Ludwig Ott warning and jurisdiction claims refuted again

Ludwig Ott warning and jurisdiction claims refuted again

+Feast of the Transfiguration+

Twice in one week now we have seen certain bloggers, presenting themselves as reliable sources of Catholic information, promoting the work of Dr. Ludwig Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, as the end all, be all of theological sources. But this is far from the truth, which is why you will not find him quoted on this site. Ott is not a trustworthy source of theology and should not be used, certainly, in defending truths of faith. In the January 1956 issue of the American Ecclesiastical Review, we find a book review on Dr. Ott’s work written by John J. King, O.M.I. He states:

“The publication of this volume by Dr. Ott should bolster the argumentation of those who protested the use of thedigest approach to the study of sacred theology. Dr. Ott has attempted to compress the entire field of dogmatic theology (including fundamental, special and Sacramental dogma) into a single volume of 519 pages. The editor of the English edition calls this bookthe most remarkable work of compression of its kind that I have encountered.’ This may well be; but for all its remarkable qualities, it is not without serious defect. In the process of condensation great care must be taken to avoid all distortion. The formidable task of a work of this sort is to affect not only brevity but also clarity. Dr. Ott has had remarkable success in attaining the first; he has experienced something less than success in his quest for the second. Very often in the scientific exposition of the dogmas of the Church conciseness can be attained only at the expense of clarity and accuracy…

“This has been the case in several sections of Dr. Ott’s book and this despite the obvious scholarship which he brings to his work. The author tells us that his work is intended primarily to meet the needs of students; indeed to be used as a textbook for seminarians. As such it is clearly inadequate. For it is merely a conspectus of theology. Its treatment is positive throughout with only an occasional brief elaboration of the speculative aspect of dogma. Frequent references are given to Denzinger, Sacred Scripture and Journel, but there are few direct quotations from the statements of the magisterium, Scripture and Tradition. Because of its brevity this volume could readily confuse and mislead seminarians. They may well gather enough information to pass an examination, but they certainly would not be schooled in theology according to the mind of the Church. Doctor Ott’s book may be useful on occasion as a quick reference, provided that the inquirer does not expect to receive a complete treatment of any given point; and provided also that he later seeks clarification and amplification in a more detailed source.” (Copies of this review are available on request.)

So it seems that those who are trying to shoot down what is written on this site need to substantially step up their game if they want to be considered credible writers. And what is more important, they need to stop telling people that they can rely on the opinions of theologians versus those of the magisterium, which is exactly what King criticizes Ott for doing. Now you see why so much is quoted from the magisterium here, and from Holy Scripture. And oh, by the way, if you’re going to take my writings out of context, try to properly attribute the quote about this very subject to its proper source (Msgr. Fenton and the theologians Pohle and Preuss), instead of making it appear it is my personal opinion:

“The private theologian is obligated and privileged to study these documents, to arrive at an understanding of what the Holy Father actually teaches, and then to aid in the task of bringing this body of truth to the people. The Holy Father, however, not the private theologian, remains the doctrinal authority. The theologian is expected to bring out the content of the Pope’s actual teaching, not to subject that teaching to the type of criticism he would have a right to impose on the writings of another private theologian” (Msgr. J.C. Fenton,“The Doctrinal Authority of Papal Encyclicals, Pt. II” Sept. 1949, AER). As Revs. Pohle-Preuss write in The Sacraments, Vol. IV: “It matters not what the private opinions of…theologians [are]. It is not the private opinions of theologians but the official decisions of the Church by which we must be guided.” Why would anyone choose to believe theologians over the Roman Pontiff, Christ’s voice on earth? Do they not believe that “He who hears you, hears Me”?

Cardinal Ottaviani and Msgr. Fenton no match for Ott

Msgr. Fenton’s diaries reveal that he and Alfredo Cardinal Ottaviani were good friends; he knew the man fairly well. When the decision in Mystici Corporis Christi on the jurisdiction of the bishops proceeding not from God directly but from the Roman Pontiffs was issued, Cardinal Ottaviani later published an important address about it. (Msgr. Fenton reports this in his article just quoted above.) Since Cardinal Ottaviani certainly had the pope’s ear, and was doubtless aware of his intent, we surely can trust what he said in his Institutiones iuris publici ecclesiastici in 1947, as reported by Fenton. Msgr. Fenton notes in his article: “[Ottaviani] tells us [that] up until the present time this thesis had been considered as more probable and even as sententia communis [common opinion of theologians] but that from now on it is to be held as entirely certain by reason of the words of the present Holy Father…

 “Monsignor Ottaviani assumes rightly that the authoritative statement of this thesis in the papal letter raises this teaching from the status of a more probable doctrine to that of a perfectly certain proposition. This observation on the part of Monsignor Ottaviani constitutes a valuable, practical corrective to a certain tendency towards oversimplification and MINIMALISM which had begun to invade some recent judgments on the doctrinal authority of the… encyclical letters.”

Yet in Ott’s work, we find it still listed as only a more probable opinion “(Sent. probabilior).” Already in the late 1800s, Henry Cardinal Manning, in his The Pastoral Office, demonstrated that it was then a common opinion, as Msgr. Fenton notes above.

It seems to be a very clear choice to believe the words of Cardinal Ottaviani, confidante of Pope Pius XII, and Ottaviani’s friend, Msgr. Fenton, over anything a theologian such as Ott, who obviously exhibits minimalist tendencies, might claim. Pope Pius XII’s decision is sententia certa (theologically certain) — implicit in Scripture and Tradition, as this teaching truly is — not probabilior. To deny this is censured as a theological error and constitutes a mortal sin against ecclesiastical faith (Cartechini’s Theological Notes, 1951). Pope Pius XII settled a matter that had been disputed for centuries, and when Rome speaks, the case is closed. Here is an example of Sententia Probabilis, taken from the Internet:

Sententia Probabilis – probable teaching – a teaching that is well founded on good authority yet is open to question. Pious beliefs and tolerated opinions also fall under this note and have the lowest degree of certainty.

  1. Example: Judas received Holy Communion at the last supper
  2. Denial of any of these teachings is licit provided piety is given to legitimate authority.

Dr. Ludwig Ott’s continued reference to Pope Pius XII’s decision on the bishops’ reception of jurisdiction as only probable clearly reveals his minimalist orientation. On pg. 9-10 of his work we read: “A teaching which is theologically certain is a doctrine on which the teaching authority of the Church has not yet finally pronounced but whose truth is guaranteed by its intrinsic connection with the doctrine of revelation.” But this could be true only when it is not a decision on a controverted matter that settles the question, as Pope Pius XII did with the bishops. Ott’s work was written years after the release of Humani generis and Pope Pius XII’s teaching on the ordinary magisterium and the possibility of infallible statements in encyclicals. Yet still Ott taught in his work that: “Only those …doctrinal teachings of the Church… which emanate from general councils representing the whole episcopate and the papal decisions ex cathedra [are infallible]. The ordinary and usual form of the papal teaching activity is not infallible.”  This contradicts papal teaching.

No wonder Rev. King above warns Catholics that his work has serious defects and cannot be trusted. And now we know why Traditionalists venerate him as their theologian extraordinaire! When a pope has gone to the trouble of making a decision on a certain matter, how can it then still be considered as a probable opinion?

According to Rev. Francis J. Connell, this would be the case only if the subject at issue is expressed by the pope or the Holy Office as something that “…cannot be safely taught… There are many doctrines not contained in the Deposit of Faith but so intimately connected with it that the authority to teach revealed truth infallibly would be rendered in great measure ineffective unless the infallible magisterium extended to them also. On this account it is held as certain by theologians that such doctrines constitute a genuine object of infallibility though indirect or secondary. And when there has been a definitive and official pronouncement on such a doctrine by the infallible magisterium THIS DOCTRINE TOO IS UNCHANGEABLE FOR ALL TIME” (“Does Catholic Doctrine Change,” November, 1947, AER). And here Rev. Connell refers to Pope Leo XIII’s decision on Anglican Orders (DZ 1966) where the pope pronounces that he declares them “invalid and entirely void: in light of the teachings of his predecessors and on Our authority, Our own inspiration and certain knowledge…”

Msgr. Fenton writes in yet another article: “Those who on their own initiative presume to question or to contradict a doctrinal statement proposed authoritatively in a papal encyclical, even in cases where the Holy Father does not make a definitive decision, may well be said to be striving for something MANIFESTLY BEYOND THEIR COMPETENCE. No individual and for that matter no group of individuals within the ecclesia discens can be said to have the competence to dispute with the visible head of the Church militant on a matter connected with the Church’s deposit of divine revelation. At least in an indirect manner, however, every rejection of an authoritative doctrinal pronouncement contained in a papal encyclical is opposed to the theological virtue of faith” (“The Religious Assent Due to the Teaching of Papal Encyclicals,” July, 1950, AER). This tells us who is TRULY competent in presenting the teachings of the Church and who is not.

We would like to close this section with a quote from Pope St. Pius X:

When we love the Pope we do not dispute whether he commands or requires a thing or seek to know where the strict obligation of obedience lies or in what matter we must obey; when we love the Pope we do not say that he has not yet spoken clearly — as if he were required to speak his will in every man’s ear and to utter it not only by word of mouth but in letters and other public documents as well. Nor do we cast doubt on his orders, alleging the pretext which comes easily to the man who does not want to obey, that it is not the Pope who is commanding but someone in his entourage. We do not limit the field in which he can and ought to exercise his authority; we do not oppose to the Pope’s authority that of other persons — no matter how learned — who differ from the Pope. For whatever may be their learning, they are not holy, for where there is holiness there cannot be disagreement with the Pope” (Allocution, to the members of the Apostolic Union on their 50th anniversary, Nov. 18, 1912).So who loves the pope? Sadly, it would seem that very few at all truly love him today, for very few obey him without question.

What follows is directly connected to the Divine constitution continuum established in the papacy which was meant to be perpetuated in an unbroken chain for the Church to exist.

Jurisdiction, supplied and otherwise

The Vatican Council has defined that the pope possesses the fullness of jurisdiction in the Church, yet it seems that we always find those who quibble with what the pope teaches also in the company of those who question the Church’s teaching on jurisdiction. Accept the faith as it has always been taught and there are no worries; but no one seems able to do that. What we are supposed to believe regarding the Church’s mission on earth and jurisdiction is very clear. It is a de fide teaching of the Church Traditionalists refuse to accept. One of their favorite theologians, Louis Cardinal Billot has summed it up quite nicely:

For authority [in the Church] comes directly from God through Christ, and from Christ to his Vicar, and from the Vicar of Christ it descends to the remaining prelates WITHOUT THE INTERVENTION OF ANY OTHER PHYSICAL OR MORAL PERSON” (Louis Cardinal Billot, S.J., Tractatus De Ecclesia Christi (Rome: Aedes Universitatis Gregorianae, 1927, Vol. 1. p. 524). This quote comes directly from Cardinal Billot, not some other source; it doesn’t get any simpler than that. Interrupt that chain and all contact with the divine is lost. This Church is a Divine, not a human institution and any meddling with its Divine constitution reduces it to just one more non-Catholic Church, as Rev. Joseph Riley notes below:

“The Church as it was constituted by Christ (Pope, bishops, priests) was established forever as a hierarchico-monarchical society… to remain unchanged until the end of time… NOWHERE IN REVELATION IS THERE ANY EVIDENCE OF ANY INTENTIONS TO PERMIT EXCEPTIONS TO — OR CHANGES IN — THIS CONSTITUTION IN FUTURE HISTORY BY THE USE OF EPIKEIA OR ON ANY OTHER BASIS. MEN ARE FREE OF COURSE TO FOUND OTHER CHURCHES, DIFFERING IN CONSTITUTION AND NATURE… BUT SUCH CHURCHES ARE NOT CHRIST’S… To maintain that Christ had some intention for the future, contrary to that made manifest in the actual establishment of His Church is a refusal to believe in the efficacy of the divine promise that Christ would be with the Church unto the consummation of the world; it is a denial of the [four marks] and indefectibility of this divinely established institution” (The History, Nature and Use of EPIKEIA in Moral Theology, Rev. Lawrence Joseph Riley, A.B., S.T.L., a dissertation submitted to the faculty of the School of Sacred Theology of the Catholic University of America, 1948, p. 330-31).

It is true that the Church must remain unchanged, but it was changed the day Pope Pius XII died and all the cardinals elected a heretic to office, accepted by all the bishops who later formally apostatized from the faith at the false Vatican 2 Council. THAT was the great apostasy, the stars (bishops) falling from heaven (the Church) in the Apocalypse. Without the election of a true pope the Church as Christ constituted it ceased to exist. Because everyone focused on the lack of Mass and Sacraments and refused to address the one element most necessary to the preservation of unity and stability in the Church, the window of time to elect a true pope slowly closed and now cannot be reopened; only a miracle can restore the papacy. This is the truth Traditionalists deny: the necessity of the papacy for the Church to exist at all.

