In reparation for disobeying St. Peter and his successors

by T. Stanfill Benns | Jan 19, 2025 | New Blog

+Feast of St. Peter’s Chair at Rome+

For years we have advised the use of the prayers HERE to help all obtain that unity in faith so sorely lacking today, but sadly it is impossible to obtain in its fullness without the presence of a canonically elected Roman Pontiff. Because the remaining means to canonically elect a true pope no longer exist — that is, validly consecrated bishops — the only unity possible is that for which we have advocated these many years: strict adherence to the teachings of the Continual Magisterium. And so it seems fitting that, St. Peter’s Chair at Rome having been vacant now for 66 years, we address the particulars of that vacancy, especially because there still seems to be much confusion and misunderstanding regarding what has been presented on this site and the current state of affairs in the Church. First it is helpful to remind all those reading this of their obedience to the Roman Pontiff in ALL things as expressed below by Abp. Amleto Cicognani:

“…All Catholics are subject to the dogmatic canons of Ecumenical Councils and pronouncements of the Holy See. The decisions of the Roman Pontiff condemning propositions contra fidem et mores, the various instructions of the Holy Office, the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda, the Congregation for the Oriental Church and the Sacred Penitentiary, the prohibition of books and theories opposed to Catholic faith and morals, all pertain to Catholic doctrine…. All the above pronouncements, although they do not strictly pertain to the divine law, follow, however, as deductions or declarations therefrom, and they concern the doctrine of the Church, and not its discipline properly so-called…” (Canon Law, 1935; Canon 1; pgs. 453-54).

Among these pronouncements would be Pope Pius XII’s 1945 papal election law Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis (VAS). Although it is a complete revision of Pope St. Pius X’s Vacante Sede Apostolica, it agrees with it in almost all its essential points. VAS forbids any episcopal consecrations during an interregnum as a usurpation of papal jurisdiction and nullifies any attempts at such consecrations, rendering them invalid. The same is true of anyone erecting seminaries and attempting ordinations, for this is also a usurpation of papal jurisdiction. Even bishops created during the reign of Pope Pius XII, if they participated in the Novus Ordo, accepted the usurper popes and/or signed Vatican 2 documents cannot validly ordain or consecrate without the lifting of infamy of law attached to Can. 2314 §1 regarding communicatio in sacris.  Since none of the bishops or other prelates among those “electing” and accepting John 23 and Paul 6 called for a new election based on the invalid election of these usurpers, there is no one left to validly elect a true pope.

Who usually elects in the absence of the cardinals?

The protocols to be followed in such a situation are hereby explained by Thomas Cardinal Cajetan, (1469-1534) as quoted by Reverend Charles Journet, (The Church of the Word Incarnate): Journet asks: “In whom does the power to elect the Pope reside?” Cajetan answers: “The Pope can settle who the electors shall be, and change and limit in this way the mode of election.” Journet, in summarizing Cajetan’s arguments writes: “In a case where the settled conditions of validity have become inapplicable, the task of determining new ones falls to the Church by devolution, this last word being taken, as Cajetan notes (Apologia, Chap. xiii, No. 745), not in the strict sense (devolution is strictly to the higher authority in case of default in the lower), but in the wide sense, signifying all trans­mission, even to an inferior. (p. 480.)

“Cajetan affirms through Journet’s reasoned explanation: “…When the provisions of canon law cannot be fulfilled, the right to elect will belong to certain members of the Church of Rome. In default of the Roman clergy, the right will belong to the Church universal, (as with the Council of Constance), of which the Pope is to be bishop…. During a vacancy of the Apostolic See, neither the Church nor the Council can contravene the provisions already laid down to determine the valid mode of election. However … if the Pope has provided nothing against it, or in case of ambiguity (for example, if it is unknown who the true cardinals are, or who the true Pope is…), the power ‘of applying the papacy to such and such a person’ devolves on the universal Church, the Church of God” (Cajetan: De Comnarata, Cap. xiii, No. 202¬204; also, Apologia, Cap. xiii, No. 736.)

John of St. Thomas says: “…The concrete mode in which the election is to be carried out … has been nowhere indicated in Scripture; it is mere ecclesiastical law which will determine which persons in the Church can validly proceed to election.” It should also be noted that both Card. Cajetan and John of St. Thomas wrote prior to the ruling by Popes Pius X and Pius XII, and as Card. Cajetan states, “During a vacancy of the Apostolic See, neither the Church nor the Council can contravene the provisions already laid down to determine the valid mode of election” (De Comparata, cap. xiii, no. 202). And this is borne out by Popes Pius X and Pius XII.

While the above may have applied formerly, when all elected an unworthy candidate to the papacy in the person of Angelo Roncalli (John 23) they were automatically disqualified from electing another pope under Can. 2391 §1. This means that any remaining bishops would need to gather and study the situation, determining how to proceed according to VAS. But no bishops stepped forward to do this; none renounced Roncalli. All became willing members of the Novus Ordo church. And so all not only forfeited the right to elect themselves, but became apostates.

Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis no ecclesiastical law

Certainly with the election laws of Pope St. Pius X and Pope Pius XII, the Church has sufficiently expressed her something against it, since these laws clearly state that nothing can be done during an interregnum, even by the cardinals. At one time perhaps, before its codification by Pope St. Pius X, papal election law was considered ecclesiastical law, but it is now considered special law. Under Title IV — of Ecclesiastical Offices, (which provides laws for other types of elections), according to Can. 160, papal elections are governed exclusively by Pius XII’s Apostolic Constitution Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis. This removes it from the realm of ecclesiastical law strictly speaking. The first three paragraphs of this constitution speak solely of the inalienable rights and prerogatives of the Roman Pontiff and the Church — especially during an interregnum — and thus these paragraphs treat of the supreme jurisdiction of the Roman Pontiff and the duties, especially of the cardinals, to defend the Church’s rights during the vacancy of the Holy See, when She is most vulnerable to attack.

Pius XII levies penalties for violating papal law and canon law during an interregnum, penalties which can be lifted only by a future pontiff, and these penalties are taken from ancient laws dating back to the Middle Ages. He then seals it in the third paragraph by stating that anything done which violates the penalties he has laid down for usurping papal jurisdiction, violating the rights of the Church, or disobeying or ignoring papal or canon law is null, void and invalid, and this by his “Supreme Authority.” So while the rest of the constitution is mainly about the manner of election by Cardinals, there are certain parts of it that obviously are intended to preserve the Church’s unchangeable nature and integrity and preserve the pope’s supremacy of jurisdiction during an interregnum, both of which are matters of Divine Revelation. So the three paragraphs introducing Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis, at least, are infallible.

Fatal errors of the “illicit only” crowd

At one time, I believed the laity could elect a pope, using a wide interpretation of the “devolution principle” and the term “universal Church.” Further study and hard experience proved this was not possible, given the dogmatic definitions by the Council of Trent, VAS and other considerations. Based in part on the idea that VAS was only “an ecclesiastical law” and not binding on the faithful, I also believed Traditional clergy were only questionably valid. But again, the realization that VAS was infallible in its first three paragraphs, at least; also learning that the vindicative penalty incurred by infamy of law invalidated attempts by LibTrad pseudo-clergy to perform ecclesiastical acts proved this belief to be false. Some, however, never questioned the validity of these pseudo-clerics and began praying at home because they believed these men were only illicit (and to be avoided according to the teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas).

Those holding this belief maintain they are not obligated to determine if these false clergy are valid or not, and some among them insist invalidity can never be proven. They base this on arguments advanced by Trad pseudo-clergy citing epikeia (a relaxation of the law based on reasonableness) as a sort of suppletory principle. It was for this reason I decided to further investigate this issue several years ago, resulting in the invalidity and epikeia proofs presented HERE and HERE. All these proofs are taken directly from infallible Church teaching and Canon Law, and indisputably prove that the principle of epikeia could never be used by LibTrads to circumvent the Divine Law of juridical mission.  It is the manner in which the continuation of this mission will proceed that is addressed in Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis, which forbids the cardinal priests and bishops to usurp papal jurisdiction during an interregnum. And it is clear from binding papal documents throughout the centuries that the pope alone has the right to approve bishops prior to their consecration, which cannot proceed without his approval.

Those claiming Traditional clergy possess illicit orders only, then, are upholding validity. They deny that the pope alone has supreme jurisdiction to rule otherwise — the right and power to approve bishops and declare those consecrated without this approval during an interregnum null, void and invalid. They are the fence straddlers Christ has said He will vomit from His mouth. They claim that observing the safer course by not attending Mass and Sacraments is enough, but they are confusing the moral precepts governing conscience formation with the necessary obedience to the dogmatic portion of VAS. They are basing their position on an opinion which LibTrad “experts” claim is probable — that VAS is an ecclesiastical law only and can be dismissed as no longer applying to the current “emergency” situation.

