<![CDATA[The Catacombs - Resources Online]]> https://thecatacombs.org/ Sat, 16 May 2026 12:15:42 +0000 MyBB <![CDATA[Mgr. Louis de Ségur: Short Answers to Common Objections Against Religion [1908]]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=8170 Thu, 09 Apr 2026 13:53:39 +0000 Stone]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=8170 SHORT ANSWERS TO COMMON OBJECTIONS AGAINST RELIGION
by Mgr. Louis de Ségur
Taken from here: https://archive.org/details/ShortAnswersToCommon


Authors Preface

HERE is a little book, which I have written expressly for you, my dear reader. It will displease you, perhaps, at first sight; allow me, nevertheless, to offer it to you; for that is a sure sign that you particularly need it. A good book, they say, is a friend. I hope, whatever you may think of it, that I now present to you one of those very friends. Receive it as one's friends should be received, with kindness, and an open heart. I offer it to you in the same way.

Although this friend speaks of rather serious things, I have every reason to believe that he will not tire you. I have strongly impressed this upon him, and he has promised not to preach, but simply to talk to you. After having read the last chapter, you shall see that he has kept his word.

You will remark, no doubt, that the prejudices to which I oppose an answer are of three kinds. Some spring from impiety, they are the worst; I have commenced with them; others spring from ignorance; others, again, from a kind of cowardice. I hope the greater part of these objections are unknown to you, and that you have never seriously entertained them. I have, nevertheless, mentioned them, as a preservative for the future. It is the antidote which, by way of precaution, I give you beforehand. I pray God that these simple conversations may do you good, that they may win your heart.

Having learned by a sweet experience that true happiness consists in knowing, loving, and serving God, I have no more ardent desire than to see my own happiness, which is so pure, so solid, become yours also. The intention is good. That is something, above all in these times. Is the book itself good? I trust so, but I know my slender skill.

You will find, no doubt, many questions treated too briefly; but I have been afraid of tiring you, my dear reader, and I have chosen rather to be incomplete than to put you to sleep. Wo to the book one nods over!

As to this one, I advise you not to read too much of it at a time, but, nevertheless, to read it through, from the beginning to the end. Read with reflection, carefully weighing the reasons which I present to you. / beg you, above all, conscientiously and honestly to seek the truth, not to reject it, if it present itself to your mind. When the heart is upright and sincere, light breaks upon it very quickly.



FIRST OBJECTION.

WHAT HAVE I TO DO WITH RELIGION? I HAVE NONE, AND THAT DOES NOT PREVENT MY ENJOYING EXCELLENT HEALTH.*

* The author begins with the objection of the lowest kind of mere animal man.


Answer. Accordingly, I do not offer it to you as a means of growing in height, or enjoying good health. But, honestly, are we then in this world only for that; and have we no higher destiny than our oxen, our dogs, and our cats? All nations, in all times and places, have been convinced of the contrary, and it appears strange that you should be right, against the whole world. It is about our higher destiny that religion is concerned. Nothing can touch us more closely; nothing can better deserve the attention of a reasonable man.

In fact, according as religion is found true or false, every thing changes in the practical direction of our life, in our ideas, in our most intimate and most important sentiments. Now, not only is it possible that religion is true, but there are many strong arguments in its favor, in the immense blessings of civilization* which it has spread upon the earth, and in the respect which has been paid to it by so many men of every nation, eminent for their virtues and their genius, such as Bossuet, Fenelon, Saint Louis, Bayard, the great Conde, Napoleon, St. Vincent de Paul, St. Francis Xavier, St. Francis de Sales, Columbus, Sir Thomas More, Daniel O'Connell, Charles Carroll, and a host of others, whose names are familiar to our countrymen.

Let me, then, discuss the cause of religion with you.

Believe me, you reject it only because you do not know it. As you represent it to yourself, I can easily understand that it is distasteful to you. But do you represent religion to yourself as it really is? This is the whole question. Alas! what prejudices, what strange errors exist with regard to it!

It will not be difficult for me, my dear reader, in these simple conversations, to show you that these prejudices are unjust; that religion is not what its enemies say it is; that not only is it not absurd, but that it is supremely reasonable, beautiful, and harmonious, and that it rests upon the most solid proofs. I am going to show you that it is made for you and that you are made for it.

If, like me, you saw it, every day — this holy religion, drying the tears of the poor, changing the most hardened hearts, arresting the progress of evil, repairing injuries, softening hatred and dislikes, infusing everywhere resignation, truth, peace, hope and joy into people's souls, you would soon alter your language, and I should have no need to press this subject upon you.

But, unfortunately, this practical and experimental proof of religion requires rather to be felt than heard of. It is experience, and not words, that makes us understand its invincible power. You may not have reached that period of life when you will need the helps and consolations of religion; but that time will come for you as it has come for others. Witness the poor soldiers suffering and dying on the field of battle. Witness their appreciation of the helps of religion afforded to them by the Sisters of Charity whom even Protestants have called "Angels of the battlefield." Witness the helps of religion to humanity in the various asylums for infants and orphans, the sick, the aged and the poor. Go to the bedside of the sick and dying; go to the deathbeds of those who have faith in God and in religion, and witness their peace and content of mind, and you will realize the meaning of the words  "Without me, you can do nothing." (John. xv. 5) ; and also of these other words: "I can do all things in Him who strengtheneth me." (Phil. iv. 13.)

Nor does religion unfit a man for the duties of this life. On the contrary, it tends to restrain his passions, and affords him courage and strength to discharge his various duties toward God and his fellow-men; it makes him a lawabiding citizen, a lover of right and justice, who does not shrink from any sacrifice, even that of his own life, at the call of duty.]]> SHORT ANSWERS TO COMMON OBJECTIONS AGAINST RELIGION
by Mgr. Louis de Ségur
Taken from here: https://archive.org/details/ShortAnswersToCommon


Authors Preface

HERE is a little book, which I have written expressly for you, my dear reader. It will displease you, perhaps, at first sight; allow me, nevertheless, to offer it to you; for that is a sure sign that you particularly need it. A good book, they say, is a friend. I hope, whatever you may think of it, that I now present to you one of those very friends. Receive it as one's friends should be received, with kindness, and an open heart. I offer it to you in the same way.

Although this friend speaks of rather serious things, I have every reason to believe that he will not tire you. I have strongly impressed this upon him, and he has promised not to preach, but simply to talk to you. After having read the last chapter, you shall see that he has kept his word.

You will remark, no doubt, that the prejudices to which I oppose an answer are of three kinds. Some spring from impiety, they are the worst; I have commenced with them; others spring from ignorance; others, again, from a kind of cowardice. I hope the greater part of these objections are unknown to you, and that you have never seriously entertained them. I have, nevertheless, mentioned them, as a preservative for the future. It is the antidote which, by way of precaution, I give you beforehand. I pray God that these simple conversations may do you good, that they may win your heart.

Having learned by a sweet experience that true happiness consists in knowing, loving, and serving God, I have no more ardent desire than to see my own happiness, which is so pure, so solid, become yours also. The intention is good. That is something, above all in these times. Is the book itself good? I trust so, but I know my slender skill.

You will find, no doubt, many questions treated too briefly; but I have been afraid of tiring you, my dear reader, and I have chosen rather to be incomplete than to put you to sleep. Wo to the book one nods over!

As to this one, I advise you not to read too much of it at a time, but, nevertheless, to read it through, from the beginning to the end. Read with reflection, carefully weighing the reasons which I present to you. / beg you, above all, conscientiously and honestly to seek the truth, not to reject it, if it present itself to your mind. When the heart is upright and sincere, light breaks upon it very quickly.



FIRST OBJECTION.

WHAT HAVE I TO DO WITH RELIGION? I HAVE NONE, AND THAT DOES NOT PREVENT MY ENJOYING EXCELLENT HEALTH.*

* The author begins with the objection of the lowest kind of mere animal man.


Answer. Accordingly, I do not offer it to you as a means of growing in height, or enjoying good health. But, honestly, are we then in this world only for that; and have we no higher destiny than our oxen, our dogs, and our cats? All nations, in all times and places, have been convinced of the contrary, and it appears strange that you should be right, against the whole world. It is about our higher destiny that religion is concerned. Nothing can touch us more closely; nothing can better deserve the attention of a reasonable man.

In fact, according as religion is found true or false, every thing changes in the practical direction of our life, in our ideas, in our most intimate and most important sentiments. Now, not only is it possible that religion is true, but there are many strong arguments in its favor, in the immense blessings of civilization* which it has spread upon the earth, and in the respect which has been paid to it by so many men of every nation, eminent for their virtues and their genius, such as Bossuet, Fenelon, Saint Louis, Bayard, the great Conde, Napoleon, St. Vincent de Paul, St. Francis Xavier, St. Francis de Sales, Columbus, Sir Thomas More, Daniel O'Connell, Charles Carroll, and a host of others, whose names are familiar to our countrymen.

Let me, then, discuss the cause of religion with you.

Believe me, you reject it only because you do not know it. As you represent it to yourself, I can easily understand that it is distasteful to you. But do you represent religion to yourself as it really is? This is the whole question. Alas! what prejudices, what strange errors exist with regard to it!

It will not be difficult for me, my dear reader, in these simple conversations, to show you that these prejudices are unjust; that religion is not what its enemies say it is; that not only is it not absurd, but that it is supremely reasonable, beautiful, and harmonious, and that it rests upon the most solid proofs. I am going to show you that it is made for you and that you are made for it.

If, like me, you saw it, every day — this holy religion, drying the tears of the poor, changing the most hardened hearts, arresting the progress of evil, repairing injuries, softening hatred and dislikes, infusing everywhere resignation, truth, peace, hope and joy into people's souls, you would soon alter your language, and I should have no need to press this subject upon you.

But, unfortunately, this practical and experimental proof of religion requires rather to be felt than heard of. It is experience, and not words, that makes us understand its invincible power. You may not have reached that period of life when you will need the helps and consolations of religion; but that time will come for you as it has come for others. Witness the poor soldiers suffering and dying on the field of battle. Witness their appreciation of the helps of religion afforded to them by the Sisters of Charity whom even Protestants have called "Angels of the battlefield." Witness the helps of religion to humanity in the various asylums for infants and orphans, the sick, the aged and the poor. Go to the bedside of the sick and dying; go to the deathbeds of those who have faith in God and in religion, and witness their peace and content of mind, and you will realize the meaning of the words  "Without me, you can do nothing." (John. xv. 5) ; and also of these other words: "I can do all things in Him who strengtheneth me." (Phil. iv. 13.)

Nor does religion unfit a man for the duties of this life. On the contrary, it tends to restrain his passions, and affords him courage and strength to discharge his various duties toward God and his fellow-men; it makes him a lawabiding citizen, a lover of right and justice, who does not shrink from any sacrifice, even that of his own life, at the call of duty.]]> <![CDATA[Is the Church Betraying Christ? Lefebvre’s Warning Revisited in 2026]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=8165 Tue, 07 Apr 2026 11:26:16 +0000 Stone]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=8165 Is the Church Betraying Christ? Lefebvre’s Warning Revisited in 2026

[Image: congar-lefebvre-tucho.jpg]

Robert Morrison | April 1, 2026

Is Christ still being betrayed—not by pagans, but by those within His own Church? Drawing on Père Louis Perroy and Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, this striking Holy Week reflection argues that the deepest wounds to Christ today come from within the hierarchy itself. Sixty years after Vatican II, the crisis is no longer theoretical—it is unfolding before our eyes.

In his The Ascent of Calvary, Père Louis Perroy wrote of the way in which the offenses that Our Lord suffered during His Passion are, in a sense, renewed when those in authority uphold laws in opposition to Catholic teaching:
Quote:“The blood rushed to the face of Jesus. This blow marked the beginning of His Passion. Accepting it in silence, He submitted in silence to the long series of indignities that followed upon it. Ever since that fatal night, Christ is struck each time those in authority uphold laws in opposition to the teaching of His Church. ‘Why these narrow dogmas?’ is the cry. ‘Why submit to an intolerant Church? Caesar’s rights are supreme!’ And when His Spirit is scoffed at, and excluded from our daily lives and from society at large, when we revolt against certain commandments and commit shameful acts, we buffet Christ before His angels and saints. Again it is secret pride that demands personal liberty and free indulgence in pleasure: ‘Hast Thou given me freedom of action but to set limits to it?’ ’Tis the old cry of Lucifer, ‘I will not serve!’” (p. 29)

When Père Perroy published his book in 1922, he likely intended that these words would apply to secular authorities rather than to authority figures within the Catholic Church. However, if he had been asked about the possibility of the leaders of the Catholic Church upholding anti-Catholic laws, surely he would have said that it would amount to an incomparably worse insult to Our Lord. Indeed, Père Perroy’s words about Judas’s betrayal of Christ could apply as well to the possibility of authority figures within the Church upholding anti-Catholic teachings:
Quote:“Since the treachery of Judas, to be betrayed by a loved one has ever been the keenest suffering known to the human heart, and God does not spare even this to those who aspire to resemble His Son.” (p. 123)

And so if we were trying to rank offenses against God, it seems evident that the blasphemies of pagans are nothing compared to instances in which the ostensible leaders of the Catholic Church weaken or, even worse, contradict Catholic teaching. For the hierarchy of the Church to promote anti-Catholic errors is arguably the worst possible betrayal of Our Lord.

With this in mind, we can consider the words of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre from his 1976 preface to I Accuse the Council!, in which he spoke of the crisis in the Catholic Church in terms of a new betrayal of Our Lord Jesus Christ and His Church:
Quote:“Nothing seems more opportune in these days, when the matters at Ecône set forth the grave problem of the intentions of the Second Vatican Council and of its influence on the self-destruction of the Church, than to publish the documents drawn up in the course of the Council itself. . . . The conclusion is inescapable, especially in the light of the widespread turmoil which the Church has experienced since the Second Vatican Council. This destructive occurrence for the Catholic Church and all Christian civilization has not been directed by the Holy Ghost. To denounce publicly the machinations of churchmen who sought to make this Council the Church’s peace of Yalta with her worst enemies, which is in reality a new betrayal of Our Lord Jesus Christ and His Church, is to render an immense service to Our Lord and to the salvation of souls.” (p. xi)

Archbishop Lefebvre sought to “denounce publicly the machinations of churchmen” who would betray Our Lord Jesus Christ and His Church. Going back to Père Perroy’s words above, Archbishop Lefebvre could not stay silent as Our Lord was assaulted and mocked by false shepherds. How could a true Catholic allow cries of “obedience!” to stifle the instinct to defend the rights of Christ the King?

What, though, did Archbishop Lefebvre identify as the ways in which Our Lord was being betrayed by the false shepherds? One of the documents in I Accuse the Council! provides us with a valuable glimpse of the betrayals that Archbishop Lefebvre saw just years after the Council. His 1966 letter to Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani set forth, among other insights, various doubts that the Council and its “reforms” had created:
  • “Doubts about the necessity of the Church and the sacraments lead to the disappearance of priestly vocations.”
  • “Doubts on the necessity for and nature of the ‘conversion’ of every soul involve the disappearance of religious vocations, the destruction of traditional spirituality in the novitiates, and the uselessness of the missions.”
  • “Doubts on the lawfulness of authority and the need for obedience, caused by the exaltation of human dignity, the autonomy of conscience and liberty, are unsettling all societies beginning with the Church—religious societies, dioceses, secular society, the family.”
  • “Doubts regarding the necessity of grace in order to be saved result in baptism to be held in low esteem, so that for the future it is to be put off until later, and occasion the neglect of the sacrament of Penance. This is particularly an attitude of the clergy and not of the faithful. It is the same with regard to the Real Presence: it is the clergy who act as though they no longer believe by hiding away the Blessed Sacrament, by suppressing all marks of respect towards the Sacred Species and all ceremonies in Its honor.”
  • “Doubts on the necessity of the Catholic Church as the only true religion, the sole source of salvation, emanating from the declarations on ecumenism and religious liberty, are destroying the authority of the Church’s Magisterium. In fact, Rome is no longer the unique and necessary ‘Magistra Veritatis’ [Mistress of the Truth].”

Archbishop Lefebvre sent these observations to Cardinal Ottaviani roughly sixty years ago and yet they are still among the most accurate descriptions of the painful wounds in the Mystical Body of Christ that we observe in 2026. Moreover, every other evil that we see today from Rome — ranging from Synod on Synodality to Pachamamas — has been facilitated in one way or another by the fact that these doubts have persisted for decades. It is as though the most influential authorities in Rome have been assisting at the Passion of Our Lord continuously for sixty years — not by assuaging the sufferings of Jesus but by finding new ways to make them more painful and degrading.

If we want to look more closely at the betrayal of Jesus carried out by those in Rome, we can reflect on the words from Père Perroy above: so many of the ideas he described relate to the thirst for personal liberty and a corresponding rejection of God’s law. As Archbishop Lefebvre described in I Accuse the Council!, this topic was of upmost importance at Vatican II:
Quote:“No subject came under such intense discussion as that of ‘religious liberty,’ probably because none interested the traditional enemies of the Church so much. It is the major aim of Liberalism. Liberals, Masons and Protestants are fully aware that by this means they can strike at the very heart of the Catholic Church. In making her accept the common law of secular societies, they would thus reduce her to a mere sect like the others and even cause her to disappear, because truth cannot surrender her rights to error without denying itself and thus disappearing.” (p. 17)

This latter point is especially relevant in our own time, as it explains to us why error seems to have unlimited rights whereas truth no longer does. This is the case not only throughout secular society but also within the Church, as public heretics are afforded more rights than Traditional Catholics. Those who would scourge Christ are championed while those who seek to defend Him are mocked.

Some may argue that there was no real clash of ideas at the Council on this point of religious liberty but, as Archbishop Lefebvre described, that simply is not the case:
Quote:“It should be noted that this theme formed the subject of a dramatic debate at the last session of the Council’s preliminary Central Commission. In fact, two schemas on the same there were drawn up: one by the Secretariat for Unity directed by Cardinal Bea, the other by the Theological Commission presided over by Cardinal Ottaviani. The title of the schemas alone is significant: the first was De Libertate Religiosa, which is the expression of the liberal thesis; the second, De Tolerantia Religiosa, merely echoes the traditional teaching of the Church.” (p. 17)

Thus it is undeniable that there was a profound clash of ideas, with the traditional Catholic teaching giving way to the liberal thesis. This reality alone suffices to disprove the preposterous notion that the Council changed nothing. As Archbishop Lefebvre observed, even Yves Congar admitted this:
Quote:“Thus Father Congar, of the Secretariat of the French episcopate, in the Bulletin Etudes et Documents of June 15, 1965, wrote: ‘What is new in this teaching in relation to the doctrine of Leo XIII and even of Pius XII, although the movement was already beginning to make itself felt, is the determination of the basis peculiar to this liberty, which is sought not in the objective truth of moral or religious good, but in the ontological quality of the human person.’ Thus religious liberty no longer focuses in relation to God but in relation to man! This is indeed the Liberal point of view.” (p. 18)

The triumph of the liberal point of view was effectively the triumph of the anti-Catholic ideas that Père Perroy characterized above, such that we now see a perpetual series of offenses against Our Lord carried out (falsely) in the name of the Church. As minor as the shift in focus from God to man (as the basis for religious liberty) may seem to some, it was one of the most important battles of the Council and has resulted in a profound shift in the way that many Catholics view the Faith. Along with false ecumenism, this development has been the root cause of all of the doubts that Archbishop Lefebvre listed in his 1966 letter to Cardinal Ottaviani. And these two ideas — religious liberty and false ecumenism — have been used to continuously betray Our Lord and His Church for the past sixty years.

Every Holy Week, the Church reminds us of how much Our Lord suffered during His Passion to save us from our sins. It is useful as well to recall how much Jesus is offended today by those who continue to perpetuate the doubts that Archbishop Lefebvre lamented in 1966. For the past sixty years, Rome has done nothing to resolve those doubts in favor of Catholicism and has, in many ways, made these doubts tremendously worse. At the same time that it has dedicated no efforts to ending these offenses against God, Rome has made a crusade out of persecuting those who adhere to what the Church has always taught (and must always believe). All of this makes the decision very clear: rather than choosing blind obedience to those who ask us to condone their persecution of Our Lord, it is better to follow Archbishop Lefebvre in refusing to abandon Our Lady of Sorrows at the foot of her Son’s Cross. Our Lady of Sorrows, pray for us!]]> Is the Church Betraying Christ? Lefebvre’s Warning Revisited in 2026

[Image: congar-lefebvre-tucho.jpg]

Robert Morrison | April 1, 2026

Is Christ still being betrayed—not by pagans, but by those within His own Church? Drawing on Père Louis Perroy and Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, this striking Holy Week reflection argues that the deepest wounds to Christ today come from within the hierarchy itself. Sixty years after Vatican II, the crisis is no longer theoretical—it is unfolding before our eyes.

In his The Ascent of Calvary, Père Louis Perroy wrote of the way in which the offenses that Our Lord suffered during His Passion are, in a sense, renewed when those in authority uphold laws in opposition to Catholic teaching:
Quote:“The blood rushed to the face of Jesus. This blow marked the beginning of His Passion. Accepting it in silence, He submitted in silence to the long series of indignities that followed upon it. Ever since that fatal night, Christ is struck each time those in authority uphold laws in opposition to the teaching of His Church. ‘Why these narrow dogmas?’ is the cry. ‘Why submit to an intolerant Church? Caesar’s rights are supreme!’ And when His Spirit is scoffed at, and excluded from our daily lives and from society at large, when we revolt against certain commandments and commit shameful acts, we buffet Christ before His angels and saints. Again it is secret pride that demands personal liberty and free indulgence in pleasure: ‘Hast Thou given me freedom of action but to set limits to it?’ ’Tis the old cry of Lucifer, ‘I will not serve!’” (p. 29)

When Père Perroy published his book in 1922, he likely intended that these words would apply to secular authorities rather than to authority figures within the Catholic Church. However, if he had been asked about the possibility of the leaders of the Catholic Church upholding anti-Catholic laws, surely he would have said that it would amount to an incomparably worse insult to Our Lord. Indeed, Père Perroy’s words about Judas’s betrayal of Christ could apply as well to the possibility of authority figures within the Church upholding anti-Catholic teachings:
Quote:“Since the treachery of Judas, to be betrayed by a loved one has ever been the keenest suffering known to the human heart, and God does not spare even this to those who aspire to resemble His Son.” (p. 123)

And so if we were trying to rank offenses against God, it seems evident that the blasphemies of pagans are nothing compared to instances in which the ostensible leaders of the Catholic Church weaken or, even worse, contradict Catholic teaching. For the hierarchy of the Church to promote anti-Catholic errors is arguably the worst possible betrayal of Our Lord.

With this in mind, we can consider the words of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre from his 1976 preface to I Accuse the Council!, in which he spoke of the crisis in the Catholic Church in terms of a new betrayal of Our Lord Jesus Christ and His Church:
Quote:“Nothing seems more opportune in these days, when the matters at Ecône set forth the grave problem of the intentions of the Second Vatican Council and of its influence on the self-destruction of the Church, than to publish the documents drawn up in the course of the Council itself. . . . The conclusion is inescapable, especially in the light of the widespread turmoil which the Church has experienced since the Second Vatican Council. This destructive occurrence for the Catholic Church and all Christian civilization has not been directed by the Holy Ghost. To denounce publicly the machinations of churchmen who sought to make this Council the Church’s peace of Yalta with her worst enemies, which is in reality a new betrayal of Our Lord Jesus Christ and His Church, is to render an immense service to Our Lord and to the salvation of souls.” (p. xi)

Archbishop Lefebvre sought to “denounce publicly the machinations of churchmen” who would betray Our Lord Jesus Christ and His Church. Going back to Père Perroy’s words above, Archbishop Lefebvre could not stay silent as Our Lord was assaulted and mocked by false shepherds. How could a true Catholic allow cries of “obedience!” to stifle the instinct to defend the rights of Christ the King?

What, though, did Archbishop Lefebvre identify as the ways in which Our Lord was being betrayed by the false shepherds? One of the documents in I Accuse the Council! provides us with a valuable glimpse of the betrayals that Archbishop Lefebvre saw just years after the Council. His 1966 letter to Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani set forth, among other insights, various doubts that the Council and its “reforms” had created:
  • “Doubts about the necessity of the Church and the sacraments lead to the disappearance of priestly vocations.”
  • “Doubts on the necessity for and nature of the ‘conversion’ of every soul involve the disappearance of religious vocations, the destruction of traditional spirituality in the novitiates, and the uselessness of the missions.”
  • “Doubts on the lawfulness of authority and the need for obedience, caused by the exaltation of human dignity, the autonomy of conscience and liberty, are unsettling all societies beginning with the Church—religious societies, dioceses, secular society, the family.”
  • “Doubts regarding the necessity of grace in order to be saved result in baptism to be held in low esteem, so that for the future it is to be put off until later, and occasion the neglect of the sacrament of Penance. This is particularly an attitude of the clergy and not of the faithful. It is the same with regard to the Real Presence: it is the clergy who act as though they no longer believe by hiding away the Blessed Sacrament, by suppressing all marks of respect towards the Sacred Species and all ceremonies in Its honor.”
  • “Doubts on the necessity of the Catholic Church as the only true religion, the sole source of salvation, emanating from the declarations on ecumenism and religious liberty, are destroying the authority of the Church’s Magisterium. In fact, Rome is no longer the unique and necessary ‘Magistra Veritatis’ [Mistress of the Truth].”

Archbishop Lefebvre sent these observations to Cardinal Ottaviani roughly sixty years ago and yet they are still among the most accurate descriptions of the painful wounds in the Mystical Body of Christ that we observe in 2026. Moreover, every other evil that we see today from Rome — ranging from Synod on Synodality to Pachamamas — has been facilitated in one way or another by the fact that these doubts have persisted for decades. It is as though the most influential authorities in Rome have been assisting at the Passion of Our Lord continuously for sixty years — not by assuaging the sufferings of Jesus but by finding new ways to make them more painful and degrading.

If we want to look more closely at the betrayal of Jesus carried out by those in Rome, we can reflect on the words from Père Perroy above: so many of the ideas he described relate to the thirst for personal liberty and a corresponding rejection of God’s law. As Archbishop Lefebvre described in I Accuse the Council!, this topic was of upmost importance at Vatican II:
Quote:“No subject came under such intense discussion as that of ‘religious liberty,’ probably because none interested the traditional enemies of the Church so much. It is the major aim of Liberalism. Liberals, Masons and Protestants are fully aware that by this means they can strike at the very heart of the Catholic Church. In making her accept the common law of secular societies, they would thus reduce her to a mere sect like the others and even cause her to disappear, because truth cannot surrender her rights to error without denying itself and thus disappearing.” (p. 17)

This latter point is especially relevant in our own time, as it explains to us why error seems to have unlimited rights whereas truth no longer does. This is the case not only throughout secular society but also within the Church, as public heretics are afforded more rights than Traditional Catholics. Those who would scourge Christ are championed while those who seek to defend Him are mocked.

Some may argue that there was no real clash of ideas at the Council on this point of religious liberty but, as Archbishop Lefebvre described, that simply is not the case:
Quote:“It should be noted that this theme formed the subject of a dramatic debate at the last session of the Council’s preliminary Central Commission. In fact, two schemas on the same there were drawn up: one by the Secretariat for Unity directed by Cardinal Bea, the other by the Theological Commission presided over by Cardinal Ottaviani. The title of the schemas alone is significant: the first was De Libertate Religiosa, which is the expression of the liberal thesis; the second, De Tolerantia Religiosa, merely echoes the traditional teaching of the Church.” (p. 17)

Thus it is undeniable that there was a profound clash of ideas, with the traditional Catholic teaching giving way to the liberal thesis. This reality alone suffices to disprove the preposterous notion that the Council changed nothing. As Archbishop Lefebvre observed, even Yves Congar admitted this:
Quote:“Thus Father Congar, of the Secretariat of the French episcopate, in the Bulletin Etudes et Documents of June 15, 1965, wrote: ‘What is new in this teaching in relation to the doctrine of Leo XIII and even of Pius XII, although the movement was already beginning to make itself felt, is the determination of the basis peculiar to this liberty, which is sought not in the objective truth of moral or religious good, but in the ontological quality of the human person.’ Thus religious liberty no longer focuses in relation to God but in relation to man! This is indeed the Liberal point of view.” (p. 18)

The triumph of the liberal point of view was effectively the triumph of the anti-Catholic ideas that Père Perroy characterized above, such that we now see a perpetual series of offenses against Our Lord carried out (falsely) in the name of the Church. As minor as the shift in focus from God to man (as the basis for religious liberty) may seem to some, it was one of the most important battles of the Council and has resulted in a profound shift in the way that many Catholics view the Faith. Along with false ecumenism, this development has been the root cause of all of the doubts that Archbishop Lefebvre listed in his 1966 letter to Cardinal Ottaviani. And these two ideas — religious liberty and false ecumenism — have been used to continuously betray Our Lord and His Church for the past sixty years.

Every Holy Week, the Church reminds us of how much Our Lord suffered during His Passion to save us from our sins. It is useful as well to recall how much Jesus is offended today by those who continue to perpetuate the doubts that Archbishop Lefebvre lamented in 1966. For the past sixty years, Rome has done nothing to resolve those doubts in favor of Catholicism and has, in many ways, made these doubts tremendously worse. At the same time that it has dedicated no efforts to ending these offenses against God, Rome has made a crusade out of persecuting those who adhere to what the Church has always taught (and must always believe). All of this makes the decision very clear: rather than choosing blind obedience to those who ask us to condone their persecution of Our Lord, it is better to follow Archbishop Lefebvre in refusing to abandon Our Lady of Sorrows at the foot of her Son’s Cross. Our Lady of Sorrows, pray for us!]]> <![CDATA[Father Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange: The Purification of the Intellect and of the Will]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=8095 Thu, 19 Mar 2026 12:58:31 +0000 Stone]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=8095 THE ACTIVE PURIFICATION OF THE INTELLECT
Father Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P.
Imprimatur and Nihil Obstat, 1948

"If thy eye be single, thy whole body shall be lightsome."---Matt. 6:22

THE superior faculties of man, which he has in common with the Angels, are the intellect and will. They, too, need to be purified
and disciplined, for they suffer from a disorder which is the consequence of Original Sin and of our personal sins.

The first gaze of the intellect of the Baptized infant is simple; the same is true of a soul that begins to respond generously to a higher vocation. But it may happen that in time this gaze loses its simplicity through the complexity of the things it examines with a heart that is more or less pure. Then a serious purification is needed in order to recover the first simplicity of the intellect by a profound view which dominates the details and inevitable griefs, in order to embrace life as a whole. Happy the old people who after long experience and many trials reach this superior simplicity of true wisdom, which they had glimpsed from a distance in their childhood! With this meaning it can be said that a beautiful life is a thought of youth realized in maturity.

We shall discuss here: (1) the necessity of the active purification of the intellect because of the defects found in it; (2) the active principle of this purification and what must be put into practice on this point.


THE NECESSITY OF THIS PURIFICATION: THE DEFECTS OF OUR INTELLECT

Since the commission of Original Sin, man's intellect is wounded. This wound is called that of ignorance; [1] because of it, the intellect, instead of inclining spontaneously toward the true, and especially toward supreme Truth, has difficulty in attaining it and tends to me absorbed in the consideration of earthly things without rising to their cause. It is inclined with curiosity toward ephemeral things, and, on the other hand, it is negligent and slothful in the search for our true last end and the means leading to it. Consequently intellect easily falls into error, lets itself be darkened by the prejudices which come from inordinate passions. It may finally reach the state that is called spiritual blindness.

Doubtless, Original Sin did not render our intellect incapable of knowing the truth, as the first Protestants and the Jansenists held. By patient effort, it can even acquire, without the help of revelation, the knowledge of a certain number of fundamental truths of the natural order, such as the existence of God, Author of the natural moral law. But, as the Council of the Vatican declares, [2] in the terms St. Thomas used, [3] few men are capable of this labor, and they reach this result only after a considerable length of time, without succeeding in freeing themselves from all error.

It is also true that this wound of ignorance, the consequence of Original Sin, is in the process of healing from the time of Baptism, which regenerates us by giving us sanctifying grace. This wound however, reopens by reason of our personal sins, especially by reason of curiosity and intellectual pride, of which we must speak here.

Curiosity is a defect of our mind, says St. Thomas, [4] which inclines us with eagerness and precipitation toward the consideration and study of less useful subjects, making us neglect the things of God and of our salvation. This curiosity, says the holy doctor, [5] is born of spiritual sloth in respect to Divine things, and makes us lose precious time. Whereas people who have little learning but are nourished with the Gospel possess great rectitude of judgment, there are others who, far from nourishing themselves profoundly with the Christian truths, spend a great part of their time carefully storing up useless, or at least only slightly useful, knowledge which does not at all form the judgment. They are afflicted with almost a mania for collecting. Theirs is an accumulation of knowledge mechanically arranged and unorganized, somewhat as if it were in a dictionary. This type of work, instead of training the mind, smothers it, as too much wood smothers a fire. Under this jumble of accumulated knowledge, they can no longer see the light of the first principles, which alone could bring order out of all this material and lift up their souls even to God, the Beginning and End of all things. [6]

This heavy and stupid intellectual curiosity, as St. John of the Cross says, is in this sense the inverse of contemplation, which judges all things by the supreme cause. Such curiosity could lead to spiritual folly of which St. Paul often speaks, [7] to the folly which judges all, even the highest things, by what is lowest and at times most contemptible, by the satisfactions of our concupiscence or of our pride.