What does Holy Scripture have to say about supplied jurisdiction? A reader recently checked this out and found the following commentary on St. Paul which led to further commentary on the same topic.

Rev. Leo Haydock’s Douay-Rheims Bible commentary

Romans 10:15: “And how can they preach, unless they be sent?” Haydock: Unless they be sent. Here is an evident proof against all new teachers, who have all usurped to themselves the ministry, without any lawful mission, derived by succession from the apostles, to whom Christ said, (John xx. 21.) As my Father hath sent me, I also send you. (Challoner) — The Almighty sends people to preach two different ways. The one is extraordinary by internal inspiration, as was that of John the Baptist, and all the other prophets; in which case, however, extraordinary proofs must be given that they are sent by God; and the other is ordinary, which is derived from Christ, and from the apostles and their successors, whom he has appointed to be his vicegerents on earth. (Estius).

John 10: 1 — “He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold but climbeth up another way, the same is a thief and a robber.  But he that entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep…” Haydock: In this parable the fold is the Church: the Good Shepherd, and also the door is Christ: the thieves and robbers are false guides; the hirelings, such ministers as seek their own profit and gain, and a good living, as they call it; the wolves, heretics…

John 10: 7-8 — “I am the door of the sheep. All others, as many as have come, are thieves and robbers: and the sheep heard them not.” Haydock:  All they who came are thieves, meaning those who came of their own accord, without being sent: not so the prophets, who had their mission from God.”

 The Council of Trent, Sess. 23, Ch. 4:

”In the ordination of bishops, priests and of other orders… the consent or call or authority of the people or of any secular power or magistrate is not so required for the validity of the ordination but rather [this Holy Synod] decrees that those who are called and instituted only by the people or by the civil power or magistrate and proceed to exercise these offices and that those who by their own temerity take these offices upon themselves are not ministers of the Church but are to be regarded as ‘thieves and robbers who have not entered by the door’ (Jn. !0:1)” (DZ 960).

“If anyone says that the bishops are not superior to priests… or that orders conferred by them without the consent or call of the people or of the secular power are invalid; or that those who have been neither rightly ordained nor sent by ecclesiastical and canonical authority but come from a different source are lawful ministers of the Word and of the Sacraments, let him be anathema (DZ 967).

 Authentic interpretation of Can. 147

An ecclesiastical office is not validly obtained without canonical appointment. By canonical appointment is understood the conferring of an ecclesiastical office by the competent ecclesiastical authority in harmony with the sacred canons.” Traditionalists never received an office, for neither Marcel Lefebvre or Bp. Ngo dinh Thuc themselves possessed or could possess an office after resigning their offices from Pope Pius XII and participating in communicatio in sacris with the Novus Ordo church. Certainly heretics are not competent ecclesiastical authorities and the sacred canons requiring the papal mandate and assignment of dioceses for the erection of seminaries all were ignored. The decision of the Sacred Congregation issued June 29, 1950 gives an authentic interpretation of this law, citing the text of DZ 967 above and yet another version of DZ 960, varying slightly from the Denzinger translation:

“Those who undertake to exercise these offices merely at the behest of and upon appointment by the people or secular power and authority, and those who assume the same upon their own authority, are all to be regarded not as ministers of the Church but as thieves and robbers who have entered not by the door…His holiness Pope Pius XII…in order to preserve more inviolate these same sacred principles and at the same time forestall abuses in a matter of such great importance…deigned to provide as follows…” (Canon Law Digest, Vol. 3, T. Lincoln Bouscaren, S.J., 1953; AAS 42-601) And here censures are levied against those who violate this law, reserved in a special manner to the Holy See. So in promoting the heresy of jurisdiction outside the proper ecclesiastical channels, Traditionalists deny the teachings of St. Paul and our Lord in Holy Scripture, the de fide teaching of the Council of Trent, and Pope Pius XII’s teaching on Canon 147, entered into the Acta Apostolica Sedis and binding on all Catholics. (And no, the usurper Francis in Rome and his false and frequent entries into this source do not diminish the weight it enjoyed under Pius XII.)

All Canon Laws remain in force

The wording in all these documents is the same; they all refer to those illicitly (most likely invalidly) ordained and consecrated by those not possessing papal authority to execute these actions, and therefore incapable of obtaining jurisdiction. How many Traditionalists daring to call themselves clergy sin gravely in ignoring the censures for heresy and other censures attached to the various canons, forbidding them to exercise any orders received, if indeed they even received them! And no, Canon Law does not “develop” during an interregnum to exclude these censures, when no true pope or the Sacred Congregations of the Holy Office are able to address questions regarding the law. In their Canon Law Digest commentary on Can. 17, Vol. 5 (1963), the canonists Bouscaren and O’Connor write the following:

“His eminence, the president of the Pontifical Commission for the Authentic Interpretation of the Canons of the Code, Maximus Cardinal Massimi, declared shortly before his death… that it was his personal opinion he no longer preferred to give authentic replies since all the canons were already sufficiently clear in their obvious meaning.  It is interesting to observe that no officially promulgated replies have since been given for the Code of the Latin church since his death [in 1954].” So this very experienced cardinal, the last of his kind, believed that the Code should be taken exactly as it stood, supplemented by the authentic interpretations already given for over 35 years. In an eerie way it almost anticipates the death of Pope Pius XII four years later and seems to echo the very language both he and his predecessor, Pope St. Pius X, employed in their nearly identical papal election constitutions:

The laws issued by Roman Pontiffs in no way can be corrected or changed by the assembly of Cardinals of the Roman Church while it is without a Pope, nor can anything be subtracted from them or added or dispensed in any way whatsoever with respect to said laws or any part of them” (Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis). The canonists Woywod-Smith and Bouscaren- Ellis all confirm that this means the cardinals “…cannot make any changes in the laws of the Church or dispense from them.” This is based on an ancient law dating back to the 13th century, according to the footnotes of Pius XII’s constitution. So who do we believe, Pope Pius XII or the bloggers who tell us that such laws no longer apply, or can be ignored or minimalized? Pope St. Pius X’s election law was a codification of ALL papal election law, so are objectors also going to nullify the laws governing papal elections throughout history?

Conclusion

Documents in this author’s possession show that Sedevacantists, at least, knew they should elect a pope and were actually discussing it just before the Thuc consecrations. Plans by Thuc bishops and their supporters to hold an “incomplete council” were in the works as late as 1989. They decided instead to remain a headless band of mini-popes, continually dividing and subdividing over financial and doctrinal issues. These men are not just individuals who might be able to convey the Sacraments during an extended interregnum and therefore can be resorted to safely; they are men who regardless of their true status, must be considered outside the Church and therefore as non-Catholics until a true pope decides otherwise (Canon 2200).

There has not been one scintilla of evidence from a true pope or an ecumenical council that has ever been produced by Traditionalists proving that (a) The pope teaches jurisdiction comes directly from God Himself: (b) It can be supplied to them by anyone other than the pope and (c) They can operate outside the Divine constitution Christ established for His Church during an interregnum. Their few entirely inadequate attempts to justify their use of epikeiaand appeal to supplied jurisdiction, also to discredit papal teaching, will be addressed in position papers currently in progress and soon to be posted to the website.

As shown above, all these teachings are in direct contradiction of papal decrees and the de fide teaching of the Council of Trent. So no, thank you, we will not join you, but will follow St. Thomas Aquinas, who wrote on this topic:

“Such persons as are separated from the Church by heresy, schism, or excommunication, can indeed consecrate the Eucharist..; but they act wrongly, and sin by doing so; and in consequence they do not receive the fruit of the sacrifice, which is a spiritual sacrifice” (Article 7). And further, “But because he is severed from the unity of the Church, HIS PRAYERS HAVE NO EFFICACY” (reply to objection 3 of article 7). “And therefore whoever hears their mass or receives the sacraments from them, commits sin… By refusing to hear the masses of such priests, or to receive Communion from them, WE ARE NOT SHUNNING GOD’S SACRAMENTS; ON THE CONTRARY, BY SO DOING WE ARE GIVING THEM HONOR: BUT WHAT WE SHUN IS THE SIN OF UNWORTHY MINISTERS (reply, objection 1). That says it all and should be sufficient in silencing these people; but of course it won’t.

Finally we leave you with one more quote on the authority of bishops from Pope Pius VI, Post tibi factum addressed to the Archbishop of Trier in 1782:

“Even in the case where the episcopal authority would come directly from God, as certain doctors claim, nevertheless it must be held for certain and firmly maintained that this authority does not extend of its own right to the faculty of dispensing from the general laws of the Church without the express or at least tacit permission of the superior power which has established these laws. IT IS IN FACT A DOGMA OF FAITH THAT the authority of the bishops, even admitting that it stems directly from Christ, remains dependent on the authority of the Roman Pontiff. Whence it follows that the bishops must ever remain subject to the decrees of the Apostolic See and to the venerable prescriptions of the canons under penalty, if it should happen, that one of them infringed these prescriptions and canons, of being refused the concession in the future. For the same reason it is not less certain that the authority of the bishops can itself be restricted and reduced within certain limits as to its exercise and its use by the superior hierarchical authority.

THE POPES SPEAK WITH CHRIST’S VOICE; THE BISHOPS DO NOT. AND CERTAINLY DISGRACED AND DISOBEDIENT MEN, NOT EVEN CERTAINLY BISHOPS OR PRIESTS, NEVER COULD BE SAID TO SPEAK FOR HIM.

Please join us here in praying for our enemies: https://biblehub.com/drbc/psalms/35.htm

Profession of Faith, the Modernist Oath and Catholic belief

Profession of Faith, the Modernist Oath and Catholic belief

+St. Elizabeth of Portugal, Widow+

Introduction

In recent blogs as well as numerous articles on this site, it has consistently been pointed out that (a) it is the dogmatic teaching of the Church, not private revelations, on which we must base our assessment of the times in which we live; (b) the views and opinions of so-called experts in the fields of speculative, dogmatic and moral theology, eschatology and other Catholic sciences are without any value at all or are gravely flawed. This is because such supposed experts are either not validly ordained or consecrated, or in the case of secular “experts,” have not been educated in Catholic institutions. And (c) Those bishops who allowed the poison of Modernism to infiltrate their teachings and that of their seminaries abandoned the Catholic faith, and according to dogmatic Church teaching and Canon Law could never be restored to their positions. This occurred long before the death of Pope Pius XII and explains how and why the Church was successfully infiltrated by neo-Modernists, proving Angelo Roncalli could never have been elevated to the papacy.

Even secular writers decry the adverse influence of self-appointed experts, as can be seen in online comments and articles. One such writer recently observed that by introducing mind-altering drugs, both pharmaceuticals and illegal drugs, and food additives that affect brain chemistry, a mental state has successfully been created that more readily accepts a “reality shift” created by influencers and experts. She describes this as mind control tactics effecting an information reality shift, information which is delivered “in special ways, in audio, visual or written format.” The writer goes on to state that this information can be false while appearing to be true, making it difficult for the general population to determine just how much truth, if any, it might contain. We have seen this play out politically for decades.

She then goes on to note that it is the “experts” and “fact checkers,” who are to blame for this — those in the media and elsewhere who at one time were expected to hold public officials accountable, investigate any suspected corruption and collusion and expose it. She blames modern technology for occasioning this reality shift, advising people to stop relying on modern methods of information gathering and delivery. This is why articles on this site repeatedly warn that one must not depend on lengthy videos, podcasts, DVD’s and other non-traditional means of relaying information which LibTrad experts produce and disseminate as education in the Catholic faith. Such dissemination is, quite simply, neo-Modernism at its best, used to warp and redirect enquirers sincerely wishing to learn about the Catholic faith.

Had the election of Angelo Roncalli been investigated as it should have been long ago, the flood of information generated by the contentious LibTrad movements — propaganda intended to herd Catholics into the pre-designated channels — would never have been successful in confusing and deceiving so many of those exiting the Novus Ordo Church in the late 1960s, early 1970s. Roncalli’s disqualification for election on several counts became known in the 1970s, through public statements revealed in his biographies, works by respected Catholic authors and his actions as “pope,” but were suppressed or ignored. This is how clerical “experts,” who never trained in Catholic seminaries and never received valid ordination or consecration, along with the lay “experts” they endorsed, gained control of sincere Catholics.

