered. The Voice of the Lord breaketh cedars, (that is, the pride of the devils). The Voice of the Lord divideth the flame of fire, (that is, the anger of God). The Voice of the Lord shaketh the desert, and maketh the flood to swell, (that is, announces a new Deluge, the Deluge of divine Mercy). (Ps. cxxviii. 3, 5, 7, 8, 10.) And what says this Voice of the Father? This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. (St. Matth. iii. 17)
Thus was the Holiness of the Emmanuel manifested by the presence of the Dove and by the voice of the Father, as his Kingly character had been previously manifested by the mute testimony of the Star. The mystery is accomplished, the Waters are invested with a spiritual purifying power, and Jesus comes from the Jordan and ascends the bank, raising up with himself the world, regenerated and sanctified, with all its crimes and defilements drowned in the stream. Such is the interpretation and language of the Holy Fathers of the Church regarding this great event of our Lord’s Life.
The Feast of the Epiphany celebrates this wonderful mystery of Jesus’ Baptism; and we cannot wonder at the Eastern Church having selected this Day for one of the solemn administrations of the sacrament of Baptism. The same custom was observed, as we learn from ancient documents, in certain Churches in the West. John Mosch tells us, that, as regards the Oriental Church, the Font was more than once miraculously filled with water on the Feast of the Epiphany, and that immediately after having administered the Sacrament, the people saw the water disappear. The Roman Church, even so early as the time of St. Leo, decreed that Easter and Pentecost should be the only two days for the solemn administration of Baptism; but the custom of blessing the baptismal water with great solemnity on the Epiphany was still retained, and is observed even now in some parts of the West.
The Eastern Church has always religiously observed it. Amidst all the pomp of sacred rites, accompanied by his Priests and Ministers, who are clothed in the richest vestments, and followed by the whole people, the Bishop repairs to the banks of a river. After reciting certain beautiful prayers, which we regret not being able to offer to our readers, the Bishop plunges into the water a Cross richly adorned with precious stones; it represents our Lord being baptised by St. John. At St. Petersburg, the ceremony takes place on the river Neva, and it is through a hole made on the ice that the Metropolitan dips the Cross into the water. This same ceremony is observed by those Churches in the West, which have retained the custom of blessing the baptismal water on this Feast.
The faithful are very anxious to carry home with them the water of the stream thus sanctified; and St. John Chrysostom, in his twenty-fourth Homily, on the Baptism of Christ, speaks to his audience of the circumstance, which was well known by all of them, of this water never turning corrupt. The same has been often seen in the Western Church.
Let us honour our Lord in this second Manifestation of his divinity, and thank him, with the Church, for his having given us both the Star of Faith which enlightens us, and the Water of Baptism which cleanses us from our iniquities. Let us lovingly appreciate the humility of our Jesus, who permits himself to be weighed down by the hand of a mortal man, in order, as he says himself, that he might fulfill all justice, (1 St. Matth. iii. 15.) for having taken on himself the likeness of sin, it was requisite that he should bear its humiliation, that so he might raise us from our debasement. Let us thank him for this grace of Baptism, which has opened to us the gates of the Church both of heaven and earth; and let us renew the engagements we made at the holy Font, for they were the terms on which we were regenerated to our new life in God.
Mass
The Introit, Epistle, Gradual and Alleluia-Verse, Offertory, Preface, and Communion, are the same as on the Feast.
In the Collect, the Church prays that her children may have the grace of becoming like to Jesus, who appeared in the Jordan, filled, indeed, with the Holy Ghost, and the object of the Heavenly Father’s love, but, at the same time, truly Man like us, and faithful in the fulfillment of all justice.
Collect
Deus, cujus Unigenitus in substantia nostræ carnis apparuit: præsta, quæsumus, ut per eum, quem similem nobis foris agnovimus, intus reformari mereamur. Qui tecum.
O God, whose Only Begotten Son appeared in the substance of our flesh: grant, we beseech thee, that we may be interiorly reformed by him whom we confess to have outwardly taken our flesh on himself. Who liveth, &c.
O Lamb of God! thou didst enter into the steam to purify it, the Dove came down from heaven, for thy sweet meekness attracted the Spirit of love; and having sanctified the Waters, the mystery of thy Baptism was over. But what tongue can express the prodigy of mercy effected by it! Men have gone down after thee into the stream made sacred by contact with thee; they return regenerated; they were wolves, and Baptism has transformed them into lambs. We were defiled by sin, and were unworthy to stand near thee, the spotless Lamb; but the waters of the holy Font have been poured upon us, and we are made as the sheep of the Canticle, which came up from the washing fruitful, and none is barren among them; or, as doves upon the brooks of water, white and spotless as though they had been washed with milk, sitting near the plentiful streams! Preserve us, O Jesus, in this white robe which thou hast put upon us. If, alas! we have tarnished its purity, cleanse us by that second Baptism, the Baptism of Penance. Permit us too, dear Lord, to intercede for those countries to whom thy Gospel has not yet been preached; let this river of peace, the waters of Baptism, flow out upon them, and inundate the whole earth. We beseech thee, by the glory of thy manifestation at thy Baptism, forget the crimes of men, which have hitherto caused the Gospel to be kept from those unhappy countries. Thy heavenly Father bids every creature hear thee; speak, dear Jesus! to every creature.
Secret
Hostias tibi, Domine, pro nati Filii tui Apparitione deferimus, suppliciter exorantes; ut sicut ipse nostrorum auctor est munerum, ita sit ipse misericors et susceptor, Jesus Christus Dominus noster. Qui tecum.
We offer sacrifice to thee, O Lord, in remembrance of the Manifestation of thy Son, humbly beseeching thee; that as our Lord Jesus Christ is the author of what we offer, to he may mercifully receive the same. Who liveth, &c.
While giving thanks for the heavenly nourishment just received, the holy Church prays for the unceasing help of that divine Light which has appeared to her, and which will enable her to contemplate the purity of the Lamb, and to love him as he deserves.
Postcommunion
Cœlesti lumine, quæsumus, Domine, semper et ubique nos præveni; at mysterium, cujus nos participes esse voluisti, et puro cernamus intuitu, et digno percipiamus affectu. Per Dominum.
May thy heavenly light, we beseech thee, O Lord, go before us at all times, and in all places; that we may contemplate with a clear sight, and receive with due affection, the mystery whereof thou hast been pleased we should partake. Through, &c.
Let us, once more, sing the praises of the divine Epiphany—the Theophany. Let us make a concert, as it were, of the Liturgies of all the Churches.
St. Hilary of Poitiers shall be our first chapter, in the Hymn he has written on the three mysteries of this great Octave.
Hymn
Jesus, the merciful Redeemer of all nations, shone forth on this day; let the faithful of every race celebrate him in their songs of praise.
A Star, shining in the heavens, announces his Birth; it leads the way, and guides them to his Crib.
Prostrating, they adore the Infant wrapped in swaddling clothes; they confess him to be the true God, offering him their mystic gifts.
Thirty years of his life had passed, and He, the infinitely pure God, seeks the laver of baptism.
John, the favored Baptist, trembles as he bends the head of Jesus beneath the waters—that Jesus whose Blood was to purify the whole earth from its sins.
The divine voice of the Father is heard from heaven, bearing testimony to his Son; and the Holy Spirit too is present, the giver of holy grace.
We beseech thee in humble supplication, O Jesus! protect thy people; we ask it of thee by the power thou didst show when thou didst command the water to be changed into wine.
May praise, honor, and all power be to the Trinity for ever and for ever. Amen.
The Ambrosian Church of Milan thus celebrates the Baptism of our Lord in the beautiful Preface we take from its Missal.
Preface
Vere dignum et justum est, æquum et salutare, nos tibi semper hic et ubique gratias agere, Domine sancte, Pater omnipotens æterne Deus, qui te nobis super Jordanis alveum de cœlis in voce tonitrui præbuisti, ut Salvatorem cœli demonstrares, et te Patrem æterni luminis ostenderes, cœlos supernisti, aerem benedixisti, fontem purificasti: et tuum unicum Filium per speciem columbæ Sancto Spiritu declarasti. Susceperunt hodie fontes benedictionem tuam, et abstulerunt maledictionem nostram, ita ut credentibus purificationem omnium delictorum exhibeant, et Dei filios adoptione faciant ad vitam æternam. Nam, quos ad temporalem vitam carnalis nativitas fuderat, quos mors per prævaricationem ceperat, hos vita æterna recipiens, ad regni cœlorum gloriam revocavit.
It is truly meet and just, right and available to salvation, that we should always, here and in all places, give thanks to thee, O Holy Lord, Almighty Father, Eternal God, who didst show thyself unto us in the river Jordan by speaking to us from heaven in the voice of thunder, whereby thou wouldst manifest unto us our heavenly Savior, and show thyself to be the Father of eternal light, and therefore thou didst open the heavens, and bless the air, and purify the stream: and thou didst announce him to be thine Only Begotten Son by the Holy Ghost, who appeared in the form of a Dove. On this day did the waters receive thy benediction, and take away our malediction, so that they give to believers the purification of all their sins, and make them, by adoption, sons of God unto life everlasting. For, they that were born by the flesh unto temporal life, and made by sin subject to death, have been admitted into life everlasting, and restored to the glory of the heavenly kingdom.
The venerable Antiphons we now give are the precious remnants of the ancient Gallican Liturgy: they are of oriental origin, and are still preserved in the Cistercian Breviary.
Antiphons
Renewing our old man, the Savior comes to Baptism, that he might by water restore our nature which had been corrupted: he clothed us with an incorruptible garment.
We glorify thee as our God and Redeemer, that didst purify the contagious defilements of mankind in the Spirit and in fire.
The Baptist trembled, and dares not to touch the head of God; but cries out, with fear: Sanctify me, O Savior!
The Savior crushed the serpent’s head in the river Jordan, and delivered us all from his power.
A great Mystery is this day declared to us; for the Creator of all wipes away our sins in the Jordan.
The soldier baptizes his King, the servant his Lord, and John his Savior: the waters of the Jordan were amazed, and testimony was borne by the Dove: the voice of the Father was heard: this is my Son.
The springs of water were sanctified when the glory of Christ was manifested: all ye countries of the earth, draw out waters from the Savior’s fountains, for on that day did Christ our God sanctify every creature.
The following Sequence, which we take from the ancient Paris Missals, was composed in the Middle Ages, when it was used by many of the Churches in the West.
It celebrates the three Mysteries of the Epiphany.
Sequence
A Star has miraculously risen, that was foretold by the Prophets: it tells the rising of the divine Light.
It guides the Magi, it terrifies Herod, it leads the Gentiles to Jesus, the haven of peace.
It reveals the Child, the creator of the stars, the avenger of crime, the Strong God.
The mystic gifts proclaim him to be the Ruler of all things, and the Redeemer who saved us by his death.
He is baptized in the waters, and the waters imbibe from him a virtue, whereby they wash away Adam’s sins.
The Dove is seen: the voice of the Father speaks his love of the Son, therefore making known his glory.
The word of John bears also testimony; and the law of love is begun.
The guests are gladdened, when the spring-water is made to do the service of the better wine.
The Word of the Father is espoused in sweet love in the womb of the Virgin, the Spouse without stain.
May he cleanse our alms, and so loosen our chains, protecting us forever, at his Mother’s prayer. Amen.
The Greek Church offers us, in her Menæa, these magnificent verses on the Baptism of our Lord: they are full of poetry, doctrine, and devotion.
vi Die Januarii, In Theophania
Elias had been taken up on high: Eliseus touched the Jordan with his cloak, and the stream was turned back; the waters divided, leaving the Prophet a dry, yet moistened, path, as a true type of that Baptism, whereby we pass the stream-like path of life. Christ appeared, desiring to renew his creature.
On this day was sanctified the element of water; the Jordan is divided, and its waters cease to flow, seeing its Lord seeking baptism in its stream.
Thou hast come to the river, O Christ our King! thou hast come as Man to receive baptism at thy servant’s hands; good Jesus! lover of mankind! thou art eager to bend beneath thy Precursor’s hand.
At the voice of him that cried out in the desert: Prepare ye the way of the Lord! thou didst come, O Lord! making to thyself the likeness of a servant, and, thou that knowest not sin, asking for Baptism! The waters saw thee, and trembled. The Precursor trembled, and exclaimed: “How shall the lamp give light to the Light? O Savior! thou takest away the sins of the world, sanctify me and the waters.”
His right hand trembled, for, though Precursor, and Baptist, and Prophet greater than all Prophets, he saw before him the Lamb of God that washes away the sins of the world: oppressed with anxious doubt, he exclaimed: “O Word! I dare not put my hand upon thy head: do thou sanctify and enlighten me, O Merciful One! for thou art the life, and light, and peace of the world.”