Spiritual pride is a more serious disorder than curiosity. It gives us such confidence in our reason and judgment that we are not very willing to consult others, especially our superiors, or to enlighten ourselves by the attentive and benevolent examination of reasons or facts which may be urged against us. This state of mind leads to manifest imprudent acts that will have to be painfully expiated. It leads also to asperity in discussions, to stubbornness in judgment, to disparagement which excludes in a cutting tone all that does not fit in with our manner of seeing things. This pride may lead a person to refuse to others the liberty he claims for his own opinions, and also to submit only very imperfectly to the directions of the supreme Shepherd, and even to attenuate and minimize dogmas under the pretext of explaining them better than has been done hitherto. [8]

These defects, especially pride, may finally lead us to spiritual blindness, which is the direct opposite of the contemplation of Divine things. It is necessary to insist on this point, as St. Thomas did, [9] after he treated of the gift of understanding.

Holy Scripture often speaks of this spiritual blindness. Christ was saddened and angered by the spiritual blindness of the Pharisees, [10] and finally said to them: "Woe to you blind guides. ... You tithe mint and anise and cummin, and have left the weightier things of the law: judgment and mercy and faith. ... Blind guides, who strain out a gnat, and swallow a camel." [11]

In St. John's Gospel [12] we read that this blindness is a punishment of God, who withdraws light from such as do not wish to receive it. [13]

There are sinners who, by reason of repeated sins, no longer recognize the signified will of God manifested in a striking manner; they no longer understand that the evils which befall them are punishments of God, and they do not turn to Him. By natural laws alone, they explain these misfortunes as things that afflict a number of people at the moment. They see in them only the result of certain economic factors, such as the development of machinery and over-production which results from it. They no longer take into account that these disorders have above all a moral cause and come from the fact that many men place their last end where it is not; not in God Who would unite us, but in material goods which divide us, because they cannot belong simultaneously and integrally to a number.
Spiritual blindness leads the sinner to prefer in everything goods that are temporal rather than eternal goods. It prevents him from hearing the voice of God, which the Church recalls in the liturgy for Advent and for Lent: "Be converted to Me with all your heart. ... Turn to the Lord your God, for He is gracious and merciful, patient and rich in mercy, and ready to repent of the evil." [14]

Spiritual blindness is a punishment of God which takes away the Divine light because of repeated sins. But there is also a sin by which we voluntarily turn away from the consideration of Divine truth by preferring to it the knowledge of that which satisfies our concupiscence of our pride. [15]

We may say of this sin what St. Thomas says of spiritual folly (stultitia), that it is opposed to the precepts of the contemplation of truth. [16] It hinders us from seeing the proximity of death and the judgment. [17] It takes all penetration away from us and leaves us in a state of spiritual dullness, which is like the loss of all higher intelligence. [18] Then we no longer see the grandeur of the supreme precept of the love of God and of our neighbor, or the value of our Savior's Blood shed for us, or the infinite value of the Mass, which substantially perpetuates on the altar the sacrifice of the Cross.

Such a condition is a chastisement, and no heed is paid to it. As St. Augustine says: "If, when a thief stole money, he lost an eye, everybody would say that it was a punishment of God; you have lost the eye of your mind and you think that God has not punished you." [19]

It is surprising at times to find among Christians men who have great literary, artistic, or scientific culture, but who have merely a rudimentary and superficial knowledge of the truths of religion, a knowledge mingled with many prejudices and errors. It is a surprising disproportion, which makes them, as it were, spiritual dwarfs.
Some others, better instructed in matters of faith, the history of the Church, and its laws, have a tendency that is, so to speak, anti-contemplative, permitting them to see the life of the Church only from without, as if they were looking at the exterior of the windows of a cathedral, instead of seeing them from within under the soft light which should illumine them.

This dullness of mind especially hinders the hearing of the great preaching of God, Who speaks in His Own way through great contemporary events. At the present time, there are in the world two radically contradictory universal tendencies, over and above the nationalism of different groups more or less opposed to one another. On the one hand, we find the universalism of the reign of Christ Who wishes to draw the souls of men of all nations to God, supreme Truth and Life; on the other hand, we see false universalism, which is called communism, which draws souls in an inverse sense toward materialism, sensualism, and pride, in such a manner that the parable of the prodigal son is verified not only for individuals, but for whole nations, such as Russia.

The great problem of today is found in the conflict between the universalism of the reign of Christ and of the Church, which liberates souls, and communism, which leads them to materialist abjection and to the oppression of the weak under the pride of demagogues and leaders. [20]

In this conflict we must turn to prayer and penance, no less than to study and apostolic work. This is what the Blessed Virgin declared at Lourdes: "Pray and do penance."

Such are the defects of the mind which exist in us in various degrees: curiosity, rash haste to learn what is useless, indifference, negligence in regard to the one thing necessary (i.e., God and our salvation); spiritual pride, blindness, and spiritual folly, which ends by judging everything by what is lowest and most petty, whereas wisdom judges everything by the supreme cause and the last end.

How remedy this disorder, from which we all suffer in a greater or lesser degree?


THE PRINCIPLE OF THE ACTIVE PURIFICATION OF THE INTELLECT

This purification must be made by the progress of the virtue of faith, as the purification of the memory, immersed in time, is made by the growth of the hope of eternal beatitude.

St. Thomas tells us: "To detach itself from transient things and to tend toward God, the rational creature must first of all have faith in God: faith is the first principle of the purification of the heart in order to free us from error, and faith quickened by charity perfects this purification." [21] The intellect, which directs the will, must itself be thus purified; [22] otherwise the root of the will would be corrupted or deflected, mingled with error.

This purification is accomplished by judging more and more according to the spirit of faith. As Cajetan [23] remarks, faith leads us first of all to adhere to revealed truths because of the authority of God Who reveals them; then it leads us to consider and to judge all things according to these truths. This is true even of him who, in the state of mortal sin, has kept faith by which he is preserved from graver sins, such as theft and murder; and by reason of faith he judges that he must go to Mass and not refuse to listen to the word of God. These various judgments may be made without the gifts of the Holy Ghost, which are not in a man in mortal sin; but without the gifts these judgments do not have all the perfection they should. In the just man they receive this perfection from the gifts; then they are produced in a different manner, under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost. Thus the gift of wisdom leads us to judge according to a certain connaturality or sympathy with Divine things. This is the opinion of Cajetan, and many theologians adopt almost the same terms.

Not only must we adhere firmly to the truths of faith, but according to them we must judge what we are to think, say, do, or avoid in life. Then we judge according to the spirit of faith, and not according to the spirit of nature or practical naturalism.

St. John of the Cross tells us that obscure faith enlightens us. [24] It is obscure because it makes us adhere to mysteries we do not see; but these mysteries, which are those of the inner life of God, greatly illumine our intellect, since they do not cease to express to us the goodness of God, Who created us, raised us to the life of grace, sent His Only Son to redeem us, His Son Who gives Himself to us in the Eucharist in order to lead us to eternal life.

Faith is obscure, but it illumines our intellect in our journey toward eternity. It is very superior to the senses and to reason; it is the proximate means of union with God, whom it makes us know infallibly and supernaturally in obscurity. [25]

Faith is very superior to all the sensible and intellectual evidences that can be had on earth. What is evident for our senses, is sensible, not---spiritual; therefore it is not God Himself. What is evident for our reason, is what is proportioned to it; at times this is a truth about God, His existence, for example, but it is not the inner life of God, which surpasses our reason and even the natural powers of the angelic intellect.

To see the intimate life of God, a person would have to die and receive the Beatific Vision. Now, faith makes us attain here on earth this inner life of God in the penumbra, in obscurity. Consequently a man who would prefer visions to infused faith would deceive himself, even if these visions were of Divine origin, for he would prefer what is superficial and exterior, what is accessible to our faculties, to what surpasses them. He would prefer the figures to the Divine reality. He would lose the meaning of the mystery; he would forsake true contemplation by withdrawing from this Divine obscurity. [26]

Obscure faith enlightens us somewhat like the night, which, though surrounding us with shadows, allows us to see the stars, and by them the depths of the firmament. There is here a mingling of light and shade which is extremely beautiful. That we may see the stars, the sun must hide, night must begin. Amazingly, in the obscurity of night we see to a far greater distance than in the day; we see even the distant stars, which reveal to us the immense expanse of the heavens.

In the same way, the senses and reason allow us to see only what belongs to the natural order, only what is within their reach, whereas faith, although obscure, opens up to us the supernatUral world and its infinite depths, the kingdom of God, His inner life, which we shall see unveiled and clearly in eternity.

St. John of the Cross reiterates this teaching, which is like a commentary on the definition of faith given by St. Paul, [27] a definition which St. Thomas sums up by saying: "Faith is a habit of the mind whereby eternal life is begun in us, making the intellect assent to what is non-apparent," since it makes us adhere to the mystery of the inner life of God which we shall see in eternity. [28]
It follows that, to live by faith, we should consider everything under its light: God, first of all, then ourselves, others, friends or strangers, and all agreeable or painful events. We should see them not only from the sensible, but also from the rational point of view, from the supernatural point of view of faith, which would be equivalent to considering all things, so to speak, with the eye of God, or somewhat as God sees them. [29] Whence the manifest necessity of purifying our mind of curiosity, by no longer preferring the study of the secondary, of the subordinate, and sometimes of what is useless to the attentive meditation of the one thing necessary, to the reading of the Gospel and of all that can truly nourish the soul. [30] This necessity of the supernatural point of view shows the importance of spiritual reading together with study and distinct from it.

Consequently it is of prime importance not to devour books in order to appear well informed and to be able to talk about them, but to read what is suitable to the life of the soul, in a spirit of humility in order to be penetrated with it, to put it into practice, and to do real good to others. [31] We may recall with profit what St. Paul says (Rom. 12:3): "For I say, by the grace that is given me, to all that are among you, not to be more wise than it behooveth to be wise, but to be wise unto sobriety." [32]

Therefore we must avoid rash haste in judgment, for this haste is the source of many errors. [33] We must even more avoid tenacity [34] in our own judgment, and correct this defect by docility to the directions of the Church, to those of our spiritual director, and also to the Holy Spirit, Who wishes to be our interior Master that He may make us live increasingly the life of faith and give us in it a foretaste of the life of Heaven.

If we followed this rule, the consideration of details would no longer make us lose sight of the whole, as so often happens, just as trees seen too near hinder one from seeing the forest. Those who say that the problem of evil cannot be solved and find in it an occasion of sin, are absorbed in the woeful verification of certain painful details and lose the general view of the providential plan in which everything is ordained to the good of those who love the Lord.

The excessively meticulous study of details makes us depreciate the first global view o£ things; when the latter is pure, however, it is already elevated and salutary. Thus when a Christian child sees the starry sky, he finds in it a splendid sign of the infinite grandeur of God. Later on, If he becomes absorbed m the scientific study of the different constellations, he may forget the view of the whole, to which the intellect must finally return the better to comprehend its loftiness and profundity. It has been said that if a little learning withdraws a person from religion, great learning brings him back to it. [35]

Likewise the great supernatural facts which are produced by God to enlighten the simple and to save them, such as the fact of Lourdes, are rather easily grasped by the clean of heart. They quickly see the supernatural origin, meaning, and import of these facts. If this simple, and at the same time superior, point of view is forgotten because of absorption in the study of details considered from the material point of view, only an undecipherable enigma may be found in it, and at times only something impossible to see through. Then, while learned men discourse endlessly without being able to reach a conclusion, God does His work in the clean of heart. Finally, more profound learning, accompanied by humility, leads back to the original view of the whole in order to confirm it, and to recognize the action of God and the profound good done to souls. Thus, after a life consecrated to the study of philosophy and theology, the soul delights in returning to the simplicity of faith of the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to the words of the psalms, to the parables of the Gospel. It is the purification of the intellect which prepares for contemplation.
 

1. Cf. St. Thomas. Ia IIae, q. 85. a. 3.
2. Denzinger, no. 1786. It is said here that it is thanks to Divine revelation that the natural truths of religion can be known by all, quickly, with a firm certitude, and without any admixture of errors.
3. See Ia, q. 1, a. 1.
4. Cf. IIa IIae, q. 167, a. 1.
5. Ibid., q. 35, a. 4 ad 3um.
6. St. Thomas, In Epist. 1 Cor. 8:1, where he discusses the words, "Knowledge puffeth up," writes: "Here the Apostle does not approve of much knowledge, if the mode of knowing is ignored. Moreover, the mode of knowing is that you should know in what order, with what eagerness, to what end each thing must be known: in what order, that you should know first that which is more proper for salvation; with what eagerness, that you should seek with greater ardor that which is more efficacious to inflame love; to what end, that you should not wish to know anything for vainglory and curiosity, but for your own and your neighbor's edification."

See also IIa IIae, q. 166, On the Virtue of Studiousness. St. Thomas discusses here the virtue of studiousness which represses both vain curiosity and intellectual sloth in order to lead people to the study of what should be studied, in the manner in which this should be done, when it should be done, and for a moral and supernatural end.

Cf. also, IIa IIae, q. 188, a. 5 ad 3um, On the Studies Which Are Suitable for Religious. They should study sacred science: "It becomes not religious, whose whole life is devoted to the service of God, to seek for other learning, except so far as it is referred to the sacred doctrine."

7. Cf. 1 Cor. 3:19: "The wisdom of this world is foolishness with God." Cf. St. Thomas, IIa IIae, q. 46, On Folly. The Saint shows that it is opposed to the gift of wisdom, that it is a sin, and that it is born especially of lust.
8. Cf. IIa IIae, q. 138, where St. Thomas speaks of the dangers of obstinacy in a person's own judgment, when he is no longer willing to listen to authorized counsels given to him.

Pertinacity is found sometimes in certain spiritual people who go astray. They have zeal, but it is a bitter zeal; they are no longer willing to listen to the wise advice given them, and they wish to impose their judgment on everyone as if they alone had the Holy Ghost. They are inflated with spiritual pride, they fail in charity under the pretext of reforming everything about them; they may become the enemies of peace and provoke profound discord. St. John of the Cross, deploring these errors, used to say: "Where there is not enough love, put love there, and you will reap love."
9. Cf. IIa IIae, q. 15.
10. Mark 3:5.
11. Matt. 23:16, 23 f.
12. John 12:40.
13. Rom. 11:8.
14. Joel 2:12 f.
15. Cf. St. Thomas, IIa IIae, q. 15, a. l.
16. Cf. Ibid., q. 46, a. 2 ad 3um: "Folly is opposed to the precepts, which are given by the contemplation of truth."
17. The Imitation, Bk. I, chap. 23.
18. Cf. St. Thomas, IIa IIae, q. 15, a. 3.
19. In Ps. 47.
20. Jacques Maritain in his book, Le Docteur Angélique (1919, p. III), says: "How can we reconcile two apparently contradictory facts: the fact that modern history seems to enter on a new Middle Age, in which the unity and universality of Christian culture will be found again and extended this time to the entire universe, and the fact that the general trend of modern civilization seems to draw it toward the universalism of Antichrist and his rod of iron rather than toward the universalism of Christ and His liberating law, and in any event to forbid the hope of the unification of the world in one universal Christian 'empire'?

"My answer is as follows: I think that two immanent movements cross at every point in the world's history and affect each of its momentary complexes. One of these movements draws on high everything in the world which shares in the Divine life of the Church, which is in the world but not of the world, and follows the attraction of Christ, the head of the human race.

"The other movement draws downward everything in the world which belongs to the prince of this world, the head of all the wicked. While undergoing these two internal movements, history advances in time. Thus human affairs are subjected to an ever stronger distention until the material finally snaps. Thus the cockle grows with the wheat; the capital of sin grows throughout the course of history and the capital of grace also increases and superabounds. ... Christian heroism will one day become the only solution for the problems of life. Then as God proportions His graces to needs, and never tempts anyone beyond his strength, a flowering of sanctity will without doubt be seen to coincide with the worst state of human history." The Gospel of St. Matthew (24:24) declares: "There shall arise false Christs and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders, insomuch as to deceive (if possible) even the elect"; and in the Apocalypse (chap. 12) we are told that the elect will be preserved during the great tribulation. Cf. E. B. Allo, O.P., L'Apocalypse de saint Jean (Paris, 1921), pp. 145 ff. The greatest effort of evil seems to have to coincide with the last triumph of Christ, as happened during His life on earth.
21. See IIa IIae, q. 7, a. 2.
22. Ibid., ad 1um.
23. In IIam IIae, q. 45, a. 2, no. 3.
24. The Ascent of Mount Carmel, Bk. II, chap. II; Faith is a dark night for the soul.
25. Ibid., Bk. II, chap. 3: The soul must remain in the obscurity of faith which will guide it to the highest contemplation. Ibid., Bk. II, chap. 9: "Faith is the sole proximate and proportionate means of the soul's union with God." 
26. The Ascent of Mount Carmel, Bk. II, chap. 22; chaps. 10, 11, 16.
27. Heb. 11: 1: "Faith is the substance of things to be hoped for, the evidence of things that appear not." "Faith gives us the substance, or rather is itself that of which the reality does not yet appear," says St. John Chrysostom.
28. See IIa IIae, q. 4, a. 1; De veritate, q. 14, a. 2: "Faith is in us a certain beginning of eternal life."
29. Cf. St. Thomas, In Boetium de Trinitate, q. 3, a. 1 ad 4.
30. We read in Bk. I, chap. 5 of The Imitation: "All holy Scripture should be read in the spirit in which it was written. ...Inquire not who may have said a thing, but consider what is said. Men pass away, but the truth of the Lord abideth forever. God speaketh to us in divers ways, without respect of persons. Our curiosity is often a hindrance to us in reading the Scriptures, when we wish to understand and to discuss where we ought to pass on in simplicity. If thou wilt derive profit, read with humility, with simplicity, and with faith; and never wish to have the name of learning. Be fond of inquiring and listen in silence to the words of the Saints; and let not the parables of the ancients be displeasing to thee, for they are not uttered without a cause."
31. Cf. IIa IIae, q. 167, a. 1. See also ibid., q. 166, on the moral virtue of studiousness or application to study in order to correct the contrary and at times successive deviations of curiosity and intellectual sloth. Once curiosity is satisfied, it often gives place to intellectual sloth in a person who has not the virtue of studiousness, which orders study not only to our personal satisfaction, but to God and to the good of souls.
32. St. Thomas, In Epist. 1 Cor. 8:11, explains the words of St. Paul, "Knowledge puffeth up; but charity edifieth," by saying: "Knowledge, if alone and without charity, puffs one up with pride. Add charity to knowledge, then knowledge will be useful." Then he recalls what St. Bernard says: "There are those who wish to know for the purpose of knowing a great deal, and this is curiosity; some that they may know, and this is vanity; some that they may sell their knowledge, and this is base gain; some that they may be edified, and this is prudence; some that they may edify, and this is charity."
33. Cf. IIa IIae, q. 53, a. 3.
34. Ibid., q. 138.
35. Much could be said about the first intellectual gaze and its profound view, whether in the natural order or in the order of supernatural faith. The first gaze may lead into error if its object is something accidental and not the proper object of the intellectual faculty; it is quite otherwise if the object corresponds to the nature of the intellect. There are two simple beings: the child who does not yet know evil; and the sanctified old man who has forgotten it by dint of conquering it. Therefore the old man loves the child and is loved by it.

The intelligible being of sensible things and truth in general are the object of the first natural gaze of the human intellect; without this gaze, all knowledge arid all philosophy would be impossible. Metaphysics is the profound view of intelligible being which permits man to rise in an absolutely certain manner to God, first Being, supreme Cause, and last End. Likewise all ethics proceed from this first gaze: "We must do good and avoid evil."

The first gaze in the order of supernatural faith is that which we see in the patriarchs of the Old Testament; they believe that God is and that He is the supreme rewarder (Heb. 11:6), and in this case God is considered not only as the Author of nature, but as the Author of salvation.

Likewise the first supernatural gaze, at the time of the coming of our Savior, after the Sermon on the Mount, is expressed in these words of St. Matthew (7:18f.): "When Jesus had fully ended these words, the people were in admiration at His doctrine. For He was teaching them as one having power, and not as the scribes and Pharisees," who recapitulated the texts. The first gaze is again that of a child at Christmas before the Savior's crib. The profound view is that of a contemplative at the end of his life, that of a St. John, a St. Augustine, a St. Thomas, a St. John of the Cross.

In the case of a religious also, the first simple and penetrating gaze is that which he has when he hears the call of God in his youth; this simple gaze is often more elevated than many of the complications that will come later. Blessed are they who find it again later on in a profound view, the view of wisdom on all of life.]]> THE ACTIVE PURIFICATION OF THE INTELLECT
Father Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P.
Imprimatur and Nihil Obstat, 1948

"If thy eye be single, thy whole body shall be lightsome."---Matt. 6:22

THE superior faculties of man, which he has in common with the Angels, are the intellect and will. They, too, need to be purified
and disciplined, for they suffer from a disorder which is the consequence of Original Sin and of our personal sins.

The first gaze of the intellect of the Baptized infant is simple; the same is true of a soul that begins to respond generously to a higher vocation. But it may happen that in time this gaze loses its simplicity through the complexity of the things it examines with a heart that is more or less pure. Then a serious purification is needed in order to recover the first simplicity of the intellect by a profound view which dominates the details and inevitable griefs, in order to embrace life as a whole. Happy the old people who after long experience and many trials reach this superior simplicity of true wisdom, which they had glimpsed from a distance in their childhood! With this meaning it can be said that a beautiful life is a thought of youth realized in maturity.

We shall discuss here: (1) the necessity of the active purification of the intellect because of the defects found in it; (2) the active principle of this purification and what must be put into practice on this point.


THE NECESSITY OF THIS PURIFICATION: THE DEFECTS OF OUR INTELLECT

Since the commission of Original Sin, man's intellect is wounded. This wound is called that of ignorance; [1] because of it, the intellect, instead of inclining spontaneously toward the true, and especially toward supreme Truth, has difficulty in attaining it and tends to me absorbed in the consideration of earthly things without rising to their cause. It is inclined with curiosity toward ephemeral things, and, on the other hand, it is negligent and slothful in the search for our true last end and the means leading to it. Consequently intellect easily falls into error, lets itself be darkened by the prejudices which come from inordinate passions. It may finally reach the state that is called spiritual blindness.

Doubtless, Original Sin did not render our intellect incapable of knowing the truth, as the first Protestants and the Jansenists held. By patient effort, it can even acquire, without the help of revelation, the knowledge of a certain number of fundamental truths of the natural order, such as the existence of God, Author of the natural moral law. But, as the Council of the Vatican declares, [2] in the terms St. Thomas used, [3] few men are capable of this labor, and they reach this result only after a considerable length of time, without succeeding in freeing themselves from all error.

It is also true that this wound of ignorance, the consequence of Original Sin, is in the process of healing from the time of Baptism, which regenerates us by giving us sanctifying grace. This wound however, reopens by reason of our personal sins, especially by reason of curiosity and intellectual pride, of which we must speak here.

Curiosity is a defect of our mind, says St. Thomas, [4] which inclines us with eagerness and precipitation toward the consideration and study of less useful subjects, making us neglect the things of God and of our salvation. This curiosity, says the holy doctor, [5] is born of spiritual sloth in respect to Divine things, and makes us lose precious time. Whereas people who have little learning but are nourished with the Gospel possess great rectitude of judgment, there are others who, far from nourishing themselves profoundly with the Christian truths, spend a great part of their time carefully storing up useless, or at least only slightly useful, knowledge which does not at all form the judgment. They are afflicted with almost a mania for collecting. Theirs is an accumulation of knowledge mechanically arranged and unorganized, somewhat as if it were in a dictionary. This type of work, instead of training the mind, smothers it, as too much wood smothers a fire. Under this jumble of accumulated knowledge, they can no longer see the light of the first principles, which alone could bring order out of all this material and lift up their souls even to God, the Beginning and End of all things. [6]

This heavy and stupid intellectual curiosity, as St. John of the Cross says, is in this sense the inverse of contemplation, which judges all things by the supreme cause. Such curiosity could lead to spiritual folly of which St. Paul often speaks, [7] to the folly which judges all, even the highest things, by what is lowest and at times most contemptible, by the satisfactions of our concupiscence or of our pride.

Spiritual pride is a more serious disorder than curiosity. It gives us such confidence in our reason and judgment that we are not very willing to consult others, especially our superiors, or to enlighten ourselves by the attentive and benevolent examination of reasons or facts which may be urged against us. This state of mind leads to manifest imprudent acts that will have to be painfully expiated. It leads also to asperity in discussions, to stubbornness in judgment, to disparagement which excludes in a cutting tone all that does not fit in with our manner of seeing things. This pride may lead a person to refuse to others the liberty he claims for his own opinions, and also to submit only very imperfectly to the directions of the supreme Shepherd, and even to attenuate and minimize dogmas under the pretext of explaining them better than has been done hitherto. [8]

These defects, especially pride, may finally lead us to spiritual blindness, which is the direct opposite of the contemplation of Divine things. It is necessary to insist on this point, as St. Thomas did, [9] after he treated of the gift of understanding.

Holy Scripture often speaks of this spiritual blindness. Christ was saddened and angered by the spiritual blindness of the Pharisees, [10] and finally said to them: "Woe to you blind guides. ... You tithe mint and anise and cummin, and have left the weightier things of the law: judgment and mercy and faith. ... Blind guides, who strain out a gnat, and swallow a camel." [11]

In St. John's Gospel [12] we read that this blindness is a punishment of God, who withdraws light from such as do not wish to receive it. [13]

There are sinners who, by reason of repeated sins, no longer recognize the signified will of God manifested in a striking manner; they no longer understand that the evils which befall them are punishments of God, and they do not turn to Him. By natural laws alone, they explain these misfortunes as things that afflict a number of people at the moment. They see in them only the result of certain economic factors, such as the development of machinery and over-production which results from it. They no longer take into account that these disorders have above all a moral cause and come from the fact that many men place their last end where it is not; not in God Who would unite us, but in material goods which divide us, because they cannot belong simultaneously and integrally to a number.
Spiritual blindness leads the sinner to prefer in everything goods that are temporal rather than eternal goods. It prevents him from hearing the voice of God, which the Church recalls in the liturgy for Advent and for Lent: "Be converted to Me with all your heart. ... Turn to the Lord your God, for He is gracious and merciful, patient and rich in mercy, and ready to repent of the evil." [14]

Spiritual blindness is a punishment of God which takes away the Divine light because of repeated sins. But there is also a sin by which we voluntarily turn away from the consideration of Divine truth by preferring to it the knowledge of that which satisfies our concupiscence of our pride. [15]

We may say of this sin what St. Thomas says of spiritual folly (stultitia), that it is opposed to the precepts of the contemplation of truth. [16] It hinders us from seeing the proximity of death and the judgment. [17] It takes all penetration away from us and leaves us in a state of spiritual dullness, which is like the loss of all higher intelligence. [18] Then we no longer see the grandeur of the supreme precept of the love of God and of our neighbor, or the value of our Savior's Blood shed for us, or the infinite value of the Mass, which substantially perpetuates on the altar the sacrifice of the Cross.

Such a condition is a chastisement, and no heed is paid to it. As St. Augustine says: "If, when a thief stole money, he lost an eye, everybody would say that it was a punishment of God; you have lost the eye of your mind and you think that God has not punished you." [19]

It is surprising at times to find among Christians men who have great literary, artistic, or scientific culture, but who have merely a rudimentary and superficial knowledge of the truths of religion, a knowledge mingled with many prejudices and errors. It is a surprising disproportion, which makes them, as it were, spiritual dwarfs.
Some others, better instructed in matters of faith, the history of the Church, and its laws, have a tendency that is, so to speak, anti-contemplative, permitting them to see the life of the Church only from without, as if they were looking at the exterior of the windows of a cathedral, instead of seeing them from within under the soft light which should illumine them.

This dullness of mind especially hinders the hearing of the great preaching of God, Who speaks in His Own way through great contemporary events. At the present time, there are in the world two radically contradictory universal tendencies, over and above the nationalism of different groups more or less opposed to one another. On the one hand, we find the universalism of the reign of Christ Who wishes to draw the souls of men of all nations to God, supreme Truth and Life; on the other hand, we see false universalism, which is called communism, which draws souls in an inverse sense toward materialism, sensualism, and pride, in such a manner that the parable of the prodigal son is verified not only for individuals, but for whole nations, such as Russia.

The great problem of today is found in the conflict between the universalism of the reign of Christ and of the Church, which liberates souls, and communism, which leads them to materialist abjection and to the oppression of the weak under the pride of demagogues and leaders. [20]

In this conflict we must turn to prayer and penance, no less than to study and apostolic work. This is what the Blessed Virgin declared at Lourdes: "Pray and do penance."

Such are the defects of the mind which exist in us in various degrees: curiosity, rash haste to learn what is useless, indifference, negligence in regard to the one thing necessary (i.e., God and our salvation); spiritual pride, blindness, and spiritual folly, which ends by judging everything by what is lowest and most petty, whereas wisdom judges everything by the supreme cause and the last end.

How remedy this disorder, from which we all suffer in a greater or lesser degree?


THE PRINCIPLE OF THE ACTIVE PURIFICATION OF THE INTELLECT

This purification must be made by the progress of the virtue of faith, as the purification of the memory, immersed in time, is made by the growth of the hope of eternal beatitude.

St. Thomas tells us: "To detach itself from transient things and to tend toward God, the rational creature must first of all have faith in God: faith is the first principle of the purification of the heart in order to free us from error, and faith quickened by charity perfects this purification." [21] The intellect, which directs the will, must itself be thus purified; [22] otherwise the root of the will would be corrupted or deflected, mingled with error.

This purification is accomplished by judging more and more according to the spirit of faith. As Cajetan [23] remarks, faith leads us first of all to adhere to revealed truths because of the authority of God Who reveals them; then it leads us to consider and to judge all things according to these truths. This is true even of him who, in the state of mortal sin, has kept faith by which he is preserved from graver sins, such as theft and murder; and by reason of faith he judges that he must go to Mass and not refuse to listen to the word of God. These various judgments may be made without the gifts of the Holy Ghost, which are not in a man in mortal sin; but without the gifts these judgments do not have all the perfection they should. In the just man they receive this perfection from the gifts; then they are produced in a different manner, under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost. Thus the gift of wisdom leads us to judge according to a certain connaturality or sympathy with Divine things. This is the opinion of Cajetan, and many theologians adopt almost the same terms.

Not only must we adhere firmly to the truths of faith, but according to them we must judge what we are to think, say, do, or avoid in life. Then we judge according to the spirit of faith, and not according to the spirit of nature or practical naturalism.

St. John of the Cross tells us that obscure faith enlightens us. [24] It is obscure because it makes us adhere to mysteries we do not see; but these mysteries, which are those of the inner life of God, greatly illumine our intellect, since they do not cease to express to us the goodness of God, Who created us, raised us to the life of grace, sent His Only Son to redeem us, His Son Who gives Himself to us in the Eucharist in order to lead us to eternal life.

Faith is obscure, but it illumines our intellect in our journey toward eternity. It is very superior to the senses and to reason; it is the proximate means of union with God, whom it makes us know infallibly and supernaturally in obscurity. [25]

Faith is very superior to all the sensible and intellectual evidences that can be had on earth. What is evident for our senses, is sensible, not---spiritual; therefore it is not God Himself. What is evident for our reason, is what is proportioned to it; at times this is a truth about God, His existence, for example, but it is not the inner life of God, which surpasses our reason and even the natural powers of the angelic intellect.

To see the intimate life of God, a person would have to die and receive the Beatific Vision. Now, faith makes us attain here on earth this inner life of God in the penumbra, in obscurity. Consequently a man who would prefer visions to infused faith would deceive himself, even if these visions were of Divine origin, for he would prefer what is superficial and exterior, what is accessible to our faculties, to what surpasses them. He would prefer the figures to the Divine reality. He would lose the meaning of the mystery; he would forsake true contemplation by withdrawing from this Divine obscurity. [26]

Obscure faith enlightens us somewhat like the night, which, though surrounding us with shadows, allows us to see the stars, and by them the depths of the firmament. There is here a mingling of light and shade which is extremely beautiful. That we may see the stars, the sun must hide, night must begin. Amazingly, in the obscurity of night we see to a far greater distance than in the day; we see even the distant stars, which reveal to us the immense expanse of the heavens.

In the same way, the senses and reason allow us to see only what belongs to the natural order, only what is within their reach, whereas faith, although obscure, opens up to us the supernatUral world and its infinite depths, the kingdom of God, His inner life, which we shall see unveiled and clearly in eternity.

St. John of the Cross reiterates this teaching, which is like a commentary on the definition of faith given by St. Paul, [27] a definition which St. Thomas sums up by saying: "Faith is a habit of the mind whereby eternal life is begun in us, making the intellect assent to what is non-apparent," since it makes us adhere to the mystery of the inner life of God which we shall see in eternity. [28]
It follows that, to live by faith, we should consider everything under its light: God, first of all, then ourselves, others, friends or strangers, and all agreeable or painful events. We should see them not only from the sensible, but also from the rational point of view, from the supernatural point of view of faith, which would be equivalent to considering all things, so to speak, with the eye of God, or somewhat as God sees them. [29] Whence the manifest necessity of purifying our mind of curiosity, by no longer preferring the study of the secondary, of the subordinate, and sometimes of what is useless to the attentive meditation of the one thing necessary, to the reading of the Gospel and of all that can truly nourish the soul. [30] This necessity of the supernatural point of view shows the importance of spiritual reading together with study and distinct from it.

Consequently it is of prime importance not to devour books in order to appear well informed and to be able to talk about them, but to read what is suitable to the life of the soul, in a spirit of humility in order to be penetrated with it, to put it into practice, and to do real good to others. [31] We may recall with profit what St. Paul says (Rom. 12:3): "For I say, by the grace that is given me, to all that are among you, not to be more wise than it behooveth to be wise, but to be wise unto sobriety." [32]

Therefore we must avoid rash haste in judgment, for this haste is the source of many errors. [33] We must even more avoid tenacity [34] in our own judgment, and correct this defect by docility to the directions of the Church, to those of our spiritual director, and also to the Holy Spirit, Who wishes to be our interior Master that He may make us live increasingly the life of faith and give us in it a foretaste of the life of Heaven.