Nothing illustrates this point better than the article reviewed below, written by Msgr. Joseph C. Fenton. An approved theologian or true expert, personally commended by Pope Pius XII, Fenton here examines a much-neglected document condemning Modernism, issued by Pope St. Pius X.  And in examining its contents through his explanation, we see unfold precisely how the Church was infiltrated and subverted. Having just celebrated July 4 in this country, the beginning of a yearlong celebration of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, the following review also highlights the connection between Modernism and Americanism, something very familiar to Msgr. Fenton. For he and Rev. Francis J. Connell were the only ones to oppose the resurgence of Americanism at the first session of the Vatican Council, after Time/Life publisher Henry Luce, with the with the assistance of Connell’s and Fenton’s nemesis, John Courtney Murray, S. J., helped spread its doctrines throughout the world.

Sacrorum Antistitum and the Background of the Oath Against Modernism

In this article, written for the The American Ecclesiastical Review in October, 1960, Msgr. Fenton translates and explains the introduction and conclusion of Pope St. Pius X’s Motu Proprio Sacrorum Antistitum,  or Oath against Modernism, which Fenton terms “the most important, of the three main anti-Modernist pronouncements issued by the Holy See during the brilliant reign of St. Pius X” (the other two being Pascendi and Lamentbili). Fenton begins:

“Quite obviously the greatest danger to the faith of the members of the true Church of Jesus Christ exists when some members of this Church actually teach or even show sympathy for doctrine contradictory to or incompatible with the body of Catholic dogma without receiving any reproof from those whom God has commissioned and obligated to protect the purity and the integrity of the Catholic faith. St. Pius X was acutely conscious of the fact that many influential Catholics were teaching or encouraging erroneous doctrines opposed to the divinely revealed Catholic message long after those erroneous doctrines had been pointed out and condemned by the highest teaching authority within the Church… St. Pius X speaks out very clearly of the existence of a secret alliance or a foedus clandestinum among the Modernists of his day — (a clandestine alliance or secret pact) connected with and inherent in the Modernist movement.

“…The introduction to the Sacrorum antistitum takes cognizance of the fact that most of the genuinely dangerous supporters of the Modernist movement, the men against whose efforts the Sacrorum antistitum and its commands were particularly directed, were priests active within the Catholic Church itself. St. Pius X took cognizance of the fact that such priests were actually perverting their own ministry… No one has ever been as well placed to harm the true Church and to counteract its essential work as a Catholic priest in good standing. If such a man, by his preaching, his teaching, or his writing, actually sets forth the kind of teaching condemned in the Lamentabili sane exitu and in the Pascendi dominici gregis, or if he works to discredit the loyal defenders of Catholic dogma without receiving any repudiation or reproof from those to whom the apostolic deposit of divine revelation has been entrusted, the Catholic people are in grave danger of being deceived.

“The Bishops of the Catholic Church were bound in conscience by the obligations of their office to act energetically against this teaching that contradicted the divinely revealed truth proposed as such by the true Church. The “defence of the Catholic faith” and strenuous efforts “to see to it that the integrity of the divine deposit suffers no loss” are definitely not works of supererogation. These are the duties prescribed by Our Lord Himself for the leaders of the Church, which He has purchased by His blood.”

The danger spread by members of the clergy

Fenton quotes St. Pius X: “For it is no longer a case, as it was in the beginning, of dealing with disputants who come forward in the clothing of sheep. Now we are faced with open and bitter enemies from within our own household, who, in agreement with the outstanding opponents of the Church, are working for the overthrow of the faith. They are men whose audacity against the wisdom that has come down from heaven increases daily. They arrogate to themselves the right to correct this revealed wisdom as if it were something corrupt, to renew it as if it were something that had become obsolete, to improve it and to adapt it to the dictates, the progress, and the comfort of the age as if it had been opposed to the good of society and not merely opposed to the levity of a few men. To counter such attempts against the evangelical doctrine and the ecclesiastical tradition, there will never be sufficient vigilance or too much severity on the part of those to whom the faithful care of the sacred deposit has been entrusted.”

TSB comment: So what makes anyone believe that this war ever ended? LibTrads merely picked up where the neo-Modernists left off. They pretended to keep the Mass while abandoning the papacy, paying only lip service to Canon Law and papal teaching. They ”corrected” papal teaching on jurisdiction with their claim to epikeia and jurisdiction proceeding directly form Christ, in flagrant violation of Mystici Corporis Christi. And this, without ever validly possessing episcopal or priestly orders. Surely, they exceeded the Modernists’ wildest dreams.

Fenton comments: “It is quite obvious that, given the intimate connection between the Church and the faith, a connection so close and perfect that the Church itself may be defined as the congregatio fidelium, the repudiation of the Catholic faith would inevitably lead to the dissolution of the Church. Yet, for the Modernists and for those who co-operated in their work, the immediate object of attack was always the faith itself. These individuals were perfectly willing that the Catholic Church should continue to exist as a religious society, as long as it did not insist upon the acceptance of that message which, all during the course of the previous centuries of its existence, it had proposed as a message supernaturally revealed by the Lord and Creator of heaven and earth. They were willing and even anxious to retain their membership in the Catholic Church, as long as they were not obliged to accept on the authority of divine faith such unfashionable dogmas as, for example, the truth that there is truly no salvation outside of the Church.

Both LibTrad and Novus Ordo pseudo-clergy equally responsible

What these men were really working for was the transformation of the Catholic Church into an essentially non-doctrinal religious body. They considered that their era would be willing to accept the Church as a kind of humanitarian institution, vaguely religious, tastefully patriotic, and eminently cultural. And they definitely intended to tailor the Church to fit the needs and the tastes of their own era… They sought to force or to delude the teaching authority of Christ’s Church into coming out with the fatally erroneous proposition that what is accepted by divine faith in this century is objectively something different from what was believed in the Catholic Church on the authority of God revealing in previous times.

TSB comment: And both the Novus Ordo and LibTrad sects were wildly successful in doing just that. They abandoned doctrine and focused on the liturgy, each in their own way. LibTrads emphasized the preservation of Catholic culture, an Americanist-style patriotism and the Latin Mass. The Novus Ordoites “humanized” their sacrilegious liturgy, destroyed any meaningful traditions and embraced ecumenism, condemned by the Church. (Back to Fenton)

This Modernistic outlook is precisely what Pope Leo XIII condemned in his teaching on Americanism, Msgr. Fenton notes, quoting this pope: “The principles on which the new opinions We have mentioned are based may be reduced to this: that in order the more easily to bring over to Catholic doctrine those who dissent from it, the Church ought to adapt herself somewhat to our advanced civilization, and, relaxing her ancient rigor, show some indulgence to modern theories and methods. Many think that this is to be understood not only with regard to the rule of life, but also to the doctrines in which the deposit of faith is contained. For they contend that it is opportune, in order to work in a more attractive way upon the wills of those who are not in accord with us, to pass over certain heads of doctrines, as if of lesser moment, or so to soften them that they may not have the same meaning which the Church has invariably held.”

Americanism and Modernism work hand in hand

Fenton continues: “Thus, when we examine the actual texts of the Testimonium benevolentiae and of the Sacrorum antistitum, it becomes quite apparent that Pope Leo XIII and St. Pius X were engaged in combating doctrinal deviations that actually sprang from an identical principle, the fantastically erroneous assumption that the supernatural communication of the Triune God could and should be brought up to date and given a certain respectability before modern society. The men who sustained the weird teachings condemned by Pope Leo XIII, a document which, incidentally, did not denounce any mere phantom body of doctrine, and the men who taught and protected the doctrinal monstrosities stigmatized in the Lamentabili sane exitu and in the Pascendi dominici gregis, based their errors on a common foundation. The false Americanism and the heresy of Modernism were both offshoots of doctrinal liberal Catholicism.

TSB comment: Well we don’t call them LibTrads for nothing! In their own way the leaders of these LibTrad sects especially are just as heretically evil as the Novus Ordo sect they consistently condemn. They are merely flip sides of the same coin. Take the case of a LibTrad “priest” corrected by one of his parishioners about displaying an American flag on the altar — the parishioner’s objections were rebuffed and the flag remained. And of course there was the influence of the Americanist John Birch Society among Traditionalists, especially in the 1970s and 1980s. Some LibTrad clergy even preached Birch propaganda form the pulpit. Today, however, we know the Birch Society was founded and headed by Freemasons. (Back to Msgr. Fenton)

“The first components of liberal Catholicism, during the earlier days of the unfortunate Felicite De Lamenais, were religious indifferentism, some false concepts of human freedom, and the advocacy of a separation of Church and state as the ideal situation in a nation made up of members of the true Church. But, after these teachings had been forcefully repudiated by Pope Gregory XVI in his encyclical Mirari vos arbitramur, a new set of factors entered into this system. These were inserted into the fabric of liberal Catholicism because the leaders of this movement persisted in defending as legitimate Catholic doctrine this teaching, which had been clearly and vigorously condemned by the supreme power of the Catholic magisterium. Most prominent among these newer components of liberal Catholicism were minimism, doctrinal subjectivism, and an insistence that there had been and that there had to be at least some sort of change in the objective meaning of the Church’s dogmatic message over the course of the centuries.

“This common basis of the false doctrinal Americanism and of the Modernist heresy is, like doctrinal indifferentism itself, ultimately a rejection of Catholic dogma as a genuine supernatural message or communication from the living God Himself. It would seem impossible for anyone to be blasphemous or silly enough to be convinced, on the one hand, that the dogmatic message of the Catholic Church is actually a locutio Dei ad homines, and to imagine, on the other hand, that he, a mere creature, could in some way improve that teaching or make it more respectable… The conclusion to the Sacrorum antistitum brings out more clearly than any other statement of the Holy See the fact that Modernism sprang from the same basic principle, as did the false Americanism pointed out and proscribed in the Testem benevolentiae of Pope Leo XIII.

TSB comment:  “Catholic” Liberalism begat Americanism and Americanism evolved into Modernism, although both coexisted side by side before Pope St. Pius X’s condemnation of the Modernist heresy. We have commented at length on doctrinal minimism on this site, citing Rev. John F. Cronins as follows: “The great bulk of Church teaching is had through the normal channels of pronouncements by the popes, bishops, and theologians A “minimist” attitude of accepting only infallible pronouncements is simply un-Catholic.” And as Msgr. Joseph C. Fenton wrote: “Ultimately theological minimalism was a device employed BY LIBERAL CATHOLICS to make the rejection of authoritative papal teaching on any point appear to be good Catholic practice. Sometimes it took the crass form of a claim that Catholics are obligated to accept and to hold only those things which had been defined by the explicit decrees of the ecumenical councils or of the Holy See. This attitude… was condemned by Pope Pius IX in his letter Tuas Libenter (DZ 1683).” (“The Components of Liberal Catholicism,” The American Ecclesiastical Review, July 1958). (Back to Msgr. Fenton)

Investigation of candidates for ordination key

“These four directives are: (1) the strict carrying out of the legislation set down under n. 2 of the first section of the Sacrorum antistitum, (2) the submission by individual seminary professors to their Bishops at the beginning of the scholastic year of the textbooks they are going to use and of the theses they are going to propound, (3) the investigation (obviously by the competent and proper ecclesiastical authority), of the teaching offered in the various courses being given to the seminarians, and finally (4) the making of the Tridentine-Vatican profession of faith and the taking of the Oath against Modernism. The teacher is to sign his name to the Oath he has taken. The context would seem to indicate that it was the mind of St. Pius X that this Oath should be taken every year at the beginning of the academic term.”

Fenton then quotes Pope St. Pius X: “Equal diligence and severity are to be used in examining and selecting candidates for Holy Orders. Far, far from the clergy be the love of novelty! God hates the proud and the obstinate mind. In the future the doctorate in theology or in canon law must never be conferred on anyone who has not first of all made the regular course in scholastic philosophy. If such a doctorate be conferred, it is to be held as null and void. The rules laid down in 1896 by the Sacred Congregation of Bishops and Regulars for the clerics of Italy, both secular and regular, about the frequenting of universities, we now decree to be extended to all nations. Clerics and priests inscribed in a Catholic institute or university must not in the future follow in civil universities those courses for which there are chairs in the Catholic institutes to which they belong. If this has been permitted anywhere in the past, we order that it shall not be allowed in the future. Let the Bishops who form the governing boards of such institutes or universities see to it with all care that these Our commands be constantly observed.”