It was a wonderful thing to see the Lord of heaven and earth standing naked in the river, receiving as a servant, and from his servant, Baptism for our salvation. The choirs of Angels stood amazed, in fear and in joy. We adore thee, O Jesus! together with them. Save us.
O holy Baptist! raise up to him, for us, that hand of thine, which touched the untouched Head of our Lord, and wherewith thou didst point him out to us. Thou hast great power, for he declared thee to be greater than all the Prophets. Turn, also, to him thine eyes, which saw the Most Holy Spirit come down in the form of a Dove. Have pity on us, and be with us encouraging our hymn, and thyself beginning the canticle of praise.
The waters of the Jordan received thee, O Jesus, the fountain of life! and the Paraclete came down upon thee in the form of a Dove. He who bent down the very heavens, now bends his sacred Head! The clay that was formed cries out complainingly to Him who formed it: “Why biddest thou me do what is above me? I have need to be baptized by thee, O Sinless One!”
Thou didst bend thine head to thy Precursor; thou didst crush the heads of the serpents. Thou didst go down into the river; thou didst enlighten all things that they might glorify thee, O Savior, thou Light of our souls!
He that is clad with light as with a garment, deigned, for our sakes, to become like unto us. Today, he girds himself with the waters of the Jordan, not needing them for his own purification, but that he might give regeneration to us through himself. O wondrous work!
Come, let us imitate the wise virgins; come, let us go to meet our Lord thus manifested to us, for, like a bridegroom, he comes to John. The Jordan turned back, when it saw thee, O Jesus! it bent its course and stood. John exclaimed: “I dare not touch the head of the eternal God.” The Spirit came down, in the form of a Dove, to sanctify the waters, and a Voice said from heaven: “This is my Son, that is come into the world to save mankind.” Glory be to thee, O Christ!
Christ is baptized, and comes up from the water; he raises up the world with himself, and sees that heaven opened, which Adam had closed against himself and his children. The Spirit, too, proclaims the divinity of Him that was baptized, and a Voice from heaven is heard at the same time. Thus is Christ declared to be the Savior of our souls.
When thou didst will, O Lord! to fulfill thy eternal decrees, thou didst permit all creatures to minister to thy Mystery! Gabriel, among the Angels; the Virgin, among men; the Star, among the heavenly bodies; the Jordan, among the streams of water. Thou didst take on thyself the sin of the world. Glory be to thee, O Savior!
O Jordan, why wonderest thou at seeing the Invisible thus naked before thee? “I saw,” thou repliest, “and how should I not tremble? The angels see him, and are awed. The heavens were moved, the earth shook, the sea curled up its waves, and all things visible and invisible feared.” Christ manifested himself in the Jordan, that he might sanctify the waters.
The Precursor, the herald of Christ, exclaimed: “Who is there that has seen a spot upon the sun, the orb of brightness! And how shall I, that am but as grass of the field, baptize thee, thou brightness of glory, and image of the eternal Father? How shall I dare touch the fire of the Divinity? For thou art the Christ, the wisdom and the power of God.”
Christ, the great Light, has shone on Galilee of the Gentiles, on the country of Zabulum, and on the land of Nephthalim; to them that sat in darkness there has appeared a bright light in Bethlehem the bright. But, the Sun of Justice, the Lord, has risen from Mary, and shown far brighter rays on the whole earth.
Let us, therefore, who, in Adam, are naked of all good, put on Jesus, that we may grow warm; for, thou art come, O Christ! to be the clothing of the naked, and the light of them that are in darkness. O Light inaccessible! thou hast appeared to the world.
Let us recite, in honor of the Virgin Mother of our dear Jesus, this venerable Hymn of our ancient Missals.
It is an imitation of the celebrated Sequence for Pentecost, composed by the holy king Robert, and which we shall give in its proper place.
Sequence
May the grace of that Holy Spirit be now with us,
Whereby the Virgin Mary conceived, and brought forth Jesus, our God,
And holy Virginity, in this Mother, brought forth its Flower.
O Spirit of Love! thou didst fill Mary with thyself,
Thou didst infuse the dew of heaven into her.
O Divine Lover! the purest Virgin receives Jesus from Thee.
Under thy shadow, she continues a Virgin, and is made the Mother of God.
Thou didst preserve Mary from contracting the original guilt.
Thou didst consecrate the sanctuary of this so blessed a womb.
That it might be the dwelling of Jesus, and Mary be his Mother,
And so bring forth her Son, as to be still the same pure Flower.
Thou it was that didst inspire the Prophets to foretell how Mary should conceive her God.
Thou it was that didst strengthen the Apostles to preach this God, the Son of Mary.
When God created this world, he gave us a type of Mary.
The virgin-earth produced the first Adam; so did Mary give birth to the second.
Thou art the hope of sorrowing hearts, sweet Mary!
Loosen the fetters of thy devoted servants, O Mary!
Thou didst restore to life the world that was crushed by sin, O Mary!
Thou didst destroy idolaters and wicked laws, O Mary!
We humbly beseech thee, therefore, that thou mercifully help us, O Mary!
Ave, Maria. And, pray to thy Son for us who sing to thee, Ave Maria!
Thou art Blessed of all the blessed, O Mary!
Thou art raised above the highest choirs of the Angels, O Mary!
Thou didst clad with the nature of Man, O Mary,
Him who made thee, and not as other mothers, be his Mother, O Mary!
He is our God; pray him to have mercy on us, O Mary!
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| Quote of St. John Mary Vianney |
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Posted by: Hildegard of Bingen - 01-13-2021, 08:46 PM - Forum: The Saints
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QUOTE OF ST. JOHN MARY VIANNEY
"Generally speaking, one dies as one has lived. That is one of the great truths which Holy Scripture and the Fathers repeat in many different places. If you live as good Christians, you will be sure to die as good Christians, but if you live badly, you will sure to die a bad death . . . It is true, however, that sometimes, by a kind miracle, one may begin badly and finish well, but that happens so rarely that, as St. Jerome puts it, death is generally the echo of life. You think that you will return then to God? No, you will perish in sin . . . " - The Cure of Ars (Page 139 from the Book "Sermons of the Cure Ars)
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| Pope Emeritus Benedict joins Pope Francis in taking abortion-tainted COVID vaccine |
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Posted by: Stone - 01-13-2021, 04:29 PM - Forum: Pandemic 2020 [Spiritual]
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Pope Emeritus Benedict joins Pope Francis in taking abortion-tainted COVID vaccine
Pope Francis became one of the first to receive his dose of Pfizer’s abortion-tainted vaccine this morning.
VATICAN CITY, January 13, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) — Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI is to become one of the first in the Vatican to receive an abortion-tainted COVID-19 vaccine, as part of the Vatican’s own vaccination roll-out commencing today.
Pope Benedict’s personal secretary Archbishop Georg Gänswein spoke to the German language edition of Catholic News Agency (CNA), saying that Benedict would receive it “as soon as the vaccine is available.” Gänswein noted that he would receive the jab along with Benedict, as would “the whole household of the Mater Ecclesiae Monastery” where Benedict is living.
In a television interview aired on Sunday night, Pope Francis also stated that he would receive the vaccine, calling it “an ethical choice,” adding that “I’ve signed up. One must do it.” Francis went further, adding that “ethically, everyone should take the vaccine.”
“I don’t understand why some say, ‘No. Vaccines are dangerous,’” the Pope said. “If it is presented by doctors as a thing that can go well, that has no special dangers, why not take it? There is a suicidal denial that I wouldn’t know how to explain.”
The 84-year-old pontiff became one of the first to receive his dose of Pfizer’s abortion-tainted vaccine this morning, and will have his second injection in three weeks. While there were no photos of the event, the Vatican press room confirmed the news to Argentine newspaper La Nacion.
The Vatican COVID vaccinations are beginning today in the Pope Paul VI Audience Hall, where a special fridge has been placed in order to accommodate the exceptionally low temperatures necessary for the storage of the Pfizer vaccine. The head of the Vatican health service, Dr. Andrea Arcangeli, said: “Priority will be given to health and public safety personnel, to the elderly and to personnel most frequently in contact with the public.”
Speaking to Vatican News in mid-December, Arcangeli announced how Vatican residents and employees would be receiving COVID vaccinations in January, mentioning it was “very important” that a “vaccination campaign” was started as soon as possible. He even referred to “our duty to offer all residents, employees and their families the opportunity to be immunized against this dreaded disease.”
At the time, Arcangeli said the Vatican would be using the Pfizer vaccine, but that others would be administered subject to approval. The first doses of the Pfizer jab in Italy were given shortly after Christmas, with the Moderna vaccine being approved last week, and deployed January 12. As of Tuesday, January 12, over 650,000 people in the country had been injected with COVID vaccines in apparent efforts to prevent the spread of the virus.
Both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, along with the Oxford/Astra Zeneca vaccine which is currently awaiting approval in the country, have connections to abortion.
Pro-life organization Children of God for Life notes that the Pfizer vaccine was tested using the HEK-293 cell line, which is derived from kidney tissue taken from a baby who was aborted in the Netherlands in the 1970s.
The group also compiled research showing that Moderna “extensively” uses the “aborted fetal cell line HEK-293” in the “fundamental design of mRNA technology, their Spike protein and in the research, development, production and testing.” The proteins used in the vaccine itself and the mRNA “were built on technology that extensively used aborted fetal cells, rendering the vaccine absolutely immoral from start to finish.”
Meanwhile, the Oxford/Astra Zeneca vaccine has been developed from the cell lines of an aborted baby, the cell line HEK-293, and also uses the fetal cell line in design and testing.
While the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) issued a statement assuring Catholics they could take even an abortion-tainted COVID vaccine if there are no ethical alternatives available, many bishops and cardinals have spoken up against such a message.
In a paper released on December 12, Bishop Athanasius Schneider, along with co-signers Cardinal Janis Pujats, Bishop Joseph Strickland, and Archbishops Tomash Peta and Jan Pawel Lenga, expressed the strong conviction that any use of a vaccine tainted with the “unspeakable crime” of abortion “cannot be acceptable for Catholics” under any circumstances.
The prelates pointed to the contradiction between Catholic doctrine, which teaches that abortion is “a grave moral evil that cries out to heaven for vengeance,” and the commonly found view that abortion-connected vaccines are permitted in “exceptional cases of ‘urgent need.’”
“To argue that such vaccines can be morally licit if there is no alternative is in itself contradictory and cannot be acceptable for Catholics,” the letter read.
Cardinal Raymond Burke, former Prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, has previously spoken out against vaccines using aborted babies, saying “it must be clear that it is never morally justified to develop a vaccine through the use of the cell lines of aborted fetuses. The thought of the introduction of such a vaccine into one’s body is rightly abhorrent.”
In addition to this, in a recent episode of the John-Henry Westen show, Catholic biologist and author Pamela Acker described how the babies involved in the abortion-tainted COVID vaccines were actually alive when they were extracted for their body parts.
“They will actually deliver these babies via cesarean section. The babies are still alive when the researchers start extracting the tissue; to the point where their heart is still beating, and they’re generally not given any anesthetic, because that would disrupt the cells that the researchers are trying to extract.”
Referring to the news of Pope Benedict and Pope Francis taking the vaccine, prominent Catholic commentator Deacon Nick Donnelly wrote: “How is this not seen as condoning abortion, in some circumstances, if it produces medically useful products?”
“If the Pope and bishops had stuck with the principle that all abortions are abominable crimes and the Church will have nothing to do with them, maybe a vaccine would have been developed that wasn’t tainted with abortion,” he noted. “But instead they collapsed like a house of cards. Again.”
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| The unborn babies used for vaccine development were alive at tissue extraction |
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Posted by: Stone - 01-13-2021, 09:11 AM - Forum: Abortion
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The unborn babies used for vaccine development were alive at tissue extraction
Pamela Acker is a biologist and author of a recently released book on vaccinations.
January 12, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) – Today I had the great pleasure of sitting down with Pamela Acker, one of the most knowledgeable people in the world on vaccines and on what goes into them. Acker actually spent time in a vaccine research lab for nine months before encountering the ethical and moral issue of the HEK-293 cell line.
Our conversation today was one of the most enlightening but also deeply disturbing interviews I’ve ever done for my podcast The John-Henry Westen Show. [See video here: https://youtu.be/joWZmcHhfBg]
Acker is a biologist and author of the recently released (and extremely informative) book Vaccination: A Catholic Perspective. In it, she reveals precisely how Catholics should be thinking about vaccines. You can buy it from our friends at the Kolbe Center for the Study of Creation.
Unfortunately – depressingly really – under Pope Francis, the Vatican has largely downplayed if not entirely ignored the importance of bioethics.
Francis himself just last week endorsed the COVID-19 vaccine, saying that “it must be done.”
Acker and I spoke about many topics today for over an hour. Please watch the entire interview if you can. The most revealing aspect of our conversation, I think, was when we discussed the various fetal cell lines being used in vaccines, specifically.