If we followed this rule, the consideration of details would no longer make us lose sight of the whole, as so often happens, just as trees seen too near hinder one from seeing the forest. Those who say that the problem of evil cannot be solved and find in it an occasion of sin, are absorbed in the woeful verification of certain painful details and lose the general view of the providential plan in which everything is ordained to the good of those who love the Lord.

The excessively meticulous study of details makes us depreciate the first global view o£ things; when the latter is pure, however, it is already elevated and salutary. Thus when a Christian child sees the starry sky, he finds in it a splendid sign of the infinite grandeur of God. Later on, If he becomes absorbed m the scientific study of the different constellations, he may forget the view of the whole, to which the intellect must finally return the better to comprehend its loftiness and profundity. It has been said that if a little learning withdraws a person from religion, great learning brings him back to it. [35]

Likewise the great supernatural facts which are produced by God to enlighten the simple and to save them, such as the fact of Lourdes, are rather easily grasped by the clean of heart. They quickly see the supernatural origin, meaning, and import of these facts. If this simple, and at the same time superior, point of view is forgotten because of absorption in the study of details considered from the material point of view, only an undecipherable enigma may be found in it, and at times only something impossible to see through. Then, while learned men discourse endlessly without being able to reach a conclusion, God does His work in the clean of heart. Finally, more profound learning, accompanied by humility, leads back to the original view of the whole in order to confirm it, and to recognize the action of God and the profound good done to souls. Thus, after a life consecrated to the study of philosophy and theology, the soul delights in returning to the simplicity of faith of the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to the words of the psalms, to the parables of the Gospel. It is the purification of the intellect which prepares for contemplation.
 

1. Cf. St. Thomas. Ia IIae, q. 85. a. 3.
2. Denzinger, no. 1786. It is said here that it is thanks to Divine revelation that the natural truths of religion can be known by all, quickly, with a firm certitude, and without any admixture of errors.
3. See Ia, q. 1, a. 1.
4. Cf. IIa IIae, q. 167, a. 1.
5. Ibid., q. 35, a. 4 ad 3um.
6. St. Thomas, In Epist. 1 Cor. 8:1, where he discusses the words, "Knowledge puffeth up," writes: "Here the Apostle does not approve of much knowledge, if the mode of knowing is ignored. Moreover, the mode of knowing is that you should know in what order, with what eagerness, to what end each thing must be known: in what order, that you should know first that which is more proper for salvation; with what eagerness, that you should seek with greater ardor that which is more efficacious to inflame love; to what end, that you should not wish to know anything for vainglory and curiosity, but for your own and your neighbor's edification."

See also IIa IIae, q. 166, On the Virtue of Studiousness. St. Thomas discusses here the virtue of studiousness which represses both vain curiosity and intellectual sloth in order to lead people to the study of what should be studied, in the manner in which this should be done, when it should be done, and for a moral and supernatural end.

Cf. also, IIa IIae, q. 188, a. 5 ad 3um, On the Studies Which Are Suitable for Religious. They should study sacred science: "It becomes not religious, whose whole life is devoted to the service of God, to seek for other learning, except so far as it is referred to the sacred doctrine."

7. Cf. 1 Cor. 3:19: "The wisdom of this world is foolishness with God." Cf. St. Thomas, IIa IIae, q. 46, On Folly. The Saint shows that it is opposed to the gift of wisdom, that it is a sin, and that it is born especially of lust.
8. Cf. IIa IIae, q. 138, where St. Thomas speaks of the dangers of obstinacy in a person's own judgment, when he is no longer willing to listen to authorized counsels given to him.

Pertinacity is found sometimes in certain spiritual people who go astray. They have zeal, but it is a bitter zeal; they are no longer willing to listen to the wise advice given them, and they wish to impose their judgment on everyone as if they alone had the Holy Ghost. They are inflated with spiritual pride, they fail in charity under the pretext of reforming everything about them; they may become the enemies of peace and provoke profound discord. St. John of the Cross, deploring these errors, used to say: "Where there is not enough love, put love there, and you will reap love."
9. Cf. IIa IIae, q. 15.
10. Mark 3:5.
11. Matt. 23:16, 23 f.
12. John 12:40.
13. Rom. 11:8.
14. Joel 2:12 f.
15. Cf. St. Thomas, IIa IIae, q. 15, a. l.
16. Cf. Ibid., q. 46, a. 2 ad 3um: "Folly is opposed to the precepts, which are given by the contemplation of truth."
17. The Imitation, Bk. I, chap. 23.
18. Cf. St. Thomas, IIa IIae, q. 15, a. 3.
19. In Ps. 47.
20. Jacques Maritain in his book, Le Docteur Angélique (1919, p. III), says: "How can we reconcile two apparently contradictory facts: the fact that modern history seems to enter on a new Middle Age, in which the unity and universality of Christian culture will be found again and extended this time to the entire universe, and the fact that the general trend of modern civilization seems to draw it toward the universalism of Antichrist and his rod of iron rather than toward the universalism of Christ and His liberating law, and in any event to forbid the hope of the unification of the world in one universal Christian 'empire'?

"My answer is as follows: I think that two immanent movements cross at every point in the world's history and affect each of its momentary complexes. One of these movements draws on high everything in the world which shares in the Divine life of the Church, which is in the world but not of the world, and follows the attraction of Christ, the head of the human race.

"The other movement draws downward everything in the world which belongs to the prince of this world, the head of all the wicked. While undergoing these two internal movements, history advances in time. Thus human affairs are subjected to an ever stronger distention until the material finally snaps. Thus the cockle grows with the wheat; the capital of sin grows throughout the course of history and the capital of grace also increases and superabounds. ... Christian heroism will one day become the only solution for the problems of life. Then as God proportions His graces to needs, and never tempts anyone beyond his strength, a flowering of sanctity will without doubt be seen to coincide with the worst state of human history." The Gospel of St. Matthew (24:24) declares: "There shall arise false Christs and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders, insomuch as to deceive (if possible) even the elect"; and in the Apocalypse (chap. 12) we are told that the elect will be preserved during the great tribulation. Cf. E. B. Allo, O.P., L'Apocalypse de saint Jean (Paris, 1921), pp. 145 ff. The greatest effort of evil seems to have to coincide with the last triumph of Christ, as happened during His life on earth.
21. See IIa IIae, q. 7, a. 2.
22. Ibid., ad 1um.
23. In IIam IIae, q. 45, a. 2, no. 3.
24. The Ascent of Mount Carmel, Bk. II, chap. II; Faith is a dark night for the soul.
25. Ibid., Bk. II, chap. 3: The soul must remain in the obscurity of faith which will guide it to the highest contemplation. Ibid., Bk. II, chap. 9: "Faith is the sole proximate and proportionate means of the soul's union with God." 
26. The Ascent of Mount Carmel, Bk. II, chap. 22; chaps. 10, 11, 16.
27. Heb. 11: 1: "Faith is the substance of things to be hoped for, the evidence of things that appear not." "Faith gives us the substance, or rather is itself that of which the reality does not yet appear," says St. John Chrysostom.
28. See IIa IIae, q. 4, a. 1; De veritate, q. 14, a. 2: "Faith is in us a certain beginning of eternal life."
29. Cf. St. Thomas, In Boetium de Trinitate, q. 3, a. 1 ad 4.
30. We read in Bk. I, chap. 5 of The Imitation: "All holy Scripture should be read in the spirit in which it was written. ...Inquire not who may have said a thing, but consider what is said. Men pass away, but the truth of the Lord abideth forever. God speaketh to us in divers ways, without respect of persons. Our curiosity is often a hindrance to us in reading the Scriptures, when we wish to understand and to discuss where we ought to pass on in simplicity. If thou wilt derive profit, read with humility, with simplicity, and with faith; and never wish to have the name of learning. Be fond of inquiring and listen in silence to the words of the Saints; and let not the parables of the ancients be displeasing to thee, for they are not uttered without a cause."
31. Cf. IIa IIae, q. 167, a. 1. See also ibid., q. 166, on the moral virtue of studiousness or application to study in order to correct the contrary and at times successive deviations of curiosity and intellectual sloth. Once curiosity is satisfied, it often gives place to intellectual sloth in a person who has not the virtue of studiousness, which orders study not only to our personal satisfaction, but to God and to the good of souls.
32. St. Thomas, In Epist. 1 Cor. 8:11, explains the words of St. Paul, "Knowledge puffeth up; but charity edifieth," by saying: "Knowledge, if alone and without charity, puffs one up with pride. Add charity to knowledge, then knowledge will be useful." Then he recalls what St. Bernard says: "There are those who wish to know for the purpose of knowing a great deal, and this is curiosity; some that they may know, and this is vanity; some that they may sell their knowledge, and this is base gain; some that they may be edified, and this is prudence; some that they may edify, and this is charity."
33. Cf. IIa IIae, q. 53, a. 3.
34. Ibid., q. 138.
35. Much could be said about the first intellectual gaze and its profound view, whether in the natural order or in the order of supernatural faith. The first gaze may lead into error if its object is something accidental and not the proper object of the intellectual faculty; it is quite otherwise if the object corresponds to the nature of the intellect. There are two simple beings: the child who does not yet know evil; and the sanctified old man who has forgotten it by dint of conquering it. Therefore the old man loves the child and is loved by it.

The intelligible being of sensible things and truth in general are the object of the first natural gaze of the human intellect; without this gaze, all knowledge arid all philosophy would be impossible. Metaphysics is the profound view of intelligible being which permits man to rise in an absolutely certain manner to God, first Being, supreme Cause, and last End. Likewise all ethics proceed from this first gaze: "We must do good and avoid evil."

The first gaze in the order of supernatural faith is that which we see in the patriarchs of the Old Testament; they believe that God is and that He is the supreme rewarder (Heb. 11:6), and in this case God is considered not only as the Author of nature, but as the Author of salvation.

Likewise the first supernatural gaze, at the time of the coming of our Savior, after the Sermon on the Mount, is expressed in these words of St. Matthew (7:18f.): "When Jesus had fully ended these words, the people were in admiration at His doctrine. For He was teaching them as one having power, and not as the scribes and Pharisees," who recapitulated the texts. The first gaze is again that of a child at Christmas before the Savior's crib. The profound view is that of a contemplative at the end of his life, that of a St. John, a St. Augustine, a St. Thomas, a St. John of the Cross.

In the case of a religious also, the first simple and penetrating gaze is that which he has when he hears the call of God in his youth; this simple gaze is often more elevated than many of the complications that will come later. Blessed are they who find it again later on in a profound view, the view of wisdom on all of life.]]> <![CDATA[Father Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange: The Predominate Fault]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=8081 Tue, 17 Mar 2026 13:21:23 +0000 Stone]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=8081 THE PREDOMINATE FAULT
Father Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P.
Imprimatur and Nihil Obstat, 1948


AFTER treating of the principal sins to be avoided and of their roots and consequences to be mortified, it is fitting that we discuss in a special way the predominant fault that exists in each of us. That we may proceed with order, we must first see in what this fault consists, then how to recognize or discern it, and lastly how to combat it.


DEFINITION OF THE PREDOMINANT FAULT

The predominant fault is the defect in us that tends to prevail over the others, and thereby over our manner of feeling, judging, sympathizing, willing, and acting. It is a defect that has in each of us an intimate relation to our individual temperament. [1] There are temperaments inclined to effeminacy, indolence, sloth, gluttony, and sensuality. Others are inclined especially to anger and pride. We do not all climb the same slope toward the summit of perfection: those who are effeminate by temperament must by prayer, grace, and virtue become strong; and those who are naturally strong, to the point of easily becoming severe, must, by working at themselves and by grace, become gentle.

Before this progressive transformation of our temperament, the predominant defect in the soul often makes itself felt. It is our domestic enemy, dwelling in our interior; for, if it develops, it may succeed in completely ruining the work of grace or the interior life. At times it is like a crack in a wall that seems to be solid but is not so; like a crevice, imperceptible at times but deep, in the beautiful facade of a building, which a vigorous jolt may shake to the foundations. For example, an antipathy, an instinctive aversion to someone, may, if it is not watched over and corrected by right reason, the spirit of faith, and charity, produce disasters in the soul and lead it to grave injustice. By yielding to such an antipathy, it does itself far more harm than it does its neighbor, for it is much more harmful to commit injustice than to be the object of it.

The predominant fault is so much the more dangerous as it often compromises our principal good point, which is a happy inclination of our nature that ought to develop and to be increased by grace. For example, a man is naturally inclined to gentleness; but if by reason of his predominant fault, which may be effeminacy, his gentleness degenerates into weakness, into excessive indulgence, he may even reach the complete loss of energy. Another, on the contrary, is naturally inclined to fortitude, but if he gives free rein to his irascible temperament, fortitude in him degenerates into unreasonable violence, the cause of every type of disorder.

In every man there is a mixture of good and bad inclinations; there is a predominant fault and also a natural quality. If we are in the state of grace, we have a special attraction of grace, which generally perfects first of all what is best in our nature, and then radiates over that which is less good. Some are thus more inclined toward contemplation, others toward action. Particular care must be taken that the predominant fault does not snuff out our principal natural quality or our special attraction of grace. Otherwise our soul would resemble a field of wheat invaded by tares or cockle, of which the Gospel speaks. And we have an adversary, the devil, who seeks to foster the growth of our predominant fault that he may place us in conflict with those who work with us in the Lord's field. Christ Himself tells us: "The kingdom of Heaven is likened to a man that sowed good seed in his field. But while men were asleep, his enemy came and oversowed cockle among the wheat and went his way." [2] Christ explains that the enemy is the devil, [3] who seeks to destroy the work of God by creating disunion among those who, in a holy manner, ought to collaborate in the same work for eternity. He is skillful in exaggerating in our eyes the defects of our neighbor, in transforming a grain of sand into a mountain, in setting up, as it were, a magnifying glass in our imagination, that we may become irritated at our brethren instead of working with them. Considering all this, we can see what evil may spring up in each of us from our principal fault if we are not most attentive to it. At times it is like a devouring worm in a beautiful fruit.


HOW TO RECOGNIZE THE PREDOMINANT FAULT

Evidently it is of primary importance that we recognize our predominant fault and have no illusions about it. This is so much the more necessary as our adversary, the enemy of our soul, knows it quite well and makes use of it to stir up trouble in and about us. In the citadel of our interior life, which is defended by the different virtues, the predominant fault is the weak spot, undefended by the theological and moral virtues. The enemy of souls seeks exactly this easily vulnerable point in each one, and he finds it without difficulty. Therefore, we must recognize it also.

But how can we discern it? For beginners who are sincere, this is quite easy. But later the predominant fault is less apparent, for it tries to hide itself and to put on the appearances of a virtue: pride clothes itself in the outward appearances of magnanimity, and pusillanimity seeks to cover itself With those of humility. Yet we must succeed in discerning the predominant fault, for if we do not know it, we cannot fight it; and if we do not fight it, we have no true interior life.

That we may discern it, we must first of all ask God for light: "Lord, make me know the obstacles I more or less consciously place in the way of the working of Thy grace in me. Then give me the strength to rid myself of them, and, if I am negligent in doing so, do Thou deign to free me from them, though I should suffer greatly."

After thus asking sincerely for light, we must make a serious examination. How? By asking ourselves: "Toward what do my most ordinary preoccupations tend, in the morning when I awake, or when I am alone? Where do my thoughts and desires go spontaneously?" We should keep in mind that the predominant fault, which easily commands all our passions, takes on the appearance of a virtue and, if it is not opposed, it may lead to impenitence. Judas fell into impenitence through avarice, which he did not will to dominate; it led him to impenitence like a violent wind that hurls a ship on the rocks.

A second step in discerning the predominant fault, is to ask ourselves: "What is generally the cause or source of my sadness and joy? What is the general motive of my actions, the ordinary origin of my sins, especially when it is not a question of an accidental sin, but rather a succession of sins or a state of resistance to grace, notably when this resistance persists for several days and leads me to omit my exercises of piety?" Then we must seek sincerely to know the motive of the soul's refusal to return to the good.

In addition, we must ask ourselves: "What does my director think of this? In his opinion, what is my predominant fault? He is a better judge than I am." No one, in fact, is a good judge in his own case; here self-love deceives us. Often our director has discovered this fault before we have; perhaps he has tried more than once to talk to us about it. Have we not sought to excuse ourselves? Excuses come promptly, for the predominant fault easily excites all our passions: it commands them as a master, and they obey instantly. Thus, wounded self-love immediately excites irony, anger, impatience.

Moreover, when the predominant fault has taken root in us, it experiences a particular repugnance to being unmasked and fought, because it wishes to reign in us. This condition sometimes reaches such a point that, when our neighbor accuses us of this fault, we reply that we have many bad habits, but truly not the one mentioned. [4]

The predominant fault may also be recognized by the temptations that our enemy arouses most frequently in us, for he attacks us especially through this weak point in our soul.

Lastly, in moments of true fervor the inspirations of the Holy Ghost ask us for the sacrifice of this particular fault.

If we have sincere recourse to these different means of discernment, it will not be too difficult for us to recognize this interior enemy which we bear within ourselves and which enslaves us: "Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin," [5] says our Lord. It is like an interior prison that we bear about with us wherever we go. We must earnestly aspire to deliverance.

It would be a great grace for us if we were to meet a Saint who would say: "This is your predominant fault and this your principal attraction of grace which you must follow generously to reach union with God." In this way Christ applied the name, "sons of thunder" (Boanerges) [6] to the young Apostles James and John who wished to call down fire from Heaven on a city that had refused to receive them. We read in St. Luke: "He rebuked them, saying: You know not of what spirit you are. The Son of man came not to destroy souls, but to save." [7] In the school of the Savior, the Boanerges became such gentle souls that toward the end of his life St. John the Evangelist could say only one thing: "My little children, ... love one another." [8] When asked why he always repeated the same exhortation, he used to reply: "This is His commandment. ... And he that keepeth His commandments, abideth in Him and He in him." John had lost nothing of his ardor, of his thirst for justice, but it had become spiritualized and was accompanied by a great gentleness.


HOW TO COMBAT THE PREDOMINANT FAULT

Because the predominant fault is our principal interior enemy, we must combat it. When it is conquered, temptations are no longer very dangerous, but are rather occasions of progress.

The predominant fault is not conquered, however, as long as there is no true progress in piety or the interior life, as long as the soul has not attained to a true and stable fervor of will; in other words, to that promptness of the will in the service of God which is, according to St. Thomas, the essence of true devotion. [9] In this spiritual warfare, we must have recourse to three principal means: prayer, examination of conscience, and a sanction.

Our prayer must be sincere: "Lord, show me the principal obstacle to my sanctification, the one that hinders me from profiting by graces and also by the exterior difficulties that would work to the good of my soul if I had greater recourse to Thee when they arise." The Saints went so far as to say, as St. Louis Bertrand did: "Lord, here burn, here cut, and dry up in me all that hinders me from going to Thee, that Thou mayest spare me in eternity." Blessed Nicholas of Flue used to pray: "Lord, take from me everything that hinders me from going to Thee. Give me all that will lead me to Thee. Take me from myself and give me to Thyself."

This prayer does not dispense us from self-examination; on the contrary, it leads to it.

And, as St. Ignatius says, it is especially suitable for beginners to write down each week the number of times they have yielded to their predominant fault which seeks to reign in them like a despot. It is easier to laugh fruitlessly at this method than to apply it fruitfully. If we keep track of the money we spend and receive, it is still more useful to know what we lose and what we gain from the spiritual point of view for eternity.

It is also highly proper to impose a sanction, or penance, on ourselves each time we fall into this defect. This penance may take the form of a prayer, a moment of silence, an exterior or an interior mortification. It makes reparation for the fault and satisfaction for the penalty due it. At the same time we acquire more circumspection for the future. Thus many persons have cured themselves of the habit of cursing by imposing on themselves the obligation of giving an alms in reparation each time they fail.

Before conquering our predominant fault, our virtues are often, to speak more properly, natural good inclinations rather than true and solid virtues that have taken root in us. Prior to victory over this fault, the fountain of graces is not yet adequately opened on our soul, for we still seek ourselves too much and do not live sufficiently for God.

In addition, we must overcome pusillanimity, which leads us to think that our predominant fault cannot be eradicated. With grace we can overcome it, because, as the Council of Trent says, quoting St. Augustine: "God never commands the impossible; but in giving us His precepts, He commands us to do what we can, and to ask for the grace to accomplish what we cannot do." [10]

It has been said that the spiritual combat is in this case more necessary than victory, for, if we dispense ourselves from this struggle, we abandon the interior life, we no longer tend toward perfection. We must not make peace with our faults. Moreover, credence must not be given to our adversary when he seeks to persuade us that this struggle is suitable only for the Saints that they may reach the highest regions of spirituality. The truth is that without this persevering and efficacious struggle we cannot sincerely aspire to Christian perfection, toward which the supreme precept makes it a duty for all of us to tend. This precept is, in fact, without limit: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart and with thy whole soul and with all thy strength and with all thy mind: and thy neighbor as thyself." [11]

Without this struggle, there is no interior joy or peace, for the tranquillity of order or peace comes from the spirit of sacrifice. It alone establishes us interiorly in order by putting to death all that is inordinate in us. [12]

Lastly, charity, the love of God and of souls in God, finally prevails completely over the predominant fault; it then truly occupies the first place in our soul and reigns there effectively.

Mortification, which makes our principal fault disappear, delivers us and assures the predominance in our soul of our true natural qualities and of our special attraction of grace. Thus little by little, we grow to be ourselves, in the broad sense of the word, that is, to be supernaturally ourselves minus our defects. We do not have to copy in a more or less servile manner another's qualities, or enter a uniform mold that is the same for all. There is a great variety in human personalities, just as no two leaves or flowers are perfectly similar. But a person's temperament must not be crushed; it must be transformed while keeping whatever is good in it. In our temperament, our character must be the imprint of the acquired and infused virtues, especially of the theological virtues. Then, instead of instinctively referring everything to self, as is the case when the predominant fault reigns, we will turn everything back to God, think almost continually of Him, and live for Him alone; at the same time we will lead to Him those with whom we come into contact.



1. Our individual temperament is generally quite determined along one line, according to the principle, natura determinatur ad unum. This is why it must be perfected by the different virtues, which will permit us to act in a reasonable and Christian manner, under different circumstances, in relation to different people: for example, in relation to superiors, inferiors, and equals, and according to the various situations in which we are placed.
2. Matt. 13:24 f.
3. Ibid., 39.
4. St. Thomas would see in this an application of the principle formulated by Aristotle, which the Saint quotes often: Qualis unusquisque est, talis finis videtur ei; that is, "Every man judges of what is good according to his good or evil interior dispositions."
5. John 8:34.
6. Mark 3:17.
7. Luke 9:55 f.
8. See 1 John 3:18, 23.
9. Cf. IIa IIae, q. 82, a. 1 f.
10. Council of Trent, Sess. VI, chap. 2.
11. Luke 10:27.
12. Sloth is one of the predominant faults most difficult to overcome. However, success is possible with the help of grace.]]> THE PREDOMINATE FAULT
Father Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P.
Imprimatur and Nihil Obstat, 1948


AFTER treating of the principal sins to be avoided and of their roots and consequences to be mortified, it is fitting that we discuss in a special way the predominant fault that exists in each of us. That we may proceed with order, we must first see in what this fault consists, then how to recognize or discern it, and lastly how to combat it.


DEFINITION OF THE PREDOMINANT FAULT

The predominant fault is the defect in us that tends to prevail over the others, and thereby over our manner of feeling, judging, sympathizing, willing, and acting. It is a defect that has in each of us an intimate relation to our individual temperament. [1] There are temperaments inclined to effeminacy, indolence, sloth, gluttony, and sensuality. Others are inclined especially to anger and pride. We do not all climb the same slope toward the summit of perfection: those who are effeminate by temperament must by prayer, grace, and virtue become strong; and those who are naturally strong, to the point of easily becoming severe, must, by working at themselves and by grace, become gentle.

Before this progressive transformation of our temperament, the predominant defect in the soul often makes itself felt. It is our domestic enemy, dwelling in our interior; for, if it develops, it may succeed in completely ruining the work of grace or the interior life. At times it is like a crack in a wall that seems to be solid but is not so; like a crevice, imperceptible at times but deep, in the beautiful facade of a building, which a vigorous jolt may shake to the foundations. For example, an antipathy, an instinctive aversion to someone, may, if it is not watched over and corrected by right reason, the spirit of faith, and charity, produce disasters in the soul and lead it to grave injustice. By yielding to such an antipathy, it does itself far more harm than it does its neighbor, for it is much more harmful to commit injustice than to be the object of it.

The predominant fault is so much the more dangerous as it often compromises our principal good point, which is a happy inclination of our nature that ought to develop and to be increased by grace. For example, a man is naturally inclined to gentleness; but if by reason of his predominant fault, which may be effeminacy, his gentleness degenerates into weakness, into excessive indulgence, he may even reach the complete loss of energy. Another, on the contrary, is naturally inclined to fortitude, but if he gives free rein to his irascible temperament, fortitude in him degenerates into unreasonable violence, the cause of every type of disorder.

In every man there is a mixture of good and bad inclinations; there is a predominant fault and also a natural quality. If we are in the state of grace, we have a special attraction of grace, which generally perfects first of all what is best in our nature, and then radiates over that which is less good. Some are thus more inclined toward contemplation, others toward action. Particular care must be taken that the predominant fault does not snuff out our principal natural quality or our special attraction of grace. Otherwise our soul would resemble a field of wheat invaded by tares or cockle, of which the Gospel speaks. And we have an adversary, the devil, who seeks to foster the growth of our predominant fault that he may place us in conflict with those who work with us in the Lord's field. Christ Himself tells us: "The kingdom of Heaven is likened to a man that sowed good seed in his field. But while men were asleep, his enemy came and oversowed cockle among the wheat and went his way." [2] Christ explains that the enemy is the devil, [3] who seeks to destroy the work of God by creating disunion among those who, in a holy manner, ought to collaborate in the same work for eternity. He is skillful in exaggerating in our eyes the defects of our neighbor, in transforming a grain of sand into a mountain, in setting up, as it were, a magnifying glass in our imagination, that we may become irritated at our brethren instead of working with them. Considering all this, we can see what evil may spring up in each of us from our principal fault if we are not most attentive to it. At times it is like a devouring worm in a beautiful fruit.


HOW TO RECOGNIZE THE PREDOMINANT FAULT

Evidently it is of primary importance that we recognize our predominant fault and have no illusions about it. This is so much the more necessary as our adversary, the enemy of our soul, knows it quite well and makes use of it to stir up trouble in and about us. In the citadel of our interior life, which is defended by the different virtues, the predominant fault is the weak spot, undefended by the theological and moral virtues. The enemy of souls seeks exactly this easily vulnerable point in each one, and he finds it without difficulty. Therefore, we must recognize it also.

But how can we discern it? For beginners who are sincere, this is quite easy. But later the predominant fault is less apparent, for it tries to hide itself and to put on the appearances of a virtue: pride clothes itself in the outward appearances of magnanimity, and pusillanimity seeks to cover itself With those of humility. Yet we must succeed in discerning the predominant fault, for if we do not know it, we cannot fight it; and if we do not fight it, we have no true interior life.

That we may discern it, we must first of all ask God for light: "Lord, make me know the obstacles I more or less consciously place in the way of the working of Thy grace in me. Then give me the strength to rid myself of them, and, if I am negligent in doing so, do Thou deign to free me from them, though I should suffer greatly."

After thus asking sincerely for light, we must make a serious examination. How? By asking ourselves: "Toward what do my most ordinary preoccupations tend, in the morning when I awake, or when I am alone? Where do my thoughts and desires go spontaneously?" We should keep in mind that the predominant fault, which easily commands all our passions, takes on the appearance of a virtue and, if it is not opposed, it may lead to impenitence. Judas fell into impenitence through avarice, which he did not will to dominate; it led him to impenitence like a violent wind that hurls a ship on the rocks.

A second step in discerning the predominant fault, is to ask ourselves: "What is generally the cause or source of my sadness and joy? What is the general motive of my actions, the ordinary origin of my sins, especially when it is not a question of an accidental sin, but rather a succession of sins or a state of resistance to grace, notably when this resistance persists for several days and leads me to omit my exercises of piety?" Then we must seek sincerely to know the motive of the soul's refusal to return to the good.

In addition, we must ask ourselves: "What does my director think of this? In his opinion, what is my predominant fault? He is a better judge than I am." No one, in fact, is a good judge in his own case; here self-love deceives us. Often our director has discovered this fault before we have; perhaps he has tried more than once to talk to us about it. Have we not sought to excuse ourselves? Excuses come promptly, for the predominant fault easily excites all our passions: it commands them as a master, and they obey instantly. Thus, wounded self-love immediately excites irony, anger, impatience.

Moreover, when the predominant fault has taken root in us, it experiences a particular repugnance to being unmasked and fought, because it wishes to reign in us. This condition sometimes reaches such a point that, when our neighbor accuses us of this fault, we reply that we have many bad habits, but truly not the one mentioned. [4]

The predominant fault may also be recognized by the temptations that our enemy arouses most frequently in us, for he attacks us especially through this weak point in our soul.

Lastly, in moments of true fervor the inspirations of the Holy Ghost ask us for the sacrifice of this particular fault.

If we have sincere recourse to these different means of discernment, it will not be too difficult for us to recognize this interior enemy which we bear within ourselves and which enslaves us: "Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin," [5] says our Lord. It is like an interior prison that we bear about with us wherever we go. We must earnestly aspire to deliverance.

It would be a great grace for us if we were to meet a Saint who would say: "This is your predominant fault and this your principal attraction of grace which you must follow generously to reach union with God." In this way Christ applied the name, "sons of thunder" (Boanerges) [6] to the young Apostles James and John who wished to call down fire from Heaven on a city that had refused to receive them. We read in St. Luke: "He rebuked them, saying: You know not of what spirit you are. The Son of man came not to destroy souls, but to save." [7] In the school of the Savior, the Boanerges became such gentle souls that toward the end of his life St. John the Evangelist could say only one thing: "My little children, ... love one another." [8] When asked why he always repeated the same exhortation, he used to reply: "This is His commandment. ... And he that keepeth His commandments, abideth in Him and He in him." John had lost nothing of his ardor, of his thirst for justice, but it had become spiritualized and was accompanied by a great gentleness.


HOW TO COMBAT THE PREDOMINANT FAULT

Because the predominant fault is our principal interior enemy, we must combat it. When it is conquered, temptations are no longer very dangerous, but are rather occasions of progress.

The predominant fault is not conquered, however, as long as there is no true progress in piety or the interior life, as long as the soul has not attained to a true and stable fervor of will; in other words, to that promptness of the will in the service of God which is, according to St. Thomas, the essence of true devotion. [9] In this spiritual warfare, we must have recourse to three principal means: prayer, examination of conscience, and a sanction.

Our prayer must be sincere: "Lord, show me the principal obstacle to my sanctification, the one that hinders me from profiting by graces and also by the exterior difficulties that would work to the good of my soul if I had greater recourse to Thee when they arise." The Saints went so far as to say, as St. Louis Bertrand did: "Lord, here burn, here cut, and dry up in me all that hinders me from going to Thee, that Thou mayest spare me in eternity." Blessed Nicholas of Flue used to pray: "Lord, take from me everything that hinders me from going to Thee. Give me all that will lead me to Thee. Take me from myself and give me to Thyself."

This prayer does not dispense us from self-examination; on the contrary, it leads to it.

And, as St. Ignatius says, it is especially suitable for beginners to write down each week the number of times they have yielded to their predominant fault which seeks to reign in them like a despot. It is easier to laugh fruitlessly at this method than to apply it fruitfully. If we keep track of the money we spend and receive, it is still more useful to know what we lose and what we gain from the spiritual point of view for eternity.

It is also highly proper to impose a sanction, or penance, on ourselves each time we fall into this defect. This penance may take the form of a prayer, a moment of silence, an exterior or an interior mortification. It makes reparation for the fault and satisfaction for the penalty due it. At the same time we acquire more circumspection for the future. Thus many persons have cured themselves of the habit of cursing by imposing on themselves the obligation of giving an alms in reparation each time they fail.

Before conquering our predominant fault, our virtues are often, to speak more properly, natural good inclinations rather than true and solid virtues that have taken root in us. Prior to victory over this fault, the fountain of graces is not yet adequately opened on our soul, for we still seek ourselves too much and do not live sufficiently for God.

In addition, we must overcome pusillanimity, which leads us to think that our predominant fault cannot be eradicated. With grace we can overcome it, because, as the Council of Trent says, quoting St. Augustine: "God never commands the impossible; but in giving us His precepts, He commands us to do what we can, and to ask for the grace to accomplish what we cannot do." [10]

It has been said that the spiritual combat is in this case more necessary than victory, for, if we dispense ourselves from this struggle, we abandon the interior life, we no longer tend toward perfection. We must not make peace with our faults. Moreover, credence must not be given to our adversary when he seeks to persuade us that this struggle is suitable only for the Saints that they may reach the highest regions of spirituality. The truth is that without this persevering and efficacious struggle we cannot sincerely aspire to Christian perfection, toward which the supreme precept makes it a duty for all of us to tend. This precept is, in fact, without limit: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart and with thy whole soul and with all thy strength and with all thy mind: and thy neighbor as thyself." [11]

Without this struggle, there is no interior joy or peace, for the tranquillity of order or peace comes from the spirit of sacrifice. It alone establishes us interiorly in order by putting to death all that is inordinate in us. [12]

Lastly, charity, the love of God and of souls in God, finally prevails completely over the predominant fault; it then truly occupies the first place in our soul and reigns there effectively.

