“One Lord, one faith, one baptism” — that one day all may be one

by T. Stanfill Benns | Apr 24, 2026 | New Blog

+St. Fidelis of Sigmaringen, Martyr+

Introduction

This week we will focus on further posts by Elizabeth Glass and one of her Substack friends, Jana Bennun, in an attempt to keep pace with the ever-evolving process of the final ruination of even the idea of Christianity on earth. It is fitting that this post appears on the feast of St. Fidelis of Sigmaringen, since faith alone will survive in these times, as Our Lady of La Salette told us. According to Butler’s Lives of the Saints, St. Fidelis was born in Germany in the 1600s. He began his career as a lawyer and was admired for his integrity and refusal to stoop to devious tactics to win a case. Known as the “The Poor Man’s Lawyer,” he was eventually forced to abandon that career because “…the unscrupulous and crooked expedients adopted by his colleagues gave him a disgust for the law.” He then entered the Capuchin (Franciscan) Order and became a missionary. This was during the time of the Reformation.

Pope Gregory XV sent him to preach to the fiercely anti-Catholic Protestant sect of the Zwinglians, and it was there that he met his death. He had just finished preaching a sermon on “One Lord, one faith, and one baptism,” at Seewiss, Switzerland when armed assassins came for him. He dodged the bullet, but lost his bodyguard in the process. After he left Seewiss alone, a band of gunmen approached him, clubbing and stabbing him to death. Before he died, his words were, “Forgive my enemies, Lord. Blinded by passion, they know not what they do. Lord Jesus, have mercy on me. Mary, mother of Jesus, come to my help.” Another source relates that, “His constant prayer during life was that he be kept completely faithful to God and not give in to any lukewarmness or apathy. He was often heard to exclaim, ‘Woe to me if I should prove myself but a halfhearted soldier in the service of my thorn-crowned Captain.’”

A cathedral erected in his honor at the behest of the Franciscan fathers sits on the Kansas plains, and has been called one of the eight wonders of Kansas. St. Fidelis, pray for us!

Preparation for martyrdom

We recently received a message from our dear correspondent Frank in Nigeria, living in fear of his and his family’s life. This despite Pres. Trump’s alleged attempts to end the violence there.

“Happy Easter season to you and to your readers worldwide. Thanks for recommending us for divine protection in the ongoing terrorist assaults on Christians in Nigeria.

The attacks and threats are real, and anything can happen to us any moment. Keep praying for our safety and total Conversion to the Catholic faith before the end of our lives. Most importantly, pray for us for the grace of final perseverance.

Thank God for the graces of enlightenment this website has offered us over the years.

I read Saints Alphonsus De Liguori’s “The Victories of The Martyrs…” to my family every Sunday for some time now to put us in a proper frame of mind for any eventuality.

Glory to Jesus and Honor to Mary.”

Please continue to pray for Frank and his family and all those who keep the faith in Nigeria.  This probably will be what we will face in this country one day, and it will arrive here sooner, not later. Proof of this is provided below.

Elizabeth Glass on the Noahide laws

In our last blog, we quoted Elizabeth Glass’s evaluation of the Zionists and her call to Americans “to pull together to fight the Zionist and Masonic forces that have taken over our nation, government, courts, utilities, financial, medical, education and other systems.” Prior to this post, Glass chronicled the following, a shameful report on Novus Ordo support for the Noahide laws.

“A significant event in the history of world religions took place in New York in 2025 yet received no press coverage: the first Noahide Law class at a U.S. Catholic Church… Originating in the Jewish Talmud, the seven Noahide Laws were codified into U.S. federal law in the problematically vague H.J. Res. 104: “Education Day, U.S.A.” in 1991 and “…include prohibitions against worshipping idols, cursing God, murder, adultery and sexual immorality, theft, eating flesh torn from a living animal, as well as the obligation to establish courts of justice.”… With changes in capital punishment laws, prison infrastructure, wildly unlawful court rulings, and a tsunami of premature deaths, are the Noahide Laws already here, albeit covertly? Since the Noahide Laws prohibit idol worship, praying to Jesus Christ is a capital offense…and the class was at a CHURCH. Can you imagine?!”

Glass goes onto remark that “Like deceived lower-level Freemasons, most Jews incorrectly believe Judaism is based on the Old Testament, but it is in fact based on the Talmud and Kabbala. Freemasonry is also cabalistic; many refer to Freemasonry as “Judaism for Gentiles… As Bennun, Glass’s friend and fellow writer has documented, the infiltration of Catholicism goes back many years” (https://eglass.substack.com/p/new-york-catholic-church-hosts-noahide). With Trump at the heels of Netanyahu like an obedient lap dog and Muslim politicians and candidates popping up everywhere, our own destruction cannot be far behind. In another article Glass asks: “Why do they want to destroy us?”

Well, the answer to this question, Elizabeth, is that they wish to destroy even the idea of a belief in God the Father, because without God the Father, there can be no belief in His glorious Son, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ; no belief in the Holy Ghost, which even the Jews honored as the Shekinah. God must be dead to all, as the sixties chant proclaimed. Remember when the adjective for Communism, atheistic, almost always preceded mention of it? The Zionists, the Illuminati members sent into Israel to facilitate the destruction of all religion, promote such Communism. It is on the upper level of the Masonic pyramid. So we know that there is no doubt this atheism and ultimately Baal worship is what they are heading us for. They’ve already succeeded in destroying the juridic Catholic Church and that’s explains how a Noahide conference was held in a Novus Ordo church in Long Island last year. So now all they have to do is destroy even the idea that God exists. And unfortunately, we’re well on our way to that.

Forgive us, Father…

Elizabeth Glass’s friend Jana wrote on March 30: “I think we – Christians in America – need to be on our knees and ask for forgiveness for voting for Trump or voting at all and ask God to help us to find a solution to this mess. I don’t want to be a part of a place that funds genocide and murder. That’s why I declare now I am a citizen of Heaven. That’s my citizenship” (https://substack.com/@janasutoova/note/c-235567574). And many podcasters and bloggers are saying the same. Sadly we can only nod our heads in agreement. But besides being potential citizens of Heaven, we who pray at home strive to be the Church Militant on earth — members of Christ’s Mystical Body through non-participation in the prostitution of Catholicism. That is our solution. We have seen how LibTrads falsify Catholicism and this is a most painful process to watch, knowing how it offends Our Lord and His Blessed Mother. Please continue to offer acts of reparation, especially on First Fridays for these sins of idolatry. Many are unaware of the seriousness of the sins they commit, but we cannot say the same for their pseudo-clergy, proven members of Masonic sects.

As we stated in a previous blog, “Communism is only a decoy.”  Elizabeth Peters wrote: “The hard worked “Jew-communism” is a decoy from the Jew Kingdom Message of the Jew-baiters. Jew Communism is a base of operations from which to hammer in the permanent phase of world revolution which is the triumph of the “Christian state.” The focusing of attention on Communism leads to a misunderstanding of its temporary nature as a catalyst to build the kingdom of God. Communism is only a political instrument to prod and direct wars and revolutions in harmony with the master plan of the spiritual plot. Fighting Communism as such promotes the spiritual counterfeit kingdom.  Communism has been expanded and enlarged so that the final anti-communist reaction will usher in the kingdom of God on earth.”

The trick is knowing that Communism was the tool and prevailing goal of Illuminati founder Adam Weishaupt. But Weishaupt’s most coveted goal, his end goal, was the destruction of the Catholic Church, a goal now accomplished. And we as remnant Catholics have lived in this counterfeit spiritual kingdom since 1958. We have known what was afoot far longer than some of our contemporaries, who are just now wiping the sleep from their eyes to view the disastrous end result of the ecumenism and indifferentism they have long promoted or at least tolerated. And what do they see? They now see the fake Christianity being promoted by people like Paula White Hay, head of Trump’s Office of “Faith,” and other members of the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) as we described HERE; a “Christianity” wholly rooted in Mormonism, yet another branch of Freemasonry.

