Keep
your eyes open!...
October 31, 2018
(2Pe 3:8-12) But
of this one thing be not ignorant, my beloved, that one day with the
Lord is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord
delayeth not his promise, as some imagine, but dealeth patiently for
your sake, not willing that any should perish, but that all should
return to penance, But the day of the Lord shall come as a thief, in
which the heavens shall pass away with great violence and the elements
shall be melted with heat and the earth and the works which are in it
shall be burnt up. Seeing then that all these things are to be
dissolved, what manner of people ought you to be in holy conversation
and godliness? Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of
the Lord, by which the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and
the elements shall melt with the burning heat?
MARK MALLET REFLECTION: Surviving Our Toxic Culture
OPINION: Is the Western World Too Insane to Be Worth Saving? by Paul Craig Roberts
IN THE HEADLINES
Medical insanity: lesbian couple creates history by delivering baby they both carried
Why millennials are ditching religion for witchcraft and astrology
The Terrifying Paintings by ArtificiaI Intelligence
REPORT: Nearly Half of Children Born in the US Have Parents Who Are Not Married
Nearly half of American children
are now born to unmarried parents, according to a new report from the
U.N.'s Population Fund, the largest international provider of sexual
and reproductive health services.
In the report released Wednesday,
America is cited along with several developed nations in Europe and
Asia where women are giving birth later in life and outside marriage
due to what some experts say is partly due to changing religious ideas
about marriage. The trend is also correlated to fertility declines.
"Fertility decline between 1970 and
2000 coincided with trends toward later marriage and more cohabitation,
divorce and childbearing outside marriage," UNFPA researchers said.
Michael Hermann, UNFPA's senior
adviser on economics and demography, told Bloomberg that the EU is
likely seeing more births out of wedlock because many member countries
have welfare systems that support gender-balanced child care. Public
health care systems, paid paternal leave, early education programs and
tax incentives also give unwed parents support beyond what a partner
can provide.
Hermann also noted that if babies
weren't being born out of wedlock then declining fertility levels in
some countries "would be much steeper."
"The trend will continue, there's no doubt about it," he told Bloomberg. "We can't go back to '50s."
Ladder
of Divine Ascent excerpt: Step 26- "On discernment of thoughts, passions,
and virtues"
13. Let those who have been humbled by their passions
take courage. For even if they fall into every pit and are trapped in all
the snares and suffer all maladies, yet after their restoration to health
they become physicians, beacons, lamps, and pilots for all, teaching us
the habits of every disease and from their own personal experience able
to rescue those who are about to fall.
October 29, 2018
(Mat 27:51-53) And
behold the veil of the temple was rent in two from the top even to the
bottom: and the earth quaked and the rocks were rent. And the graves
were opened: and many bodies of the saints that had slept arose, And
coming out of the tombs after his resurrection, came into the holy city
and appeared to many.
CATHOLIC CULTURE: Memorandum On the Celebration of Halloween by Bishop David Konderla
UCATHOLIC: The Catholic Origins of Halloween by Father Augustine Thompson, O.P.
SUPERB OVERVIEW: All Hallows' Eve
Q&A: It's Time For Catholics to Embrace Halloween by Fr. Steve Grunow
EXCERPT CNA: Halloween- An Exorcist’s Perspective
Father Vincent Lampert is a
Vatican-trained exorcist and a parish priest of the Archdiocese of
Indianapolis who travels the country, speaking about his work as an
exorcist and what people can do to protect themselves against the
demonic.
He said when deciding what to do
about Halloween, it’s important for parents to remember the Christian
origins of the holiday and to celebrate accordingly, rather than in a
way that glorifies evil.
“Ultimately I don’t think there’s
anything wrong with the kids putting on a costume, dressing up as a
cowboy or Cinderella, and going through the neighborhood and asking for
candy; that’s all good clean fun,” Fr. Lampert said.
Even a sheet with some holes cut in it as a ghost is fine, Fr. Lampert said.
The danger lies in costumes that
deliberately glorify evil and instill fear in people, or when people
pretend to have special powers or dabble in magic and witchcraft, even
if they think it’s just for entertainment. “In the book of Deuteronomy,
in chapter 18, it talks about not trying to consult the spirits of the
dead, not consulting those who dabble in magic and witchcraft and the
like,” he said, “because it’s a violation of a Church commandment that
people are putting other things ahead of their relationship with God.”
“And that would be the danger of Halloween that somehow God is lost in
all of this, the religious connotation is lost and then people end up
glorifying evil.” It’s also important to remember that the devil and
evil spirits do not actually have any additional authority on
Halloween, Fr. Lampert said, and that it only seems that way.
“It’s because of what people are
doing, not because of what the devil is doing. Perhaps by the way
they’re celebrating that day, they’re actually inviting more evil into
our lives,” he said.
One of the best things parents can do is to use Halloween as a teachable moment, Fr. Lampert said.
“A lot of children are out
celebrating Halloween, perhaps evil is being glorified, but we’re not
really sitting around and talking about why certain practices are not
conducive with our Catholic faith and our Catholic identity. I think
using it as a teachable moment would be a great thing to do.”
ALETEIA: The Catholic meaning behind common Halloween symbols
FORUM COMMENT:
First off, Halloween as we celebrate it in the US is a combination of a
masking/guising festival and an almsgiving-to-kids (or to neighbors, as
with caroling and wassailing) festival. Both of these are totally
acceptable in the Catholic tradition, and both of these things are
associated with various important saints’ days and holidays in the rest
of the Catholic world.
Dressing up as something scary or
evil is supposed to be a sort of mockery of the scary things, and an
affirmation of God’s power over them. That’s why it’s fun. Dressing up
as a hero or as some anonymous holiday figure is also fun, and affirms
God’s power in different ways, as a sort of celebration of God as
Creator of many good things and Savior of His people.
Sending kids out to get candy and
money for good causes (even if the good cause is candy for themselves
and their friends, as happens in many almsgiving-to-kids festivals) is
supposed to be a way for kids (and adults) to become accustomed to the
idea of being generous to the poor, to people in need, and to the whole
world, as well as graciously accepting help if one turns out to need it.
Now, obviously in today’s world, a
lot of people have lost sight of these purposes. But it doesn’t make
Halloween intrinsically evil or un-Catholic.
Ladder
of Divine Ascent excerpt: Step 26- "On discernment of thoughts, passions,
and virtues"
11. Theft is loss of property. Theft is doing what
is not good as if it were good. Theft is unobserved captivity of the soul.
The slaying of the soul is the death of the rational mind that has fallen
into nefarious deeds. Ruin is despair of oneself, following on the breach
of the law.
October 26, 2018
(1Co 2:9) But,
as it is written: That eye hath not seen, nor ear heard: neither hath
it entered into the heart of man, what things God hath prepared for
them that love him.
ARCHBISHOP FULTON SHEEN:
"For when the curtain goes down on the last day, and we respond to the
curtain call of judgment, we will not be asked what part we played, but
how well we played the part that was assigned to us."
RON SMITH REPORT: Afterlife and Purgatory
Note from Ron: To receive my Catholic Q&A reports or submit questions please contact me with your
correct email address.
BLOG EXCERPT: De Mattei: On the Hour of Judgment
Today nobody speaks about the ultimate destinies of man, at one time
called “The Four Last Things”: death, judgment, hell, heaven. This is
the reason for the relativism and nihilism which is rampant in society.
Man has lost the awareness of his own identity, the purpose of his
life, and precipitates each day into the void of the abyss. Yet no
reasonable man can ignore that earthly life is not all there is. Man is
not a mass of cells, but is made up of soul and body and after death
there is another life, which cannot be the same for those who have
either worked for what is good or worked for what is evil. Today, even
inside the Church, many bishops and priests are living immersed in
practical atheism, as if there were no future life. But they cannot
forget that a last judgment awaits us all. This judgment will take
place in two moments.
The first judgment, called the particular, is that at the time of
death. In this instant a ray of light will penetrate the soul in depth,
to reveal what ‘she’ is and to fix forever her happy or unhappy fate.
The scenario of our existence will appear before our eyes. From the
very first moment when God brought us forth from nothing to being, He
has conserved us in life with infinite love, offering us day by day,
second by second, the graces necessary to save ourselves. At the
particular judgment we will see clearly what was asked of us in our
particular vocation: that of a mother, a father or a priest.
Illuminated by the Divine light the soul ‘herself’ will pronounce her
own definitive judgment, which will coincide with the judgment of God.