Mortification, which makes our principal fault disappear, delivers us and assures the predominance in our soul of our true natural qualities and of our special attraction of grace. Thus little by little, we grow to be ourselves, in the broad sense of the word, that is, to be supernaturally ourselves minus our defects. We do not have to copy in a more or less servile manner another's qualities, or enter a uniform mold that is the same for all. There is a great variety in human personalities, just as no two leaves or flowers are perfectly similar. But a person's temperament must not be crushed; it must be transformed while keeping whatever is good in it. In our temperament, our character must be the imprint of the acquired and infused virtues, especially of the theological virtues. Then, instead of instinctively referring everything to self, as is the case when the predominant fault reigns, we will turn everything back to God, think almost continually of Him, and live for Him alone; at the same time we will lead to Him those with whom we come into contact.



1. Our individual temperament is generally quite determined along one line, according to the principle, natura determinatur ad unum. This is why it must be perfected by the different virtues, which will permit us to act in a reasonable and Christian manner, under different circumstances, in relation to different people: for example, in relation to superiors, inferiors, and equals, and according to the various situations in which we are placed.
2. Matt. 13:24 f.
3. Ibid., 39.
4. St. Thomas would see in this an application of the principle formulated by Aristotle, which the Saint quotes often: Qualis unusquisque est, talis finis videtur ei; that is, "Every man judges of what is good according to his good or evil interior dispositions."
5. John 8:34.
6. Mark 3:17.
7. Luke 9:55 f.
8. See 1 John 3:18, 23.
9. Cf. IIa IIae, q. 82, a. 1 f.
10. Council of Trent, Sess. VI, chap. 2.
11. Luke 10:27.
12. Sloth is one of the predominant faults most difficult to overcome. However, success is possible with the help of grace.]]> <![CDATA[Father Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange: The Spiritual Age of Beginners]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=8079 Mon, 16 Mar 2026 10:59:14 +0000 Stone]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=8079 THE SPIRITUAL AGE OF BEGINNERS
by Father Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P.

TAKEN FROM THE THREE AGES OF THE INTERIOR LIFE, VOL. 1
Imprimatur and Nihil Obstat, 1948


WE HAVE seen that St. Thomas, when speaking of the three ages of the spiritual life, remarks that "at first it is incumbent on man to occupy himself chiefly with avoiding sin and resisting his concupiscences, which move him in opposition to charity." [1]

The Christian in the state of grace, who begins to give himself to the service of God and to tend toward the perfection of charity according to the demands of the supreme precept, has a mentality or state of soul which can be described by observing particularly knowledge of self and of God, love of self and of God.


SELF-KNOWLEDGE AND KNOWLEDGE OF GOD

Beginners have an initial knowledge of themselves; little by little they discern the defects they have, the remains of sins that have already been forgiven, and new failings that are more or less deliberate and voluntary. If these beginners are generous, they seek, not to excuse themselves, but to correct themselves, and the Lord shows them their wretchedness and poverty, making them understand, however, that they must consider it only in the light of Divine mercy, which exhorts them to advance. They must daily examine their consciences and learn to overcome themselves that they may not follow the unconsidered impulse of their passions.

However, they know themselves as yet only in a superficial way. They have not discovered what a treasure is Baptism placed in their souls, and they are ignorant of all the self-love and the often unconscious egoism still continuing in them and revealing itself from time to time under a sharp vexation or reproach. Often they have a clearer perception of this self-love in others than in themselves; they ought to remember Christ's words: "Why seest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye; and seest not the beam that is in thy own eye?" [2] The beginner bears in himself a diamond embedded in a mass of gross material, and he does not yet know the value of the diamond or all the defects of the other material. God loves him far more than he believes, but with a strong love that has its exigencies and that demands abnegation if the soul is to reach true liberty of spirit.

The beginner rises gradually to a certain knowledge of God which is still very dependent on sensible things. He knows God in the mirror of the natural world or in that of the parables: for example, in those of the prodigal son, of the lost sheep, of the good shepherd. This is the straight movement of elevation toward God, taking its point of departure from a simple, sensible fact. It is not yet the spiral movement rising toward God by the consideration of the various mysteries of salvation, nor is it the circular movement of contemplation that ever returns to the radiating Divine goodness, as the eagle likes to look at the sun while describing the same circle several times in the air. [3]

The beginner is not yet familiar with the mysteries of salvation, with those of the redeeming Incarnation, of the life of the Church. He cannot yet feel habitually inclined to see therein the radiation of the Divine goodness. However, he sometimes has this view while considering our Savior's Passion, but he does not yet penetrate the depths of the mystery of the redemption. His view of the things of God is still superficial; he has not reached maturity of spirit.


THE LOVE OF GOD IN ITS EARLY STAGES

In this State there is a proportionate love of God. Truly generous beginners love the Lord with a holy fear of sin which makes them flee mortal sin, and even deliberate venial sins, by the mortification of the senses and of the inordinate passions, or of the threefold concupiscence of the flesh, the eyes, and pride. This sign indicates that they have the beginning of a deep, voluntary love.

Nevertheless, a number practically neglect necessary mortification, and resemble a man who would like to begin climbing a mountain, not from the base of the mountain but halfway up the side. When they do this, they ascend in their imagination only, not in reality; they travel rapidly, and their first enthusiasm will die out as quickly as burning straw. They will believe that they have a knowledge of spiritual things and will abandon them after having barely examined them superficially. This is, alas, frequently the case.

If, on the contrary, the beginner is generous and seriously wishes to advance, though not wishing to go more quickly than grace or to practice beyond the bounds of obedience an excessive mortification inspired by secret pride, it is not unusual for him to receive as recompense sensible consolations in prayer or in the study of Divine things. The Lord thus conquers his sensibility, since he still lives chiefly by it. Sensible grace, so called because it reacts on the sensibility, turns it from dangerous things and draws it toward our Lord and His holy Mother. At these times, the generous beginner already loves God with his whole heart, but not yet with his whole soul, with all his strength, or with all his mind. Spiritual writers often speak of this "milk of consolation" which is then given. St. Paul himself says: "And I, brethren, could not speak to you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, as unto little ones in Christ. I gave you milk to drink, not meat; for you are not able as yet." [4]

Then what generally happens? Almost all beginners, on receiving these sensible consolations, take too much complacency in them, as if they were an end, not a means. They then fall into a certain spiritual gluttony accompanied by rash haste and curiosity in the study of Divine things, by unconscious pride that makes them wish to talk about these things as if they were already masters of the subject. Then, says St. John of the Cross, [5] the seven capital sins reappear, no longer under their gross form but as they apply to spiritual things. [6] They are so many obstacles to true and solid piety.

What follows from this? According to the logic of the spiritual life, it follows that a second conversion is necessary, that described by St. John of the Cross under the name of the passive purification of the senses "common to the greater number of beginners" [7] in order to introduce them into "the illuminative way of proficients, where God nourishes the soul by infused contemplation." [8]
This purification is manifested by a prolonged sensible aridity in which the beginner is stripped of the sensible consolations wherein he delighted too greatly. If in this aridity there is a keen desire for God, for His reign in us, and the fear of offending Him, it is a sign that a Divine purification is taking place. And this is clearer still if to this keen desire for God is added difficulty in prayer, in making multiple and reasoned considerations, and the inclination to look simply at God. [9] This inclination is the third sign, which indicates that the second conversion is taking place and that the soul is raised toward a higher form of life, which is that of the illuminative way of proficients.

If the soul bears this purification well, its sensibility submits more and more to the spirit. Often it must then generously repulse temptations against chastity and patience, virtues that have their seat in the sensitive appetites and that are strengthened by this struggle.

In this crisis the Lord tills the soul, so to speak; He greatly deepens the furrow He traced at the moment of justification or the first conversion. He extirpates the evil roots or remains of sin. He shows the vanity of the things of the world, of the quest for honors and dignities. Gradually a new life begins, as in the natural order when the child becomes an adolescent.

This crisis is, however, more or less well borne; many persons are not generous enough and may become retarded souls. Others follow Divine inspiration with docility and become proficients.

Such are the chief distinctive marks of the spiritual age of beginners: a knowledge of self still superficial; an initial knowledge of God as yet very dependent on sensible things; a love of God manifesting itself by the struggle to flee sin. If this struggle is generous, it is as a rule rewarded by sensible consolations, on which one too often dwells. Then the Lord takes them away and by this spoliation introduces one into a spiritual life that is more detached from the senses. It is easy to see the logical and vital sequence of the phases through which the soul must pass. It is not a mechanical juxtaposition of successive states, but the organic development of the interior life which thus becomes more and more an intimate conversation of the soul, no longer only with itself but with God.


THE GENEROSITY REQUIRED IN BEGINNERS

Of great importance to note here is the generosity necessary in the beginner from the very first moment if he is to reach intimate union with God and the penetrating and sweet contemplation of Divine things.

On this subject we read in The Dialogue of St. Catherine of Siena: "You were all invited, generally and in particular, by My Truth, when He cried in the Temple, saying: 'Whosoever thirsteth, let him come to Me and drink, for I am the fountain of the water of life.' ... So that you are invited to the fountain of living water of grace, and it is right for you, with perseverance, to keep by Him Who is made for you a bridge, not being turned back by any contrary wind that may arise, either of prosperity or adversity, and to persevere till you find Me, Who am the giver of the water of life, by means of this sweet and loving Word, My Only-begotten Son." [10]
St. Thomas speaks likewise when he comments on the words: "Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice: for they shall have their fill." "The Lord," he says, "wishes us to thirst after that justice which consists in rendering to every man and to God first of all what is His due. He wishes us never to be satiated on earth ... but rather that our desire should grow always. ... Blessed are they that have this insatiable desire; they will receive eternal life and here below an abundance of spiritual goods in the accomplishment of the precepts, according to the words of the Master: [11] 'My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me, that I may perfect His work.'" [12]

The Angelic Doctor says again in his commentary on St. John, 7:37: "All that thirst are invited when our Lord says: 'If any man thirst, let him come to Me and drink.' Isaias had said: 'All you that thirst, come to the (living) waters.' [13] He calls those who thirst, for it is they who desire to serve God. God does not accept a forced service, but He 'loveth a cheerful giver.' [14] He calls not only some, but all who thirst; and He invites them to drink this spiritual beverage which is Divine wisdom, capable of satiating our desires. And once we have found this Divine wisdom, we shall wish to give it to others. [15] This is why He says to us: 'He that believeth in Me, as the Scripture saith: Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.'" [16]

To reach this overflowing spring, one must thirst for virtue and walk generously along the narrow way of abnegation, in the spiritual way which is narrow for the senses, but which, for the spirit, becomes immense like God Himself to Whom it leads. The road to perdition, on the other hand, while broad at first for the senses, in turn becomes narrower and narrower for the spirit and leads to Hell. [17]

St. Teresa, recalling these same words of the Master: "If any man thirst, let him come to Me, and drink," likewise writes: "Remember, our Lord invited 'any man': He is truth itself; His word cannot be doubted. If all had not been included, He would not have addressed everybody, nor would He have said: 'Let all men come, for they will lose nothing by it, and I will give to drink to those I think fit for it.' But as He said unconditionally: 'If any man thirst, let him come to Me,' I feel sure that, unless they stop halfway, none will fail to drink of this living water. May our Lord, Who has promised to grant it us, give us grace to seek it as we ought, for His Own sake." [18] In the same chapter the Saint says: "When God gives you this water, sisters, this comparison will please you, and you will understand, as those do who drink of it, how genuine love of God that is powerful and freed from earthly dross rises above mortal things and is sovereign over all the elements of this world. ... Our souls are so dear to Him that He prevents their running into danger while He is bestowing this grace on them. He at once calls them to His side, and in a single instant shows them more truths and gives them a clearer knowledge of the nothingness of all things than we could gain for ourselves in many years." In chapter 21, the Saint adds: "Let us return to speak of those who wish to travel by this path to the very end, and to the fount itself, where they will drink of the water of life. Although there are books written on the subject, yet I do not think it will be waste of time to speak of it here. How must one begin? I maintain that this is the chief point; in fact, that everything depends on people having a great and a most resolute determination never to halt until they reach their journey's end, happen what may, whatever the consequences are, cost what it will, let who will blame them, whether they reach the goal or die on the road, or lose heart to bear the trials they encounter, or the earth itself goes to pieces beneath their feet."

St. John of the Cross expresses himself in like manner in the prologue of The Ascent of Mount Carmel and in The Living Flame of Love. [19]

The generosity of which all these great Saints speak in the quotations given is none other than the virtue of magnanimity; but it is no longer only that described by Aristotle; it is infused Christian magnanimity described by St. Thomas in IIa IIae, q. 129 of the Summa.

The magnanimous man, says the Saint, seeks great things worthy of honor, but he considers that honors themselves are practically nothing. [20] He does not let himself be exalted by prosperity or cast down by difficulties. Is there anything greater on earth than genuine Christian perfection? The magnanimous man dreads neither obstacles nor critics nor scorn, if they must be borne for a great cause. He does not allow himself to be at all intimidated by free-thinkers, and pays no attention to their utterances. He pays far more attention to truth than to the opinions of men which are often false. If this generosity is not always understood by those who wish an easier life, it has, nevertheless, a true value in itself. And if it is united to humility, it pleases God and cannot fail of a reward.

St. Francis de Sales, in his Fifth Conference, speaks admirably of generosity in its relations with humility, which ought always to accompany it. He says:

Humility believes it can do nothing, considering the knowledge of our poverty and weakness ...; and, on the contrary, generosity makes us say with St. Paul: "I can do all things in Him Who strengtheneth me." Humility makes us distrust ourselves, and generosity makes us trust in God. ... There are people who amuse themselves with a false and silly humility, which hinders them from seeing in themselves the good that God has given them. They are very wrong in this; for the goods that God has placed in us should be recognized ... that we may glorify the Divine goodness which bestowed them on us. ... Humility which does not produce generosity is indubitably false. ... Generosity relies on trust in God and courageously undertakes to do all that is commanded ... no matter how difficult it may be. ... What can hinder me from succeeding, it says, since the Scriptures declare that "He, who hath begun a good work in you, will perfect it unto the day of Christ Jesus"? [21]

Such ought to be the generosity of beginners. All the Saints hold the same doctrine. Christ Himself declared: "No man putting his hand to the plow and looking back is fit for the kingdom of God." [22] One must belong to those of whom He said: "Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice: for they shall have their fill"; here on earth they will taste, as it were, the prelude of eternal life and by working for the salvation of others will inspire in them a holy desire for this life.


1. Summa, IIa IIae, q. 4. a. 9.
2. Matt. 7:3.
3. Cf. IIa IIae, q. 180, a. 6.
4. See 1 Cor. 3:1 f.
5. The Dark Night of the Soul, Bk. I, chaps. 1-7.
6. In others they reappear in regard to the things of the intellectual life, by unconscious self-seeking in study.
7. The Dark Night of the Soul, Bk. I, chap. 8.
8. Ibid., chap. 14.
9. Ibid., chap. 9: The three signs of the passive purification of the senses, in which infused contemplation begins.
10. Dialogue, chap. 53.
11. John 4:34.
12. In Matthaeum 5:6.
13. Isa. 55:1.
14. See 2 Cor. 9:7.
15.  St. Thomas, In Joannem 7:37: "All this is spiritual refection in the knowledge of Divine wisdom and truth; likewise, in the fulfilling of desires. ... Moreover, the fruit of this invitation is the overflowing of good on others."
16. John 7:38.
17. St. Thomas, In Matth. 7:14.
18. The Way of Perfection, chap. 19.
19. Stanza 2.
20. St. Thomas says (IIa IIae. q. 129. a. 4. c. and ad 3um) that magnanimity leads a man to wish to practice all the virtues with true greatness of soul. It is thus like the ornament of all the virtues. and one sees thereby its general influence. that indeed attributed by spiritual authors to generosity. Ibid., q. 134. a. 2 ad 3um; and Ia IIae, q. 66. a. 4 ad 3um.
21. Phil. 1:6.
22. Luke 9:62.]]> THE SPIRITUAL AGE OF BEGINNERS
by Father Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P.

TAKEN FROM THE THREE AGES OF THE INTERIOR LIFE, VOL. 1
Imprimatur and Nihil Obstat, 1948


WE HAVE seen that St. Thomas, when speaking of the three ages of the spiritual life, remarks that "at first it is incumbent on man to occupy himself chiefly with avoiding sin and resisting his concupiscences, which move him in opposition to charity." [1]

The Christian in the state of grace, who begins to give himself to the service of God and to tend toward the perfection of charity according to the demands of the supreme precept, has a mentality or state of soul which can be described by observing particularly knowledge of self and of God, love of self and of God.


SELF-KNOWLEDGE AND KNOWLEDGE OF GOD

Beginners have an initial knowledge of themselves; little by little they discern the defects they have, the remains of sins that have already been forgiven, and new failings that are more or less deliberate and voluntary. If these beginners are generous, they seek, not to excuse themselves, but to correct themselves, and the Lord shows them their wretchedness and poverty, making them understand, however, that they must consider it only in the light of Divine mercy, which exhorts them to advance. They must daily examine their consciences and learn to overcome themselves that they may not follow the unconsidered impulse of their passions.

However, they know themselves as yet only in a superficial way. They have not discovered what a treasure is Baptism placed in their souls, and they are ignorant of all the self-love and the often unconscious egoism still continuing in them and revealing itself from time to time under a sharp vexation or reproach. Often they have a clearer perception of this self-love in others than in themselves; they ought to remember Christ's words: "Why seest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye; and seest not the beam that is in thy own eye?" [2] The beginner bears in himself a diamond embedded in a mass of gross material, and he does not yet know the value of the diamond or all the defects of the other material. God loves him far more than he believes, but with a strong love that has its exigencies and that demands abnegation if the soul is to reach true liberty of spirit.

The beginner rises gradually to a certain knowledge of God which is still very dependent on sensible things. He knows God in the mirror of the natural world or in that of the parables: for example, in those of the prodigal son, of the lost sheep, of the good shepherd. This is the straight movement of elevation toward God, taking its point of departure from a simple, sensible fact. It is not yet the spiral movement rising toward God by the consideration of the various mysteries of salvation, nor is it the circular movement of contemplation that ever returns to the radiating Divine goodness, as the eagle likes to look at the sun while describing the same circle several times in the air. [3]

The beginner is not yet familiar with the mysteries of salvation, with those of the redeeming Incarnation, of the life of the Church. He cannot yet feel habitually inclined to see therein the radiation of the Divine goodness. However, he sometimes has this view while considering our Savior's Passion, but he does not yet penetrate the depths of the mystery of the redemption. His view of the things of God is still superficial; he has not reached maturity of spirit.


THE LOVE OF GOD IN ITS EARLY STAGES

In this State there is a proportionate love of God. Truly generous beginners love the Lord with a holy fear of sin which makes them flee mortal sin, and even deliberate venial sins, by the mortification of the senses and of the inordinate passions, or of the threefold concupiscence of the flesh, the eyes, and pride. This sign indicates that they have the beginning of a deep, voluntary love.

Nevertheless, a number practically neglect necessary mortification, and resemble a man who would like to begin climbing a mountain, not from the base of the mountain but halfway up the side. When they do this, they ascend in their imagination only, not in reality; they travel rapidly, and their first enthusiasm will die out as quickly as burning straw. They will believe that they have a knowledge of spiritual things and will abandon them after having barely examined them superficially. This is, alas, frequently the case.

If, on the contrary, the beginner is generous and seriously wishes to advance, though not wishing to go more quickly than grace or to practice beyond the bounds of obedience an excessive mortification inspired by secret pride, it is not unusual for him to receive as recompense sensible consolations in prayer or in the study of Divine things. The Lord thus conquers his sensibility, since he still lives chiefly by it. Sensible grace, so called because it reacts on the sensibility, turns it from dangerous things and draws it toward our Lord and His holy Mother. At these times, the generous beginner already loves God with his whole heart, but not yet with his whole soul, with all his strength, or with all his mind. Spiritual writers often speak of this "milk of consolation" which is then given. St. Paul himself says: "And I, brethren, could not speak to you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, as unto little ones in Christ. I gave you milk to drink, not meat; for you are not able as yet." [4]

Then what generally happens? Almost all beginners, on receiving these sensible consolations, take too much complacency in them, as if they were an end, not a means. They then fall into a certain spiritual gluttony accompanied by rash haste and curiosity in the study of Divine things, by unconscious pride that makes them wish to talk about these things as if they were already masters of the subject. Then, says St. John of the Cross, [5] the seven capital sins reappear, no longer under their gross form but as they apply to spiritual things. [6] They are so many obstacles to true and solid piety.

What follows from this? According to the logic of the spiritual life, it follows that a second conversion is necessary, that described by St. John of the Cross under the name of the passive purification of the senses "common to the greater number of beginners" [7] in order to introduce them into "the illuminative way of proficients, where God nourishes the soul by infused contemplation." [8]
This purification is manifested by a prolonged sensible aridity in which the beginner is stripped of the sensible consolations wherein he delighted too greatly. If in this aridity there is a keen desire for God, for His reign in us, and the fear of offending Him, it is a sign that a Divine purification is taking place. And this is clearer still if to this keen desire for God is added difficulty in prayer, in making multiple and reasoned considerations, and the inclination to look simply at God. [9] This inclination is the third sign, which indicates that the second conversion is taking place and that the soul is raised toward a higher form of life, which is that of the illuminative way of proficients.

If the soul bears this purification well, its sensibility submits more and more to the spirit. Often it must then generously repulse temptations against chastity and patience, virtues that have their seat in the sensitive appetites and that are strengthened by this struggle.

In this crisis the Lord tills the soul, so to speak; He greatly deepens the furrow He traced at the moment of justification or the first conversion. He extirpates the evil roots or remains of sin. He shows the vanity of the things of the world, of the quest for honors and dignities. Gradually a new life begins, as in the natural order when the child becomes an adolescent.

This crisis is, however, more or less well borne; many persons are not generous enough and may become retarded souls. Others follow Divine inspiration with docility and become proficients.

Such are the chief distinctive marks of the spiritual age of beginners: a knowledge of self still superficial; an initial knowledge of God as yet very dependent on sensible things; a love of God manifesting itself by the struggle to flee sin. If this struggle is generous, it is as a rule rewarded by sensible consolations, on which one too often dwells. Then the Lord takes them away and by this spoliation introduces one into a spiritual life that is more detached from the senses. It is easy to see the logical and vital sequence of the phases through which the soul must pass. It is not a mechanical juxtaposition of successive states, but the organic development of the interior life which thus becomes more and more an intimate conversation of the soul, no longer only with itself but with God.


THE GENEROSITY REQUIRED IN BEGINNERS

Of great importance to note here is the generosity necessary in the beginner from the very first moment if he is to reach intimate union with God and the penetrating and sweet contemplation of Divine things.

On this subject we read in The Dialogue of St. Catherine of Siena: "You were all invited, generally and in particular, by My Truth, when He cried in the Temple, saying: 'Whosoever thirsteth, let him come to Me and drink, for I am the fountain of the water of life.' ... So that you are invited to the fountain of living water of grace, and it is right for you, with perseverance, to keep by Him Who is made for you a bridge, not being turned back by any contrary wind that may arise, either of prosperity or adversity, and to persevere till you find Me, Who am the giver of the water of life, by means of this sweet and loving Word, My Only-begotten Son." [10]
St. Thomas speaks likewise when he comments on the words: "Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice: for they shall have their fill." "The Lord," he says, "wishes us to thirst after that justice which consists in rendering to every man and to God first of all what is His due. He wishes us never to be satiated on earth ... but rather that our desire should grow always. ... Blessed are they that have this insatiable desire; they will receive eternal life and here below an abundance of spiritual goods in the accomplishment of the precepts, according to the words of the Master: [11] 'My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me, that I may perfect His work.'" [12]

The Angelic Doctor says again in his commentary on St. John, 7:37: "All that thirst are invited when our Lord says: 'If any man thirst, let him come to Me and drink.' Isaias had said: 'All you that thirst, come to the (living) waters.' [13] He calls those who thirst, for it is they who desire to serve God. God does not accept a forced service, but He 'loveth a cheerful giver.' [14] He calls not only some, but all who thirst; and He invites them to drink this spiritual beverage which is Divine wisdom, capable of satiating our desires. And once we have found this Divine wisdom, we shall wish to give it to others. [15] This is why He says to us: 'He that believeth in Me, as the Scripture saith: Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.'" [16]

To reach this overflowing spring, one must thirst for virtue and walk generously along the narrow way of abnegation, in the spiritual way which is narrow for the senses, but which, for the spirit, becomes immense like God Himself to Whom it leads. The road to perdition, on the other hand, while broad at first for the senses, in turn becomes narrower and narrower for the spirit and leads to Hell. [17]

St. Teresa, recalling these same words of the Master: "If any man thirst, let him come to Me, and drink," likewise writes: "Remember, our Lord invited 'any man': He is truth itself; His word cannot be doubted. If all had not been included, He would not have addressed everybody, nor would He have said: 'Let all men come, for they will lose nothing by it, and I will give to drink to those I think fit for it.' But as He said unconditionally: 'If any man thirst, let him come to Me,' I feel sure that, unless they stop halfway, none will fail to drink of this living water. May our Lord, Who has promised to grant it us, give us grace to seek it as we ought, for His Own sake." [18] In the same chapter the Saint says: "When God gives you this water, sisters, this comparison will please you, and you will understand, as those do who drink of it, how genuine love of God that is powerful and freed from earthly dross rises above mortal things and is sovereign over all the elements of this world. ... Our souls are so dear to Him that He prevents their running into danger while He is bestowing this grace on them. He at once calls them to His side, and in a single instant shows them more truths and gives them a clearer knowledge of the nothingness of all things than we could gain for ourselves in many years." In chapter 21, the Saint adds: "Let us return to speak of those who wish to travel by this path to the very end, and to the fount itself, where they will drink of the water of life. Although there are books written on the subject, yet I do not think it will be waste of time to speak of it here. How must one begin? I maintain that this is the chief point; in fact, that everything depends on people having a great and a most resolute determination never to halt until they reach their journey's end, happen what may, whatever the consequences are, cost what it will, let who will blame them, whether they reach the goal or die on the road, or lose heart to bear the trials they encounter, or the earth itself goes to pieces beneath their feet."

St. John of the Cross expresses himself in like manner in the prologue of The Ascent of Mount Carmel and in The Living Flame of Love. [19]

The generosity of which all these great Saints speak in the quotations given is none other than the virtue of magnanimity; but it is no longer only that described by Aristotle; it is infused Christian magnanimity described by St. Thomas in IIa IIae, q. 129 of the Summa.

The magnanimous man, says the Saint, seeks great things worthy of honor, but he considers that honors themselves are practically nothing. [20] He does not let himself be exalted by prosperity or cast down by difficulties. Is there anything greater on earth than genuine Christian perfection? The magnanimous man dreads neither obstacles nor critics nor scorn, if they must be borne for a great cause. He does not allow himself to be at all intimidated by free-thinkers, and pays no attention to their utterances. He pays far more attention to truth than to the opinions of men which are often false. If this generosity is not always understood by those who wish an easier life, it has, nevertheless, a true value in itself. And if it is united to humility, it pleases God and cannot fail of a reward.

St. Francis de Sales, in his Fifth Conference, speaks admirably of generosity in its relations with humility, which ought always to accompany it. He says:

Humility believes it can do nothing, considering the knowledge of our poverty and weakness ...; and, on the contrary, generosity makes us say with St. Paul: "I can do all things in Him Who strengtheneth me." Humility makes us distrust ourselves, and generosity makes us trust in God. ... There are people who amuse themselves with a false and silly humility, which hinders them from seeing in themselves the good that God has given them. They are very wrong in this; for the goods that God has placed in us should be recognized ... that we may glorify the Divine goodness which bestowed them on us. ... Humility which does not produce generosity is indubitably false. ... Generosity relies on trust in God and courageously undertakes to do all that is commanded ... no matter how difficult it may be. ... What can hinder me from succeeding, it says, since the Scriptures declare that "He, who hath begun a good work in you, will perfect it unto the day of Christ Jesus"? [21]

Such ought to be the generosity of beginners. All the Saints hold the same doctrine. Christ Himself declared: "No man putting his hand to the plow and looking back is fit for the kingdom of God." [22] One must belong to those of whom He said: "Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice: for they shall have their fill"; here on earth they will taste, as it were, the prelude of eternal life and by working for the salvation of others will inspire in them a holy desire for this life.


1. Summa, IIa IIae, q. 4. a. 9.
2. Matt. 7:3.
3. Cf. IIa IIae, q. 180, a. 6.
4. See 1 Cor. 3:1 f.
5. The Dark Night of the Soul, Bk. I, chaps. 1-7.
6. In others they reappear in regard to the things of the intellectual life, by unconscious self-seeking in study.
7. The Dark Night of the Soul, Bk. I, chap. 8.
8. Ibid., chap. 14.
9. Ibid., chap. 9: The three signs of the passive purification of the senses, in which infused contemplation begins.
10. Dialogue, chap. 53.
11. John 4:34.
12. In Matthaeum 5:6.
13. Isa. 55:1.
14. See 2 Cor. 9:7.
15.  St. Thomas, In Joannem 7:37: "All this is spiritual refection in the knowledge of Divine wisdom and truth; likewise, in the fulfilling of desires. ... Moreover, the fruit of this invitation is the overflowing of good on others."
16. John 7:38.
17. St. Thomas, In Matth. 7:14.
18. The Way of Perfection, chap. 19.
19. Stanza 2.
20. St. Thomas says (IIa IIae. q. 129. a. 4. c. and ad 3um) that magnanimity leads a man to wish to practice all the virtues with true greatness of soul. It is thus like the ornament of all the virtues. and one sees thereby its general influence. that indeed attributed by spiritual authors to generosity. Ibid., q. 134. a. 2 ad 3um; and Ia IIae, q. 66. a. 4 ad 3um.
21. Phil. 1:6.
22. Luke 9:62.]]> <![CDATA[Small Catechism on the Spiritual Life by Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen O.C.D.]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=8022 Wed, 25 Feb 2026 22:32:30 +0000 Stone]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=8022 Small Catechism on the Spiritual Life
by Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen O.C.D.
(text in French published by Le Sel de la terre)


Dominicans of Avrillé | June 27, 2025

Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen O.C.D (1890-1953) was a consultant for the Congregation of Rites and professor of Spiritual Theology at the at the Discalced Carmelites School of Theology in Rome

He is also the author of the book Divine Intimacy: Meditations on the Interior Life for Every Day of the Year that appeared in editions of “The Carmel” in 1955.


Preface

This small catechism, first published in the magazine Vitae Carmelitana, was welcomed with joy by pious people who found in it peace and comfort. It could not be otherwise because it contains the substance of teachings with which for four centuries the Order of the reformed Carmel directs souls in the spiritual life.

The author, a specialist in this domain, has wanted to bring the faithful to the schools of St. Theresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross. He exposes in clear pages their method of mental prayer with developments received by their spiritual sons, being careful to keep themselves in line with Tradition. The readers of the Vitae Carmelitana, had many times expressed the desire to see gathered in one volume the lessons from which they drew the greatest advantages. So, in 1943 Fr. Gabriel prepared this catechism. He believed it good to change the original text a little, to render it more adapted to the conditions of those living in the world without changing the essential.

May the Seraphic Mother St. Theresa, the great mistress of the spiritual life, obtain the abundance of benedictions from on high for all those who will use this work where one of her children proposed to nourish the hearts of bread of the celestial doctrine. (Collect of the Saint)

- Fr. Eugene of St. Theresa of the Child Jesus


Chapter 1: Mental Prayer in the Contemplative Life


1. What is the Catholic Life?

The Catholic life is the life lived in conformity with the teaching of Our Lord Jesus Christ, according to which we must direct all our actions to the glory of God in loving Him and in observing His holy laws. The Catholic soul lives for God.


2. What is the Contemplative Life?

The Contemplative Life is a form of Catholic life in which one tries to live not only for God but also with God. It is not only for Religious but can be lived perfectly in the world. It is concentrated completely in the research of the Divine Intimacy, and in this goal during the day practices that which we call Spiritual Exercises. These are special exercises of prayer which must be accompanied by exercises of mortification because, as St. Theresa the great mistress of the contemplative life said, mental prayer and comforts do not go together.


3. What is the place of mental prayer in the Contemplative Life?

In the Contemplative Life, mental prayer takes the first place. Practically, the Contemplative Life is a life of mental prayer. For this reason the Contemplative Orders dedicate much time to prayer. In the Carmelite order, which is eminently contemplative, the central precept is one of continual mental prayer: that each one stays firm in his cell meditating day and night on the law of God and watching in prayer. The Carmelites perform many exercises of piety. They do mental prayer twice a day [one hour each time], assist at Mass, recite the Divine Office, put themselves in the presence of God during the day; without speaking of personal exercises of devotion.


4. What is prayer?

Prayer is a conversation with God in which we manifest to Him the desires of our heart. Prayer can be either vocal or mental.


5. What is vocal prayer?

Vocal prayer consists in the recitation of a formula which expresses our desires. For example, the Our Father, taught to man by Our Lord Himself, and in which we ask God seven things. We recite this formula with the intention to honor God. Often we do not think of, in a distinct way, the sense of the words that we pronounce. But that does not stop our prayer from being a true prayer provided that our soul remains turned to God with the desire to honor Him. This prayer can be recited to the Saints with the same desire to honor them.


6. What is mental prayer?

This consists in speaking to God with the heart, not with prepared formulas of learned by heart, but in a spontaneous manner.


7. What do we say to God in mental prayer?

In this form of prayer, we are able to show God all desires that we have in our heart. But following the teachings of St. Theresa, a contemplative soul will prefer to say that we love Him or want to love Him.


8. Why is the love of God often spoken about?

Because this love is the substance of the contemplative life. The contemplative souls must become intimate friends of God and love precisely makes flower the friendship and introduces intimacy. St. Theresa wants us, in going to prayer, that we be convinced that God invites us to love Him in doing it and that we do it to answer His call.