Arise from sleep

Those waking up also see, or think they see, a spiritual revival outside that fake Christianity with (often younger) people flocking to what they believe are more traditional forms of religious belief — conservative Novus Ordo, “Traditional Catholicism,” the Orthodox and conservative Protestant sects. But these were only the means they previously used to corral the religious non-conformists unsure about what the Modernistic infiltration of religion really meant. Many know that Modernism and ecumenism is what robbed them of what they believed to be a stable structure of faith. What they don’t understand is that long ago the termites had honeycombed the foundations and what they witnessed was simply the collapse of the doctrinal framework. They didn’t see it coming or recognize it for what it was because they didn’t know their faith. Peel back the next layer and we see the warnings about the dangers, coming first and most consistently from the popes renouncing the secret societies. Then, the announcement by Pope St. Pius X that Modernism had entered the very bloodstream of the Church, resulting in the juridic Church’s slow death by blood poisoning.

But of course it began with the Reformation and the rebellious insistence that man must be free to believe in God as he chooses without a sure guide or Christ-appointed head, without one liturgy unchanged throughout the centuries with which to worship the triune God. This is only the earthly reverberation of Satan’s “I will not serve,” floating up from the recesses of hell. The same righteous Christians fleeing from fake Christianity who condemn the genocide in Iran forget that their ancestors in England, Scotland and Ireland, as well as Germany, did all in their power to destroy Catholic culture, the most beautiful legacy the world has ever known.  Hundreds of thousands, even millions, of Catholics died in the process and numerous others were maimed for life. The Catholic identity they traded in to secure their freedom from papal rule is decried in William Cobbett’s Cobbett’s Reformation and Eamon Duffy’s Stripping of the Altars. They at least deserve to know what they lost and why they lost it, and these books explain it well.

Pope St. Pius X on the final deception

And so we come to the final deception. We have many who know they have been deceived, all adhering to belief in Christ as their divine Savior, dissidents who believe that by condemning a state religion and if necessary, dying for Christ, they can save their souls. But will they? Some perhaps, if truly invincibly ignorant, but they are still enslaved to the very system they believe they have escaped. Many in the past deplored ecumenism but in gathering together the Orthodox, the Novus Ordo and conservative Protestant sects under the umbrella of a disjointed Christianity, they become quintessentially “a group representing a number of Christian religions” — i.e., ecumenism. The final deception must be exposed, whether they accept it or not, for the good of their souls. We have spoken of it before, but now the influencers are demanding answers and unless these answers arise from the right quarters they will herd everyone into the Novus Ordo church as the ancient Catholic prototype and answer to Protestant angst. This effort is well underway. And if they succeed, the deception continues.

Recently Tucker Carlson pointed out that the U.S. had never cow-towed to Israel and Israelism until after the death of Pres. John F. Kennedy in 1963. He targets that specific year as one of particular interest, stating that its significance must be explored and revealed. In another video he states that Trump could be the Antichrist. While he is definitely an antichrist, we know who the true Antichrist was and what that means for the continued representation of the Novus Ordo as guilltess in this gradual swing to Israelism over time. We know his reign began in 1963, and that Angelo Roncalli prepared the way for that reign. Long before, in the 1940s, Rev. Denis Fahey had characterized the type of democracy in this country as Judaeo-Masonic democratism, a sort of pseudo-democracy established in “a Masonic or revolutionary state.” He explains that the word republic was only another way of expressing the “Sovereignty of the People,” Democratism is roundly condemned by Pope St. Pius X.

“[The Sillon’s] brand of Catholicism accepts only the democratic form of government which it considers the most favorable to the Church… it is an error and a danger to bind down Catholicism by principle to a particular form of government… religion ought to transcend all parties… [Democracy] has been harnessed in its course by the modern enemies of the Church, and is now no more than a miserable affluent of the great movement of apostasy being organized in every country for the establishment of a One-World Church which shall have neither dogmas, nor hierarchy, neither discipline for the mind, nor curb for the passions, and which, under the pretext of freedom and human dignity, would bring back to the world (if such a Church could overcome) the reign of legalized cunning and force, and the oppression of the weak, and of all those who toil and suffer. 

“Yes, we can truly say that the Sillon, its eyes fixed on a chimera, brings Socialism in its train. We fear that worse is to come: the end-result of this developing promiscuousness, the beneficiary of this cosmopolitan social action, can only be a Democracy which will be neither Catholic, nor Protestant, nor Jewish. It will be a religion (for Sillonism, so the leaders have said, is a religion) more universal than the Catholic Church, uniting all men who become brothers and comrades at last in the ‘Kingdom of God’ (and this last phrase is exactly how the NAR groups working under Trump’s Office of Faith describe it. St. Pius X continues: [For they say]: ‘We do not work for the Church, we work for mankind’…. We know only too well the dark workshops in which are elaborated these mischievous doctrines which ought not to seduce clear-thinking minds. The exaltation of their sentiments, the undiscriminating good-will of their hearts, their philosophical mysticism, mixed with a measure of illuminism, have carried them away towards another Gospel which they thought was the true Gospel of Our Saviour” (St. Pius X, Our Apostolic Mandate).

“It is an error and a danger to bind down Catholicism by principle to a particular form of government…” and yet that is precisely what occurred during the 1950s, spearheaded by Roncalli, Montini and others. International attorney David Wemhoff, in his 800-page work, John Courtney Murray, Time Magazine and the American Proposition reveals the fact that psychological warfare was implemented against Catholics by the CIA for two decades to accomplish the establishment of ecumenism and world-wide democracy, facilitated by the Novus Ordo church. It was John 23, (Angelo Roncalli) who violated the Church’s ages-old condemnation of Freemasonry, with its motto of “liberty, equality and fraternity.” Vicomte Leon de Poncins wrote in the 1960’s:

“The campaign for closer relations between Freemasonry and the Church remained quiescent while Pius XII was Pope; obviously… the Progressives, who by this time enjoyed a considerable influence in the Church realized that they had little chance of success during the Pope’s lifetime. With the accession of Pope John 23 and the growth of the new conceptions of ecumenism which followed this event, something like an explosion took place. A sudden flowering of works devoted to Freemasonry blossomed forth from a variety of authors… in favor of a reconciliation between the Catholic Church and Freemasonry… The success of the general penetration of the forces of subversion was made possible by the support, which at times attained a fanatical pitch, of progressive elements in the Church, and the last council [referred to here as V2 because it was not a true council of the Church] revealed to the whole world the strength and extent of their ascendancy.”

As a result, the false Vatican 2 council adopted the heresy that all men have the inherent right, (as taught by the renegade Jesuit John Courtney Murray and vehemently opposed by Msgr. Joseph C. Fenton, Rev. Francis J. Connell and a few others), to follow the dictates of conscience and that governments must recognize that right by suppressing any opposition to this belief. This is opposed to the Church’s God-given right to preach that the Catholic Church alone holds the truth and all other religions are false. Basically the formal endorsement by Vatican 2 of this proposition, which directly contradicts the iron-clad duty of the hierarchy to defend the Church’s rights, as expressed in Pius XII’s infallible constitution Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis, is what accomplished the downfall of the juridic Church.  Just as Christ was betrayed by those who should have been his staunchest supporters, the Jewish priesthood, so we too, in this Passion of the Church have been betrayed by the very shepherds anointed to teach and protect us.

Conclusion

The final deception is the belief by the public at large that what calls itself the Catholic Church in Rome is actually the Catholic Church. We know this is not true, they don’t. Probably now more than ever, we have an obligation to do our best to make it known that the Catholic Church was long ago subverted and that the popes of the last 68 years have not been popes but usurpers and traitors. At least they are now asking questions and looking for answers. They know something is wrong, that something happened, that something changed. Before there were no serious questions from that sector. Not from the media at large, anyway. How you answer the question and whether or not one is able to bring it to the attention of the proper individuals is the problem. In a separate document Jana Bennun, quoted above, tells us that in the handouts they used at the meeting for the Noahide laws at the Novus Ordo church in 2025, the Novus Ordo appears to be lying to its own people.

