+Ash Wednesday+

For those who may still believe that we were not warned beforehand about the evils we see all around us today, evils that we mourn especially this Lent because they crucify Our Lord anew, we offer the following observations from the Roman Pontiffs.

Gregory XVI, Mirari Vos, 1832

“4. We come to you grieving and sorrowful because We know that you are concerned for the faith in these difficult times. Now is truly the time in which the powers of darkness winnow the elect like wheat.[3] “The earth mourns and fades away….And the earth is infected by the inhabitants thereof, because they have transgressed the laws, they have changed the ordinances, they have broken the everlasting covenant.”[4]

“5. We speak of the things which you see with your own eyes, which We both bemoan. Depravity exults; science is impudent; liberty, dissolute. The holiness of the sacred is despised; the majesty of divine worship is not only disapproved by evil men but defiled and held up to ridicule. Hence sound doctrine is perverted and errors of all kinds spread boldly. The laws of the sacred, the rights, institutions, and discipline — none are safe from the audacity of those speaking evil. Our Roman See is harassed violently and the bonds of unity are daily loosened and severed. The divine authority of the Church is opposed and her rights shorn off. She is subjected to human reason and with the greatest injustice exposed to the hatred of the people and reduced to vile servitude. The obedience due bishops is denied and their rights are trampled underfoot.

“Furthermore, academies and schools resound with new, monstrous opinions, which openly attack the Catholic faith; this horrible and nefarious war is openly and even publicly waged. Thus, by institutions and by the example of teachers, the minds of the youth are corrupted and a tremendous blow is dealt to religion and the perversion of morals is spread. So the restraints of religion are thrown off, by which alone kingdoms stand. We see the destruction of public order, the fall of principalities, and the overturning of all legitimate power approaching. Indeed this great mass of calamities had its inception in the heretical societies and sects in which all that is sacrilegious, infamous, and blasphemous has gathered as bilge water in a ship’s hold, a congealed mass of all filth.

“6. These and many other serious things, which at present would take too long to list, but which you know well, cause Our intense grief. It is not enough for Us to deplore these innumerable evils unless We strive to uproot them. We take refuge in your faith and call upon your concern for the salvation of the Catholic flock. Your singular prudence and diligent spirit give Us courage and console Us, afflicted as We are with so many trials. We must raise Our voice and attempt all things lest a wild boar from the woods should destroy the vineyard or wolves kill the flock. It is Our duty to lead the flock only to the food which is healthful. In these evil and dangerous times, the shepherds must never neglect their duty; they must never be so overcome by fear that they abandon the sheep. Let them never neglect the flock and become sluggish from idleness and apathy. Therefore, united in spirit, let us promote our common cause, or more truly the cause of God; let our vigilance be one and our effort united against the common enemies.

“7. Indeed you will accomplish this perfectly if, as the duty of your office demands, you attend to yourselves and to doctrine and meditate on these words: “the universal Church is affected by any and every novelty”[5] and the admonition of Pope Agatho: “nothing of the things appointed ought to be diminished; nothing changed; nothing added; but they must be preserved both as regards expression and meaning.”[6] Therefore may the unity which is built upon the See of Peter as on a sure foundation stand firm. May it be for all a wall and a security, a safe port, and a treasury of countless blessings.[7] To check the audacity of those who attempt to infringe “upon the rights of this Holy See or to sever the union of the churches with the See of Peter, instill in your people a zealous confidence in the papacy and sincere veneration for it. As St. Cyprian wrote: “He who abandons the See of Peter on which the Church was founded, falsely believes himself to be a part of the Church.”[8]

“8. In this you must labor and diligently take care that the faith may be preserved amidst this great conspiracy of impious men who attempt to tear it down and destroy it. May all remember the judgment concerning sound doctrine with which the people are to be instructed. Remember also that the government and administration of the whole Church rests with the Roman Pontiff to whom, in the words of the Fathers of the Council of Florence, “the full power of nourishing, ruling, and governing the universal Church was given by Christ the Lord.”[9] It is the duty of individual bishops to cling to the See of Peter faithfully, to guard the faith piously and religiously, and to feed their flock. It behooves priests to be subject to the bishops, whom “they are to look upon as the parents of their souls,” as Jerome admonishes.[10] Nor may the priests ever forget that they are forbidden by ancient canons to undertake ministry and to assume the tasks of teaching and preaching “without the permission of their bishop to whom the people have been entrusted; an accounting for the souls of the people will be demanded from the bishop.”[11] Finally let them understand that all those who struggle against this established order disturb the position of the Church.

9. Furthermore, the discipline sanctioned by the Church must never be rejected or be branded as contrary to certain principles of natural law. It must never be called crippled, or imperfect or subject to civil authority. In this discipline the administration of sacred rites, standards of morality, and the reckoning of the rights of the Church and her ministers are embraced.

10. To use the words of the fathers of Trent, it is certain that the Church “was instructed by Jesus Christ and His Apostles and that all truth was daily taught it by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.”[12] Therefore, it is obviously absurd and injurious to propose a certain “restoration and regeneration” for her as though necessary for her safety and growth, as if she could be considered subject to defect or obscuration or other misfortune. Indeed these authors of novelties consider that a “foundation may be laid of a new human institution,” and what Cyprian detested may come to pass, that what was a divine thing “may become a human church.”[13] Let those who devise such plans be aware that, according to the testimony of St. Leo, “the right to grant dispensation from the canons is given” only to the Roman Pontiff. He alone, and no private person, can decide anything “about the rules of the Church Fathers.” As St. Gelasius writes: “It is the papal responsibility to keep the canonical decrees in their place and to evaluate the precepts of previous popes so that when the times demand relaxation in order to rejuvenate the churches, they may be adjusted after diligent consideration.”