9. Is it necessary to think in prayer?

It is not possible to love without having some thought on the loved object. To move God, one must think about Him. This thought can vary much according to who it is. It could consist of a prolonged reflection on the love of God for us, or could be a simple souvenir of God: His Goodness and love of us. In Consequence, in prayer we think only to love and nourish love. St. Theresa said in effect that prayer consists not in thinking much but in loving much.


10. What is love?

There is sensible love, and there is love of the will. Sensible love consists in a sentiment which carries us with affection towards a person; makes us feel pleasure in his presence or a souvenir of it. Love of the will consists in wanting the good for a person by free choice and determination of the will. Then when this love takes all our soul, one wants to be with the person loved, and consecrate to him one’s proper life.


11. Which of the two is better?

The love of the will is better because the will is, in us, that which is most personal. In the will resides our liberty, and it is precisely with it that we give ourselves to God. For this reason, God asks from man the gift of his will. The full consecration of man to God consists in this gift.

The sensible love is something complementary, of secondary importance. It does not depend on us to feel it while it depends on us to love with the will.


12. Why do we naturally desire the sensible love?

We desire it for its sweetness, and because it gives us comfort and consolation. But because of that, in the sensible love we often seek ourselves, while with the love of the will we seek God. God often suppress in us the sensible love, so that we will love more firmly with only the will.


13. With which love must we love God in prayer?

Certainly the love of the will is the most important. If the sensible love is there too, instead of seeking our own pleasure, we profit by its help to strengthen our will in its act to give itself to God. The sensible love lacking, we will follow the path with the will alone.


14. How can I occupy myself during an hour in this conversation of love with God?

In the beginning of the life of prayer many souls encounter great difficulties. They are bored and feel dissipated. One must remember that to pray is something that needs to be learnt. To teach it, the Carmel Theologians given to the study of prayer life have constructed a method of mental prayer.



Chapter II: The Method of Mental Prayer


1. What is meant by the method of mental prayer?

The method of mental prayer is the teaching which explains to us the way to pray with ease. We will indicate here the diverse acts to do one after another, in order to better do this holy exercise.


2. Is there a method of mental prayer in the Carmelite Order?

Yes, in the Carmelite Order we find a method of prayer from the beginning of the reform of St. Theresa. It was exposed in our two oldest “Instructions of novices” in Spanish (1591) and Italian (1605).


3. What is the origin of this method?

This method has its origin in the teachings of St. Theresa and St. John of the Cross. The definitive and concrete form was elaborated on by their disciples. We will give firstly a general explanation of this method, and then explain the various parts after.


4. Into how many parts is this method of mental prayer divided?

Normally we distinguish 6 or 7 parts or acts in this exercise of mental prayer: preparation, reading, meditation, (with the affectionate colloquia) thanksgiving, offering, and petition.


5. Do so many distinctions lead to a complication?

This distinction of parts does not complicate the practice of mental prayer. In effect, the two first are not mental prayer, but they make the beginning. The three last parts are purely complimentary and optional; we will omit them when we will no longer need them. It is reduced to the essential, the meditation accompanied with an intimate conversation with God (affectionate colloquia)


6. What must one consider to do the mental prayer well?

To understand the Carmelite method of prayer well, the conception of mental prayer exposed by St. Theresa must be present. In the eyes of the seraphic Virgin, mental prayer is an intimate conversation with God, in which we speak to Him especially of love, in answering His call to Love. The different parts of prayer have the aim of leading us easily to this loving conversation with Him.


7. How does the preparation serve this aim?

The preparation helps to put us in the Presence of God. It is not possible to speak intimately with someone if one is not close to Him. We must put ourselves in the Presence of God with a living Faith and in the humble attitude of a soul which recognizes itself as a soul of God.


8. What does reading do?

Reading supplies us with a subject for the loving conversation with God; conversation which can nourish itself in the consideration of the mysteries of Faith, and the gifts and graces received from God for us. In that, the love of God is manifested for us. But since it is not possible to speak of each of these things together, we can choose by the book the subject of which we want to occupy ourselves for the moment, and make it easier for our consideration in following the explanations and reflections of the book.


9. Why meditate?

The meditation or personal reflection that we do on the divine gifts or on the mystery that we have chosen in the lecture serves a double aim, one intellectual, and the other affective. The intellectual aim is to better understand the Love of God for us, love which accomplishes itself in the mystery of the divine gifts that we consider and so convince us more of the call to love made by God to our soul. The affective aim consists to move the will to the exercise of love and to its manifestation in responding to the Divine Invitation. The meditation so appears as an immediate preparation to the affective conversation with God.


10. In what way does one go from the meditation to the affectionate colloquia?

This passage must not be done at a precise moment mathematically determined, but in a spontaneous manner. In making personal reflections in the presence of God, and in seeing more closely by them how God loves us, the soul feels itself easily pushed to say the words of love. It happens often that the reflections that the soul made in itself continues them for some time in addressing words to God, and it serves to understand better His Love for us. Finally, the soul leaves all consideration to abandon itself fully to the exercise of love and its manifestation. In other terms, it passes to an affectionate colloquia. In this colloquia the soul says and repeats in a thousand ways to God that it loves Him, and that it wants to love Him, that it desires to prove Him its love.


11. Is there importance in the colloquia?

The colloquia has a very great importance, and it is the essential part of mental prayer. In it is realized directly the concept that St. Theresa had of mental prayer which consists in an intimate conversation with God to respond to His love for us. Also, the soul will be better able to occupy itself during so much time in prayer and even during an hour.


12. What is the aim of the three last parts of the mental prayer?

The three last parts or acts of mental prayer are: thanksgiving, offering and petition which aim at prolonging more easily our loving conversation with God. They are nothing else than affectionate acts more determined, of various manners, to manifest our love.


13. What is our attitude in these parts?

In the Thanksgiving we manifest to God our humble gratitude for His extreme love for us and for the lessons received from him.

In the offering, drawn by loving recognition, we want to give something to God.

In the petition, humbly convinced of our lowliness and weakness and desire to truly love God, we implore His help to succeed and be faithful to the resolutions formed in the offering.

These acts are, in the strict sense, a prolongation of the affectionate colloquia issued spontaneously from the meditation.


14. Must a determined order be used in the order of the parts of mental prayer?

The order indicated above is the most logical, but great liberty is allowed. We are free to change around these parts as we please. We can even repeat the same parts many times. It goes also for the meditation and the affectionate colloquia that we are able to alternate as we please in the same mental prayer.


15. Are the last parts necessary?

No. These acts are optional. One who can sufficiently occupy himself in the loving colloquia without recourse to these acts can skip them. But in the beginning of the life of prayer the attention of the soul is often helped by a variety of these actions. In this case the soul should have recourse to them.

(To be continued)]]> Small Catechism on the Spiritual Life
by Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen O.C.D.
(text in French published by Le Sel de la terre)


Dominicans of Avrillé | June 27, 2025

Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen O.C.D (1890-1953) was a consultant for the Congregation of Rites and professor of Spiritual Theology at the at the Discalced Carmelites School of Theology in Rome

He is also the author of the book Divine Intimacy: Meditations on the Interior Life for Every Day of the Year that appeared in editions of “The Carmel” in 1955.


Preface

This small catechism, first published in the magazine Vitae Carmelitana, was welcomed with joy by pious people who found in it peace and comfort. It could not be otherwise because it contains the substance of teachings with which for four centuries the Order of the reformed Carmel directs souls in the spiritual life.

The author, a specialist in this domain, has wanted to bring the faithful to the schools of St. Theresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross. He exposes in clear pages their method of mental prayer with developments received by their spiritual sons, being careful to keep themselves in line with Tradition. The readers of the Vitae Carmelitana, had many times expressed the desire to see gathered in one volume the lessons from which they drew the greatest advantages. So, in 1943 Fr. Gabriel prepared this catechism. He believed it good to change the original text a little, to render it more adapted to the conditions of those living in the world without changing the essential.

May the Seraphic Mother St. Theresa, the great mistress of the spiritual life, obtain the abundance of benedictions from on high for all those who will use this work where one of her children proposed to nourish the hearts of bread of the celestial doctrine. (Collect of the Saint)

- Fr. Eugene of St. Theresa of the Child Jesus


Chapter 1: Mental Prayer in the Contemplative Life


1. What is the Catholic Life?

The Catholic life is the life lived in conformity with the teaching of Our Lord Jesus Christ, according to which we must direct all our actions to the glory of God in loving Him and in observing His holy laws. The Catholic soul lives for God.


2. What is the Contemplative Life?

The Contemplative Life is a form of Catholic life in which one tries to live not only for God but also with God. It is not only for Religious but can be lived perfectly in the world. It is concentrated completely in the research of the Divine Intimacy, and in this goal during the day practices that which we call Spiritual Exercises. These are special exercises of prayer which must be accompanied by exercises of mortification because, as St. Theresa the great mistress of the contemplative life said, mental prayer and comforts do not go together.


3. What is the place of mental prayer in the Contemplative Life?

In the Contemplative Life, mental prayer takes the first place. Practically, the Contemplative Life is a life of mental prayer. For this reason the Contemplative Orders dedicate much time to prayer. In the Carmelite order, which is eminently contemplative, the central precept is one of continual mental prayer: that each one stays firm in his cell meditating day and night on the law of God and watching in prayer. The Carmelites perform many exercises of piety. They do mental prayer twice a day [one hour each time], assist at Mass, recite the Divine Office, put themselves in the presence of God during the day; without speaking of personal exercises of devotion.


4. What is prayer?

Prayer is a conversation with God in which we manifest to Him the desires of our heart. Prayer can be either vocal or mental.


5. What is vocal prayer?

Vocal prayer consists in the recitation of a formula which expresses our desires. For example, the Our Father, taught to man by Our Lord Himself, and in which we ask God seven things. We recite this formula with the intention to honor God. Often we do not think of, in a distinct way, the sense of the words that we pronounce. But that does not stop our prayer from being a true prayer provided that our soul remains turned to God with the desire to honor Him. This prayer can be recited to the Saints with the same desire to honor them.


6. What is mental prayer?

This consists in speaking to God with the heart, not with prepared formulas of learned by heart, but in a spontaneous manner.


7. What do we say to God in mental prayer?

In this form of prayer, we are able to show God all desires that we have in our heart. But following the teachings of St. Theresa, a contemplative soul will prefer to say that we love Him or want to love Him.


8. Why is the love of God often spoken about?

Because this love is the substance of the contemplative life. The contemplative souls must become intimate friends of God and love precisely makes flower the friendship and introduces intimacy. St. Theresa wants us, in going to prayer, that we be convinced that God invites us to love Him in doing it and that we do it to answer His call.


9. Is it necessary to think in prayer?

It is not possible to love without having some thought on the loved object. To move God, one must think about Him. This thought can vary much according to who it is. It could consist of a prolonged reflection on the love of God for us, or could be a simple souvenir of God: His Goodness and love of us. In Consequence, in prayer we think only to love and nourish love. St. Theresa said in effect that prayer consists not in thinking much but in loving much.


10. What is love?

There is sensible love, and there is love of the will. Sensible love consists in a sentiment which carries us with affection towards a person; makes us feel pleasure in his presence or a souvenir of it. Love of the will consists in wanting the good for a person by free choice and determination of the will. Then when this love takes all our soul, one wants to be with the person loved, and consecrate to him one’s proper life.


11. Which of the two is better?

The love of the will is better because the will is, in us, that which is most personal. In the will resides our liberty, and it is precisely with it that we give ourselves to God. For this reason, God asks from man the gift of his will. The full consecration of man to God consists in this gift.

The sensible love is something complementary, of secondary importance. It does not depend on us to feel it while it depends on us to love with the will.


12. Why do we naturally desire the sensible love?

We desire it for its sweetness, and because it gives us comfort and consolation. But because of that, in the sensible love we often seek ourselves, while with the love of the will we seek God. God often suppress in us the sensible love, so that we will love more firmly with only the will.


13. With which love must we love God in prayer?

Certainly the love of the will is the most important. If the sensible love is there too, instead of seeking our own pleasure, we profit by its help to strengthen our will in its act to give itself to God. The sensible love lacking, we will follow the path with the will alone.


14. How can I occupy myself during an hour in this conversation of love with God?

In the beginning of the life of prayer many souls encounter great difficulties. They are bored and feel dissipated. One must remember that to pray is something that needs to be learnt. To teach it, the Carmel Theologians given to the study of prayer life have constructed a method of mental prayer.



Chapter II: The Method of Mental Prayer


1. What is meant by the method of mental prayer?

The method of mental prayer is the teaching which explains to us the way to pray with ease. We will indicate here the diverse acts to do one after another, in order to better do this holy exercise.


2. Is there a method of mental prayer in the Carmelite Order?

Yes, in the Carmelite Order we find a method of prayer from the beginning of the reform of St. Theresa. It was exposed in our two oldest “Instructions of novices” in Spanish (1591) and Italian (1605).


3. What is the origin of this method?

This method has its origin in the teachings of St. Theresa and St. John of the Cross. The definitive and concrete form was elaborated on by their disciples. We will give firstly a general explanation of this method, and then explain the various parts after.


4. Into how many parts is this method of mental prayer divided?

Normally we distinguish 6 or 7 parts or acts in this exercise of mental prayer: preparation, reading, meditation, (with the affectionate colloquia) thanksgiving, offering, and petition.


5. Do so many distinctions lead to a complication?

This distinction of parts does not complicate the practice of mental prayer. In effect, the two first are not mental prayer, but they make the beginning. The three last parts are purely complimentary and optional; we will omit them when we will no longer need them. It is reduced to the essential, the meditation accompanied with an intimate conversation with God (affectionate colloquia)


6. What must one consider to do the mental prayer well?

To understand the Carmelite method of prayer well, the conception of mental prayer exposed by St. Theresa must be present. In the eyes of the seraphic Virgin, mental prayer is an intimate conversation with God, in which we speak to Him especially of love, in answering His call to Love. The different parts of prayer have the aim of leading us easily to this loving conversation with Him.


7. How does the preparation serve this aim?

The preparation helps to put us in the Presence of God. It is not possible to speak intimately with someone if one is not close to Him. We must put ourselves in the Presence of God with a living Faith and in the humble attitude of a soul which recognizes itself as a soul of God.


8. What does reading do?

Reading supplies us with a subject for the loving conversation with God; conversation which can nourish itself in the consideration of the mysteries of Faith, and the gifts and graces received from God for us. In that, the love of God is manifested for us. But since it is not possible to speak of each of these things together, we can choose by the book the subject of which we want to occupy ourselves for the moment, and make it easier for our consideration in following the explanations and reflections of the book.


9. Why meditate?

The meditation or personal reflection that we do on the divine gifts or on the mystery that we have chosen in the lecture serves a double aim, one intellectual, and the other affective. The intellectual aim is to better understand the Love of God for us, love which accomplishes itself in the mystery of the divine gifts that we consider and so convince us more of the call to love made by God to our soul. The affective aim consists to move the will to the exercise of love and to its manifestation in responding to the Divine Invitation. The meditation so appears as an immediate preparation to the affective conversation with God.


10. In what way does one go from the meditation to the affectionate colloquia?

This passage must not be done at a precise moment mathematically determined, but in a spontaneous manner. In making personal reflections in the presence of God, and in seeing more closely by them how God loves us, the soul feels itself easily pushed to say the words of love. It happens often that the reflections that the soul made in itself continues them for some time in addressing words to God, and it serves to understand better His Love for us. Finally, the soul leaves all consideration to abandon itself fully to the exercise of love and its manifestation. In other terms, it passes to an affectionate colloquia. In this colloquia the soul says and repeats in a thousand ways to God that it loves Him, and that it wants to love Him, that it desires to prove Him its love.


11. Is there importance in the colloquia?

The colloquia has a very great importance, and it is the essential part of mental prayer. In it is realized directly the concept that St. Theresa had of mental prayer which consists in an intimate conversation with God to respond to His love for us. Also, the soul will be better able to occupy itself during so much time in prayer and even during an hour.


12. What is the aim of the three last parts of the mental prayer?

The three last parts or acts of mental prayer are: thanksgiving, offering and petition which aim at prolonging more easily our loving conversation with God. They are nothing else than affectionate acts more determined, of various manners, to manifest our love.


13. What is our attitude in these parts?

In the Thanksgiving we manifest to God our humble gratitude for His extreme love for us and for the lessons received from him.

In the offering, drawn by loving recognition, we want to give something to God.

In the petition, humbly convinced of our lowliness and weakness and desire to truly love God, we implore His help to succeed and be faithful to the resolutions formed in the offering.

These acts are, in the strict sense, a prolongation of the affectionate colloquia issued spontaneously from the meditation.


14. Must a determined order be used in the order of the parts of mental prayer?

The order indicated above is the most logical, but great liberty is allowed. We are free to change around these parts as we please. We can even repeat the same parts many times. It goes also for the meditation and the affectionate colloquia that we are able to alternate as we please in the same mental prayer.


15. Are the last parts necessary?

No. These acts are optional. One who can sufficiently occupy himself in the loving colloquia without recourse to these acts can skip them. But in the beginning of the life of prayer the attention of the soul is often helped by a variety of these actions. In this case the soul should have recourse to them.

(To be continued)]]> <![CDATA[The Book of Destiny by Fr. Herman Kramer [1955]]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=7825 Mon, 29 Dec 2025 15:45:10 +0000 Stone]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=7825 The Book of Destiny
An Open Statement of the Authentic and Inspired Prophecies of the Old and New Testament
by Fr. Herman Bernard F. Leonard Kramer
Taken from here [slightly adapted].


NIHIL OBSTAT:
J. S. Considine, O.P.
Censor Deputatus

John M. Mueller, D.D.
IMPRIMATUR: * Bishop of Sioux City, Iowa
January 26, 1956


Originally published in 1955 by Buechler Publishing Company, Belleville, Illinois. Reprinted in 1972 by Apostolate of Christian Action, Fresno, California using entirely new type set under the author's supervision, from which this printing has been made.


+ + +


DEDICATION


This work is dedicated to the LITTLE LAMB, who is the ROOT OF DAVID, the HEAD of the Church, the MASTER and CENTRAL FIGURE OF HISTORY, the RULER over the kings of the earth, the KING of kings and the VICTOR over all evil powers, and who has been shaping the destiny of the world in His own Mysterious Manner since His Sacrificial Death on the Cross.


About the author: Father Herman B. Kramer was born in Petersburg, Iowa, March 24, 1884. He lived all his early life in Iowa, attending parish schools in the Diocese of Sioux City. He graduated from business college at the age of 21 with a degree in accounting. A year later, he entered St. Lawrence College (now Seminary) at Mt. Calvary, Wisconsin, completing a course in philosophy in five years. He studied theology at Innsbruck, Austria for one year. Ill health forced him to return to America, and he completed his studies at St. Paul Seminary, St. Paul, Minnesota, where he was ordained a priest in 1914.

He served as a priest in the Diocese of Sioux City for 40 years in various capacities, including a two-year term as chancellor and 37 years as a pastor. He is presently retired (1975) and residing in Oakland, California. Father Kramer learned to read and write seven languages. He became interested in the Apocalypse after reading it as a student in the seminary, and it later became a life-time study. His world famous Book of Destiny took 30 years to complete and is the result of these years of study.


FOREWORD

The title chosen for this book sets forth the contents of the inspired message revealed to St. John, the Apostle. It is a summing up of the prophetical work in the Bible by the Holy Spirit and a revelation of the Great Causes shaping future history which will constitute the destiny of mankind. This destiny will be created and developed by man's free will. It is the Book of Destiny, because it shows forth the destiny of the whole human race. It is building up now and will grow until the Day of Judgment. This building up began with the renewed persecution of the Christians by Trajan after the benign lull under the Emperor Nerva.

The Apocalypse received its name from the first word of these revelations. Whether St. John gave it this name or not cannot be established. The secrets of the future written in this book have mystified and intrigued the minds of the most inquisitive for nineteen hundred years. St. Vincent Ferrer five hundred years ago and St. Bernardine of Siena a half a century later threatened their hearers with the judgments enumerated in the Apocalypse, but their words were not well heeded. Yet the FIRST WOE was averted from the countries which they evangelized. For a hundred years now the secrets have been quite openly expressed and written about, though with some uncertainty and misgivings, but have not been noticed by the world. In the meantime events have succeeded with increasing speed and growth towards a denouement of the secrets of the GREAT WORLD DRAMA so long wrapped up in mysterious visions. Any day may flash upon the consciousness of men the DESTINY towards which mankind is hastening.


- The Author
]]> The Book of Destiny
An Open Statement of the Authentic and Inspired Prophecies of the Old and New Testament
by Fr. Herman Bernard F. Leonard Kramer
Taken from here [slightly adapted].


NIHIL OBSTAT:
J. S. Considine, O.P.
Censor Deputatus

John M. Mueller, D.D.
IMPRIMATUR: * Bishop of Sioux City, Iowa
January 26, 1956


Originally published in 1955 by Buechler Publishing Company, Belleville, Illinois. Reprinted in 1972 by Apostolate of Christian Action, Fresno, California using entirely new type set under the author's supervision, from which this printing has been made.


+ + +


DEDICATION


This work is dedicated to the LITTLE LAMB, who is the ROOT OF DAVID, the HEAD of the Church, the MASTER and CENTRAL FIGURE OF HISTORY, the RULER over the kings of the earth, the KING of kings and the VICTOR over all evil powers, and who has been shaping the destiny of the world in His own Mysterious Manner since His Sacrificial Death on the Cross.


About the author: Father Herman B. Kramer was born in Petersburg, Iowa, March 24, 1884. He lived all his early life in Iowa, attending parish schools in the Diocese of Sioux City. He graduated from business college at the age of 21 with a degree in accounting. A year later, he entered St. Lawrence College (now Seminary) at Mt. Calvary, Wisconsin, completing a course in philosophy in five years. He studied theology at Innsbruck, Austria for one year. Ill health forced him to return to America, and he completed his studies at St. Paul Seminary, St. Paul, Minnesota, where he was ordained a priest in 1914.

He served as a priest in the Diocese of Sioux City for 40 years in various capacities, including a two-year term as chancellor and 37 years as a pastor. He is presently retired (1975) and residing in Oakland, California. Father Kramer learned to read and write seven languages. He became interested in the Apocalypse after reading it as a student in the seminary, and it later became a life-time study. His world famous Book of Destiny took 30 years to complete and is the result of these years of study.


FOREWORD

The title chosen for this book sets forth the contents of the inspired message revealed to St. John, the Apostle. It is a summing up of the prophetical work in the Bible by the Holy Spirit and a revelation of the Great Causes shaping future history which will constitute the destiny of mankind. This destiny will be created and developed by man's free will. It is the Book of Destiny, because it shows forth the destiny of the whole human race. It is building up now and will grow until the Day of Judgment. This building up began with the renewed persecution of the Christians by Trajan after the benign lull under the Emperor Nerva.

The Apocalypse received its name from the first word of these revelations. Whether St. John gave it this name or not cannot be established. The secrets of the future written in this book have mystified and intrigued the minds of the most inquisitive for nineteen hundred years. St. Vincent Ferrer five hundred years ago and St. Bernardine of Siena a half a century later threatened their hearers with the judgments enumerated in the Apocalypse, but their words were not well heeded. Yet the FIRST WOE was averted from the countries which they evangelized. For a hundred years now the secrets have been quite openly expressed and written about, though with some uncertainty and misgivings, but have not been noticed by the world. In the meantime events have succeeded with increasing speed and growth towards a denouement of the secrets of the GREAT WORLD DRAMA so long wrapped up in mysterious visions. Any day may flash upon the consciousness of men the DESTINY towards which mankind is hastening.


- The Author
]]> <![CDATA[A Defense of Our Lady: Co-Redemptrix and Mediatrix of All Graces]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=7647 Thu, 06 Nov 2025 16:49:59 +0000 Stone]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=7647 A Defense of Our Lady: Co-Redemptrix and Mediatrix of All Graces
A Rebellion of Love Against the Vatican’s Attempt to Silence the Mother of God

[Image: https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.ama...x1281.jpeg]

Chris Jackson via Hiraeth in Exile [slightly adapted] | Nov 06, 2025


The new Vatican document Mater Populi Fidelis lands with the tone of an apology written to Protestant houseguests. It pretends to “clarify” Marian devotion but really performs a slow erasure; wrapping up centuries of theology and piety into a few cautious phrases about “maternal closeness.” The title sounds like a lullaby; the substance reads like damage control.

We are told that the Church must avoid “expressions that might obscure the unique mediation of Christ.” Translation: the post-conciliar project is still terrified that Mary might look too Catholic.

Far from correcting error; this note sterilizes love. It reduces the Woman who stood beneath the Cross to a friendly chaperone hovering at the edge of salvation history. It praises her tenderness, then strips her of the titles that give her tenderness cosmic weight.

The same men who canonize ambiguity everywhere else suddenly discover a mania for precision when it comes to Mary. Co-redemptrix? “Always inappropriate.” Mediatrix of all graces? Too risky. Better to call her a “helpful mother.”

They call this prudence. It’s really fear; the fear of sounding Catholic in front of the Reformers.


The Gospel According to Cowardice

The Note begins by admitting what every catechized child once knew: Mary’s role runs from Genesis to Revelation, from “the woman” promised in Eden to “the woman clothed with the sun.” Then, with academic sleight of hand, it cancels its own evidence.

Yes, Mary stood at the foot of the Cross, they say; but careful! She did not co-redeem. Yes, she is mother of all believers; but don’t you dare call her Mediatrix. Yes, she is full of grace; but “every spiritual blessing” is only in Christ, so we’d better keep her name out of the sentence.

It’s the theology of subtraction. Every compliment to Mary is immediately followed by a disclaimer.

This is how modern Rome prays now:

“Hail Mary, full of grace, but not too full. The Lord is with thee, but please, don’t make it sound exclusive. Blessed art thou among women, but in a subordinate sense, of course.”

What began as the Magnificat has been rewritten as a footnote to Protestant sensitivities.


The Scriptural Case They Pretend Not to See

The entire argument collapses once you stop reading the Bible like a bureaucrat. Scripture shows not a rivalry between Christ and Mary but a participation; the same participation that defines every saint’s life, raised to its perfect form.

The angel waits for her consent before the Incarnation; that alone reveals her cooperation. At Calvary she stands, not as a helpless observer, but as the New Eve beside the New Adam. Her Son calls her “Woman,” the very word used in Genesis. When He says, “Behold your mother,” He is doing more than providing domestic care. He is declaring her maternity over all who are born in grace.

The logic is unmistakable: the one who gave flesh to the Redeemer cooperates, under Him and through Him, in the Redemption itself.

Every Protestant instinct wants to seal heaven off from any creaturely participation. Every Catholic instinct knows the Incarnation itself destroys that fear. The Word became flesh through her. Salvation began by mediation. Why would it stop there?


What Co-Redemptrix Really Says

[Image: https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.ama...x1660.jpeg]

The Church never meant two redeemers. The prefix co- means with, not equal.

Mary cooperates as no other creature can because she gave to the Word the very flesh by which He redeemed us and because she united her will with His at every step. Her consent at Nazareth and her consent at Calvary bookend the same mystery: the human cooperation God Himself willed.

When the old popes called her Co-redemptrix, they weren’t inventing a new dogma. They were putting a name to what every Christian heart already saw : that she who suffered with Christ for our salvation shares in the work of salvation in a unique way.

But modern Rome treats words like land mines. The bureaucrats prefer a language so safe it can never be loved.

So they tell us the title is “always inappropriate.” Tell that to the centuries of theologians, saints, and faithful who prayed it without apology. Tell that to the generations who saw in her pierced heart the echo of the Cross itself.

It is not Mary who endangers Christ’s glory. It is cowardice that does.


When “Only God Gives Grace” Becomes a Weapon

The Note keeps repeating the truism that “only God confers grace.” No Catholic ever denied it. The question is how God confers grace, and the answer, given by Scripture itself, is through created instruments.

The humanity of Christ, the sacraments, the preaching of the apostles, even our own intercession for one another; all these are secondary means by which God’s grace touches the world.

Mary is not the fountain; she is the channel chosen by the Fountain. Her role does not compete with the Source but reveals His generosity.

To say “only God gives grace” and then deny any creaturely mediation is to reject the very logic of the Incarnation, in which the divine entered history through the consent of a woman. God loves instruments. He writes salvation not directly from heaven but with human ink. Mary is the pen in His hand.


Ecumenism: The Tail That Wags the Theology

The entire document reads like it was ghost-written by an ecumenical press office. Every sentence trembles with the anxiety of offending Protestants.

Instead of teaching the truth and letting it shine, the authors try to sand down the edges until the Faith looks like a manageable misunderstanding.

The result is a theology with all the poetry of a risk assessment memo. They turn the Mother of God into a “sign of maternal accompaniment,” as if she were a Vatican social worker.

That is not how the saints spoke. The early Fathers called her the New Eve, the cause of salvation for herself and for all mankind. Medieval Christendom called her the Neck of the Mystical Body, through which every grace passes from the Head to the members. Pre-conciliar popes called her the Dispensatrix of all graces.

Only after Vatican II did we begin apologizing for our own language. The Note continues that apology and calls it development.


The East Knows Better

The authors invoke the Eastern liturgies as if they were models of moderation. Anyone who has actually prayed the Akathist Hymn knows better. The East calls her “the bridge leading those on earth to heaven,” “the cause of our deification,” “the one through whom the Giver of life is given to us.”

If anything, the East outpaces the West in boldness. The difference is that the East never developed a guilt complex about its own devotion. The modern West did.

So while Orthodox hymnographers exalt her, Roman theologians now issue disclaimers. The East sings theology; Rome edits footnotes.


Objective and Subjective Redemption

Catholic tradition has always made a simple distinction. Christ alone accomplished the objective Redemption; the earning of all grace by His Passion. But the subjective application of that grace, its flow into souls, unfolds through His instruments.

Mary participates in both spheres: objectively, by her free consent to the Passion and her union with the Victim; subjectively, by her maternal intercession that applies those fruits to her children.

The popes before the Council said so in plain words. They called her partner, associate, minister. They said she offered her Son to the Father and that she merited for us in fitting proportion what He merited by right. They taught that the distribution of every grace bears the imprint of her maternal will.

But now the Vatican prefers phrases like “maternal closeness,” a sentimental reduction that treats the Queen of Heaven like an emotional support figure. They praise her warmth precisely to deny her power.


“Mediatrix of All Graces”: The Title They Fear

[Image: https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.ama...4x809.jpeg]

This phrase terrifies the new theologians because it implies structure; an order of grace in which everything passes through Mary’s hands. But that is exactly what the tradition meant.

God willed that the Mother who gave the world the Author of grace should also be the channel of that grace’s diffusion. Not because He needed her, but because He loves to magnify His gifts through the humble.

Every conversion, every sacrament, every movement of grace touches her in the order of intercession. The saints called her the treasurer of the King, the aqueduct of mercy, the Mediatrix of all graces.

The new Vatican says that language is confusing. Of course it is confusing; to people who no longer believe in causes, cooperation, or hierarchy. To the modern mind, everything must be horizontal and immediate. God acts directly; Mary only inspires feelings.

But heaven is not a committee. It is a hierarchy of love. And the highest creature in that hierarchy remains the channel through which the Creator first entered His creation.


John Paul II and the Council They Pretend to Follow

When the Note appeals to Vatican II, it forgets to quote the parts that refute it. The Council called Mary’s influence “salutary” and said it “flows forth from the superabundance of Christ’s merits.” John Paul II took that line and developed it into an entire theology of “maternal mediation.”

He never flinched from calling her Co-redemptrix in the true sense; the one who suffered with Christ for our redemption. He never treated her role as a mere symbol.

Today’s Vatican bureaucrats cherry-pick his prudential caution and ignore his substance. They use his name as camouflage for their own shrinkage of the Faith.


The Cost of Cowardice

Banishing these titles does more than tidy up theology. It wounds the heart of Catholic piety.

When you tell the faithful that Co-redemptrix is off limits, you teach them that Mary’s suffering beneath the Cross was only sentimental, not salvific. When you downplay her mediation, you train them to approach Christ as orphans, not as children of a Mother.

And when you reduce her to “maternal closeness,” you make her proximity meaningless; for what good is a mother who cannot obtain graces for her children?

This is the quiet apostasy of minimalism. It preaches Christ without His Mother, grace without instrumentality, heaven without hierarchy. It speaks in soft tones but does the work of iconoclasm.


The Real Balance

Catholic theology already resolved the supposed tension centuries ago. Christ is the only Redeemer by right; Mary cooperates by grace. Christ merits de condigno; Mary merits de congruo. He is the Head; she is the neck. Everything flows from Him, but through her.

That is the balance. That is the harmony. That is the Catholic sense that both honors Christ’s supremacy and exalts His generosity in sharing it.

If the Vatican were serious about fidelity to tradition, it would teach that balance instead of banishing it.


The Gospel of Participation

The Note keeps insisting on Christ’s “unique mediation,” but refuses to see what that uniqueness means. Christ’s mediation is so powerful that it does not exclude cooperation; it creates it. It draws His members into His own work.

That is why we can suffer for others, preach, baptize, forgive, and intercede. If every Christian shares in Christ’s mediation, how much more the one who bore Him, suffered with Him, and reigns with Him?

The only thing the new document proves is how little the authors understand the economy of grace. They think participation threatens Christ, when in truth it glorifies Him. His victory is so abundant that it spills over into His creatures.

Mary is the first and fullest overflow.


The Faith the Bureaucrats Can’t Erase

The faithful will go on calling her what the Vatican refuses to print. They will still whisper “Co-redemptrix” under their breath at the foot of the altar. They will still ask the Mediatrix of all graces to obtain mercy for them at the hour of death.

No committee can unteach what the Church has sung for centuries. The faithful know, even if the prefects do not, that Christ crowned His Mother precisely so that His grace might come to us with a mother’s touch.