The sentence will be either eternal life or eternal punishment. There
is no higher tribunal to appeal the sentence to, since Christ is the
ultimate, the Supreme Judge. And, as St. Thomas teaches “illuminated by
this light on its merits and demerits, the soul goes by itself to its
eternal place, similar to those bodies by their levity or gravity that
rise or descend there where they have to end their movement” (Summa
Theologiae, Suppl. q. 69, a. 2). “This – explains Father Garrigou
Lagrande, - happens at the first instant in which the soul is separated
from the body, so that it is as true to say of a person who is dead as
it is true to say that he has been judged.” (Eternal life and the
depths of the soul, Fede e Cultura, Verona, 2018, p.94).
In a revelation, which, by God’s permission, a religious received from
a young friend who had been damned, we read: “in the instant of my
passage I came out brusquely from the dark. I saw myself flooded by a
blinding light precisely in the place where my dead body lay. It
happened as in the theatre when the lights are switched off and the
curtain is raised on an unexpected scene, tremendously bright – the
scene of my life. As if in a mirror I saw my soul, I saw the graces
trampled upon, starting from my youth until that last “no”. I felt like
a murderer who had been shown his victim; “Repent? Never! – Be ashamed?
Never! Yet, I couldn’t resist the gaze of that God Whom I had rejected.
I was left with only one thing to do: flee. Like Cain fled Abel, so my
soul was driven far away from the sight of that horror. It was my
particular judgment. The invisible Judge said: “Be gone from me!” Then
my soul, like a yellow shadow of sulphur, plunged into the eternal
torment.”
However the Divine teaching does not stop here and reveals a second
judgment to us – the universal judgment, which awaits us, when, at the
end of earthly things, God, in his omnipotence, will resurrect out
bodies. In the first judgment the individual soul was judged. At the
Universal Judgment the whole man will be judged, in soul and body. This
second judgment will be public because man is born and lives in society
and each one of his actions has social repercussions. The life of every
human-being will be revealed, since “there is nothing covered, that
shall not be revealed: nor hidden, that shall not be known” (Luke 12,
2). No circumstance will be omitted: not an action, not a word, not a
desire. As Father Francesco M. Gaetani (The Supreme Destinies of Man,
Università Gregoriana Roma 1951), points out, all the scandals, all the
intrigues, all the dark projects, all the secret sins, cancelled by
memory will be made public. All masks will fall away, the hypocrites
and the pharisees will be unmasked. Those who had tried to hide the
gravity of their own sins from themselves, will be confused in seeing
the vanity of all the excuses they had advanced; the passions, the
circumstances, the obstacles. Against them the example of the elect
will give witness; men perhaps who were weaker and worn out, less
endowed by the gifts of nature and grace, who were able nonetheless to
remain faithful to duty and virtue. Only on the sins of the good will
God draw over a merciful veil.
At the Last Judgment the good will be publically separated from the
wicked and with their glorified body will go with Christ to Heaven to
possess the Kingdom prepared for them by the Father since the
foundations of the world, while the reprobates will go damned into the
eternal fire prepared by the Devil and the other rebel angels. Each one
of us will be judged according to the talents received, according to
the role that God assigned us in society. Those who will be treated the
most severely will be the Shepherds of the Church who have betrayed
their flocks. Not only those who have opened the sheep-pen to the
wolves, but also those, who, while these wolves were devouring the
flocks, shrugged their shoulders, turned their heads, raised their eyes
to heaven, remained in silence and cast the responsibility, which is
theirs, onto God. But life is an acceptance of responsibility and
Monsignor Viganò’s testimony reminds us of this.
MSGR CHARLES POPE: Reflections on Archbishop Viganò’s Courageous Third Letter
Ladder
of Divine Ascent excerpt: Step 26- "On discernment of thoughts, passions,
and virtues"
10. If the day in our soul does not draw to evening
and grow dark, then the thieves will not come and rob and slay and ruin
our soul.
October 24, 2018
(Psa 127:3-5) Behold
the inheritance of the Lord are children: the reward, the fruit of the
womb. As arrows in the hand of the mighty, so the children of them that
have been shaken. Blessed is the man that hath filled the desire with
them; he shall not be confounded when he shall speak to his enemies in
the gate.
POPE FRANCIS:
“Is it right to hire a hit man to solve a problem? You cannot, it is
not right to kill a human being, regardless of how small it is, to
solve a problem. It is like hiring a hit man to solve a problem.”
VICTIMSOFABORTION.COM.AU: Broken Branches, Issue 126 for October/November 2018
THE CATHOLIC KEY: Project Rachel Helps Heal Post-Abortive Women, Men
NEWS REPORT: SCOTUS Gets Its First Abortion Rights Petition With Kavanaugh on the Bench
EXCERPT HLI: The Abortion/Euthanasia Connection
Often, even pro-life people fail to see the connection between abortion and euthanasia. But the connection runs deep.
Euthanasia is always presented to
the public as an act of compassion, a way to alleviate unbearable
suffering for people who are already in their final days. For people
who haven’t thought about the issue in a lot of depth, this argument
seems quite compelling. Especially to anyone who has been at the death
bed of a loved one dying from a painful illness. Euthanasia in such
extreme cases only seems humane.
The same is true of abortion.
Pro-abortion activists always focus on extreme cases: e.g. cases of
rape, incest or life-threatening pregnancies. In fact, the woman who
was the famous “Roe” in the Roe v. Wade court case that legalized
abortion in the United States, Norma McCorvey, later admitted that she
had lied about being raped. But the rape made a compelling story for
the Supreme Court. It made abortion seem humane.
In both cases – abortion and
euthanasia – killing was only supposed to be a last resort. An extreme
solution for an extreme case. But as we know, that is not what
happened. As soon as abortion was legalized it opened a flood-gate.
Now, abortions in cases of rape or incest are only a tiny minority of
all abortions. The vast majority of abortions are for “social reasons”
– in other words, a quick fix. McCorvey herself later became pro-life,
and lamented that the lawyers who convinced her to join the abortion
case never told her: “That what I was signing would allow women to come
up to me 15, 20 years later and say, ‘Thank you for allowing me to have
my five or six abortions. Without you, it wouldn’t have been possible.’
Sarah [one of the lawyers] never mentioned women using abortions as a
form of birth control. We talked about truly desperate and needy women,
not women already wearing maternity clothes.”
When euthanasia was legalized in Canada in 2016, Canadians were told
that it would just be for “terminally ill” patients. Scarcely two years
later, they’re now being told they might have to accept euthanasia for
their own children, or for mentally ill patients who aren’t dying, or
for people who have just been diagnosed with dementia and aren’t dying.
In all likelihood, there will be very little outcry. Canadians have
already been conditioned to accept death as a solution. What’s a little
more death?
Euthanasia and abortion are two
sides of the same coin. Once we accepted abortion as a solution to
“problems” at the beginning of life, it was only a matter of time
before we began to accept death as a solution to problems at the other
end of life.
After all (and I’ll repeat it again): Killing is easy. Caring for people is hard.
It’s easy for a man to fork over a
few hundred dollars and tell his mistress to go abort the baby that is
the result of his search for selfish pleasure. It’s hard for him to man
up and take responsibility for his actions. It’s easy for a national
healthcare system or insurance company to save money by pressuring a
patient diagnosed with dementia to opt for euthanasia. It’s hard for
that healthcare system or insurance company to allocate resources to
invest into research and palliative care that can alleviate suffering
while respecting the dignity of every patient.
As it turns out, it’s something of
a law of nature that the hard thing is often the right thing to do; and
the easy thing is often also the wrong thing. One of the reasons we
have criminal laws is to turn that formula on its head, to protect the
common good by creating incentives to do the right thing and avoid the
wrong thing. It’s easy to rob a bank and spend the rest of your life as
a wealthy man. But the law makes robbing banks hard by introducing the
threat of imprisonment. Bank robbery is such a serious crime that we
would never consider legalizing bank robbery for “extreme cases.” The
reason why is obvious. It sends the message that robbing banks is an
acceptable solution to our problems. It tears down a crucial wall, and
thereby creates social havoc.
If there’s anything that the past
several decades have proved, it’s that when a society allows killing as
a solution, it’s almost impossible to keep it to extreme cases.
Legalize killing in some cases, and the incentives against killing have
been removed. The finger has been pulled from the dike. The flood
follows soon after. Eventually, society will not be able to defend the
most vulnerable and abused.
There is an inner logic to the
Culture of Death. Death leads to death. What is happening in Canada
right now is not just a Canadian issue. It is a universal issue – a
human issue. It will reverberate across the U.S. and beyond.