There are a number of fetal cell lines in existence right now. There’s WI-38, MRC-5, HEK-293, PER C-6, and WALVAX-2; WALVAX-2 is not currently being used in any vaccines, but does have the potential to be used and is currently used in therapeutic treatments. As Acker and I agreed, most people have this understanding that it was one or two babies that died and will simply dismiss these cell lines.
Acker speaks about her research into the HEK-293 cell line specifically, and talks about the number that’s at the end of that cell line name. “HEK” stands for Human Embryonic Kidney and the “293” actually reveals the number of experiments that a specific researcher did to develop that cell line.
It doesn’t mean there were two hundred and ninety-three abortions, but for two hundred and ninety-three experiments, you would certainly need far more than one abortion. We’re talking probably hundreds of abortions,” Acker shares.
Acker goes on to discuss why researchers would choose a fetal cell line over an adult cell line. The details boil down to one answer: because they’ll last longer, having a much longer lifespan. However, these cell lines encounter some dangerous side effects, such as the genes are given cancer promoting genes (but more on that inside the interview).
Acker dispels the myth that these cell lines are created using spontaneous abortions, simply by understanding that these cells have to be gathered within five minutes of the abortion. A miscarriage would simply not provide cells that were alive enough for researchers to be able to use the cells.
This is where things get very disturbing, because in most cases it’s not a “simple abortion,” but rather, Acker says:
Quote:They will actually deliver these babies via cesarean section. The babies are still alive when the researchers start extracting the tissue; to the point where their heart is still beating, and they’re generally not given any anesthetic, because that would disrupt the cells that the researchers are trying to extract.
So, they’re removing this tissue, all the while the baby is alive and in extreme amounts of pain. So, this makes it even more sadistic.”
While our discussion is broad, we do highlight the Moderna and Pfizer COVID vaccines specifically. The above is a small sample of the vital information Pamela Acker and I discussed today. I encourage each one of you to listen to the full interview, and share with your friends and family.
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| In new lockdown, Ontario threatens fines, jail for leaving home |
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Posted by: Stone - 01-13-2021, 08:00 AM - Forum: Pandemic 2020 [Secular]
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In new lockdown, Ontario threatens fines, jail for leaving home
Ontarians can be fined and prosecuted for leaving home for 'non-essential' activities under the new stay-at-home order.
ONTARIO, January 12, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) — The Ontario government has declared a second state of emergency and is issuing a stay-at-home order for the province beginning January 14, to last at least 28 days.
Premier Doug Ford announced today that the order allows people to leave their homes only for “essential” purposes, “such as going to the grocery store, pharmacy, accessing health-care services, exercising, or essential work.” In addition, “[o]utdoor organized public gatherings and social gatherings are further restricted to a limit of five people with limited exceptions.”
The order is “aimed at limiting people's mobility and reducing the number of daily contacts with those outside an immediate household,” according to the news release announcing the second state of emergency.
The new restrictions were announced following new projections of ICU occupancy by COVID-19 patients, which is now over 400 beds and “is projected to be as high as 1,000 beds by early February which has the potential to overwhelm Ontario's hospitals,” the news release states.
According to Solicitor General Sylvia Jones, "[s]trong, new measures will be enforced to stop the spread of COVID-19.”
“We are taking extraordinary action to provide law enforcement officers with the tools and support they need to protect the health and wellbeing of Ontarians,” reported Jones.
These new “extraordinary” measures include allowing law enforcement to “issue tickets to those who breach the order and disperse crowds larger than five people, if they’re not part of the same household.”
Ontarians found violating the stay-at-home order face a fine and prosecution under the Reopening Ontario Act and the Emergency Management and Civil Emergency Management (EMPCA). Penalties include up to a year in jail, according to Solicitor General Jones.
“We have made great strides in vaccinating tens of thousands of Ontarians, and we can’t let these efforts go to waste,” stated Christine Elliott, deputy premier and minister of health. “Urgent action is required to break this deadly trend of transmission, ensure people stay home, and save lives.”
Just weeks ago, Ontario emergency room (E.R.) doctor Dr. Gil Nimni called out his “colleagues” who say the E.R. is “crazy” when he has observed that it is “empty.”
Nimni acknowledged that COVID-19 is real and serious but expressed concerns on Twitter that “lockdowns are resulting in economic devastation but also resulting in fewer people accessing care in a timely manner.”
“The sad tragedy in all of this is when the government tells people to lock down, unfortunately that translates into people not seeking care for things they should. You see a lot of late presentation in things that should have been dealt with weeks earlier. Those are the concerning issues,” Nimni stated in a Toronto Sun report.
“Locking down people and sending people into financial ruin and worsening mental-health issues isn’t really the right answer,” he added.
A recent Gallup survey found that lockdowns have contributed to a record mental health decline, with social distancing and stay-at-home orders identified by the CDC as likely culprits of “adverse mental or behavioral health conditions.”
The American Institute for Economy Research (AIER) also released a report in November affirming that virtually all aspects of day-to-day life, including mental health, the economy, unemployment, and crime, have been harmed by the COVID-19 lockdowns.
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| PBS Principal Counsel Advocates Putting Certain Voters' Children into Special 'Camps' |
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Posted by: Stone - 01-12-2021, 01:57 PM - Forum: General Commentary
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PBS Principal Counsel Michael Beller Incites Political Violence In Radical Left-Wing Agenda
PBS Principal Counsel Lays Out Violent Radical Agenda; Says Americans Are ‘*** Dumb’ … ‘Go to White House & Throw Molotovs’ … ‘Put [Children] into Re-Education Camps…Watch PBS All Day’ … ‘COVID Spiking in Red States…[Red State Voters] Are Sick & Dying’
- Michael Beller, PBS principal counsel: “We go for all the Republican voters and Homeland Security will take their children away…we’ll put them into the re-education camps.”
- Beller: “Enlightenment camps. They’re nice, they have Sesame Street characters in the classrooms, and they watch PBS all day."
- Beller: “Americans are so f*cking dumb. You know, most people are dumb. It’s good to live in a place [Washington, D.C.] where people are educated and know stuff. Could you imagine if you lived in one of these other towns or cities where everybody's just stupid?”
- Beller: “What’s great is that COVID is spiking in all the red states right now. So that’s great…a lot of them [red state voters] are sick and dying.”
- PBS is a non-profit institution receiving millions of dollars per year from the federal government
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Jan. 12, 2021] Project Veritas released a new video today exposing Michael Beller, Principal Counsel for The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), for his statements defending violent attacks on the White House, re-education for the children of Trump supporters and praising the deaths of red state voters as a result of COVID-19.
In a conversation with a Veritas journalist, Beller explained his violent intention:
Michael Beller: “In these times, which are unique -- I mean Trump -- Trump is close to Hitler.”
Journalist: “What are you going to do if we [Democrats] don’t win?”
Beller: “Go to the White House and throw Molotov cocktails.”
Beller said that the children of Trump supporters were being raised to be horrible people, and that a solution would be sending those children to re-education camps.
“They’ll [Trump supporters] be raising a generation of intolerant, horrible people – horrible kids,” Beller said.
“We go for all the Republican voters and Homeland Security will take their children away…we’ll put them into the re-education camps,” he said.
“Enlightenment camps. They’re nice, they have Sesame Street characters in the classrooms, and they watch PBS all day,” he said.
Beller told the Veritas journalist that he was happy to live in Washington D.C. instead of a small town in the United States. He said that people in those towns are not intelligent.
“Americans are so ****** dumb. You know, most people are dumb. It’s good to live in a place where people are educated and know stuff. Could you imagine if you lived in one of these other towns or cities where everybody's just stupid?”
Beller said it was a good thing that COVID-19 expanded in states where Republican candidates often win elections. He said it would help his political objectives if voters in those states did not show up to vote given that they would likely be sick or dying:
Beller: “What’s great is that COVID is spiking in all the red states right now. So that’s great.”
Journalist: “Why do you think so?”
Beller: “Because either those people won’t come out to vote for Trump -- you know the red states -- or a lot of them are sick and dying.”
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| What’s Up with the Great Reset? |
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Posted by: Stone - 01-12-2021, 10:14 AM - Forum: Great Reset
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What’s Up with the Great Reset?
AIER | January 6 , 2021
At any anti-lockdown protest, you will see signs that say “Stop the Great Reset.” The New York Times calls this phrase “a baseless conspiracy theory.” Here is the problem. None of this is secret. There are books you can read about it and detailed websites describing it. Time Magazine even did a cover story. It’s the title of World Economic Forum (WEF) head Klaus Schwab’s book on the lockdowns and the future. It was published July 9, 2020, and now has nearly 900 reviews on Amazon.
Proponents of “The Great Reset” argue that the pandemic proves our former society “doesn’t work,” so we need a tech-focused, “sustainable” future to reduce emissions and thereby “save the planet.” The Great Reset is a rebranded, tightened-up version of the UN’s decades-old “Sustainable Development” agenda (“Agenda 21”). The same policies and ideas are contained in “The Green New Deal,” which was defeated in 2019 in the US Congress.
It bears repeating: Six months before “SARS-CoV-2” was discovered by China, the UN and the WEF signed a “Strategic Partnership” specifically to advance the “Sustainable Development” agenda, now known as “The Great Reset.” You can read all about this partnership online.
Schwab has been openly “fighting” (to use his own word) against Milton Friedman-style economics for decades, ever since Friedman published his famous 1970 essay: The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits. Schwab now predicts that the “COVID19 pandemic” – which he says will last at least until 2022 – will mark the final death-knell of “Neo-Liberalism,” which he defines as “a corpus of ideas and policies ... favoring competition over solidarity, creative destruction over government intervention and economic growth over social welfare.”
Others would describe Neo-Liberalism as “decentralized power and smaller government,” and Schwab’s preferred system as “China under Xi Jinping.”
How long has Schwab known that a pandemic could be used to advance his ideals? A while, if his publications and planning exercises are any indication. His book, COVID-19: The Great Reset contains lengthy discourse on how pandemics are known agents for major societal shifts. He asks, “Why should COVID-19 be any different?”
Then there is the fact that Schwab’s organization practiced a “high-level pandemic exercise” in October 2019, less than five months before “Covid-19″ came along. The WEF’s co-sponsors for this event were The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, both of which have actively promoted 2020’s unprecedented pandemic response – as Imperial College London’s Neil Ferguson recently explained, lockdowns were not recommended by any government until Xi Jinping “changed what was possible” by proclaiming “this worked for us in China.”
This extraordinarily fortuitously-timed pandemic planning exercise makes Schwab look like something of an oracle. Indeed, he openly brags about his foresight:
Quote:“For years, international organizations like the World Health Organization (WHO), institutions like the World Economic Forum and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI – launched at the Annual Meeting 2017 in Davos), and individuals like Bill Gates have been warning us about the next pandemic risk, even specifying that it: 1) would emerge in a highly populated place where economic development forces people and wildlife together; 2) would spread quickly and silently by exploiting networks of human travel and trade; and 3) would reach multiple countries by thwarting containment.”
In 2017, Anthony Fauci made a similar prediction, declaring that “there is no doubt” that Donald J. Trump “will be confronted with a pandemic” before the end of his term. Like Schwab, Fauci actively promotes lockdowns. Like Schwab, he declares that we can never again return to normal – if we do, we should expect diseases to constantly jump from animals to humans (because pandemics never happened until 2020, when the world grew “too industrialized”). To save ourselves, we must redesign society “in harmony with nature.”
Both Fauci and Schwab’s prose are littered with terms like “sustainability,” “inclusiveness,” “green,” “nature,” and “harmony.” Terms that are hard to disagree with, although the behaviors supposedly promoting them are a harder sell. Schwab reveals in his “Great Reset” book that our new germ-avoidant behaviors are seen as optimal to “the environment:”
“During lockdowns, many consumers previously reluctant to rely too heavily on digital applications and services were forced to change their habits almost overnight ... many of the tech behaviors that we were forced to adopt during confinement will through familiarity become more natural. If health [read: fear of germs] considerations become paramount, we may decide, for example, that a cycling class in front of a screen at home ... is safer (and cheaper!).
“The same reasoning applies to many different domains like flying to a meeting (Zoom is safer, cheaper, greener and much more convenient), driving to a distant family gathering for the weekend (the WhatsApp family group is not as fun but, again, safer, cheaper and greener) or even attending an academic course (not as fulfilling, but cheaper and more convenient).”
Spelling this out for those too stunned to take it in: this is an open admission that it benefits Schwab and Fauci’s political agenda to continue lockdowns as long as possible. The same people who sell interminable lockdowns – by ignoring great science on pre-existing immunity, lack of asymptomatic spread, and flawed PCR tests – believe the lockdowns are the perfect agent to usher in the changes they desire. Will they succeed? Is their behavior remotely justified? Does the pandemic really prove our society is fatally flawed? Why can’t they use the political system to gain majority votes if their agenda is so good?