No probable opinion on validity possible

But they must ask themselves: What proofs have these experts ever presented that support this so-called opinion? Probable opinions can be formulated and considered as reliable only by five or six approved theologians writing before the death of Pope Pius XII, and LibTrad pseudo-clergy have never been approved or commissioned to teach by a canonically elected pope. Even if these probable opinions could be found, all theologians agree, as pointed out on this site many times, from approved works: Probable opinions can never be used to determine sacramental validity. (Revs. Prummer, McHugh and Callan, Abp. Cicognani, Davis, Slater, et al). It seems to matter to no one that Pope Pius XII uses his “Supreme Authority,” added specifically to his revision of Pope St. Pius X’s previous election law, to express his mind in this matter. Or that VAS is entered into the Acta Apostolica Sedis and is therefore binding on all for belief, not just the Cardinals as LibTrads also sometimes claim.

If the illicit only crowd yet believe these men are valid, they should also consider what Rev. Gury and others have to say in this matter. For it is not just abstaining from the liturgical functions of the LibTrad sects that remove one from the bane of communicatio in sacris  (cooperation with non-Catholics); it is also abandoning all their so-called doctrines. And primary among these doctrines is their pretended validity. So clearly those still holding these men to be valid, with absolutely no proof of their validity and a mountain of proof offered in the links above to disprove it, are yet guilty of communicatio in sacris. They may pray at home and eschew all else they know to be false that was taught by the LibTrad sects. But if they cling to this one, monumental error, they are guilty of denying a truth infallibly taught by the Church as closely connected to Divine Revelation.

And what is the penalty for holding such beliefs, even if taught only in the pope’s ordinary magisterium (dogma is not just contained only in ex cathedra pronouncements), in order to be classified as a dogma? The following is taken from a chart On the Value of Theological Notes and the Criteria for Discerning Them by Father Sixtus Cartechini S.J., Rome, 1951 — a work which was drafted for use by auditors of the Roman Congregations.

This is not a matter of conscience formation, but of membership in the Catholic Church. In VAS, Pope Pius XII infallibly indicates that any usurpation of those things reserved exclusively to the Pope is forbidden during an interregnum, (and we are 66 years into this interregnum). Approval of bishops prior to their consecration is exclusively reserved to the pope (Council of Trent, Mystici Corporis, Ad sinarum gentum). Ergo, consecration without papal approval is a usurpation of the pope’s supreme jurisdiction, divinely instituted by Christ, and is therefore null, void and invalid. So any objections about the anathemas and warnings posted on this site against LibTrad sects and especially the leaders of these sects is well justified — these leaders are not clerics, and they do not represent the Catholic remnant any more than their Novus Ordo counterparts because they long ago ceased to be members of the Church! They are leading souls astray, and lest we be condemned ourselves, we are obligated to expose them. 

Conclusion

True bishops existing in 1958 were under a grave obligation to challenge Roncalli’s election as invalid, a proven fact according to the laws and teachings of the Church. Had they then declared the papal See vacant, followed the election part of VAS as far as possible and elected a true pope, we would not be writing this today. But through fear, cowardice, or crass and supine ignorance they abandoned the Church to join a non-Catholic sect. Pope Paul IV’s Cum ex Apostolatus Officio and Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis held all the answers and solutions to the problems which arose but they chose to defy these infallible teachings, and none of the faithful rose up to demand they do their bounden duty. This was and is the Great Apostasy. Rev. J. Wilhelm writes in the 1911 Catholic Encyclopedia under Councils: “…When there was no Pope, or the rightful Pope was indistinguishable from antipopes… In such abnormal times the safety of the Church becomes the supreme law and the first duty of the abandoned flock is to find a new shepherd, under whose direction the existing evils may be remedied.”

The safety of the Church is paramount in such times, and only the Roman Pontiff can guarantee that safety, not the Mass and Sacraments. Without the safety only Christ’s Vicar can offer, we fell prey to the ministrations of men dressed as clerics, promoting the worship of bread idols and misleading souls; hearing confessions with no ability to absolve and no obligation to observe the Seal of the Confessional; pretending to perpetuate themselves with ancient rites devoid of any transmission of power. In short, a cruel mockery of all that was ever holy in the Church, particularly the papacy. We offer this article as a small act of reparation to St. Peter and his successors, who along with Our Lord suffered and died for the faith. Those praying the Unity Octave should understand well what they pray for, for today the only unity we can hope to obtain is by faithful obedience to all papal pronouncements throughout the ages:

That they all may be one as Thou Father in Me and I in Thee, that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me.

V. I say unto thee that thou art Peter

R. And upon this rock I will build My Church. 

Let us pray: O Lord Jesus Christ, Who said unto thine Apostles, “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you, regard not our sins but the faith of Thy Church and grant unto Her that peace and unity WHICH ARE AGREEABLE TO THY WILL. Who livest and reignest God forever and ever. Amen.

(300 days indulgence)

A book for those foundering in the sea of unbelief

by T. Stanfill Benns | Jan 6, 2025 | New Blog

+Feast of the Epiphany+

A book review

So many today long for a simple, more comprehensive explanation of what has happened to the Church. Especially needed is one aimed at younger people estranged from religion entirely but who still believe, or those identifying as Christians who sense the emptiness of their sects’ teachings and are seeking a more meaningful relationship with God. And last of all but not least, those poor lost souls out there today surveying the wreckage that was once established religion and concluding that Christianity is nothing more than a fairy tale.

The book previewed below was written for all of them. The author is a Catholic mother and grandmother living in Australia who has worked through her own trials to finally arrive at the truth. It has led her to the belief that staying at home to keep the faith is the only way to save our souls. Her book lays the basic foundation for Catholic belief, then slowly leads the reader to a gradual understanding of what we have suffered since the death of Pope Pius XII, in the Church and in the world. Please share the link at the end of this blog with anyone you know who may benefit from it.

THE DREAM

It is now many years since the experience, but I have not forgotten it!  When I was a child, I cannot remember the exact age, somewhere between eight and twelve, I had a recurring dream every night for at least two months.  As soon as I closed my eyes after hopping into bed, I would see mist, thick mist starting to roll in towards me, like waves rolling in. It was grey to start with and not so threatening. As the mist ebbed out and came back at me, it grew thicker and darker. Through the dark thickness I could see a Light shining in the shape of a bright white disc, at the edge of the rolling waves.  The dream used to frighten me, so much so, that I would wake up screaming most nights.  My mother would come in often to try and comfort me and tell me it was just a dream.

Night after night, the same dream started soon after I closed my eyes. The ebbing would cause the darkness to grow in height, strength and thickness and it would roll in at me growing in greater force each time. I was certain I was going to drown in the darkness.  Gradually though, as soon as the nightmare started, my focus would move away from the black monstrous darkness and onto the brightness of the Light shining at the edge of the waves.  As the days and nights passed, I grew quite used to the dream because I began to realise that no matter how ferocious the thickening darkness became, it could never overcome me or snuff out that Light.  The Light was something I clung to, something to feel safe with, to trust.  Then one night the dream just stopped altogether.

CHAPTER ONE: AN INTRODUCTION

Dearest Reader, welcome! For you I have one desire: that what will unfold before you in these pages will help you personally to cast off all darkness. I desire to help you clear away conflicting thoughts, confusion, tension, stress, anxiety, guilt, nervousness, or anything else unbalancing you; and give you the power to replace the Darkness with the Light. For far too long we have been fed dangerous portions of brainwashing lies, so much so, that we have lost the capability to think for ourselves and act precisely.

More importantly, we have also been robbed of nourishment both spiritually and physically. You will come to know the culprits who have robbed us as you venture through. Having this information, hopefully dear Reader, will help you to broaden your mind and allow you to find remedies for your troubles.

It is true. I do not actually know you personally, but I can understand why you would choose a book with this title. Most of us living in this current time in history are troubled souls because confusion and lies have been deliberately forced upon us. Whether young, old, or somewhere in between, most of us feel confusion and have emotional disturbances within ourselves. Take courage, dear Reader, for Light and Understanding are about to open for you.

If you have become accustomed, wittingly or unwittingly, to the brainwashing lies being fed daily to us from all walks of life then it may take you a little longer to clear the darkness. These techniques used upon us may have without you realizing it coerced you into accepting changes in your personal, social, spiritual, public, political, critical and creative thinking, but you will learn to decipher how and why these changes happened. The darkness will lift. You will know when this lifting starts to happen because you will begin to have your own thoughts, ideas, desires, and freedoms again.

For the younger ones, you will discover these delights and ancient capabilities for the first time. At this comment you might feel a little insulted, especially if you believe you already have full control of your own thoughts. Of course, you have the capability to control your own mind, but you will learn how outside pressures can sway our thoughts and confuse us. It is a technique used to make us vulnerable, doubtful, or even unbalanced.

Equilibrium is a state in which opposing forces or influences are balanced. This generation, I believe, dear Reader, has lost its equilibrium and become imbalanced. Another way to explain this is that we have lost our compass, or we have a compass spinning out of control where new laws, rules, regulations, ideas, and opinions are tossed at us continuously. This happens at such a fast-pace we have no time to process or ponder let alone understand.

