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| St. Gregory Nazianzan: On the Holy Example of the Machabees |
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Posted by: Stone - 11-01-2021, 12:34 PM - Forum: Fathers of the Church
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BUT what are the Machabees ? For the present festival is in honour of those saints who are not honoured by many, because their contest was not after Christ but hwo are worthy of being honoured by all because their valour was for the laws of their country and, those who underwent martyrdom before the passion of Christ, what would they not have done had they been persecuted after Christ and were to imitate His death for us? For those who were so great in virtue with out such an example, how should they not have been witnessed more generous in undergoing after the example? And at the same time this appears to me, and to all other lovers of God, a certain mystic and secret, and very credible saying, that none of those who were made perfect before the coming of Christ, obtained this gift with out this gift without faith in Christ. For the Word was Openly preached afterwards in its own season, nevertheless it was previously known to those who were pure of mind, as is manifest from many who had been honoured before His coming.
Therefore those are not to be neglected because they were before the date of the cross but they are trust worthy because they have suffered according to the cross and they are worthy of the honour to be derived from words; not in order that their glory may receive an increase (for what increase e could the glory of those receive from words whose end contains glory itself? ) but in order that those who praise them may be glorified and those who hear may imitate their virtue, being impelled by the recollections of those things as by a goad to the performance of equal things. But being what manner of men, and starting originally whence, and from what training and teaching, those Machabees have advanced to such a degree of virtue and glory as to be honoured by those yearly ceremonies and festivals, and as that a greater glory than what is declared by the things seen, should be excited in the souls of all, the book concerning them will show to those who lover learning and labour; the book I mean which argues that reason is the master of the passions and lord of the propensity to both - I mean virtue and vice. For he made use of other examples not a few, and also of the struggles of those. But to me it will be sufficient to have said so much.
Eleazar is therein the first fruits of those before Christ, as Stephen was of those after, a priest and an elder, aged in hair and aged in wisdom, at an earlier period offering sacrifice and paying for the people, but now coming forward himself a most perfect sacrifice to God, purification of the entire people, a fortunate prelude of the contest and exhortation, at once speaking and Silent, but bring forward in addition his even sons, the fruits of his training, "a living sacrifice, truly pleasing to God.' more brilliant, and purer than any legal sacrifice. For that one should ascribe the virtue of the children to the father is amongst the most legitimate and the justest proceedings. Those generous and great souled children, the noble offspring of a noble mother, zealous champions of the truth,, more sublime than the days of Antiochus, genuine disciples of the law, rigid observers of the customs of their fathers; beings even (which n umber is of the numbers most reverenced by the Hebrews, as being honoured by the mystery of the seven days rest), breathing one thing, looking towards one thing, seeing one way of life, brethren not less in soul than in body, rivals amongst each other for death (O wondrous thing), struggling to be foremost in securing tortures as treasures; fighting in the first rank for the law their teacher, not so much fearing those of the tortures brought as seeking those that remained behind, fearing this one thing, lest the tyrant should desist from torturing, and, lest some of them should depart uncrowned, and should against their will be unyoked from their brethren, and might win the shameful victory, running the risk of not suffering. There was the brave and generous mother loving her children and loving God at the same time, and having her maternal bowels torn beyond the habit of nature. For She did not pity her children's suffer, but She was in agony les they Should not suffer; nor did she so much long after the dead, as she prayed that those left behind might be added to them, and her account was more of these, than of who had already passed from life. For the struggle of these was doubtful, the release of those was certain, and those she had already consigned to God, but she was still in concern that God might take these. O manly soul in a woman's body ! O wonderful and magnanimous gift! O sacrifice equal to that of Abraham ! Even if no great praise can be ventured upon. For he, indeed, freely brings forward one, even though it be his only one, the child who had been born according to the promise, and concerning whom the promise had been made, and what is greater because he stands forward the first fruits and the root, not only of his race, but of all sacrifices of this description; but she sacrifices to God an entire people of children; having excelled both mothers and priests by her victims ready for Slaughter, by her rational holocausts, by her willing sacrifices. She showed them her breasts and reminded them of their nursing; and put forward her gray hairs and advanced her old age as by way of supplication, not seeking their deliverance, but urging them to suffer, and readying delay, not death, as the danger. Whom nothing bent, nothing softened, nothing made less daring, not the racks, stretched forth before her, not the wheels brought forward, not the torchanteres, not the katapeltae, not the points of iron hooks; not the sharpened swords; not her offspring beheld by her; not their limbs torn asunder; not their lacerated flesh not the flowing streams of blood; not their youth which was being consumed; not the present terrors; not the expected sufferings. And what to others is most grievous in such matters, the prolongation of the danger, to her was light; for she revelled in the spectacle. For, not only did the variety of the tortures brought forward cause a delay to their sufferings, all which they contemned as another not have contemned even one torture but also the varied speeches of the persecutor, as he insulted, threatened, or flattered, or set in motion what not, in in order to attain what he hoped for.
And, truly, the answers of the children also to the tyrant are to be mentioned; those answers having so much wisdom and generosity together, that in comparison to their fortitude all the great actions of others collected into one, are small ; and that their fortitude was small compared with the understanding in their words, and with the circumstance that it was theirs alone so to suffer, and to philosophize spiritually in their answers to the threats of the persecutors, and to the terrors held out to them, of whom none were more lost, neither the noble children, nor the nobler mother. But placing herself above all, and mingling inspired passion with the charm of love, she bestows herself as a beautiful shroud upon her children, having followed those who went before. And how this? Of her own accord going forward to dangers, and, with what epitaphs 1 For the words of the children also to the tyrant were noble, and noblest of the noble (for how should it not be so?) wherewith they stood armed, and wherewith they struck the tyrant : but more noble were the words of the mother : both the exhorting words which she spoke first, and the words which she afterwards spoke as an epitaph.
What, then, were the words of the children ? for it is meet to remind you of those also, in order that you may have a type, as of the struggle, so also of the words used by martyrs on such occasions. The words of each, indeed, were different, and were spoken according as the words of the persecutors, or the order of the dangers, or the zeal of each one's soul armed him with them. But in order to take them together in one specimen, they were of this sort.
"To us, indeed, Antiochus, and all ye who stand around, there is one king, namely, God, by whom we were made, and to whom we return ; and one lawgiver, Moses, whom we will not betray nor insult : no, we swear by the danger encountered by the man for virtue's sake, and by his many wonders, not if another Antiochus more cruel than thou should threaten us. But there is one security for us, namely, the keeping his command, and the not breaking the law by which we are fenced in : but there is one glory for us, that, namely, of despising all glory for such things : but there is one wealth, namely, the things which we hope for ; but nothing is dreadful to us save that anything be dreadful before God. With these reasons we are arrayed for fight, and thus are we armed. Unto youths of this kind is the discourse now. Sweet indeed is also this world : sweet is the soil of our country, and our friends, and relations, and companions, and this temple, and its great and renowned name, and our country's festivals, and our mysteries, and all the things in which we seem to differ from other nations ; but they are not so dear as God, and as the danger, which we undergo for honour.
Do not imagine this. For there is for us another world, much more sublime and lasting than this. But our country is the Jerusalem above, to which no Antiochus shall lay siege, nor will it look to be subjected, strong and impregnable as it is : but our kindred is the breathing of life into man, and those who have been born according to virtue : but our friends are the prophets and the patriarchs, with whom also is for us the model of piety : but our companions, those who to-day are undergoing danger along with us, and are our cotemporaries in fortitude. But Heaven is far more magnificent than the temple. But our festival is the choir of angels, and our one great mystery, the greatest of all, and hidden from the multitude, is God, to whom those mysteries also here below refer. Cease, therefore, from promising us small and worthless advantages, for we will not be honoured by things without honour, nor will we gain hurtful things : we will not traffic so miserably. Cease also from threatening, or we shall threaten in our turn, to convict thy weakness : and for this purpose we shall threaten thee with our punishments. For we also have a fire by which we punish persecutors. Dost thou think that thy struggle is with nations and cities, or with the most cowardly of kings, of whom some will conquer, and others in like manner be defeated ? For neither do they encounter danger about such matters as we do. Thou art in arms against the law of God, against the tables graven by God, against national rites, honoured by reason and by time, against seven brethren bound together with one soul, who are about to inscribe thy name upon seven trophies of thy infamy, to prevail over whom would be nothing great, and to be conquered by whom is altogether disgraceful.
We are the sons and the disciples of those whom a pillar of fire and of a cloud led upon their way, for whom the sea divided and the river stood, and the sun was interrupted in his course and bread rained, and the stretching out of hands routed many, having defeated them through prayer ; by whom wild beasts were worsted, and whom fire did not touch, and from whom kings departed admiring their nobleness. And we shall tell thee something of the things familiar to thyself. We are the disciples of Eleazar, whose courage you know. Our father underwent the struggle before us : his children will undergo the struggle after him. Thou hast sought to terrify us in many things : we have prepared ourselves for more. What wilt thou do to us with thy threats, insolent man ? What shall we suffer ? Nothing can be stronger than those who are prepared to suffer all things. Executioners, why do you delay ? Why do you put off? Why do YOU await a clement order ? Where are the swords, where the chains ? I require speed ! Let more fire be kindled. Let more active beasts be brought forward, let more elaborate tortures he produced; let all things be royal and splendid. I am the firstborn: sacrifice me first. I am the last ; let the order be changed.
Let some one of the intermediate brothers be amongst the first, in order that they may be honoured by equality of lot. Dost thou forbear ? Dost thou expect, perchance, something contrary to what I have said ? Again and oftentimes will we speak the same word for thee : we will not eat unclean meats, we will not give in. Thou wilt sooner adore our mysteries, than we will yield to thy rites. To speak in one word, either invent newer punishments, or know that thy actual punishments are despised by us".
These things indeed they spake to the tyrant ; but the things which they said by way of exhortation to each other, and the things which they afforded to be seen, how beautiful and sacred were they not, and sweet to the lover of God beyond any other spectacle, or aught that may be heard? I, indeed, remembering them, am myself filled with sweetness, and am in spirit with them in their struggle, and glory in this narrative of their history. They embraced and kissed each other, and it was as it were a festival to men who had already come to the end of their struggles. " Let us go, brethren, to meet the dangers", they cried ; " let us go, let us hasten, whilst the tyrant still boils with rage against us, lest he may be in any degree softened, and we may lose our salvation.
The complete banquet lies before us, let us not be left behind. It is a beautiful thing when brethren dwell together, and feast together, and embrace each other, but it is more beautiful when together they encounter danger for virtue. If it were possible, we should with our bodies have struggled for, our national laws : for this death also is amongst those deserving of praise.
But since the present is not the time for this, let us bring forward our bodies themselves. For what is the case ? Even suppose we do not die now, are we not to die at all? Shall we not pay the service due to our birth ? Let us make necessity into zeal. Let us deceive our dissolution. Let not any one of us be a lover of life, or cowardly. Let the tyrant, dealing with us, despair of the others. He himself will assign their order to our trials ; but it is we who will put an end to the persecutions. Let us not differ about this in the fervour of our eagerness ; and let the first be a path to the others, and let the last be a seal of the straggle. But let this be a fixed determination for us all alike, that we be crowned universally, and that the persecutor take no portion from our merit, nor swelling in wickedness, may glory in one conquered, as if he had conquered all. Let us appear brethren both in birth and in death ; let us all seek danger as one, and let each one meet it on behalf of all. Receive us, Eleazar : accompany us, mother : Jerusalem, bury thy children magnificently, if anything of us be left to thee for burial. Relate our sufferings, and show to those coming after, and to those who love thee, the blessed burying-place of the children of one womb". But those indeed having said and done those things, and having aliened each other like the teeth of wild boars, persevered each one in the order of his age and in the equality of his eagerness.