Covid-19 is the first major pandemic in six decades. Worse pandemics occurred in 1918, 1957 and 1968, when the population was exponentially smaller (1.8 billion; 2.8 billion; and 3.6 billion, respectively) and carbon emissions were not even on anyone’s radar. Because pandemics have always occurred, there is no logical basis – not even a flimsy one – to infer that “population growth,” “climate change” or “industrialization” caused this one.
People may or may not agree with Schwab that Zoom meetings are preferable to in-person work, that sitting in the same house every day of the week is preferable to commuting to an office, that local entertainment is better than international travel, that exercise classes are just as good over the computer screen as they are in a studio. But there is one thing most people agree with: Being told that “germs” threaten your existence when they really do not is abusive.
Scaring people into their homes, making them fear their own family and friends, preying on their vulnerabilities, shattering their social existences – especially when you knowingly do this in hopes of making it permanent – is just about as bad as human behavior gets.
Just as bad, Schwab et al. know the lockdowns are “taking out” certain industries while sparing others: in a nutshell, the powerful survive. Anyone who has both this knowledge and the ability to influence lockdown duration has an unthinkable level of power and an unlimited ability to amass more of it by manipulating pretty much the entire global financial system. All of this is eminently predictable by the people encouraging, supporting and imposing the restrictive orders.
“The [restaurant] sector of activity has been hit by the pandemic [lockdown] to such a dramatic extent that it ... may never come back. In France and the U.K., several industry voices estimate that up to 75% of independent restaurants might not survive the lockdowns and subsequent social distancing measures.
"The large chains and fast-food giants will. This in turn suggests that big business will get bigger while the smallest shrink or disappear. A large restaurant chain, for example, has a better chance of staying operational as it benefits from more resources and, ultimately, less competition in the wake of bankruptcies among smaller outfits.”
Knowingly taking out small businesses – one of the last bastions of free speech and independence, distinguishable from the tightly-controlled corporate world – is evil. It is hard to believe anyone would do it if they could avoid it. However, it is equally hard to ignore the fact that Florida, Georgia, South Dakota, Texas and Sweden (among many others) have fully open economies and average mortality to show for it.
Both public health ethics and the Siracusa Principles dictate that the “least restrictive means” must be used when “public health” is given as a justification for restricting basic human rights, such as the right to earn a living. Yet Schwab and Fauci both ignore Sweden and Florida, and claim that Covid-19 lockdown restrictions must continue until 2022 (or longer). How on earth do they justify it?
They seem to be telling themselves – and may even truly believe – that they are “saving the planet,” so the ends justify the means. In his book, Schwab poses the rhetorical question, “Is it okay to lie to the public for some greater good?” “Well,” I would respond, “who should we trust to decide what is the greater good?” There will never be unified agreement on which system achieves this end. Some will vote Milton Friedman, some Klaus Schwab. Most everyone, however, would agree that tricks like exploiting pandemics should not be used, even by “one’s own” side.
Reasonable people may well believe in the merit of Schwab’s “stakeholder economy.” But they undoubtedly expect to be persuaded of its merit, not to have the system foisted on them by ruse. The democratic process exists so ideas can be openly hashed out, debated and settled by the public, each person allotted one vote. Schwab quite openly admits that he would like to dispense with this process – it is not producing the result he desires. Far from it: recent populist movements in the US (“Make America Great Again”) and UK (“Brexit”) have specifically rejected his collectivist ideals:
“Without greater collaboration, we will be unable to address the global challenges that we collectively face. Put in the simplest possible terms: if, as human beings, we do not collaborate to confront our existential challenges (the environment and the global governance free fall, among others), we are doomed.”
In his Great Reset marketing book, Schwab threatens that this rising tide of nationalism will prove “incompatible” with the United States dollar’s “status as global reserve currency.” He suggests that an alternative currency will be needed, that a global digital currency is eventually going to arrive, and that China is “years ahead of the rest of the world” in developing one.
Although he doesn’t say so directly, Schwab et al. undoubtedly dislike what Trump has been doing to defend the dollar. Schwab quotes Barry Eichengreen and European Central Bank representatives as follows: “The security premium enjoyed by the U.S. dollar could diminish” because “the U.S. is disengaging from global geopolitics in favor of more stand-alone, inward-looking policies.”
Predictably, Schwab makes the argument that these same nationalist policies proved disastrous during “the pandemic.” Echoing the WHO’s praise of China’s collectivist action in Wuhan – which Xi Jinping proudly declares “eradicated the virus” from the entire nation of China – Schwab writes that countries fared better during the pandemic when they share “a real sense of solidarity, favoring the common good over individual aspirations and needs.”
“Favorable societal characteristics [include] core values of inclusivity, solidarity and trust [which] are strong determining elements and important contributors to success in containing an epidemic.”
Support for these concepts is not a new feeling for Schwab. This did not spring organically out of the pandemic for him, like an epiphany. Rather, this is his long-held vision of utopia and his life’s work. He’s been talking about it for decades:
“Earlier this year, Schwab told the Financial Times that his aim has been to beat back Friedman. “What was for me always disturbing was that Milton Friedman gave a moral reasoning to shareholder Capitalism – [he argued] the role of business was to make business earn as much as possible and then the money would flow back from the company to the government in the form of taxes. I had to fight against the wave.”
In short, Schwab et al. are on a mission. The mission is to change society. They admire China’s and New Zealand’s governance. They practiced for a pandemic. Science has been thrown to the wind for months, censorship is rampant, Sweden and Florida are ignored, the rule of law is suspended, and certain governors seem determined never to release us from their declared “state of emergency.”
These circumstances are favorable to Schwab and his powerful allies, including technology companies, billionaires, the media, China, the UN, and others. They are detrimental to billions of less powerful, less organized people and small businesses. There is a lot we don’t know, because we aren’t being told.
Schwab and his ideologically-aligned allies think they are saving the world. It is not conspiracy theory to read their own books and listen to their own words, which target fundamental liberties and rights that the West has long taken for granted. At some point, it’s not unreasonable to observe that this is no longer about public health. It’s about a new political vision, one hatched by a private few in order to rule over the many. It is unlikely to be shared by most people, thus setting up what is likely to be an epic battle in 2021.
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| The Recusant 54: The SSPX's October 2020 Interview with the Superior General |
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Posted by: Stone - 01-12-2021, 08:03 AM - Forum: The New-Conciliar SSPX
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From The Recusant - Issue 54 [Epiphany 2021]
No, the SSPX has not altered course for the better under a new Superior General. If very little has been heard from him during the past year or two, that is not necessarily a good sign: things are much the same as ever, rotten on the inside and dying. In case anyone wishes to make absolutely certain, however, and to see for himself, here is:
A little look at the SSPX’s recent: “Interview with The Superior General”
Source: https://fsspx.uk/en/news-events/news/interview-superior-general-61063
Remember that the current Superior General is no longer Bishop Fellay, but Fr. Pagliarani. Father who? Exactly. When he was appointed in 2018, more than two years ago, cynics at the time said that he would be a figurehead-only ‘Superior,’ and that the same people would hold power behind the scenes. Well? How are things looking now? Still, lest anyone say that we haven’t tried to give the man his fair say, here he is in his own words, in an interview published in October 2020.
Quote:THE FIFTY YEARS OF THE SSPX
1. DICI: What does the fiftieth anniversary of the SSPX represent for Tradition?
First of all, this jubilee is an opportunity for us to thank Divine Providence for all that it has granted us during these fifty years, because a work that was not from God would not have withstood the wear and tear of time. It is firstly to Him that we must attribute all this. But also, and above all, this jubilee is an opportunity for us to reinvigorate our fidelity to what we have received. Indeed, after so many years, there can be an understandable weariness. It is therefore a question of rekindling our fervour in the battle to establish the reign of Christ the King. Firstly, may he reign in our souls, and then, secondly, around us. It is on this particular point that we must work, following the example of His Grace Archbishop Lefebvre.
Talk is cheap. As we shall see throughout this interview, fine words are very easy to throw out, but how do the actions of the modern SSPX match up to them? How, for instance, are they “following the example of His Grace Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre?
• During the last years of his life, Archbishop Lefebvre denounced the Second Vatican Council and all its rotten fruits in the strongest terms, in written interviews, in his sermons - at practically every opportunity, in fact. Does the SSPX do the same?
• Archbishop Lefebvre regarded the then- Cardinal Ratzinger as perhaps the most dangerous man in the Church, a man who might look conservative on the outside, but who is every bit a liberal on the inside; a man with a track record of destroying Traditional communities and making them modern and conciliar again; a quintessential modernist who could not be trusted. Does the SSPX regard (“Pope Emeritus”) Benedict XVI in the same way, or has it not rather spent most of the past decade singing his praises and trying to hide how dangerous he really is?
• Archbishop Lefebvre regarded the new rites, particularly of priestly ordination and episcopal consecration, as doubtful. Does the modern SSPX so regard them? Do they not rather regard them as all valid, and will conditionally ordain a priest from the conciliar church only if he insists, and only to keep one or two overscrupulous faithful quiet, not because they entertain the slightest doubt about the validity of the new rites? (Remember, for instance, the case of Mgr. Charles “New Coke” Byrnes in Ridgefield, CT, who was appointed SSPX prior without ever having been conditionally ordained).
• Archbishop Lefebvre condemned the new 1983 Code of Canon Law, saying that it was a fruit of the Council, the Vatican II revolution translated into law; the SSPX now officially accept the new Code. Likewise Archbishop Lefebvre condemned in the strongest terms the modernist 1989 “Oath of Fidelity” - the SSPX officially accepted it in 2012 (See ‘Doctrinal Declaration,’ footnote 1 - an official acceptance which to this day has never been retracted or contradicted).
• Archbishop Lefebvre had more than once publicly expressed his support for so-called ‘right wing regimes’ in Europe (Franco, Salazar…) as well as Latin America. He visited the grave of Marshal Phillipe Pétain on the Isle d’Yeu on the anniversary of that man’s death and wrote positively about what a good leader France had lost. He was prosecuted in court by the Judaeo-Masonic ‘LICRA’ (the equivalent of the ADL or SPLC) for his public warnings against Islamic immigration, and yet never once apologised or sought to appease his persecutors. The modern SSPX, by contrast, has not ceased to apologise, to pander, to grovel and to seek to appease those same forces of political correctness and censorship.
As for the “reign of Christ the King” - we make the same criticism which we have made in these pages so many times before. Why is it not referred to as the “Social Reign of Christ the King”..? That one little word is important: in it lies the distinction between the Catholic Faith on the one hand, which is apostolic and which seeks to make whole nations and whole societies Catholic and on the other hand the liberal, pluralist idea long promoted by the Protestants and more recently favoured by the modernists, whereby Christ is allowed to reign in your heart, in your private home and even in your immediate circle of friends and relatives. But there is never any mention of Him reigning publicly in the constitution, in Parliament, in the law courts, in the economy, in the workplace, in foreign and domestic policy and in other forms of public life… after all, that would be intolerant and might offend someone! “Firstly...in our souls and then, secondly, around us” - does that sound like the former or the latter?
How about, “thirdly, in the constitutions and public life of our countries”..? Did he forget that last bit, perhaps? Let us ask ourselves again - which concept of Christ’s Kingship did Archbishop Lefebvre support and promote? The “me and my immediate circle of family and friends” version, or the “we need to conquer our countries for Christ and make them officially Catholic” version? And which one does the modern SSPX support and promote? Lest there be any doubt at all, let us give just one final little example. Archbishop Lefebvre wrote a book on this very subject, “They Have Uncrowned Him.” Just try obtaining a copy from the SSPX today, go down to you local SSPX chapel repository and see what they say. Not only is it not available, it’s not even in print! A quick look on the website Amazon.com, at the time of writing, reveals two used copies going for nearly £100 each..! How can that be, if the SSPX were still “following the example of Archbishop Lefebvre”..? It can’t, and they aren’t.
Talk is cheap. Actions speak louder than words. The SSPX betrayed Archbishop Lefebvre a while ago, as it betrayed Christ the King. In light of the above, “Question 2” and its answer appear equally cynical and hypocritical. All the talk of how holy Archbishop Lefebvre was, of “his love of Our Blessed Lord, King” and how “throughout his life he had always worked only for the reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ,” is just so much insincere window dressing. How can it be sincerely meant when coming from the Superior who approves the tacit suppression of Archbishop Lefebvre’s writings and the backpedalling from and undoing of all that he stood for? It is tasteless in the extreme.
Quote:3. DICI: On September 24th, at your request, the body of Archbishop Lefebvre was transferred to the crypt of the church of the Écône seminary. Despite the Coronavirus crisis, many priests, seminarians, religious and faithful participated in the ceremony. What were your feelings on that day?