A compass points us in the right direction. The Light Compass points us in the right thought direction. Without either our Light Compass (or our equilibrium), we become vulnerable enough to accept anything, everything, or even despondently accept nothing.

Note here I use the word “vulnerable.” You may or may not be aware but our generation, dear troubled soul, has deliberately been made vulnerable. We are under attack constantly; our Light Compass has been deliberately tampered with and transformed into something else, and the true Light Compass is now in eclipse! Our equilibrium is imbalanced. The constant brainwashing being forced on us both physically and emotionally harms us.

If you are one of the older ones amongst us, dear Reader, you might remember a time when things were much simpler, more fulfilling, and rewarding—a time when people in general were happier. You might still be able to differentiate between truth and lies; goodness and badness; happiness and sadness; joyfulness and misery; right and wrong. You would have lived by a compass or a moral standard like the Ten Commandments. Maybe a loving family was your guide and compass. You would have known your neighbors, your friends, relatives, your children’s teachers, and they would have all seemed to be on the same page as you. You would have known your politicians and world leaders, and you would have recognized their lies and truths. Your equilibrium would have been balanced and this would have given you comfort and security.

Have you felt this balance slipping away from you? Do you feel the compass spinning? Do you sometimes feel you do not understand the changes in people close to you, or feel useless and confused in this modern world?

Currently most of us do not speak out about things we know in our heart are wrong, fearing even to raise these wrongs with our own acquaintances for the horror of being laughed at, judged, belittled, or ostracized. People are being blocked on social media, or even punished by law, for speaking out and using free speech. This might add to our fear.

Dear younger Reader, if you are a soul raised in a terrific family environment, you are one of the fortunate ones. Step outside the family and into the world and you too might possibly feel the confusion and stress. If you are a hurt soul, that has come from a broken family torn between two uncompromising parents, it must be difficult for you. Or perhaps you are under an abusive family; or sadly, you have no family and have been passed around from foster family to foster family. In whatever horrible situation you find yourself in, dear soul, you would possibly be feeling miserably unwanted and unloved. I want you to know there is help at hand. There is Light that shines so brightly it clears all your Darkness.

You might be one of thousands of souls caught up in a false reality due to taking substances, alcoholism, or trapped in a dark abusive situation. If you are of school age, or a university student, dear soul, you may feel you do not even know yourself. This confusion comes from lies being taught to you. Have courage young, troubled soul, as it is very possible, with a little determination, you will soon understand that a better life is ahead of you—a clearer, brighter knowledge, about who you really are, and what you really are capable of achieving. Read with an open mind, know that you are truly loved by Love itself. Go forth on this journey with confidence following the Light and dismissing the Darkness, all of which will be explained to you as we wander on through this adventure.

First though, if you are doubting any change in you is possible, I do understand; maybe you feel you are in a permanent dark hole. Yes, it is harder for those who have not been shown or raised by the Light Compass, or even been taught there is such a thing. Your equilibrium has probably never been balanced.

A thing known as common-sense has also been killed off. There was a time not so long ago, dear young one, that things that made sense, things that we knew were correct, were automatically understood by most of us. Unfortunately, common-sense is not so common anymore. In fact, the merging of truth and lies, goodness and badness, right and wrong, happiness and sadness, joyfulness and misery has been so deliberately mingled together you probably see life in a grey tinge. So dark a grey, that you live in a cloudy fog. You probably try with all you might to grab some happiness in anything that comes your way. Afterwards though, you are left feeling worse than before. Take courage, young one, for being young you can learn faster, see more clearly, and hear better. You will be able to find the Light Compass and balance your own equilibrium sooner. Therefore, you will be able to think clearly for yourself for the first time. Have confidence because Light and Understanding will also open to you.

For all Readers, of all ages, no matter what the darkness is that surrounds you now, it is obvious you are searching for a way out. I know this because you are reading this book in the hope of finding help. As mentioned already, I do not know you personally, but this is not important. What is important is that you get to know yourself better. Therefore, you will understand that what you yourself is searching for is what every human being desires: happiness! True happiness only comes through true freedom, which is the Light!

You will come to understand that happiness is not only found in the good times, the healthy times, the rewarding and successful times. It is very possible and often necessary to find happiness also in sorrow and suffering.

The trouble disturbing your soul presently, dear Reader, is probably coming from two sources: from outside of yourself, and from within yourself. From outside of yourself, there are two forces always working within the world around you, not necessarily in any equality or strength. From within yourself, there are also the same two forces working within you, but at lesser and differing degrees. One force is the Light, which is love; the other opposing force is the Darkness, which is hate. These two forces not only affect the spiritual and physical world which we live in, but also, they affect everyone’s life on earth. The Light governs with benevolent order, while the Darkness attacks with utter chaos. (End of book preview)

To read Chapter II and order the book, go to https://assets.booklocker.com/pdfs/13669s.pdf

Begin the New Year with prayers for Divine faith

by T. Stanfill Benns | Dec 31, 2024 | New Blog

+Feast of the Circumcision+

                      Prayer Intention for January, Month of the Holy Name of Jesus                                             “All whatsoever you do in word or in work, do all in the name of the                 Lord Jesus Christ.” (Col. 3:17)

The prayer for Preservation of the Faith by Pope Leo XIII below demonstrates once again that there will come a time when Christ will withdraw His protection from the faithful and seem to turn a deaf ear to them. Below he is begging us to pray to be strengthened in our faith, reminding us that only by faith and obedience are we safe within the bark of St. Peter; only there are we protected. Unity can be maintained only in that bark, the one sheepfold. Christ is the author of our faith, the beginning and end of it, but he left it to St. Peter and his canonically elected successors to guide us in the light of truth. We must remember that in the long St. Michael’s Prayer, intended for private recitation during exorcisms, Pope Leo XIII already had proclaimed that “In the holy place itself, where has been set up the See of the most holy Peter and the Chair of Truth for the light of the world, they have raised the throne of their abominable impiety with the iniquitous design that when the pastor has been struck, the sheep will be scattered.”

Pope Leo’s prayers are only a paraphrase of Holy Scripture. We find the scattering of the sheep in Ch. 34 of Ezechiel, also in Zachary 13:7 where he prophesies concerning the Messiah. And Christ foretells it of Himself, in Matt. 26:31. This last verse also can be applied not only to His Passion and death, but to the passion of the Church, according to Henry Cardinal Manning. Pope Leo XIII’s prayer below was meant to forestall that awful day when the protection of the papacy would be withdrawn from us. Divine faith is the belief in the Deposit of Faith Christ established while on earth. And the only authority capable of authentically defining and interpreting this Deposit is Christ’s vicar on earth.

For: “This sacred Office of Teacher in matters of faith and morals must be the proximate and universal criterion of truth for all theologians, since to it has been entrusted by Christ Our Lord the whole deposit of faith — Sacred Scripture and Divine Tradition — to be preserved, guarded and interpreted… Still the duty is incumbent on the faithful to flee also those errors which more or less approach heresy, and accordingly “to keep also the constitutions and decrees by which such evil opinions are proscribed and forbidden by the Holy See” (Pope Pius XII, Humani generis, 1950).

Christ is the author of all jurisdiction. He embodied the primacy of this jurisdiction in the Roman Pontiff. This includes the power to teach, to govern (enact laws) and to sanctify (Vatican Council). This then was to be extended by the Roman Pontiffs to the successors of the Apostles. Deny this and we deny an article of Divine faith. Unless united and obedient to a true pontiff, bishops lack this power, because Christ placed the Apostles under St. Peter as their head. In granting him the power to bind and loose, he gave St. Peter (and the Apostles) the ability to forgive sins and the popes and ecumenical councils the power to enact excommunications and other laws. Again, belief in the ability of the Roman Pontiff to enforce these laws is a matter of Divine faith contained in the Deposit, especially when such excommunications are specially or most especially reserved to the pope.

The much-respected Irish catechist, Rev. John Kearney, in his Our Greatest Treasure (1942)  teaches: “To refuse to submit to one of the laws of the Church in a serious matter is a mortal sin. Such a refusal is a resistance to God Himself, for the Church speaks in His name… We must accept and submit to these laws even if we do not see the reason for which they are made. To refuse is to resist God himself… We must become as little children if we want to enter the Kingdom of heaven. The priceless gift of the true faith which God and His goodness has given to us can be lost and if lost it may perhaps never be regained. One of the first steps in this loss of the gift is the imprudence (arising from pride) of questioning the wisdom of the laws of the Church.”

Those who refuse to believe a pope must be canonically elected in order to become a true successor of St. Peter is denying an article of faith embodied in the laws of the Church. Whoever denies the necessity of the papacy for the Church to exist and to be governed are denying Divine Revelation contained in the Deposit. They sin mortally by refusing to accept and obey the body of Canon Laws contained in the 1917 Code, laws which are derived primarily from the documents of the Roman Pontiffs and ecumenical councils. They have already abandoned their faith. A miracle of grace alone can restore it, but they can pray for that miracle, although it will require them to amend their ways, abandon the Traditionalist movement or Novus Ordo sect, and do penance.