She says, “It looks like the church, after making private deals with rabbis in Jerusalem is trying to trick Catholics into accepting Noahide laws by telling them their Christian faith is safe and that the Trinity is an accepted form of monotheism in Noahide circles. The Noahide Academy itself says the exact opposite on its website. On their sites, Christianity is frequently categorized alongside paganism as a violation of the first Noahide commandment.” Glass had already referred to Bennun’s comment on her Substack feed that the Church was long ago infiltrated. What has been lacking all these years are the definitive answers to the five W questions even high school journalists are taught to answer: who, what, when, where and why.  Who: the unchangeable Catholic Church as she has always defined Herself, through her laws and infallible teachings; What: Her Masonic/Modernist infiltration; When: the timeline for this infiltration, how it was accomplished and its consequences; Where: Rome, but universally, as the hierarchy was gradually supplanted by enemy agents; Why: to destroy the Church and bring about the reign of Antichrist.

If you can pinpoint the event that first began the deliberate violation of all previous Church law and teaching — and we know it was the 1958 conclave — then all the other answers fall into place. The infallible teachings of the Church that have provided the framework for Her existence throughout the centuries, a power entrusted to Her by Christ Himself, lives on forever. And if it then can be demonstrated that according to what happened during and after that conclave was invalid, null and void, according to the very power with which Christ invested St. Peter, then whatever transpired from then on did not come from the Catholic Church, but its Satanic counterfeit. This leads us to the answer to Carlson’s question regarding 1963: Why Israel and Israelism, why then? Because by 1963, the high priest of all Israel, Giovanni Battista Montini (Paul 6) of the Jewish Benedictus family, the Man of Sin, ruled from the Vatican. He signaled the B’nai Brith and high-level members of Masonry that he had gained this ascendancy by donning the vesture of the Jewish high priest, the ephod and teraphim. And he then began planning the reconciliation of Zionists with “Catholics.”

Unless both Novus Ordo sect members and Protestants enlightened by the infiltration of their own ranks understand and accept this, reality shatters and truth is trampled underfoot. Influencers, bloggers and podcasters should be warned that they cannot refer to the Catholic Church as the prototype for Christianity unless they fully understand that their recognition of secret societies and Zionism as the enemy actually proves that the Church prior to the death of Pope Pius XII was always the means of salvation and sole dispenser of truth. If they wish to escape the evils that plague us today, there is only one answer, one solution. Release the linchpin, and expose the whore in Babylon for what she truly is. This is what God commands:

“And I heard another voice from heaven, saying: Go out from her, my people; that you be not partakers of her sins, and that you receive not of her plagues. For her sins have reached unto heaven, and the Lord hath remembered her iniquities. Render to her as she also hath rendered to you; and double unto her double according to her works: in the cup wherein she hath mingled, mingle ye double unto her. As much as she hath glorified herself, and lived in delicacies, so much torment and sorrow give ye to her; because she saith in her heart: I sit a queen, and am no widow; and sorrow I shall not see. Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine, and she shall be burnt with the fire; because God is strong, who shall judge her” (Apoc. 18: 4-8).

Avoiding the sin of curiosity and the value of brief videos

by T. Stanfill Benns | Apr 12, 2026 | New Blog

+St. Hermenegild, Martyr+

Please pray for pray-at-home and Traditional Catholics in Nigeria who despite help from America are in fear for their lives from Muslim terrorists. 

Introduction

Recently I realized that the controversies we have been drawn into by the media and its many platforms is a result of sinful curiosity, after reading this in Revs. McHugh and Callan’s work on moral theology. There they state: “Curiosity about the latest news or rumors that keeps one from duty or more important matters …or about things that do not concern one… is a venial sin.” Many of these things really do not concern us; they are merely useless pieces of information. Excessive indulgence in such things that amounts to no more than curiosity is forbidden. I have especially warned Catholics about the dangers of viewing long-winded videos produced by those of the LibTrad persuasion, even when done only out of curiosity. This could amount to a mortal sin, since the LibTrads often misrepresent or water down dogma and these attempts may not be readily identified even by well-informed Catholics.

Truth be known, the most powerful and worthwhile videos are often relatively brief. Those following this blog know that we oppose the condemnation found on many Traditional sites of those practicing what they believe to be the Jewish religion. This has largely been reduced to a cultural observance of certain traditions, infrequently supported on a religious level by actual synagogue attendance (see HERE). Even the more educated among the Jews are often unaware of the actual anti-Christian content of such books as the Kabbala and the Talmud. They are just as appalled, in many cases, by the Zionist control of their government and its hatred of all non-Jews as we are. They also are aware of the Masonic element that drives Zionism. This is supported by the research below, featured in a previous blog:

“Approximately 5.8 million adults (2.4% of all U.S. adults) [are] Jewish” according to a 2021 Pew Research report (https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2021/05/11/the-size-of-the-u-s-jewish-population/ ) The rest of this section is taken from a Pew report issued in 2020). “This includes 4.2 million (1.7%) who identify as Jewish by religion and 1.5 million Jews of no religion… Religion is not central to the lives of most U.S. Jews. Even Jews by religion are much less likely than Christian adults to consider religion to be very important in their lives (28% vs. 57%). And among Jews as a whole, far more report that they find meaning in spending time with their families or friends, engaging with arts and literature, being outdoors, and pursuing their education or careers than find meaning in their religious faith. Twice as many Jewish Americans say they derive a great deal of meaning and fulfillment from spending time with pets as say the same about their religion…” And only 9% of that 2.4% identify as Orthodox, those most likely to take their religion seriously and practice it.

“Compared either with U.S. Christians or with the adult public overall, U.S. Jews are far less likely to say that religion is important in their lives. However, Orthodox Jews rank among the most religiously devout subgroups in the country by this measure… Among Jews who are neither synagogue members themselves nor live in a household where anyone else belongs to a synagogue, 47% do not identify with any institutional branch or stream of Judaism.”

A hatred for the Jews in general is something contrary to Church teaching and is entirely unjustified.  And the paragraphs above and this short video tell us that especially in these times, there is even less justification for it. Much like new converts to the Novus Ordo, those identifying as Jewish but ignorant of its true origins and teachings — of the fact their religion was long ago hijacked — cannot be held responsible for what they do not know. And if that is sufficient in convincing people of their innocence, nothing more is required. When true Catholics spend inordinate amounts of time watching videos on the Jews, even about the evils of Zionism if they are already convinced of it; or lengthy LibTrad videos, even on the destruction of the Church, the papacy and loss of Mass and Sacraments — which we already well know — it simply is a waste of time. The following page taken from St. Alphonsus Liguori ‘s Preparation for Death warns us of the dangers of misusing precious time, when some of us may have little time left on earth.

“There is nothing more precious than time; but there is nothing less esteemed and more despised by men of the world. This is what St. Bernard deplores when he says: ‘Nothing is more precious than time, but nothing is regarded more cheaply.’ The same saint adds: ‘The days of salvation pass away, and no one reflects that day which has passed away from him can never return.’ You will see a gambler spend nights and days in play. If you ask him what he is doing, his answer is: I am passing the time. You will see others standing several hours on the street, looking at those who pass by, and speaking on obscene or on useless subjects. If you ask them what they are doing, they will say: We are passing the time. Poor blind sinners! who lose so many days; but days which never return. O time despised during life! You will be ardently desired by worldlings at the hour of death. They will then wish for another year, another month, another day; but they will not obtain it: they will then be told that time shall be no longer. How much would they then pay for another week, or another day, to settle the accounts of their conscience? To obtain a single hour, they would, says St. Laurence Justinian, give all their wealth and worldly possessions. But this hour shall not be given.”

Time not spent in prayer, penance, study of the faith, labor, good works, rest or lawful recreation is time wasted. Please consider this when you sit down at your computer, television or cell phone to view videos or programs that will keep you from any of these.

Another (now deleted) brief video on the Jesuits

Another excellent video exposing the Jesuit conspiracy theory and its false oath, which has since been removed from the Internet, addresses the false Jesuit oath videos now widely circulated on the web as proof that the Jesuits are behind the New World Order. To avoid confusion, those who have viewed these videos need to understand that some of the earliest allegations against the Society of Jesus founded by St. Ignatius Loyola in 1540 came from those dismissed with cause from the Society by their superiors or were generated by Catholic priests who had gone over to Protestantism. Under pressure from European monarchs, Pope Clement VII suppressed the Jesuits in 1773, but this suppression was seen more as a means to calm the fears of European monarchs who complained that their authority was being overshadowed, not because there was any credence given by the pope to the allegations made against the Jesuit Order. Pope Pius VII revived the order in 1814, but the relentless campaign against them continued, spearheaded primarily by the Freemasons. They were never given credit for their charitable work — the hospitals and schools they ran, their missionary and spiritual labors, their Catholic advice to monarchs.