What were your feelings..? Seriously? Is the interviewer a woman? “Tell us all about your feelings!” Couldn’t anyone think of a more important question: why, for example? Alas, the answer is no less wishy-washy. “I think he [Archbishop Lefebvre] deserves our veneration…” - not enough to actually follow his example, though, clearly! Talk is, it seems, extremely cheap! And all the other emotional fluff, the “expressions of the gratitude,” the event being “particularly poignant,” and priests being “moved to tears,” cannot hide the fact that the modern SSPX has nevertheless turned its back on everything Archbishop Lefebvre stood for. Praising the memory of the man whilst simultaneously undoing his legacy - can it get any more cynical than this?
Quote:5. DICI: After two years at the head of the Society, what is your assessment of the development of the SSPX? The SSPX has long been present throughout the world. I don’t think that, at the present time, Divine Providence is asking us to open new houses and to expand further, which would perhaps be a lack of prudence on our part. Rather, I think that the SSPX must establish deeper roots where it is already present, in order to have stronger communities.
“Deeper roots” is a euphemism for managed decline, the ‘spreadsheet Brucciani’ approach, in other words. It is difficult to see how this approach is compatible with apostolic zeal. “Prudence” is always the defence of the cowardly, the idle and the worldly, perhaps because it is the most misunderstood of all the virtues. “Prudence” does not mean doing nothing, nor does it mean being slow to act. It is the virtue by which one takes a principle and applies it concretely in the circumstances in which one happens to find oneself. To be slow to act, to take a long time, to think and discuss a great deal before actually doing anything might conceivably be the prudent approach. Equally the prudent approach might be to act instantly and without a moment’s hesitation, depending on the circumstances (in an emergency, for instance). When it comes to the managed decline of the SSPX’s apostolate, true prudence would surely dictate a very different approach. Is it really so prudent to decide in advance that you are not going to open any new chapels or Mass centres, that you are going to close down any which you feel are too small or are a nuisance to get to? If the modern SSPX had a fraction the apostolic zeal of the old SSPX, they would be twice their current size and growing every day. But they aren’t, because forces at work inside the SSPX, including at the top, will make sure that they don’t, and a large number of its clergy will go along to get along, whether it be out of straightforward laziness or a desire not to ruin their priestly “career” with a black mark against their name. Either way, the one thing this is not is “prudence”!
DICI’s readers ought to ask themselves this. If it were really true that “Divine Providence” didn’t want Tradition to expand (and we no longer see the SSPX as being synonymous with Tradition, but the point is that they still do), what does that imply? Does it not mean in turn that Divine Providence doesn’t want everyone - or rather, wants positively that many not have access to the Traditional Mass? All those people living without a Traditional chapel anywhere near them, all those people who are currently at the Novus Ordo and don’t know any better and have never yet met a Traditionalist, much less a Traditional priest, does Divine Providence want them to remain in ignorance and keep going to the Novus Ordo? If the SSPX is capable still of producing good fruit where it is present (and again, they at any rate would say that it is), why would Divine Providence not want to see more of that good fruit or want more people to be able to have a share in it? Fortunately the Resistance, it seems, has a different view of the virtue of prudence and seems to regard the desire to expand everywhere and conquer the entire country, the entire world for Christ as the “prudent” approach. That, after all, is surely what the promotion of the Social Kingship of Christ looks like in practice. The SSPX approach of “prudent” refusal to go anywhere new, by contrast, looks a lot more like an armistice, a truce with the conciliar church and the world. Live and let live. We won’t tread on your toes, as long as you allow us to exist. It all seems a lot less like the Social Kingship of Christ and far more akin to pluralism, religious liberty and all the other masonic, liberal ideas. Subsequent answers in the same interview seem to bear this out.
Quote:7. DICI: What are your current and future projects? For the moment, the projects are mainly of a moral nature and are therefore not necessarily projects whose implementation can be seen externally. Basically, it is a question of continuing to work as much as possible to make the SSPX strong, united, truly anchored to God...
Projects which are “mainly of a moral nature” and “not necessarily visible” - what on earth is that supposed to mean? So nothing, then? Notice also the astonishing admission by a Superior General that he now feels he has to “work to make” the SSPX united. In the past it simply was united, no work necessary. The same goes for working to make the SSPX more “anchored to [sic] God” - when did that become necessary, when did it stop being anchored in God..? Above and beyond that, it is also worth noting that the Superior General here as good as admits that the SSPX is working for the SSPX. That the object of the SSPX’s projects and work is… itself. How’s that for lack of apostolic zeal? We’ve been saying it here for years - now we see the Superior General admitting that we were right all along. Navel-gazing and blatant self-interest is the death of any organisation, even a secular one. Imagine a factory or business whose main or only goal was to keep its employees employed. Wouldn’t you expect it to produce very poor quality goods and eventually have to fold? The same is true of the NHS having as its goal “save the NHS” - the moment the organisation begins to view itself as its own goal, it’s all over. What is true even in the godless, secular world is surely even more true as regards the Catholic apostolate. The object of the SSPX’s goals, aims and future projects ought to be souls and everything which leads to them being saved: converting more people to Tradition, making true Catholic doctrine known, even the ‘unpopular’ politically incorrect bits, fighting against the incessant drive towards a secular ‘new world order,’ forming laymen in Catholic Action to establish Catholic societies and ultimately the social reign of Christ the King… condemning all the modern errors, and the sources of modern errors, from evolutionism to liberalism and live and-let-live pluralism, all the way down to the latest product and effect of such errors, the “lockdowns” the mask-wearing, the vaccines... Is that in fact what they are doing? We have already seen that they are not really interested in the Social Kingship of Christ and have in effect betrayed that cause.
As with They Have Uncrowned Him, another classic Archbishop Lefebvre book, I Accuse the Council, is also conspicuous by its absence in the modern SSPX. It doesn’t seem to be being promoted, or even to be in print any more. But don’t worry, copies can still be obtained online, though there aren’t many to be had and each one will set you back the wrong side of £100 each, in this country though “only” $60 in the USA..!
To see how far things have come, try to imagine for one moment Archbishop Lefebvre talking in such a way or giving such an interview. Did he ever express such pusillanimous or self-interested sentiments? Picture the scene. Écône, 1976, following the ordinations.
Quote:“Archbishop Lefebvre, you’ve just been suspended by Paul VI for not saying the New Mass and for ordaining these priests without permission. Tell us, why are you doing these things? Just what exactly are you trying to achieve?”
“Well… to make them more united and to become more anchored to God.”
“And what are your plans for the future of your priestly society, Archbishop?”
“We’re going to be doing some invisible stuff which has to do with looking after ourselves, but it won’t be visible, so to you on the outside, it might look as though we’re not actually doing anything…”
“Archbishop Lefebvre, talk about your feelings for us…”
It is so ridiculous that one can only conclude that the SSPX in relation to Archbishop Lefebvre is pretty much in the same position as so many parishes and diocese in the conciliar church in relation to the Church before the Council: living off the capital acquired and built up by past generations even as they destroy and undermine the very thing which provided them with a platform and basis for their current existence. Like termites eating away at the house which they occupy, the structure will look on the outside as though it still stands for quite some time after it has gone rotten on the inside. But it cannot last forever.
Accepting the Council and the New Mass
There is more in this interview, but the reader ought by now to have a fairly accurate picture of how things really stand. Most of the rest of the interview is just so much hot air, cheap talk, easy-to-utter platitudes. We continue following Archbishop Lefebvre. Are you, though? It is not just that Fr. Pagliarani really is a bland non-personality? After all, many have noticed and commented on that since he became Superior General more than two years ago. It’s almost as though it had been a token appointment to an empty, pointless office, as though the real power lay elsewhere… but that would be “conspiracy theory” talk, so it can’t be true! No, what we see here is something more than just that. There is a way of covering-up ones own betrayal by talking as though it had never happened. Talking about how you’ll never do...the very thing which you already have done! If one talks a good fight, plenty of people will be perfectly satisfied, even though the actions belie such fine talk. Hence, we witness Fr. Pagliarani saying, apparently in all seriousness, that:
Quote: “in 2017, when the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith wanted to oblige the SSPX to accept the teachings of the Second Vatican Council and to recognise the legitimacy of the New Mass, if the SSPX had accepted those conditions…”
...but hold on, you already have accepted them! The Society accepted those very things in the infamous 2012 Doctrinal Declaration! How can you talk about “if we were” to do something which you’ve in fact already done..?! Oh - so sorry Father, didn’t mean to interrupt you! Please, continue. You were about to tell us why accepting the teaching of Vatican II and the legitimacy of the New Mass are a bad thing:
Quote: “...it [the SSPX] would have simply denied everything it stands for and everything it values and holds to, from the depths of its heart.”
Strike out the “would have” and you have a true statement, albeit one which took place in 2012, not 2017. By the by, it (“would also have”) denied Our Lord, which is arguably even more important than “the depths of its heart” (more selfish navel-gazing). Notice however, that this comes very close to an implicit admission that the Resistance were right. For years the faithful were told that such an attitude was misplaced, that we were reading too much into things, that it did not concern us in any case… Bishop Fellay characterised it as a question “wearing dark glasses” as opposed to “wearing rose-tinted glasses,” as though if anyone had a problem with the acceptance of Vatican II contained in the Doctrinal Declaration, then that could only be because they were deliberately trying to see evil where it did not exist.
I defy anyone to re-read what the 2012 Doctrinal Declaration has to say concerning the New Mass and not see it as an acceptance. And yet, according to the current Superior General of the SSPX, such an acceptance amounted to “a denial” of what the SSPX stood for (which in the end, ought to be “the Faith,” surely?). In like manner, the interview ends with these fine sounding words:
Quote: “...Divine Providence has always guided the SSPX and has always protected it in the midst of a thousand difficulties. Divine Providence is always faithful to its promises; it is always vigilant and generous. Therefore, it cannot abandon us in the future […] ”
Will somebody kindly point out to Fr Pagliarani that “has always” is not the same as “will always.” Our Lord’s divine guarantee of indefectibility was given to the Church, not to the SSPX. Likewise, “Divine Providence … cannot abandon us” - true, but you can abandon it..! “...God cannot change. He always remains the same” - true, but man can and does change. After all, the human heart “is perverse above all things, and unsearchable, who can know it?” (Jer.17:9) Methinks this confidence is misplaced. Time will of course tell, and is already telling. But we take no satisfaction whatever in saying “I told you so” - rather we must continue to try to wake up as many as possible whilst there still is time. Archbishop Lefebvre’s words and actions are as valuable a guide to us today as ever they were, perhaps more so. Thanks be to God that not everyone has abandoned him, even if the SSPX has.
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| The Liturgical Year: January 12th - Seventh Day in the Octave of the Epiphany |
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Posted by: Stone - 01-12-2021, 06:36 AM - Forum: Christmas
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January 12 – Seventh Day within the Octave of the Epiphany
Taken from The Liturgical Year by Dom Prosper Gueranger (1841-1875)
Having laid their offerings at the feet of Jesus as a sign of the alliance they had, in the name of all mankind, contracted with him, and laden with his graces and blessings, the Magi take their leave of the Divine Babe; for such was his will. They take their departure from Bethlehem, and the rest of the world seems a wilderness to them. Oh! if they might be permitted to fix their abode near the newborn King and his incomparable Mother!—but no; God’s plan for the salvation of the world requires that everything savoring of human pomp and glory should be far from Him who had come to take upon himself all our miseries.
Besides, they are to be the first messengers of the Gospel; they must go and tell to the Gentiles that the Mystery of Salvation has begun, that the earth is in possession of its Savior, and that their salvation is nigh at hand. The star does not return to them; they needed it to find Jesus; but now, they have him in their hearts, and will never lose him. These three men are sent back into the midst of the Gentile world as the leaven of the Gospel which, notwithstanding its being so little, is to leaven to whole paste. (Matthew 13:33) For their sakes, God will bless the nations of the earth; from this day forward, infidelity will lose ground, and faith will progress; and when the Blood of the Lamb having been shed, Baptism shall be promulgated, the Magi shall be not merely men of desire, but perfect Christians, initiated into all the Mysteries of the Church.
The ancient tradition, which is quoted by the author of The Imperfect Work on St. Matthew, which is put in all the editions of St. John Chrysostom, and was probably written about the close of the 6th century—tells us that the three Magi were baptized by St. Thomas the Apostle, and devoted themselves to the preaching of the Gospel. But we scarcely need a tradition on such a point as this. The vocation of these three Princes could never be limited to the mere privilege of being the first among the Gentiles to visit the eternal King, who had come down from heaven to be born on this earth and show himself to his creatures; a second vocation was the consequence of the first, the vocation of preaching Jesus to men.
There are many details relating to the life and actions of the Magi after they had become Christians, which have been handed down to us; but we refrain from mentioning them as not being sufficiently ancient or important traditions to have induced the Church to give them place in her Liturgy. We would make the same observation with regard to the names assigned to them of Melchior, Gaspar, and Balthsassar; the custom of thus naming them is too modern to deserve credit; and though it might be indiscreet to deny that these were their true names, it seems very difficult to give proofs of their correctness.