What follows below this first day of the New Year is offered in the hope that those who genuinely love Our Lord will return to Him and beg His forgiveness. For truly, as Rev. Kearney says, the Faith is our greatest treasure, our pearl of great price.

Prayer for the Preservation of the Faith

“O my Redeemer, will that dreadful time ever come, when but few Christians shall be left who are inspired by the spirit of faith, that time when Thine anger shall be provoked and Thy protection shall be take away from us? Have our vices and our evil lives irrevocably moved Thy justice to take vengeance, perhaps this very day, upon Thy children?

O Thou, the beginning and end of our faith, we conjure Thee, in the bitterness of our contrite and humbled hearts, not to suffer the fair light of faith to be extinguished in us. Remember Thy mercies of old, turn Thine eyes in mercy upon the vineyard planted by Thine own right hand, and watered by the sweat of the Apostles, by the precious blood of countless Martyrs and by the tears of so many sincere penitents, and made fruitful by the prayers of so many Confessors and innocent Virgins.

O divine Mediator, look upon those zealous souls who raise their hearts to Thee and pray ceaselessly for the maintenance of that most precious gift of Thine, the true faith. We beseech Thee, O God of justice, to hold back the decree of our rejection, and to turn away Thine eyes from our vices and regard instead the adorable Blood shed upon the Cross, which purchased our salvation and daily intercedes for us upon our altars.

Ah, keep us safe in the true Catholic and Roman faith. Let sickness afflict us, vexations waste us, misfortunes overwhelm us! But preserve in us Thy holy faith; for if we are rich with this precious gift, we shall gladly endure every sorrow, and nothing shall ever be able to change our happiness. On the other hand, without this great treasure of faith, our unhappiness would be unspeakable and without limit!

O good Jesus, author of our faith, preserve it untainted within us; keep us safe in the bark of Peter, faithful and obedient to his successor and Thy Vicar here on earth, that so the unity of Holy Church may be maintained,holiness fostered, the Holy See protected in freedom, and the Church universal extended to the benefit of souls. O Jesus, author of our faith, humble and convert the enemies of Thy Church; grant true peace and concord to all Christian kings and princes and to all believers; strengthen and preserve us in Thy holy service, so that we may live in Thee and die in Thee. O Jesus, author of our faith, let me live for Thee and die for Thee. Amen.”

Comment: Yet however great our sins, regardless of how long we have remained in darkness, we must never lose hope and must always beg God for the graces we need to repent of our sins and save our souls. 

Psalm 73

O God, why hast thou cast us off unto the end: why is thy wrath enkindled against the sheep of thy pasture?Remember thy congregation, which thou hast possessed from the beginning. The sceptre of thy inheritance which thou hast redeemed: mount Sion in which thou hast dwelt. Lift up thy hands against their pride unto the end; see what things the enemy hath done wickedly in the sanctuary.

And they that hate thee have made their boasts, in the midst of thy solemnity. They have set up their ensigns for signs, and they knew not both in the going out and on the highest top. As with axes in a wood of trees, they have cut down at once the gates thereof, with axe and hatchet they have brought it down.

They have set fire to thy sanctuary: they have defiled the dwelling place of thy name on the earth. They said in their heart, the whole kindred of them together: Let us abolish all the festival days of God from the land. Our signs we have not seen, there is now no prophet: and he will know us no more.

How long, O God, shall the enemy reproach: is the adversary to provoke thy name forever? Why dost thou turn away thy hand: and thy right hand out of the midst of thy bosom forever? But God is our king before ages: he hath wrought salvation in the midst of the earth.

Thou by thy strength didst make the sea firm: thou didst crush the heads of the dragons in the waters.Thou hast broken the heads of the dragon: thou hast given him to be meat for the people of the Ethiopians. Thou hast broken up the fountains and the torrents: thou hast dried up the Ethan rivers.

Thine is the day, and thine is the night: thou hast made the morning light and the sun. Thou hast made all the borders of the earth: the summer and the spring were formed by thee. Remember this, the enemy hath reproached the Lord: and a foolish people hath provoked thy name.

Deliver not up to beasts the souls that confess to thee: and forget not to the end the souls of thy poor. Have regard to thy covenant: for they that are the obscure of the earth have been filled with dwellings of iniquity.

Let not the humble be turned away with confusion: the poor and needy shall praise thy name. Arise, O God, judge thy own cause: remember thy reproaches with which the foolish man hath reproached thee all the day. Forget not the voices of thy enemies: the pride of them that hate thee ascendeth continually.

Ezechiel Chapter 34

Prophecy against Israel’s Shepherds

And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: Son of man, prophesy concerning the shepherds of Israel: prophesy, and say to the shepherds: Thus saith the Lord God: Woe to the shepherds of Israel, that fed themselves: should not the flocks be fed by the shepherds? You ate the milk, and you clothed yourselves with the wool, and you killed that which was fat: but my flock you did not feed.

The weak you have not strengthened, and that which was sick you have not healed, that which was broken you have not bound up, and that which was driven away you have not brought again, neither have you sought that which was lost: but you ruled over them with rigour, and with a high hand. And my sheep were scattered, because there was no shepherd: and they became the prey of all the beasts of the field, and were scattered. My sheep have wandered in every mountain, and in every high hill: and my flocks were scattered upon the face of the earth, and there was none that sought them, there was none, I say, that sought them.

Therefore, ye shepherds, hear the word of the Lord: As I live, saith the Lord God, forasmuch as my flocks have been made a spoil, and my sheep are become a prey to all the beasts of the field, because there was no shepherd: for my shepherds did not seek after my flock, but the shepherds fed themselves, and fed not my flocks: Therefore, ye shepherds, hear the word of the Lord: Thus saith the Lord God: Behold I myself come upon the shepherds, I will require my flock at their hand, and I will cause them to cease from feeding the flock any more, neither shall the shepherds feed themselves any more: and I will deliver my flock from their mouth, and it shall no more be meat for the

The Good Shepherd (Psalm 23:1-6; John 10:1-21)

For thus saith the Lord God: Behold I myself will seek my sheep, and will visit them. As the shepherd visiteth his flock in the day when he shall be in the midst of his sheep that were scattered, so will I visit my sheep, and will deliver them out of all the places where they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day. And I will bring them out from the peoples, and will gather them out of the countries, and will bring them to their own land: and I will feed them in the mountains of Israel, by the rivers, and in all the habitations of the land.

I will feed them in the most fruitful pastures, and their pastures shall be in the high mountains of Israel: there shall they rest on the green grass, and be fed in fat pastures upon the mountains of Israel. I will feed my sheep : and I will cause them to lie down, saith the Lord God. I will seek that which was lost: and that which was driven away, I will bring again: and I will bind up that which was broken, and I will strengthen that which was weak, and that which was fat and strong I will preserve: and I will feed them in judgment.

And as for you, O my flocks, thus saith the Lord God: Behold I judge between cattle and cattle, of rams and of he-goats. Was it not enough for you to feed upon good pastures? but you must also tread down with your feet the residue of your pastures: and when you drank the clearest water, you troubled the rest with your feet. And my sheep were fed with that which you had trodden with your feet: and they drank what your feet had troubled.

Therefore thus saith the Lord God to you: Behold, I myself will judge between the fat cattle and the lean. Because you thrusted with sides and shoulders, and struck all the weak cattle with your horns, till they were scattered abroad: I will save my flock, and it shall be no more a spoil, and I will judge between cattle and cattle.

AND I WILL SET UP ONE SHEPHERD OVER THEM, and he shall feed them, even my servant David: he shall feed them, and he shall be their shepherd. And I the Lord will be their God: and my servant David the prince in the midst of them: I the Lord have spoken it… And you my flocks, the flocks of my pasture are men: and I am the Lord your God, saith the Lord God.

Daniel Ch. 9: 4-19

And I prayed to the Lord, my God, and I made my confession, and said: I beseech thee, O Lord God, great and terrible, who keepest the covenant, and mercy to them that love thee, and keep thy commandments.

We have sinned, we have committed iniquity, we have done wickedly, and have revolted: and we have gone aside from thy commandments, and thy judgments.
 We have not hearkened to thy servants, the prophets, that have spoken in thy name to our kings, to our princes, to our fathers, and to all the people of the land.

To thee, O Lord, justice: but to us confusion of face, as at this day to the men of Juda, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to all Israel, to them that are near, and to them that are far off, in all the countries whither thou hast driven them, for their iniquities, by which they have sinned against thee.
O Lord, to us belongeth confusion of face, to our princes, and to our fathers, that have sinned.

But to thee, the Lord our God, mercy and forgiveness, for we have departed from thee:
And we have not hearkened to the voice of the Lord, our God, to walk in his law, which he set before us by his servants, the prophets.
And all Israel have transgressed thy law, and have turned away from hearing thy voice, and the malediction, and the curse, which is written in the book of Moses, the servant of God, is fallen upon us, because we have sinned against him.