Ladder
of Divine Ascent excerpt: Step 26- "On discernment of thoughts, passions,
and virtues"
6. After God, let us have our conscience as our
mentor and rule in all things, so that we may know which way the wind is
blowing and set our sails accordingly.
October 22, 2018
(Heb
4:14-16)
Having therefore a great high priest that hath passed into the heavens,
Jesus the Son of God: let us hold fast our confession. For we have not
a high priest who cannot have compassion on our infirmities: but one
tempted in all things like as we are, without sin. Let us go therefore
with confidence to the throne of grace: that we may obtain mercy and
find grace in seasonable aid.
POPE JOHN PAUL II:
"For an adequate formation of a culture, the involvement of the whole
man is required, whereby he exercises his creativity, intelligence, and
knowledge of the world and of people. Furthermore, he displays his
capacity for self-control, personal sacrifice, solidarity and readiness
to promote the common good."
FATHER ALTIER: Spiritual Remedy for These Times
OPINION: Want to address priest sexual abuse? The Catholic Church needs to overhaul its seminaries
Many of us who have labored in
seminary formation for years consider 2018 a watershed moment, in fact,
to insist on long-overdue adjustments and enhancements to seminary
training. In retrospect, many of our institutions have too often failed
miserably in preparing men for ministry, and many still fall far short
of the goal of forming happy, healthy, holy priests. The church
urgently needs new approaches to preparing men for priestly ministry
given today’s sexualized, secularized culture and the personal
challenges facing seminarians.
Young men who feel called to
priesthood, although well intentioned, often have enormous gaps in
their prior formation and upbringing. Many lack interpersonal
communication skills. Many need basic formation in Catholic teaching.
Not infrequently, they need counseling to discover and deal with
trauma: “father wounds,” bullying, parental divorce, porn addiction and
even sexual abuse. Added to that, they must acquire qualities and
pastoral skills before ordination.
Bishops, rectors and seminary
formation personnel can too easily believe that the way we’re doing
formation today is just fine. But if we’re honest, we know that in many
cases it’s not.
Of the approximately 450 men
ordained to the Catholic priesthood every year, a small percentage will
abandon the ministry within the first few years. Many others will
struggle mightily with challenges for which their seminary formation
failed to prepare them.
Typically, our seminaries work like
this: Upon a chassis of a heavily academic four-year program, we
superimpose elements of human, spiritual and pastoral preparation for
ministry. In addition, seminary life too often unfolds in the confines
of old, cavernous, institutional buildings. Such parameters easily
foster isolation, and work at cross purposes to an experience of
genuine fraternity and the kind of deep-down formation our men require.
This model of seminary is today highly inadequate, and it’s time for
bishops to think far outside such boxes.
So what needs to change?
First, an overemphasis on academics
must yield to a sharper focus on forming candidates who are emotionally
mature and have a healthy, well-integrated personality and
spirituality. If we’ve learned one thing since the crisis of clergy
sexual abuse erupted in 2002, it’s that many abusive priests reached
ordination in a stage of arrested psychosexual and emotional
development. Where focus on personal psychological integration is
lacking, space opens for disordered living of precisely the type that
has made headlines in recent months.
Second, bishops need to work
urgently to ensure that in our seminaries there reigns an inner culture
of trust, transparency and honest dialogue between seminarians and the
formation team. It has pained me to hear, in recent weeks, for example,
that some seminarians have felt prohibited from engaging in open
dialogue about McCarrick or a grand jury report about clergy sexual
abuse in Pennsylvania. Such censoring of honest reactions is utterly
wrongheaded. Seminarians must feel that they can freely, frankly and
confidently express to the formation team their concerns about the
seminary community, their opinions about the formation process and any
other honest apprehension or contribution they want to make in the
spirit of honest dialogue.
Although I would like to think that
the vast majority of our seminaries are healthy environments, to the
extent that seminarians might have concerns about their own safety or
exposure to potential exploitation, every seminary should have a clear
sexual harassment policy and corresponding protocols. Seminaries should
appoint an independent ombudsman whom anyone (seminarian, lay student,
staff member) can contact, independently of the diocese as part of that
policy.
Third, in general, bishops need to
slow down the rush to ordination and consider a minimum age for
beginning seminary formation — perhaps 22, with the candidate having a
college degree and some work experience. They could then follow up with
eight years of formation, beginning with a year dedicated to detoxing
from the culture and social media, growth in self-knowledge, prayer and
a secure masculine identity. The final year before priestly ordination
would be dedicated to intensive fieldwork and pastoral ministry.
Given the pressing need for
priests, however, the vast majority of bishops staunchly resist the
idea of prolonging the formation process. But how is the church well
served by rushing men to ordination before they are ready? When years
later some of them falter, with addictions or other personal struggles,
we all pay a heavy price.
The delayed maturation process of
young men these days is well documented. My years of screening
candidates for priesthood confirm that our men need ample time to allow
life wounds to heal and to grow in a solid, well-integrated interior
life. As challenging as it may be, bishops need to think in the
direction of a future church with fewer, but better-formed, priests.
Fourth, bishops must not assign to
seminary priests who lack the skill set and drive to become mentors,
role models and moral guides — nuances all captured in the term
“formator.” A doctorate in theology does not render a priest
automatically suitable for such ministry. Bishops must also demand and
provide for the ongoing professional formation of the formators
themselves.
Fifth, let’s identify the
seminaries that are working hard to get formation right and those that
are not. Bishops should convene an independent blue-ribbon panel of
seasoned seminary formators to undertake a visitation and review of our
seminaries. Bishops should think seriously about either reforming or
closing those seminaries that are failing in their mission.
Sixth, the Center for Applied
Research on the Apostolate (CARA) annually collects data on the 70
seminaries that serve American dioceses. As reported by CARA in 2017,
11 of those seminaries have 100 or more seminarians enrolled, but
one-third have fewer than 50 seminarians. What must we conclude? The
United States does not need 70 Catholic seminaries. So, let’s reduce
the total number to 15 or 20 regional institutions. Let’s pool and
share the best formators to serve as teams in these regional seminaries
that offer the quality of formation our times require. Seminary
formation needs radical rethinking. The bishops must be catalysts in
this process.
Ladder
of Divine Ascent excerpt: Step 26- "On discernment of thoughts, passions,
and virtues"
5. Every satanic conflict in us comes from these
three generic causes: from negligence, or from pride, or from the envy
of the demons. The first is pitiable, the second is most wretched, but
the third is blessed.
October 19, 2018
(1Co 11:23-26) For
I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, that
the Lord Jesus, the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread,
And giving thanks, broke and said: Take ye and eat: This is my body,
which shall be delivered for you. This do for the commemoration of me.
In like manner also the chalice, after he had supped, saying: This
chalice is the new testament in my blood. This do ye, as often as you
shall drink, for the commemoration of me. For as often as you shall eat
this bread and drink the chalice, you shall shew the death of the Lord,
until he come.
RON SMITH REPORTS
Note from Ron: To receive my Catholic Q&A reports or submit questions please contact me with your
correct email address.
CATHOLIC HERALD: Eastern European bishops want a focus on Eucharist, fatherhood in Youth Synod
EXCERPT NCR: The Holy Eucharist is Jesus — And I Will Never Leave Jesus
We’re being battered by unfolding
scandals involving the unthinkable. The certainties of our faith are
falsely portrayed, by some clergymen, as less certain than they really
are.
Despite all this, I have a clear
answer for my reader who asked me why I bother to stay Catholic, given
what has been called the “cataclysmic moral failing” of the Church.
It’s simple enough that it sounds childlike. But it’s strong enough
that I am certain that I will wander and wobble across this glacier of
lies and corruption without falling into a crevasse or sliding over the
edge and down to my destruction.
I will stay Catholic because I am
Catholic, and I am Catholic because the Holy Eucharist is real. Jesus
is really and truly present, under the appearances of bread and wine,
and I can touch him. I can go in the middle of the night and sit with
him. The Holy Eucharist, which is a part of the enduring scandal of the
cross, of following an incarnate God who was an executed criminal who
died a tortuous, ignoble death at the hands of corrupt priests and a
cowardly politician, is the real presence of that same incarnate God in
the now.
Far too many of our religious
leaders act as if they serve the Church, but not Christ; that the laity
must be protected from the truth; and thus that it is a moral good to
lie, obfuscate and hide evil, even at the cost of enabling that evil to
flourish and spread. They seem convinced that if the Church hierarchy’s
sins are revealed the Church will fail, and that if the Church fails,
God Himself fails.