The Relics of these holy Kings were translated from Persia to Constantinople, under the first Christian Emperors, and for a long time were kept in the Church of Saint Sophia. At a later period, they were translated to Milan, when Eustorgius was Bishop of that City. There they remained till the 12th century, when through the influence of the Emperor Frederic Barbarossa, they were translated to the Cathedral Church of Cologne by Reynold, Archbishop of that metropolitan See. The Relics are in a magnificent Shrine, perhaps the finest specimen now extant of medieval metallic art, and the superb Cathedral where it is religiously kept is, by its size and architectural beauty, one of the grandest Churches of the Christian world.
Thus have we followed you, O Blessed Magi! Fathers of the Gentile world! from your first setting out from the East for Bethlehem, to your return to your own country, and even to your sacred resting place, which the goodness of God has made to be in this cold West of ours. It was the love of children for their parents that made us thus cling to you. Besides, were we not ourselves in search of that dear King whom you so longed for and found? Blessed be those ardent desires of yours, blessed be your obedience to the guidance of the Star, blessed be your devotion at the Crib of Jesus, blessed be the gifts you made him, which while they were acceptable to God, were full of instruction to us! We revere you as Prophets, for you foretold the characters of the Messias by the selection of your three gifts. We honor you as Apostles, for you preached, even to Jerusalem herself, the Birth of the humble Jesus of Bethlehem, of that Jesus whom his disciples preached not till after the triumph of his Resurrection. We hail you as the Spring Flowers of the Gentile world, but Flowers which produced abundant and rich fruits, for you brought over entire nations and countless people to the service of our divine King. Watch over us, and protect the Church. Be mindful of those Eastern countries whence rises to the earth the light of day, the beautiful image of your own journey towards Bethlehem. Bless this Western world of ours, which was buried in darkness when you first saw the Star, and is now the favored portion of God’s earth, and on which the Divine Son of Justice pours forth his brightest and warmest rays. Faith has grown weak among us; re-enkindle it. Obtain of the divine mercy that the West may ever send forth her messengers of salvation to the south and north and even to that infidel East, where are laid the tents of Sem, and where the light that you gave her has been long extinguished by her apostasy. Pray for the Church of Cologne, that illustrious sister of our holiest Churches in the West; may she preserve the faith, may she defend her sacred rights and liberty; may she be that bulwark of Catholic Germany, and be ever blessed by the protection of her Three Kings, and the patronage of the glorious Ursula and her virginal army. Lastly, we beseech you, O venerable Magi! to introduce us to the Infant Jesus and his Blessed Mother; and grant us to go through these forty days which the Church consecrates to the Mystery of Christmas, with hearts burning with love for the Divine Child, and may that same love abide with us during the pilgrimage of our life on this earth.
Today, also, we will make use of the formulas employed by the several ancient Churches in honour of the Mystery of the Epiphany.
Our first selection is a hymn written by the great Fulbert of Chartres.
Hymn
‘I bring you tidings from heaven above: Christ, the Ruler of the earth, is born in Bethlehem of Juda: for thus was it foretold by the Prophet.’
Thus sing the glad choir of Angels; the same is announced by the Star, and the Eastern Kings come to offer to Jesus the worthy homage of their mystic gifts.
They offer their Frankincense to him as to their God; the Myrrh honors his sepulchre; the Gold is the token of his Kingly character.
Whilst thus worshipping One, the three offerers give three gifts to the Blessed Three.
Let us, too, sing praise to our Triune God: glory to the Father, and to his divine Son, and to the Holy Spirit, who is sent into the hearts of the faithful by the Father and the Son. Amen.
The two following Prayers are taken from the Mozarabic Breviary.
Prayer
Tu es, Domine, stella veritatis oriens ex Jacob, homoque consurgens ex Israel: et in novo sidere ostenderis Deus, et in præsepio positus Deus et homo, unus crederis Christus: propter magnam misericordiam tuam visionis tuæ nobis proroga gratiam: appareat in nobis lucis tuæ radiabile signum, quod expellat omnes tenebras vitiorum; ut qui visionis tuæ desiderio anhelamus, visionis tuæ præmio consolemur. Amen.
Thou, O Lord, art the Star of truth, that riseth out of Jacob, and the man that springeth from Israel. In the new Star thou showest thyself as God, and lying in the Crib God and Man, we confess thee to be the one Christ. In thy great mercy grant us the grace of seeing thee, and show unto us the radiant sign of thy light, whereby all the darkness of our sins may be put to flight: that so we who now languish with the desire of seeing thee, may be refreshed with the enjoyment of that blissful vision. Amen.
Prayer
Fulget, Domine, cœlum rutilum serenitate astrorum, terraque ipsa refulgenti lumine serenatur, quia apparere dignatus es mundo de habitaculo sancto tuo; sana ergo cordis nostri mœstitiam, quia ad hoc venisti, ut redimas universa: illudque nostris oculis lumen attribue, quo te purificati semper mereamur aspicere: ut qui Apparitionis tuæ gaudia lætabunda nuntiamus in gentibus, infinita tecum lætitia gaudeamus. Amen.
The heavens are shining with the clear beauty of the stars, O Lord, and the very earth is made beautiful by a shining light, because thou didst vouchsafe to appear to the world from out thy holy dwelling-place. Remove, therefore, from our hearts all sadness, for unto this end art thou come, that thou mayest make all things new. Grant also that light unto our eyes which may purify us and fit us to behold thee for ever; that thus we who preach to the nations the glad joys of thy Apparition, may be made glad with thee in infinite joy. Amen.
We take the following Sequence from the ancient Missals of the Churches of Germany.
Sequence
Our Savior is born unto us! Let us solemnly celebrate his Birthday.
To us was he given, unto us was he born, and with us has he lived, he the light and salvation of the Gentiles.
In the beginning Eve caused our death; but Jesus, by the merits of the human nature he assumed, has redeemed us.
Our first mother brought us woe; but Mary joyfully brought forth for us the fruit of life.
We neglected our heavenly Father, but he did not neglect us; he looked down upon us from heaven, and sent us his only Son.
This Jesus, though in the world, was hidden from the world; but, at length he came forth as a Bridegroom from the nuptial chamber, and made himself known.
He is the Giant foretold by the Psalmist—swift, and strong, and vanquishing our death, for he was girt with power.
He came that he might run his course, and so verify the prophecy, and the mysteries of the Law.
Jesus, thou our saving medicine, our only Peace and glory!
May all creatures give thee praise, for that thou didst so mercifully condescend to redeem us thy servants! Amen.
This beautiful canticle in honor of the Infant Jesus is from the pen of St. Ephrem, the sublime bard of the Syrian Church.
Hymn
The Hebrew maidens, who heretofore had been wont to chant the Lamentations of Jeremias in the plaintive strain of their Scriptures, now borrowed from the same holy volume joyful thoughts, and, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, sang them thus in hymns:
‘Let Eve, in Limbo, now raise up her eyes, and see this day whereon one of her race, and he the author of life, descends to raise up from death the mother of his own dear Mother. The adorable Infant crushed the head of the serpent, by whose poison Eve had perished.
‘Sara, the fair Isaac’s mother, foresaw thine Infancy, O Jesus, in her own son’s crib; the lullaby she sang over him told the mysteries of thy Childhood, which were foreshadowed and prefigured in her own child. Thus did she sing: “Sweet Babe! fruit of my prayers! I see in thee the Lord, who is hidden in thee as in his type: ’tis his receives the wishes and the prayers of pious hearts, and grants them their requests.”
‘The Nazarite Samson, the youth of exceeding strength, was a figure of thy strength, O Jesus! He tore a lion to pieces, typifying the death thou didst slay, for thou didst crush death, and from its bitter entrails didst draw forth life, whose taste would be most sweet to us.
‘Anna, too, pressed thee to her bosom in the person of Samuel the Prophet, who was twice a figure of thy ministry: firstly when he prefigured thy most just severity on the day when he slew King Agag, the figure of the devil, and cut him to pieces; secondly, by imitating thy mercy, though imperfectly, when he unceasingly shed his tears of loving and sincere compassion over the fall of Saul.’
The Menæa of the Greek Church furnish us with these beautiful stanzas in honor of the holy Mother of God.
Die xvi Januarii
O most august Queen! thou wast the untilled land that gavest us our Wheat, Jesus, the Lord and feeder of the universe; by eating this Bread we are restored to life.
Seeing our Lord made incarnate from thee, chaste Virgin! we confess thee to be in very deed the Mother of God, that didst thus become, we hesitate not to proclaim it, the cause of the regeneration of all things.
He, the Being above all beings, who was a pure spirit, took flesh to himself from thy pure blood, O Spotless Maid! and, remaining God as before, he was made Flesh, and lived among men.
Nature’s Laws were truly suspended in thee, most pure Virgin! for thou remainest a Virgin after thy delivery, as thou wast before it, for thou didst give birth to Him who is the giver of all laws, Christ.
Spotless Mother of God! heal the passions of my wretched soul: appease my mind, tossed by the attacks of my enemy as with tempests, and bring, O Virgin, peace unto my heart.
Jesus, the divine Husbandman of the world, thound thee, chaste Virgin! in the lowly valley of this earth, growing as a Rose amidst thorns. He entered thy womb, and was born of thee, refresing us with the delicious fragrance of the knowledge of divine things.
O Virgin Mary! we acknowledge thee to be the mystic candlestick, on which was placed the Light inaccessible; thereby, thou hast enlightened the minds of all the faithful, and hast put to flight the darkness of sin.
Thus do we cry out to thee in words of thankful love: Hail, most pure dwelling of spiritual Light! Hail, cause of our union with God! Hail, destroyer of the curse! Hail, O thou that didst call from their exile the children of this earth!
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| The Present Crisis of the Holy See by Cardinal Manning |
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Posted by: Elizabeth - 01-12-2021, 01:12 AM - Forum: Catholic Prophecy
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THE
PRESENT CRISIS
of
THE HOLY SEE
TESTED BY PROPHECY.
Four Lectures
BY
CARDINAL HENRY EDWARD MANNING, D.D.
LONDON :
BURNS & LAMBERT, 17 & 18 PORTMAN STREET,
AND 63 PATERNOSTER ROW ;
KNOWLES, NORFOLK ROAD, BAYSWATER.
MDCCCLXI.
1861
TO THE VERY REVEREND
JOHN HENRY NEWMAN, D.D.
OF THE congregation OF ST. PHILIP NERI
MY DEAR DR. NEWMAN,
About three years ago you kindly joined my name with your own in the dedication of your last volume of Sermons. Let me give a proof how grateful it was to me to be in any way united with you by asking you to let me join your name with mine in this unworthy return. But, as you know, xahkcea Xpvoelov is the old bargain.
You were so kind as to own me as a friend of nearly thirty years; and that tells me that we are both touching upon the time of life when men may look back and measure the path they have trod. It is no small thing to have been in an active life of much eventfulness and labour for more than a quarter of a century, and for a full generation of man. With very few exceptions, all the men who held trust and power when our friendship began have passed away, and a new generation has been born and has grown up to manhood since we entered into life.
Men are always tempted to think the times in which they live eventful and pregnant beyond other ages. But, allowing for this common infirmity, I think we shall not be far wrong in considering as exceptionally great the thirty years which, beginning with Catholic Emancipation, embrace the restoration of the Catholic Episcopate to England, and terminate with the antichristian movement of Europe against the Temporal Sovereignty of the Holy See. I may add, that to you and to me this period has another high and singular interest in the intellectual movement which sprung up chiefly at Oxford, and has made itself felt throughout our country and our times. You have been a master-builder in this work, and I a witness of its growth. You remained long in Oxford, still with all its disfigurements so dear to both of us; but I was removed to a distance, and had to work alone. Nevertheless, to you I owe a debt of gratitude for intellectual help and light, greater than to any one man of our time; and it gives me a sincere gratification now publicly to ac knowledge, though I can in no way repay, it. Among the many things which give a vivid and grave interest to this moment is the pronounced and explicit development on either side of the two great intellectual movements, the course of which we have watched so long. There was a time when those who now stand opposed as Catholics and Rationalists were apparently in close and perfect identity of conviction. But under the form of a common opinion there lay concealed, even then, the essential antagonism of two principles, the divergence of which is as wide as Divine faith or human opinion can inter pose between the minds of men.