And he hath confirmed his words which he spoke against us, and against our princes that judged us, that he would bring in upon us a great evil, such as never was under all the heaven, according to that which hath been done in Jerusalem, (see Matt. 24:21).
As it is written in the law of Moses, all this evil is come upon us: and we entreated not thy face, O Lord our God, that we might turn from our iniquities, and think on thy truth.

And the Lord hath watched upon the evil, and hath brought it upon us: the Lord, our God, is just in all his works which he hath done: for we have not hearkened to his voice.
 And now, O Lord, our God, who hast brought forth thy people out of the land of Egypt, with a strong hand, and hast made thee a name as at this day: we have sinned, we have committed iniquity,
O Lord, against all thy justice:

Let thy wrath and thy indignation be turned away, I beseech thee, from thy city, Jerusalem, and from thy holy mountain. For by reason of our sins, and the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem, and thy people, are a reproach to all that are round about us.
Now, therefore, O our God, hear the supplication of thy servant, and his prayers: and shew thy face upon thy sanctuary, which is desolate, for thy own sake.



Incline, O my God, thy ear, and hear: open thy eyes, and see our desolation, and the city upon which thy name is called: for it is not for our justifications that we present our prayers before thy face, but for the multitude of thy tender mercies.
O Lord, hear: O Lord, be appeased: hearken, and do: DELAY NOT, for thy own sake, O my God: because thy name is invocated upon thy city, and upon thy people.

Meditations on the Passion of the Infant Jesus, Pt. 2

by T. Stanfill Benns | Dec 11, 2024 | New Blog

       +Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Patroness of the Americas and the Papacy+

As St. Anselm once said, “If there is anything that calls for correction, I do not refuse the correction.” Journalists are regularly required to run corrections (which differ from retractions) and as a community newspaper reporter, I ran them whenever necessary as I am required to do. So please consider what is written below.

I mistakenly identified the DVDs on Gerry Matatics’ site as a summary and presentation of Fr. Saenz-Arriaga’s book The Plot Against the Church, since Matatics ambiguously uses the same title Fr. Saenz used in his popular work, written in the 1970s. (He has used titles from my own site in the same manner in the past.) The subtitles listed in the description seemed to roughly follow the outlines of that work, and since I had no intention of purchasing Matatics’ DVDs to review them, I based my observations on what little was presented on his website. The series was instead a collection of interviews with a radio personality popular among Traditionalists. The mistake was actually a blessing in disguise, since it helped identify what is most likely the explanation for the “illicit but invalid” stance assumed by Matatics and others praying at home. The revised Matatics article, detailing what is going on behind the scenes, can be viewed HERE. To learn more about why Traditionalist pseudo-clergy must be considered invalid, read HERE.

Excerpts from The Passion of the Infant Christ, by Frances Caryll Houselander, Pt. 2 Chapter 6 — Becoming Like Little Children

“Unless you become like little children, you shall not enter the kingdom of Heaven.” (Matt.18:3)

An ordinary child who has not been warped by ill-treatment or spoiling is, until he is 10 years old, a more complete human being than he will ever be again. He possesses humility and simplicity in the true sense of those much-abused words; he has the capacity for total joy and total surrender. No memory and no experience of the power of time to dull and to heal can take away one drop from his eternal now. His reactions to other people are absolute; his love is without alloy. His trust is without question or doubt. His values are true — he is untouched by the materialism of grown-up people. Just before he leaves his childhood, he has, like a grace, an absorbed love for little things like tiny shells for their own loveliness. Humility, which cannot be separated from real simplicity, is part of young childhood.

Children do not become bitter because they are treated as little and insignificant. They take it for granted that they are so and to them it is as necessary to love and to be loved as it is to eat and drink. If we could all go back to nurseries that are no more and see what is left in them when the children went away, we should find traces of human nature in its essence as convincing as those found in the caves where the earliest known man left their signature of humanity in sanguine on the walls. For the child under 10 is like the caveman an artist and a poet; and made as he is in the image and likeness of God, he has the elements of lover and father and mother within him. To go back to childhood means that we must get back true values instead of those that are based on materialism, public opinion and snobbery; that we must regain simplicity and humility; that we must become makers and poets again; that we must regain the capacity to experience fully whatever we experience at all. And above all we must regain the courage that is partly a boundless zest for living and partly an unquestioning trust in an all-powerful love.

There are adults who do achieve this going back to childhood but they are in the minority because few have this trust and the courage it brings with it. Courage not only to take the necessary steps to return to childhood after we have grown up but courage to grow up in the first place. Those who fail to grow up do not remain children. What happens to them is this: they become fixed in their adolescence. They remain emotionally and mentally incomplete all their lives  — perpetual adolescence. Most of the few women who have achieved psychological maturity have at least one old school friend who is fixated in the upper 4th through the lower 5th whose thought and interest and conversation is all concerned with the old days at school; whose emotions are those of a schoolgirl. She suffers more than her mature friend is likely to realize. She is continually grieved because the other has outgrown and is no longer even capable of thrilling to the old excitements and sentimentalities of her adolescence.

She is constantly “hurt” by and jealous of the mature affections and wider interests whose claims her former “greatest friend” puts before her own. She looks back wistfully to the days when notes were exchange under the desk declaring total surrender to the tyranny of almost paranoic friendship including pledges not even to be on speaking terms with potential rivals. But one of the most obvious forms of perpetual adolescence, but pitiful though it is, it is far from being the most fatal. This state is by no means confined to women.  On the contrary, there are even more adolescent men; men who are dogged all through their lives by the schoolboy that they used to be.

Sometimes it is a hearty, insensitive schoolboy who thinks an excess of food or drink or any other appetite is amusing. But far more often it is an unhappy, shivering boy who infects the man with the same fear of life that he brought to his first term in his public school. The perpetual adolescent does not grow up because he or she is afraid to do so; afraid of life, afraid of grown up responsibilities, of working for a living, independence, of making decisions, of taking risks, afraid of falling in love, of making a home, of having children. Afraid of sickness, of old age and of dying.

Our Lord’s words are a challenge. To become a child is a challenge to our courage; it demands first of all that we dare to grow up, to give ourselves to life, to accept life as it is and above all to accept ourselves as we are. Many people are permanently humiliated because they cannot accept themselves as they think themselves to be. They are humiliated by a feeling of futility and frustration which has not seemed to fit in with their worldly success. It is not a fanciful feeling; there are people in whom the supernatural life is undeveloped and even unguessed. They feel, and rightly, that there are unrecognized depths within them, possibilities which no one knows and of which they themselves cannot bring into the light. They know instinctively though they would seldom admit it that to be a man without spirituality is hardly to be a man at all. But the materialism of their environment has strangled the capacity for spirituality.

Hardly any man, however proudly carnal he may be, wishes to believe of himself that he has no religion at all. The man who does come nearer to that asserts and reasserts with the overemphasis of the unconvinced that he has his own religion. Humiliated by their own not understood but deeply felt spiritually impotency, men try to compensate by material success. They try to fill up the emptiness within themselves by money, position and flattery. They try to answer and quieten the unappeasable longing to achieve the glory of complete humanity by the achievement of human power, and a humiliated man who manages to grasp power over other human beings is a potential danger to the world far more terrible than an atom bomb or bacteriological warfare. For no man who does not nail his hands with the hands that nail Christ to the cross and does not plunge himself into the magnitude of the littleness of the infant Christ is safe to exercise power.

Ideologies could not come into being without this epidemic humiliation for they depend on a multitude of young men and young women identifying themselves with a human leader. Every member of the group accepts the ideas of the leader. He accepts the leader’s mind and his conscience. He lives not by his own conscience, his own will but the conscience and the will of the leader until the time comes when he has no will but the leader’s. He loses sight of his own lack of mind and of purpose and of his own limitations and littleness and he abandons all personal responsibility for his own thoughts and actions. He is always in fancy dress. He is always acting a part and in time he really believes that he shares the force and genius of the leader. Thus for a time he has a drug to anesthetize the ache of his own humiliation.