TSB comment: Here Pope St. Pius X recognizes the cause of the Modernist mindset: civil universities polluted with liberalism and Modernism. And yet how many among the LibTrad pseudo-clergy and their lay apologists put forth their credentials from these universities as something that places them above the laity and endows them with some sort of credibility?! Even those now calling themselves pray-at-home Catholics point to these credentials as academic achievements the Church would actually endorse. (Back to Fenton)

Catholic cardinals and bishops abandoned the faith

“All of these directives went against the liberal Catholic spirit, of which Modernism was the outstanding expression. All of them were likewise unpopular, as calculated to arouse the antagonism of the enemies who attacked the Church from the outside. All of them were duly denounced and regretted as obscurantist… It was and always will necessarily remain the duty of the bishop to see to it that any individual who teaches or who supports Modernism in any way be excluded from any co-operation in the apostolic task of teaching the divine message of Jesus Christ within His Church. In issuing this decree, St. Pius X was taking cognizance of the basic truth about the teaching work in the Church, which was afterwards brought out so clearly by Pope Pius XII in his allocution Si diligis. This document brings out more clearly than any other in recent years the tremendous responsibility of the bishop in the field of teaching the divine message.”

TSB comment: This definitely being the case, what would Pope St. Pius X have said of a bishop on the Modernist watchlist (Angelo Roncalli) elected as head bishop of the Church, in charge of delivering the divine message and guarding the Deposit of Faith?!!! This was precisely why Pope Pius XI listed him as a suspected Modernist in the first place. Cum ex Apostolatus Officio infallibly teaches that such a man could never become head bishop. (Back to Fenton)

Profession of faith for Catholics demands obedience to Pope, Councils, CANON LAW

“The Sacrorum antistitum likewise contains strict directives about the candidates for Holy Orders. Men who hold Modernistic teachings or who are sympathetic towards the Modernists are not to be ordainedOther dignitaries of the Catholic Church are ordered to take this Oath, along with the Tridentine Profession of the Faith. But it is something intended primarily and immediately for those who are called upon to teach or to direct candidates for Holy Orders. Thus the Oath itself is constituted as a Profession of the Catholic belief. The man who takes this Oath makes his solemn declaration in the sight of God Himself that he firmly accepts and receives all the teachings and each individual one of the teachings “that have been defined, asserted, and declared by the infallible magisterium of the Church, especially those points of doctrine which are directly opposed to the errors of this time.”

“The Oath against Modernism is undoubtedly, up until now, the most important and the most influential document issued by the Holy See during the course of the twentieth century. It is a magnificent statement of Catholic truth, in the face of the errors, which were being disseminated within the Church by the cleverest enemies the Mystical Body of Christ has encountered in the course of its history. “

We have posted on this site for many years now the updated version of the Profession of Faith and Abjuration of Error, (issued by the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office for the U.S. in 1942 to replace the previous profession prescribed by the Holy Office in 1859; Canon Law Digest, T. Lincoln Bouscaren S.J., S.T.D, L.L.B, 1943.) We list it with the Oath against Modernism immediately following, recommending both be made before witnesses and notarized, if possible, when returning to the Church from error or on conversion. For those who dare to suggest that the Vatican Council be “revised,” that Canon Law has ceased to apply to us today, that the decrees of the Council of Trent can be manipulated or interpreted other than they have always been held by the Church,  that one can follow LibTrad pseudo-clergy who attempt to interpret the teachings of the popes to justify their errors, need to review exactly what they must vow to believe in order to be considered a Catholic.

“I recognize the Holy Roman, Catholic and Apostolic Church as the mother and teacher of all the Churches, and I promise and swear true obedience to the Roman Pontiff, successor of St. Peter, Prince of the Apostles and Vicar of Jesus Christ… Besides I accept, without hesitation, and profess all that has been handed down, defined and declared by the Sacred Canons and by the General Councils, especially by the Sacred Council of Trent and by the Vatican General Council, and in a special manner concerning the primacy and infallibility of the Roman Pontiff. At the same time I condemn and reprove all that the Church has condemned and reproved.”

No obedience to papal teaching, utter disregard for the Sacred Canons, no respect or reverence for what is taught by the General Councils as a whole and absolutely no acceptance of papal infallibility and the necessity of the papacy as taught by the Church — this is what LibTrad pseudo-clergy cultivate among their followers. Those making this profession of faith who are coming from non-Catholic sects as “Traditionalists” are no more Catholic than the Dalai lama. What they swear on the Gospels is a lie. As Pope Pius XII teaches in his infallible constitution Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis, even during an interregnum NO ONE is permitted to change, even partially, or dispense from the Sacred Canons or usurp papal jurisdiction, which, as mini-popes, LibTrad pseudo-clergy have done for decades. Time is running out for those few individuals sincerely seeking the truth.  War or natural disasters at any time could silence the Internet and prevent access to solidly reliable pre-1959 Catholic teaching, and we can see that these unfortunate events cannot be excluded from our immediate future.

Conclusion

A validly ordained Catholic priest who avoided involvement with LibTrad groups wrote to a follower as early as 1979: “At present, if one of us could perform miracles to prove the Church is in apostasy, the Catholics who have been blind since John the 23rd’s reign will claim the miracle is by power of Beelzebub. It has been actually about a year that I do not wish nor try to convert anyone because it is useless. Only at the extreme where I am asked for help do I waste my energy… I am convinced that if people did not see the light in 15 years of Paul 6, they never will… The devil has really had a holiday with private prophecies. Prophecies are vague notions — nothing definite — open to hundreds of interpretations. Satan has made prophecy become ridiculous and a laughingstock especially when the ignorant Catholics were basing their hopes not on the Bible and Bible prophecy but on what one might suspect: hysterics… that salvation would come out of France with the limping nobleman who would lead an army on a horse and subjugate all nations to the Church. How stupid and ridiculous!

“We must not look for chronological order in Bible prophecy especially in the Apocalypse where there is none. Hence the false prophet John 23rd set up the state statute that came alive — humanism and the ecumenism. He opened with the papal key the bottomless pit. Out of it came the beast Paul 6 who destroyed everything Catholic down to the seven sacraments. Tell me what another Antichrist could, if it is not Paul 6, do that would be worse than what Paul 6 did?” (Rev. Gabriel Sparacino, O.F.M, 1911-1987). And as readers well know, this has been my own position for over 40 years. Rev. Sparacino also commented that another validly ordained priest, Rev. John Gentakes, a Passionist, shared his opinions. I would like to remind readers that anything they find on this site is written first, as an obligation to defend the faith; second to create a record of the true teachings of the Catholic Church from papal and conciliar teachings, Canon Law and approved theologians and only third, as a way to lead others to the truth.

As stated here repeatedly, this third reason — that others embrace the truth — cannot be realized without the graces provided by the Holy Ghost. The operation of error has allowed nearly all calling themselves Catholic to believe lies, and Satan is the father of lies. We are all in God’s hands until he grants St. Michael permission to seize the Devil and cast him for all eternity into hell. Through the power of St. Michael, may God soon forever rebuke him we humbly pray!

Some thoughts on Sr. Lucia’s vision of the Blessed Trinity

Some thoughts on Sr. Lucia’s vision of the Blessed Trinity

+Feast of the Holy Trinity+

Introduction

In the past, I have expressed serious doubts about the Fatima message as concerns Russia, simply because Pope Pius XII himself expressed these same doubts in his final years, and with good reason. All that we know is that at some point Sr. Lucia dos Santos was replaced with an imposter, but exactly when is not known. Nor can we be certain she was not the victim of coercive persuasion (brainwashing) even before her replacement was installed, presumably upon her death, which might explain some inconsistencies in her statements. It seems best, then, to trust her earlier statements, some of which have either been altered, minimized, misrepresented or never properly assessed. Among these is her vision of the Trinity at Tuy, Spain. Little has been written on the possible meaning of this vision, even though it is striking in three respects. But before addressing these, we want to clear up some possible objections to the vision itself.

Some might object that the image in Sr. Lucy’s vision suggests that the Holy Ghost proceeds only from the Father and not the Son, a heresy condemned by the Church. But this 1455 painting above by Francesco di Steffano (Pesselino), situated over the high altar of the Church of the Holy Trinity in Pistoia, a small city north-west of Florence, Italy, is proof that the Church did not condemn the illustration of the Holy Trinity represented in this fashion. Other such illustrations in Catholic church art worldwide attest to this. And some will object the wound of the lance was inflicted on Christs’ left side, but Holy Scripture does not tell us which side the lance pierced. The right side is more often portrayed, since  Ezekiel 47 speaks of water flowing from the right side of the temple. From a tiny trickle of water it increases to become a mighty stream, healing all in its path. The Church treats this as a prophecy of the blood and water issuing from the pierced side of Christ, the true Temple, as it is expressed in the Easter liturgy.

The chalice and the Host

Having addressed these objections, we move on to the three notable qualities of the vision. The first of these, and what will stand out most to those seeing it for the first time, is the Host and chalice suspended under the wound in Christ’s side. From our Lord’s side issues the Sacred Blood and the water (bodily fluids) which symbolizes His union with the Mystical Body, the Church. Sister Lucy does not mention this fact, (stating that she sees only blood from Christ’s head and side dripping on to the Host), but there is most certainly a mingling of the water with the blood. For it is a teaching of the Church, as seen below, that both blood and water flowed from the wound of the lance.

St. Thomas Aquinas wrote, in his Summa Theologica, (III pars q 74, 6-8): “Water ought to be mingled with the wine which is offered in this sacrament. First of all, on account of its institution: for it is believed with probability that our Lord instituted this sacrament in wine tempered with water according to the custom of that country: hence it is written (Proverbs 9:5): ‘Drink the wine which I have mixed for you.

“Secondly, because it harmonizes with the representation of our Lord’s Passion: hence Pope Alexander I says (Ep. 1 ad omnes orth.): ‘In the Lord’s chalice neither wine only nor water only ought to be offered, but both mixed because we read that both flowed from His side in the Passion.’

“Thirdly, because this is adapted for signifying the effect of this sacrament, since as Pope Julius says (Concil. Bracarens iii, Can. 1): ‘We see that the people are signified by the water, but Christ’s blood by the wine. Therefore when water is mixed with the wine in the chalice, the people [are] made one with Christ.’

“Fourthly, because this is appropriate to the fourth effect of this sacrament, which is the entering into everlasting life: hence Ambrose says (De Sacram. v): ‘The water flows into the chalice, and springs forth unto everlasting life.'”

And from St. Cyprian: “For because Christ bore us all, in that He also bore our sins, we see that in the water is understood the people, but in the wine is showed the blood of Christ. But when the water is mingled in the cup with wine, the people [are] made one with Christ, and the assembly of believers is associated and conjoined with Him on whom it believes; which association and conjunction of water and wine is so mingled in the Lord’s cup, that that mixture cannot any more be separated.

Whence, moreover, nothing can separate the Church — that is, the people established in the Church, faithfully and firmly persevering in that which they have believed — from Christ, in such a way as to prevent their undivided love from always abiding and adhering. Thus, therefore, in consecrating the cup of the Lord, water alone cannot be offered, even as wine alone cannot be offered. For if any one offer wine only, the blood of Christ is dissociated from us; but if the water be alone, the people are dissociated from Christ; but when both are mingled, and are joined with one another by a close union, there is completed a spiritual and heavenly sacrament.”

St John Chrysostom wrote: “There flowed from his side water and blood.” Beloved, do not pass over this mystery without thought; it has yet another hidden meaning, which I will explain to you. I said that water and blood symbolized baptism and the holy Eucharist. From these two sacraments the Church is born: from baptism, “the cleansing water that gives rebirth and renewal through the Holy Ghost and from the holy Eucharist.” The people were made one with Christ on the Cross, when the lance pierced His side, not just daily in the Holy Sacrifice when receiving Holy Communion, the renewal of Christ’s sacrifice. If actual Communion is what the vision was referring to, why didn’t Sr. Lucy’s vision take place above an altar where Holy Mass was being celebrated, with a priest and communicant at the altar rail?  But no, the altar in the vision is bare, in all but a very few artistic depictions.

This is much like the vision of the Sacred Species the children saw when the Angel appeared to them before the Fatima apparitions occurred; the significance is unmistakable. Swiss Catholic author Michael Mottet commented in the 1980s: “The abolition of the Perpetual Sacrifice has clearly been predicted in Fatima in the apparition of the Angel of Peace carrying a Host and a Chalice and giving the Most Holy Communion to Lucia, Jacinta and Francisco. This is the clear prediction that a time will come when the Most Holy Communion will descend straight from Heaven and will only be possible under this form.  The Faith tells us moreover that this communion of desire is not only possible, but highly desirable, which is indeed normal for the most spiritual of all sacraments, (sacrament meaning mystery),” (“Fatima: Apocalypse?,” Sangre de Cristo Newsnotes, Sept. – Dec., 1989).

Isn’t Sr. Lucy’s vision of the Trinity further confirmation of this?