While every year has confirmed with luminous evidence the reasons which, to you and to me, elevated the convictions of intellect into the consciousness of faith, and has revealed to us the Divine unity and endowments of the only Church of God, some of those who were at our side, or sitting at your feet, have been carried back, as by a ground-swell, into Anglicanism, Protestantism, Latitudinarianism, and rationalistic Deism. While the Divine character and sovereignty of the One Church Catholic and Roman, with the prerogatives of the Vicar of the Incarnate Word, have manifested themselves to us in an amplitude and majesty which commands the loving obedience of intellect, and heart, and will, and all the powers of our life, others we once loved well have come to find their chief claim to statesmanship in a policy which, to me, is simply the prelude of Antichrist. The Italian policy of England is without any other name. And I am amazed that the great French people, so sensitive of English preeminence, so jealous of English influence, and so justly contemptuous of the absurdities of English Protestantism, should have allowed itself to be goaded or gibed into accomplishing a policy hateful to Catholic France, and surpassing all the hopes of Protestant England. To strip the Holy See of its temporal sovereignty has been since Henry VIII. the passion of Protestant England; but it never dreamed of accomplishing its object of predilection by the hand of Catholic France. This is a surpassing achievement.
I had hardly written this sentence when I read the debate in the House of Commons on the Foreign Policy of Government. I do not think either you or I are likely to be suspected as apologists for the Neapolitan prisons, if they are as bad as ours were a few years ago; or for la torture de Naples, if there be in it a particle of truth, which I more than doubt. You and I have no fear of being thought to be lovers of despotism, or absolutism, or even of repressive government. But I think we shall both judge it to be a melancholy spectacle when we see the House of Commons led away by declamations on these topics from the laws which have created Christian Europe, and all that is precious in the English constitution, to approve a policy subversive of European society. The law of nations, public rights, established treaties, and legitimate possession, are no doubt to the modern school of statesmen null and with out meaning. They are nevertheless the realities which bind society together; and they constitute the moral tests by which the justice of a cause is to be tried. The policy which violates them is immoral ; its end is public lawlessness, and its success will be its own punishment. Now I have no deeper conviction than that this anticatholic movement, led or stimulated by England, will have its perfect success, and will reign for a time supreme; and next that, perhaps before we are in our graves, all who have partaken in it—princes, statesmen, and people—will be scourged by a universal conflict with revolution, and a European war, to which 1793 and the wars of the first empire are a faint prelude. What shames and alarms me most is to see that men, who once believed in a higher order of Christian politics, now propagate against the Holy See the doctrine of nationality, and the lawfulness of revolution, which, if applied to England, would only fail to dismember the empire because it would be put down in blood. It seems as if men had lost their light. How otherwise can we explain the blindness which cannot see that the conflict of France and Austria has weakened the Catholic society of Europe, and has given to the Protestant politics of England and Prussia a most dangerous predominance? It will not be long before a European war will wear out and waste the powers of the Christian society, including Protestant and Catholic alike, and will give a fatal predominance to the antichristian society, or revolution, which is every where preparing for the last struggle, and for its supremacy. The Catholic society of Europe weakened, the Christian society will soon in turn give way. Then comes the scourge. The conviction Ifeel that a great retribution is impending over the anticatholic movement of England, France, and Italy, is rendered all the more certain by the fact that the critical point in the whole conflict, the key of the whole, and the last success to be gained, is the dethronement of the Vicar of our Redeemer. The temporal power of the Pope, we are told, has been the great hindrance to the peace of Italy and Europe. It is this which distributes and marshals the two arrays. Qui mon mecum, contra me est. They will have their day, and the Vicar of Jesus Christ will await his time. Si moram fecerit, expecta illum ; quia veniens veniet, et non tardabit.
Meanwhile England is preparing for its own dis solution. It has headed the unbelief of Europe, and it will be devoured by its own followers. The Re formation has done its work upon it. Protestantism, like the shirt of Nessus, cleaves to the flesh of Eng land, and its day will come at last. We are told that man has some eighty-three parasites which live upon his substance. The Anglican Church in like manner gives pabulum to every heresy, and harbours within its system what the living Church of God expels and casts out. At this moment in the Established Church there exists in a formal state Sabellianism, Pelagianism, Nestorianism, Calvinism, Lutheranism, Zuinglianism, Naturalism, and Rationalism. I pass over a multitude of other less
formal heresies, and name only these because they have a definite and active existence in the Establishment, and are reproducing themselves. It is the intrinsic enmity of this congeries of heresies which directs the political power of England against the Catholic Church, and, above all, against the Holy See; and gives to England the melancholy and bad preeminence of the most anticatholic, and therefore the most antichristian, power of the world.
In the following pages I have endeavoured, but for so great a subject most insufficiently, to show that what is passing in our times is the prelude of the antichristian period of the final dethronement of Christendom, and of the restoration of society with out God in the world. But, sooner or later, so it must be. “The Son of Man indeed goeth, as it is written of Him; but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man shall be betrayed; it were better for him if that man had not been born” (St. Matt. xxvi. 24).
May God keep us from sharing even by silence in the persecution of His Church
Believe me, my dear Dr. Newman, always affectionately yours,
H. E. MANNING.
ST. MARY's, BAYSWATER,
Easter 1861.
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| The Chaplet of the Sacred Heart of Jesus |
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Posted by: Hildegard of Bingen - 01-11-2021, 09:45 PM - Forum: In Honor of Our Lord
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Since we are not able to attend mass on the First Friday of the month, we started this devotion "THE CHAPLET OF THE SACRED HEART",
we say it every First Friday of each month.
THE CHAPLET OF THE SACRED HEART
There is only one chaplet of the Sacred Heart. The chaplet consists of 33 small beads,
6 large beads, a centerpiece, crucifix and a Sacred Heart medal. The medal bears the
Sacred Heart of Jesus on one side and the Sacred Heart of Mary on the other.
ON THE CRUCIFIX SAY:
"Soul of Christ, sanctify me!"
"Body of Christ, save me!"
"Blood of Christ, inebriate me!"
"Water from the side of Christ, wash me!"
"Passion of Christ, strengthen me!"
"O good Jesus hear me!
"Within they wounds hide me;
permit me not to be separated from Thee;
from the malignant enemy defend me;
in the hour of death, call me and bid me
come over to Thee, that with Thy saints
I may praise Thee forever and ever. Amen"
ON THE LARGE BEADS SAY:
"O Sweetest Heart of Jesus, I implore that I may
every love Thee more and more."
ON THE SMALL BEADS SAY:
"Sweet Heart of Jesus, be my love."
AT THE END OF EACH DECADE SAY:
"Sweet Heart of Mary, be my salvation."
AT THE CONCLUSION SAY:
"May the Heart of Jesus in the Most Blessed Sacrament be
blessed, adored and loved with grateful affection at every
moment in all the Tabernacles of the world even to the end of time. Amen."
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| Prayer of St. Pius X to St. Joseph |
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Posted by: Hildegard of Bingen - 01-11-2021, 09:41 PM - Forum: Prayers and Devotionals
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Prayer of Saint Pius X to Saint Joseph
O Glorious Saint, pattern of all who are devoted to work, obtain for me the grace.
- To work in the spirit of penance in order to atone for my sins;
- To work faithfully, putting duties before my own desires;
- To labor with gratitude and joy, considering it an honor to use and develop the talents I have received from God;
- To work with order, peace, moderation and patience, without shrinking from weariness or difficulties;
- To work with a pure intention and with detachment for self, having ever before my eyes the hour of death and the accounting I must give of time poorly spent, of talents unused, of good undone, and of empty pride in success.
All for Jesus through Mary; all in imitation of you, Holy Joseph.
Memorare to Saint Joseph
Remember, O most illustrious Patriarch Saint Joseph, on the testimony of St. Teresa, thy devoted client, never hath it been heard that anyone invoked thy protection and sought thy mediation who has not obtained relief. In this confidence, I come before thee, my loving protector, chaste spouse of Mary, foster-father of the Savior of men and dispenser of the treasures of His Sacred Heart. Despise not my earner prayer but graciously hear and obtain my petition.
Let us pray:
O God, who by the ineffable Providence didst vouchsafe to choose blessed Joseph for the spouse of thy most holy Mother; grant, we beseech thee, that he whom we venerate as our protector on earth may be our intercessor in heaven; who livest and reignest for ever and ever. Amen.
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| The Liturgical Year: January 11th - Sixth Day in the Octave of the Epiphany |
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Posted by: Stone - 01-11-2021, 08:26 PM - Forum: Christmas
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January 11 – Sixth Day within the Octave of the Epiphany
Taken from The Liturgical Year by Dom Prosper Gueranger (1841-1875)
The Magi were not satisfied with paying their adorations to the great King whom Mary presented to them. After the example of the Queen of Saba, who paid her homage to the Prince of Peace in the person of King Solomon, these three Eastern Kings opened their treasures and presented their offerings to Jesus. Our Emmanuel graciously accepted those mystic gifts and suffered them not to leave him until he had loaded them with gifts infinitely more precious than those he had vouchsafed to receive. The Magi had given him of the riches which this earth produced; Jesus repays them with heavenly gifts. He strengthened in their hearts the virtues of faith, hope, and charity; he enriched, in their persons, the Church of which they were the representatives; and the words of the Canticle of Mary were fulfilled in them: He hath filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he hath sent empty away, (Luke 1:53) for the Synagogue refused to follow them in their search after the King of the Jews.
But let us consider the gifts made by the Magi, and let us, together with the Church and the Holy Fathers, acknowledge the Mysteries expressed by them. The gifts were three in number, in order to honor the sacred number of the Persons in the divine Essence, as likewise to express the triple character of the Emmanuel. He had come, that he might be King over the whole world; it was fitting that men should offer Gold to him, for it is the emblem of sovereign power. He had come to be High Priest, and by his mediation, reconcile earth to heaven. Incense, then, was an appropriate gift, for the Priest uses it when he offers sacrifice. But thirdly, it was only by his own death that he was to obtain possession of the throne, which was prepared for his glorified Human Nature, and the perpetual Sacrifice of the Divine Lamb was to be inaugurated by this same his Death; the gift of Myrrh was expressive of the Death and Burial of an immortal Victim. The Holy Ghost, who inspired the Prophets, had guided the Magi in their selection of these three gifts. Let us listen to St. Leo, who speaking of this Mystery says with his usual eloquence:
“O admirable Faith, which leads to Knowledge the perfect Knowledge, and which was not taught in the school of earthly wisdom, but was enlightened by the Holy Ghost himself! For, whence had they learnt the supernatural beauty of their three Gifts!—they had had come straight from their own country and had not, as yet, seen Jesus nor beheld in his Infant Face the Light which directed them in the choice of their offerings? While the Star met the gaze of the bodily eye, their hearts were instructed by a stronger light—the ray of Truth. Before setting out on the fatiguing journey, they knew Him to whom were due, by Gold, the honors of a King; by Incense, the worship of God; by Myrrh, the faith in his Mortal Nature.” (Sermon the 4th, on Epiphany)
But these three gifts, which so sublimely express the three characters of the Man-God, are fraught with instruction for us. They signify three great virtues, which the Divine Infant found in the souls of the Magi, and to which he added increase by his grace. Gold signifies charity, which unites us to God; Frankincense prayer, which brings God into man’s heart; and Myrrh self-abnegation, suffering, and mortification, whereby we are delivered from the slavery of corrupt nature. Find a heart that loves God, that raises herself up to him by prayer, that understands and relishes the power of the cross—and you have in that heart the worthiest offering which can be made to God, and one which he always accepts.
We too, O Jesus! offer thee our treasure and our gifts. We confess thee to be God and Priest and Man. We beseech thee to accept the desire we have of corresponding to the love thou showest us by giving thee our love in return; we love thee, dear Savior! do thou increase our love. Receive also the gift of our Prayer, for though of itself it be tepid and poor, yet it is pleasing to thee because united with the prayer of thy Church; teach us how to make it worthy of thee and how to give it the power of obtaining what thou desirest to grant: form within us the gift of prayer, that it may unceasingly ascend up like sweet Incense in thy sight. And lastly, receive the homage of our contrite and humble hearts, and the resolution we have formed of restraining and purifying our senses by mortification and penance.
The sublime Mysteries, which we are celebrating during this holy season, have taught us the greatness of our own misery, and the immensity of thy love for us, and we feel more than ever the obligation we are under of fleeing from the world and its concupiscences, and of uniting ourselves to thee. The Star shall not have shone upon us in vain: it has brought us to thee, dear King of Bethlehem! and thou shalt be King of our hearts. What have we that we prize and hold dear, which we can hesitate to give thee in return for the sweet infinite treasure of Thyself, which thou hast given to us?
Dear Mother of our Jesus! we put these our offerings into thy hands. The gifts of the Magi were made through thee, and they were pleasing to thy Son; thou must present ours to him, and he will be pleased with them, in spite of their poverty. Our love is deficient; fill up its measure by uniting it with thine own immense love. Second our prayer by thy maternal intercession. Encourage us in our warfare against the world and the flesh. Make sure our perseverance, by obtaining for us the grace of a continual remembrance of the sweet Mysteries which we are now celebrating; pray for us, that after thine own example, we may keep all these things in our hearts. That must be a hard and depraved heart, which could offend Jesus in Bethlehem; or refuse him anything, now that he is seated on thy lap, waiting for our offering! O Mary! keep us from forgetting that we are the children of the Magi, and that Bethlehem is ever open to receive us.