They were a delight and a wonder to those of their own tribe ; a fear and astonishment to the persecutors ; who, having gone to war against the entire nation, were so easily overcome by the concord of seven brothers struggling for piety, that they had no encouraging hope concerning the others.
But the noble mother, truly the mother of children such as these, of children such and so great in virtue, that great and magnanimous nurseling of the law for a time was blended of joy and fear, and was upon the boundary line of two feelings. She was in joy on account of the courage of her sons, and of the things which she saw ; she was in fear on account of the delay, and the extreme character of the sufferings, and as a bird acts when a serpent or any of the insidious enemies creeps in, she flew around her young, she screamed around them, she supplicated, she struggled along with them, doing and saying what not of those things, exhorting them to virtue. She caught up the drops of blood, she received the fragments of the limbs, she venerated their remains. She gathered up this, she held out that, she prepared the other, she called out to all, " Well done, my children, well done, my brave ones, almost bodiless in bodies ; well done, ye champions of the law, and of my gray hairs, and of the city which has reared you and led you forward to this virtue : a little yet, and we have conquered. Are the torturers tired?
This is the only thing I fear : a little yet, and I shall be blessed amongst mothers, and you shall be blessed amongst youths. But do you long for your mother ? I shall not be left behind you, that I promise you. I do not so hate my children". But when she saw that they were dead, and she now had security, by reason of the completion of their martyrdom, then, having raised her head very joyfully, like one conquering in the Olympic games, with sublime spirit, and, having stretched out her hands, she says, "I return thanks to Thee, Holy Father, and to thee, law, my instructress, and to thee Eleazar, our father, and who hast gone before thy children in the struggle, because you have received the fruit of my throes, and because I have become a mother sacred above all mothers. I have left nothing to the world ; I have handed over all to God, ray entire treasure, the hopes that cherished my old age. How magnificently have I not been honoured! how exceedingly has not my old age been cherished ! I have the rewards of your nurture, my children, I have seen you struggling for virtue, I have beheld you all crowned. I look upon the torturers as benefactors ; and I almost give thanks to the tyrant for the order of our offerings, because he has reserved me last for the danger, in order that, having first looked on at my own offspring, and, having struggled in each one of my own children, I may thus, with complete security, follow those perfect victims.
I will not tear my hair, I will not rend my garments, I will not scratch my flesh with my nails, I will not excite lamentation, I will not call fellow-mourners, I will not shut myself up in darkness, in order that the air may lament along with me ; I will not expect consolers; I will not set out the bread of grief; for those are the demonstrations of ignoble mothers, who are mothers only according to the flesh, whose children depart without any distinguished commendation. But ye, most beloved of children, have not died for me, but you have been gathered to God ; you have not departed, but you have passed elsewhere ; you have not been torn, but fixed together. No wild beast has torn you ; the wave has not drowned you ; no robber has destroyed you ; no sickness has wrought your dissolution ; war has not carried you off; nor any other of mortal occurrences, small or great. I should have lamented, and very vehemently, if any of those things had happened to you. I should have then appeared a lover of my children by my tears, as now I appear so by my not weeping. But those mischances are yet small things. I should have bewailed you if you had been disgracefully saved, if you had been conquered by the torturers, if the persecutors had conquered any of you as they have now been conquered. But the things that have happened now are the source of praise, joy, glory, festivity, and brilliancy to those left behind. For I am poured out after you. We shall be ranked with Phineas, we shall be glorified with Anne, unless so far as he was but one, whereas you are such numerous slayers of harlots, having to-day pierced not the harlotry of the body, but that of the soul ; and he indeed sacrificed but one gift to God, and that one lately born, whereas I have sacrificed seven men and those, willing men, to God. And Jeremiah also has filled up for me their epitaph, not lamenting, but praising this holy end. "You have been brighter than snow; you were curdled beyond milk ; your assembly is beautiful beyond the sapphire". The assembly of you, begotten to God and offered to God. What more remains? Add me, tyrant, to my children, if there be any favour amongst enemies, in order that the conflict may be more illustrious for thee. And may it be granted me to pass through all those sufferings, in order that I may mingle my juices with their juices, and my old flesh with their flesh (I love the very punishments for my children's sake).
But if this be not so, consign my dust to their dust, and let one tomb receive us. Do not grudge an equally honourable end to those who have been of equal honour in their virtue. " Farewell, ye mothers, farewell, ye children. Let you, the former, so rear those coming from you : and be ye, the latter, so reared. We have given you a noble example. So struggle". She said those things, and added herself to her children. After what manner ? Running to the pile (for to this was she sentenced) as a bride to the bridal-chamber, not awaiting those who were to take her thither, in order that nothing impure might touch her pure and noble body. Thus did Eleazar exercise his priesthood.
Eleazar, who had learned and had taught Heavenly things, and having sanctified Israel, not by a sprinkling from without, but by his own blood, and having made his end the final mystery celebrated by him. Thus did the children exercise their youth, not having been slaves to pleasures, but ruling over their passions and purifying their bodies, and being transferred to a life free from passion. Thus did the mother enjoy her fruitfulness.
Thus was she proud of them while living, and ended her life along with them, departing, having given over to God those whom she had begotten to the world, and having reckoned by her conflicts the number of her throes in child-birth, and marked the course of births by the deaths of her offspring. For, from the first to the last of her children, they all underwent the struggle ; and one after the other, as in the succession of the waves, exhibited his virtue, and was more eager for suffering, having been strengthened by the sufferings of him who had preceded him, so that the tyrant was well pleased that she had not been the mother of more such sons : for he rather went away turned to shame and defeated ; and then he learned for the first time, that he was not able to accomplish all things by arms, since he had attacked unarmed boys, or rather boys armed with one thing, piety, and more willing to suffer all things than to do what he commanded them. This deed of theirs was more firm and more noble than the sacrifice of Jephthe. For the heat of the promise, and the desire of the despaired-of victory, did not make, as there, the gift compulsory, but the sacrifice was a willing one, and had only the things hoped for as a reward. This was not less honourable than the struggle of Daniel, who had been given as food to the lions, and who had overcome the lions by the stretching out of his hands. This was not second to the great act of the youths in Assyria, whom an angel refreshed in the fire, not having broken the law of their fathers, nor having taken into their mouths profane and unholy food. This is not inferior in zeal to those victims who afterwards suffered for Christ. For those, indeed (a thing which I said beginning my discourse), followed the blood of Christ, and God was the leader of such struggles, God who had imparted so great and incredible a gift upon our behalf: but to those there were not many, nor such like example. All Judea, indeed, marvelled at the fortitude of those, and exulted and stood erect as if she had herself been crowned. For, this contest was the greatest of all the contests at any time surrounding the city, namely, whether the law should be overturned on that day or be glorified; and the consequences of that struggle were standing, as it were, upon the edge of a razor for the whole Jewish race. But Antiochus himself admired, having changed his threats into wonder. For, even enemies know how to admire virtue, when, their passion being appeased, the action is estimated according to itself. So that he also went away, having done nothing, and having also greatly praised his father, Seleucus, for the honour which he had done to the nation, and for his munificence towards the temple, and having greatly blamed Simon, who had led him on, as the cause of his cruelty and of his disgrace. Let us all, priests, mothers, and children, honour those. The first indeed in honour of Eleazar, their spiritual father, who has given them the best example in word and work; but mothers, in honour of that generous mother, being first lovers of their children, and offering to Christ those "ho have come from them, in order that marriage may be sanctified by such a sacrifice ; but the children, reverencing the children of the priest, and spending their youth not in shameful passions, but in struggles against the passions, and fighting bravely against the Antiochus of our day, who wages war upon all our members, and persecutes us in various ways. For I desire to have combatants for every time and manner, and of every kind and every age, whether openly attacked or secretly plotted against, and that they should be assisted as well by the old narratives as by the new, and that like bees they should collect all things profitable for the formation and the sweetening of one honey-comb, in order that, through both the Old and the New Testaments, God, who is glorified in the Son and in the Spirit, may be glorified in us, knowing His own, and being known by His own, confessed and confessing, glorified and glorifying in Christ Himself, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.
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| Prayers in Honor of the Saints |
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Posted by: Stone - 11-01-2021, 07:56 AM - Forum: Prayers and Devotionals
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Prayers to the All Saints
![[Image: ?u=http%3A%2F%2Fgardenofmary.com%2Fwp-co...f=1&nofb=1]](https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fgardenofmary.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2017%2F07%2FQueen-of-All-saints.jpg&f=1&nofb=1)
"So I say to you there shall be joy before the angels of God upon one sinner doing penance" (Luke xv. 10).
"For in the resurrection they [the saints] shall be as the angels of God in heaven" (Matt. xxii. 30).
The saints are friends of God. They are like the angels in heaven. We honor them, not as we honor God, but on account of the relation they bear to God. They are creatures of God, the work of His hands. When we honor them, we honor God; as when we praise a beautiful painting, we praise the artist.
We do not believe that the saints can help us of themselves, but we ask them to "pray for us." We believe that everything comes to us "through Our Lord Jesus Christ." With these words all our prayers end. It is useful, salutary, and reasonable to pray to the saints and ask them to pray for us. No doubt all will admit the reasonableness of this practice if the saints can hear and help us.
That they hear and help us is evident from many passages of Scripture. The patriarch Jacob would not have prayed to the angel to bless his grandchildren Manasses and Ephraim (as we learn he did from Gen. xlviii.), unless he knew the angel could do so. We are informed (Luke xv.) that the angels rejoice when one sinner does penance. We are also informed (Matt. xxii.) that the saints are like the angels--i.e., have the same happiness and knowledge. Hence the saints, as well as the angels, can hear us, can help us, and are acquainted with our actions, words, and thoughts.
It is generally conceded that it is reasonable to ask pious persons on earth to pray for us. St. Paul, in his epistles, frequently asks the Christians to pray for him. "Brethren," he says, "pray for us." It is well known that God was pleased to answer the prayer of Abraham in favor of Abimelech. "More things are wrought by prayer than this world knows of." Now, if we poor sinners here on earth do not pray in vain for one another, will the saints in heaven, the friends of God, who rejoice when a sinner does penance, pray in vain for us? No. We have hosts of friends in heaven to speak a good word for us. And as a child who has disobeyed his parents wisely asks a better brother or sister to intercede with his parents for mercy, so, too, having disobeyed our heavenly Father by sin, we have recourse to others better than ourselves, to our better brothers and sisters, the Blessed Virgin and saints, to intercede with God for us. Is not this a reasonable practice?
If your mother or sister crosses the sea she will continue to pray for you. And if she crosses the sea of death will she forget you? No. The love she bore you here will continue in heaven. She will pray for you, and the "Lord will hear the prayers of the just." Ask the saints to pray to your God and their God for you. Honor God by honoring His friends and asking their intercession. And all your friends in heaven will unite in praying to the Father of us all that one day all who love God and His friends, the saints, may be admitted with them into the company of the Saint of saints, Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
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Giver of life, eternal Lord,
Thy own redeemed defend;
Mother of grace, thy children save,
And help them to the end.