Our Lady and the Rosary

The second aspect is the presence of Our Lady as she appeared at Fatima. In her vision, Sr. Lucy saw the Host, positioned above a chalice, into which the Sacred Stream flows. Under the Host and chalice, suspended in mid-air, stands Our Lady of Fatima, (the Sorrowful) and Immaculate Mother, but not with a sword piercing her heart. Our Lady, however, is standing on the right side of the Cross, just as she stood at the Passion. She is holding the Rosary and her body is slightly inclined, her hand extended, as if offering it for recitation. Again the Host and Chalice are just to the left of Our Lady. She points to her flaming heart burning with love for us and encircled with thorns, begging for reparation, just as the Head of Her Divine Son is encircled. This positioning and gesture are but further proof that the Holy Sacrifice will be suspended and the faithful will only have recourse to the rosary and the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary. The vision came with a request for reparation — the Five First Saturdays — filling up what is wanting to the Passion of Christ (Col. 1:24).

We read in the Catholic Encyclopedia: “By voluntary submission to His Passion and Death on the Cross, Jesus Christ atoned for our disobedience and sin. He thus made reparation to the offended majesty of God for the outrages which the Creator so constantly suffers at the hands of His creatures. We are restored to grace through the merits of Christ’s Death, and that grace enables us to add our prayers, labours, and trials to those of Our Lord “and fill up those things that are wanting…” Just as Christ made reparation to His Father, so also must we make reparation to Him and His holy Mother. We must atone for our disobedience and sin, but first we must understand what it has cost us.

Antichrist was given the power to take away the Holy Sacrifice and to destroy the papacy; this we read in the Book of Daniel. “And the little horn was magnified even unto the strength of heaven and it was magnified even to the Prince of the strength: AND IT TOOK AWAY FROM HIM THE CONTINUAL SACRIFICE AND CAST DOWN THE PLACE OF HIS SANCTUARY. And strength was given him against the continual sacrifice BECAUSE OF SINS: and truth shall be cast down on the ground, and he shall do and shall prosper” (Dan. 8: 9-12). Who is this Prince of strength? In his commentary on verses 10 and 12, Rev. Leo Haydock identifies them as the Jewish high priests: “…Many priests gave way to idolatry…The sacrifices were neglected… Ambitious pontiffs kept not their promises.” It was the sins of the Jewish hierarchy, but also the people, “the strength of heaven,” who Haydock refers to as the “army of the Jews, the people of God.” And so it was the faithless Catholic hierarchy, and those meant to be soldiers of Christ, who in our time likewise brought on the destruction of the Church.

This image is a representation of the Passion of the Church, for any who have eyes to see. Christ entrusted the Church to His mother at the foot of the Cross. Her presence in this vision is a warning that the Sacrifice will be suspended because of sins, unless reparation is made for them. It is a virtual invitation to participate in Christ’s Passion. It is also a warning that if a significant number of the faithful would not make this reparation during Pius XI’s reign, as requested, then the Pope would not consecrate Russia, and Russia would spread its errors. It is my belief that the last sentence purportedly conveyed to the children during the third apparition was later added to the original locution received by the children. Remember, this message was not revealed until Dec. 8, 1941. By then, WWII had already begun, with its ensuing chaos. Enemy agents already had infiltrated the Church.

That message read: “IF MY REQUESTS ARE HEARD Russia will be converted and there will be peace. If not, she will spread her errors throughout the entire world fomenting wars and persecution of the Church. The good will suffer martyrdom; the Holy Father will suffer much; different nations will be annihilated. But in the end my Immaculate Heart shall triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to me, which will be converted, and some time of peace will be granted to humanity.” This last sentence is suspect, and I believe that Pope Pius XII considered it suspect as well. The time for the consecration and Russia’s conversion ended with the reign of Pope Pius XI, for before his death, already the “night illumined by an unknown light” had appeared on Jan. 25, 1938. The pope died in 1939. Also, the last sentence contradicts what our Lord later told Sr. Lucy in 1943. This will be addressed below.

Graces and mercy

The third aspect of the vision is the graces and mercies descending in crystalline rivulets to the left of the Cross, the water flowing from the right side of the Temple in Ezekiel 47. We also are put in mind of the verse in Apocalypse 21: 6-7: “And he said to me: It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. To him that thirsteth I will give of the fountain of the water of life gratis. He that shall overcome shall possess these things and I will be his God, and he shall be my son.”  Rev. Haydock comments on this as follows: “The state of Christ’s Church on earth and in this world is now finished and the time is come to reward the good and punish the wicked. The living water is God himself of which the Saints shall be inebriated at the source…”  The vision is of Christ’s Sacred Body hanging from the cross following His death. Yet He continues to provide sustenance to His Church on earth through the merits of His Body and Blood — Blood mingled with water.

We find reference to this “inebriation at the source” in Rev. Henry Semple’s Heaven Open to Souls, where he cites Rev. Von Driesch: “To give you confidence in your ability to make acts of perfect contrition, you must be reminded that for many thousand years before the time of our Lord, in the old law, perfect contrition was the only means whereby men could obtain forgiveness of sins and enter heaven. And, at the present time, there are many millions of heathens and heretics, and all of these who are saved will be saved only and entirely by perfect contrition.” Semple then comments: “The great Dominican theologian, Melchior Cano, was present in the Council of Trent and took a leading part in its discussions…He writes: ”In the Sacraments of the old law, there was no other merit but that of faith… [this] by itself was enough for the remission of sins.” The living water is the inebriating symbol of that source.

The graces and mercies we receive can be likened to this image found in a Roman church. Salvation comes from Christ’s sacrificial death on the Cross into the Church, founded on the Rock of St. Peter. And from this Rock flow the rivers of salvation from which the faithful drink. Sister Lucy’s vision of the Trinity reminds us that while the earthly renewal of Christ’s Sacrifice on the Cross may be suspended, the means of salvation are yet available to the faithful. In the words of St. Cyprian, “…nothing can separate the Church — that is, the people established in the Church, faithfully and firmly persevering in that which they have believed — from Christ, in such a way as to prevent their undivided love from always abiding and adhering.” The Church’s time on earth is ”done.” It is left to us remaining to be those overcomers mentioned in Apoc. 21 and to drink of the living water of graces and mercy that is now the Perfect Act of Contrition and Spiritual Communion.

The Fatima Consecration was “TOO late”

Sister Lucy related that she also received “an intimate communication” from our Lord shortly after the Tuy vision occurred.  “Our Lord complained to me saying: “They did not wish to heed my request, like the King of France. They will repent and do it, but it will be late. Russia will have already spread her errors throughout the world, provoking wars, and persecutions of the Church; the Holy Father will have much to suffer.” This is the translation of that message printed in every book I have ever examined regarding Fatima and in every Internet translation. In their recent works on Fatima, Robert Sungenis and Taylor Marshall both report that the actual wording is “TOO late” (see HERE). Why after all these years would they report differently? Well there is a very good answer to that question, and it applies to more than one of the Fatima iterations as conveyed by Sr. Lucy. This is just one of the mistranslations referred to above.

The actual reference, however, appears in yet another mistranslated text. The Portuguese words as relayed by Sr. Lucy in letters to Rev. Fr. José Bernardo Gonçalves May 18, 1936, were at one time reported on a website page that is now no longer accessible. They read in Portuguese: [Lucy] Nas cartas para o Rev. P. José Bernardo Gonçalves, S. J. , afirmou ela, em 18-5- 1936: “Mas, meu Deus, o Santo Padre não me há-de crer, se Vós mesmos o não moveis com uma inspiração especial.” [Jesus]: “O Santo Padre: Ora muito pelo Santo Padre. Ele há-de fazê-la, (a consagração da Rússia), mas será tarde.”

The English translation of these letters to Rev. Gonçalves, S.J. reads:

Sister Lucia: “But, my God, the Holy Father will not believe me if you yourself do not move him with a special inspiration.”

Jesus: “The Holy Father… Pray much for the Holy Father. He will do it (the consecration of Russia), but it will be late.”

Yet these Portuguese words, when entered into numerous translation programs, (ImTranslator, Translitz, Translationly, Online translation pro, Translate, Free translations) all translate these last two words as “TOO LATE.” And if anyone would think for one moment about the translation of the words of Our Lord regarding the King of France, they immediately would know that this communication also was deliberately mistranslated. The King of France, Louis XIV, refused to consecrate France to the Sacred Heart, as Christ requested through St. Margaret Mary Alacoque in 1689. King Louis XV also ignored the request and died of smallpox after traveling with his mistress to participate in a hunt. One hundred years after St. Margaret Mary Alacoque’s request, Louis XVI, having never performed the consecration, lost both his kingdom and his life during the French Revolution. It was definitely too late for her kings to save France as a Catholic country. And it boded ill for the kings of the Church as well.

Pope Pius XI died under suspicious circumstances without ever making the consecration. And the purpose of that consecration died with him. Poor Pope Pius XII tried to make good on his predecessor’s omission, but he had much to suffer. He fought Communism up to the time of his death, but the damage had already been done; it was too late. As reported on this site a few years ago, there is very little about Fatima that can be trusted after about the mid-1940s, when it is thought that the real Sr. Lucy passed away, to be replaced by a series of imposters. And even some of her comments before then are suspect. It is most likely that, relatively uneducated and therefore more vulnerable, Sr. Lucy was expertly subjected to coercive persuasion, especially since she was indeed a simple peasant girl and wished only to be obedient to her superiors. And to be fair, it is most likely that she knew nothing of the mistranslations.

Pope Pius XII suspected there was something amiss about the Russia consecration and was most likely poisoned after discovering the imposture and possible additions/alterations to the Fatima message, among other troubling revelations regarding Montini (see HERE). Perhaps, seeing his firm stance against ecumenism, he was alerted by the alleged change in the prayer between the decades. For this too was the victim of mistranslation and, it would appear, deliberate alteration.

Fatima prayer between the decades

This is from yet another website, no longer available for viewing: “We have been alerted to the fact of a troubling alteration in the prayer given by Our Lady to the three seers of Fatima, to be recited after each decade of the Rosary.  The most common form of this prayer today is the following: “O my Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of Hell, lead all souls to heaven, especially those most in need of Thy mercy.”

“This form of the prayer, however, is very different from that given in the earliest book on the Fatima apparitions, written by Fr. Manuel Nunes Formigão, under the pseudonym of\Visconde de Montello, Os episodios maravilhosos de Fátima (1921), and subsequently in many novenas and devotional works approved by ecclesiastical authorities through the 1950s. Fr. Formigão was in charge of interrogating the seers, including Lucia dos Santos, who received the prayer from Our Lady on July 13, 1917.  According to Formigão’s account, the prayer should read: “O my Jesus, pardon us, deliver us from the fire of Hell, and relieve the souls in Purgatory, especially the most abandoned.” We have also found a letter, written by Lucia, giving the original text of the prayer below.

“According to this letter, the original words of the prayer are as follows in Portuguese: O meu Jesus, perdoai-nos e livrai-nos do fogo do inferno, levai as alminhas todas para o Ceu, principalmente aquelas que mais precisarem.” In English, this may be translated as: O my Jesus, forgive us and save us from the fire of Hell, lead all little souls toward Heaven, especially those who are most in need.” It is our understanding, that the word “alminhas”, literally, “little souls,” is an idiom in Portuguese for the souls in Purgatory, similar to the phrase in English, “Poor Souls.” This interpretation is supported by the fact that the priest responsible for questioning Lucia, Fr. Formigão, a native speaker of Portuguese, transcribed this part of the prayer as a petition for the relief of the souls in Purgatory (see scan from Formigao book below).

“It is alleged that Lucia, long after the fact, corrected the wording of the prayer to refer to “all souls,” rather than to the souls in Purgatory. The earliest first versions of the prayer with the revised wording, to our knowledge, began to appear twenty to thirty years after the apparitions.”

And of course that would fit in with the timeline for the appearance of the Sr. Lucy imposters. According to his work, Our Lady of Fatima, on July 15,1946, the author William Thomas Walsh interviewed Sr. Lucy in her convent in Vilar and it was at this time that she corrected the prayer to read: “Oh my Jesus, pardon us and save us from the fire of Hell. Draw all souls to heaven, especially those in most need.” Sr. Lucy told Walsh she “corrected” it in her memoirs because it had previously been misreported. But what about her letter then to Rev. Goncalves?! And if that, then what else? Was she persuaded to change it? Ordered? Threatened? Certainly the sudden appearance of her “replacement” suggests something was afoot. Can we still recite the original prayer that she recited to Rev. Formigao?

It seems we can, for it is duly imprimatured and indulgenced, according to this 1947 booklet, available online HERE. Perhaps the question should be asked why, if it was not accurate, that the prayer was ever indulgenced in the first place, and why the author felt  both prayers should be included in his booklet? If Pope Pius XII approved the booklet, wouldn’t that be enough to assure the recitation of the original version? And given that G. B. Montini issued the announcement of the pope’s blessing, might it not have served his own purposes well, seeing that the prayer between the decades was “corrected”?