Protestant intrigues

Wikipedia summarizes the accusations against them as follows: “The Protestant Reformation, the English Reformation, and later the Age of Enlightenment brought new suspicions against the Jesuits. They were accused of upholding Ultramontanism, infiltrating political realms and non-Catholic churches. In England, it was forbidden to belong to the Jesuits, under grave penalties, including the death penalty. A 1689 work, Foxes and Firebrands by Robert Ware (later exposed as a forger), claimed Jesuits took a secret oath that stated:

“I do further promise and declare that I will, when opportunity presents, make and wage relentless war, secretly and openly, against all heretics, Protestants and Masons, as I am directed to do, to extirpate them from the face of the whole earth; and that I will spare neither age, sex nor condition, and that will hang, burn, waste, boil, flay, strangle, and bury alive these infamous heretics; rip up the stomachs and wombs of their women, and crush their infants’ heads against the walls in order to annihilate their execrable race…” This forgery would be laughable if the persecution of Catholics during the Reformation was a laughing matter. For what is described here is exactly that persecution the Protestants put into practice for over three centuries, against both English and Irish Catholics.

Wikipedia further notes: “Many anti-Jesuit conspiracy theories emerged in the 18th century Enlightenment, as a result of an alleged rivalry between the Freemasons and the Jesuits. Intellectual attacks on Jesuits were seen as an efficient rebuttal to the anti-masonry promoted by conservatives, and this ideological conspiracy pattern persisted into the 19th century as an important component of French anti-clericalism” (end of Wiki quotes).The alleged “Jesuit Oath” which appeared in the 19^th century and is rejected by Catholics, Protestants and historians alike has long been exposed as a hoax manufactured by rabid anti-Catholics such as the Know-Nothings in this country. Hatred of the Jesuits is rooted in hatred of the papacy and all things Catholic. For as Catholics well know, fully vested Jesuits take a vow of obedience to the pope and were employed by the papacy to conduct special missions on his behalf to deal with sensitive issues.

An examination of the actual claims made over the centuries regarding the Jesuits easily show they were fabricated by their Protestant and Masonic antagonists. As one Internet author observes: “Ultimately, the supposed oath of the Jesuits is a fabrication, due to its origin and historical contexts in which it arose. It reminds us of a biblical principle established by the prophet Isaiah, for whom the Lord expressed: “Do not call conspiracy all the things that this people call conspiracy; nor fear what they fear, do not be afraid. Sanctify the LORD of hosts; let him be your fear, and let him be your dread” (Isa. 8:12, 13).”

Why Weishaupt hated the Society of Jesus

Freemasonry, which emerged as the end result of the Reformation, attempted to implicate the Jesuits in its founding by using the Jesuit template for the creation of the Illuminati. This is testified to by Msgr. George E. Dillon in his Freemasonry Unmasked, where he writes: “Weishaupt’s organization, for the perfection of which he deeply studied the constitution of the then-suppressed Society of Jesus, contemplated placing the thread of the whole conspiracy destined to be controlled by the Illuminati in the hands of one man advised by a small council. They were so trained that they would obtain the mastery in every form of secret society and thus render it subservient to their own chief.” Weishaupt was originally a professor of Canon Law at the University of Munich, and as Dillon further notes:

“The hatred for God and all form of worship and the determination to found a universal republic on the lines of communism was on the part of Weishaupt a settled sentiment. Possessed of a rare power of organization, an education in law which made him a pre-eminent teacher in its highest faculty, an extended knowledge of men and things, a command over himself, a repute for external morality, and finally a position calculated to win able disciples… Weishaupt employed for fifty years after the death of Voltaire his whole life and energies in the one work of perfecting secret associations to accomplish by deep deceit and by force the ruin of the existing order of religion…”

This is further confirmed by Nesta Webster, in her Secret Societies and Subversive Movements, where she quotes the Jesuit Augustin Barruel: “It was Weishaupt who perpetually intrigued against the Jesuits. That Weishaupt did, however, draw to a certain extent on Jesuit methods of training, is recognized even by Augustin Barruel, himself a Jesuit, who, quoting Mirabeau, says that Weishaupt admired above all those laws that regime of the Jesuits, which, under one head, made men dispersed over the universe tend towards the same goal. He felt that one could imitate their methods while holding views diametrically opposed. Barruel says elsewhere that Weishaupt appears ‘…specially to have wished to assimilate the regime of the sect to that of the religious orders and above all that of the Jesuits by the total abandonment of their own will and judgment, which he demands of his adepts.’ But Barruel goes on to show ‘the enormous difference that is to be found between religious obedience and Illuminist obedience.’”

Weishaupt’s hatred of the Jesuits is explained in Prof. John Robison’s Proofs of a Conspiracy as follows: “Weishaupt had long been scheming the establishment of an association or order which in time would govern the world. In his first fervor and high expectations, he hinted to several ex-Jesuits the probability of their recovering under a new name the influence which they formerly possessed, and of being again of great service to society by directing the education of youth of distinction, now emancipated from all civil and religious prejudices. He prevailed on some to join him, but they all retracted but two. After this disappointment, Weishaupt became the implacable enemy of the Jesuits, and his sanguine temper made him frequently lay himself open to their piercing eye and drew on him their keenest resentment, and at last made him the victim of their enmity.” The Illuminati was founded in 1776, during that time when the Jesuits had been disbanded, so this availability of former Jesuits gave Weishaupt a fertile field to till. But thankfully, it reaped few fruits.

Illuminati spy networks

Until, that is, the successful infiltration of the Catholic hierarchy. In his book Perfectabilists, (2009) Terry Melanson relates that Weishaupt incorporated from the Jesuits elements of the particular examen and confession, also notetaking for ones’ spiritual director, into his diabolical system. He then used these to construct a system of “intelligence gathering, spying and informing,” on fellow members as well as others. And here we see the prototype for the OSS, CIA, FBI and yes, the very system that Giovanni Montini set up in the Vatican during World War II. This system could have passed papal inspection as something supervised and suggested by the Jesuits, or explained as such when questioned by those suspicious of its operations. And perhaps it was in part — at least to those traitors who had already infiltrated the Jesuits, working as double agents.  That was the entire purpose of Weishaupt in creating his Illuminati — to make his agents appear to be what they were not. Serving as high-ranking Illuminati, both Montini and Roncalli worked on different fronts to carry out the orders of their Grand Master. Montini’s activities are documented in The Phantom Church of Romebelow:

“Author Martin A. Lee, writing in a 1983 issue of Mother Jones, notes: “When the Allies liberated Rome in 1944, the Dominican Felix  Morlion, [founder of Pro Deo/Intercip in the U.S. and Portugal, a “Catholic” propaganda machine] re-established his spy network in the Vatican; from there he helped the OSS obtain confidential reports provided by apostolic delegates in the Far East, which included information about strategic bombing targets in Japan. In the period following the war, the United States hastened to capitalize on the apparatus William Donovan, head of the Office of Strategic Services, had established, particularly in Italy… C.I.A. money was dispensed to many [Italian] bishops and monsignors, one of whom was the future Paul VI, and Catholic Action became another primary recipient of C.I.A. funds…Dr. Joseph Retinger [who was advocating for the European union]…through Dr. Luigi Gedda [Pope Pius XII’s medical advisor], was able to conscript the services of the future Pope Paul VI [who formerly was one of four section leaders of Vatican intelligence]…

“Even during the war, Montini had worked with the American intelligence services, passing information to and fro between the Vatican and the OSS… As Archbishop of Milan, he turned over the dossiers of politically active priests…The rapport between the C.I.A. and the Vatican became closer in 1963 when John XXIII died and was succeeded by Paul VI.This narrative is corroborated by David Wemhoff in Part IV, Chapter 11 of his work. In it, Wemhoff quotes private correspondence listing Montini, also his great friend Jacques Maritain, as avid Pro Deo supporters. Later in Part XIV, Chapter 59, Wemhoff cites declassified documents in which a C.I.A. correspondent names Montini as co-founder of Pro Deo and Cardinal Giuseppe Siri as being appointed in some way to participate in Pro Deo operations. C.I.A. operatives also claim that Pope Pius XII (unofficially) endorsed Pro Deo, but his official papal documents do not reflect Morlion’s statements regarding democracy, nor could they reflect his Americanist viewpoint.”