 Pope Leo XIII, Humanum Genus, 1884

“The enmity of the sectarians against the Apostolic See of the Roman Pontiff has increased its intensity… until now the evil doers have reached the aim which had for a long time that of their evil designs, namely their proclamation that the moment has come to suppress the Roman Pontiff sacred power and to completely destroy the papacy which was divinely instituted.”

Pope St. Pius X, Our Apostolic Mandate, 1910

“Jesus has loved us with an immense, infinite love, and He came on earth to suffer and die so that, gathered around Him in justice and love, motivated by the same sentiments of mutual charity, all men might live in peace and happiness. …Whilst His heart overflowed with gentleness for the souls of good-will, He could also arm Himself with holy indignation against the profaners of the House of God, against the wretched men who scandalized the little ones, against the authorities who crush the people with the weight of heavy burdens without putting out a hand to lift them. He was as strong as he was gentle.  He reproved, threatened, chastised, knowing, and teaching us that fear is the beginning of wisdom, and that it is sometimes proper for a man to cut off an offending limb to save his body. Finally, He did not announce for future society the reign of an ideal happiness from which suffering would be banished; but, by His lessons and by His example, He traced the path of the happiness which is possible on earth.”

 Pope Pius XI, Miserentissimus Redemptor, 1928

“How great is the necessity of this expiation or reparation [to the Sacred Heart], more especially in this our age, will be manifest to everyone who, as we said at the outset, will examine the world, “seated in wickedness” (1 John v, 19), with his eyes and with his mind. For from all sides the cry of the peoples who are mourning comes up to us, and their princes or rulers have indeed stood up and met together in one against the Lord and against His Church (Cf. Psalm ii, 2). Throughout those regions indeed, we see that all rights, both human and Divine, are confounded… Bands of boys and girls are snatched from the bosom of their mother the Church, and are induced to renounce Christ, to blaspheme and to attempt the worst crimes of lust; the whole Christian people, sadly disheartened and disrupted, are continually in danger of falling away from the faith, or of suffering the most cruel death. These things in truth are so sad that you might say that such events foreshadow and portend the “beginning of sorrows,” that is to say of those that shall be brought by the man of sin, “who is lifted up above all that is called God or is worshipped” (2 Thessalonians ii, 4).

Leo Panakal tells us that: “After the death of  Pius XI, Pope Pius XII began his pontificate with still another statement which has even more significant implications. In his encyclical Summi Pontificatus, after describing his generation as one “tormented … by spiritual emptiness and deep-felt interior poverty,” he applied to it this passage of the Apocalypse: “Thou sayest: I am rich, and made wealthy , and have need of nothing: and knowest not, that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked” (Apoc 3:17). This particular passage is a description of the church at Laodicea which, in the opinion of Catholic interpreters, is a representation of the Church as a whole during the time of the Antichrist. Thus Pius XII’s application of this passage of the Apocalypse to his time would, in effect, be an indication that the age of the Antichrist had in some way already begun.https://www.cathinfo.com/crisis-in-the-church/the-antichrist-by-francis-panakal/

But we have not been warned?! As mentioned in a previous blog, Fr. Albert F. Kaiser, C.P.P.S., in a two-part article written for the American Ecclesiastical Review in December-January, 1953-54 (“The Historical Backgrounds and Theology of Mediator Dei”, it was a particular note of those advocating for liturgical renewal to shrink from suffering — to be treated gently, with kid gloves and cossetted; their desire to de-emphasize the Passion — that destroyed the Mass. Kaiser wrote that in their attempt to simplify everything, bringing the liturgy back to the bare bones of the early Christian era, the liturgical reformers emphasized all the benefits of being Catholic and participating in the liturgy versus the responsibilities of being educated Catholics. And this resulted in ignoring the pain and suffering of Christ on the Cross. As Kaiser explains, there is no way to experience properly the joy of the Resurrection except through acknowledging and participating in the pain of the Crucifixion. “It confused sentimental fear of suffering and psychotic fear of penance with the true role and purpose (both theological and psychological) of the Cross of Christ, as a redeeming principle and the redeeming factor in Christianity. It confused objective and subjective holiness or at least failed to integrate the two in any realistic or even spiritual orientation.”

Let us never be like those who banished Christ from our churches, replacing his Cross of crucifixion with the condemned crosses of the risen Christ. We were warned, and many of us ignored those warnings. Now we must offer all these things back to Him who we know as the Mas of Sorrows. Christ asks us each Lent to fill up what is wanting to His sufferings, not to shrink from them or to see them as something to flee from. Our sufferings consist in all that we have lost because of our many sins, of existing without the Church, without the Mass and Sacraments, but most especially without our Christ-appointed earthly guide the Pope. We should offer these things to Jesus with joy, knowing that in this offering we make satisfaction for our sins, and can comfort Him in his continued sufferings from the horrid evil that men do. Below are some helps to spend Lent in prayer and contemplation. May God bless all in their shared sufferings with Christ on the Cross.

https://catholicharboroffaithandmorals.com/St.%20Thomas%20Aquinas%20Lenten%20Meditations.html

https://anastpaul.com/category/lent/lenten-prayers-novenas/ (CAUTION: Please ignore any Novus Ordo content on this site and enjoy only the traditional prayers there.)