Let us borrow the language of the ancient Liturgies, in order to give expression to the sentiments awakened in us by all these ineffable Mysteries. Let us begin with this Hymn on the Nativity of our Lord, left us by the saintly Bishop of Poitiers, Venantius Fortunatus.
Hymn
Let all ages acknowledge that he is come who is the reward of life. After minkind had carried the yoke of its cruel enemy, our Redemption appeared.
What Isaias foretold has been fulfilled in the Virgin; an Angel announced the mystery to her, and the Holy Ghost filled her by his power.
Mary conceived in her womb, for she believed in the word that was spoken to her: the womb of a youthful maid holds him whom the whole earth cannot contain.
Radix Jesse floruit,
The Root of Jesse has given its flower, and the Branch has borne its fruit: Mary has given birth to Jesus, and the Mother is still the spotless Virgin.
He that created the light suffers himself to be laid in a manger; he that, with the Father, made the heavens, is now wrapt by his Mother’s hand in swaddling-clothes.
He that gave to the world the ten commandments of the law, deigns, by becoming Man, to be under the bond of the law.
What the old Adam defiled, that the new Adam has purified; and what the first cast down by his pride, the second raised up again by his humility.
Light and salvation are now born to us, night is driven away, and death is vanquished: oh! come, all ye people, believe; God is born of Mary. Amen.
The Mozarabic Breviary contains the following eloquent prayer.
Prayer
O God, Son of God, the ineffable Power of the Father, who, by the rising of a new star, didst reveal thyself to the Gentiles as the King of kings, and now art seen in thy glory in that happy city above: O thou before whom the islands tremble, and the Gentile princes and nations bow in homage, and to whom all kingdoms are subject, and at whose feet all kings lay down their crowns: vouchsafe now, by thy grace, to show thyself in thy mercy to our souls, and manifest thyself by our lives: that having within us the first-fruits of the Spirit, we may ever offer thee such gifts as thereby to merit to enter, with hearts well-pleasing to thee, into the blessed Jerusalem, and by offering thee now the most pure gold of our works, we may deserve to be partakers of thy kingdom. Amen.
We take the following Sequence from the Paris Missal of 1584.
Sequence
There is sung in the highest heavens: Glory be to the new-born King, by whom peace is restored between heaven and earth.
Rightly do we keep the Birth-day of Jesus as a feast; for by his birth, the grace of the new law is born.
He, our Mediator, is given to us to be the reward of our salvation: he takes upon himself our nature, refusing only to be like us in our sin.
As a star loses nothing of its brightness by giving forth is ray; so neither does Mary suffer the loss of her purity by giving birth to her Son.
Who is the Stone cut from the mountain and not by the hand of man, if not our Jesus, who was of the line of kings,
And was born from the womb of his Virgin-Mother, after she had virginally conceived?
Let the wilderness be glad, and the desert bloom;—the rod of Jesse has flowered.
As was foretold in the Law, the Root has yielded its Branch, the Branch is Flower, and the Virgin our Savior.
The Root was the figure of David: the Branch was the type of Mary, who was born of a kingly race.
The Flower is the Child that is born unto us, well likened to a flower, by reason of his wonderful sweetness.
He, whose birth is celebrated by the heavenly spirits, is laid in a manger!
The citizens of heaven are in jubilee, whilst the Shepherds are keeping watch in the still night.
Let all creatures give forth praise for that the Virgin has given birth to her Son.
The law and the psalms harmonize with the writings of the Prophets.
The Angels and the Shepherds, the Star and the Magi, all agree in proclaiming the Birth.
The Easter Kings run to the Crib of the Babe—they are the first-fruits of the Gentiles.
O Jesus, immortal Babe! born in time because thou wouldst assume our nature, snatch us, by thy power, from this life’s woes.
After this our mortal life, or rather this living death, mercifully restore unto us that life which is immortal. Amen.
St. Ephrem, the holy Deacon of Edessa, thus continues his admirable dialogue between Mary and the Magi.
Hymn
Tell me, I beg of you as friends, how the mystery was declared to you in your country, and who it was that told you to come to me?
A star of great size appeared to us, more brilliant far than other stars; its light illumined our land, and it was an announcement to us that the King was born.
Tell not this, I pray you, in these our parts, lest the kings of the earth should hear it, and plot, in their envy, against the Child.
Fear not, O Virgin! for thy Son shall be master of all crows, and shall crush them; neither shall the envy of kings be able to hurt him.
I fear that unclean wolf Herod, lest perhaps he bring grief upon me, and draw his sword to cut from off its vine my sweet though not yet ripened Fruit.
For not Herod, for his throne shall be o’erthrown by thy Son, and his reign shall be short, and his crown shall fall from his head.
Jerusalem is a torrent of blood, and all that are good are slain; if they be known, the city will plot against my Child. I pray you, then, whisper these things, and noise them not abroad.
All blood-shedding shall be stayed, and all weapons sheathed by the hand of thy Son; Jerusalem’s sword shall be stupefied, powerless to strike, unless by his consent.
The Scribes and Pharisees of Jerusalem are skilled in secret murders, and may stir up some deadly purposes against me and the Child. Be silent, Magi, I beseech you.
Not so: the envious Scribes and Pharisees shall not have power to injure thy Child; nay, he will take away their priesthood, and put an end to their solemn feasts.
An Angel appeared to me when I conceived my Babe; he told me, as he told you, that my Child is King, and that his throne is from above, and shall never have an end.
This Angel, then, of wom thou speakest, is he that appeared to us under the figure of the star, and told us that thy Son is greater and brighter than the stars.
Lo, now I will reveal to you another secret, that you may take fresh courage: I have given birth to my Child, who is the Son of God, and yet am I a Virgin. Go forth and preach his name to the nations.
All this was taught us by the Star: it told us that his birth was beyond the course of nature, and that thy Son is above all creatures, and that he is the Son of God.
Take peace back with you to your land; may peace be in your territories; may you be the truthful messengers of the Truth on all your journey.
May the peace of thy Son, which brought us hither, lead us back safe to our country; and, when his kingdom shall be declared to the world, may he visit our land, and bless it.
May Persia rejoice at your tidings, and Assria be glad in your return; and when the kingdom of my Son shall be declared, he shall set his standard in your land.
Let us turn to this tender Mother, and sing to her this Hymn of the Greek Church,
which breathes so sweetly the unction and piety of St. Joseph the Hymnographer.
Die xv Januarii
Tossed by the troublesome attacks of my passions, as by so many storms, and buffeted by the blows of my sins as by angry billows, I lovingly fly to thy untiring protection, O Maid most worthy of all praise. Have pity on me, and save me, O ever spotless Virgin!
When the God of purity found thee, O spotless Virgin, in the lowly valleys as the Rose that breathes forth sweet fragrance, he dwelt within thee, and filled the human race with the most delicious perfume.
Turn the faculties of my soul, O most pure one, to the divine commandments of him who shone forth from thy womb, and by thy prayers deliver me from the storm of this life’s scandals.
Turn the faculties of my soul, O more pure one, to the divine commandments of him who shone forth from thy womb, and by thy prayers deliver me from the storm of this life’s scandals.
O chaste Virgin! thou didst, from thy womb, clothe with a Word equal to his Father in works and in majesty; from thee, by reason of his unspeakable mercy, did he assume our entire human nature.
O Blessed Mother! we praise thy Son, who redeemed us from the old curse. We bless thee, O blessed by God above all women, who art loved above all by him who is blessed and glorious above all.
Thou pourest forth an everflowing stream on us who have recourse to thee O Virgin-Mother! Refreshed by its plentiful grace, we praise thy Son, O purest Maid, and we extol him above all for ever.
Thy womb was made the dwelling-place of Light, whereby they saw the light that sat in darkness. Therefore do we ever praise thee with our unceasing hymns, O Mother of God, and devoutly venerate thee, the hope of our hearts.
Pope-Hyginus
The Church makes commemoration today of the holy Pope and Martyr Hyginus. He held the Apostolic Chair under the reign of Antoninus, and closed his four year Pontificate by martyrdom. We have no history of his life, but we venerate in him one of the links of that grand chain of Pontiffs which unites us, by St. Peter, to our Lord Jesus Christ. The whole weight of the government of the Church was upon his shoulders, and he was courageous and faithful in the discharge of his duties; his reign was during the age of Persecution, when to be Pope was to be a victim of tortures and death. As we have already said, he soon won his Palm and was associated in heaven with the three Magi, who had, before leaving this world, preached the gospel in Greece, the country of our Saint. Let us ask him to bless the offerings we are making to the Divine Infant of Bethlehem, and to pray for us that we may obey this sweet King, who asks us to give him not our blood by martyrdom, but our hearts by charity.
Let us honor the memory of this holy Pope, and say with the Church:
Ant. Iste Sanctus pro lege Dei sui certavit usque ad mortem, et a verbis impiorum non tinuit; fundatus enim erat supra firmam petram.
Oremus.
Infirmitatem nostram respice, omnipotens Deus, et quia pondus propriæ actionis gravat, beati Hygini Martyris tui atque Pontificis intercessio gloriosa nos protegat. Per Christum Dominum nostrum. Amen.
Ant. This Saint fought, even unto death, for the law of his God, and feared not the words of the wicked; for he was set upon a firm rock.
Let Us Pray.
Have regard, O Almighty God, to our weakness; and whereas we sink under the weight of our own doings, let the glorious intercession of blessed Hyginus, thy Martyr and Bishop, be a protection to us. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
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| Act of Confidence in God |
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Posted by: Hildegard of Bingen - 01-10-2021, 06:51 PM - Forum: In Honor of Our Lord
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ACT OF CONFIDENCE IN GOD
by St. Claude de la Combiere
My God, I am so convince that Thou keepest watch over those who hope in Thee, and that we can want for nothing when we look for all from Thee, that I am resolved in the future to live free from every care, and to turn all my anxieties over to Thee. “In the peace I find in Thee I will sleep, and I will rest: for Thou, O Lord, hast singularly settled me in the hope I have of Thy divine goodness” (Ps 4:9-10). Men may deprive me of possessions and of honor; sickness may strip me of strength and the means of serving Thee; I may even lose Thy grace by sin; but I shall never lose my hope. I shall keep it until the last moment of my life; and at that moment all the demons in Hell shall strive to tear it from me in vain. “In the peace I find in Thee I will sleep and I will rest . . . “ Others may look for happiness from their wealth or their talents; others may rest on the innocence of their life, or the severity of their penance, or the amount of their alms, or the fervor of their prayers; for Thou, O Lord, hast singularly settled me in hope.” As for me, Lord all my confidence is my confidence itself. This confidence has never deceived anyone. No one, no one has hoped in Thee, Lord, and has been confounded (Ecclus. 2:11)
I am sure, therefore, that I shall be eternally happy, since I firmly hope to be, and because it is from Thee, O God, that I hope for it. “In Thee, O Lord, have I hoped, let me never be confounded (Ps. 30:2). I know, alas I know only too well, that I am weak and unstable. I know what temptation can do against the strongest virtue. I have seen the stars of Heaven fall, and the pillars of the firmament; but that cannot frighten me. So long as I continue to hope, I shall be sheltered from all misfortune; and I am sure of hoping always, since I hope also for this unwavering hopefulness.
Finally, I am sure that I cannot hope too much in Thee, and that I cannot receive has than I have hoped for from Thee. So I hope that Thou wilt hold me safe on the steepest slopes, that Thou wilt sustain me against the most furious assaults, and that Thou wilt make my weakness triumph over my most fearful enemies. I hope that Thou wilt love me always, and that I too shall love Thee without ceasing. To carry my hope once and for all as far as it can go, I hope from Thee to possess Thee, O my Creator, in time and in Eternity. Amen.
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| Act of Love of the Holy Cure d'Ars |
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Posted by: Hildegard of Bingen - 01-10-2021, 03:24 PM - Forum: Prayers and Devotionals
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ACT OF LOVE
OF THE HOLY CURE D’ARS
I love Thee, O my God,
My only desire is to love Thee,
Until the last breath of my life.
I love Thee,
O infinitely loveable God,
And I prefer to die loving Thee,
Rather than to live for an instant without Thee.
I love Thee, O my God, and I desire only to go to
Heaven, to have the happiness of loving Thee perfectly.
I love Thee, O my God, and my only fear is to go
To hell, because one will never have the sweet solace of
Loving Thee there.
O my God, if my tongue cannot say at all times
That I love Thee, at least I want my heart
To repeat it to Thee as many times as I breathe.
Ah! Do me the grace: to suffer while loving Thee,
To love Thee while suffering, and, that when I die:
I not only will love Thee but experience it in my heart.
I beg Thee that: the closer I come to my final
End, Thou will increase and perfect my love for Thee.
Amen.
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