Ye thousand thousand Angel hosts,
Assist us in our need;
Ye Patriarchs, with the Prophet choir,
For our forgiveness plead.
Forerunner blest, and thou who still
Dost heaven's dread keys retain;
Ye glorious Apostles all,
Unloose our guilty chain.
Army of Martyrs, holy Priests,
In beautiful array;
Ye happy troops of Virgins chaste
Wash all our stains away.
All ye who high above the stars
In heavenly glory reign,
May we through your prevailing prayers
Unto your joys attain.
Praise, honor, to the Father be,
Praise to His only Son;
Praise, Holy Paraclete, to Thee,
While endless ages run.
Amen
(Roman Breviary)
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A Prayer to your Patron Saints
O Blessed Saint N--, glorious citizen of heaven, as I render most humble thanks to God for all the good He has done thee so I beseech thee, to remember me in thy prayers, and to obtain for me the entire pardon of my sins, the amendment of my life, and the imitation of thy good spirit and holy graces, that I may be reconciled to my Saviour and always please Him. But especially I recommend to thee the hour of my death that by thy holy intercession, my soul may depart from this world in the grace of God, and may immediately come to everlasting life. Amen
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Petition for the Prayers of the Saints
Oh all ye saints and angels, who see Him face to face, Whom I here receive under these humble veils, and thou, most especially, ever blessed Virgin Mary, in whose sacred womb He was conceived and borne for nine months--I most humbly beg the assistance of your prayers and intercession, that I may in such a manner receive Him here in this place of banishment, as to be brought, one day, to behold Him with you in our true country, and there to praise and bless Him for ever and ever. Amen.
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Prayer for Greater Love of Jesus
O my Jesus, Thou knowest well that I love Thee; but I do not love Thee enough; O grant that I may love Thee more. O love that burnest ever and never failest, my God, Thou Who art charity itself, enkindle in my heart that divine fire which consumes the saints and transforms them into Thee. Amen
(An indulgence of 50 days, twice a day.--Leo XIII, Feb. 6, 1893.)
"The saints shall rejoice in glory: the high praises of God shall be in their mouths" Ps. cxlix. 5).
"The souls of the just are in the hands of God, they are in peace" (Wis iii i ).
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Te Deum, Ambrosian Hymn
TE DEUM laudamus: te Dominum confitemur.
O GOD, we praise Thee: we acknowledge Thee to be the Lord.
Te aeternum Patrem omnis terra veneratur.
Everlasting Father, all the earth doth worship Thee.
Tibi omnes Angeli; tibi Caeli et universae Potestates;
To Thee all the Angels, the Heavens and all the Powers,
Tibi Cherubim et Seraphim incessabili voce proclamant:
All the Cherubim and Seraphim, unceasingly proclaim:
Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus, Dominus Deus Sabaoth.
Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Hosts!
Pleni sunt caeli et terra maiestatis gloriae tuae.
Heaven and earth are full of the Majesty of Thy glory.
Te gloriosus Apostolorum chorus,
The glorious choir of the Apostles,
Te Prophetarum laudabilis numerus,
The wonderful company of Prophets,
Te Martyrum candidatus laudat exercitus.
The white-robed army of Martyrs, praise Thee.
Te per orbem terrarum sancta confitetur Ecclesia,
Holy Church throughout the world doth acknowledge Thee:
Patrem immensae maiestatis:
The Father of infinite Majesty;
Venerandum tuum verum et unicum Filium;
Thy adorable, true and only Son;
Sanctum quoque Paraclitum Spiritum.
And the Holy Spirit, the Comforter.
Tu Rex gloriae, Christe.
O Christ, Thou art the King of glory!
Tu Patris sempiternus es Filius.
Thou art the everlasting Son of the Father.
Tu ad liberandum suscepturus hominem, non horruisti Virginis uterum.
Thou, having taken it upon Thyself to deliver man, didst not disdain the Virgin's womb.
Tu, devicto mortis aculeo, aperuisti credentibus regna caelorum.
Thou overcame the sting of death and hast opened to believers the Kingdom of Heaven.
Tu ad dexteram Dei sedes, in gloria Patris.
Thou sitest at the right hand of God, in the glory of the Father.
Iudex crederis esse venturus.
We believe that Thou shalt come to be our Judge.
Te ergo quaesumus, tuis famulis subveni: quos pretioso sanguine redemisti.
We beseech Thee, therefore, to help Thy servants whom Thou hast redeemed with Thy Precious Blood.
Aeterna fac cum sanctis tuis in gloria numerari.
Make them to be numbered with Thy Saints in everlasting glory.
V. Salvum fac populum tuum, Domine, et benedic hereditati tuae.
V. Save Thy people, O Lord, and bless Thine inheritance!
R. Et rege eos, et extolle illos usque in aeternum.
R. Govern them, and raise them up forever.
V. Per singulos dies benedicimus te.
V. Every day we thank Thee.
R. Et laudamus nomen tuum in saeculum, et in saeculum saeculi.
R. And we praise Thy Name forever, yea, forever and ever.
V. Dignare, Domine, die isto sine peccato nos custodire.
V. O Lord, deign to keep us from sin this day.
R. Miserere nostri, Domine, miserere nostri.
R. Have mercy on us, O Lord, have mercy on us.
V. Fiat misericordia tua, Domine, super nos, quemadmodum speravimus in te.
V. Let Thy mercy, O Lord, be upon us, for we have hoped in Thee.
R. In te, Domine, speravi: non confundar in aeternum.
R. O Lord, in Thee I have hoped; let me never be put to shame.
(Indulgence: 5 years)
✠ ✠ ✠
Trent, Sess. XXV, De Invocatione, veneratione et reliquiis Sanctorum et sacris imaginibus
"The Holy Synod bids all Bishops and others whose duty it is to teach, diligently to instruct the faithful in accordance with the practice dating from the earliest ages of the Christian faith, and in harmony with the con-sentient teaching of the Holy Fathers and the Decrees of Councils, concerning the intercession and invocation of the Saints, the honor due to relics and the legitimate us of images. They are to teach that the Saints reigning with Christ offer to God prayers for us men; that it is a good and profitable thing humbly to invoke them and, in order to obtain benefits from God through His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, our only Redeemer and Saviour, to appeal to them for their prayers, help and assistance. . . . . Also that the bodies of the Holy Martyrs Martyrs and others now living with Christ, bodies which were members of Christ and temples of the Holy Spirit and which are one day to be raised up by Him and glorified in eternal life, are to be venerated by the faithful, and that through them a many benefits are bestowed by God upon men."
✠ ✠ ✠
Prayer of St. Gertrude to the Saints in Heaven
I salute you through the Heart of Jesus, O all ye holy angels and saints of God; I rejoice in your glory and I give thanks to our Lord for all the benefits which He has showered upon you; I praise Him, and glorify Him, and offer you for an increase of your joy and honor, the most gentle heart of Jesus. Deign therefore, to pray for me that I may become according to the heart of God. Amen.
✠ ✠ ✠
Prayer to My Heavenly Patron
O heavenly patron, in whose name I glory, pray ever to God for me: strengthen me in my faith; establish me in virtue; guard me in the conflict, that I may vanquish the foe and attain to glory everlasting. Amen.
(Indulgence of 300 days)
✠ ✠ ✠
Quotes of the Saints
"We should honor God in His saints, and beseech Him to make us partakers of the graces He poured so abundantly upon them."--St. Vincent de Paul
"Let us read the lives of the saints; let us consider the penances which they performed, and blush to be so effeminate and so fearful of mortifying our flesh."--St. Alphonsus.
"There is more security in self-denial, mortification, and other like virtues, than in an abundance of tears."--St. Teresa
"Death is welcome to one who has always feared God and faithfully served Him.--St. Teresa
"The errors of others should serve to keep us from adding any of our own to them."--St. Ignatius
"In doing penance it is necessary to deprive oneself of as many lawful pleasures as we had the misfortune to indulge in unlawful ones.--St. Gregory the Great.
"Afflictions are the most certain proofs that God can give us of His love for us."--St. Vincent de Paul
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| October 31st - Vigil of All Saints |
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Posted by: Stone - 11-01-2021, 07:08 AM - Forum: October
- Replies (1)
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October 31 – Vigil of All Saints
Taken from T he Liturgical Year by Dom Prosper Guéranger (1841-1875)
![[Image: Fra_Angelico_-_Predella_of_the_San_Domen...C112&ssl=1]](https://i0.wp.com/sensusfidelium.us/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Fra_Angelico_-_Predella_of_the_San_Domenico_Altarpiece_-_WGA00447.jpg?resize=768%2C112&ssl=1)
Let us prepare our souls for the graces heaven is about to shower upon the earth in return for its homage. Tomorrow the Church will be so overflowing with joy that she will seem to be already in possession of eternal happiness; but today she appears in the garb of penance, confessing that she is still an exile. Let us fast and pray with her; for are not we too pilgrims and strangers in this world, where all things are fleeting and hurry on to death? Year by year, as the great solemnity comes round, it has gathered from among our former companions new saints, who bless our tears and smile upon our songs of hope. Year by year the appointed time draws nearer, when we ourselves, seated at the heavenly banquet, shall receive the homage of those who succeed us, and hold out a helping hand to draw them after us to the home of everlasting happiness. Let us learn, from this very hour, to emancipate our souls, let us keep our hearts free, in the midst of the vain solicitudes and false pleasures of a strange land: the exile has no care but his banishment, no joy but that which gives him a foretaste of his fatherland.
With these thoughts in mind, let us say with the Church the Collect of the Vigil.
Prayer
Domine Deus noster, multiplica super nos gratiam tuam: et, quorum prævenimus gloriosa solemnia, tribue subsequi in sancta professione lætitiam. Per Dominum.
O Lord our God, multiply thy grace upon us; and grant us in our holy profession to follow the joy of those whose glorious solemnity we anticipate. Through our Lord.
Let us close this month as we opened it, by homage to Mary, Queen of the holy Rosary, and Queen of all the Saints. The ancient Dominican Missals furnish us with a formula.
Sequence
Virginalis hortuli
Verni pubent surculi
Et efflorent pulluli
Fecunda propagine.
In the virginal garden, the young shoots of spring push forth, and burst into blossom with fruitful abundance.
Gelu et hiems transeunt,
Nix et imber abeunt,
Rosæ in terra prodeunt
Et cœlesti germine.
The frost and the winter have passed away, the snow and the rain are over; and roses spring up on earth from a heavenly seed.
Rosa, radix lilii
Haæc ex horto lilii
Toto curen exsilii
Collegit plantaria.
The rose has produced a lily; during the whole time of her exile she gathered the produce of her Son’s garden:
Justis ad lætitiam,
Reis ad justitiam,
Electic ad gloriam
Cunctis salutaria.
Joy for the just, and justification for sinners, glory for the elect, salvation for all.
Quæ de cœlis attulit
Et in terris sustulit,
Christus mundo contulit
Contra mundum prælians.
The gifts Christ brought from heaven, and the sufferings he endured on earth, he bestowed upon the world when he overcame the world.
Nos hic tectus frondibus,
Vulneratus sentibus,
Redimitus floribus,
Vocans, purgans, præmians.
He sheltered under the rose-tree’s foliage, he was wounded by the thorns, he was crowned with its flowers; thus does he call us, purify us, reward us.