The revolutionaries of ecumenism cannot comprehend that logic because they no longer believe grace is personal. To them, salvation is a process. To the saints, it is a Person; and that Person came through Mary.


Conclusion: The Mother Remains

[Image: https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.ama...x1500.jpeg]

The architects of Mater Populi Fidelis wanted to make the Church safe for dialogue. Instead, they’ve made it sound foreign to its own children. They mistake reticence for reverence, diplomacy for doctrine.

But the Church will outlive them, as she outlived every rationalist before them. The faithful will keep their Rosaries, their Marian hymns, their daring titles. They will still call her Queen, Co-redemptrix, Mediatrix, Mother of Grace; because love is bolder than bureaucracy.

Christ did not fear to share His Cross with His Mother. We will not fear to name it.

In the end, her heel will crush the serpent; not her “maternal closeness,” but her royal power, her participation in the very act of redemption. The modernists can redact the titles; they cannot rewrite heaven.

The Woman still stands beneath the Cross, and at the center of every Mass, and at the heart of every grace. She does not need their permission to be what God made her.


Epilogue: A Foretaste of Leo and Tucho?

[Image: https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.ama...x1722.jpeg]

In the Jesuit Church of the Gesus in Rome, to the right of the altar sits Pietro Le Gros’ sculpture entitled The Triumph of Faith over Heresy. This sculpture depicts Mary casting Martin Luther and his precursor, Jan Huss, out of heaven. An attendant angel (lower left) rips their translations of the Bible and their writings to shreds.]]> A Defense of Our Lady: Co-Redemptrix and Mediatrix of All Graces
A Rebellion of Love Against the Vatican’s Attempt to Silence the Mother of God

[Image: https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.ama...x1281.jpeg]

Chris Jackson via Hiraeth in Exile [slightly adapted] | Nov 06, 2025


The new Vatican document Mater Populi Fidelis lands with the tone of an apology written to Protestant houseguests. It pretends to “clarify” Marian devotion but really performs a slow erasure; wrapping up centuries of theology and piety into a few cautious phrases about “maternal closeness.” The title sounds like a lullaby; the substance reads like damage control.

We are told that the Church must avoid “expressions that might obscure the unique mediation of Christ.” Translation: the post-conciliar project is still terrified that Mary might look too Catholic.

Far from correcting error; this note sterilizes love. It reduces the Woman who stood beneath the Cross to a friendly chaperone hovering at the edge of salvation history. It praises her tenderness, then strips her of the titles that give her tenderness cosmic weight.

The same men who canonize ambiguity everywhere else suddenly discover a mania for precision when it comes to Mary. Co-redemptrix? “Always inappropriate.” Mediatrix of all graces? Too risky. Better to call her a “helpful mother.”

They call this prudence. It’s really fear; the fear of sounding Catholic in front of the Reformers.


The Gospel According to Cowardice

The Note begins by admitting what every catechized child once knew: Mary’s role runs from Genesis to Revelation, from “the woman” promised in Eden to “the woman clothed with the sun.” Then, with academic sleight of hand, it cancels its own evidence.

Yes, Mary stood at the foot of the Cross, they say; but careful! She did not co-redeem. Yes, she is mother of all believers; but don’t you dare call her Mediatrix. Yes, she is full of grace; but “every spiritual blessing” is only in Christ, so we’d better keep her name out of the sentence.

It’s the theology of subtraction. Every compliment to Mary is immediately followed by a disclaimer.

This is how modern Rome prays now:

“Hail Mary, full of grace, but not too full. The Lord is with thee, but please, don’t make it sound exclusive. Blessed art thou among women, but in a subordinate sense, of course.”

What began as the Magnificat has been rewritten as a footnote to Protestant sensitivities.


The Scriptural Case They Pretend Not to See

The entire argument collapses once you stop reading the Bible like a bureaucrat. Scripture shows not a rivalry between Christ and Mary but a participation; the same participation that defines every saint’s life, raised to its perfect form.

The angel waits for her consent before the Incarnation; that alone reveals her cooperation. At Calvary she stands, not as a helpless observer, but as the New Eve beside the New Adam. Her Son calls her “Woman,” the very word used in Genesis. When He says, “Behold your mother,” He is doing more than providing domestic care. He is declaring her maternity over all who are born in grace.

The logic is unmistakable: the one who gave flesh to the Redeemer cooperates, under Him and through Him, in the Redemption itself.

Every Protestant instinct wants to seal heaven off from any creaturely participation. Every Catholic instinct knows the Incarnation itself destroys that fear. The Word became flesh through her. Salvation began by mediation. Why would it stop there?


What Co-Redemptrix Really Says

[Image: https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.ama...x1660.jpeg]

The Church never meant two redeemers. The prefix co- means with, not equal.

Mary cooperates as no other creature can because she gave to the Word the very flesh by which He redeemed us and because she united her will with His at every step. Her consent at Nazareth and her consent at Calvary bookend the same mystery: the human cooperation God Himself willed.

When the old popes called her Co-redemptrix, they weren’t inventing a new dogma. They were putting a name to what every Christian heart already saw : that she who suffered with Christ for our salvation shares in the work of salvation in a unique way.

But modern Rome treats words like land mines. The bureaucrats prefer a language so safe it can never be loved.

So they tell us the title is “always inappropriate.” Tell that to the centuries of theologians, saints, and faithful who prayed it without apology. Tell that to the generations who saw in her pierced heart the echo of the Cross itself.

It is not Mary who endangers Christ’s glory. It is cowardice that does.


When “Only God Gives Grace” Becomes a Weapon

The Note keeps repeating the truism that “only God confers grace.” No Catholic ever denied it. The question is how God confers grace, and the answer, given by Scripture itself, is through created instruments.

The humanity of Christ, the sacraments, the preaching of the apostles, even our own intercession for one another; all these are secondary means by which God’s grace touches the world.

Mary is not the fountain; she is the channel chosen by the Fountain. Her role does not compete with the Source but reveals His generosity.

To say “only God gives grace” and then deny any creaturely mediation is to reject the very logic of the Incarnation, in which the divine entered history through the consent of a woman. God loves instruments. He writes salvation not directly from heaven but with human ink. Mary is the pen in His hand.


Ecumenism: The Tail That Wags the Theology

The entire document reads like it was ghost-written by an ecumenical press office. Every sentence trembles with the anxiety of offending Protestants.

Instead of teaching the truth and letting it shine, the authors try to sand down the edges until the Faith looks like a manageable misunderstanding.

The result is a theology with all the poetry of a risk assessment memo. They turn the Mother of God into a “sign of maternal accompaniment,” as if she were a Vatican social worker.

That is not how the saints spoke. The early Fathers called her the New Eve, the cause of salvation for herself and for all mankind. Medieval Christendom called her the Neck of the Mystical Body, through which every grace passes from the Head to the members. Pre-conciliar popes called her the Dispensatrix of all graces.

Only after Vatican II did we begin apologizing for our own language. The Note continues that apology and calls it development.


The East Knows Better

The authors invoke the Eastern liturgies as if they were models of moderation. Anyone who has actually prayed the Akathist Hymn knows better. The East calls her “the bridge leading those on earth to heaven,” “the cause of our deification,” “the one through whom the Giver of life is given to us.”

If anything, the East outpaces the West in boldness. The difference is that the East never developed a guilt complex about its own devotion. The modern West did.

So while Orthodox hymnographers exalt her, Roman theologians now issue disclaimers. The East sings theology; Rome edits footnotes.


Objective and Subjective Redemption

Catholic tradition has always made a simple distinction. Christ alone accomplished the objective Redemption; the earning of all grace by His Passion. But the subjective application of that grace, its flow into souls, unfolds through His instruments.

Mary participates in both spheres: objectively, by her free consent to the Passion and her union with the Victim; subjectively, by her maternal intercession that applies those fruits to her children.

The popes before the Council said so in plain words. They called her partner, associate, minister. They said she offered her Son to the Father and that she merited for us in fitting proportion what He merited by right. They taught that the distribution of every grace bears the imprint of her maternal will.

But now the Vatican prefers phrases like “maternal closeness,” a sentimental reduction that treats the Queen of Heaven like an emotional support figure. They praise her warmth precisely to deny her power.


“Mediatrix of All Graces”: The Title They Fear

[Image: https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.ama...4x809.jpeg]

This phrase terrifies the new theologians because it implies structure; an order of grace in which everything passes through Mary’s hands. But that is exactly what the tradition meant.

God willed that the Mother who gave the world the Author of grace should also be the channel of that grace’s diffusion. Not because He needed her, but because He loves to magnify His gifts through the humble.

Every conversion, every sacrament, every movement of grace touches her in the order of intercession. The saints called her the treasurer of the King, the aqueduct of mercy, the Mediatrix of all graces.

The new Vatican says that language is confusing. Of course it is confusing; to people who no longer believe in causes, cooperation, or hierarchy. To the modern mind, everything must be horizontal and immediate. God acts directly; Mary only inspires feelings.

But heaven is not a committee. It is a hierarchy of love. And the highest creature in that hierarchy remains the channel through which the Creator first entered His creation.


John Paul II and the Council They Pretend to Follow

When the Note appeals to Vatican II, it forgets to quote the parts that refute it. The Council called Mary’s influence “salutary” and said it “flows forth from the superabundance of Christ’s merits.” John Paul II took that line and developed it into an entire theology of “maternal mediation.”

He never flinched from calling her Co-redemptrix in the true sense; the one who suffered with Christ for our redemption. He never treated her role as a mere symbol.

Today’s Vatican bureaucrats cherry-pick his prudential caution and ignore his substance. They use his name as camouflage for their own shrinkage of the Faith.


The Cost of Cowardice

Banishing these titles does more than tidy up theology. It wounds the heart of Catholic piety.

When you tell the faithful that Co-redemptrix is off limits, you teach them that Mary’s suffering beneath the Cross was only sentimental, not salvific. When you downplay her mediation, you train them to approach Christ as orphans, not as children of a Mother.

And when you reduce her to “maternal closeness,” you make her proximity meaningless; for what good is a mother who cannot obtain graces for her children?

This is the quiet apostasy of minimalism. It preaches Christ without His Mother, grace without instrumentality, heaven without hierarchy. It speaks in soft tones but does the work of iconoclasm.


The Real Balance

Catholic theology already resolved the supposed tension centuries ago. Christ is the only Redeemer by right; Mary cooperates by grace. Christ merits de condigno; Mary merits de congruo. He is the Head; she is the neck. Everything flows from Him, but through her.

That is the balance. That is the harmony. That is the Catholic sense that both honors Christ’s supremacy and exalts His generosity in sharing it.

If the Vatican were serious about fidelity to tradition, it would teach that balance instead of banishing it.


The Gospel of Participation

The Note keeps insisting on Christ’s “unique mediation,” but refuses to see what that uniqueness means. Christ’s mediation is so powerful that it does not exclude cooperation; it creates it. It draws His members into His own work.

That is why we can suffer for others, preach, baptize, forgive, and intercede. If every Christian shares in Christ’s mediation, how much more the one who bore Him, suffered with Him, and reigns with Him?

The only thing the new document proves is how little the authors understand the economy of grace. They think participation threatens Christ, when in truth it glorifies Him. His victory is so abundant that it spills over into His creatures.

Mary is the first and fullest overflow.


The Faith the Bureaucrats Can’t Erase

The faithful will go on calling her what the Vatican refuses to print. They will still whisper “Co-redemptrix” under their breath at the foot of the altar. They will still ask the Mediatrix of all graces to obtain mercy for them at the hour of death.

No committee can unteach what the Church has sung for centuries. The faithful know, even if the prefects do not, that Christ crowned His Mother precisely so that His grace might come to us with a mother’s touch.

The revolutionaries of ecumenism cannot comprehend that logic because they no longer believe grace is personal. To them, salvation is a process. To the saints, it is a Person; and that Person came through Mary.


Conclusion: The Mother Remains

[Image: https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.ama...x1500.jpeg]

The architects of Mater Populi Fidelis wanted to make the Church safe for dialogue. Instead, they’ve made it sound foreign to its own children. They mistake reticence for reverence, diplomacy for doctrine.

But the Church will outlive them, as she outlived every rationalist before them. The faithful will keep their Rosaries, their Marian hymns, their daring titles. They will still call her Queen, Co-redemptrix, Mediatrix, Mother of Grace; because love is bolder than bureaucracy.

Christ did not fear to share His Cross with His Mother. We will not fear to name it.

In the end, her heel will crush the serpent; not her “maternal closeness,” but her royal power, her participation in the very act of redemption. The modernists can redact the titles; they cannot rewrite heaven.

The Woman still stands beneath the Cross, and at the center of every Mass, and at the heart of every grace. She does not need their permission to be what God made her.


Epilogue: A Foretaste of Leo and Tucho?

[Image: https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.ama...x1722.jpeg]

In the Jesuit Church of the Gesus in Rome, to the right of the altar sits Pietro Le Gros’ sculpture entitled The Triumph of Faith over Heresy. This sculpture depicts Mary casting Martin Luther and his precursor, Jan Huss, out of heaven. An attendant angel (lower left) rips their translations of the Bible and their writings to shreds.]]> <![CDATA[The Way Of Perfection by Saint Teresa Of Avila]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=7617 Thu, 30 Oct 2025 15:58:58 +0000 Stone]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=7617 The Way Of Perfection
by
Saint Teresa Of Avila
Taken from here.

CHAPTER 1
Of the reason which moved me to found this convent in such strict observance.


When this convent was originally founded, for the reasons set down in the book which, as I say, I have already written, and also because of certain wonderful revelations by which the Lord showed me how well He would be served in this house, it was not my intention that there should be so much austerity in external matters, nor that it should have no regular income: on the contrary, I should have liked there to be no possibility of want. I acted, in short, like the weak and wretched woman that I am, although I did so with good intentions and not out of consideration for my own comfort.

At about this time there came to my notice the harm and havoc that were being wrought in France by these Lutherans and the way in which their unhappy sect was increasing. This troubled me very much, and, as though I could do anything, or be of any help in the matter, I wept before the Lord and entreated Him to remedy this great evil. I felt that I would have laid down a thousand lives to save a single one of all the souls that were being lost there. And, seeing that I was a woman, and a sinner, and incapable of doing all I should like in the Lord's service, and as my whole yearning was, and still is, that, as He has so many enemies and so few friends, these last should be trusty ones, I determined to do the little that was in me -- namely, to follow the evangelical counsels as perfectly as I could, and to see that these few nuns who are here should do the same, confiding in the great goodness of God, Who never fails to help those who resolve to forsake everything for His sake. As they are all that I have ever painted them as being in my desires, I hoped that their virtues would more than counteract my defects, and I should thus be able to give the Lord some pleasure, and all of us, by busying ourselves in prayer for those who are defenders of the Church, and for the preachers and learned men who defend her, should do everything we could to aid this Lord of mine Who is so much oppressed by those to whom He has shown so much good that it seems as though these traitors would send Him to the Cross again and that He would have nowhere to lay His head.

Oh, my Redeemer, my heart cannot conceive this without being sorely distressed! What has become of Christians now? Must those who owe Thee most always be those who distress Thee? Those to whom Thou doest the greatest kindnesses, whom Thou dost choose for Thy friends, among whom Thou dost move, communicating Thyself to them through the Sacraments? Do they not think, Lord of my soul, that they have made Thee endure more than sufficient torments?

It is certain, my Lord, that in these days withdrawal from the world means no sacrifice at all. Since worldly people have so little respect for Thee, what can we expect them to have for us? Can it be that we deserve that they should treat us any better than they have treated Thee? Have we done more for them than Thou hast done that they should be friendly to us? What then? What can we expect -- we who, through the goodness of the Lord, are free from that pestilential infection, and do not, like those others, belong to the devil? They have won severe punishment at his hands and their pleasures have richly earned them eternal fire. So to eternal fire they will have to go, though none the less it breaks my heart to see so many souls travelling to perdition. I would the evil were not so great and I did not see more being lost every day.

Oh, my sisters in Christ! Help me to entreat this of the Lord, Who has brought you together here for that very purpose. This is your vocation; this must be your business; these must be your desires; these your tears; these your petitions. Let us not pray for worldly things, my sisters. It makes me laugh, and yet it makes me sad, when I hear of the things which people come here to beg us to pray to God for; we are to ask His Majesty to give them money and to provide them with incomes -- I wish that some of these people would entreat God to enable them to trample all such things beneath their feet. Their intentions are quite good, and I do as they ask because I see that they are really devout people, though I do not myself believe that God ever hears me when I pray for such things. The world is on fire. Men try to condemn Christ once again, as it were, for they bring a thousand false witnesses against Him. They would raze His Church to the ground -- and are we to waste our time upon things which, if God were to grant them, would perhaps bring one soul less to Heaven? No, my sisters, this is no time to treat with God for things of little importance.

Were it not necessary to consider human frailty, which finds satisfaction in every kind of help -- and it is always a good thing if we can be of any help to people -- I should like it to be understood that it is not for things like these that God should be importuned with such anxiety.]]> The Way Of Perfection
by
Saint Teresa Of Avila
Taken from here.

CHAPTER 1
Of the reason which moved me to found this convent in such strict observance.


When this convent was originally founded, for the reasons set down in the book which, as I say, I have already written, and also because of certain wonderful revelations by which the Lord showed me how well He would be served in this house, it was not my intention that there should be so much austerity in external matters, nor that it should have no regular income: on the contrary, I should have liked there to be no possibility of want. I acted, in short, like the weak and wretched woman that I am, although I did so with good intentions and not out of consideration for my own comfort.

At about this time there came to my notice the harm and havoc that were being wrought in France by these Lutherans and the way in which their unhappy sect was increasing. This troubled me very much, and, as though I could do anything, or be of any help in the matter, I wept before the Lord and entreated Him to remedy this great evil. I felt that I would have laid down a thousand lives to save a single one of all the souls that were being lost there. And, seeing that I was a woman, and a sinner, and incapable of doing all I should like in the Lord's service, and as my whole yearning was, and still is, that, as He has so many enemies and so few friends, these last should be trusty ones, I determined to do the little that was in me -- namely, to follow the evangelical counsels as perfectly as I could, and to see that these few nuns who are here should do the same, confiding in the great goodness of God, Who never fails to help those who resolve to forsake everything for His sake. As they are all that I have ever painted them as being in my desires, I hoped that their virtues would more than counteract my defects, and I should thus be able to give the Lord some pleasure, and all of us, by busying ourselves in prayer for those who are defenders of the Church, and for the preachers and learned men who defend her, should do everything we could to aid this Lord of mine Who is so much oppressed by those to whom He has shown so much good that it seems as though these traitors would send Him to the Cross again and that He would have nowhere to lay His head.

Oh, my Redeemer, my heart cannot conceive this without being sorely distressed! What has become of Christians now? Must those who owe Thee most always be those who distress Thee? Those to whom Thou doest the greatest kindnesses, whom Thou dost choose for Thy friends, among whom Thou dost move, communicating Thyself to them through the Sacraments? Do they not think, Lord of my soul, that they have made Thee endure more than sufficient torments?

It is certain, my Lord, that in these days withdrawal from the world means no sacrifice at all. Since worldly people have so little respect for Thee, what can we expect them to have for us? Can it be that we deserve that they should treat us any better than they have treated Thee? Have we done more for them than Thou hast done that they should be friendly to us? What then? What can we expect -- we who, through the goodness of the Lord, are free from that pestilential infection, and do not, like those others, belong to the devil? They have won severe punishment at his hands and their pleasures have richly earned them eternal fire. So to eternal fire they will have to go, though none the less it breaks my heart to see so many souls travelling to perdition. I would the evil were not so great and I did not see more being lost every day.

Oh, my sisters in Christ! Help me to entreat this of the Lord, Who has brought you together here for that very purpose. This is your vocation; this must be your business; these must be your desires; these your tears; these your petitions. Let us not pray for worldly things, my sisters. It makes me laugh, and yet it makes me sad, when I hear of the things which people come here to beg us to pray to God for; we are to ask His Majesty to give them money and to provide them with incomes -- I wish that some of these people would entreat God to enable them to trample all such things beneath their feet. Their intentions are quite good, and I do as they ask because I see that they are really devout people, though I do not myself believe that God ever hears me when I pray for such things. The world is on fire. Men try to condemn Christ once again, as it were, for they bring a thousand false witnesses against Him. They would raze His Church to the ground -- and are we to waste our time upon things which, if God were to grant them, would perhaps bring one soul less to Heaven? No, my sisters, this is no time to treat with God for things of little importance.

Were it not necessary to consider human frailty, which finds satisfaction in every kind of help -- and it is always a good thing if we can be of any help to people -- I should like it to be understood that it is not for things like these that God should be importuned with such anxiety.]]> <![CDATA[The Sermons of St. John Vianney]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=7586 Wed, 22 Oct 2025 17:17:35 +0000 Stone]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=7586 THE SERMONS OF SAINT JOHN MARY VIANNEY NO.1
Taken from here.

THE DREADFUL STATE OF THE LUKEWARM SOUL

In speaking to you today, my dear brethren, of the dreadful state of the lukewarm soul, my purpose is not to paint for you a terrifying and despairing picture of the soul which is living in mortal sin without even having the wish to escape from this condition. That poor unfortunate creature can but look forward to the wrath of God in the next life. Alas! These sinners hear me; they know well of whom I am speaking at this very moment. . . . We will go no further, for all that I would wish to say would serve only to harden them more. In speaking to you, my brethren, of the lukewarm soul, I do not wish, either, to speak of those who make neither their Easter duty nor their annual Confession.

They know very well that in spite of all their prayers and their other good works they will be lost. Let us leave them in their blindness, since they want to remain that way . . . .

Nor do I understand, brethren, by the lukewarm soul, that soul who would like to be worldly without ceasing to be a child of God. You will see such a one at one moment prostrate before God, his Saviour and his Master, and the next moment similarly prostrate before the world, his idol.

Poor blind creature, who gives one hand to God and the other to the world, so that he can call both to his aid, and promise his heart to each in turn! He loves God, or rather, he would like to love Him, but he would also like to please the world. Then, weary of wanting to give his allegiance to both, he ends by giving it to the world alone. This is an extraordinary life and one which offers so strange a spectacle that it is hard to persuade oneself that it could be the life of one and the same person. I am going to show you this so clearly that perhaps many among you will be hurt by it. But that will matter little to me, for I am always going to tell you what I ought to tell you, and then you will do what you wish about it . . . .

I would say further, my brethren, that whoever wants to please both the world and God leads one of the most unhappy of lives. You shall see how. Here is someone who gives himself up to the pleasures of the world or develops some evil habit.

How great is his fear when he comes to fulfil his religious duties; that is, when he says his prayers, when he goes to Confession, or wants to go to Holy Communion! He does not want to be seen by those with whom he has been dancing and passing nights at the cabarets, where he has been giving himself over to many kinds of licentiousness. Has he come to the stage when he is going to deceive his confessor by hiding the worst of his actions and thus obtain permission to go to Holy Communion, or rather, to commit a sacrilege? He would prefer to go to Holy Communion before or after Mass, that is to say, when there is no one present. Yet he is quite happy to be seen by the good people who know nothing about his evil life and among whom he would like to arouse good opinions about himself. In front of devout people he talks about religion. When he is with those who have no religion, he will talk only about the pleasures of the world. He would blush to fulfil his religious practices in front of his companions or those boys and girls who share his evil ways . . . .

This is so true that one day someone asked me to allow him to go to Holy Communion in the sacristy so that no one would see him. Is it possible, my brethren, that one could think upon such horrible behaviour without shuddering?

But we shall proceed further and you will see the embarrassment of these poor people who want to follow the world without-outwardly at any rate-leaving God. Here is Easter approaching. They must go to Confession. It is not, of course, that they want to go or that they feel any urge or need to receive the Sacrament of Penance. They would be only too pleased if Easter came around about once every thirty years. But their parents still retain the exterior practice of religion. They will be happy if their children go to the altar, and they keep urging them, then, to go to Confession. In this, of course, they make a mistake. If only they would just pray for them and not torment them into committing sacrileges. So to rid themselves of the importunity of their parents, to keep up appearances, these people will get together to find out who is the best confessor to try for absolution for the first or second time

'Look, says one, 'my parents keep nagging at me because I haven't been to Confession. Where shall we go? 'It is of no use going to our parish priest; he is too scrupulous. He would not allow us to make our Easter duty. We will have to try to find So-and-So. He let this one and that one go through, and they are worse than we are. We have done no more harm than they have.

Another will say: 'I assure you that if it were not for my parents I would not make my Easter duty at all. Our catechism says that to make a good Confession we must give up sin and the occasions of sin, and we are doing neither the one nor the other. I tell you sincerely that I am really embarrassed every time Easter comes around. I will be glad when the time comes for me to settle down and to cease gallivanting. I will make a confession then of my whole life, to put right the ones I am making now. Without that I would not die happy.

'Well, another will say to him, 'when that time comes you ought to go to the priest who has been hearing your confessions up to the present. He will know you best. 'Indeed no! I will go to the one who would not give me absolution, because he would not want to see me damned either.

'My word, aren't you good! That means nothing at all. They all have the same power.

'That is a good thing to remember when we are doing what we ought to do. But when we are in sin, we think otherwise.

One day I went to see a girl who was pretty careless. She told me that she was not going back to Confession to the priests who were so easy and who, in making it seem as if they wanted to save you, pushed you into Hell. That is how many of these poor blind people behave! 'Father, they will say to the priest, 'I am going to Confession to you because our parish priest is too exacting. He wants to make us promise things which we cannot hold to. He would have us all saints, and that is not possible in the world. He would want us never to go to dances, nor to frequent cabarets or amusements. If someone has a bad habit, he will not give Absolution until the habit has been given up completely. If we had to do all that we should never make our Easter duty at all. My parents, who are very religious, are always after me to make my Easter duty. I will do all I can. But no one can say that he will never return to these amusements, since he never knows when he is going to encounter them.

'Ah! says the confessor, quite deceived by this sincere sounding talk, 'I think your parish priest is perhaps a little exacting. Make your act of contrition, and I will give you Absolution. Try to be good now.

That is to say: Bow your head; you are going to trample in the adorable Blood of Jesus Christ; you are going to sell your God like Judas sold Him to His executioners, and tomorrow you will go to Holy Communion, where you will proceed to crucify Him. What horror! What abomination! Go on, vile Judas, go to the holy table, go and give death to your God and your Saviour! Let your conscience cry out, only try to stifle its remorse as much as you can. . . . But I am going too far, my brethren. Let us leave these poor blind creatures in their gloom.

I think, brethren, that you would like to know what is the state of the lukewarm soul. Well, this is it. A lukewarm soul is not yet quite dead in the eyes of God because the faith, the hope, and the charity which are its spiritual life are not altogether extinct. But it is a faith without zeal, a hope without resolution, a charity without ardour . . . .

Nothing touches this soul: it hears the word of God, yes, that is true; but often it just bores it. Its possessor hears it with difficulty, more or less by habit, like someone who thinks that he knows enough about it and does enough of what he should.

Any prayers which are a bit long are distasteful to him. This soul is so full of whatever it has just been doing or what it is going to do next, its boredom is so great, that this poor unfortunate thing is almost in agony. It is still alive, but it is not capable of doing anything to gain Heaven . . . .

For the last twenty years this soul has been filled with good intentions without doing anything at all to correct its habits.

It is like someone who is envious of anyone who is on top of the world but who would not deign to lift a foot to try to get there himself. It would not, however, wish to renounce eternal blessings for those of the world. Yet it does not wish either to leave the world or to go to Heaven, and if it can just manage to pass its time without crosses or difficulties, it would never ask to leave this world at all. If you hear someone with such a soul say that life is long and pretty miserable, that is only when everything is not going in accordance with his desires. If God, in order to force such a soul to detach itself from temporal things, sends it any cross or suffering, it is fretful and grieving and abandons itself to grumbles and complaints and often even to a kind of despair. It seems as if it does not want to see that God has sent it these trials for its good, to detach it from this world and to draw it towards Himself. What has it done to deserve these trials? In this state a person thinks in his own mind that there are many others more blameworthy than himself who have not to submit to such trials.

In prosperous times the lukewarm soul does not go so far as to forget God, but neither does it forget itself. It knows very well how to boast about all the means it has employed to achieve its prosperity. It is quite convinced that many others would not have achieved the same success. It loves to repeat that and to hear it repeated, and every time it hears it, it is with fresh pleasure. The individual with the lukewarm soul assumes a gracious air when associating with those who flatter him. But towards those who have not paid him the respect which he believes he has deserved or who have not been grateful for his kindnesses, he maintains an air of frigid indifference and seems to indicate to them that they are ungrateful creatures who do not deserve to receive the good which he has done them . . . .

If I wanted to paint you an exact picture, my brethren, of the state of a soul which lives in tepidity, I should tell you that it is like a tortoise or a snail. It moves only by dragging itself along the ground, and one can see it getting from place to place with great difficulty. The love of God, which it feels deep down in itself, is like a tiny spark of fire hidden under a heap of ashes.

The lukewarm soul comes to the point of being completely indifferent to its own loss. It has nothing left but a love without tenderness, without action, and without energy which sustains it with difficulty in all that is essential for salvation. But for all other means of Grace, it looks upon them as nothing or almost nothing. Alas, my brethren, this poor soul in its tepidity is like someone between two bouts of sleep. It would like to act, but its will has become so softened that it lacks either the force or the courage to accomplish its wishes.

It is true that a Christian who lives in tepidity still regularly-in appearance at least-fulfils his duties. He will indeed get down on his knees every morning to say his prayers. He will go to the Sacraments every year at Easter and even several times during the course of the twelve months. But in all of this there will be such a distaste, so much slackness and so much indifference, so little preparation, so little change in his way of life, that it is easy to see that he is only fulfilling his duties from habit and routine . . . . because this is a feast and he is in the habit of carrying them out at such a time. His Confessions and his Communions are not sacrilegious, if you like, but they are Confessions and Communions which bear no fruit-which, far from making him more perfect and more pleasing to God, only make him more unworthy. As for his prayers, God alone knows what-without, of course, any preparation-he makes of these.

In the morning it is not God who occupies his thoughts, nor the salvation of his poor soul; he is quite taken up with thoughts of work. His mind is so wrapped up in the things of earth that the thought of God has no place in it. He is thinking about what he is going to be doing during the day, where he will be sending his children and his various employees, in what way he will expedite his own work. To say his prayers, he gets down on his knees, undoubtedly, but he does not know what he wants to ask God, nor what he needs, nor even before whom he is kneeling. His careless demeanour shows this very clearly. It is a poor man indeed who, however miserable he is, wants nothing at all and loves his poverty. It is surely a desperately sick person who scorns doctors and remedies and clings to his infirmities.

You can see that this lukewarm soul has no difficulty, on the slightest pretext, in talking during the course of his prayers.

For no reason at all he will abandon them, partly at least, thinking that he will finish them in another moment. Does he want to offer his day to God, to say his Grace? He does all that, but often without thinking of the one who is addressed. He will not even stop working. If the possessor of the lukewarm soul is a man, he will turn his cap or his hat around in his hands as if to see whether it is good or bad, as though he had some idea of selling it. If it is a woman, she will say her prayers while slicing bread into her soup, or putting wood on the fire, or calling out to her children or maid. If you like, such distractions during prayer are not exactly deliberate. People would rather not have them, but because it is necessary to go to so much trouble and expend so much energy to get rid of them, they let them alone and allow them to come as they will.

The lukewarm Christian may not perhaps work on Sunday at tasks which seem to be forbidden to anyone who has even the slightest shred of religion, but doing some sewing, arranging something in the house, driving sheep to the fields during the times for Masses, on the pretext that there is not enough food to give them-all these things will be done without the slightest scruple, and such people will prefer to allow their souls and the souls of their employees to perish rather than endanger their animals. A man will busy himself getting out his tools and his carts and harrows and so on, for the next day; he will fill in a hole or fence a gap; he will cut various lengths of cords and ropes; he will carry out the churns and set them in order. What do you think about all this, my brethren? Is it not, alas, the simple truth?

A lukewarm soul will go to Confession regularly, and even quite frequently. But what kind of Confessions are they? No preparation, no desire to correct faults, or, at the least, a desire so feeble and so small that the slightest difficulty will put a stop to it altogether. The Confessions of such a person are merely repetitions of old ones, which would be a happy state of affairs indeed if there were nothing to add to them. Twenty years ago he was accusing himself of the same things he confesses today, and if he goes to Confession for the next twenty years, he will say the same things. A lukewarm soul will not, if you like, commit the big sins. But some slander or back-biting, a lie, a feeling of hatred, of dislike, of jealousy, a slight touch of deceit or double-dealing-these count for nothing with it. If it is a woman and you do not pay her all the respect which she considers her due, she will, under the guise of pretending that God has been offended, make sure that you realise it; she could say more than that, of course, since it is she herself who has been offended. It is true that such a woman would not stop going to the Sacraments, but her dispositions are worthy of compassion.

On the day when she wants to receive her God, she spends part of the morning thinking of temporal matters. If it is a man, he will be thinking about his deals and his sales. If it is a married woman, she will be thinking about her household and her children. If it is a young girl, her thoughts will be on her clothes.

If it is a boy, he will be dreaming about passing pleasures and so on. The lukewarm soul shuts God up in a n obscure and ugly kind of prison. Its possessor does not crucify Him, but God can find little joy or consolation in his heart.

All his dispositions proclaim that his poor soul is struggling for the breath of life.

After having received Holy Communion, this person will hardly give another thought to God in all the days to follow. His manner of life tells us that he did not know the greatness of the happiness which had been his.