Far too many of our religious
leaders have used this bogus reasoning to back themselves into a liar’s
corner. But Jesus Christ does not need their lies and depredations in
the name of defending the Church. He is King of Kings and Lord of Lords
because that’s who he is, not because the Church says so.
I will stay in the Church because
Christ in the Holy Eucharist called me here. I will stay because He is
really, truly and substantially present in the Holy Eucharist.
But I will not defend monstrous
behavior. I will not deify men in collars. These bishops, cardinals and
popes whose guilt we are so assiduously trying to understand, are, a
good many of them, deeply corrupt. That is obvious. The priests, from
whose hands we receive Holy Communion and to whom we confess our sins,
are also, many of them, corrupt.
Worse, we cannot tell by looking at
him whether a man in a collar is corrupt or not. Sociopaths are liars
and manipulators, and they are good at it. I’ve been fooled by
sociopaths a number of times in my life. Sometimes I recognize and can
avoid them. Other times, I don’t see it.
That is a fact of our Catholic
life. It is a reality of our faith walk. More than that, these are
facts and realities of living in this fallen world. Sociopaths don’t
just hide inside the Church. They are the corrupt business leaders,
politicians, soldiers, husbands, wives, teachers, students, neighbors
and relatives who cause so much suffering in our world.
It is a horrible moment when you
look into another human being’s eyes and Satan looks back at you. It is
a faith-destroying moment when those eyes belong to a man wearing a
Roman collar.
But just as Satan is real, and more
often than not walks into our lives on two feet, the Holy Eucharist is
real and comes to us from the hands of a priest. When those priestly
hands belong to an apostle of Satan, it’s a crazy-making thing.
But don’t let it make you crazy.
The wheat and the tares, the good and the bad, the evil and the holy,
will live side by side in this world until Christ comes again. Jesus
told us this Himself.
I will not leave the Church because
Jesus is really and truly present, under the appearances of bread and
wine, and I can touch him. I will not be a fool for corrupt men in
collars. But I will stay.
Because the Holy Eucharist is Jesus. And I will not leave Jesus.
Ladder
of Divine Ascent excerpt: Step 26- "On discernment of thoughts, passions,
and virtues"
4. Let no one on seeing or hearing something supernatural
in the monastic way of life fall into unbelief out of ignorance; for where
the supernatural God dwells, much that is supernatural happens.
October 18, 2018
(Rev 12:1) And
a great sign appeared in heaven: A woman clothed with the sun, and the
moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.
SAINT JOHN PAUL II:
“And so, while the message of Our Lady of Fatima is a motherly one, it
is also strong and decisive. It sounds severe. It sounds like John the
Baptist speaking on the banks of the Jordan. It invites to repentance.
It gives a warning. It calls to prayer. It recommends the Rosary.”
SAINT PADRE PIO: “When a million children pray the Rosary, then the world will change.”
ACN: On October 18, one million children will pray rosary for peace!
AID TO THE CHURCH IN NEED (ACN)
is issuing an open invitation to children and families around the world
to participate in an extraordinary event taking place on October 18,
2018: “One Million Children Praying the Rosary.” Father Martin Barta,
the Spiritual Assistant of ACN International.
What is this prayer campaign about and when was it started?
The idea for the campaign came
about in 2005 in Caracas, the capital of Venezuela. While a number of
children were praying the rosary at a wayside shrine, several of the
women in attendance strongly felt the presence of the Virgin Mary. They
immediately thought of Saint Padre Pio’s promise: “When one million
children pray the rosary, the world will change.” And that is exactly
what this is all about: having faith in the power of children’s prayers.
How can people join in the campaign?
Quite simply: we are inviting
teachers, priests, kindergarten teachers and parents to pray the rosary
together with children on Oct. 18, 2018 for peace and unity in the
world. ACN makes available instructional materials on the prayers of
the rosary, posters and a letter of invitation for children and adults.
Please see www.millionkidspraying.org/en Why the 18th of October?
October is traditionally the month
of the rosary; the 18th is the feast day of Saint Luke the Evangelist.
He has handed on to us the story of Jesus’s childhood and, according to
tradition, is said to have been close to Our Lady, the Mother of God.
Why has ACN gotten involved in this prayer campaign?
We not only see ourselves as a
pastoral charity, but also as a community of prayer. Our founder,
Father Werenfried van Straaten, venerated Our Lady of Fatima. There,
the Virgin Mary proclaimed to the visionary children, “Pray the rosary
every day, in order to obtain peace for the world.” The daily project
work that is carried out by ACN in 149 countries allows the
organization to see first-hand just how gravely Christians and the
entire world are suffering from the effects of terrorism and war. Only
God can bring peace. We can play a part in this—through our work, but
first and foremost through our prayers.
Do you receive reports from the World Church on how many children are taking part?
Our materials for the prayer
campaign are available in 25 languages, including, for example, Arabic
and the West African Hausa language. Children from around 80 countries
and on all continents are taking part. Accounts of the events are
frequently sent to ACN, over the past year we received reports from
countries such as Argentina, Cuba, Cameroon, India and the Philippines.
It is truly a campaign of the World Church!
Children and the rosary: this is
not an easy connection to make for the Churches in the West. How do you
get young people excited about these prayers?
I believe that it is actually the
other way around: children are far more open to the rosary than a lot
of adults. When the rosary is prayed correctly and under proper
guidance, it reveals a view of the Virgin Mary, one that grows more
intimate the longer you pray the rosary. And getting this intimate view
of Our Lady is something that we can learn from the children!
For resources and more information on the prayer campaign, go to: www.millionkidspraying.org/en or write to: [email protected]
MORE: One million children to pray the rosary for peace, unity
A MOMENT WITH MARY: The Virgin Mary’s promise in Fatima
The Virgin Mary promised in Fatima
that in the end, her Immaculate Heart would triumph. Our Lady, who is
strong as an army arrayed in battle, will listen to the prayers of her
children, in this simplest of prayers, within the reach of the simplest
people—that of the Rosary.
A weapon of massive reconstruction,
a line that puts us in direct contact with Heaven, the Rosary is the
sure way to obtain divine assistance through the intercession of Our
Lady. Our rosaries should be right at our fingertips. What is the use
of lamenting, if we neglect the only real solution we have here and now?
In this month of the Rosary, the
Poles have understood this: on the anniversary of the Battle of
Lepanto, October 7, 2018, they organized a national Rosary event along
all their borders and at their airports, with a million people who
participated!
Ladder
of Divine Ascent excerpt: Step 26- "On discernment of thoughts, passions,
and virtues"
3. Discernment is undefiled conscience and purity
of perception.
October 16, 2018
(Isa 58:6-9) Is
not this rather the fast that I have chosen? loose the bands of
wickedness, undo the bundles that oppress, let them that are broken go
free, and break asunder every burden. Deal thy bread to the hungry, and
bring the needy and the harbourless into thy house: when thou shalt see
one naked, cover him, and despise not thy own flesh. Then shall thy
light break forth as the morning, and thy health shall speedily arise,
and thy justice shall go before thy face, and the glory of the Lord
shall gather thee up. Then shalt thou call, and the Lord shall hear:
thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am.
PENSACOLA NEWS JOURNAL: After Hurricane Michael, Pensacola Catholics rally around Panama City church
PANAMA CITY NEWS HERALD: Panama City woman laments damage to her church
CATHOLIC PHILLY: USCCB leaders ask for prayers, donations for hurricane victims
Two U.S. Catholic leaders have
called on Catholics to pray for victims of Hurricanes Michael and
Florence, along with responders to these storms, and to donate to
recovery efforts in the impacted areas.
“Let us respond with prayer and
personal generosity,” said Cardinal Daniel N. DiNardo of
Galveston-Houston, who is president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic
Bishops, in an Oct. 13 statement.
He said in the wake of these two
recent hurricanes, “people across the southeast now face the long
process of recovery. May God’s mercy comfort family and friends who
have lost loved ones and sustain those rebuilding their homes and
businesses.”
The cardinal said Catholics will
“remain with our brothers and sisters throughout their journey,” adding
that he was grateful that so many had helped in the recovery efforts by
volunteering or donating.
“Your generosity reveals Christ is
present,” he added in his statement issued in Rome where he is
attending the Vatican synod on youth.
Bishop Frank J. Dewane of Venice,
Florida, chairman of the USCCB’s Committee on Domestic Justice and
Human Development, similarly said in a separate statement Oct. 13:
“Prayers and generosity are greatly needed at this time.”