A stirpis rosariæ
Gemmis, spinis, foliis,
Affluentis patriæ
Fruemur deliciis,
Ubi satrix residet.
Because of the leaves and thorns and flowers of the rose, we shall enjoy the delights of that rich land, where she, the fair cultivator resides.
Atque hujus militiæ
Læta sodalitiis
Triplicis hierarchiæ
Ter trinis consortiis
Imperatrix residet.
The empress, who joyfully presides over our militant companies, and over the nine choirs of the triple hierarchy.
Salve nova triumphatrix
Et triumphi reparatrix
Antiqui certaminis.
Hail! thou, who by a new triumph dost repair the loss we sustained, when the enemy triumphed in the first combat.
Rursus minax sævit ultor,
Ni resistas, perit cultor
Christiani nominis.
See how again he threatens fierce revenge; unless thou oppose him, every Christian must perish.
Ave Verbi domicilium,
Sancti Spiritus sacrarium,
Summi Patris filia.
Hail, home of the Word, sanctuary of the Holy Ghost, daughter of the most high Father!
Affer nobis juge auxilium,
Sub discrimen vitæ varium
Contra tela hostilia.
In the various perils of this life, bring us unfailing assistance against the darts of the enemy.
Ut coronent nos post prælium,
Quæ fert cœli viridarium
Mixta rosis lilia. Amen.
May lilies intertwined with roses from the garden of heaven, be our crown of victory after the combat. Amen.
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| October 30th - Saint Marcellus the Centurion and His Children, Martyrs |
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Posted by: Stone - 11-01-2021, 07:02 AM - Forum: October
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Saint Marcellus the Centurion and His Children, Martyrs
Taken from here.
![[Image: saint_marcellus_the_centurion_and_his_children.jpg]](https://sanctoral.com/en/saints/images/saint_marcellus_the_centurion_and_his_children.jpg)
It is believed that Saint Marcellus was born in Arzas of Galicia. A brave pagan, he entered upon the career of arms, hoping to gain a large fortune. He married a young lady named Nona and they were blessed with twelve children. Saint Marcellus was a valorous solider and was promoted to the charge of centurion; he had no thought for any advancement except the sort pertaining to his military life, when he heard the fervent preaching of a holy bishop of the church of Leon. He was converted with his entire family to the Christian religion. All of them except his wife would soon give their blood in honor of their Faith.
The birthday of the Emperor Maximian Herculeus was celebrated in the year 298 with extraordinary feasting and solemn rites. Marcellus, as a centurion of the army, a captain in the legion of Trajan then posted in Mauritania or Spain, in order not to defile himself in these impious sacrifices, left his company, throwing down his cincture and his arms and declaring aloud that he was a soldier of Jesus Christ, the eternal King. He was at once committed to prison. When the festival was over, he was brought before a judge, and having reiterated his faith, was sent under a strong guard to a prefect, Aurelian Agricolaus. This Roman officer passed upon him a sentence of death by the sword. Marcellus was immediately led to execution and beheaded on the 30th of October of the year 298. Cassian, the secretary or notary of the court, refused to record the sentence pronounced against the martyr, because of its injustice. He was immediately hurried to prison, and was beheaded in his turn on the 3rd of December.
The children of Saint Marcellus imitated his constancy, and all lost their lives for the defense of the Gospel; three of the boys were hanged and then decapitated at Leon. Their pious mother bought back their bodies for money and buried them secretly; they were later transferred to a church built in their honor in the city of Leon.
Reflection: We are ready to die rather than to transgress the laws of God! exclaimed one of the Maccabees. This sentiment must ever be that of a Christian in the throes of temptation.
Les Petits Bollandistes: Vies des Saints, by Msgr. Paul Guérin (Bloud et Barral: Paris, 1882), Vol. 13; Little Pictorial Lives of the Saints, a compilation based on Butler's Lives of the Saints and other sources by John Gilmary Shea (Benziger Brothers: New York, 1894).
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| Australia Confiscating Bank Accounts, Property, etc. For Non-Compliance With Fines |
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Posted by: Stone - 11-01-2021, 06:40 AM - Forum: Socialism & Communism
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Australia Confiscating Bank Accounts, Property, Licenses, & Businesses For Non-Compliance With COVID Fines
![[Image: australia-covid-compliance-768x446.jpg?itok=5zcbnR2T]](https://assets.zerohedge.com/s3fs-public/styles/inline_image_mobile/public/inline-images/australia-covid-compliance-768x446.jpg?itok=5zcbnR2T)
ZH | OCT 31, 2021
Authored by Sundance via The Last Refuge (emphasis mine),
Of all the extreme measures carried out by various states in Australia, the collections and confiscations by the State Penalty and Enforcement Register (SPER) might just be the icing on the cake.
During the lengthy COVID lockdown in the state of Queensland, Australia (Brisbane area), most workers were not permitted to work or earn a living.
Several states stepped in to provide wage subsidies so people could purchase essential products and pay their living expenses. However, during the lockdown if you were caught violating any of the lockdown rules, you were subject to a civil citation, a fine or ticket for your COVID violation.
Get caught too far from home, outside your permitted bubble, and you get a ticket. Get caught spending more than the permitted 1 hour outside, get a ticket. Get caught without a mask, even by yourself – and yep, ticket. Enter a closed quarantine zone (park, venue, etc.) and you get a ticket. Tickets were being handed out by police on the street as well as during random checkpoints on the roadways.
Additionally, people returning to Queensland were put into a system of involuntary quarantine. The costs for that quarantine, mostly hotel rooms, were to be paid by the people being involuntarily captive and not allowed home.
Citizens were required to have their physical location scanned via a QR code on their phone. These checkpoints were to assist in controlling the COVID spread and were used for contact tracing throughout the past two years. However, the checkpoints and gateway compliance scans also registered your physical location; the consequence was an increased ability for police and COVID compliance officers to catch people violating the COVID rules. Ex: If you checked in at the grocery store, they knew how far from home you are, and the police could figure out if you violated your one hour of time outside the home at the next checkpoint.
The result of all this compliance monitoring was thousands of fines, civil citations for violating COVID rules. Thousands of people given thousands of fines that would need to be paid.
Now the state is requiring all of those civil citations get paid, or else. And the enforcement actions to collect these fines from the State Penalty and Enforcement Register are quite extreme. Citizens who have outstanding tickets are finding their driver’s licenses suspended; bank accounts are being frozen and seized; homes and property are are being confiscated, as well as business licenses suspended for outstanding citations.
“Queenslanders who received fines for breaking Covid-19 rules risk having their homes seized and bank accounts frozen in a government crackdown to collect $5.2 million in repayments.” (LINK)
Brisbane Times – “SPER was undertaking “active enforcement” on another 18.4 per cent of fines, worth about $1 million, which a spokesman said “may include garnishing bank accounts or wages, registering charges over property, or suspending driver licences”. The remaining 25.2 per cent of fines were either under investigation or still open to payment without further action being taken.
Outside SPER’s work, Queensland Health took the unusual step of calling in private debt collectors to chase up $5.7 million amounting from 2045 significantly overdue invoices for hotel quarantine. (read more)
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| Statement of Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò on the occasion of the visit of Joe Biden to the Vatican |
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Posted by: Stone - 10-31-2021, 08:30 AM - Forum: Archbishop Viganò
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Statement of Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò on the occasion of the visit of Joe Biden to the Vatican
Taken from here.
![[Image: rikhfx4ahcc1grqgza9eh94rywnq88uq878m961....ormat=webp]](https://assistant.gloria.tv/FxK6pqhk7ZiS1AZwTDoBU6KMY/rikhfx4ahcc1grqgza9eh94rywnq88uq878m961.webp?format=webp)
On the occasion of the October 29 visit to the Vatican, the press agencies have spread the news that Joe Biden reported the content of the meeting and said that Francis called him “a good Catholic,” inviting him to “continue to receive Communion.” It is disconcerting that, to date, no clarifying comment has come from the Vatican Press Office. This leaves us to presume that Joe Biden’s words correspond to the truth and that Bergoglio actually spoke them.
Even if what Biden said corresponds perfectly to the intemperate quips of Jorge Mario Bergoglio – who called a notorious radical abortion activist a “great Italian” – it is evident that such statements represent an unheard of scandal, since they fail to condemn the positions of a political personality who supports abortion, disavow the immutable position of the Magisterium of the Church, and resound as a blatant invitation to commit sacrilege, profaning the Most Holy Eucharist by receiving it in the state of public and manifest sin.
Every Catholic knows that the killing of a defenseless creature in the mother’s womb is a horrendous crime; and that the most serious scandal is given to the faithful not only by Joe Biden as a convinced supporter of abortion, but also by Bergoglio himself, who is recognized as holding the authority of Supreme Pastor of the Church. His work of demolition knows no respite before the astonished silence of the Cardinals and Bishops. The very rare exceptions of Pastors who truly have at heart the souls entrusted to them – the example of His Eminence Cardinal Burke stands out among others – are seen with hostility by the majority of their brother Bishops and by the Vatican, in a disturbing subversion of the mission of the Church of Christ, which today has been reduced to climate change, inclusive capitalism, and mass vaccination. Bergoglio was recently recognized as “moral guide” by the Council for Inclusive Capitalism led by Lynn Forester de Rothschild, and he appointed Jeffrey David Sachs as a member of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences. Sachs is the president of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network of the United Nations, a supporter of reducing the global population and of the fight against climate change – this has nothing to do with the mission of the Papacy and ought to lead the Prelates of the Church to seriously ask themselves about Bergoglio’s mental and moral suitability for the role he holds.
I exhort the faithful, on the Feast instituted by Pius XI in honor of the social Kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ, to beseech the Divine Majesty, asking that among the many societies afflicted by the present crisis, the Church of Christ may be the first in which Jesus Christ, who today has been replaced by the idols of globalist ideology, returns to reign.
+ Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop
Sunday 31 October 2021
Domini Nostri Jesu Christi Regis
1 Cf.https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-pop...5f9ee1e252
2 Cf.http://chiesaepostconcilio.blogspot.com/...to-di.html
3 Cf. https://www.agensir.it/quotidiano/2021/1...e-sociali/
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| Archbishop Lefebvre 1989: Sermon given on the Feast of Christ the King |
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Posted by: Stone - 10-31-2021, 08:02 AM - Forum: Sermons and Conferences
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Sermon of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre for the Feast of Christ the King
October 29, 1989
Dublin, Ireland
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
My dear brethren,
It is a great pleasure for me to meet you again in this magnificent church. Four years ago I was here to bless this church and now I am here for the Feast of Jesus Christ, the King.
We must thank God for the many blessings, many graces, He gives you in this church by the ministry of your beloved priests. How many graces, how many blessings you receive by the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, by the Sacrament of Holy Communion, by the Sacrament of Penance! We must thank God.
I am very happy to celebrate this Sacrifice of the Mass this day of the Feast of Jesus Christ, the King. He is really King. In 1925 Pope Pius XI wrote a magnificent encyclical letter, Quas Primas, on Christ the King. I was then a seminarian in Rome and I remember very well when the Pope published this beautiful encyclical.