A lukewarm Christian thinks very little upon the state of his poor soul and almost never lets his mind run over the past. If the thought of making any effort to be better crosses his mind at all, he believes that once he has confessed his sins, he ought to be perfectly happy and at peace. He assists at Holy Mass very much as he would at any ordinary activity. He does not think at all seriously of what he is doing and finds no trouble in chatting about all sorts of things while on the way there. Possibly he will not give a single thought to the fact that he is about to participate in the greatest of all the gifts that God, all-powerful as He is, could give us. He does give some thought to the needs of his own soul, yes, but a very small and feeble amount of thought indeed. Frequently he will even present himself before the presence of God without having any idea of what he is going to ask of Him. He has few scruples in cutting out, on the least pretext, the Asperges and the prayers before Mass. During the course of the service, he does not want to go to sleep, of course, and he is even afraid that someone might see him, but he does not do himself any violence all the same. He does not want, of course, to have distractions during prayer or during the Holy Mass, yet when he should put up some little fight against them, he suffers them very patiently, considering the fact that he does not like them. Fast days are reduced to practically nothing, either by advancing the time of the main meal or, under the pretext that Heaven was never taken by famine, by making the collation so abundant that it amounts to a full meal. When he performs good or beneficial actions, his intentions are often very mixed-sometimes it is to please someone, sometimes it is out of compassion, and sometimes it is just to please the world. With such people everything that is not a really serious sin is good enough. They like doing good, being faithful, but they wish that it did not cost them anything or, at least, that it cost very little. They would like to visit the sick, indeed, but it would be more convenient if the sick would come to them. They have something to give away in alms, they know quite well that a certain person has need of help, but they wait until she comes to ask them instead of anticipating her, which would make the kindness so very much more meritorious. We will even say, my brethren, that the person who leads a lukewarm life does not fail to do plenty of good works, to frequent the Sacraments, to assist regularly at all church services, but in all of this one sees only a weak, languishing faith, hope which the slightest trial will upset, a love of God and of neighbour which is without warmth or pleasure. Everything that such a person does is not entirely lost, but it is very nearly so.

See, before God, my brethren, on what side you are. On the side of the sinners, who have abandoned everything and plunge themselves into sin without remorse? On the side of the just souls, who seek but God alone? Or are you of the number of these slack, tepid, and indifferent souls such as we have just been depicting for you? Down which road are you travelling?

Who can dare assure himself that he is neither a great sinner nor a tepid soul but that he is one of the elect? Alas, my brethren, how many seem to be good Christians in the eyes of the world who are really tepid souls in the eyes of God, Who knows our inmost hearts . . . .

Let us ask God with all our hearts, if we are in this state, to give us the grace to get out of it, so that we may take the route that all the saints have taken and arrive at the happiness that they are enjoying. That is what I desire for you . . . .]]> THE SERMONS OF SAINT JOHN MARY VIANNEY NO.1
Taken from here.

THE DREADFUL STATE OF THE LUKEWARM SOUL

In speaking to you today, my dear brethren, of the dreadful state of the lukewarm soul, my purpose is not to paint for you a terrifying and despairing picture of the soul which is living in mortal sin without even having the wish to escape from this condition. That poor unfortunate creature can but look forward to the wrath of God in the next life. Alas! These sinners hear me; they know well of whom I am speaking at this very moment. . . . We will go no further, for all that I would wish to say would serve only to harden them more. In speaking to you, my brethren, of the lukewarm soul, I do not wish, either, to speak of those who make neither their Easter duty nor their annual Confession.

They know very well that in spite of all their prayers and their other good works they will be lost. Let us leave them in their blindness, since they want to remain that way . . . .

Nor do I understand, brethren, by the lukewarm soul, that soul who would like to be worldly without ceasing to be a child of God. You will see such a one at one moment prostrate before God, his Saviour and his Master, and the next moment similarly prostrate before the world, his idol.

Poor blind creature, who gives one hand to God and the other to the world, so that he can call both to his aid, and promise his heart to each in turn! He loves God, or rather, he would like to love Him, but he would also like to please the world. Then, weary of wanting to give his allegiance to both, he ends by giving it to the world alone. This is an extraordinary life and one which offers so strange a spectacle that it is hard to persuade oneself that it could be the life of one and the same person. I am going to show you this so clearly that perhaps many among you will be hurt by it. But that will matter little to me, for I am always going to tell you what I ought to tell you, and then you will do what you wish about it . . . .

I would say further, my brethren, that whoever wants to please both the world and God leads one of the most unhappy of lives. You shall see how. Here is someone who gives himself up to the pleasures of the world or develops some evil habit.

How great is his fear when he comes to fulfil his religious duties; that is, when he says his prayers, when he goes to Confession, or wants to go to Holy Communion! He does not want to be seen by those with whom he has been dancing and passing nights at the cabarets, where he has been giving himself over to many kinds of licentiousness. Has he come to the stage when he is going to deceive his confessor by hiding the worst of his actions and thus obtain permission to go to Holy Communion, or rather, to commit a sacrilege? He would prefer to go to Holy Communion before or after Mass, that is to say, when there is no one present. Yet he is quite happy to be seen by the good people who know nothing about his evil life and among whom he would like to arouse good opinions about himself. In front of devout people he talks about religion. When he is with those who have no religion, he will talk only about the pleasures of the world. He would blush to fulfil his religious practices in front of his companions or those boys and girls who share his evil ways . . . .

This is so true that one day someone asked me to allow him to go to Holy Communion in the sacristy so that no one would see him. Is it possible, my brethren, that one could think upon such horrible behaviour without shuddering?

But we shall proceed further and you will see the embarrassment of these poor people who want to follow the world without-outwardly at any rate-leaving God. Here is Easter approaching. They must go to Confession. It is not, of course, that they want to go or that they feel any urge or need to receive the Sacrament of Penance. They would be only too pleased if Easter came around about once every thirty years. But their parents still retain the exterior practice of religion. They will be happy if their children go to the altar, and they keep urging them, then, to go to Confession. In this, of course, they make a mistake. If only they would just pray for them and not torment them into committing sacrileges. So to rid themselves of the importunity of their parents, to keep up appearances, these people will get together to find out who is the best confessor to try for absolution for the first or second time

'Look, says one, 'my parents keep nagging at me because I haven't been to Confession. Where shall we go? 'It is of no use going to our parish priest; he is too scrupulous. He would not allow us to make our Easter duty. We will have to try to find So-and-So. He let this one and that one go through, and they are worse than we are. We have done no more harm than they have.

Another will say: 'I assure you that if it were not for my parents I would not make my Easter duty at all. Our catechism says that to make a good Confession we must give up sin and the occasions of sin, and we are doing neither the one nor the other. I tell you sincerely that I am really embarrassed every time Easter comes around. I will be glad when the time comes for me to settle down and to cease gallivanting. I will make a confession then of my whole life, to put right the ones I am making now. Without that I would not die happy.

'Well, another will say to him, 'when that time comes you ought to go to the priest who has been hearing your confessions up to the present. He will know you best. 'Indeed no! I will go to the one who would not give me absolution, because he would not want to see me damned either.

'My word, aren't you good! That means nothing at all. They all have the same power.

'That is a good thing to remember when we are doing what we ought to do. But when we are in sin, we think otherwise.

One day I went to see a girl who was pretty careless. She told me that she was not going back to Confession to the priests who were so easy and who, in making it seem as if they wanted to save you, pushed you into Hell. That is how many of these poor blind people behave! 'Father, they will say to the priest, 'I am going to Confession to you because our parish priest is too exacting. He wants to make us promise things which we cannot hold to. He would have us all saints, and that is not possible in the world. He would want us never to go to dances, nor to frequent cabarets or amusements. If someone has a bad habit, he will not give Absolution until the habit has been given up completely. If we had to do all that we should never make our Easter duty at all. My parents, who are very religious, are always after me to make my Easter duty. I will do all I can. But no one can say that he will never return to these amusements, since he never knows when he is going to encounter them.

'Ah! says the confessor, quite deceived by this sincere sounding talk, 'I think your parish priest is perhaps a little exacting. Make your act of contrition, and I will give you Absolution. Try to be good now.

That is to say: Bow your head; you are going to trample in the adorable Blood of Jesus Christ; you are going to sell your God like Judas sold Him to His executioners, and tomorrow you will go to Holy Communion, where you will proceed to crucify Him. What horror! What abomination! Go on, vile Judas, go to the holy table, go and give death to your God and your Saviour! Let your conscience cry out, only try to stifle its remorse as much as you can. . . . But I am going too far, my brethren. Let us leave these poor blind creatures in their gloom.

I think, brethren, that you would like to know what is the state of the lukewarm soul. Well, this is it. A lukewarm soul is not yet quite dead in the eyes of God because the faith, the hope, and the charity which are its spiritual life are not altogether extinct. But it is a faith without zeal, a hope without resolution, a charity without ardour . . . .

Nothing touches this soul: it hears the word of God, yes, that is true; but often it just bores it. Its possessor hears it with difficulty, more or less by habit, like someone who thinks that he knows enough about it and does enough of what he should.

Any prayers which are a bit long are distasteful to him. This soul is so full of whatever it has just been doing or what it is going to do next, its boredom is so great, that this poor unfortunate thing is almost in agony. It is still alive, but it is not capable of doing anything to gain Heaven . . . .

For the last twenty years this soul has been filled with good intentions without doing anything at all to correct its habits.

It is like someone who is envious of anyone who is on top of the world but who would not deign to lift a foot to try to get there himself. It would not, however, wish to renounce eternal blessings for those of the world. Yet it does not wish either to leave the world or to go to Heaven, and if it can just manage to pass its time without crosses or difficulties, it would never ask to leave this world at all. If you hear someone with such a soul say that life is long and pretty miserable, that is only when everything is not going in accordance with his desires. If God, in order to force such a soul to detach itself from temporal things, sends it any cross or suffering, it is fretful and grieving and abandons itself to grumbles and complaints and often even to a kind of despair. It seems as if it does not want to see that God has sent it these trials for its good, to detach it from this world and to draw it towards Himself. What has it done to deserve these trials? In this state a person thinks in his own mind that there are many others more blameworthy than himself who have not to submit to such trials.

In prosperous times the lukewarm soul does not go so far as to forget God, but neither does it forget itself. It knows very well how to boast about all the means it has employed to achieve its prosperity. It is quite convinced that many others would not have achieved the same success. It loves to repeat that and to hear it repeated, and every time it hears it, it is with fresh pleasure. The individual with the lukewarm soul assumes a gracious air when associating with those who flatter him. But towards those who have not paid him the respect which he believes he has deserved or who have not been grateful for his kindnesses, he maintains an air of frigid indifference and seems to indicate to them that they are ungrateful creatures who do not deserve to receive the good which he has done them . . . .

If I wanted to paint you an exact picture, my brethren, of the state of a soul which lives in tepidity, I should tell you that it is like a tortoise or a snail. It moves only by dragging itself along the ground, and one can see it getting from place to place with great difficulty. The love of God, which it feels deep down in itself, is like a tiny spark of fire hidden under a heap of ashes.

The lukewarm soul comes to the point of being completely indifferent to its own loss. It has nothing left but a love without tenderness, without action, and without energy which sustains it with difficulty in all that is essential for salvation. But for all other means of Grace, it looks upon them as nothing or almost nothing. Alas, my brethren, this poor soul in its tepidity is like someone between two bouts of sleep. It would like to act, but its will has become so softened that it lacks either the force or the courage to accomplish its wishes.

It is true that a Christian who lives in tepidity still regularly-in appearance at least-fulfils his duties. He will indeed get down on his knees every morning to say his prayers. He will go to the Sacraments every year at Easter and even several times during the course of the twelve months. But in all of this there will be such a distaste, so much slackness and so much indifference, so little preparation, so little change in his way of life, that it is easy to see that he is only fulfilling his duties from habit and routine . . . . because this is a feast and he is in the habit of carrying them out at such a time. His Confessions and his Communions are not sacrilegious, if you like, but they are Confessions and Communions which bear no fruit-which, far from making him more perfect and more pleasing to God, only make him more unworthy. As for his prayers, God alone knows what-without, of course, any preparation-he makes of these.

In the morning it is not God who occupies his thoughts, nor the salvation of his poor soul; he is quite taken up with thoughts of work. His mind is so wrapped up in the things of earth that the thought of God has no place in it. He is thinking about what he is going to be doing during the day, where he will be sending his children and his various employees, in what way he will expedite his own work. To say his prayers, he gets down on his knees, undoubtedly, but he does not know what he wants to ask God, nor what he needs, nor even before whom he is kneeling. His careless demeanour shows this very clearly. It is a poor man indeed who, however miserable he is, wants nothing at all and loves his poverty. It is surely a desperately sick person who scorns doctors and remedies and clings to his infirmities.

You can see that this lukewarm soul has no difficulty, on the slightest pretext, in talking during the course of his prayers.

For no reason at all he will abandon them, partly at least, thinking that he will finish them in another moment. Does he want to offer his day to God, to say his Grace? He does all that, but often without thinking of the one who is addressed. He will not even stop working. If the possessor of the lukewarm soul is a man, he will turn his cap or his hat around in his hands as if to see whether it is good or bad, as though he had some idea of selling it. If it is a woman, she will say her prayers while slicing bread into her soup, or putting wood on the fire, or calling out to her children or maid. If you like, such distractions during prayer are not exactly deliberate. People would rather not have them, but because it is necessary to go to so much trouble and expend so much energy to get rid of them, they let them alone and allow them to come as they will.

The lukewarm Christian may not perhaps work on Sunday at tasks which seem to be forbidden to anyone who has even the slightest shred of religion, but doing some sewing, arranging something in the house, driving sheep to the fields during the times for Masses, on the pretext that there is not enough food to give them-all these things will be done without the slightest scruple, and such people will prefer to allow their souls and the souls of their employees to perish rather than endanger their animals. A man will busy himself getting out his tools and his carts and harrows and so on, for the next day; he will fill in a hole or fence a gap; he will cut various lengths of cords and ropes; he will carry out the churns and set them in order. What do you think about all this, my brethren? Is it not, alas, the simple truth?

A lukewarm soul will go to Confession regularly, and even quite frequently. But what kind of Confessions are they? No preparation, no desire to correct faults, or, at the least, a desire so feeble and so small that the slightest difficulty will put a stop to it altogether. The Confessions of such a person are merely repetitions of old ones, which would be a happy state of affairs indeed if there were nothing to add to them. Twenty years ago he was accusing himself of the same things he confesses today, and if he goes to Confession for the next twenty years, he will say the same things. A lukewarm soul will not, if you like, commit the big sins. But some slander or back-biting, a lie, a feeling of hatred, of dislike, of jealousy, a slight touch of deceit or double-dealing-these count for nothing with it. If it is a woman and you do not pay her all the respect which she considers her due, she will, under the guise of pretending that God has been offended, make sure that you realise it; she could say more than that, of course, since it is she herself who has been offended. It is true that such a woman would not stop going to the Sacraments, but her dispositions are worthy of compassion.

On the day when she wants to receive her God, she spends part of the morning thinking of temporal matters. If it is a man, he will be thinking about his deals and his sales. If it is a married woman, she will be thinking about her household and her children. If it is a young girl, her thoughts will be on her clothes.

If it is a boy, he will be dreaming about passing pleasures and so on. The lukewarm soul shuts God up in a n obscure and ugly kind of prison. Its possessor does not crucify Him, but God can find little joy or consolation in his heart.

All his dispositions proclaim that his poor soul is struggling for the breath of life.

After having received Holy Communion, this person will hardly give another thought to God in all the days to follow. His manner of life tells us that he did not know the greatness of the happiness which had been his.

A lukewarm Christian thinks very little upon the state of his poor soul and almost never lets his mind run over the past. If the thought of making any effort to be better crosses his mind at all, he believes that once he has confessed his sins, he ought to be perfectly happy and at peace. He assists at Holy Mass very much as he would at any ordinary activity. He does not think at all seriously of what he is doing and finds no trouble in chatting about all sorts of things while on the way there. Possibly he will not give a single thought to the fact that he is about to participate in the greatest of all the gifts that God, all-powerful as He is, could give us. He does give some thought to the needs of his own soul, yes, but a very small and feeble amount of thought indeed. Frequently he will even present himself before the presence of God without having any idea of what he is going to ask of Him. He has few scruples in cutting out, on the least pretext, the Asperges and the prayers before Mass. During the course of the service, he does not want to go to sleep, of course, and he is even afraid that someone might see him, but he does not do himself any violence all the same. He does not want, of course, to have distractions during prayer or during the Holy Mass, yet when he should put up some little fight against them, he suffers them very patiently, considering the fact that he does not like them. Fast days are reduced to practically nothing, either by advancing the time of the main meal or, under the pretext that Heaven was never taken by famine, by making the collation so abundant that it amounts to a full meal. When he performs good or beneficial actions, his intentions are often very mixed-sometimes it is to please someone, sometimes it is out of compassion, and sometimes it is just to please the world. With such people everything that is not a really serious sin is good enough. They like doing good, being faithful, but they wish that it did not cost them anything or, at least, that it cost very little. They would like to visit the sick, indeed, but it would be more convenient if the sick would come to them. They have something to give away in alms, they know quite well that a certain person has need of help, but they wait until she comes to ask them instead of anticipating her, which would make the kindness so very much more meritorious. We will even say, my brethren, that the person who leads a lukewarm life does not fail to do plenty of good works, to frequent the Sacraments, to assist regularly at all church services, but in all of this one sees only a weak, languishing faith, hope which the slightest trial will upset, a love of God and of neighbour which is without warmth or pleasure. Everything that such a person does is not entirely lost, but it is very nearly so.

See, before God, my brethren, on what side you are. On the side of the sinners, who have abandoned everything and plunge themselves into sin without remorse? On the side of the just souls, who seek but God alone? Or are you of the number of these slack, tepid, and indifferent souls such as we have just been depicting for you? Down which road are you travelling?

Who can dare assure himself that he is neither a great sinner nor a tepid soul but that he is one of the elect? Alas, my brethren, how many seem to be good Christians in the eyes of the world who are really tepid souls in the eyes of God, Who knows our inmost hearts . . . .

Let us ask God with all our hearts, if we are in this state, to give us the grace to get out of it, so that we may take the route that all the saints have taken and arrive at the happiness that they are enjoying. That is what I desire for you . . . .]]> <![CDATA[“Lepanto” By G.K. Chesterton]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=7562 Wed, 15 Oct 2025 13:37:48 +0000 Stone]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=7562 “Lepanto”
By G.K. Chesterton

[Image: Bright_The_Battle_of_Lepanto_by_Paolo_Ve....jpg?ssl=1]
The Imaginative Conservative | October 6th, 2025


White founts falling in the courts of the sun,
And the Soldan of Byzantium is smiling as they run;
There is laughter like the fountains in that face of all men feared,
It stirs the forest darkness, the darkness of his beard,
It curls the blood-red crescent, the crescent of his lips,
For the inmost sea of all the earth is shaken with his ships.
They have dared the white republics up the capes of Italy,
They have dashed the Adriatic round the Lion of the Sea,
And the Pope has cast his arms abroad for agony and loss,
And called the kings of Christendom for swords about the Cross,
The cold queen of England is looking in the glass;
The shadow of the Valois is yawning at the Mass;
From evening isles fantastical rings faint the Spanish gun,
And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.

Dim drums throbbing, in the hills half heard,
Where only on a nameless throne a crownless prince has stirred,
Where, risen from a doubtful seat and half attainted stall,
The last knight of Europe takes weapons from the wall,
The last and lingering troubadour to whom the bird has sung,
That once went singing southward when all the world was young,
In that enormous silence, tiny and unafraid,
Comes up along a winding road the noise of the Crusade.
Strong gongs groaning as the guns boom far,
Don John of Austria is going to the war,
Stiff flags straining in the night-blasts cold
In the gloom black-purple, in the glint old-gold,
Torchlight crimson on the copper kettle-drums,
Then the tuckets, then the trumpets, then the cannon, and he comes.
Don John laughing in the brave beard curled,
Spurning of his stirrups like the thrones of all the world,
Holding his head up for a flag of all the free.
Love-light of Spain—hurrah!
Death-light of Africa!
Don John of Austria
Is riding to the sea.

Mahound is in his paradise above the evening star,
(Don John of Austria is going to the war.)
He moves a mighty turban on the timeless houri’s knees,
His turban that is woven of the sunset and the seas.
He shakes the peacock gardens as he rises from his ease,
And he strides among the tree-tops and is taller than the trees,
And his voice through all the garden is a thunder sent to bring
Black Azrael and Ariel and Ammon on the wing.
Giants and the Genii,
Multiplex of wing and eye,
Whose strong obedience broke the sky
When Solomon was king.

They rush in red and purple from the red clouds of the morn,
From temples where the yellow gods shut up their eyes in scorn;
They rise in green robes roaring from the green hells of the sea
Where fallen skies and evil hues and eyeless creatures be;
On them the sea-valves cluster and the grey sea-forests curl,
Splashed with a splendid sickness, the sickness of the pearl;
They swell in sapphire smoke out of the blue cracks of the ground,—
They gather and they wonder and give worship to Mahound.
And he saith, “Break up the mountains where the hermit-folk can hide,
And sift the red and silver sands lest bone of saint abide,
And chase the Giaours flying night and day, not giving rest,
For that which was our trouble comes again out of the west.
We have set the seal of Solomon on all things under sun,
Of knowledge and of sorrow and endurance of things done,
But a noise is in the mountains, in the mountains, and I know
The voice that shook our palaces—four hundred years ago:
It is he that saith not ‘Kismet’; it is he that knows not Fate ;
It is Richard, it is Raymond, it is Godfrey in the gate!
It is he whose loss is laughter when he counts the wager worth,
Put down your feet upon him, that our peace be on the earth.”
For he heard drums groaning and he heard guns jar,
(Don John of Austria is going to the war.)
Sudden and still—hurrah!
Bolt from Iberia!
Don John of Austria
Is gone by Alcalar.

St. Michael’s on his mountain in the sea-roads of the north
(Don John of Austria is girt and going forth.)
Where the grey seas glitter and the sharp tides shift
And the sea folk labour and the red sails lift.
He shakes his lance of iron and he claps his wings of stone;
The noise is gone through Normandy; the noise is gone alone;
The North is full of tangled things and texts and aching eyes
And dead is all the innocence of anger and surprise,
And Christian killeth Christian in a narrow dusty room,
And Christian dreadeth Christ that hath a newer face of doom,
And Christian hateth Mary that God kissed in Galilee,
But Don John of Austria is riding to the sea.
Don John calling through the blast and the eclipse
Crying with the trumpet, with the trumpet of his lips,
Trumpet that sayeth ha!
Domino gloria!
Don John of Austria
Is shouting to the ships.

King Philip’s in his closet with the Fleece about his neck
(Don John of Austria is armed upon the deck.)
The walls are hung with velvet that is black and soft as sin,
And little dwarfs creep out of it and little dwarfs creep in.
He holds a crystal phial that has colours like the moon,
He touches, and it tingles, and he trembles very soon,
And his face is as a fungus of a leprous white and grey
Like plants in the high houses that are shuttered from the day,
And death is in the phial, and the end of noble work,
But Don John of Austria has fired upon the Turk.
Don John’s hunting, and his hounds have bayed—
Booms away past Italy the rumour of his raid
Gun upon gun, ha! ha!
Gun upon gun, hurrah!
Don John of Austria
Has loosed the cannonade.

The Pope was in his chapel before day or battle broke,
(Don John of Austria is hidden in the smoke.)
The hidden room in man’s house where God sits all the year,
The secret window whence the world looks small and very dear.
He sees as in a mirror on the monstrous twilight sea
The crescent of his cruel ships whose name is mystery;
They fling great shadows foe-wards, making Cross and Castle dark,
They veil the plumèd lions on the galleys of St. Mark;
And above the ships are palaces of brown, black-bearded chiefs,
And below the ships are prisons, where with multitudinous griefs,
Christian captives sick and sunless, all a labouring race repines
Like a race in sunken cities, like a nation in the mines.
They are lost like slaves that sweat, and in the skies of morning hung
The stair-ways of the tallest gods when tyranny was young.
They are countless, voiceless, hopeless as those fallen or fleeing on
Before the high Kings’ horses in the granite of Babylon.
And many a one grows witless in his quiet room in hell
Where a yellow face looks inward through the lattice of his cell,
And he finds his God forgotten, and he seeks no more a sign—
(But Don John of Austria has burst the battle-line!)
Don John pounding from the slaughter-painted poop,
Purpling all the ocean like a bloody pirate’s sloop,
Scarlet running over on the silvers and the golds,
Breaking of the hatches up and bursting of the holds,
Thronging of the thousands up that labour under sea
White for bliss and blind for sun and stunned for liberty.
Vivat Hispania!
Domino Gloria!
Don John of Austria
Has set his people free!

Cervantes on his galley sets the sword back in the sheath
(Don John of Austria rides homeward with a wreath.)
And he sees across a weary land a straggling road in Spain,
Up which a lean and foolish knight forever rides in vain,
And he smiles, but not as Sultans smile, and settles back the blade….
(But Don John of Austria rides home from the Crusade.)]]> “Lepanto”
By G.K. Chesterton

[Image: Bright_The_Battle_of_Lepanto_by_Paolo_Ve....jpg?ssl=1]
The Imaginative Conservative | October 6th, 2025


White founts falling in the courts of the sun,
And the Soldan of Byzantium is smiling as they run;
There is laughter like the fountains in that face of all men feared,
It stirs the forest darkness, the darkness of his beard,
It curls the blood-red crescent, the crescent of his lips,
For the inmost sea of all the earth is shaken with his ships.
They have dared the white republics up the capes of Italy,
They have dashed the Adriatic round the Lion of the Sea,
And the Pope has cast his arms abroad for agony and loss,
And called the kings of Christendom for swords about the Cross,
The cold queen of England is looking in the glass;
The shadow of the Valois is yawning at the Mass;
From evening isles fantastical rings faint the Spanish gun,
And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.

Dim drums throbbing, in the hills half heard,
Where only on a nameless throne a crownless prince has stirred,
Where, risen from a doubtful seat and half attainted stall,
The last knight of Europe takes weapons from the wall,
The last and lingering troubadour to whom the bird has sung,
That once went singing southward when all the world was young,
In that enormous silence, tiny and unafraid,
Comes up along a winding road the noise of the Crusade.
Strong gongs groaning as the guns boom far,
Don John of Austria is going to the war,
Stiff flags straining in the night-blasts cold
In the gloom black-purple, in the glint old-gold,
Torchlight crimson on the copper kettle-drums,
Then the tuckets, then the trumpets, then the cannon, and he comes.
Don John laughing in the brave beard curled,
Spurning of his stirrups like the thrones of all the world,
Holding his head up for a flag of all the free.
Love-light of Spain—hurrah!
Death-light of Africa!
Don John of Austria
Is riding to the sea.

Mahound is in his paradise above the evening star,
(Don John of Austria is going to the war.)
He moves a mighty turban on the timeless houri’s knees,
His turban that is woven of the sunset and the seas.
He shakes the peacock gardens as he rises from his ease,
And he strides among the tree-tops and is taller than the trees,
And his voice through all the garden is a thunder sent to bring
Black Azrael and Ariel and Ammon on the wing.
Giants and the Genii,
Multiplex of wing and eye,
Whose strong obedience broke the sky
When Solomon was king.

They rush in red and purple from the red clouds of the morn,
From temples where the yellow gods shut up their eyes in scorn;
They rise in green robes roaring from the green hells of the sea
Where fallen skies and evil hues and eyeless creatures be;
On them the sea-valves cluster and the grey sea-forests curl,
Splashed with a splendid sickness, the sickness of the pearl;
They swell in sapphire smoke out of the blue cracks of the ground,—
They gather and they wonder and give worship to Mahound.
And he saith, “Break up the mountains where the hermit-folk can hide,
And sift the red and silver sands lest bone of saint abide,
And chase the Giaours flying night and day, not giving rest,
For that which was our trouble comes again out of the west.
We have set the seal of Solomon on all things under sun,
Of knowledge and of sorrow and endurance of things done,
But a noise is in the mountains, in the mountains, and I know
The voice that shook our palaces—four hundred years ago:
It is he that saith not ‘Kismet’; it is he that knows not Fate ;
It is Richard, it is Raymond, it is Godfrey in the gate!
It is he whose loss is laughter when he counts the wager worth,
Put down your feet upon him, that our peace be on the earth.”
For he heard drums groaning and he heard guns jar,
(Don John of Austria is going to the war.)
Sudden and still—hurrah!
Bolt from Iberia!
Don John of Austria
Is gone by Alcalar.

St. Michael’s on his mountain in the sea-roads of the north
(Don John of Austria is girt and going forth.)
Where the grey seas glitter and the sharp tides shift
And the sea folk labour and the red sails lift.
He shakes his lance of iron and he claps his wings of stone;
The noise is gone through Normandy; the noise is gone alone;
The North is full of tangled things and texts and aching eyes
And dead is all the innocence of anger and surprise,
And Christian killeth Christian in a narrow dusty room,
And Christian dreadeth Christ that hath a newer face of doom,
And Christian hateth Mary that God kissed in Galilee,
But Don John of Austria is riding to the sea.
Don John calling through the blast and the eclipse
Crying with the trumpet, with the trumpet of his lips,
Trumpet that sayeth ha!
Domino gloria!
Don John of Austria
Is shouting to the ships.

King Philip’s in his closet with the Fleece about his neck
(Don John of Austria is armed upon the deck.)
The walls are hung with velvet that is black and soft as sin,
And little dwarfs creep out of it and little dwarfs creep in.
He holds a crystal phial that has colours like the moon,
He touches, and it tingles, and he trembles very soon,
And his face is as a fungus of a leprous white and grey
Like plants in the high houses that are shuttered from the day,
And death is in the phial, and the end of noble work,
But Don John of Austria has fired upon the Turk.
Don John’s hunting, and his hounds have bayed—
Booms away past Italy the rumour of his raid
Gun upon gun, ha! ha!
Gun upon gun, hurrah!
Don John of Austria
Has loosed the cannonade.

The Pope was in his chapel before day or battle broke,
(Don John of Austria is hidden in the smoke.)
The hidden room in man’s house where God sits all the year,
The secret window whence the world looks small and very dear.
He sees as in a mirror on the monstrous twilight sea
The crescent of his cruel ships whose name is mystery;
They fling great shadows foe-wards, making Cross and Castle dark,
They veil the plumèd lions on the galleys of St. Mark;
And above the ships are palaces of brown, black-bearded chiefs,
And below the ships are prisons, where with multitudinous griefs,
Christian captives sick and sunless, all a labouring race repines
Like a race in sunken cities, like a nation in the mines.
They are lost like slaves that sweat, and in the skies of morning hung
The stair-ways of the tallest gods when tyranny was young.
They are countless, voiceless, hopeless as those fallen or fleeing on
Before the high Kings’ horses in the granite of Babylon.
And many a one grows witless in his quiet room in hell
Where a yellow face looks inward through the lattice of his cell,
And he finds his God forgotten, and he seeks no more a sign—
(But Don John of Austria has burst the battle-line!)
Don John pounding from the slaughter-painted poop,
Purpling all the ocean like a bloody pirate’s sloop,
Scarlet running over on the silvers and the golds,
Breaking of the hatches up and bursting of the holds,
Thronging of the thousands up that labour under sea
White for bliss and blind for sun and stunned for liberty.
Vivat Hispania!
Domino Gloria!
Don John of Austria
Has set his people free!

Cervantes on his galley sets the sword back in the sheath
(Don John of Austria rides homeward with a wreath.)
And he sees across a weary land a straggling road in Spain,
Up which a lean and foolish knight forever rides in vain,
And he smiles, but not as Sultans smile, and settles back the blade….
(But Don John of Austria rides home from the Crusade.)]]> <![CDATA[Queen Emma Asks for the Ordeal by Fire]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=7439 Wed, 10 Sep 2025 12:35:13 +0000 Stone]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=7439 Queen Emma Asks for the Ordeal by Fire

Hugh O'Reilly  | September 6, 2025

Queen Emma of Normandy [Ælfgifu] was the wife of two Kings, Aethelred II the Unready of England (1001-1016), and then Canute the Great of Denmark (1017-1018) and Norway (1028-1035). She was also the mother of two Kings, King Harthacunt and St. Edward the Confessor.

[Image: H282_sons.jpg]

Queen Emma with her two sons, Harthacunt & Edward, both of whom became kings

Looking for an excuse to diminish her influence at court and increase his own, Robert, Archbishop of Canterbury, persuaded the King that Emma had been guilty of too close an intimacy with Aelfwine, Bishop of Winchester, who had been dead for three years. This was 48 years after her first marriage and 15 years after the death of her second husband. Her son, Edward, despoiled his mother Queen Emma of her properties and title.

The Queen wrote to Bishops whom she trusted, saying she was far more shocked at the scandal against the good Bishop Aelfwine than at the scandal against herself. She stated that she was ready to submit to the order of burning iron in order to prove the innocence of the deceased Bishop. Those Bishops advised the King to allow the trial.

The accuser Archbishop of Canterbury used strong language against Emma, and said she would have to walk over nine hot ploughshares, four for herself and five for the Bishop, in order for her innocence to be accepted.

Queen Emma agreed, and preparations were made for the trial.

Queen Emma passed the night before the ordeal in prayer at St. Swithun’s shrine. [St. Swithun was Bishop of Winchester in the 9th century; after his death many miracles were worked at his gravesite and the Cathedral became a popular pilgrimage site. During the Protestant Revolution the soldiers of Henry VIII entered the Cathedral in the early morning and destroyed his shrines and scattered his relics.]

[Image: H282_Swi.jpg]

St. Swithun, Bishop of Winchester in the 9th century, became famous for his miracles

In answer to her supplications, the Saint appeared to her and said: “I am St. Swithun whom you have invoked. Fear not, the fire shall do you no hurt.”