He urged for prayers for those
first impacted by Hurricane Michael in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras
and Cuba and for those more recently hit by the storm’s deadly force in
the Florida Panhandle, Alabama, Georgia, the Carolinas and Virginia.
While the fury of this storm season
continues, he said, he is reminded of the disciples’ plea to Jesus as a
violent storm threatened their lives. Now, as then, he said: “We
implore to the one who ‘commands even the winds and the sea’ to give
them strength and protection.”
He said when Hurricane Michael was
being monitored as a tropical storm, the USCCB “requested that dioceses
across the country take up an emergency collection on behalf of those
devastated by Hurricane Florence, as well as any forthcoming natural
disasters this year.”
The funds collected in this special
appeal for 2018 disasters will be used to support the efforts of
Catholic Charities USA and Catholic Relief Services, the official
relief agencies of the U.S. Catholic Church as they and their local
agencies respond to immediate emergency needs.
RELATED: Catholic Charities USA presents $1 million donation to Hurricane Michael victims
LINK TO DONATE: https://ccnwfl.org/
Ladder
of Divine Ascent excerpt: Step 26- "On discernment of thoughts, passions,
and virtues"
1 (cont.). Or perhaps, generally speaking, discernment
is, and is recognized as, the certain understanding of the Divine will
on all occasions, in every place and in all that matters; and it is only
found in those who are pure in heart, and in body and in mouth.
October 15, 2018
(1Jn 4:1-3) Dearly
beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits if they be of
God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world. By this
is the spirit of God known. Every spirit which confesseth that Jesus
Christ is come in the flesh is of God: And every spirit that dissolveth
Jesus is not of God. And this is Antichrist, of whom you have heard
that he cometh: and he is now already in the world.
LIFESITENEWS: Cardinal Burke: ‘The apostasy of faith in our time rightly and profoundly frightens us’
NCREGISTER: According to Prophecy: Are These Difficult Times the ‘End Times’?
PHILIPPINE NEWS AGENCY: 'Miracle of the Sun' Fatima apparition on Oct 13, 1917 remembered
The “Miracle of the Sun” that
occurred during the 6th Apparition of Fatima on Oct. 13, 1917, and was
witnessed by over 70,000 people in Portugal, was a manifestation of
God’s almighty power and humility to save mankind from eternal
damnation.
Filipino Catholics join fellow
Catholics around the world to commemorate the 101st anniversary of the
“Miracle of the Sun” that swirled and danced in a circle in broken
clouds, as reported by a Lisbon newspaper in Portugal a day after the
historic spectacle happened.
As its consequence, many believed
God’s existence through the apparition of the Blessed Mother to the
three shepherd children at Fatima.
Church records show that the
apparition of the Blessed Mother before the three shepherds--Lucia,
Jacinta, and Francisco--on Oct. 13, 1917 was her sixth, fulfilling her
promise earlier to show to the world that a miracle would happen so
mankind would believe in God.
In the Philippines, the only Catholic country in Asia, there are many churches named after the Fatima.
It was during these apparitions
that the Blessed Mother also called the world to repent for its sin and
pray the Holy Rosary daily. So, on Oct. 13, 1917, or 101 years ago, the
“Miracle of the Sun” occurred. The apparition at Fatima was also seen
by people living in adjoining areas as far as 25 kilometers away.
“The sun painted the world in
different colors, (as it) moved and danced in the sky,” a witness, Ti
Marto, the father of Jacinta and Francisco, said.
“The miracle told the world of
God’s huge humility. The strange nature of the Miracle of the Sun--a
spectacular public miracle that was announced ahead of time--is hard to
exaggerate,” said Tom Hoopes, a famous American writer.
“God almost never works that way.
God is all-powerful, with all of reality in his grasp. He is the artist
of every sunset, the inventor of every wonder of nature and the author
of history. He doesn’t need to give a big display to prove himself: The
cosmos is big enough, thank you. But sometimes he does anyway,” Hoopes
pointed out, adding that “the miracle also makes clear that God is also
the ‘hound of heaven,’ the humble God, who will stop at nothing to win
our love,” Hoopes wrote.
During the Miracle of the Sun, people who witnessed the spectacle wept.
The spectacle also showed the role
of the Blessed Virgin Mary, as pointed out in the Gospel, such as John,
Chapter 2, when Mary asked Jesus to perform his first miracle, changing
water into wine at the wedding in Cana.
In the Gospel of Luke, Chapter 1,
the start of God’s redemption of man hangs on a word from Mary. Also in
Act, Chapter 1, Mary is there when the Church was formed, and in
Revelation, Chapter 12, it tells about the Woman and the dragon, to
name a few of these Bible verses.
God made it clear that we can trust Mary, says Hoopes.
Also during the apparition, the
throng of people saw the Miracle of Sun, dancing, but the three
children saw more, they saw St. Joseph in the sky holding the Child
Jesus, with Christ blessing the whole world.
The Fatima apparitions continually
remind mankind to pray, especially the Rosary and repent for the world
to attain a genuine and lasting peace.
During the sixth apparition, the seers first saw a bright light, and then saw the Blessed Mother over the holm oak.
Then Mary told Lucia that she
(Blessed Mother) wants a chapel to be built at Fatima and revealed that
“I am the Lady of the Rosary” and urged mankind to pray it daily.
Then she also revealed that World War 1 was going to end soon, and it did, as the Blessed Mother said.
Lucia then asked the Blessed Virgin
Mary to cure the sick, to which Mary replied: “Some yes, others no.
They must amend their lives and ask forgiveness for their sins.” She
also asked Lucia to tell the world for man to stop offending God.
“Then, opening her hands, Our Lady
shone the light issuing from them onto the sun, and as she rose, her
own radiance continued to be cast onto the sun,” Lucia said in her
memoir.
The sun, though shining at its brightest, did not blind the people who saw it.
After the Miracle of the Sun, many unbelievers were converted to the Catholic faith.
Ladder
of Divine Ascent excerpt: Step 26- "On discernment of thoughts, passions,
and virtues"
1. Discernment in beginners is true knowledge of
themselves; in intermediate souls, it is a spiritual sense that faultlessly
distinguishes what is truly good from what is of nature and opposed to
it; and in the perfect, it is the knowledge which they have within by Divine
illumination, and which can enlighten with its lamp what is dark in others.
October 12, 2018
(1Co 1:10) Now
I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you
all speak the same thing and that there be no schisms among you: but
that you be perfect in the same mind and in the same judgment.
NEWS REPORT: Ecumenical Patriarchate grants autocephaly to Ukrainian Orthodox Church
The Ecumenical Patriarchate has granted self-rule, also known as autocephaly, to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
The decision was reached during a
meeting of the Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate and published
on the Patriarchate's website.
The Synod decreed to “renew the
decision already made that the Ecumenical Patriarchate proceed to the
granting of Autocephaly to the Church of Ukraine.” The Synod also
decreed to “reestablish, at this moment, the Stavropegion of the
Ecumenical Patriarch in Kyiv, one of its many Stavropegia in Ukraine
that existed there always.” Stavropegia are subordinated directly to
the Patriarchate, rather than to a local bishop.
It also decided to “accept and
review the petitions of appeal of Filaret Denisenko, Makariy Maletych
and their followers, who found themselves in schism not for dogmatic
reasons, in accordance with the canonical prerogatives of the Patriarch
of Constantinople to receive such petitions by hierarchs and other
clergy from all of the Autocephalous Churches.” “Thus, the
above-mentioned have been canonically reinstated to their hierarchical
or priestly rank, and their faithful have been restored to communion
with the Church,” it said.
REACTION: Schism of Orthodoxy in Ukraine deepens as Constantinople greenlights independent church
ANALYSIS Dr. Robert Moynihan:
Ukraine is predominantly Orthodox, and in the east of the country, near
Russia, almost entirely so. There are more than 30 million Orthodox in
this country of more than 40 million people. In the west, near Poland
and the borders of the old Holy Roman Empire, there is a strong
presence of Ukrainian Greek Catholics, numbering several million, who
are in union with Rome. They celebrate Mass according to the Byzantine
rite, so their liturgies are "Greek" but their ecclesial loyalties are
with Rome. (They are sometimes, as in the interview below, called
"Uniates" because they re-united with Rome, leaving Orthodoxy.)