It is true that Jesus Christ is a King. He is King by nature because He is true God and by reason of the union of the divine nature with the human nature. Jesus Christ is really King. He is also King by conquest, by His Cross. By His sacrifice on the Cross, Jesus Christ became King of all souls. He gave His life and blood to save all souls. Therefore He is King of all souls. But you know, now, in our time, many refuse to acknowledge the Kingship of Jesus Christ. They are opposed to the principle of the Kingship of Jesus Christ. It is a great sadness when we know that after the Second Vatican Council the Vatican authorities requested many Catholic countries to abandon the idea of the Kingship of Jesus Christ as they did in your beloved country, Ireland.
I remember when I visited Ireland many years ago, I met your great President, Eamonn De Valera. He was a great Catholic. He certainly would refuse to say that Jesus Christ is not King of Ireland. But after the Council the Vatican authorities requested from the President of Ireland to abandon the principle of the Kingship of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is no more publicly acclaimed King of Ireland; it is the same in many Catholic countries. The Vatican asked, for example, Italy, Colombia and other countries to abandon the principle that the Catholic religion is the public religion of the State. Why?
Jesus Christ is King of all countries, of all men; so, we must remain in, and profess this Catholic Faith. And we, personally, are very happy to celebrate this great Feast of Jesus Christ, the King, because we have this Catholic belief in the Kingship of Jesus Christ over the whole world, the universal, social Kingship of Jesus Christ. We need to do everything possible to extend this Kingdom of Jesus Christ in our souls, in our bodies, in our families, in our countries. We must extend the Kingdom of Jesus Christ in our minds by the practice of the Catholic Faith. The Catholic Faith is the obedience to the Kingdom of Jesus Christ in our souls. We must extend this Kingdom of Jesus Christ in our wills, by following the laws of Jesus Christ, and in our families, so that He rules all the Catholic faithful.
We must recognize the Kingdom of Jesus Christ and we must also labor to extend the Kingdom of Jesus Christ in our countries. You know that in Protestant countries, the Protestant religion is acknowledged as the public religion. For example, in Norway and Sweden the public religion is the Protestant religion. Why, then, do Catholics not have the same rights in Catholic countries? It is extraordinary. How is it possible that the Vatican has asked Catholic countries not to profess themselves, publicly, Catholic, but only privately? That is incredible. I told this to Pope John Paul II in my audience with him [1978]. That isn't Catholic teaching. The teaching of the Catholic Church is that we must do all in our power to extend the Kingdom of Jesus Christ, the social Kingdom of Jesus Christ. So, by this change in the Church, many Catholic countries are abandoning the law of Jesus Christ Christian law. The law permitting abortion and contraception is a law opposed to Catholic families. We must pray, my dear brethren, we must pray and ask God, by the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, that the Kingdom of Jesus Christ will return, will come back in our cities, in our countries.
In heaven, Jesus Christ is King and we pray in the Our father that “Thy kingdom come.” That is a true Catholic prayer.
I hope that you are happy to have taken the decision to remain true Catholics because this is the aim of our Society, of our reaction against the errors of the Conciliar Church. Our reaction is only a Catholic reaction. There is no other explanation for our difficulties with modern Rome. It is because we have taken this decision to remain true Catholics, to keep the true Catholic Faith. We have never changed and cannot change because the Catholic Faith is always the same. During centuries and centuries, the Catholic Faith did not change. It is those who change the Catholic Faith who are the real schismatics, who are heretics. Not we. With the grace of God, we remain true Catholics. We keep all the articles of the Creed, all the seven Sacraments, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass without any change. That is the will of God, of Jesus Christ. That is the true Kingdom of Jesus Christ in our souls, in our families.
We must thank God for the grace to remain true Catholics. It is very important in order to save our souls and the souls of our children.
Today we must pray to Our Lord Jesus Christ, we must pray to the Blessed Virgin Mary to remain true Catholics and to do everything possible to become saints. We must come to church frequently, pray in our church, receive the graces of the sacraments in order to become saints, to sanctify our souls and to go to heaven with all the members of our families and all those who kept the Catholic Faith here on earth and now enjoy the happiness of heaven.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
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| Bishop Tissier de Mallerais: Archbishop Lefebvre - A Life for Christ the King |
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Posted by: Stone - 10-31-2021, 07:53 AM - Forum: Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre
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Archbishop Lefebvre: A Life for Christ the King
by Bishop Bernard Tissier de Mallerais
First published in the October 2011 issue of The Angelus magazine.
Archbishop Lefebvre always linked the priesthood to the social reign of our Lord Jesus Christ: the one is source of the other; the other spontaneously flows from the first.
I. At the French Seminary in Rome
On the Via Santa Chiara, where he trained for the priesthood from 1923 to 1929, Fr. Lefebvre learned from Fr. Henri Le Floch, the Father Superior of the house, not to separate what should be joined: the divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ and His social reign, a priest’s doctrine and his piety, and also the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the social reign of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is the teaching of the popes in their encyclicals.
Pius IX, Leo XIII, Pius X, and Pius XI are the masters, and also Cardinal Pie, Louis Veuillot, and so on. But the Fathers of the seminary were also well-beloved masters to whom they listened.
Fr. Le Floch
According to Archbishop Lefebvre:
Quote:Fr. Le Floch made us enter into and live the history of the Church, this fight that the perverse powers take to our Lord. We were mobilized against this dreadful liberalism, against the Revolution and the forces of evil which were trying to overcome the Church, the reign of our Lord, the Catholic States, and the whole of Christianity."[1]
This conflict imposed a personal choice on every seminarian: "We had to choose: we had to leave the seminary if we didn’t agree, or else join in the fight." But taking up the fight meant taking it up for one’s whole life: "I think that our whole life as priests—or as bishops—has been marked by this fight against liberalism."[2]
But how does the priesthood fit into this essentially political combat?
At the French Seminary, the seminarians had to read or had read to them the writings of Godefroid Kurth [The Origins of Modern Civilization, 1912] to make them consider how
Quote:the mystical Body of Christ transformed the pagan society of imperial Rome and prepared the growing movement that recognized the plans for society of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Priest and King";
the seminarians also learned through the writings of Fr. Deschamps [in his book Secret Societies and Society] that
Quote:revolutions caused the exclusion of Christ the King from government with the final goal of eliminating the Mass and the supernatural life of Christ the sovereign High Priest."[3]
Fr. (and later Cardinal) Billot’s De Ecclesia made them grasp “the sense of the royalty of Christ and the horror of liberalism.” Through the works of Cardinal Pie they learned
Quote:the full meaning of ‘thy kingdom come,’ namely, that Our Lord’s kingdom must come not only in individual souls and in heaven, but also on earth by the submission of States and nations to His rule. The dethroning of God on earth is a crime to which we must never resign ourselves" (Fr. Fahey).[4]
[Fr. Fahey was a seminarian in Rome 12 years before Marcel Lefebvre. He attended the same seminary, which was also under Fr. Le Floch’s direction.] “Pius IX’s Syllabus and the encyclicals of the last four popes,” said Fahey, “have been the principal object of my meditations on the royalty of Christ and its relation to the priesthood.”[5]
What a surprising meditation subject for a young seminarian: joining the highest spirituality with the submission of the temporal order to Christ. For Marcel Lefebvre’s teachers, there was no divorce between individual life and political action in the broadest sense. So-called “Catholic” liberalism separates what should remain united.
Fr. Voegtli
It was also at the French Seminary in Rome that Fr. Marc Voegtli, C.S.Sp., a professor at Santa Chiara, commented on Pius XI’s encyclical Quas Primas of December 11, 1925, on the social kingship of Jesus Christ. Before his enthusiastic young audience he set forth the political program of the Catholic Church by the action of the Catholic priest. We’ll explain at the end of this talk the political program in which the priest is engaged.
The testimony of Fr. Voegtli’s students is unanimous: His teaching was simple, he spoke only of Our Lord Jesus Christ the King…. He taught the integrity of the priesthood, the priesthood taken to its logical conclusion: the sacrifice of the priest [Keep that idea in mind] for the reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Everything was judged in that light. 'My dear friends,' the Father would say, 'you must preach Our Lord Jesus Christ with all your heart!'"
A collective testimony signed by twelve seminarians declares:
Quote:Through him [Fr. Voegtli] we learned to see our Lord Jesus Christ, the King, as the center of everything, the answer to all questions, our food, our thought, our life, everything…. That is what he wanted to impress upon us: that will remain!"[6]
And remain it did, as we shall see. Marcel Lefebvre was one of those who had an unforgettable memory of Fr. Voegtli’s conferences. You may be thinking, "Let’s get to his actions during the Council and after!" Yes, but it is essential to understand the mainspring of his action!
The mainspring of Archbishop Lefebvre’s fight for Christ the King:
a testimony
He essentially gave his own testimony to the fact: 50 years [after the 12 seminarians’ testimony] one of Fr. Voegtli’s rare faithful disciples, Marcel Lefebvre, also bore witness to the indelible impression produced by Fr. Voegtli’s “talks, which were very simple, taking the words of Scripture, showing who Our Lord Jesus Christ was…. That remained with us for life!”[7]
It even became the subject of the seminarian’s meditation:
Quote:We shall never have sufficiently meditated on, or sought to understand, what Our Lord Jesus Christ is…. He should rule our thinking, He makes us holy. He is also our Creator since nothing whatsoever was made without the Word, and therefore without Our Lord Jesus Christ who is the Word. So we must only think about and contemplate Our Lord Jesus Christ. And that transforms one’s life!"[8]
What a striking remark. For Marcel Lefebvre, belief in the divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ and consequently His right alone to reign meant personally dedicating himself to the fight. This he did, like many of his confreres, at Rome before the Confession of St. Peter. There he made a private vow of doctrinal and militant “Romanity.” The account of the Fr. Berto suggests that making such a vow was normal and went without saying. The seminarian promised “to be constantly on crusade” (Archbishop Lefebvre).[9]
He didn’t know when or where or in what troubled, tragic circumstances of the Church it would be that he would have to enter the arena and himself write a page of that Church history that he was shown under the light of Christ the King, but he knew that he would have to join in the battle.
The Second Vatican Council was to be the providential moment for Archbishop Lefebvre, the moment when he felt himself pushed to intervene in fidelity to the promise he had made as a seminarian at Rome long before.
II. Herald of Christ the King
During the Council, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre became the head of the resistance against false religious freedom in the name of Christ the King. During the presentation of two rival drafts on religious freedom, one by Cardinal Bea and one by Cardinal Ottaviani, at the last meeting of the Central Preparatory Commission in June 1962, he gave his opinion.
About the liberal schema of Cardinal Bea, he said:
Quote:On Religious Liberty: non placet… since it is based on false principles solemnly condemned by the sovereign pontiffs, for example Pius IX, who calls this error "delirium" (Denzinger 1690)…. The schema on religious liberty does not preach Christ and therefore seems false…."
About the Catholic schema of Cardinal Ottaviani, he said:
Quote:‘On the Church’: placet. However, the exposition of the fundamental principles could be done with more reference to Christ the King as in the encyclical Quas Primas…. Our Council could have as its aim to preach Christ to all men, and to state that it belongs to the Catholic Church alone to be the true preacher of Christ who is the salvation and life of individuals, families, professional associations, and of other civil bodies. …The Theological Commission’s schema expounds the authentic doctrine but does so like a thesis; it does not sufficiently show the aim of this doctrine which is nothing other than the reign of Christ…. From the point of view of Christ as source of salvation and life, all the fundamental truths could be expounded as they say “pastorally,” and in this way the errors of secularism, naturalism, and materialism, etc., would be excluded."[10]
III. Theological Adversary
of the Secular State
The Declaration on Religious Freedom promulgated by the Council on December 7, 1965, Dignitatis Humanae, seems to assert that the State must recognize the Catholic religion as the one true one (DH 1), but at the same time it teaches the “natural” freedom of the adherents of false cults to practice their beliefs publicly (DH 6). This contradiction became more problematic after the Council from the way the Holy See required its application by States that were still officially Catholic: the article in their constitutions professing the Catholic religion as the State religion had to be expunged.