Even when a group is passive, group mentality fosters delusion and pride. But when the group is driven or led into action, it simply becomes the most dangerous and most horrible of all things —crowd mentality. Identified with a crowd, possessed by it, a man who is really just and temperate behaves like an irrational creature. He will blaspheme, lynch,  murder — all without any sense of his personal responsibility. He is in worse case than a man who is drunk, for he is not only himself out of control but has in him the uncontrolled evil in several hundreds or thousands of other men too. Undoubtedly many who thronged the Way of the Cross hurled curses and insults at Christ only because they were possessed by a crowd. Had they had the strength to be alone, perhaps, like St. Veronica, they would have wiped the spittle of the crowd from the suffering face of Innocence. The only identification which deepens the man’s awareness of his personal responsibilities of human being is identification with Christ. The only solidarity with others which enables an individual to be wholly himself and yet really one with all other men is the mystical body of Christ. This is less an organized than an organic oneness:

“A man’s body is all one though it has a number of different organs and all this multitude of organs goes to make up one body. So it is with Christ. We too, all of us, have been baptized into a single body by the power of a single spirit. Jews and Greeks, slaves and free men alike, we have all been given drink with a single source: the one Spirit. The body, after all, consists not of one organ but of many. If the foot should say, I am not the hand and therefore I do not belong to the body doesn’t belong to the body any less for that. If the ears should say, I’m not the ear and therefore I do not belong to the body, does it belong to the body any less for that? Where would the power of hearing be if the body were all eye, or the power of smell if the body were all ear? As it is, God has given each one of them its own position in the body as he would. If the whole were one single organ, what would become of the body? Instead of that we have a multitude of organs and one body. The eye cannot say to the hand I have no need of thee or the head to the feet I have no need of you. On the contrary, it is those parts of our body which seem most contemptible that are necessary to it” (1 Cor. 12:12-23)

It is not only the spiritually starved who are humiliated and who escaped from the realization of their grown-up responsibilities into perpetual adolescence but also many pious people Catholic and non-Catholic alike. These are countless people among them who will not accept themselves as they are and who work their own natures by dwelling continually in the supposed injustice which has made their destinies mediocre they feel that but for cruel and frustrating circumstances they would have been famous. Had they been wealthier, given a better education, they would have developed their talents and won recognition. Varying the theme, had not their pampered upbringing stifled initiative, had they been pricked on by the spirit of poverty like so many great men, they would have fulfilled their genius. They live with the grievance, refusing to see the talents that they have because no one recognizes the talents they have not.

Others escape from their humiliation into daydreams of personal aggrandizement; a pathetic tendency often seen as if under a microscope in school children who when the dramatization of illness and the telling and retelling of stories that they at last believe fails will most often resort simply to mystery and mystery never fails. I have a secret and the secret is that they have no secret! Grown up people, too, resort to mysteries and wishful fantasies and sometimes they not only dream and talk about them but live them and thereby complicate other people’s lives. There are people whose vanity is such that in times of danger they do not see the people around them objectively but only themselves in the role of heroine at the center of things and only to support this role take unnecessary and unwarrantable risks and compel others to take them with them.

Think, too, of the innumerable people who in order to seem to themselves as well as to others to be richer than they are or socially superior or more successful live lives of petty dishonesty, owing bills often to those who are too poor to be kept waiting for their money, or money to friends who are too delicate to ask for it; living on credit, being underhanded and grasping in business, paying the minimum wages, living extravagantly themselves, while they let their obligations slide shutting their eyes to the real needs of their in unimportant neighbours and of entertaining those from whom something may be gained; exploiting weakness and kindness wherever they find it and desecrating themselves by deliberately childless marriages.

To keep up pretenses, human beings will sacrifice their deepest human needs. What can have so complicated them and made them so ill use themselves? They are complicated because the world is complicated and they are trying to adjust themselves to the standards of the world. All this is the exact opposite to the simplicity of childhood. Simplicity is not —  as so many think and alas teach — silliness. Simplicity means not being complicated, not being double in any way, not deluding oneself or anyone else. The first exercise in simplicity is to accept oneself as one is. There are two tremendous results of this. One is humility, the other that it enables other people to accept us as we are, and in this there is real charity.

People whose demand on others is simple and uncomplicated add to the life of the world. One of the main reasons for devitalization, depression and psychological tiredness is that we make complicated demands on one another. Everyone has, so to speak, his individual income of psychological energy, some more, some less. Everyone, in his relations with other people, makes a demand on that energy. There are normal demands which result in fair give and take, and there are abnormal demands which result in a dreadful deprivation. Some people cost us a lot of energy; they are expensive to know. Unless we have abnormally high psychological energy, they exhaust us. Others make only the slightest demands and others actually give.

The expensive people are those who because they are not simple make complicated demands, people to whom we cannot respond spontaneously and simply without anxiety. They need not be abnormal to exact these complicated responses; it is enough that they should be untruthful, or touchy or hypersensitive; or that they have an exaggerated idea of their own importance or that they have a pose, one which may have become second nature but is not what they really are. With all such people we are bound to experience a little hitch in our response. If we are not sure that what they say is true, we are embarrassed. In time our relationship with them becomes unreal. If we have to consider every word or act in their company in case it hurts their feelings or offends their dignity or to act up to them in order to support their pose, we become stained by their society. They are costing us early in psychological energy.

The individual who is simple, who accepts himself as he is, makes only a minimum demand on others in their relations with him. His simplicity not only endows his own personality with unique beauty, it is also an act of real love. This is an example of the truth that whatever sanctifies our own soul does, at the same time, benefit everyone who comes into our life. One immediate result of accepting ourselves as we are, which is becoming simple, is that we stop striving to reach a goal which means becoming something that the world admires but which is not really worthwhile. Instead we realize the things that really do contribute to our happiness and work for those. For example, we cease to want to be rich or successful or popular and want instead the things that satisfy our deeper instincts: to be at home, to make things of real beauty, to work with our hands, to have time to see and wonder at the beauty of the earth, to  love and to be loved.

To work for real human happiness implies unworldliness, the kind of unworldliness that is usually characteristic of artists who, in spite of glaring faults, preferred to be poor that they may be able to make things of  real beauty as they conceive it, rather than to soothe themselves to the tastes and standards of the world. To accept oneself as one is, to accept life as it is — these are another to do it. What is involved? First of all, the abandoning of all unreality in ourselves. But even granted that we have the courage to face ourselves and to root out every trace of pretense, how shall we then tolerate the emptiness, this insignificance, that we built up our elaborate pretense to cover? The answer is simple. If we are afraid to know ourselves for who we are, it is because we have not the least idea of what that is. It is because we have not the least idea of the miracle of life-giving love that we are. There is no pretense that can approach wonder of the truth about us, no unreality that comes anywhere near the reality. We are other Christs. Our destiny is to live the Christ life, to bring Christ life into the world, to increase Christ’s love in the world, to give Christ’s peace to the world.

Life should make full circle from birth to death, that is rebirth. The ordinary experiences of adult life, offered to the everyone if he will take them, are work, friendship, love, home, children, rest, old age and death. Within these — varying and alternating — poverty and riches, success and failure, forgiving and being forgiven, dependence on one another, illness and recovery, the illness and recovery of those whom we love, and sometimes their deaths. The experience at the core of every other, giving all the other experiences their significance, making them fruitful, is simply love. When we love, even the sufferings that our love makes more acute throw us upon the heart of God and teach us the wisdom of childhood. Poverty, when those whom we love are dependent on us, illness when those whom we love are in danger of death, teach us our own insufficiency our dire need of God.

We learn not from outside but from the depths of our own hearts the meaning of Christ’s words: “Without me you can do nothing.” In our tenderness for those whom we love, above all in our love for children, we know God in His image and likeness in ourselves. Knowing Him thus, we cannot fail to trust His tender pity for us. From coming to know God as our Father through our dependence and as Father and Mother and the Lover through His image in our souls, we learn the simplicity, the humility and trust of children, but only if we dare to love one another — if we accept the loves that come to us in our lives, saying to each one as it comes, “Be it done unto me according to your word,”  accepting the love and whatever its cost may be, the responsibility of it and the labor, the splendor of it and the sorrow.

As we grow old we regain our likeness to little children even outwardly. It is in surrendering to this that we make our old age a thing of beauty and peace. We become dependent on others. Our pleasures become fewer and simpler, more and more like those of a child. We let go at last of the struggles of the complicated years that are over. The hopes that are no more the foolish little ambitions, the forgotten griefs. Bereavements cease now to be lost and changed to the anticipation of meeting our living dead again very soon. Our values become true again we distinguish as unerringly as the child between the essential and the inessential. Our memory goes back to dwell again in the morning of our life. Thus when death comes we are able to accept this greatest of all our experiences with the child’s capacity for complete experience and dying we are made new.

There is nothing that is so irksome as the ache of an old wound and it is from countless old wounds, old sores and weals and suppurating sores and gangrenous wounds that the world is bleeding to death. It is old wounds that are poisoning the life stream of humanity. It is no wonder that there has never before been so conscious a longing for a new heaven and a new earth. Men look more wistfully on the first leaf of spring than they have ever done before.

To become a little child is to know with a child’s intuition, to see with the child’s vision. To see everything with the amazement of seeing it for the first time and with the spontaneous giving of the whole heart that is the unique joy of first love. To see human suffering not with an adult’s reasonable despair but with a child’s immediate, unquestioning compassion that admits no obstacle to its response. Within our own lifetime we have witnessed a wonder that of those who are only children and years becoming Christ-children, much more truly children than they were, and these children simply take every small suffering in their lives and offer it to God. They do not question the words of their immolation. God holds the scales; in one side is their littleness and the other they put the love of the Infant Jesus. If anyone becomes a child, that is the Christ child, or if he only recognizes the presence of the Divine Infant in his life, the sense of futility leaves him.