Conclusion

The Jesuits were never perfect. They had their rogue elements and their fair share of those dismissed from the Society. Some have said they were both the best of the best and the worst of the worst. We saw them at their worst in men like Leonard Feeney, Avery Dulles, Malachi Martin and John Courtney Murray. And at their best in clergy such as St. Edmund Campion and St. Peter Canisius, St. Peter Claver, St. Francis Xavier, St. Aloysius Gonzaga, St. Isaac Jogues, Rev. Pierre-Jean de Smet and many others. The irony of all the Jesuit conspiracy theories circulating today is that the men they point to are no longer Catholic, far less Jesuits. But this of course is something those propagating these idiotic reports probably don’t know and don’t want you to know. Their goal is to project the evil image of secret societies onto the Church past and present, in order to divert attention from the completion of the Illuminati’s plans to implement the New World Order/religion.

Hopefully the above will replace the content in the deleted video as well as possible. Several have inquired about the Jesuit Oath claims, and to help them refute this argument when brought up by others, it seemed helpful to explain the story behind these false allegations. We must always be ready and able to counter these attacks in the defense of our faith, as Can. 1325 orders us to do. Otherwise we appear to agree, or to consider it of little consequence, and this places us outside the Church.  As Rev. Michael Mueller, C.S.S.R writes in his The Church and Her Enemies (1880): “But if we cannot teach the world, let us teach our Catholics. Whatever is calculated to confirm them in their holy faith and prevent them from becoming familiar with infidels and Protestant seducers must be considered a most wholesome lesson. The miserable end of the persecutors of the faith, the awful judgment which God was pleased to visit on them, are certainly calculated to confirm Catholics in the truth and to make them turn a deaf ear upon all those who impiously deny it.”

May these words do just that, for all our readers.

The various apparitions of Jesus following His glorious Resurrection

by T. Stanfill Benns | Apr 5, 2026 | New Blog

He Has Risen, Alleluia!

+Feast of the Resurrection+

Prayer Society Intention for April, Month of the Holy Ghost

“Know ye not that your members are the temple of the Holy Ghost who is in you?” (1Cor 6, 19). “Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God in whom ye are sealed unto the day of redemption” (Eph. 4: 30).

Introduction

The following selections are paraphrased from Holy Scripture by Substack contributor Thomas Considine, recounting the various encounters of Jesus following His Resurrection up to the Ascension. It is a helpful summary of events for those who might not have the time to course through Holy Scripture and assemble them all in one place. Now that Lent is past, we can resume our regular blog posts on various doctrinal and other topics. Wishing everyone a blessed Easter.

THE EMPTY TOMB

And when the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalen and the other Mary, the mother of James and Salome, bought sweet spices that coming they might anoint Jesus. And on the first day of the week, very early in the morning when it was yet dark and when it began to dawn, they came to see the sepulchre, bringing the spices which they had prepared. And the sun being now risen they said one to another: ‟Who shall roll us back the stone from the door of the sepulchre.‟ And behold there was a great earthquake and looking, they saw the stone rolled back, taken away from the sepulchre. For an angel of the Lord descended from Heaven and coming rolled back the stone for it was very great, and sat upon it. And his countenance was as lightning and his raiment as snow. And for fear of him the guards were struck with terror and became as dead men.

And the angel answering said to the woman: “Fear not you for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here for he is risen as he said. Come and see the place where the Lord was laid.‟ And entering into the sepulchre they found not the body of the Lord Jesus. And they saw a young man sitting on the right side clothed with a white robe. And it came to pass as they were astonished in their mind at this behold two men stood by them in shining apparel. And as they were afraid, and bowed down their countenance towards the ground, they said to them: “Be not affrighted. Why seek you the living with the dead. You seek Jesus of Nazareth Who was crucified. He is not here, but is risen.

Behold the place where they laid him. Remember how he spoke unto you when he was yet in Galilee, saying the Son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and the third day rise again. But going quickly, you all tell his disciples and Peter that he is risen. And behold he will go before you into Galilee. There you shall see him as he told you. Lo I have foretold it to you.‟ And they remembered his words.” (Matthew 28, 1-7; Mark 16, 1-7; Luke 24, 1-8; John 20, 1.)

THE FIRST APPARITION

But they going out quickly, fled from the sepulchre with fear and great joy, for a great trembling and fear had seized them. And they said nothing to any man, for they were afraid. (Mary Magdalen ran therefore and comes to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved and says to them: “They have taken away the Lord out of the sepulchre and we know not where they have laid him.‟)  And behold Jesus met them saying: “All hail.‟ But they came up and took hold of his feet and adored him. Then Jesus said to them: “Fear not. Go tell my brethren that they go into Galilee. There they shall see me.‟  (Matthew 28, 8-10; Mark 16, 8; Luke 24, 9, 10; John 20, 2.)

THE FIRST WITNESS

And going back from the sepulchre they told all these things to the eleven and to all the rest. And it was Mary Magdalen, and Joanna, and Mary of James, and the other women that were with them who told these things to the apostles. And these words seemed to them as idle tales and they did not believe them” (Luke 24, 9-11).

PETER AND JOHN

But Peter rising up went out and ran to the sepulchre, and that other disciple. And they came to the sepulchre. And they both ran together and that other disciple did outrun Peter and came first to the sepulchre. And when he stooped down, he saw the linen cloths lying, but yet he went not in. Then comes Simon Peter following him, and stooping down he saw the linen cloths laid by themselves, and went into the sepulchre. And saw the linen cloths lying and the napkin that had been about his head not lying with the linen cloths, but apart, wrapped up into one place. Then that other disciple also went in who came first to the sepulchre. And he saw and believed. For as yet they knew not the scripture that he must rise again from the dead. The disciples therefore departed again to their home. And Peter went away wondering in himself at that which was come to pass” (Luke 24, 12; John 20, 3-10).

MARY MAGDALEN

But he rising early the first day of the week appeared first to Mary Magdalen, out of whom he had cast seven devils. Mary stood at the sepulchre without, weeping. Now, as she was weeping, she stooped down and looked into the sepulchre and she saw two angels in white, sitting one at the head and one at the feet where the body of Jesus had been laid. They say to her: “Woman, why weep you?‟ She says to them: “Because they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him.‟ When she had thus said she turned herself back and saw Jesus standing, and she knew not that it was Jesus. Jesus says to her: “Woman, why weep you? Whom seek you?‟ She, thinking that it was the gardener, said to him: “Sir, if you have taken him hence tell me where you has laid him and I will take him away.‟ Jesus says to her: “Mary‟. She, turning, says to him: “Rabboni.‟ (Which is to say: “Master.‟)

Jesus says to her: “Do not touch me for I am not yet ascended to my Father. But go to my brethren and say to them I ascend to my Father and to your Father, to my God and your God.‟ Mary Magdalen comes and tells the disciples that had been with him, who were mourning and weeping. “I have seen the Lord, and these things he said to me.‟ And they, hearing that he was alive and had been seen by her, did not believe” (Mark 16, 9-11; John 20, 11-18).