So, while passing through Colombia, South America, soon after the suppression of the “Catholic religion” as “that of the nation,” Archbishop Lefebvre remarked that “the speech of the president of the Republic is more Catholic than the Nuncio’s.” The Archbishop was indignant that Ireland had agreed to replace the expression “the special position of the holy, Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman Church as guardian of the faith professed by the great majority of its citizens,” with “the homage of public worship” given by the State “to Almighty God.”
In Italy, Article 1 of the Lateran Accords of February 11, 1929, read:
Quote:Italy recognizes and reaffirms the principle expressed by Article 1 of the Statute of the Realm of March 4, 1848, by which the Catholic, Apostolic and Roman religion is the only religion of the State."[11]
In 1984, to the consternation of Archbishop Lefebvre, the new concordat between the Holy See and Italy only recognized that “the principles of Catholicism constitute part of the historical patrimony of the Italian people.” In 1977 [7 years before the 1984 concordat], Cardinal Giovanni Colombo, the Archbishop of Milan, had declared: "o stato non puo essere che laico.—The State can only be secular. He explained:
Quote:The Church does not ask for privileges, but for genuine freedom…. In the current historical development of society, a confessional State is not possible: not only a confessional Christian State, but also a confessional Marxist atheistic State or a confessional radical bourgeois State. We are calling for a State that does not embrace any particular ideology, that does not impose the dogmas of any culture, and that does not identify with any party. Otherwise, very many of its citizens, because of their religious or ideological or partisan choices, would be compelled to feel like strangers in their own land."[12]
In terms that are insulting to the Church of Christ thus put on a par with ideologies, parties, and cultures, the Cardinal could not better express the current interpretation given to Dignitatis Humanae as propounding the agnostic and indifferentist State. The State’s pledge of allegiance to Jesus Christ, God Incarnate and the one true God, would amount to uncharitableness, contempt for human dignity, and unfair discrimination.
Archbishop Lefebvre spoke out against these liberal platitudes in an interview with the three cardinals who questioned him in 1975. “The goal of the secularization of the State,” he said, “is nothing other than the goal of the devil, who is behind Freemasonry: the destruction of the Catholic Church by affording all the false religions freedom of speech and by forbidding the State to work for the social kingship of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
The archbishop explained what he meant: First of all, the recognition of Christ by the State is not a privilege; it is the right of the Man-God and Redeemer of the human race. On the other hand, “How many Catholics are still able to recognize that the work of our Lord’s Redemption must also be accomplished through civil society?” And yet this is so, for “everything was made for our Lord Jesus Christ,” as St. Paul teaches (Col. 1:16).[13]
Man has but one ultimate goal: eternal salvation. The Church works directly toward this goal, but the State should also work towards it, although indirectly, for civil society is also a creature of our Lord Jesus Christ.[14] Consequently, as St. Pius X teaches, the State has as its “ultimate object …man’s eternal happiness after this short life shall have run its course.”[15]
This… is founded on the dogmatic reason and on the experience of the conversion of numerous nations subsequent to the conversion of their rulers: for example, Clovis, Ethelbert, and so on. This fact prompted St. Alphonsus Liguori to declare: “If I convert a king, I do more for the Catholic cause than hundreds of missionaries.”
Archbishop Lefebvre also held the supernatural and traditional position of the Church on Christ the King—namely, that the State should be an instrument in the work of Redemption. He is not far from taking as his own the program of his brother in religion and co-alumnus of Santa Chiara, Denis Fahey: since the reign of Christ must be established by the cross (“Regnavit a ligno Deus” we sing in the Vexilla Regis):
Quote:In order to favor union with Christ as Priest in Holy Mass, God wants the world organized under Christ as King."[16]
From this it follows that:
Quote:At Holy Mass all the members of Christ express their determination to work for the integral establishment of the rights of God and of Christ the King over the world."[17]
More briefly, Archbishop Lefebvre would often say: “The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is the expression of the Kingship of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
At the French Seminary in Rome, Fr. Marc Voegtli, following the teaching of Fr. Deschamps, taught the young Marcel Lefebvre the liberal, Freemasonic agenda in three points:
1. The banishment of Christ the King from government by the secularization of the State;
2. eliminating the Mass which would result from the persecution of the Church by legal means, and ultimately the secularization of the Church itself, the supreme plot of initiated Masons; in order
3. finally to suppress the grace of Jesus Christ High Priest in souls—the very secularization of Catholic souls. All of this happened after the Second Vatican Council…
What Archbishop Lefebvre did is reverse this satanic program in order to come up with the Catholic program, which is that of the Society of St. Pius X, also in three points:
1. Restore to the faithful the Mass—the true Mass, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass—which is the source and expression of the reign of Jesus Christ.
2. By the grace of the Mass, form an elite of faithful Catholics living in the state of grace; and
3. through the work of this elite in public institutions—not just in ecclesiastical organizations, but also in openly Catholic civil organizations—re-crown our Lord Jesus Christ in society: “Omnia instaurare in Christo—Establish all things in Christ,” according to the motto of St. Pius X.
This is the program Archbishop Lefebvre tried to explain to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the future Benedict XVI, in a meeting they had in Rome on July 14, 1987:
Quote:Eminence… you are working to dechristianize society and the Church, and we are working to Christianize them. For us, our Lord Jesus Christ is everything, He is our life. The Church is our Lord Jesus Christ; the priest is another Christ; the Mass is the triumph of Jesus Christ on the cross; in our seminaries everything tends towards the reign of our Lord Jesus Christ. But You! You are doing the opposite: you have just wanted to prove to me that our Lord Jesus Christ cannot, and must not, reign over society. For us, our Lord Jesus Christ is everything!"[18]
Footnotes
1 Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, Marcel Lefebvre: The Biography, pp. 36-7.
2 Ibid.
3 Fr. Denis Fahey, C.S.Sp., “Apologia pro Vita Mea,” 1950 (reprinted in Catholic Family News, April & May 1997), quoted in Tissier, Marcel Lefebvre, p. 37.
4 Ibid.
5 Ibid., pp. 37-8.
6 Tissier, Marcel Lefebvre, pp. 43-4.
7 Ibid., p. 44.
8 Ibid.
9 Archbishop Lefebvre, The Little Story of My Long Life [ref. to French edition], p. 28.
10 Tissier de Mallerais, Marcel Lefebvre, p. 285.
11 A.A.S. 21 (1929), pp. 290 seq.
12 Quoted from L’Osservatore Romano, translated from the Italian and published by “Ya” on July 14, 1977, and reprinted in the bulletin of the CICES, No. 210, March 15, 1977, under the byline of Andre Laforge.
13 Spiritual Conference, Econe, September 23, 1977, relating the conference of Archbishop Lefebvre at Rome at Princess Palaviccini’s in June 1977. Cf. They Have Uncrowned Him, p. 101 [ref. to French edition].
14 It is a creature of God because the social nature of man is God’s creation.
15 St. Pius X, encyclical Vehementer Nos condemning the Law of Separation of Church and State in France, February 11, 1906.
16 Rev. Fr. Denis Fahey, C.S.Sp., The Mystical Body of Christ and the Reorganization of Society, pp. 114-5.
17 Ibid.
18 Tissier de Mallerais, Marcel Lefebvre, p. 548.
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| Hymn for the Feast of Christ the King: Te Sæculorum Principem |
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Posted by: Stone - 10-31-2021, 07:25 AM - Forum: Pentecost
- Replies (1)
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Te Sæculorum Principem
Te sæculorum Principem, Te, Christe, Regem Gentium,
Te mentium, Te cordium Unum fatemur arbitrum.
Thou, Prince of all ages, Thou, O Christ, the King of the nations,
we acknowledge Thee the one Judge of all hearts and minds.
Scelesta turba clamitat: Regnare Christum nolumus:
Te nos ovantes omnium Regem supremum dicimus.
The wicked mob screams out. "We don't want Christ as king,"
While we, with shouts of joy, hail Thee as the world's supreme King.
O Christe, Princeps Pacifer, Mentes rebelles subiice:
Tuoque amore devios, Ovile in unum congrega.
O Christ, peace-bringing Prince, subjugate the rebellious minds:
And in Thy love, bring together in one flock those going astray.
Ad hoc cruenta ab arbore, Pendes apertis brachiis:
Diraque fossum cuspide Cor igne flagrans exhibes.
For this, with arms outstretched, Thou hung, bleeding, on the Cross,
and the cruel spear that pierced Thee, showed man a Heart burning with love.
Ad hoc in aris abderis Vini dapisque imagine,
Fundens salutem filiis Transverberato pectore.
For this, Thou art hidden on our altars under the form of bread and wine,
and pour out on Thy children from Thy pierced side the grace of salvation.
Te nationum Praesides Honore tollant publico,
Colant magistri, iudices, Leges et artes exprimant.
May the rulers of the world publicly honour and extol Thee; May teachers and judges reverence Thee;
May the laws express Thine order and the arts reflect Thy beauty.
Submissa regum fulgeant Tibi dicata insignia:
Mitique sceptro patriam Domosque subde civium.
May kings find renown in their submission and dedication to Thee.
Bring under Thy gentle rule our country and our homes.
Iesu, tibi sit gloria, Qui sceptra mundi temperas,
Cum Patre et almo Spiritu, In sempiterna sæcula. Amen.
Glory be to Thee, O Jesus, supreme over all secular authorities;
And glory be to the Father and the loving Spirit through endless ages. Amen.
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| Prayers in Honor of Christ the King |
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Posted by: Stone - 10-31-2021, 07:15 AM - Forum: In Honor of Our Lord
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Prayer of Necessity
(Taken from the Raccolta 1910)
Jesus Christ, the King of Glory, hath come in peace.
God was made man.
The Word was made flesh.
Christ was born of Mary the Virgin.
Christ went through the midst of them in peace.
Christ was crucified.
Christ died.
Christ was buried.
Christ rose from the dead.
Christ ascended into heaven.
Christ is victorious
Christ reigns.
Christ is Lord of all.
May Christ defend us from all evil.
Jesus is with us.
(Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory be to the Father etc.)
Eternal Father, by the Blood of Jesus have mercy; sign us with the Blood of the Immaculate Lamb Jesus Christ, as Thou didst sign the people of Israel, in order to deliver them from death: and do thou, Mary, Mother of Mercy, pray to God and appease Him for us, and obtain for us the grace we ask. (Glory be to the Father etc.)
Eternal Father, by the Blood of Jesus have mercy; save us from the shipwreck of the world, as Thou didst save Noe from the universal deluge: and do thou, Mary, Ark of salvation, pray to God and appease Him for us, and obtain for us the grace we ask. (Glory be to the Father etc.)
Eternal Father, by the Blood of Jesus have mercy; deliver us from the plagues which we have deserved for our sins, as Thou didst deliver Lot from the flames of Sodom. And do thou, Mary, our Advocate, pray to God and appease Him for us, and obtain for us the grace we ask. (Glory be to the Father etc.)