The divine infancy in us is the logical answer to the peculiar sufferings of our age and the only solution to its problems. If the Infant Christ is fostered in us, no life is trivial. No life is impotent before suffering, no suffering is too trifling to heal the world, too little to redeem to be the point at which the world’s healing begins. The way to begin the healing of the wounds of the world is to treasure the Infant Christ in us; to be not the castle but the cradle of Christ and in rocking that cradle to the rhythm of love, to swing the whole world back into the beat of the music of eternal life. It is true that the span of an infant’s arms is absurdly short but if they are the arms of the Divine Child, they are as wide as the reach of the arms on the Cross; they embrace and support the whole world. Their shadow is the noonday shade, for its suffering people; they are the spread wings under which the whole world shall find shelter and rest.

Meditations on the Passion of the Infant Jesus

by T. Stanfill Benns | Dec 4, 2024 | New Blog

Prayer Society Intentions for December, Month of the Nativity

“Eternal Father, I offer to Thy honor and glory, for my eternal salvation and for the salvation of the whole world, the sufferings of Jesus in the manger where He was born, the cold He suffered, the tears He shed and his tender, infant cries.” — The Raccolta

+St. Peter Chyrsologus; Doctor, St. Barbara, Virgin Martyr+

For the season of Advent I wish to share with you these excerpts below from a little work by Frances Caryll Houselander, entitled The Passion of the Infant Christ (1949).  It follows the themes often expressed in other articles and blogs here, particularly the love of St. Therese of the Child Jesus for spiritual childhood. May it lead you to the manger on ChristMass Day.

The Passion of the Infant Christ, Chapter Five

Bethlehem is the inscape of Calvary just as the snowflake is the inscape of the universe. As we have seen, the pattern of the universe in a snowflake is not only an accidental likeness but is something essential to its being, entirely in every part of it, interpenetrating it. This pattern is not all visible to the naked eye but some aspects of it are; for example, in the dazzling movement of the snowflakes as they spin around and round to earth, we see the perpetual rotation of the stars and movement is as essentially in the pattern of the universe as symmetry. But there is a design of extraordinary loveliness which cannot even be seen through an ordinary microscope and repetition of the design of the whole snowflake in every minute particle of it, hiding the unity of the whole universe in less than a pinpoint of it.

In the same way the passion of the man Christ on Calvary is at once revealed and hidden in the infant Christ in Bethlehem. Some of this mystery is visible to our eyes but much of it can only be known inwardly, when, after we have knelt in wonder for a long time before that which we can see, Christ chooses to reveal it secretly to us, illuminating the darkness of the spirit with his light, as the star of Bethlehem shone in the dark night of his birth. The gospels are economical, direct, beautiful in their economy and austerity.  They tell us the basic facts; that is all. Mary and Joseph came from their home in Nazareth to Bethlehem to be enrolled. On the day of their arrival the birth of Mary’s child was due. They could get no accommodation in Bethlehem — the inns were full. If they could have stayed at an ordinary inn, they would gladly have done so. They tried to get in but they were refused. For that reason they went to a stable and their Jesus Christ was born wrapped in swaddling bands and laid in a manger.

There is no mention of our Lord having been born in a stable but only that there was no room for Him in the inn and that he was laid in a manger. There were shepherds outside Bethlehem probably on the hills that looked down to the little city who were keeping night watches over their flocks. An Angel came to them. He came quite close and stood by them and he told them that a Savior was born. Then suddenly a host of angels, a multitude the gospel says, appeared not as we picture them in the sky but close to the shepherds, with the other who “stood by them.” It is probable and pleasing that since these angels stood close to the shepherds and their flocks, they were allowed to assume the human bodies which by nature they have not got.

When the angels had vanished, the shepherds went in haste to find the Infant, and they found him lying in a manger. After this, wise men came from the East. They came following a star. Wise in astronomy but over-simple in human affairs, for they fell at once to Herod’s craft. He asked them where the Child was to be born and they would have come back to him as he asked them to do and have directed them to where the infant Jesus lay; but they were told in a dream not to do so and consequently they went back to their own country by another road, circumventing Herod. these wise men adored the infant and gave him treasures: gold, frankincense and myrrh. When they had gone, an angel came to Joseph in his sleep and warned him to fly from Herod into Egypt, and he took the Child and his Mother and fled into the darkness of the night. Then Herod slew all the little boys of two and under who were in Bethlehem or its outskirts.

That is the story of the birth of Christ as the gospel tells it but it has become part of the collective consciousness of mankind, invested with light and loveliness which was certainly hidden in the darkness and crudity of Bethlehem, and supplied with details that are dear to the whole world from another source. This other source however originates in the gospel too and is an expression of truth. It is the Christmas crib, which is put up year after year in our churches and our homes. The crib showing the nativity and all the cities and villages and Catholic homes of the world is not only there to commemorate Christ’s first coming to earth, it is there as a symbol of Christ’s birth in us. Christmas does not only mean that God became man and was born as a human infant on a certain night in Bethlehem 2000 years ago. It means that, but equally that because of that, Christ is born in us today. Christ is born in all the cities and villages, all the streets and homes of the world today. He is born in prosperous cities lit up and noisy with pleasure whereas in Bethlehem His crying is not heard. He is born among the ruins of devastated cities, where few would recognize Him without His crown of thorns. He is born in New York, Berlin, Warsaw, Paris, London, everywhere where a single human soul repeats — even perhaps almost doubting it in themselves — Our Lady’s Fiat: “Be it done unto me.”

In an Anglican church in a poor part of London the painted background to the crib shows the actual street in which the church stands, with its narrow little houses, its crooked chimney pots and its public house. It tells the people of that parish where Christ is born today. Christ is not only born at Christmas though it is at Christmas that we keep the feast of the Incarnation. He is born day after day in every infant or adult as they are baptized; in every sinner who is sorry for sin and is absolved; in everyone in whom God’s grace quickens the supernatural life which is the Christ life, for the first or the millionth time. The first crib was given to the faithful by St. Francis of Assisi in the year 1223. It was his sermon for the Feast of the Nativity to the people of the little town of Greccio. The Saint had a real manger and hay brought an an ox and ass led in. Mass was said over the manger assisted by Francis as deacon and all the townsfolk came with lights and the night was filled with their singing.

The eyewitness who tells this lovely incident says men and beasts were filled with joy and again verily in that hour Greccio became a new Bethlehem. We can say the same on any night anywhere in a tenement, prison, hospital, school, church — wherever Christ is born or reborn in a human life — that place becomes a new Bethlehem. Saint Francis could not separate our Lord’s passion from his sensitivity. He made the first crib, he said, so that men should see with their own eyes the hardships he suffered as an infant. A man who was present on that night had a vision; he saw the Infant Jesus lying dead in the manger but when St. Francis came near, He woke to life. Thomas of Celano, who was one of the friars who tells the story, makes a comment on this which could be taken with absolute sincerity as a comment on the world as it is today. This vision was not meaningless, for had not the Child Jesus died the spiritual death of oblivion in many hearts to be wakened to new life and to reign forever in the hearts by God’s grace and the ministrations of St. Francis?

The crib, besides showing the world something of the mystery of the Blessed Trinity, besides giving us the Mother of God and bringing the angels down to the earth, shows that the Incarnation embraces in its limitless tenderness even the humble animals. Just as Adam’s fall involved the whole animal world in suffering — “All things groan together with him”… — the birth of the new Adam brought its blessing to the animals paying fallen man’s enormous amount of pity to beasts of burden; drawing them into the service and even close to the suffering of their creator and Lord. On the night of His birth, when he first gave his body to us, lambs were brought to Christ. On the night before He died, when He gave us His body in the Holy Communion, He kept the ritual of the paschal lamb. The lowly beast came into the stable to stand close to Mary and Joseph and warm them with their great shaggy flanks. The breath of cattle is fragrant with clover; old men and children believe that this is so because the ox was to breathe on the nakedness of the little Lord to warm Him.

At all events, it was the yoke of the ox that Christ used as a symbol of the cross laid on the shoulders of all those who would follow Him through the ages. “Take my yoke upon yourselves and learn from me; I am gentle and humble of heart; and you shall find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matt.11: 28-30). A donkey stood by the manger and Christ rode on the donkey on the eve of His passion, which we are told is the reason why every donkey has the cross marked out in soft dark fur on his gray back. Long ago the prophet had foreseen the hour of Christ’s birth and Christ’s death in one inseparable vision: “In the midst of two animals thou shalt be made known. When the years shall draw nigh, thou shalt be known. When the time shall come, thou shalt be known” (Habacuc 3: 2-3); Good Friday Mass of the Presanctified, Tract).