THE DISCIPLES AT EMMAUS

And behold, after that, he appeared in another shape to two of them walking that same day as they were going into the country to a town which was sixty furlongs from Jerusalem named Emmaus. And they talked together of all these things which had happened. And it came to pass that while they talked and reasoned with themselves, Jesus himself also drawing near went with them, but their eyes were held that they should not know him. And he said to them: “What are these discourses that you hold with one another as you walk and are sad.‟ And the one of them answering whose name was Cleophas said to him: “Are you only a stranger in Jerusalem and have not known the things that have been done there in these days?‟

To whom he said: “What things?‟ And they said: “Concerning Jesus of Nazareth who was a prophet, mighty in work and word before God and all the people. And how our chief priests and princes delivered him to be condemned to death and crucified him. But we hoped that it was he that should have redeemed Israel. And now besides all this, today is the third day since these things were done. Yea, and certain women also of our company affrighted us, who, before it was light were at the sepulchre, and, not finding his body, came saying that they had also seen a vision of angels who say that he is alive. And some of our people went to the sepulchre and found it so, as the women said, but him they found not.‟ Then he said to them: “O foolish and slow of heart to believe in all things which the prophets have spoken. Ought not Christ to have suffered these things and so to enter into his glory?‟

And beginning at Moses and all the prophets he expounded to them in all the scriptures the things that were concerning him. And they drew nigh unto the town whither they were going, and he made as though he would go farther. But they constrained him saying: “Stay with us, because it is towards evening and the day is now far spent‟. And he went in with them. And it came to pass, whilst he was at table with them, he took bread, and blessed, and broke, and gave to them. And their eyes were opened and they knew him. And he vanished out of their sight. And they said to one another, “Was not our heart burning within us whilst he spoke in the way, and opened to us the scriptures?‟

And rising up the same hour they went back to Jerusalem and they found the eleven gathered together and those that were with them saying, “The Lord is risen indeed and has appeared to Simon.‟ And they told what things were done in the way and how they knew him in the breaking of bread. And they, going, told it to the rest; neither did they believe them” (Mark 16, 12, 13; Luke 24, 13-35).

FIRST APPEARANCE TO THE APOSTLES

Now when it was late that same day, the first of the week, and the doors were shut where the disciples were gathered together for fear of the Jews, whilst they were speaking of these things, at length Jesus appeared to the eleven as they were at table, and came and stood in the midst of them. And he upbraided them with their incredulity and hardness of heart because they would not believe them who had seen him after he was risen again. And he said to them: “Peace be to you. It is I. Fear not.‟ But they, being troubled and frightened, supposed that they saw a spirit. And he said to them: “Why are you troubled and why do thoughts arise in your hearts? See my hands and feet. That it is I, myself, handle and see, for a spirit has not flesh and bones as you see me to have.‟

And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and feet and his side. But while yet they believe not and wondered for joy, he said: “Have you here anything to eat?‟ And they offered him a piece of broiled fish and a honey-comb. And when he had eaten before them, taking the remains, he gave to them. The disciples therefore were glad when they saw the Lord. He said therefore to them again: “Peace be to you. As the Father has sent me, I also send you.‟ When he had said this, he breathed on them and he said to them: “Receive all you the Holy Ghost. Whose sins you shall forgive they are forgiven them; and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained” (Mark 16, 14; Luke 24, 36-43; John 20, 19-23).

THE APPARITION TO THOMAS

Now Thomas, one of the twelve, who is called Didymus [the Twin], was not with them when Jesus came. The other disciples therefore said to him: “We have seen the Lord.‟ But he said to them: “Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.‟ And after eight days, again his disciples were within, and Thomas with them. Jesus comes, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst and said: “Peace be to you.‟ Then he said to Thomas: “Put in your finger hither and see my hands and bring hither your hand and put it into my side, and be not faithless but believing.‟ Thomas answered and said to him: “My Lord and my God.‟ Jesus says to him: „Because you have seen me, Thomas, you have believed. Blessed are they that have not seen and have believed” (John 20, 24-29).

BY THE SEA OF TIBERIAS

After this Jesus showed himself again to the disciples at the sea of Tiberias. And he showed himself after this manner. There were together Simon Peter and Thomas, who is called Didymus, and Nathaniel, who was of Cana of Galilee, and the sons of Zebedee, and two others of his disciples. Simon Peter says to them: “I go a-fishing.‟ They say to him: “We also come with you.‟ And they went forth and entered into the ship. And that night they caught nothing. But when the morning was come, Jesus stood on the shore, yet the disciples knew not that it was Jesus. Jesus therefore said to them: “Children, have you any meat?‟

They answered him: “No.‟ He says to them: “Cast the net on the right side of the ship and you shall find.‟ They cast therefore, and now they were not able to draw it for the multitude of fishes. That disciple therefore, whom Jesus loved, said to Peter: “It is the Lord.‟ Simon Peter, when he heard that it was the Lord, girt his coat about him, for he was practically naked, and cast himself into the sea. But the other disciples came in the ship, for they were not far from the land, but as it were two hundred cubits, dragging the net with fishes.

As soon, then, as they came to land, they saw hot coals lying and fish laid thereon, and bread. Jesus says to them: “Bring hither of the fishes which you have now caught‟. Simon Peter went up and drew the net to land, full of great fishes, one hundred and fifty-three, and although there were so many the net was not broken. Jesus says to them: “Come and dine.‟ And none of them who were ate meat dared ask him: “Who are you?‟ knowing that it was the Lord. And Jesus comes and takes bread and gives them, and fish in like manner. This is now the third time that Jesus was manifested to his disciples after he was risen from the dead.

When, therefore, they had dined, Jesus said to Simon Peter: “Simon, son of John, love you me more than these?‟

He says to him: “Yea, Lord, you know that I love you.‟

He said to him: “Feed my lambs.‟

He says to him again: “Simon, son of John, love you me?‟

He says to him: “Yea, Lord, you know that I love you.‟

He says to him: “Look after my lambs.‟

He says to him the third time: „Simon, son of John, love you me?‟

Peter was grieved because he had said to him the third time: “Love you me?‟

And he said to him: “Lord, you know all things — you know that I love you.‟

He said to him: “Feed my sheep. Amen, amen, I say to you, when you were younger you did gird yourself and did walk where you would. But when you shall be old, you shall stretch forth your hands and another shall gird you and lead you whither you would not.‟

And this he said, signifying by what death he should glorify God. And when he had said this, he says to him: “Follow me.‟ Peter, turning about, saw that disciple whom Jesus loved, following, who also leaned on his breast at supper, and said: “Lord, who is he that shall betray you?‟ Him, therefore, when Peter had seen, he says to Jesus: „Lord, and what shall this man do?‟ Jesus says to him: “So if I will have him to remain till I come, what is it to you? Follow you me.‟ This saying therefore went abroad among the brethren that that disciple should not die, yet Jesus did not say to him: “He should not die‟, but, “So if I will have him to remain till I come, what is it to you?‟ This is that disciple who gives testimony of these things and has written these things and we know that his testimony is true” (John 21, 1-24).

ON THE MOUNT OF GALILEE

And the eleven disciples went into Galilee, unto the mountain where Jesus had appointed them. And seeing him, they adored, but some doubted. And Jesus, coming, spoke to them saying: “All power is given to me in heaven and in earth. Going therefore, into the whole world, preach the gospel to every creature. And, all you, teach all nations, baptizing them, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. He that believes and is baptized shall be saved, but he that believes not shall be condemned. And these signs shall follow them that believe, — In my name, they will cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay their hands upon the sick, and they shall recover. And, behold, I am with you all days even to the consummation of the world” (Matthew, 28, 16-20; Mark 18, 15-18).

Meditations from St. Alphonsus Liguori on Our Lady’s Sorrows

by T. Stanfill Benns | Mar 24, 2026 | New Blog

+St. Gabriel the Archangel+

Introduction

The following meditations on the sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary on Christ’s Passion and Death been taken from The Seven Sorrows of Mary by St Alphonsus de Ligouri (1696-1787) It is found in The Glories of Mary, a book all Catholics should have in their libraries. This excerpt  can be downloaded from the Internet HERE.

The Meeting of Mary with Jesus When He was Going to Death

St. Bernardine says that to form an idea of the grief of Mary in losing her Jesus by death, it is necessary to consider the love that this mother bore to this her Son. All mothers feel the sufferings of their children as their own. Hence the woman of Canaan, when she pleaded to the Savior to deliver her daughter from the devil that tormented her, said to him, that he should have pity on the mother rather than on the daughter: “Have mercy on me, oh Lord, you son of David, my daughter is grievously troubled by a devil.” But what mother ever loved a child so much as Mary loved Jesus? He was her only child, reared amidst so many troubles and pains; a most amiable child, and most loving to his mother; a Son, who was at the same time her Son and her God; who came on earth to kindle in the hearts of all the holy fire of divine love, as he himself declared: “I have come to cast fire on the earth, and what do I will but that it be kindled?” Let us consider how he must have inflamed that pure heart of his holy mother, so free from every earthly affection.