Eternal Father, by the Blood of Jesus have mercy; comfort us under our present necessities and troubles, as Thou didst comfort Job, Anna and Tobias in their afflictions. And do thou, Mary, Comforter of the afflicted, pray to God and appease Him for us, and obtain for us the grace we ask. (Glory be to the Father etc.)
Eternal Father, by the Blood of Jesus have mercy; Thou who wouldst not the death of a sinner, but rather that he should be converted and live, grant us through thy mercy time for penance; that, filled with contrition and penance for our sins, which are the cause of all our evils, we may live in the holy faith, hope, charity and peace of our Lord Jesus Christ. And do thou, Mary, Refuge of sinners, pray to God and appease Him for us, and obtain for us the grace we ask. (Glory be to the Father etc.)
Precious Blood of Jesus, our Love, cry unto the Divine Father for mercy, pardon, grace and peace for us, for N., and for all the world. (Glory be to the Father etc.)
Mary, our Mother and our Hope, pray to God for us, for N., and for all, and obtain for us the grace we ask. (Glory be to the Father ect.)
Eternal Father, I offer Thee the Blood of Jesus Christ in discharge of all my debt of sin, for the wants of Holy Church, and for the conversion of sinners. (Glory be to the Father etc.)
Mary Immaculate, Mother of God, pray to Jesus for us, for N., and for all. Jesus, Mary, mercy ! St Michael Archangel, St Joseph, SS. Peter and Paul, protectors of all the faithful in the Church of God, and all ye Angels and Saints of Paradise, men and women, pray to God, and by your intercession obtain grace and mercy for me, for N., and for all. Amen.
(Indulgence 100 days)
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| Christus Vincit |
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Posted by: Stone - 10-31-2021, 07:09 AM - Forum: Pentecost
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Christus Vincit
Taken from here.
Also called the laudes regiae, Christus Vincit is the Hymn par excellence to acclaim Christ as the King of Kings. “Christ conquers, Christ reigns, Christ commands.”, an inscription engraved in the obelisk that stands in the middle of St. Peter’s square in the Vatican, the Obelisk itself symbolizing Christus Invictus.
The acclamation goes back to the great Christian King Charlemagne, in whose time the Church and state lived in harmony to a great extent. It is recorded, that at his coronation as Emperor of the Romans (A.D. 800) he took for his motto: Christus Vincit, Christus Regnat, Christus Imperat.
Since then, these words were instituted as the chant used in the coronation of the Holy Roman Emperors, and later on in France, during the anointing and coronation of the Kings.
Later on, the praises were sung every year, at the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris, which was the King’s own parish church. On Easter Sunday, as the king processed into the Cathedral, the laudes regiae were sung for both Him and Christ or rather, to Christ, in him.
Later on, this would move into England, Rome, and the rest of Europe, and it became of popular use also at the entrance of Bishops, and of course the Pope. In the several scores existing, one will find the acclamation for the Bishop, or the simple Christus Vincit, with verses from the Psalm 117.
Lyrics and Translation:
Christus vincit,
Christus regnat,
Christus imperat.
Laudate Dominum, omnes gentes
laudate eum, omnes populi.
Christus vincit,
Christus regnat,
Christus imperat.
Quoniam confirmata est super nos misericordia ejus,
et veritas Domini manet in aeternum.
Christus vincit,
Christus regnat,
Christus imperat.
Gloria Patri et Filio,
et Spiritui Sancto.
Christus vincit,
Christus regnat,
Christus imperat.
Sicut erat in principio et nunc, et semper,
et in saecula saeculorum. Amen.
Christus vincit,
Christus regnat,
Christus imperat.
Christ conquers,
Christ reigns,
Christ commands.
O praise the Lord, all ye nations:
praise ye Him, all ye people.
Christ conquers,
Christ reigns,
Christ commands.
For His mercy is confirmed upon us:
and the truth of the Lord remaineth forever.
Christ conquers,
Christ reigns,
Christ commands.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son,
and to the Holy Spirit.
Christ conquers,
Christ reigns,
Christ commands.
As in the beginning, is now and always and ever shall be,
world without end. Amen.
Christ conquers,
Christ reigns,
Christ commands.
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| Cardinal Manning: The Revolt of Society from God |
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Posted by: Stone - 10-31-2021, 06:59 AM - Forum: Articles by Catholic authors
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"The nation and the kingdom that will not serve Thee shall perish."--Isaias lx. 12.
These words are the promise of God to His Incarnate Son, the King of kings, and Lord of all the earth, which He has redeemed with His precious blood. It was to Him also that the words were spoken: "Sit Thou at My right hand, until I make Thy enemies Thy footstool (Ps. cix. 1, 2)." The Son of God declares of Himself: "I am appointed King by Him over Sion His holy mountain (Ibid. ii. 6)." Before He ascended into heaven, our Lord said to His disciples, "All power in heaven and on earth is given unto Me;" and He promised them, saying, "I dispose"--that, I give--"unto you a kingdom, as My Father has disposed unto Me. (St . Matt, xxviii. 18; St. Luke xxii. 29.)" This kingdom, then, is the kingdom of Jesus Christ; and the prophecy here is, that any nation or any kingdom that will not serve Him shall perish. Any nation or kingdom that says, "We will not have this Man to reign over us," refuses the sovereignty of Jesus Christ, and thereby shall fall.
It was on the day of Pentecost that the proclamation of the coming of this kingdom was first made in a multitude of tongues, and from Jerusalem was spread throughout the world. God the Holy Ghost on that day came as the "sound of a mighty wind," and by tongues of fire, speaking to the eye and to the ear, in witness of His Royal presence, Majesty, and power.
I have already spoken of the revolt of the intellect from truth, and also of the revolt of the will from God. Our present subject is the revolt of man from the authority of God. When I say the revolt of man, I do not only mean of individuals one by one, but of mankind in its organized and corporate state. It is therefore of the revolt of society from the authority of God that I am about to speak.
I have said before, that the history of the Christian society of the world may be divided into three periods: the first, when the Church as a spiritual society stood alone, separate from the world, and made up of individuals gathered from all nations, cities, and households, as a spiritual society without contact with the civil or political society of mankind; the second, when the Church and the civil society of the world, being in harmony and union, after the Empire had become Christian, were associated together in the government and sanctification of the world; the third is the period which for the last three hundred years has set in, of divorce, departure, and separation, between the spiritual society of the Church and the civil or political society of nations. Or in other words, the first period since the coming of our Lord may be called the period of the world under false gods, for the world was heathen; the second was the period of the world under the one true God; and this last period, on which we have now entered, I am afraid must be truly and justly named the world without God, the world departing from the true God.
The other day a book fell into my hands, describing the progress of the world in these three divisions. The writer says that there are three chief cities which have affected the destinies of the civilized world. The first is Jerusalem, from which the Law, the religion of Israel, flowed by tradition into the world. The second is the city of Rome, which, as the writer said--he was certainly not a Catholic, and I believe not a Christian, and if he were not of the house of Israel, I believe he must have been a sceptic--was the source of the Christian and Catholic religion, and of the society which belongs to the Middle Ages. The third city is the city of Paris, the new Jerusalem, the leader of civilization, the city of progress, and the city of the future. While I recite these words, your own thoughts are beginning so make their application.
At the outset of these subjects I said that the Syllabus, published by the Sovereign Pontiff some six or eight years ago, seems to have turned the world upside down. It has created commotion among peoples and kingdoms, governments and legislatures, newspapers and politicians, of whom perhaps not one in a hundred has seen even the outside of the Syllabus, and certainly not one in ten would take time to understand its meaning. This Syllabus is supposed to be a violent and medieval aggression upon the civil order of the world. Let me tell you simply what the Syllabus is. The Gospel of Jesus Christ--that is, Christianity--reveals a multitude of truths, and lays down a multitude of laws. Now, the world has been perpetually denying these truths, and violating these laws, both intellectually and in act. The Syllabus is a collection of eighty condemnations. Eighty of the chief intellectual and moral errors which have sprung up in the modern world, contrary to the faith and morals of Christianity have been condemned, as they arose, by the Head of the Church in express and explicit terms. The Syllabus is a summary of those condemnations. For example, I will recite to you five of the errors that are therein condemned.
They are as follows: first of all, that the civil society of man--that is, the political order of civil society--is the fountain and origin of all right, and that it can be circumscribed by no authority; secondly, that in conflicts between the spiritual and civil authorities, the civil authority is supreme, and must determine; thirdly, that education belongs to the State, as being what is called matter of civil competence, and ought to be strictly secular; fourthly, that kings and princes are exempt from ecclesiastical jurisdiction; lastly, that the State ought to be separated from the Church, and the Church from the State (Syllabus Pii IX., Propp. 39, 42, 45, 54, 55). Now, these are five of the errors which are condemned in the Syllabus; and you will easily understand that the remaining seventy-five propositions of the Syallabus are errors similar in kind. What I purpose to do is, incidentally, and without again reciting them, to show that these are five falsehoods, and are justly condemned.
There is a common axiom that passes from mouth to mouth in these days, that religion and politics have nothing to do with each other--that the Church has nothing to do with politics; that the Church must submit to the civil authorities as supreme; that politics may go their own way by themselves, and that priests and bishops, if they touch politics, go beyond their limits and exceed their powers. We hear a great deal of this talk.
Now, in the name of not only Christianity, but of common sense, I would ask you to consider for one moment the following questions: Is not the law of morals the same for a thousand men as for one? Is not the law of morals the same for a nation as for an individual? Are men bound by the moral law one by one, and are nations and kingdoms not bound by the moral law? Is it to be supposed that individuals, one by one, are under obligation to keep the law of God, and that states and kingdoms are not so bound? Are peasants bound to keep the law of the Gospel and of the Church, and are princes and kings not bound to keep that law? Are individuals who happen to be poor and unlearned under the obligation to obey Christian morality, and are not legislatures and executive governments equally obliged? Nay, I will say more; are they not more strictly bound and under heavier responsibility to conform themselves to the moral law? Well, then, whence comes the moral law? From reason and from Christianity; from the light of reason elevated and perfected by the Christian revelation. And to whose custody was the Christian revelation committed? To the Apostles and their successors, to whom our Lord said: "Go ye, and make disciples of all nations: teaching them to observe whatsoever I have commanded you."
Who, then, are the guardians of the moral law? The Apostles and their successors. And who are their successors? The pastors of the Church of God. And the things which He commanded include His moral precepts as well as the doctrines of Faith; and they bind individuals, and peoples, and nations, and kingdoms, and those who rule over them. To talk about the separation between religion and politics is to talk at random in those who know no better; it is to talk impiety, or it is to talk apostacy, in those who have understanding; for what are politics but the morals of society, the morals of men collected and living together under public law? The same law which governs the individual governs households, and the law that governs households governs the State. The legislature is as much bound to observe the moral law of the Gospel as the individual, as any private man; and therefore politics, so far from being separate, are a part of morals. They are morals applied to the public society of men, to the public action of nations, to the legislation of governments, to the executive authority of princes; for which reason, to attempt to separate between religion and politics, to shut up the priest, as it is said, in the sacristy, is a revolt of the world endeavoring to shake off the yoke of Jesus Christ. If He be the King of the world, which He has redeemed with His precious blood, He will judge the kings and the princes and the legislatures and the nations of this world for the laws which they have made. And this is our present subject. 1.