Now more than ever, it is important that we say this prayer between the decades,  since the most powerful means of freeing the souls in Purgatory in the past, Holy Mass, has been lost to us. It seems right to assume that this is the reason that it was given to the seers in the first place. And since the Rosary is one of the most indulgenced prayers we can offer, it is the best choice for freeing our loved ones from Purgatory or relieving their suffering there.

If we had never known what we know now about Fatima and the destruction of the Church, these discrepancies wouldn’t matter. But we can’t very well “unknow” it. We know what the changing of one word did to the consecration of the wine in the Latin Mass, and what the omission of qualifying adjectives can accomplish. The La Salette message was similarly attenuated, and the seers harangued and harassed for years. Melanie Calvat’s own confessor even added to and twisted her accounts of the message and printed them; at least one of these accounts was condemned by the Holy See. So why should anyone be surprised now, with the enemy fully in control of things, that these deceptions have become so obvious?

Our Lord’s last message

The last known communication of our Lord to Sr. Lucy occurred in 1943. He expressed his joy at Pope Pius XII’s 1942 consecration but said it was not complete. World War II would end, He told her, but Russia would not yet be converted. In this last message He defined exactly what type of penance and reparation Fatima demanded. “The sacrifice demanded of everyone is the fulfillment of his duties in life and the observance of My law. This is the penance that I now seek and require.” Our Lord complained bitterly to Sr. Lucy that so few would be willing to make whatever sacrifices the observance of His law would require. (From the book Fatima or World Suicide, Rt. Rev. Wm. C. McGrath, P.A., 1950). And if this is the true message of Fatima, the real secret to fulfilling Our Lady’s wishes and those of her Son, then it is no wonder we have lost the visible Church. God’s law can only translate as the 10 Commandments and the laws enacted over the centuries by His vicars, for “He who hears you, hears Me.” And of course Christ already knew how few would obey these laws and fulfill the duties of their chosen vocations.

This final message seems to indicate that a rough road lay ahead for the faithful. It almost sounds as though Catholics were being called to white martyrdom, which indeed was the case. This final communication, coupled with the vision at Tuy, has been scarcely mentioned and never explained, unlike the rest of the message regarding the consecration and Russia’s conversion. And of course there is a reason for this — they do not wish to consider the real import of the message or its consequences.

Conclusion

In this author’s opinion, the Holy Trinity is portrayed in the Tuy vision as a pictorial presentation of the third secret. The Trinity will always be with us, just as the Three Persons were with the people of Israel prior to their defection — God the Father, Christ the (coming) Messiah and the Shekinah, or Holy Ghost. If we truly keep the faith, the Holy Trinity will send the streams of grace and mercy we need to save our souls, just as they did in Old Testament times, before there was a pope, a Mass or the sacraments. Sr. Lucy may have been granted this vision because God knew that the message of Fatima would be derailed and corrupted by the enemies of the Church. As St. John Chrysostom says, in the blood and water flowing from Christ’s side, we have Baptism and the Eucharist (Perfect Contrition and Spiritual Communion); these means of salvation cannot be taken from us. Lucy saw only the blood; she did not see (or did not mention) the water. Could it be that this signifies that now only Christ’s Sacrifice on the Cross suffices, because there can be no mingling of the water in the absence of Holy Mass?!

I have no idea who the artists were that painted the vision of Tuy. But in one of the older ones, the one that I have included above, something strange can be seen when it is printed out. Just past the graces and mercy on the left side of the Cross, a faint image can be seen of what appears to be a priest dressed in alb and surplice, his head down, leaving the altar. Go in peace, the Mass has ended. The Church’s time on earth is done. The prince of strength’s sanctuary has been cast down; he who withholdeth has been taken out of the way. “I will strike the Shepherd” and disperse the flock, Christ announces in Matt. 26: 31. And after the pattern of Our Lord, the Holy Father, Pius XII, had much to suffer. God has given us so many indications of the times in which we live, if we only read the signs.

Fatima is merely a private revelation, and as such can be taken as true on human faith or ignored entirely. Many have hijacked and perverted its true meaning for decades. But if it is stripped of its dross, this seemingly prophetic representation of the Holy Trinity may yet be able to confirm what we should already know.

Has the conversion of the Jews already taken place?

Has the conversion of the Jews already taken place?

+Feast of Pentecost+

June, Month of the Sacred Heart of Jesus — Prayer Society Intention:    Divine Heart of Jesus, convert sinners, save the dying, deliver the holy souls in Purgatory.” (Raccolta)

In a previous blog on the false accusation against the Jews regarding ritual murder, it was reported that: “Research shows the majority of Jews consider themselves such in ethnicity, but not primarily in religion.” This is backed by Pew Research statistics, as cited in that blog entry. What few realize is that the decline in the practice of Judaism began long before the 20th century, a phenomena some believed the Church could have used as an opportunity to gain Jewish converts. Those most zealous for the conversion of their people were the Jewish twin brothers Joseph and Augustin, who converted to Catholicism in 1854 at the age of 18.

Little is known generally about these notable Jewish converts, who later became priests. Rev. Denis Fahey quotes Augustin ’s eschatological work on Antichrist at length in his The Kingship of Christ and the Conversion of the Jewish Nation (1953)  but provides little information on the two brothers’ background and proselytizing activities. Fortunately, a recently discovered work by Murray Watson, Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Theology, Huron University College (Western University, London, Ontario, Canada), has shed some much-needed light on the  brothers — their lives, their work, and their interaction with Pope Pius IX and the bishops attending the Vatican Council.

Lémann brothers — early years

Watson relates in his The  Brothers and the Postulatum Pro Hebræis at Vatican I that  the brothers’ conversion was kept secret from their Jewish relatives, and for good reason. Once the family discovered they had converted, the twins suffered physical violence at the hands of their uncles and feared for their lives. Their Jewish relatives appealed to the civil authorities in Paris, but to no avail. The brothers were then disowned and disinherited by their family.

Watson writes: “In Paris, the young men… were put in contact with two other high-profile Jewish converts to Catholicism, the brothers Marie-Alphonse and Théodore Ratisbonne (founders, respectively, of the Fathers and Sisters of Notre-Dame de Sion), who would take the s under their wings, mentor them, and support their newfound Christian faith; Théodore would become a de facto spiritual director to the two young men, as they discerned what path God might be calling them to. Within a few months, the two brothers had both enrolled in the Seminary of Saint-Sulpice, in Issy-les-Moulineaux, where they pursued five years of spiritual and theological formation, before being ordained to the priesthood.

“In December 1861 they received permission from Cardinal de Bonald and Father Reuil to leave parish ministry, and to join Father Théodore Ratisbonne in his work at the Catechumenate he had established in Paris, to educate young Jews who wished to become Catholic, and thus to facilitate the process of their conversion. They would remain there, sharing in Ratisbonne’s work, until the end of 1865. Although (for health reasons) they never become formal, canonical members of the nascent Fathers of Sion, they continued to be closely linked to that congregation, and many people assumed that they were, in fact, Fathers of Sion. In their preaching, they actively raised funds for the work of Father Alphonse Ratisbonne in the Holy Land, and Ratisbonne referred to them in his correspondence with the French superlative “Chérissimes frères” (My most dear brothers).

“In 1866, the two men returned to Lyon, the place of their baptism twelve years earlier, and settled at an institution that cared for the deaf and the mute. They were relieved of normal parish duties, in order to be able to devote themselves more completely to the cause of converting Jews to Christianity… A few months later, it became clear that their efforts were being followed at the highest echelons of the Church: a papal brief (Gratulamur vobis) arrived, dated February 6, 1867, in which the Pope offered his personal endorsement of their evangelistic apostolate:

“We are very gratified by your devotion to this Holy See, upon which Catholic unity finds its solidity, and we ask God that, just as His grace has already shone upon you, so, by means of your zeal and your work, it may similarly enlighten the minds of your brothers, and lead them all to us, as soon as possible, so that, at last, there might be only one flock and only one shepherd. For this reason, as a foretaste of heavenly favours, and as a sign of our fatherly tenderness, we most affectionately grant you the apostolic blessing.”

Declining belief in Judaism

According to Watson: “Augustin  would go on to become a distinguished professor of Hebrew and Scripture in Lyon’s faculty of theology, writing extensively in the fields of theology and Biblical studies, apologetics and history, and publishing nearly 150 books and articles over his lifetime. His brother Joseph would also author a number of theological volumes, although his output did not match that of his twin. Quoting from Joseph and Augustin ’s La question du Messie et le concile du Vatican (Lyon: Pitrat Aîné, 1869; 126-29) Watson includes the words of the famous preacher, Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet:

“There is among [the Jewish people] a type of drought which is unique to the Israelites, a drought which has been kept secret, and resisted for a long time, but which is no longer unspoken today and—what is even more serious—which no one is resisting anymore. In speaking of this drought, we mean to designate the disappearance—which is already very far advanced—of the traditions, customs and practices which essentially make up Jewish life… , just as initially, after the fall of Jerusalem, Mosaism had degenerated into Talmudism, so now Talmudism itself, with its remnants of Mosaism, is degenerating into rationalism or indifference—that is to say, into nihilism …”

“However, let us remember that in the Synagogue there is still a conservative or orthodox faction, which tries hard to battle many of the trends that we are going to enumerate. Generally speaking, however, this party is no longer gaining new members and is weakening, as those who are called “the elders” disappear. If things continue on as they are, it will have ceased to exist within two to three generations.”

The Lémanns then comment on Bossuet’s words, observing there was: “…a growing decadence in European Jewry, largely flowing from the French Revolution’s emancipation of the Jews, and leading to a gradual, corrosive infiltration of “modernist” ideas into traditional Judaism, a slow but inevitable dilution of the truths of its own heritage, such that it was hardly recognizable as the Judaism of earlier centuries. Here they pointed to a number of 19th-century trends that had, they argued, dramatically and deleteriously changed the very fibre of Jewish life:

  • a rejection of the supernatural generally;
  • a denial of the divine inspiration of the Jewish Scriptures;
  • calls for “free inquiry” in theological questions;
  • taking pride in having no altar and no sacrifices;
  • a refusal to acknowledge the traditional priesthood;
  • contempt for the teachings of the Talmud;
  • a refusal to engage in proselytizing or seeking converts to Judaism;
  • a lack of respect for the kosher food laws;
  • forgetfulness of the obligation to observe Shabbat;
  • re-writing (“mutilating”) traditional Jewish prayers, to remove references to the Messiah, to Jerusalem, and to any type of national Jewish hopes.”

Apply changes made during the false Vatican 2 council and the removal of any idea of a true sacrifice by instituting the Novus Ordo Missae and this same formula was implemented to destroy the Church. This after decades of preparation by the enemy working among the laity to diminish the idea of the supernatural, dilute Catholic truth, champion lay rights, minimize dogma, desecrate Holy Scripture and demean the papacy. Similar changes occurred in more conservative Protestant denominations.

The brothers saw this watering down of the Jewish belief system as a perfect opportunity to draw their Jewish brethren to the Catholic faith. After the announcement that the Vatican Council preparations were underway, they wrote a new book, The Question of the Messiah and the Vatican Council. With the encouragement of several bishops and Pope Pius IX, they then attended the Vatican Council and presented their case to request an official appeal from the Church for the Jews’ conversion. They then were tasked with developing the right approach to win converts from Judaism Watson chronicles their efforts as follows.

The tone of the Postulatum

“At a time when Jews were still the object of scorn (and sometimes violence) in many European countries, the s and their supporters proposed a “theological rehabilitation” which, although it obviously presented Christianity as the ideal and superior faith, nevertheless would seek to present Judaism as honourably and respectfully as possible… Here is how they phrased the petition for which they sought the bishops’ endorsement:

‘To the Holy Vatican Ecumenical Council:

‘The undersigned Fathers, in a spirit of humble yet urgent prayer, ask the Holy Vatican Ecumenical Council to deign to address an entirely paternal invitation to the very unfortunate nation of Israel —that is, to express the wish that, finally exhausted by a wait no less vain than long, the Israelites might hasten to acknowledge the Messiah, our Saviour Jesus Christ, truly promised to Abraham and foretold by Moses, thus completing and crowning, not changing, the Mosaic religion.

‘On one hand, the undersigned Fathers possess the very firm confidence that the holy Council will have compassion on the Israelites, because they are still very dear to God on account of their fathers, and because it is from them that Christ was born according to the flesh.