Over the past thousand years, there
have been many ebbs and flows in this picture, and much conflict. In
recent centuries, the Orthodox in Ukraine were under Moscow. In 1991,
with the break-up of the Soviet Union, a Metropolitan in the Russian
Orthodox Church who was a candidate to become the Patriarch of Russia
was not elected. His name was Filaret (his last name was Denisenko). He
is now about 90 years old. He took the decision to break away from his
own Church (Moscow Patriarchate) and establish a breakaway Orthodox
Church (Kiev Patriarchate). Many joined him, but only a minority. His
decision was condemned by Moscow, and by global Orthodoxy as well, and
Filaret and his Church were declared "uncanonical" and "schismatic." So
that is the "schism" within Russian Orthodoxy that many refer to. What
is now happening is, in a certain sense, the "rehabilitation" of
Filaret, and the recognition of a Church similar to his, but including
other smaller Orthodox Church groups as well, into one "autocephalous"
Ukrainian Church centered in Kiev, separate from Moscow. The argument
is that in this way the "Filaret schism" can now be healed, uniting all
the Orthodox inside Ukraine. But this proposed way of healing the
schism would result in Moscow (Russian Orthodoxy) losing about
one-third of its bishops who are in Ukraine and would theoretically "go
over" to the new autocephalous Ukrainian Orthodox Church. So Moscow
opposes this decision by Constantinople.
METROPOLITAN HILARION:
If the Project for Ukrainian Autocephaly is Carried Through, it will
Mean a Tragic and Possibly Irretrievable Schism of the Whole Orthodoxy.
Ladder
of Divine Ascent excerpt: Step 25- "On the destroyer of the pasions,
most sublime humility"
41. Humility is Christ's spiritual doctrine, noetically
introduced into the inner chamber of the soul by those who accounted worthy
of it. It cannot be defined by perceptible words.
October 10, 2018
(1Co 10:13) Let
no temptation take hold on you, but such as is human. And God is
faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that which you
are able: but will make also with temptation issue, that you may be
able to bear it.
WORD ON FIRE: A New Apologetics: Bishop Barrron's Youth Synod Intervention
CATHOLIC WORLD REPORT: Abp. Chaput at Synod: Wealthy, developed nations are “frozen in a kind of moral adolescence”
FIRST THINGS TESTIMONIES FOR THE SYNOD: Open Letter
Dear Bishops of the Holy Catholic Church,
When I was made aware of the
efforts being made by pro-LGBT groups trying to persuade Catholic
Bishops to change Church teaching on homosexuality, specifically at
this year's Youth Synod, it devastated me. As someone who has not only
grown up in the Church, but has also come to love her and her teachings
for myself, I would hate to see her teachings altered in any way,
especially in a way that could cause such a grave amount of damage.
I wish then to lay my heart bare,
and to share some of my story and my convictions with you, dear Bishops
of the Holy Catholic Church, and plead with you to keep the Church's
teachings on homosexuality good, true, and beautiful.
I am a 22-year-old young Catholic
woman [who] experiences same-sex attractions. While I was growing up, I
heard very little, if anything at all, on homosexuality, even though I
attended Catholic school from Pre-K [through] 12th grade.
When I finally came to terms with
the fact that I was romantically interested in other women, it
terrified me. I didn't know where turn, whom to speak to, or if I could
speak about it at all. The fear paralyzed me into silence for quite a
while.
As time went on, I began to learn
more and more about the teachings of the Catholic Church on
homosexuality, and for some time, I didn't understand them. I wasn't
sure what the words “objectively” and “intrinsically disordered” meant,
and truth be told, I had the feeling that I didn't want to know. It
wasn't until I was around the age of 20 that I finally began to
understand.
I'll admit, I didn't like what I heard, but I knew it was what I needed to hear.
Recently, I came across a quote from Abbot Jean-Charles Nault, O.S.B., that spoke a great deal of truth to me. It read:
“For the philosophers of antiquity,
and for the whole Christian tradition, freedom is the ability that man
has—and ability belonging jointly to his intellect and will—and perform
virtuous actions, good actions, excellent actions, when he wants and as
he wants. Man's freedom is therefore his capacity to accomplish good
acts easily, joyously, and lastingly. This freedom is defined by the
attraction of the good.” Time and time again, we will hear phrases such
as “I just want the freedom to love whomever I want,” from those within
the LGBTQ community. This desire is an inherently good one, when it is
rightly ordered.
Man is only truly free when he can
choose to do as he ought, not simply as he wants, for the things that
we may want aren't always good for us.
I used to want to be in a same-sex
relationship. The desire was overwhelming at times, to the point where
I could see no other way to get through the day. But I know now, from
the good and gracious teachings of God through His Church, that such a
relationship hinders not only my freedom to love authentically, but
also my ability to achieve holiness. Taking it a step further, being in
such a relationship could ultimately block me from spending my eternity
with my one true love, Jesus.
My dear Bishops, there is no one on
this earth [who] isn't called to a life of chastity [and] that includes
my brothers and sisters who experience same-sex attractions. This is
not because the Church is oppressive and wants us to be miserable and
passively submissive to her, but because each and every one of us is
invited to enter into the Divine Life of our Creator, a life where no
sin can remain.
The Catechism [of the Catholic
Church] states in paragraph 2331 that “God is love and in himself he
lives a mystery of personal loving communion. Creating the human race
in his own image...God inscribed in the humanity of man and woman the
vocation, and thus the capacity and responsibility, of love and
communion.” Not only should I be reminded that, as a Christian, I am
called to love as Christ loved us, but I also have the capacity to do
so. I am capable of authentic love.
Telling me that my cross of
same-sex attraction is too heavy for me to love as Christ calls me to,
is not just degrading, it is also a lie. God did not abandon me when
man first sinned in the beginning, and He will not abandon me now.
He has called me, and each and
every one of us to Himself, and I intend to return back to Him, no
matter how burdensome my cross may be.
Like Christ remembered me from the
cross, I pray that you would remember me, and my brothers and sisters
like me, dear Bishops, as you pray about and discuss how to help young
people in matters of faith and vocation, especially in regard to the
topic of homosexuality.
Please remember that, as St. Thérèse the Little Flower, a dear patron of mine, so greatly put it, “My vocation is to love.”
Yours in Christ,
Avera Maria Sant
Ladder
of Divine Ascent excerpt: Step 25- "On the destroyer of the pasions,
most sublime humility"
37. A holy team is love and humilty; the one exalts,
and the other, supporting the exalted ones, never fails (1Cor 13:8).
October 9, 2018
(Mar 5:3-5) Who
had his dwelling in the tombs, and no man now could bind him, not even
with chains. For having been often bound with fetters and chains, he
had burst the chains, and broken the fetters in pieces, and no one
could tame him. And he was always day and night in the monuments and in
the mountains, crying and cutting himself with stones.
POPE FRANCIS:
We should not think of the devil as a myth, a representation, a symbol,
a figure of speech or an idea. This mistake would lead us to let down
our guard, to grow careless and end up more vulnerable.
EXCERPT PJ MEDIA: Kavanaugh Foes Fill Senate Gallery With Sounds of the Insane
Another crazed woman later
screamed, “I will not consent, I will not consent, I will not consent,
I will not consent." She was like a feminist automaton: “I will not
consent, I will not consent.” Capitol Police were less forgiving and
dragged her out the doors and down the hallway.
I have visited hospitals for the
seriously mentally ill, and the shrieks from this woman were as odd and
unearthly as anything I ever heard inside a mental hospital. They
echoed off the halls and ceilings outside the gallery in decreasing but
astonishing amplitude.
Then the roll was called, and it sounded like the gates of hell opened up.
Nearly a dozen women erupted in
unison, shouting, howling, screaming, in an unrecognizable venomous
wail. They wouldn’t stop. There was fury, rage, hate, poison in the
noise.
It wasn't prose. It wasn't song. It was a swarming, shrill, swirling noise.
EXCERPT HLI: “St. Michael the Archangel, Pray for Us!” by Fr. Shenan J. Boquet
Journalist Rod Dreher recently
recounted a disturbing story on his blog. A Catholic friend of his –
respectable, upper middle-class, devout, normal in every sense of the
word – confided to him in a phone call recently that his wife has been
undergoing regular exorcisms.
The friend – who Dreher calls
“Nathan” – explains that it all began normally enough, when his wife
fell into a state of depression, a condition that she had suffered from
as a teenager. This time, however, there were other, far stranger
symptoms, beginning with a strong aversion to religious items. It
escalated from there. Now, writes Dreher, “The wife goes through
periods in which she hears foul blasphemies, and feels compelled to
commit suicide. In the exorcism sessions, Nathan says the demons, under
compulsion from the exorcist, speak of these things — in particular,
how they intend to destroy Nathan’s wife, and her family life.”