In a word, the Blessed Virgin herself said to St. Bridget, that through love her heart and the heart of her Son was one: “Unum erat cor meum, et cor filii mei.” That blending of handmaid and mother, of Son and God, kindled in the heart of Mary a fire composed of a thousand flames. But afterwards, at the time of the passion, this flame of love was changed into a sea of sorrow. Hence St. Bernardine says: All the sorrows of the world united would not be equal to the sorrow of the glorious Mary. Yes, because this mother, as St. Lawrence Justinian writes: The more tenderly she loved, was the more deeply wounded. The greater the tenderness with which she loved him, the greater was her grief at the sight of his sufferings, especially when she met her Son, after he had already been condemned, going to death at the place of punishment, bearing the cross. And this is the fourth sword of sorrow which today we have to consider.

The Blessed Virgin revealed to St. Bridget that at the time when the passion of our Lord was drawing near, her eyes were always filled with tears, as she thought of her beloved Son whom she was about to lose on this earth. Therefore, as she also said, a cold sweat covered her body from the fear that seized her at that prospect of approaching suffering.1 Behold, the appointed day at length arrived, and Jesus came in tears to take leave of his mother before he went to death. St. Bonaventure, contemplating Mary on that night, says: You did spend it without sleep, and while others slept, you kept vigil. Morning having arrived the disciples of Jesus Christ came to this afflicted mother, one, to bring her these tidings, another, that; but all tidings of sorrow, for in her were then verified the words of Jeremiah: “Weeping, she has wept in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks; there is none to comfort her of all them that were dear to her.” One came to relate to her the cruel treatment of her Son in the house of Caiphas; another, the insults received by him from Herod. Finally, for I omit the rest to come to my point, St. John came and announced to Mary that the most unjust Pilate had already condemned him to death upon the cross. I say the most unjust, for, as St. Leo remarks, this unjust judge condemned him to death with the same lips with which he had pronounced him innocent.

Oh sorrowful mother; said St. John to her, your Son has already been condemned to death, he is already on his way, bearing himself his cross on his way to Calvary, as he afterwards related in his Gospel: “And bearing his own cross he went forth to that place which is called Calvary.” Come, if you desire to see him and bid him a last farewell in some of the streets through which he is to pass. Mary goes with St. John, and she perceives by the blood with which the way was sprinkled, that her Son had already passed there. This she revealed to St. Bridget: “By the footsteps of my Son I traced his course, for along the way by which he had passed, the ground was sprinkled with blood.”

St. Bonaventure imagines the afflicted mother taking a shorter way, and placing herself at the corner of the street to meet her afflicted Son as he passed by. This most afflicted mother met her most afflicted Son: Moestissima mater moestissimo filio occurrit, said St. Bernard. While Mary stopped in that place how much she must have heard said against her Son by the Jews who knew her, and perhaps also words in mockery of herself! Alas! what a commencement of sorrows was then before her eyes, when she saw the nails, the hammers, the cords, the fatal instruments of the death of her Son borne before him! And what a sword pierced her heart when she heard the trumpet proclaiming along the way the sentence pronounced against her Son!

But behold, now, after the instruments, the trumpet, and the ministers of justice had passed, she raises her eyes and sees; she sees, oh God, a young man covered with blood and wounds from head to foot, with a crown of thorns on his head, and two heavy beams on his shoulders; she looks at him and hardly knows him, saying, then, with Isaiah: “And we have seen him, and there was no sightliness.” Yes, for the wounds, the bruises, and clotted blood, made him look like a leper; “We have thought him, as it were, a leper;” so that he could no longer be recognized. “And his look was, as it were, hidden and despised, whereupon we esteemed him not.”3 But at length love recognizes him, and as soon as she knows him, ah, what was then, as St. Peter of Alcantara says in his meditations, the love and fear of the heart of Mary! On the one hand, she desired to see him; on the other, she could not endure to look upon so pitiable a sight. But at length they look at each other. The Son wipes from his eyes the clotted blood, which prevented him from seeing (as was revealed to St. Bridget), and looks upon the mother; the mother looks upon the Son.

Oh, the looks of sorrow, which pierced, as with so many arrows, those two holy and loving souls. When Margaret, the daughter of Sir Thomas More, met her father on his way to the scaffold, she could utter only two words, oh, father! oh, father! and fell fainting at his feet. At the sight of her Son going to Calvary, Mary fainted not; no, because it was not fitting that his mother should lose the use of her reason, as Father Suarez remarks, neither did she die, for God reserved her for a greater grief; but if she did not die, she suffered sorrow enough to cause her a thousand deaths. The mother wished to embrace him, as St. Anselm says, but the officers of justice thrust her aside, loading her with insults, and urge onward our afflicted Lord. Mary follows. Oh holy Virgin, where are you going? To Calvary! And can you trust yourself to see him who is your life hanging from a cross? And your life shall be as it were hanging before you: “Et erit vita tua quasi pendens ante te.”

Oh! my mother, stop, says St. Lawrence Justinian, as if the Son himself had then spoken to her; where do you hasten? Where are you going? If you come where I go, you will be tortured with my sufferings, and I with yours.2 But although the sight of her dying Jesus must cost her such cruel anguish, the loving Mary will not leave him. The Son goes before, and the mother follows, that she may be crucified with her Son, as William the Abbot says: The mother took up her cross, and followed him, that she might be crucified with him.1 We even pity the wild beasts: “Ferarum etiam miseremur;” as St. John Chrysostom has said. If we should see a lioness following her whelp as he was led to death, even this wild beast would call forth our compassion. And shall we not feel compassion to see Mary following her immaculate Lamb, as they are leading him to death? Let us then pity her, and endeavor also ourselves to accompany her Son and herself, bearing with patience the cross which the Lord imposes upon us. Why did Jesus Christ, asks St. John Chrysostom, desire to be alone in his other sufferings, but in bearing the cross wished to be helped by the Cyrenean? And he answers: That you may understand that the cross of Christ is not sufficient without yours. The cross alone of Jesus is not enough to save us, if we do not bear with resignation also our own, even unto death.

EXAMPLE

The Saviour appeared one day to sister Diomira, a nun, in Florence, and saidto her: “Think of me, and love me, and I will think of you, and love you: “and at the same time he presented her with a bunch of flowers and a cross, signifying to her by this, that the consolations of the saints on this earth are always to be accompanied by the cross. The cross unites souls to God. [St.] Jerome Emiliani, when he was a soldier, and leading a very sinful life, was shut up by his enemies in a tower. There, feeling deeply his misfortune, and enlightened by God to amend his life, he had recourse to the most holy Mary, and then with the help of this blessed mother, he began to live the life of a saint. By this he merited to see once in heaven the high place which God had prepared for him. He became founder of the order of Sommaschi, died a saint, and has been [canonized a saint] by the holy Church.

PRAYER

My sorrowful mother, by the merit of that grief which you did feel at seeing your beloved Jesus led to death, obtain for me the grace also to bear with patience those crosses which God sends me. Happy me, if I also shall know how to accompany you with my cross until death. You and Jesus, both innocent, have borne a heavy cross; and shall I a sinner, who have merited hell, refuse mine? Oh immaculate Virgin, I hope that you will help me to bear my crosses with patience. Amen. 

The Death of Jesus

And now we have to admire a new sort of martyrdom, a mother condemned to see an innocent son, whom she loved with all the affection of her heart, put to death before her eyes, by the most barbarous tortures. There stood by the cross of Jesus his mother: “Stabat autem juxta crucem mater ejus.” There is nothing more to be said, says St. John, of the martyrdom of Mary: behold her at the foot of the cross, looking on her dying Son, and then see if there is grief like her grief. Let us stop then also today on Calvary, to consider this fifth sword that pierced the heart of Mary, namely, the death of Jesus.

As soon as our afflicted Redeemer had ascended the hill of Calvary, the executioners stripped him of his garments, and piercing his sacred hands and feet with nails, not sharp, but blunt: “Non acutis, sed obtuse,” as St. Bernard says, and to torture him more, they fastened him to the cross. When they had crucified him, they planted the cross, and thus left him to die. The executioners abandon him, but Mary does not abandon him. She then draws nearer to the cross, in order to assist at his death. “I did not leave him,” thus the Blessed Virgin revealed to St. Bridget, “and stood nearer to his cross.” But what did it avail, oh Lady, says St. Bonaventure, to go to Calvary to witness there the death of his Son? Shame should have prevented you, for his disgrace was also yours, because you were his mother; or, at least, the horror of such a crime as that of seeing a God crucified by his own creatures, should have prevented you. But the saint himself answers: Your heart did not consider the horror, but the suffering: “Non considerabat cor tuum horrorem, sed dolorem.” 