‘On the other hand, the same Fathers share the sweet and intimate hope that this ardent desire of tenderness and honour will, with the aid of the Holy Spirit, be well received by many of Abraham’s children, since the obstacles that have held them back until now appear to be disappearing more and more, the ancient wall of separation now having fallen.

‘May Heaven grant, therefore, that they would as speedily as possible acclaim Christ, saying “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed be He who comes in the name of the Lord.”

‘May Heaven grant that they would run and throw themselves into the arms of the Immaculate Virgin Mary, who is already their sister according to the flesh, and who wishes likewise to be their mother according to grace, as she is ours’ (end of Postulatum quote).

Watson continues: “In an audience afterward, they presented the Pope with the text of the Postulatum; he read it, pressed it to his heart and gave his enthusiastic blessing to their project. Immediately, the s began a frenetic campaign, crisscrossing Rome on foot, in order to meet with each bishop individually, and to secure their signature—and their support—for the Postulatum… In just over two months… they accumulated 510 signatures on their petition to the council.”

This is a very interesting fact, since In his work The Kingship of Christ and the Conversion of the Jewish Nation, Ch. VII (1955), Rev. Denis Fahey wrote: “When the Fathers  were petitioning the bishops assembled in Rome for the Vatican Council for their signatures to the Postulatum pro Hebræis, many of their lordships smilingly put the objection that, ‘To work for the conversion of the Jews was to bring on the end of the world.’ The two fathers gave several answers to this objection and their argument seemed to go far towards proving that there will be a considerable lapse of time between the conversion of the Jewish nation and the last judgment.” But it appears that regardless of these objections, the large majority of bishops were in favor of the Postulatum.

An uncompleted work

But like other postulatums, it would never receive the council’s final approval. Following the  definition of papal infallibility, war broke out, Pope Pius IX suspended the council indefinitely and the bishops fled back to their dioceses. Two months later, Italian soldiers seized control of Rome. THE Vatican Council was never reconvened, and the false Vatican 2 council, far from inviting the Jews to join the Church, invited them, as well as Protestant clergy, to participate in Her demolition. Watson observes: “By the time Vatican II was called, almost 90 years later, the world had changed dramatically, and the earlier document seems to have vanished from people’s memory and the Church’s consciousness…

“Would the twentieth century, with its history of both bitter and sweet Jewish-Christian relations, have taken a different path in any significant way? … When Vatican II was called by Pope John XXIII, there do not seem to have been calls for a “tidying-up” of all of the conciliar “loose ends” left over from Vatican I—which would presumably have included a renewed discussion of the Postulatum pro Hebræis. Whether by intention or by accident, it had effectively vanished from the Catholic theological radar screen, and I am not aware of efforts, even by groups of traditionalist bishops who opposed Nostra Æetate, to dust it off and re-introduce it. It seems simply to have been forgotten.” Forgotten, yes, after the triumph of Modernism and the false council’s adoption of ecumenism.

Watson concludes his work with an account of the the  brothers activities following the Vatican Council: As for the  brothers themselves: “In their post-Vatican I lives, they continued their pastoral and intellectual efforts, writing, teaching and preaching throughout France. In 1892, the Fathers  jointly founded the “Stella Maris” Carmelite monastery of Our Lady of Mount Carmel (in Haifa), which still exists there today. They were jointly honoured across France, being named honourary canons of the cathedrals of Beauvais, Bourges, Langres, Montpellier and Reims.

“In April of 1908, Pope Pius X conferred on both of them the honorific of “monsignor” (as Domestic Prelates of His Holiness); during the ceremony celebrating their promotion, the dean of the Catholic faculty of Lyon said that the title was the reward for “the generous sacrifices that your courageous passage from the Synagogue to the Church have entailed for you, and the reward for a half-century of distinguished service to your brothers, whom your conscience compelled you to leave, without, however, ceasing to foster love for them”.

“Augustin died on June 16, 1909, and Joseph died on February 8, 1915, but the detailed story of the Postulatum, and of their vision for it, was made public in a 330-page book they had written together, which was published in 1912 — three years after Augustin’s death, and more than 40 years after Vatican I’s unexpectedly abrupt ending.” (End of Watson quotes.)

The Postulatum and the end times

Is it possible that the Lémann brothers’ efforts qualify as the conversion of the Jews towards the end of the world? In our opinion it is not only possible but highly probable. We have explained HERE how there is good reason to believe that Jews who emigrated to Mexico during the Babylonian Captivity and intermarried with the Mexican natives there constituted the eight million converts to Catholicism, over a seven-year period, following the apparition of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Coupled with the efforts of the Ratisbonne brothers but especially the Lémann brothers, it seems that these conversions could well be the fulfillment of Scriptural prophecy concerning the conversion of the Jews.

Could that indicate the Lémann brothers were Enoch and Elias? An interesting quote from Pope Pius IX, cited by Watson, could be suggestive of this. During a visit to France, while hosting a banquet for bishops at which the Lémanns were in attendance, Pius IX said: These are the antiquities of the ancient Law” (emphasis the pope’s.) But then some believe that Pope Pius IX and Pope St. Pius X were themselves the Two Witnesses. Personally, I have gone back and forth on the subject of Enoch and Elias for decades. The deciding factor for my present (and I believe) final take on this scriptural prophecy is that: given the fact there are no valid bishops remaining to restore the Church — and the in light of the decision by Pope Pius XII on the danger of teaching there will be even a spiritual Millennium — these two men have to be figures who have already come and gone.

The Great Apostasy began with Luther’s Revolt, followed by the King Henry VIII’s apostasy and the Protestant Reformation. When the reformers styled the popes as Antichrist, Pope Paul IV defined exactly who the abomination of desolation standing in the Holy Place would be — a heretic or one suspect of heresy, invalidly elected pope (Cum ex Apostolatus Officio, 1559). Notable events before, during and after the Vatican Council made it clear that the end times were fast approaching. The Council Fathers themselves believed that this was indeed the case, notable among them St. Anthony Mary Claret who warned: “May the Council prove the portal to shelter in the midst of the tempest which, already upon us, is increasing…(otherwise) woe to earth!” But following the Council, the Modernists would successfully erode papal authority and infiltrate the Church.

St. Anthony’s autobiography reveals that he had a wonderful revelation from Our Lord, who audibly informed this holy prophet he would become the eagle with the three woes in St. John’s Apocalypse, (Ch.8, vs.13), and would fly across the world to preach the coming chastisements. Our Lord made St. Anthony understand that these woes would be: 1) Communism and Protestantism; 2) “the four archdemons” — pleasure, money, reason and independence of will and 3) the world wars with all their terrible consequences. In a speech made at the Vatican Council, he proclaimed: “The Supreme Roman Pontiff is infallible…The truth of papal infallibility would be clear to all men if Scripture were understood.” St. Anthony then gave three reasons why it is not understood: 1) Because men do not truly love God; 2) Because they are not really humble; and 3) Because they do not want to understand what God has taught or want to be good.” And is this not precisely what we see today?!

The 19th century was the last great century of the Church. And already, as Henry Cardinal Manning notes in his The Present Crisis of the Holy See, the Church was in sad shape even then: “When, I ask, was the Church of God ever in a weaker condition, in a feebler state in the eyes of man and in this natural order than it is now? And from whence, I ask, is deliverance to come? Is there on earth any power to intervene? Is there any King, Prince or potentate that has the power to interpose either his will or his sword for the protection of the Church? Not one, and it is foretold that it should be so. Neither need we desire it, for the will of God seems to be otherwise. But there is one Power which will destroy all antagonists, there is one Person who will break down and smite, small as the dust of the summer threshing floor, all the enemies of the Church…”

Conclusion

If the Jews’ identity as a religious faction and a race was already in question in the 1800s, how is it possible that they could be identified and converted today? With the Church in ruins, to what ? As Our Lady of La Salette told the two children in 1846, “Rome will lose the Faith and become the seat of Antichrist.” Did she mean the pope would lose the faith? Even before the Vatican Council definition it was impossible to believe that this could happen — Pope Paul IV taught such a man could only appear to be a pope. No, what she indicates here is that the Roman clergy, including the cardinals, would lose the faith, making an invalid election possible. This could happen only shortly before the advent of Antichrist. Pope Leo XIII’s long St. Michael’s prayer, to be recited privately by the clergy, confirmed that the abomination had already made inroads into the Holy Place and were preparing to install a false pope. Why else assign its recitation to the clergy if they were not in danger of being recruited by the enemy?

It seems that Enoch and Elias could come only during a miraculous restoration of the Church. But this is not indicated anywhere in Scripture and is contraindicated by Pope Pius XII and nearly all the older Scriptural commentators. It is possible, but only barely, that they could appear briefly during the time assigned for repentance following the chastisement and the physical destruction of Rome, but even this is very unlikely. While we don’t believe in assigning absolutes in such cases, neither can we ignore the fact that certain Scriptural prophecy in Apocalypse has already been fulfilled, such as the wholesale destruction of the Church and the cessation of the Holy Sacrifice. And this of course occurred under Paul 6. Nor has that Sacrifice been “restored” by Traditionalists, who never became clergy to begin with.

Once Antichrist has reigned — and all reading this site know that this author believes Giovanni Battista Montini, Paul 6, was Antichrist — all that remains is the Second Coming. His system continues on in the meantime. How long after his death the Final Judgment will occur is not indicated, but St. Thomas Aquinas believes this interval could amount to a considerable period of time. It appears that we live in that time, when all will believe they have destroyed the Church and no consequences are forthcoming. Here is the faith and the patience of those saints we hope and pray to be, that we may persevere until the very end. On this Pentecost Sunday, we await Christ’s return, for an angel told the Apostles and the Blessed Virgin that he would come again just as He left this earth. Even then, come Lord Jesus!

He is risen, Alleluia! A Catholic poem on the Resurrection

He is risen, Alleluia! A Catholic poem on the Resurrection

 A Blessed Easter to all!

HE MADE US FREE

By Maurice Francis Egan

As flame streams upward, so my longing thought

Flies up with Thee,

Thou God and Saviour who hast truly wrought

Life out of death, and to us, loving, brought

A fresh, new world; and in Thy sweet chains caught.

And made us free!

 

As hyacinths make way from out the dark,

My soul awakes,

At thought of Thee, like sap beneath the bark;

As little violets in field and park

Rise to the trilling thrush and meadow-lark,

New hope it takes.

 

As thou goest upward through the nameless space

We call the sky,

Like jonquil perfume softly falls Thy grace;

It seems to touch and brighten every place;

Fresh flowers crown our wan and weary race,

O Thou on high.

 

Hadst Thou not risen, there would be no more joy

Upon earth’s sod;

Life would still be with us a wound or toy,

A cloud without the sun, — O Babe, O Boy,

A Man of Mother pure, with no alloy,

O risen God!

 

Thou, God and King, didst “mingle in the game,”

(Cease, all fears; cease!)

For love of us, — not to give Virgil’s fame

Or Croesus’ wealth, not to make well the lame,

Or save the sinner from deserved shame,

But for sweet Peace!

For peace, for joy, — not that the slave might lie in luxury,

Not that all woe from us should always fly,

Or golden crops with Syrian roses vie

In every field; but in Thy peace to die

And rise, — be free!

 

+Good Friday+

We all will be keeping Jesus company at the foot of the Cross this day, and so we end our quotes from Fr. Doyle below. May this day be for us one of solemn mourning and expressions of the most profound love for a man-God whose sacrifice on the Cross we can never repay.

Fr. Doyle’s Reflections on the Passion, Part 5

Gesthemani (cont’d):

As Christ ended His third prayer in the Garden of Gethsemani, He lay prostrate on the ground horribly shaken by the whole ordeal. The one thing He prayed for was not granted Him, but Holy Scripture relates that, “there appeared to him an angel from heaven to strengthen him” (Lk 22:43). It was an angel from heaven who announced to His mother Mary that she had been chosen to fulfill a creature’s greatest service to her God. When men refused the Son of God recognition on this earth, angels filled the skies to announce Him and sing His glories. When cruel men sought His life in infancy, an angel directed the Holy Family to the safety of Egypt. When He was tempted in the desert: “Behold angels came and ministered to him” (Mt. 4:11). Little wonder that when He was in agony in the Garden of Olives an angel should succor Him.

It is well to note that Christ’s prayer was not answered in the way he desired. He had prayed the first time that the chalice might pass from Him. It did not pass but His strength was increased. He prayed the second time for relief from His burden, but while the burden was increased His strength was augmented to match it. Christ prayed the third time, saying the selfsame words He had spoken on the two previous occasions. His agony did not cease but He found the courage “to pray the more earnestly” (Lk. 22:43). Learn from this that when God seems most deaf to our pleadings in prayer, He may prefer to make heroes of us. Be assured that in times of temptation, and trial, God’s angels will ever be at our side to comfort, encourage, and succor us.