Dreher insists that his friend is
the furthest thing from a pseudo-mystical nut, given to strange
spiritual enthusiasms or to finding angels and demons under every rock.
The diagnosis of possession was a last resort, when all other natural
explanations were ruled out.
As Catholics, we know that the
devil is real. However, it sometimes seems that we do everything
possible to avoid this reality. The idea that there are malevolent
forces at work in the world drawing souls away from God into hell, and
otherwise sowing chaos and confusion, is a deeply unsettling one. It is
far more comfortable to assume a modern, rational, “reasonable” faith,
one that downplays some of the stranger spiritual doctrines of
Christianity and that focuses instead on pursuing moderate moral reform
and positive social change.
Nathan and his wife no longer have
the luxury of believing in this comforting version of “Christianity
lite.” Spiritual warfare has come to their doorstep in a way few of us
can imagine. The mysterious world of warring spirits, of heaven and
hell, of damnation and redemption, of good and evil, is a daily reality
for them. When coming face to face with the devil, the shades of gray
in which we like to spend most of our days fade against a backdrop of
starker colors.
“Nathan’s” experiences with his
wife’s possession has utterly changed his perspective on the faith.
“Once you’ve seen reality through the eyes of spiritual warfare,” he
told Dreher, “you can’t go back. It’s everywhere.”
Nathan now sees the world as St.
Paul saw the world, and as traditional Christian teaching has always
seen the world: a battleground in which every person is engaged in the
struggle, not merely against the flesh, but “against the rulers,
against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against
the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.” To be a
Christian is not to choose a “safe” and reasonable moral philosophy, it
is to take up arms in this struggle, and to be satisfied with nothing
less than holiness: “to be perfect as our heavenly father is perfect.”
The Church provides many tools to
engage in this struggle. “Nathan says that this ordeal has taught him
about the power of prayer, and of the Church’s weapons against these
things,” writes Dreher.
This whole column, in fact, was
inspired by the resurgence of one of these weapons: The Prayer to St.
Michael the Archangel. For 80 years, this powerful prayer, invoking the
archangel’s assistance in the battle against the “wickedness and snares
of the devil,” was prayed after every single Catholic low mass. The
required recitation of the prayer after Mass was suppressed during the
liturgical reforms of the 1960s.
Now, however, it is making a
comeback. In response to the horrors of the current sex abuse scandal,
and the general confusion affecting the Church and the culture, at
least 13 U.S. bishops have reportedly urged that the prayer be recited
after Holy Mass. I take this as an extremely positive sign. This may,
in fact, represent the “good fruit” that Christ is bringing out of the
horrors of the past few months and decades.
THE B.C. CATHOLIC: Pope Francis: Pray Rosary daily for Church’s protection from Satan
Ladder
of Divine Ascent excerpt: Step 26- "On discernment of thoughts, passions,
and virtues"
39. What are the particular offspring of the eight
deadly sins? Or which of the three chief sins is the father of the other
five (minor sins)? I learnt from the holy men the following: 'The
mother of lust is gluttony, and the mother of despondency is vainglory;
sorrow and also anger are the offspring of those three (i.e. cupidity,
sensuality, ambition); and the mother of pride is vainglory'.
October 7, 2018
(Joh 2:3-5) And
the wine failing, the mother of Jesus saith to him: They have no wine.
And Jesus saith to her: Woman, what is that to me and to thee? My hour
is not yet come. His mother saith to the waiters: Whatsoever he shall
say to you, do ye.
ALETEIA: Do you know the history of how the Rosary has conquered?
CRISIS MAGAZINE: Last Crusade Calling Lost Christendom to War! “Lepanto” by G.K. Chesterton
CHRISTIAN NEWSWIRE: Rosary Coast to Coast - Nations are joining with the US to hold Rosary Rallies across the world, October 7th, the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary.
It was only in July that members of
the New Holy League of Nations began coordinating, but now over 40
Nations-- including churches in the Americas, Europe, Australia,
Africa, the Middle East and Asia--are answering what leaders have
labeled the "clarion call of the Immaculata." International Organizers
are encouraging participants to "live-stream" through Facebook Live, or
through the Periscope App, with the hashtag #RosaryCoastToCoast and
#HolyLeagueOfNations. In addition, photos and video may be similarly
tagged on all social media sites.
Polish coordinator, Marcin Dybowski
writes, "only the Rosary can save our families and our future in our
country and in our churches. We from the bottom, ordinary people,
civilians, have to do this because our leaders have made a deal with
the 'spirit of this world.' We want to restore the covenant with God."
Zimbabwe national coordinator,
Annalia Mugomba, writes: "Once peaceful Zimbabwe-- not forgetting our
Catholic church—both are under a serious attack by the devil. I hope
God will hear and answer our prayers and since we are praying together
with our Dear Mother Mary, we will feel closer to God and gain
direction in life--especially within our Church. I am so happy that my
country has responded to this call..."
Dominic Chikhani, a show host for
Lebanese Tele Lumier, and coordinator for multiple Middle Eastern
Nations—including Iraq, Syria, Egypt and the Holy Land—writes: "It
started with Genesis 3, Revelation 12 and Saint Louis de Montfort's
prophecy about latter times Marian Saints. Then as things (progressed)
towards that goal (of October 7th World Wide Rosary), I noticed that
whatever I did for Our Lady turned out to be successful. It was as if
She was specifically blessing all works that served Her grand purpose.
I think that when a group stands for God with such zeal, then God will
pour all His might in and around that group. I believe something will
change forever in the Church and the World after this event...The
Triumph of Our Lady's Immaculate Heart will unfold very, very quickly."
Melissa Miranda, coordinator for
India: "When you say 'Yes' to Christ and Our Lady, they do the rest. I
had no clue I was being led towards leading the Rosary in India, things
were set into motion much before I took it up-- things I did not know
or realize-- but which has somehow led to this. To have it all fall in
place at the right time...It has been a very humbling experience. I
have seen that no matter what, or how bleak the road seems at times,
when Mary is with us, all is possible. She makes the way."
As the world unites October 7th, individuals responding to this "clarion call"
will also be fulfilling the exhortation of Pope Francis, which he made
on September 29th 2018 "to pray the Holy Rosary every day, during the
entire Marian month of October, and thus to join in communion and in
penitence, as the people of God, in asking the Holy Mother of God and
Saint Michael the Archangel to protect the Church from the devil."
Answering this papal exhortation,
coordinators in Italy have announced that a Rosary Rally will be held,
in St. Peter's Square, October 7th. Organizers are asking those who
wish to join to meet at the obelisk in the middle of the square, at
3pm, to unite in prayer with the world.
RELATED LINK: National Rosary Rally Live Stream
RESPECT LIFE SUNDAY
Ladder
of Divine Ascent excerpt: Step 26- "On discernment of thoughts, passions,
and virtues"
38. It is difficult to overcome former bad habits;
and those who keep on adding further new ones to them either fall into
despair or get no benefit at all from obedience. But I know that to God
all things are possible, and to Him nothing is impossible (Cf. Job 42:2,
Luke 1:37).
October 5, 2018
(Mat 5:38-41) You
have heard that it hath been said: An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a
tooth. But I say to you not to resist evil: but if one strike thee on
thy right cheek, turn to him also the other: And if a man will contend
with thee in judgment, and take away thy coat, let go thy cloak also
unto him. And whosoever will force thee one mile, go with him other two.
CHRISTIAN TODAY: 'Guardians of civilisations': Why the Middle East needs Christians
INTERVIEW TAWADROS II: Egyptian Christians and the future
CATHOLIC WORLD REPORT: Coptic community among nominees for Nobel Peace Prize
Among the 331 candidates for the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize are the Copts, the Christian ethnoreligious group of Egypt.
Coptic Orphans, a Christian developmental organization, announced the nomination Sept. 24.
The group said that the Copts have
been nominated “for their refusal to retaliate against deadly and
ongoing persecution from governments and terrorist groups in Egypt and
elsewhere.” This year, 216 individuals and 115 organizations have been
nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. The award’s recipient will be
announced Oct. 5.
Copts make up an estimated 10 percent of Egypt’s population, and they face a constant threat of violence.
In 2015, 21 Copts were beheaded by Islamic State in Libya; they have been recognized as martyrs by the Coptic Orthodox Church.