On Calvary He is set between two thieves; in Bethlehem He is set between two animals. On Calvary he is poor with the poverty of destitution; in Bethlehem He is poor with the poverty of destitution. He is deprived of his home in Nazareth; the cradle made ready for him is empty. “The foxes have holes and the birds of the air nests but the Son of Man hath nowhere to lay His head” (Luke 9: 58; Matt. 8:20). On Calvary he was naked, stripped of his garments and of all that He had; and He was naked and stripped of all that he had in Bethlehem. On Calvary He was stretched and straightened and fastened down to the cross; in Bethlehem He was stretched out and straightened and fastened in swaddling bands. On Calvary He was lifted up helpless and held up for men to look upon; in Bethlehem He was lifted up helpless to be gazed on: “Lo, if I be lifted up, I will draw all men to me!” On Calvary He was laid upon a wooden cross and in Bethlehem He was laid within a wooden manger. By the cross stood Mary His mother; by the crib knelt Mary, His mother.

He was crucified outside the city wall; He was born outside of his own village and crowded out of Bethlehem: “I am a worm, and no man, the reproach of men and the outcast of the people.” At His birth he was called King of the Jews. At his death he was called King of the Jews. The claim to be king threatened His life in Bethlehem. The claim to be king cost Him His life in Jerusalem. Three times the mysterious title is heavy with doom: at His birth, at His trial and at His death.  At His birth there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem saying, “Where is He that is born King of the Jews, for we have seen His star in the east and are come to adore him” (Matt. 2:2). At His trial Jesus stood before the governor and the governor asked Him, saying, “Art thou the King of the Jews? Jesus said to him: thou sayest it” (Matt. 26:27) At His death they put over His head His cause, written: “This is Jesus the King of the Jews” (Matt. 27:37). He was mocked at His birth by Herod; He was mocked at His death by the Roman soldiers. In both cases the derision was a mockery of adoration.

Herod was the pioneer of those hypocrites who for their own pride slayed the Christ Child in the heart of the world: “Go and diligently inquire after the Child and when you have found Him, bring me word again that I also may come and adore Him” (Matt. 2:8). The Roman soldiers were the pioneers of those egoists, too, for passing entertainment and sensation, ridicule and blasphemed the suffering Christ in the heart of man motivated — like so much cruelty today — by group mentality: “Then the soldiers of the governor, taking Jesus into the hall, gathered together unto Him the whole band. And stripping Him, they put a scarlet cloak about Him and platting a crown of thorns, they put it upon His head and a reed in His right hand. And bowing the knee before Him, they mocked Him saying, ‘Hail, king of the Jews. And spitting upon him they took the reed and struck His head” (Matt. 27: 27-30). Two crowns are set side by side — a crown of gold at His birth, a crown of thorns at His death. The crown of gold is too hard and heavy for His infant head: His head bowed and died in the crown of thorns.

Tradition named the wise men with three melodious names: Balthazar, Melchior and Caspar. To children they are three kings who travelled under a solitary store wearing their crowns and their royal robes, bringing scarlet and gold and ermine and blue clouds of incense into the stable. One of the kings is a black man. His offering his myrrh, for he carries the sorrow of the colored people in his humble, adoring heart. At Bethlehem myrrh was brought to Him and myrrh was brought to anoint His body for burial. Each time it was brought by a rich man who came by night  — first by the wise king and then by Nicodemus: “And Nicodemus also came, (he who at the first came to Jesus by night) bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a100 pound weight” (John 19:39). Another king brought incense, frankincense that was poured into a sensor of gold and lit with a flame filling the stable with an aromatic smell mingled with the smell of hay and the ox’s breath of clover. Myrrh and frankincense were poured out for Him in Bethlehem and spikenard and ointment were poured over His body in Bethania for His burial. “And when Jesus was in Bethania, in the House of Simon the leper, there came to him a woman having an alabaster box of precious ointment and poured it on His head as He was at table. And the disciples seeing it had indignation saying, ‘To what purpose is this waste? For this might have been sold for much and given to the poor. And Jesus knowing it said to them: ‘Why do you trouble this woman, for she hath wrought good work upon me. For the poor you have always with you, but me you have not always. For she in pouring this ointment upon my body hath done it for my burial” (Matt. 26: 6- 12).

There in the stable at Bethlehem began the lovely waste that is the extravagance of love that is and will always be scandal to the loveless. Already as a useless crown of gold that the Infant’s head could not support shone at His feet, clouds of incense hung in the rafters of the stable and the air grew fragrant with the smell of myrrh. The box of precious ointment was broken to anoint the beloved for his burial. Already before God the great cathedrals arose going up to him like forests of stone. Jewels from the crowns of kings and queens were set on in chalices of beaten gold. Already contemplatives, drawn by an inner compulsion mysterious as the migration of birds, flocked to God. Carmelites, Carthusians, Trappists, Poor Clares, were received into the Infant’s open hands and their nailed into the man’s hands nailed to the cross. Nailed by the three vows that are the three nails that hold Christ in us, to the cross of suffering and love that redeems the world. To what purpose is this waste for this might have been sold for the much and given to the poor.

At Bethlehem He was wrapped in swaddling bands and laid in the manger. On Calvary He was wrapped in swaddling bands and laid in a tomb. Both the manger and the tomb were borrowed. Both had been made for their owners. They were not made for Christ. All that had been prepared for Him God had set aside. God chose what men should give to His Son and He chose these things so shaped or worn to the givers life that they had become part of them, so warm with the giver’s touch that they could not be given without the giving of self. Christ accepted these offerings in which self was given; not what man had made for Him but what man had made for himself. The gifts were self at the core, involving the surrender of the giver’s will, even in the choice of the gift. So it is today and always. We would like to give God gifts of our own choosing which even if they are in one sense part of our life are yet things added on, on purpose to give, without having to pull up anything of ourselves at the roots. We are often surprised when after we have offered God several litanies a day and a pest of little mortifications, He chooses instead something that is really ourselves; our solitude, for example, or the sweetness of the feel of love, or, as is very frequent now, our home.

It is what God chooses that kindles in the crucible and burns the flame of love. He accepted with both straw and gold — He did not despise the humble animals, or the humility of their giving. He accepted the warm breath of the cattle on His cold hands and feet, the soft touch of the sheep’s wool, the joy that shone from the violet eyes of the little red calves. There was no distinction of color or race or class or education or money in Bethlehem; kings and shepherds, colored men and white men, angels and beasts adored together. The treasure of kings lay at the feet of the foot of the manger with the sheepskin coats the shepherds had taken off to give in their scarlet gourds of milk and wine. In Bethlehem the Mother of Christ gave Christ’s human body to us. She had given her own flesh and blood to Him to be His flesh and blood. Now she gave herself to us and Him. Giving Him to us, she gave His body to cold, to thirst, to light and darkness, to sleep. In Bethlehem began the thirst of Calvary, the terrible thirst of bloodlessness that withers the tongue and the hands and feet and the whole body. In Bethlehem came the infant blindness and blindness came again on Calvary, filling Christ’s eyes with the darkness of dying. In Bethlehem Christ slept his first sleep in his mother’s arms; on Calvary Christ slept his last sleep in his mother’s arms.

In the inscape of Calvary and the passion of the infant Jesus, we beheld His resurrection from the dead. Christ came out of the darkness of the womb. He was the light of the world. He came to give the world life. The life of the whole world burned in the tiny flame of an infant’s life. It began the age-long fight with death in the least and frailest that human nature can be; in the helplessness, the littleness and blindness of an infant, life prevailed. The light of the world shone in darkness. At Bethlehem love and death met in the body of Christ and Love prevailed. Over and over again and every human life love and death meet to face to face. No human power or splendor or strength, no material might or wealth can overcome death — the death of the soul. But if the life in the soul is the tiniest spark of the life of Christ, love prevails and death is overcome in us. Christ came out of the darkness of the tomb. He came back from the helplessness and blindness and silence of death and His feet that walked on earth bore the wounds of death and His hands that touched the flowers and the grass bore the wounds of death. He had overcome the world; He had died all our deaths and overcome death.

All over the world and generation after generation, men rose from the dead all over the world; everywhere there was resurrection and Easter morning in the heart of man. At Bethlehem, angels stood among the flocks and around the stable door; angels stood beside the empty tomb. The message of the Incarnation is peace. On the hills above Bethlehem, the angel song was peace: “Glory be to God in the highest and on earth peace to men of goodwill.” And peace was the word on the tongue of the risen Christ, His greeting to the world: “Peace be unto you.” At the nativity it was to shepherds that the angels brought the message of peace and shepherds who came first to the Divine Child. On the night before He suffered, Christ keeping the Feast of the Paschal Lamb, gave His peace — the peace of the Lamb of God. “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you” (John 14:27).

When the season of the risen Christ had come, warm with light and flower and fruit and the abundance of His life, it was to a shepherd that Christ came, entrusting the giving of His life and love and peace to him. He came to Peter, the shepherd of His own flock, the shepherd for all time of his shearlings and his sheep. “Simon, son of John, lovest thou me more than these?” Yea Lord, thou knowest that I love thee. “Feed my lambs. Simon, son of John, lovest thou me?” Yea, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee. “Feed my lambs. Simon, son of John, lovest thou me?” Lord thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee. “Feed my sheep.”