On the morrow, King Edward the Confessor with his attendant courtiers assembled. Nine plowshares were made red-hot, and placed upon the pavement in the nave of Winchester Cathedral. Emma entered plainly dressed, feet and legs bare to the knee, and made a long prayer, which commenced: “O God, who didst save Susannah from the malice of the wicked elders, save me.”

The Queen was blindfolded and led through the cathedral to the irons. Then, guided by the two Bishops, she tread with her bare feet upon the glowing metal, but she felt nothing, neither the metal nor the heat. Then, turning to one of the Bishops, Emma asked: “When shall we come to the ploughshares?”

[Image: H282_Ord.jpg]

The Ordeal of Queen Emma, by William Blacke, 1779

Then they showed her that she had already passed over them. Upon examination, her feet were found to be uninjured.

The King, thoroughly convinced of her innocence and repenting of his cruelty, cast himself at his mother’s feet, exclaiming: “Mother I have sinned before Heaven and before you.” King Edward asked for a penance and received stripes both from the good Bishop and from his mother. Further her ranks and property were restored to her.

The King banished the wicked Archbishop. And Queen Emma made an offering of thanksgiving to St. Swithun for his intercession that cleared the name of Bishop Aelfwine and restored her own good reputation.

[Image: H282_Don.jpg]

Queen Emma influenced King Canute to give a large golden cross to the Church of Winchester
]]> Queen Emma Asks for the Ordeal by Fire

Hugh O'Reilly  | September 6, 2025

Queen Emma of Normandy [Ælfgifu] was the wife of two Kings, Aethelred II the Unready of England (1001-1016), and then Canute the Great of Denmark (1017-1018) and Norway (1028-1035). She was also the mother of two Kings, King Harthacunt and St. Edward the Confessor.

[Image: H282_sons.jpg]

Queen Emma with her two sons, Harthacunt & Edward, both of whom became kings

Looking for an excuse to diminish her influence at court and increase his own, Robert, Archbishop of Canterbury, persuaded the King that Emma had been guilty of too close an intimacy with Aelfwine, Bishop of Winchester, who had been dead for three years. This was 48 years after her first marriage and 15 years after the death of her second husband. Her son, Edward, despoiled his mother Queen Emma of her properties and title.

The Queen wrote to Bishops whom she trusted, saying she was far more shocked at the scandal against the good Bishop Aelfwine than at the scandal against herself. She stated that she was ready to submit to the order of burning iron in order to prove the innocence of the deceased Bishop. Those Bishops advised the King to allow the trial.

The accuser Archbishop of Canterbury used strong language against Emma, and said she would have to walk over nine hot ploughshares, four for herself and five for the Bishop, in order for her innocence to be accepted.

Queen Emma agreed, and preparations were made for the trial.

Queen Emma passed the night before the ordeal in prayer at St. Swithun’s shrine. [St. Swithun was Bishop of Winchester in the 9th century; after his death many miracles were worked at his gravesite and the Cathedral became a popular pilgrimage site. During the Protestant Revolution the soldiers of Henry VIII entered the Cathedral in the early morning and destroyed his shrines and scattered his relics.]

[Image: H282_Swi.jpg]

St. Swithun, Bishop of Winchester in the 9th century, became famous for his miracles

In answer to her supplications, the Saint appeared to her and said: “I am St. Swithun whom you have invoked. Fear not, the fire shall do you no hurt.”

On the morrow, King Edward the Confessor with his attendant courtiers assembled. Nine plowshares were made red-hot, and placed upon the pavement in the nave of Winchester Cathedral. Emma entered plainly dressed, feet and legs bare to the knee, and made a long prayer, which commenced: “O God, who didst save Susannah from the malice of the wicked elders, save me.”

The Queen was blindfolded and led through the cathedral to the irons. Then, guided by the two Bishops, she tread with her bare feet upon the glowing metal, but she felt nothing, neither the metal nor the heat. Then, turning to one of the Bishops, Emma asked: “When shall we come to the ploughshares?”

[Image: H282_Ord.jpg]

The Ordeal of Queen Emma, by William Blacke, 1779

Then they showed her that she had already passed over them. Upon examination, her feet were found to be uninjured.

The King, thoroughly convinced of her innocence and repenting of his cruelty, cast himself at his mother’s feet, exclaiming: “Mother I have sinned before Heaven and before you.” King Edward asked for a penance and received stripes both from the good Bishop and from his mother. Further her ranks and property were restored to her.

The King banished the wicked Archbishop. And Queen Emma made an offering of thanksgiving to St. Swithun for his intercession that cleared the name of Bishop Aelfwine and restored her own good reputation.

[Image: H282_Don.jpg]

Queen Emma influenced King Canute to give a large golden cross to the Church of Winchester
]]> <![CDATA[Not Just for Medieval Monks: Wisdom for Us All from the Rule of St. Benedict]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=7407 Sun, 24 Aug 2025 14:03:00 +0000 Stone]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=7407 Not Just for Medieval Monks: Wisdom for Us All from the Rule of St. Benedict
Lessons on money, prayer, and silence from one of the founding documents of Western Civilization


Robert Keim from his Substack Via Medievalis | Aug 24, 2025

We are going to establish a school for the service of the Lord. In founding it we hope to introduce nothing harsh or burdensome.  —Prologue to the Rule of St. Benedict

It is, in fact, unsurprising that the Rule of St. Benedict should be a masterpiece of wisdom and spiritual counsel for ordinary laymen: it was written for ordinary laymen. In composing his Rule and forming his monastic communities, St. Benedict was not establishing a clerical institution, nor did he assume that his monks would be occupied with clerical duties. Indeed, one scholar affirmed that his Rule “is somewhat distrustful of priests,” and I must admit that Chapter 60 does give this impression:
Quote:If anyone of the priestly order should ask to be received into the monastery, permission shall not be granted him too readily. If he is quite persistent in his request, let him know that he will have to observe the whole discipline of the Rule, and that nothing will be relaxed for him….

It shall be granted him, however, to stand next after the Abbot and to give blessings or offer Mass, but only by order of the Abbot. Without such order let him not presume to do anything….

If any clerics … wish to join the monastery, let them be placed in a middle rank, and only if they promise observance of the Rule and their own stability.

Benedict’s project was not so much clerical as evangelical: he sought to create a structure in which laymen of all conditions could conform their lives to the ideals of the Gospel. In the prologue to the Rule he makes it clear that his words were written for—well, for you.

Quote:To you, therefore, my words are now addressed, whoever you may be, who are renouncing your own will to do battle under the Lord Christ, the true King.

We need not lament the fact that the Benedictines developed into a clerical order; the marriage of monastic and priestly labors has been a happy one. And we should rejoice that many monks have attained extraordinary sanctity and embraced mortifications that make worldly people like me break out in a cold sweat and start searching frantically for excuses. However, it is right to be dismayed if Benedictine life is perceived as utterly remote from the attitudes and practices of ordinary lay Christians. The Rule, as the old Catholic Encyclopedia points out, “is meant for every class of mind and every degree of learning.” It is not a manual of deathly penance and lofty mysticism for people on the verge of sainthood; rather, “it organizes and directs a complete life which is adapted for simple folk and for sinners.” Benedict himself had characteristically modest expectations, expressed as usual in the language of a kindly father (the italics are mine):
Quote:We have written this Rule that by observing it in monasteries we may show that we have attained some degree of virtue or the beginning of conversion…. Whoever you are, therefore, who are hastening to the heavenly homeland, fulfill with the help of Christ this most elementary Rule.

[Image: https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.ama...3x612.jpeg]

The images in this post are from an eleventh-century manuscript containing the Rule of St. Benedict.

It is said that monks take vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. Benedictines, however, do not take a vow of poverty. Rather, they vow stability, obedience, and fidelity to the monastic life as envisioned in the Rule. This is not to say that Benedictine monks have the option of being personally wealthy. Benedict strictly forbade private ownership, which the Rule calls a “most wicked vice.”

Quote:This vice especially is to be cut out of the monastery by the roots. Let no one presume to give or receive anything without the Abbot’s leave, or to have anything as his own…. Let all things be common to all, as it is written, and let no one say or assume that anything is his own.

If anyone is caught indulging in this most wicked vice, let him be admonished once and a second time. If he fails to amend, let him undergo punishment.

Thus, extreme personal poverty, though not a separate vow, is implied in fidelity to the Rule. My point here is that the Benedictine life entails poverty as one element within the context of the Rule, and the context of the Rule is this: that possessions held in common are not forbidden or even discouraged, and that monks will not be required to beg for alms or endure severe deprivation. In fact, the Benedictine monastery, as a community, should be wealthy enough to give alms and to build up infrastructure for the good of the surrounding society. And why would it not be? A spiritual family of able-bodied, highly educated men who live simply, shun self-indulgence, have no children to support, and esteem manual labor as a high road to heaven—this is a perfect recipe for material abundance. And material abundance is exactly what medieval monasteries acquired.

[Image: https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.ama...2x491.jpeg]

The relationship between sincere Christians and material wealth has long been a vexed one. The crux of the matter was captured memorably by Anna Sewell in the novel Black Beauty:
Quote:“Look here, mates,” said Jerry; “the gentleman offered me half a crown extra, but I didn’t take it; ’twas quite pay enough for me to see how glad he was to catch that train….

“Well,” said Larry, “you’ll never be a rich man.”

“Most likely not,” said Jerry…. “I have heard the commandments read a great many times and I never noticed that any of them said, ‘Thou shalt be rich’; and there are a good many curious things said in the New Testament about rich men that I think would make me feel rather queer if I was one of them.”

(Oh, to live in the days when “queer” was just a normal word that meant “strange” and could be used freely without stirring up a dust storm of distracting associations.)

Though many articles and several books could be written on how exactly a Christian family should pursue the ideals of evangelical poverty, I think that much insight and guidance can be gained simply by meditating upon the traditional Benedictine relationship with wealth. Material wealth is eminently good—that is, something to be accepted, appreciated, even actively pursued—when it builds up the community in a wholesome, balanced, and enduring way. Arable land, livestock, tools, granaries, flour mills, workshops, bridges, medicinal gardens, schools, libraries, scriptoria, shrines, oratories: these are things that bring collective stability and health; that make life more well-ordered and less physically burdensome; that improve the mind and soul through prayer, intellectual growth, and moral refinement. Such things are perfectly compatible with the Rule’s rejection of private ownership, and furthermore, they can coexist peacefully with personal poverty—even with radical personal poverty.

If this model is not directly applicable to family life, which faces the complexities of raising children and coping with secular society, it nonetheless can be applied far more than it usually is. Personal poverty—as a mentality or a spiritual disposition, yes, but also as a concrete, lived reality—is a beautiful, sanctifying, and liberating practice that need not prevent parents and families from building the holistic, socially productive wealth that medieval monasteries acquired. I admit that the thrilling ideal of the monk in his bare stone cell, the former wearing his one habit and the latter adorned by one crucifix, is beyond what familial normalcy would allow. But I think that many Christian families are much farther from this ideal than they ought to be—and I say this as one who, earlier in my life, pushed personal poverty close to its modern limits, and who therefore has tasted its sweetness. Though the monastic spirit has dissipated somewhat as I walk the path to which I am apparently called, I fondly remember the days when I had more land, more livestock, two barns, no mortgage, and only one computer.

[Image: https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.ama...5x612.jpeg]

However much we might associate monks with long hours of meditative prayer, their bodies cloaked in darkness as their minds sink into the mystical depths of the unseen realm, the Rule of St. Benedict gives direct, explicit instructions only for vocal public prayer. This public prayer was to consist of Psalms, Canticles, passages of Scripture, and readings from the Fathers, and it was envisioned as the central experience, principal labor, and all-encompassing inspiration for those who embraced the monastic life. That the laity of the postmedieval Church have diverged markedly from the paradigm of prayer found in the Rule is, for me, a source of great confusion and dismay. I see no justification for this, and the following observation, again from the old Catholic Encyclopedia, makes the situation appear even more anomalous:
Quote:By ordering the public recitation and singing of the Psalter, St. Benedict was not putting upon his monks a distinctly clerical obligation. The Psalter was the common form of prayer of all Christians.

Even if one were somehow convinced that the Rule’s basic model of prayer is inappropriate for the laity, the argument would flounder—as I said above, the Rule was written for laymen, and Benedict instructed his monks to pray the Psalter because that is precisely what Christians in general, clerical or lay, were already doing.

[Image: https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.ama...2x499.jpeg]

Do modern families need to pray the entire Psalter every week, as the Rule insists? No. The details can be adapted according to circumstance, and Benedict himself encouraged flexibility with regard to elements that he considered negotiable: “If this distribution of the Psalms is displeasing to anyone, he should arrange them otherwise, in whatever way he considers better.” He also said, and I find this particularly illuminating, that communal prayer should be “very brief,” or in a more literal translation, “altogether abbreviated” (“in conventu tamen omnino brevietur oratio”). Now when it comes to prayer, “brief” certainly means different things for different people, but the underlying principle is clear: for those who are novices in the spiritual life—and that includes me, maybe you, virtually all children or teenagers, and the men for whom Benedict wrote the Rule—lengthy periods of uninterrupted prayer are unwise. They can lead to roving minds, indolence, annoyance, resentment, maybe even spiritual burnout.

The Rule favors a system in which short sessions of formal, poetic prayer occur regularly from morning through night, such that the mind is frequently elevated and the soul frequently refreshed as we navigate the temptations, duties, and worldly labors of the day. If you have children and say the Rosary (perhaps with extra prayers tacked onto the beginning and end) every night, please be careful: if your kids seem to be in la-la land by the end of it, or if they express displeasure, apathy, grudging compliance, etc. through words, groans, or body language, I think you have a problem that St. Benedict has foreseen, and that his Rule can help you solve.]]> Not Just for Medieval Monks: Wisdom for Us All from the Rule of St. Benedict
Lessons on money, prayer, and silence from one of the founding documents of Western Civilization


Robert Keim from his Substack Via Medievalis | Aug 24, 2025

We are going to establish a school for the service of the Lord. In founding it we hope to introduce nothing harsh or burdensome.  —Prologue to the Rule of St. Benedict

It is, in fact, unsurprising that the Rule of St. Benedict should be a masterpiece of wisdom and spiritual counsel for ordinary laymen: it was written for ordinary laymen. In composing his Rule and forming his monastic communities, St. Benedict was not establishing a clerical institution, nor did he assume that his monks would be occupied with clerical duties. Indeed, one scholar affirmed that his Rule “is somewhat distrustful of priests,” and I must admit that Chapter 60 does give this impression:
Quote:If anyone of the priestly order should ask to be received into the monastery, permission shall not be granted him too readily. If he is quite persistent in his request, let him know that he will have to observe the whole discipline of the Rule, and that nothing will be relaxed for him….

It shall be granted him, however, to stand next after the Abbot and to give blessings or offer Mass, but only by order of the Abbot. Without such order let him not presume to do anything….

If any clerics … wish to join the monastery, let them be placed in a middle rank, and only if they promise observance of the Rule and their own stability.

Benedict’s project was not so much clerical as evangelical: he sought to create a structure in which laymen of all conditions could conform their lives to the ideals of the Gospel. In the prologue to the Rule he makes it clear that his words were written for—well, for you.

Quote:To you, therefore, my words are now addressed, whoever you may be, who are renouncing your own will to do battle under the Lord Christ, the true King.

We need not lament the fact that the Benedictines developed into a clerical order; the marriage of monastic and priestly labors has been a happy one. And we should rejoice that many monks have attained extraordinary sanctity and embraced mortifications that make worldly people like me break out in a cold sweat and start searching frantically for excuses. However, it is right to be dismayed if Benedictine life is perceived as utterly remote from the attitudes and practices of ordinary lay Christians. The Rule, as the old Catholic Encyclopedia points out, “is meant for every class of mind and every degree of learning.” It is not a manual of deathly penance and lofty mysticism for people on the verge of sainthood; rather, “it organizes and directs a complete life which is adapted for simple folk and for sinners.” Benedict himself had characteristically modest expectations, expressed as usual in the language of a kindly father (the italics are mine):
Quote:We have written this Rule that by observing it in monasteries we may show that we have attained some degree of virtue or the beginning of conversion…. Whoever you are, therefore, who are hastening to the heavenly homeland, fulfill with the help of Christ this most elementary Rule.

[Image: https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.ama...3x612.jpeg]

The images in this post are from an eleventh-century manuscript containing the Rule of St. Benedict.

It is said that monks take vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. Benedictines, however, do not take a vow of poverty. Rather, they vow stability, obedience, and fidelity to the monastic life as envisioned in the Rule. This is not to say that Benedictine monks have the option of being personally wealthy. Benedict strictly forbade private ownership, which the Rule calls a “most wicked vice.”

Quote:This vice especially is to be cut out of the monastery by the roots. Let no one presume to give or receive anything without the Abbot’s leave, or to have anything as his own…. Let all things be common to all, as it is written, and let no one say or assume that anything is his own.

If anyone is caught indulging in this most wicked vice, let him be admonished once and a second time. If he fails to amend, let him undergo punishment.

Thus, extreme personal poverty, though not a separate vow, is implied in fidelity to the Rule. My point here is that the Benedictine life entails poverty as one element within the context of the Rule, and the context of the Rule is this: that possessions held in common are not forbidden or even discouraged, and that monks will not be required to beg for alms or endure severe deprivation. In fact, the Benedictine monastery, as a community, should be wealthy enough to give alms and to build up infrastructure for the good of the surrounding society. And why would it not be? A spiritual family of able-bodied, highly educated men who live simply, shun self-indulgence, have no children to support, and esteem manual labor as a high road to heaven—this is a perfect recipe for material abundance. And material abundance is exactly what medieval monasteries acquired.

[Image: https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.ama...2x491.jpeg]

The relationship between sincere Christians and material wealth has long been a vexed one. The crux of the matter was captured memorably by Anna Sewell in the novel Black Beauty:
Quote:“Look here, mates,” said Jerry; “the gentleman offered me half a crown extra, but I didn’t take it; ’twas quite pay enough for me to see how glad he was to catch that train….

“Well,” said Larry, “you’ll never be a rich man.”

“Most likely not,” said Jerry…. “I have heard the commandments read a great many times and I never noticed that any of them said, ‘Thou shalt be rich’; and there are a good many curious things said in the New Testament about rich men that I think would make me feel rather queer if I was one of them.”

(Oh, to live in the days when “queer” was just a normal word that meant “strange” and could be used freely without stirring up a dust storm of distracting associations.)

Though many articles and several books could be written on how exactly a Christian family should pursue the ideals of evangelical poverty, I think that much insight and guidance can be gained simply by meditating upon the traditional Benedictine relationship with wealth. Material wealth is eminently good—that is, something to be accepted, appreciated, even actively pursued—when it builds up the community in a wholesome, balanced, and enduring way. Arable land, livestock, tools, granaries, flour mills, workshops, bridges, medicinal gardens, schools, libraries, scriptoria, shrines, oratories: these are things that bring collective stability and health; that make life more well-ordered and less physically burdensome; that improve the mind and soul through prayer, intellectual growth, and moral refinement. Such things are perfectly compatible with the Rule’s rejection of private ownership, and furthermore, they can coexist peacefully with personal poverty—even with radical personal poverty.

If this model is not directly applicable to family life, which faces the complexities of raising children and coping with secular society, it nonetheless can be applied far more than it usually is. Personal poverty—as a mentality or a spiritual disposition, yes, but also as a concrete, lived reality—is a beautiful, sanctifying, and liberating practice that need not prevent parents and families from building the holistic, socially productive wealth that medieval monasteries acquired. I admit that the thrilling ideal of the monk in his bare stone cell, the former wearing his one habit and the latter adorned by one crucifix, is beyond what familial normalcy would allow. But I think that many Christian families are much farther from this ideal than they ought to be—and I say this as one who, earlier in my life, pushed personal poverty close to its modern limits, and who therefore has tasted its sweetness. Though the monastic spirit has dissipated somewhat as I walk the path to which I am apparently called, I fondly remember the days when I had more land, more livestock, two barns, no mortgage, and only one computer.

[Image: https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.ama...5x612.jpeg]

However much we might associate monks with long hours of meditative prayer, their bodies cloaked in darkness as their minds sink into the mystical depths of the unseen realm, the Rule of St. Benedict gives direct, explicit instructions only for vocal public prayer. This public prayer was to consist of Psalms, Canticles, passages of Scripture, and readings from the Fathers, and it was envisioned as the central experience, principal labor, and all-encompassing inspiration for those who embraced the monastic life. That the laity of the postmedieval Church have diverged markedly from the paradigm of prayer found in the Rule is, for me, a source of great confusion and dismay. I see no justification for this, and the following observation, again from the old Catholic Encyclopedia, makes the situation appear even more anomalous:
Quote:By ordering the public recitation and singing of the Psalter, St. Benedict was not putting upon his monks a distinctly clerical obligation. The Psalter was the common form of prayer of all Christians.

Even if one were somehow convinced that the Rule’s basic model of prayer is inappropriate for the laity, the argument would flounder—as I said above, the Rule was written for laymen, and Benedict instructed his monks to pray the Psalter because that is precisely what Christians in general, clerical or lay, were already doing.

[Image: https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.ama...2x499.jpeg]

Do modern families need to pray the entire Psalter every week, as the Rule insists? No. The details can be adapted according to circumstance, and Benedict himself encouraged flexibility with regard to elements that he considered negotiable: “If this distribution of the Psalms is displeasing to anyone, he should arrange them otherwise, in whatever way he considers better.” He also said, and I find this particularly illuminating, that communal prayer should be “very brief,” or in a more literal translation, “altogether abbreviated” (“in conventu tamen omnino brevietur oratio”). Now when it comes to prayer, “brief” certainly means different things for different people, but the underlying principle is clear: for those who are novices in the spiritual life—and that includes me, maybe you, virtually all children or teenagers, and the men for whom Benedict wrote the Rule—lengthy periods of uninterrupted prayer are unwise. They can lead to roving minds, indolence, annoyance, resentment, maybe even spiritual burnout.

The Rule favors a system in which short sessions of formal, poetic prayer occur regularly from morning through night, such that the mind is frequently elevated and the soul frequently refreshed as we navigate the temptations, duties, and worldly labors of the day. If you have children and say the Rosary (perhaps with extra prayers tacked onto the beginning and end) every night, please be careful: if your kids seem to be in la-la land by the end of it, or if they express displeasure, apathy, grudging compliance, etc. through words, groans, or body language, I think you have a problem that St. Benedict has foreseen, and that his Rule can help you solve.]]> <![CDATA[Architecture of the London Charterhouse [Carthusian]]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=7406 Sun, 24 Aug 2025 13:53:52 +0000 Stone]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=7406 Architecture of the London Charterhouse

[Image: map-london-charterhouse-big-copia.jpg?w=588]

Among the historic buildings of London, few hold a history as unique as the former Charterhouse of the Salutation of the Mother of God. This book explores the architectural evolution of the monastery. Within its cloisters and cells lived those English Carthusians who would later be recognized as martyrs. And although their martyrdom was carried out elsewhere, it was here that they prepared themselves to give their lives for what they believed to be just.

Taken from https://silenciocartujano.wordpress.com/...ouse-book/
]]> Architecture of the London Charterhouse

[Image: map-london-charterhouse-big-copia.jpg?w=588]

Among the historic buildings of London, few hold a history as unique as the former Charterhouse of the Salutation of the Mother of God. This book explores the architectural evolution of the monastery. Within its cloisters and cells lived those English Carthusians who would later be recognized as martyrs. And although their martyrdom was carried out elsewhere, it was here that they prepared themselves to give their lives for what they believed to be just.

Taken from https://silenciocartujano.wordpress.com/...ouse-book/
]]> <![CDATA[Bishop Strickland: Archbishop Lefebvre will be ‘recognized by history’ for sustaining the Latin Mass]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=7392 Sat, 16 Aug 2025 12:00:39 +0000 Stone]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=7392

Bishop Strickland: Archbishop Lefebvre will be ‘recognized by history’ for sustaining the Latin Mass
Bishop Strickland lauded Archbishop Lefebvre for helping to preserve the Latin Mass as something ‘vital to the life of the Church.’

[Image: Bp-Strickland-scaled.jpg]

Aug 14, 2025
(LifeSiteNews) — Bishop Joseph Strickland praised Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, founder of the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX), for helping to preserve the Traditional Latin Mass, declaring that his service will be “recognized by history.”

In an exclusive interview with The Catholic Herald, Bishop Strickland defended the TLM and Archbishop Lefebvre; criticized the ideal of Church “unity” not based in truth; and warned that Pope Leo XIV is continuing Pope Francis’ path of undermining the Catholic faith.

When the Herald pointed out that the Traditional Latin Mass was criticized as “divisive” by Francis, Bishop Strickland flatly rejected the idea that the Latin Mass, through which “countless saints” became holy, is “harmful” or “divisive.”

“To try to suppress the Latin Mass as if it were something outdated or bad is, in my view, contrary to the faith,” Bishop Strickland said. He noted that, on the contrary, the changes to the Mass have “diminished its sacred focus and the focus on Christ,” and led to “countless examples of a loss of reverence.”

Even Vatican II and its Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy did not call for many of the changes seen in the Novus Ordo Missae — the new Mass — Bishop Strickland pointed out. For example, the document called for the preservation of Latin and Gregorian chant in the Mass.

When the focus on Christ in the Mass is diminished, the Church is “in danger,” the bishop continued, adding that we have “seen the results” of this danger in the Church since the new Mass was promulgated.

Asked about his views on the SSPX, Bishop Strickland lauded Archbishop Lefebvre for helping to preserve the Latin Mass as something “vital to the life of the Church. When the Novus Ordo was promulgated, the SSPX had the only seminary training priests to offer the Latin Mass, and forming them according to the tradition of the Church.

Bishop Strickland asserted that the Mass “is at the very center” of the Church’s response to the modern world, since “the law of prayer is the law of belief” — lex orandi, lex credendi. “And we are seeing that struggle playing out,” he added.

He went on to declare that Archbishop Lefebvre, “in standing firm for the Latin Mass and insisting it could not be abolished … will be recognised by history.” Bishop Strickland believes he “will be remembered as a faithful Catholic who stood for principles that were in danger of being lost, questioned, or discarded,” primarily the Latin Mass.

The SSPX’s preservation of the Latin Mass is now especially significant because now again the Latin Mass, after Traditionis Custodes, “is treated as though it were a poison that must be eliminated, which is a complete distortion of what the Mass is,” Bishop Strickland said.

He acknowledged that Archbishop Lefebvre’s continuation of the SSPX in the face of censure by the Vatican “was a painful choice for him personally,” but he decided that he must hold fast to the Mass of the Ages (a)nd not abandon it, no matter who told him otherwise.”

The Catholic Herald framed several of its questions for Bishop Strickland in the context of “unity in the Church” as an ideal. The prelate clarified that unity, as a good, is always premised on truth as a foundation.

“Authentic unity in the Church is never built on silence in the face of error. True unity is found only in Christ, who is ‘the way, and the truth, and the life’ (John 14:6),” Bishop Strickland stated when asked about how he reconciles his “outspokenness” with “the call for unity in the Church.”

“Unity that ignores truth is merely uniformity,” he affirmed.

Bishop Strickland, who is known to have firmly criticized Pope Francis, was also asked his thoughts on Pope Leo XIV.

“When Pope Leo XIV was elected, I expressed the hope that he would faithfully uphold the Deposit of Faith,” he replied. Indeed, despite being removed from his position as Bishop of Tyler, Texas by Pope Leo XIV when he was known as Cardinal Robert Prevost, Bishop Strickland charitably forgave him and refrained from judging his papacy, even composing a prayer for him.

“That hope was genuine – but it has already been tested and, sadly, diminished,” Bishop Strickland said.

He went on to cite problematic actions and omissions by Pope Leo XIV during the first months of his papacy: having retained Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández at the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, “whose record includes undermining moral doctrine,” including by promoting Holy Communion for adulterers and downplaying the need to oppose same-sex marriage.

“He has appointed bishops who openly support the ordination of women, contrary to the Church’s constant teaching,” noted Bishop Strickland, referring to Pope Leo XIV’s appointment of Bishop Shane Mackinlay — who “has publicly expressed support for the possibility of ordaining women to the diaconate” — as Archbishop of Brisbane.

“These are not small matters. They represent a continuation of the same pattern we saw under Pope Francis – tolerating, or even promoting, voices that contradict the faith while sidelining those who speak it plainly,” Bishop Strickland said.

During COVID, as Cardinal Prevost, he also imposed receiving Communion on the hand and Confession by telephone, which is both invalid and sacrilegious.

Bishop Strickland said that he prays for Pope Leo XIV “every day,” but that this “does not mean remaining silent when the flock is being scattered.”

“If Pope Leo XIV chooses to uphold the same policies I have already spoken against – such as the restrictions on the Traditional Latin Mass – then my course is simple: I will continue to proclaim the truth and defend what the Church has always handed down, regardless of the cost.”]]>

Bishop Strickland: Archbishop Lefebvre will be ‘recognized by history’ for sustaining the Latin Mass
Bishop Strickland lauded Archbishop Lefebvre for helping to preserve the Latin Mass as something ‘vital to the life of the Church.’

[Image: Bp-Strickland-scaled.jpg]

Aug 14, 2025
(LifeSiteNews) — Bishop Joseph Strickland praised Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, founder of the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX), for helping to preserve the Traditional Latin Mass, declaring that his service will be “recognized by history.”

In an exclusive interview with The Catholic Herald, Bishop Strickland defended the TLM and Archbishop Lefebvre; criticized the ideal of Church “unity” not based in truth; and warned that Pope Leo XIV is continuing Pope Francis’ path of undermining the Catholic faith.

When the Herald pointed out that the Traditional Latin Mass was criticized as “divisive” by Francis, Bishop Strickland flatly rejected the idea that the Latin Mass, through which “countless saints” became holy, is “harmful” or “divisive.”

“To try to suppress the Latin Mass as if it were something outdated or bad is, in my view, contrary to the faith,” Bishop Strickland said. He noted that, on the contrary, the changes to the Mass have “diminished its sacred focus and the focus on Christ,” and led to “countless examples of a loss of reverence.”

Even Vatican II and its Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy did not call for many of the changes seen in the Novus Ordo Missae — the new Mass — Bishop Strickland pointed out. For example, the document called for the preservation of Latin and Gregorian chant in the Mass.

When the focus on Christ in the Mass is diminished, the Church is “in danger,” the bishop continued, adding that we have “seen the results” of this danger in the Church since the new Mass was promulgated.

Asked about his views on the SSPX, Bishop Strickland lauded Archbishop Lefebvre for helping to preserve the Latin Mass as something “vital to the life of the Church. When the Novus Ordo was promulgated, the SSPX had the only seminary training priests to offer the Latin Mass, and forming them according to the tradition of the Church.

Bishop Strickland asserted that the Mass “is at the very center” of the Church’s response to the modern world, since “the law of prayer is the law of belief” — lex orandi, lex credendi. “And we are seeing that struggle playing out,” he added.

He went on to declare that Archbishop Lefebvre, “in standing firm for the Latin Mass and insisting it could not be abolished … will be recognised by history.” Bishop Strickland believes he “will be remembered as a faithful Catholic who stood for principles that were in danger of being lost, questioned, or discarded,” primarily the Latin Mass.

The SSPX’s preservation of the Latin Mass is now especially significant because now again the Latin Mass, after Traditionis Custodes, “is treated as though it were a poison that must be eliminated, which is a complete distortion of what the Mass is,” Bishop Strickland said.

He acknowledged that Archbishop Lefebvre’s continuation of the SSPX in the face of censure by the Vatican “was a painful choice for him personally,” but he decided that he must hold fast to the Mass of the Ages (a)nd not abandon it, no matter who told him otherwise.”

The Catholic Herald framed several of its questions for Bishop Strickland in the context of “unity in the Church” as an ideal. The prelate clarified that unity, as a good, is always premised on truth as a foundation.

“Authentic unity in the Church is never built on silence in the face of error. True unity is found only in Christ, who is ‘the way, and the truth, and the life’ (John 14:6),” Bishop Strickland stated when asked about how he reconciles his “outspokenness” with “the call for unity in the Church.”

“Unity that ignores truth is merely uniformity,” he affirmed.

Bishop Strickland, who is known to have firmly criticized Pope Francis, was also asked his thoughts on Pope Leo XIV.

“When Pope Leo XIV was elected, I expressed the hope that he would faithfully uphold the Deposit of Faith,” he replied. Indeed, despite being removed from his position as Bishop of Tyler, Texas by Pope Leo XIV when he was known as Cardinal Robert Prevost, Bishop Strickland charitably forgave him and refrained from judging his papacy, even composing a prayer for him.

“That hope was genuine – but it has already been tested and, sadly, diminished,” Bishop Strickland said.

He went on to cite problematic actions and omissions by Pope Leo XIV during the first months of his papacy: having retained Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández at the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, “whose record includes undermining moral doctrine,” including by promoting Holy Communion for adulterers and downplaying the need to oppose same-sex marriage.

“He has appointed bishops who openly support the ordination of women, contrary to the Church’s constant teaching,” noted Bishop Strickland, referring to Pope Leo XIV’s appointment of Bishop Shane Mackinlay — who “has publicly expressed support for the possibility of ordaining women to the diaconate” — as Archbishop of Brisbane.

“These are not small matters. They represent a continuation of the same pattern we saw under Pope Francis – tolerating, or even promoting, voices that contradict the faith while sidelining those who speak it plainly,” Bishop Strickland said.

During COVID, as Cardinal Prevost, he also imposed receiving Communion on the hand and Confession by telephone, which is both invalid and sacrilegious.

Bishop Strickland said that he prays for Pope Leo XIV “every day,” but that this “does not mean remaining silent when the flock is being scattered.”

“If Pope Leo XIV chooses to uphold the same policies I have already spoken against – such as the restrictions on the Traditional Latin Mass – then my course is simple: I will continue to proclaim the truth and defend what the Church has always handed down, regardless of the cost.”]]>