Oh, your heart did not then care for its own sorrow, but for the suffering and death of your dear Son; and therefore you yourself did wish to be near him, at least to suffer with him. Oh, true mother! says William the Abbot, loving mother! For not even the terror of death could separate you from your beloved Son. But, oh God, what a spectacle of sorrow, to see this Son then in agony upon the cross, and under the cross this mother in agony, who was suffering all the pain that her Son was suffering! Behold the words in which Mary revealed to St. Bridget the pitiable state of her dying Son, as she saw him on the cross: “My dear Jesus was on the cross in grief and in agony; his eyes were sunken, half closed, and lifeless; the lips hanging, and the mouth open; the cheeks hollow, and attached to the teeth; the face lengthened, the nose sharp, the countenance sad; the head had fallen upon his breast, the hair black with blood, the stomach collapsed, the arms and legs stiff, and the whole body covered with wounds and blood.”

Mary also suffered all these pains of Jesus. Every torture inflicted on the body of Jesus, says St. Jerome, was a wound in the heart of the mother. Any one of us who should then have been on Mount Calvary, would have seen two altars, says St. John Chrysostom, on which two great sacrifices were consummating, one in the body of Jesus, the other in the heart of Mary. But rather would I see there, with St. Bonaventure, one altar only, namely, the cross alone of the Son, on which, with the victim, this divine Lamb, the mother also was sacrificed. Therefore the saint interrogates her in these words: Oh Lady, where are you? Near the cross? No, on the cross, you are crucified with your Son. St. Augustine also says the same thing: The cross and nails of the Son were also the cross and nails of the mother; Christ being crucified, the mother was also crucified. Yes, because, as St. Bernard says, love inflicted on the heart of Mary the same suffering that the nails caused in the body of Jesus. Therefore, at the same time that the Son was sacrificing his body, the mother, as St. Bernardine says, was sacrificing her soul.

Mothers fly from the presence of their dying children; but if a mother is ever obliged to witness the death of a child, she procures for him all possible relief; she arranges the bed, that his posture may be more easy; she administers refreshments to him; and thus the poor mother relieves her own sorrows. Oh mother, the most afflicted of all mothers! oh Mary, it was decreed that you should be present at the death of Jesus, but it was not given to you to afford him any relief. Mary heard her Son say: I thirst: “Sitio;” but it was not permitted her to give him a little water to quench his great thirst. She could only say to him, as St. Vincent Ferrer remarks; My Son, I have only the water of my tears: “Fili, non habeo nisi aquara lacrymarum.”

She saw that her Son, suspended by three nails to that bed of sorrow, could find no rest. She wished to clasp him to her heart, that she might give him relief, or at least that he might expire in her arms, but seeking one who could console him as he had predicted by the mouth of the prophet: “I have trodden the winepress alone; I looked about and there was none to help; I sought and there was none to give aid.” But who was there among men to console him, if all were his enemies? Even on the cross they cursed and mocked him on every side: “And they that passed by blasphemed him, wagging their heads.” Some said to him: “If you be the Son of God, come down from the cross.” Some exclaimed: “He saved others, himself he cannot save.” Others said: “If he be the King of Israel, let him come down from the cross.” The Blessed Virgin herself said to St. Bridget: “I heard some call my Son a thief; I heard others call him an impostor; others said that no one deserved death more than he; and every word was to me a new sword of sorrow.”

But what increased most the sorrows which Mary suffered through compassion for her Son, was to hear him complain on the cross that even the eternal Father had abandoned him: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Words which, as the heavenly mother herself said to St. Bridget, could never depart from her mind during her whole life. Thus the afflicted mother saw her Jesus suffering on every side; she desired to comfort him, but could not. And what caused her the greatest sorrow was to see that, by her presence and her grief, she increased the sufferings of her Son. The sorrow itself, says St. Bernard, that filled the heart of Mary, increased the bitterness of sorrow in the heart of Jesus.

St. Bernard also says that Jesus on the cross suffered more from compassion for his mother than from his own pains: he thus speaks in the name of the Virgin: I stood and looked upon him, and he looked upon me; and he suffered more for me than for himself. The same saint also, speaking of Mary beside her dying Son, says that she lived dying without being able to die: Near the cross stood his mother, speechless; living she died, dying she lived; neither could she die, because she was dead, being yet alive. Passino writes that Jesus Christ himself, speaking one day to the blessed Baptista Varana of Camerino, said to her that he was so afflicted on the cross at the sight of his mother in such anguish at his feet, that compassion for his mother caused him to die without consolation. So that the blessed Baptista, being enlightened to know this suffering of Jesus, exclaimed: Oh my Lord, tell me no more of this your sorrow, for I cannot bear it! Men were astonished, says Simon of Cassia, when they saw this mother then keep silence, without uttering a complaint in this great suffering.

But if the lips of Mary were silent, her heart was not so; for she did not cease offering to divine justice the life of her Son for our salvation. Therefore we know that by the merits of her sorrows she cooperated with Christ in bringing us forth to the life of grace, and therefore we are children of her sorrows: Christ, says Lanspergius, wished her whom he had appointed for our mother to cooperate with him in our redemption; for she herself at the foot of the cross was to bring us forth as her children. And if ever any consolation entered into that sea of bitterness, namely, the heart of Mary, it was this only one; namely, the knowledge that by means of her sorrows, she was bringing us to eternal salvation; as Jesus himself revealed to St. Bridget: “My mother Mary, on account of her compassion and love, was made mother of all in heaven and on earth.”

And, indeed, these were the last words with which Jesus took leave of her before his death; this was his last remembrance, leaving us to her for her children in the person of John, when he said to her: Woman, behold your Son: “Mulier ecce filius tuus.”1 And from that time Mary began to perform for us this office of a good mother; for, as St. Peter Damian declares, the penitent thief, through the prayers of Mary, was then converted and saved: Therefore the good thief repented, because the Blessed Virgin, standing between the cross of her Son and that of the thief, prayed to her Son for him; thus rewarding, by this favor, his former service.2 For as other authors also relate, this thief, in the journey to Egypt with the infant Jesus, showed them kindness; and this same office the Blessed Virgin has ever continued, and still continues to perform. 

EXAMPLE

A young man in Perugia once promised the devil that if he would help him to commit a sinful act which he desired to do, he would give him his soul; and he gave him a writing to that effect, signed with his blood. The evil deed was committed, and the devil demanded the performance of the promise. He led the young man to a well, and threatened to take him body and soul to hell if he would not cast himself into it. The wretched youth, thinking that it would be impossible for him to escape from his enemy, climbed the well-side in order to cast himself into it, but terrified at the thought of death, he said to the devil that he had not the courage to throw himself in, and that, if he wished to see him dead, he himself should thrust him in. The young man wore about his neck the scapular of the sorrowing Mary; and the devil said to him: “Take off that scapular, and I will thrust you in.” But the youth, seeing the protection which the Mother of God still gave him through that scapular, refused to take it off, and after a great deal of altercation, the devil departed in confusion. The sinner repented, and grateful to his sorrowful mother, went to thank her, and presented a picture of this case, as an offering, at her altar in the new church of Santa Maria, in Perugia.

PRAYER

Oh mother, the most afflicted of all mothers, your Son, then, is dead; your Son so amiable, and who loved you so much! Weep, for you have reason to weep. Who can ever console you? Nothing can console you but the thought that Jesus, by his death, has conquered hell, has opened paradise which was closed to men, and has gained so many souls. From that throne of the cross he was to reign over so many hearts, which, conquered by his love, would serve him with love. Do not disdain, oh my mother, to keep me near to weep with you, for I have more reason than you to weep for the offences that I have committed against your Son. Oh mother of mercy, I hope for pardon and my eternal salvation, first through the death of my Redeemer, and then through the merits of your sorrows. Amen.