RELATED
Christians in Egypt Jailed for Worshipping in Unlicensed House
Coptic diocese says group attacked Christian homes in Egypt
Coptic abbot’s murder points to strains over ecumenism in Egypt
Ladder
of Divine Ascent excerpt: Step 25- "On the destroyer of the pasions,
most sublime humility"
37. A holy team is love and humility; the one exalts,
and the other, supporting the exalted ones, never fails (1Cor 13:8).
October 3, 2018
(Mat 5:14-16) You
are the light of the world. A city seated on a mountain cannot be hid.
Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but upon a
candlestick, that it may shine to all that are in the house. So let
your light shine before men, that they may see your good works, and
glorify your Father who is in heaven.
CAMPAIGN: 40 DAYS FOR LIFE: SEPT. 26 – NOV. 4 Speak out for those who cannot speak for themselves. Look for the nearest location and get involved!
THE CATHOLIC THING: “These Vulnerable Creatures”: a Review of “Gosnell”
EXCERPT HLI: Christians as Salt, Leaven and Light to the World
Reading the news these days is
enough to drive one to despair. It seems that not only our culture, but
also our Church, are awash in an epidemic of predatory sexual behavior.
As I read headline after headline, however, I can’t help but conclude
that these evils are one manifestation of a far deeper, and more
systemic problem: namely, the society-wide abandonment of the moral
truths that have served, for so long, as antidote to fallen humanity’s
worst impulses.
Our civilization has normalized and
institutionalized the murder of unborn children; has systematically
dismantled the legal protections afforded to the natural family and
true marriage; is rapidly moving towards legalizing the practice of
killing our sick and elderly; and exposes our children to gross
immorality in the form of “comprehensive” sex-education, pornography,
and violent and sexually explicit movies, to name only a few examples.
A society in which the lofty moral truths preached by Christ are so
widely denigrated and ignored, and in which the gospel of
self-gratification is so openly preached, is one that has no right to
act surprised when many of its members pursue this anti-gospel to its
logical conclusion by using others for their own pleasure.
Still, the failures by
representatives within the Church sting deepest of all. More than
sting. They drive a red-hot dagger into the heart of our conception of
the Church and ourselves as Christians as the salt and leaven and light
to the world. If some of our own seminaries and rectories and
chanceries have been so consumed by such darkness, is it any wonder
that society at large is no bastion of light and purity? If the Church,
and Christians, are not achieving even the bare minimum of moral
integrity, how can we possibly expect Hollywood, or Wall Street, or our
legislatures to be doing any better?
What I have been led to wonder, is
just how much of the current, ramshackle state of the world is due
directly to the lukewarmness and sins of Christians, including even
many of us who consider ourselves “good” Christians. We have failed in
our responsibility to all men and the whole world; we have embraced
lukewarmness; we have picked those Christian doctrines we like and left
the rest; we have not allowed our hearts to be softened with “infinite,
universal, inexhaustible love” through prayer and asceticism. We have
not taken Christ seriously when he told us to be “perfect” as his
heavenly Father is perfect.
EXCERPT CATHOLIC.NET: The truth of the hurt of abortion is so routinely suppressed
Let’s talk about abortion, let’s
talk about abortion-after-care, precisely because abortion hurts women.
Let’s not hide it, because the truth of the hurt of abortion is so
routinely suppressed that how can anyone openly express regret or pain
over having had one?
Let’s talk about shame, because no
woman (or man, for that matter, let’s not forget that men are hurt by
abortion too) deserves to suffer the effects of abortion in silence.
Let’s talk about all that, not in order to give a “cute” toy or a
flippant pin as a gift, but because people, real people, deserve better
than abortion, better than silence, better than having a pregnancy
surgically removed from a woman’s body and then celebrated, or ignored,
afterwards.
Let’s talk to our teens about sex,
relationships, contraception, and abortion precisely because not
talking about it leaves a void so quickly filled by the world’s view.
“Just don’t do it” is not enough: chastity is a much bigger yes than a
negative rule, we need to make this case clear and appealing to them.
We owe it to them to treat them with the intelligence they deserve, not
to infantilize them, to respect them and their development, but to not
leave them woefully unprepared to face a world where they are bombarded
with sexual pressures on every side. We owe it to them to discuss what
true freedom is, the freedom for all life to have the chance to make it
to birth. We owe it to them to discuss the reasons behind abstinence
(and I want to direct you to this excellent article on that matter, as
a starting point), we owe it to them to offer them an alternative to
the path of casual sex, the stress and toxicity of contraception and
the objectification of themselves and their peers.
We don’t owe them quick-fixes or an
attitude that stands on the sidelines leaving them to sort out their
own problems (see Matthew 7:9). We owe them this as adults. We owe them
alternatives to abortion, and if they are hurting from an abortion, we
owe them a lifetime of healing. Not an article suggesting one teen
gives another a coloring book and some poetry.
RELATED: Abortions will be free in Ireland just months after they were illegal, official says
Ladder
of Divine Ascent excerpt: Step 25- "On the destroyer of the pasions,
most sublime humility"
33. Most of us call ourselves sinners, and perhaps
really think it; but it is indignity that tests the heart.
October 1, 2018
(1Co 16:13-14) Watch ye: stand fast in the faith: do manfully and be strengthened. Let all your things be done in charity.
EXCERPT CATHOLIC THING:
C.S. Lewis once complained about a culture that produces “men without
chests” and then expects of them virtue.“We laugh at honor,” wrote
Lewis, “and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and
bid the geldings be fruitful.” An American Catholic Church that laughed
at Catholic social teaching and Catholic sexual morality should not be
shocked to find doctrinal and moral traitors in its midst.
DENVER CATHOLIC: The true call of masculinity
VIDEO: Catholic Masculinity
BLOG: Lack of Virility source of Clergy's & Society's problems
VIA FATHER RUTLER: Where Are the Churchmen With Chests?
FATHER RUTLER'S LATEST COMMENTARY: Abraham
Lincoln won the election of 1860 with only 39.8 percent of the popular
vote and was so loathed that he had to take a night train secretly into
Washington for his inauguration. The Salem Advocate in his own state of
Illinois editorialized: “…he is no more capable of becoming a
statesman, nay, even a moderate one, than the braying ass can become a
noble lion. People now marvel how it came to pass that Mr. Lincoln
should have been selected as the representative man of any party. His
weak, wishy-washy, namby-pamby efforts, imbecile in matter, disgusting
in manner, have made us the laughing stock of the whole world.” Two
years later, the author Richard Henry Dana reported: "As to the
politics of Washington, the most striking thing is the absence of
personal loyalty to the President. It does not exist. He has no
admirers, no enthusiastic supporters, none to bet on his head.”
Against the rising tide of hate,
Lincoln maintained his balance with quiet humor. And humor as the
perception of imbalance is a strong defense against irrational people
whose defining characteristic is a humorless lack of proportion. There
is much hatred in our culture today, which has abandoned
self-deprecation and has replaced humor with caustic vulgarity. It is
not melodramatic to say that when people abandon Christ, they embrace
the Anti-Christ who laughs not with us, but at us.
The viciousness of current
politics, perhaps even worse than Lincoln knew in his time, is a dance
of despair that logically results from rejecting the logic of Christ
who is “the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” When people lose hope in
eternal verities, they resort to slander instead of discourse,
desperately shouting mockeries from Senate balconies and university
platforms. The enemy becomes not the unjust, but the just: “The godless
say to themselves: ‘Let us lie in wait for the virtuous man, since he
annoys us and opposed our way of life…’” (Wisdom 2:12).
As human nature does not change, it
is not surprising that Saint James accurately took the moral
temperature of our generation back in his own: “Where do these wars and
battles between yourselves first start? Isn’t it precisely in the
desires fighting inside your own selves? You want something, and you
haven’t got it; so you are prepared to kill. You have an ambition that
you cannot satisfy; so you fight to get your way by force” (James
4:1-2).
When people shout in hate and
demonize their opponents, it is because hateful demons are at work.
Milton’s Satan in Paradise Lost realized that he could not match God’s
creation of beautiful man and woman in his image, so he must deface
that image by the seductive charm of evil in disguise: “So farewell
hope, and with hope, farewell fear, / Farewell remorse! All good to me
is lost; / Evil, be thou my good.”
Ladder
of Divine Ascent excerpt: Step 25- "On the destroyer of the pasions,
most sublime humility"
32. It is impossible for snow to burst into flame;
still more difficult is it for humililty to dwell in an an un-orthodox
person. This is something which the pious and faithful achieve, and then
only when they have been purified.
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