Seize this occasion to bolster your devotion to the angels, and in a special way, to St. Michael. St. Alphonsus Liguori says: “Devotion to St. Michael is a sign of predestination.” In the year 1751, St. Michael appeared to an illustrious servant of God, Antonia d’Astonae, a Carmelite in Portugal. He expressed the wish that she should publish for his honor nine salutations corresponding to the nine choirs of angels. It was to consist of a Pater and three Aves in honor of each of the angelic hierarchies and then four Paters, the first in his honor, the second for the honor of St. Gabriel, the third for St. Raphael, and the last for the Guardian Angel. As a reward the glorious prince of the celestial court promised:

“Whoever would practice this devotion in his honor would have when approaching the Holy Table, an escort of nine angels chosen from each one of the nine choirs.” In addition, for the daily recital of these nine salutations he promised his “continual assistance and that of all the holy angels during life, and after death deliverance from purgatory for themselves and their relations.” In time of temptation call upon the holy angels and archangels to defend and protect you. Never let a day go by without a special petition to the heavenly choirs – especially your guardian angel.

In the Transfiguration on Mount Tabor, our Blessed Lord’s body was bathed in light and His divinity burst through the frail human bonds that were united to it. In the Garden of Gethsemani, the human body of the Son of God was bathed in bloody sweat that rushed from every pore. Once the angel had strengthened our Lord, the transformation was amazing. From that moment on to the end of the Passion, we shall never see Him falter, for even one moment. He had strength for Himself and strength for all of those who came to Him or crossed His path.

Sleep now

The moment the third prayer was ended, Holy Scripture notes that Christ went to His disciples and said: “Sleep on now, and take your rest! It is enough; the hour has come” (Mk. 14:41). The time for watching was past. Christ had passed through His agony, and on his adorable face was the radiance of peace and the fire of zeal. No longer did He need the help or the sympathy which in vain He had sought in the darkness. He looked toward the city gate, and there was the traitor coming. There was neither need or use now for the disciples’ waking and watching, and they might as well sleep on. The lesson is plain. Whatever we do for our friends, we must do when they are in need of help. If one is sick, the time to show sympathy is while the illness continues. If we allow him to pass through this illness without showing him any attention, there is little use, when he is well again, for us to offer kindness.

When one of our friends is passing through some sore struggle with temptation, then is the time for us to come close to him and put the strength of our love under his weakness. Of what use is our help when the battle has been fought through to the end and won without us? Or suppose the friend was not victorious; that he failed – failed because no one came to help him, is there any use in our hurrying up to him then to offer assistance?

It was Ruskin who once wrote these words: “Such help as we can give to each other in this world is a debt we owe to each other; and the man who perceives superiority or a capacity in a subordinate, and neither confesses nor assists it, is not merely the withholder of kindness, but the committer of evil. If we are inclined to criticize the weakness of the Apostles in sleeping rather then comforting their Lord and their God in His hour of agony, do we not do a simulate deed when we withhold help and consolation from our neighbor. “As long as you did not do it for one of these least ones, you did not do it for me.” (Mt. 25:44). Let us always see Christ in our neighbor and this very day make a real effort to be a support, comfort, and defense of someone who needs our help – spiritual or temporal. Never let the sun set any day without having done one charitable act for a neighbor. Remember always these words of Holy Scripture: “that one’s neighbor should be loved as oneself is a greater thing than all the holocausts and sacrifices.

The ordeal of Gethsemani now over, our Blessed Lord walks with sort of a triumph toward His sleeping Apostles. Three times He had counseled them to pray, three times He had asked them to watch with Him and three times the Apostles had failed Him. Just anger had surged through Christ when He took a rope and drove the money-changers from the temple, because they dishonored His Father’s house. His closest friends who, a few short hours earlier, had received their first Holy Communion, had failed Him, and failed Him badly in His hour of need – surly He would have been justified had He upbraided them. But no. The gentle Christ walked over to where they took their rest, and simply said: “Rise, let us go” (Mk. 14:42). Oh, the hope springs up from those words!

Arise from sin

The disciples had failed sadly in one great duty – they had slept when the Master wanted them to watch with Him. They slept at their post. He had just told them that they might as well sleep on, so far as that service was concerned, for the time to render it was gone forever. Yet there were other duties before them, and Jesus calls them to arise and meet these. Because they had failed in one hour’s responsibility they must not sink down in despair. They must arouse themselves to meet the responsibilities that lay ahead of them.

What a consoling lesson for all of us. Because we have failed in one duty, or many duties, we must not give up in despair. Because a young man or woman has wasted youth, he or she must not therefore lose heart and think the loss of youth is irreparable. The golden years can never be recalled – the innocence, the beauty, the power may have slipped through our fingers – but why should we squander all because we squandered some? Because the morning has been thrown away, why should all the day be lost?

The lesson Christ taught at the end of His agony in Gethsemani is for all who have failed in any way. Christ ever calls to hope. He bids us rise again from the worst defeats. With Christ there is always margin enough to start again and build a noble life. Right down to the doorway of death there is time. Paul persecuted the Church, but died for it. The door of opportunity opened to the penitent thief on the cross in his dying hour. So it is always. In this world, blessed by divine love and grace, there is never the need to despair. The call after every defeat or failure still is, and always will be, “Rise, let us go.” Strive every day to make acts of faith, hope, and charity. Today let us beg for an increase of the virtue of hope.

When our Lord was saying to His Apostles: “Rise, let us go,” He added these painful words: ”He who will betray me is at hand” (Mk. 14:43). St. John gives us a few more details for he writes: “Now Judas, who betrayed Him, also knew the place, since Jesus had often met there together with his disciples, Judas, then, taking his cohort, and the attendants from the chief priests and Pharisees, came there with lanterns, and torches, and weapons” (Jn. 18: 2-4).

Judas the betrayer

The story of Judas is perhaps the saddest in all of the Bible. The Evangelists seem fascinated with that name Judas and when they have occasion to pen it, they call him either “Judas, one of the twelve” or “the traitor” or as we have seen St. John do, in the quote above, “Judas, who betrayed Him.” The thought that one of their number could stoop to such a villainous act inflicts them with a personal shame. Any way you look at it, the story of the betrayal shows new evil each time you read it. Going out from the supper table, Judas had hastened to the priests and was quickly on his way with a band of soldiers. He probably hurried back to the upper room, where he had left Jesus: not finding Him there, he knew well with the Master had gone, and hastened to the sacred place of prayer – Gethsemani – where Jesus had often retired for prayer.

Then in the manner in which he left the officers know which of the company was Jesus shows the deepest blackness of all. Under the guise of close friendship – Judas kissed Christ – with feigned warmth and affection. It would be salutary for each of us to remember always how the treason in the heart of Judas grew. In the beginning, it was greed and money, then followed theft and falseness of life, ending at last, in the blackest crime this world has ever seen. The fact that such a fall as that of Judas began with small infidelities which grew and grew into a heinous crime should teach us the danger of committing venial sins. The Holy Ghost warns us that “he that contemneth little things, shall fall by little and little” (Eccles. 19:1).

Betrayal begins with venial sins

A picture in the royal gallery of Brussels represents Judas wandering about in the night after the betrayal. He comes by chance upon the workmen who have been making the cross upon which Christ shall be crucified the next day. A fire nearby throws its full light on the faces of the workmen, who are sleeping peacefully, while resting from their labors. Judas’ face is somewhat in the shade, but it is wonderfully expressive of awful remorse and agony as he catches sight of the cross and the tools used to make it – the cross which his treachery made possible. Judas did not fall into one great sin, he began with lesser sins, and they paved the way to his great disaster.

St. John Chrysostom said this of venial sins: ”I maintain that the small sins require to be avoided with more care then the more grievous ones, for the grievous ones of their very nature stir up our attention against them; whereas, the lesser sins from the fact of their being insignificant in comparison, are not noticed.” The devil is so cunning. He knows he could not induce a virtuous person to fall onto great sin because of the horror it inspires. What does he do? He proposes a venial offense: now one, now another until he gets the soul into an evil habit, for he knows the end result. Satan knows Scripture too, and can prove it from what he has been able to accomplish by making persons desire at first, venially sinful things. Scripture says: “He that is unjust in that which is little will be unjust in that which is great” (Eccles. 19:1).

Pray earnestly today for grace to avoid venial sins. Examine your conscience daily on your commission of venial sins and resolve to do your earnest to avoid them. The kiss of Judas will ever remain the ultimate in base treachery. The name Judas has such a special odium that no one in his right mind would give that name to an infant. It is reserved for the foulest deed one can perform against a friend, a family, a nation, or a society. The act of kissing performed by Judas on the greatest Friend mankind ever had, beggars man’s power of description. Oh, horrible perfidy!

It is related in Holy Scripture that one of the general in David’s army named Joab perpetrated a foul deed, in that upon meeting Anasa, who also commanded an army, he stooped forward to kiss him and at that very moment thrust a dagger into his side and killed him. Solomon, David’s famous son, when he succeeded to the throne, had Joab slain for his treachery. Note how much more evil was Judas’ act of treachery than was Joab’s. Joab with a treacherous kiss murdered a fellow man; Judas by his kiss paved the way for the death of the Son of God. Joab on the other hand dispatched his victim in one quick thrust; Judas by his awful deed set the stage for the torture and painful death of his Lord and God.

It is related that when the assassins of Julius Caesar fell upon him with their daggers, the great conqueror of men and nations stood motionless, displaying not the slightest sign of emotion or fear. When Brutus, whom Caesar loved with the affection of a father, also approached and drew his dagger to strike his great benefactor, that blow caused Caesar more pain then all the other wounds, and he could not refrain from uttering the now famous words: “Thou too, Brutus, my son!” If Caesar was pained by the baneful treachery of his friend Brutus, how must the Son of God felt when one of His own disciples betrayed Him to His enemies by a kiss. Might the Master not have said: “You too, Judas, My son! Is this what I have merited for My kindness to you? Did I not choose you to be My follower, disciple, and apostles? Did I not wash your feet? Did I not give you My Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity as a food? Oh thankless, heartless Judas!”

Look into your heart today and see if you have even betrayed your Master by mortal sin. Each time you prefer creatures to Christ you betray Him.. Each time you choose sin to Christ’s law, you betray Him. Spend some time today quietly thinking over the picture of Judas pressing his lips to those of the sinless Christ. If you identify yourself in Judas, throw yourself quickly into the arms of your God and beg His pardon.

We noted in our last consideration that daggers were used to murder Julius Caesar. The effect was just as tragic as if the murders had used swords. The smallness of the instrument did not lessen the effects. In like manner, it must be said of Judas that he did not lay violent hands on Christ when he met Him in the Garden of Olives. No, he did not seize or strike the Sacred Redeemer – he simply kissed Him, but that kiss was more tragic than if he had thrust a sword into the Sacred Heart of Christ.

Christ had been kissed before, but my, how different were the circumstances and results! First, there were the kisses of the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Joseph. Who can number the fond caresses that Mary must have showered on the Infant Jesus as she nurtured and fondled Him in her pure maternal arms? How often must not St. Joseph have covered the Infant Countenance with tender paternal affection? Second, may we not conjecture that the Magi embraced the tiny Infant as Mary formally presented the Infant God to the first of the Gentiles who came to pay Him homage? Certainly, the act would be normal if not imperative.

Third, it can hardly be imagined that the Holy Simeon and Anna present at the presentation in the temple, could have held the adorable Child of promise in their arms and not pressed their holy lips to the pink little hands of the long-sought Messias. Fourth, we are certain from the text of Holy Scripture itself that the public sinner Mary Magdalen imprinted the kiss of contrite sorrow on the sacred feet of Christ, and arose from the encounter holier and greater then when she stooped to embrace her God.

Fifth, we are told that the great St. John the beloved disciple rested his youthful head on the breast of the Master at the Last Supper. There is a Persian fable of a piece clay made fragrant by lying on a rose: the perfume of the rose passed into the clay. So it was with John. He crept unto the bosom of the Master and his Master’s spirit of love and gentleness passed into his life and transformed it. Last, we have the awful picture of Judas pressing his lips to those of the Son of God, feigning friendship.

The lesson here is powerful. Those who approached Christ in love and veneration, in true penance and firm resolve, left His embrace renewed and strengthened. Those like Judas, whose hearts are turned toward evil, may be very near Christ and not be holy in character. Judas was three years with Christ, heard His words, lived in the atmosphere of His love and remained unchanged. An empty bottle, hermetically sealed, may lie long in the ocean and continue to be dry within. A heart sealed to Christ’s love may rest on His bosom for years and not be blessed. Only when pure or contrite heart is opened to receive His grace, does closeness to Him sanctify.