First of all, then, what is human society, or the political society of the world; and who created it? We read in histories, that such a one was the founder of this kingdom, and such another was the founder of that empire; but they did not create the society. The civil order, or political society of man, is the creation of God. The God of nature, in the day in which He created man, created him with an innate necessity of living a social life. Society sprang from our first parents. As soon as the family arose, the outlines of the political order were traced upon the earth. In the multiplication of men and of families, sprang up the civil and political order of the world; and that civil and political order, whatsoever form it may take, and howsoever it may be modified, has in it three immutable principles. It has the principle of authority, which rules; it has the principle of obedience, which subjects those who are under authority to its government; it has the principle of equal and reciprocal justice between those who are united under the same authority. These three principles are the principles of the family, and of the household, and of the whole civil and political order of the world. They may be variously clothed; they may be embodied in different forms of law, according to ages and nations; but essentially all governments and constitutions resolve themselves at last into these three simple laws. It is of this that the Holy Ghost, speaking by the Apostle, says: "Let every soul be subject to higher powers; for there is no power but from God; and those that are, are ordained of God. He that resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God; and they that resist, purchase to themselves damnation. For princes are not a terror to the good work, but to the evil.
Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? Do that which is good. If thou do that which is evil, fear; for he beareth not the sword in vain. For he is God's minister: an avenger to execute wrath upon him that doth evil (Rom. xiii. 1)." From what other source could the authority to inflict capital punishment be derived, save only from Him who is the Author and Giver of life? Society recognizes the Divine foundation of its authority every time that justice condemns a man to die. This authority is not of human creation; it is of Divine creation. It comes from God; and civil society is therefore in itself of Divine foundation. In the order of nature, it has God for its Author. Sovereignty, then, was immediately committed by God to the society of mankind, in the act of creating it. The particular form of government, whether it be by one or by many, whether it be empire or kingdom or republic--these mutable and incidental forms of government may be determined by man; but the authority which they embody, and by which alone they exist, is always from God. Now, such is civil society. Bear in mind the principles we have laid down; because upon them all depends; all public morality and all public law, the duty of loyalty and of civil obedience, the power of capital punishment, and the mutual justice between man and man. To call in question the Divine foundation of authority, and to talk only of the rights of men, is to violate the first laws of human society. We are in the century of revolutions, inaugurated by the gospel of the rights of man and of the sovereignty of the people, preached by the false prophets of this world to deceive the nations.
Men have come to believe that the freak and caprice of the public will is sovereign, and may at any time revoke the authority which God has providentially ordained in the powers that are. The word of God declares that authority is from God, and that they who resist the authority purchase to themselves damnation. Now, that supreme civil authority, being of God's own creating, is sacred, and was not left in the world to reel and to stagger in the darkness and instability of human ignorance and human license. When God became incarnate, He founded His own kingdom in the world; He instituted an authority in which are incorporated the rights of God; He promulgated a law which governs the conscience of all mankind. 2.
The kingdom of Jesus Christ is His Church one and universal, and by it He exercises His sovereignty over the nations. The commission of His Apostles was to found a universal kingdom, which should never be destroyed; of which the prophet has said, "It shall not be delivered up to another people (Daniel ii. 44.)." Empires have passed from people to people, kingdoms have vanished from off the face of the earth; but the kingdom of Jesus Christ can never pass to any hand from that which was pierced on Calvary. His kingdom shall endure to all eternity. The Church of God on earth is a true kingdom, reigning by its own right. It has a right to its own existence, to its own possessions, to its own legislature, to its own executive, and to its own tribunals. It receives these prerogatives neither from king, nor prince, nor people; and no human authority can circumscribe its limits. Nay, it circumscribes the limits of all other authority, and is itself subject to none but God only. When the Church came into this world, it suffered its ten persecutions. The world, if it had been possible, would have stifled it in its own blood; but an indefectible life cannot perish. For three hundred years it spread, and penetrated and pervaded the whole civil society of the world: it entered into households, and peoples, and nations, and cities, and kingdoms. It reached, at last, to the palace of the Caesars; it took possession of the imperial family; it converted the emperor on his throne: and when it had prevaded the senate, and the tribunals, and the whole civil life of Rome, the empire was elevated above itself. It became regenerate by grace, and lived by a new life, and was guided by new laws and confirmed by new authorities; and the civil society of the world was born again.
That which God had created in the natural state was elevated, by its union with the Church, to the supernatural order; the members of it were regenerated by water and the Holy Ghost, and became members of the kingdom of God, illuminated by faith under the guidance of the pastors of the Universal Church and the Vicar of Jesus Christ. Then came to pass a change so terrible, that the world does not contain in history anything more fearful. Rome, which had governed the world by its laws, and its warfare, and its civilization, was purged by fire, and by blood. The kingdom of Jesus Christ then took possession of the civil society of the world. Then passed away the old civilization, which was corrupt to the very marrow; so corrupt, that nothing could have changed it but the baptism of fire, by which it was cleansed. The most terrible judgments of God fell upon Rome, upon the city and upon the provinces of the Roman Empire. They were purged by wars, massacres, and pestilence; the old world was burned down to the roots, that the new civilization and the new Christian world might spring from the earth purified by fire.
And nothing could be more beautiful, nothing more like to the vision of the Heavenly City, than the rise of this Christian civilization. When, in the love of God, slavery began to melt away; when fathers with horror cast from them the power of life and death over their children and their slaves as a thing too hideous for Christian men; when husbands renounced with thanksgiving to their Redeemer the power of life and death over wives; when the horrors, and injustice, and abominations of the pagan domestic life gave place to the charities of Christian homes, then the whole world was lifted to a higher sphere. It had come under the light and jurisdiction of the sovereignty of Jesus Christ. Such was the growth of the world; beginning, I will say, from the time of St. Gregory the Great, the apostle of our Christianity, who reigned with a patriarchal sway over the three and-twenty patrimonies of the Church--over Italy and the north of Africa, and the coasts of the Adriatic, and the south of France, and Sicily, and the islands of the Mediterranean. This new Christian world was the germ of modern Europe. The Pontiffs laid the foundations of a world which is now passing away--a Christian commonwealth of nations, about which men vaunt themselves as if they were its saviours, though they never cease to destroy it. 3.
And then came another epoch, when, in the solemnities of Christmasday of the year 800, St. Leo III. crowned Charlemagne at the tomb of the Apostle, and made him the Emperor of the West. That act, done in the midst of tribulation and danger, when the times were dark with all manner of evil, was the beginning of a new era. There sprang up in the world for some seven hundred years a Christendom in which the kings and princes of Europe acknowledged the sovereignty of Jesus Christ; the nations and the kingdoms served Him, and inherited the benediction promised to those that acknowledge His supreme rights. In order that we may better understand what, in those ages of faith, was the belief of men as to the civil power, let us look at the ceremony of the consecration of a king. Nowadays we hear of coronations, but we hear no more of the consecration of kings. But a coronation, even in the tradition of England, takes place in the old Abbey of Westminster, and with certain rights which remain, mutilated indeed, but taken chiefly from the ancient Catholic ritual. I will shortly describe what the ancient ritual was.
The prince who was to be consecrated, for three days before, fasted as a preparation. On the day of his consecration he came to the sanctuary of the church, where the metropolitan and his suffragans received him. He then, first upon his knees before the altar made solemn oath to Almighty God, to observe and cause to be observed, according to his knowledge and his power, for the sake of the Church and of his people, law, justice, and peace, according to the laws of the land and the canons of the Church. He then lay prostrate before the altar, like a bishop when he is consecrated; the litanies were chanted, the same litanies which are sung in our solemn ordinations. Then, kneeling before the altar, he received the unction. He was anointed in the right arm, which is the arm of strength, and on the shoulder, typical of royal power; as in the prophecy, "The government is upon His shoulder (Isaias ix. 6.)." He then received the sword, with this admonition, "Remember that the saints conquered kingdoms, not by the sword, but by faith." After this, the crown was put upon his head, with the prayer that he might wear it in mercy and in justice; and the sceptre was then placed in his hands, in token of the authority of law. After that, the Holy Mass was celebrated; and in that Mass he received the Holy Communion of the precious body and blood of Jesus Christ, from the hands of the consecrating bishop. These solemn acts in themselves portrayed what were the relations of Christian law and fidelity between the chief rulers of nations and of kingdoms, and the sovereignty of Jesus Christ. 4.
Such was once the Christian world. What is it now? Look at Christian Europe. Read history for the last three hundred years. Briefly, for briefly it must be, I will touch upon its main points. Three hundred years ago, Germany and the greater part of northern Europe--Sweden, Norway, Denmark, England, Scotland, to say nothing of other smaller countries--separated themselves formally from the unity of the Faith and Church, and therein of the supreme authority of the Vicar of Jesus Christ. What straightway followed? The civil power, which until that time had been obedient to the laws of faith and of Christian morality, thenceforward went its way alone, choosing and determining for itself. The most terrible persecutions, to prison and to death, for the sake of religion, sprang up in every country; and the two authorities, civil and spiritual, which God has made distinct and has committed to separate hands, were united in the person of princes. The civil supremacy and the ecclesiastical supremacy were claimed for the crown, and civil rulers invested themselves with prerogatives which can be borne by the Vicar of Jesus Christ alone. The authority over conscience, religion, and the worship of God belongs only to those to whom He has committed it. Wheresoever the conscience and the soul enter in, man is free from all authority of men. No king, nor prince, nor legislature, has power to make law or ordinance over my conscience. He may take my life, but my faith he cannot touch. It was a violation of the Divine law: and bitterly and in blood the people that were torn from the unity of the Church suffered for that deed. I will say nothing of Ireland--the memories of Ireland are too mournful, too profoundly dark--but England, which then was united, which then had one faith and one worship, has been miserably rent, cut asunder in religion, until one half of the English people no longer belong to the religion which was set up by law three hundred years ago. And those who have separated from it are divided and subdivided again into innumerable religious fractions; and in that one body, which is held together by the law, what a dying out of faith, what denials of Christianity, what oppositions of teachers against each other, what separations, what bondage of conscience, what violations of Christian liberty! From what source are all these evils? From the usurpation of the civil authority, which assumed to itself to be the head and supreme judge in religion.
But I pass this by. These were only the beginning of troubles which fell upon the nations separated from the unity of the Church. There was also a flood of evils in countries that still continued to be of that unity. In France, in Austria, in parts of Italy, in Spain, in Portugal, princes who still professed to be Catholic, assumed authority to meddle with religion, with worship, with education, though not with faith. They did indeed profess that they could not touch faith; but discipline and all things outside of faith they claimed as subject to their jurisdiction.
I have said there is, in all countries, a disposition to depart from the unity of the Christian civilization which the providence of God has ordained. The conflicts which began three hundred years ago have been everywhere accomplishing themselves. In Austria some twenty years ago, in Italy the other day, it was declared that the Church and the State were no longer united; that is to say, that the sovereignty of Jesus Christ was no longer acknowledged by the civil power, and that the political order of the world was claimed by man for himself. The "kingdoms and the nations" would no longer serve the sovereignty of Jesus Christ. The other day, two laws were passed in Italy, the one to forbid the teaching of Christian doctrine (that is, the Catechism) in the schools of the poor, the other to forbid the teaching of theology in the universities of the kingdom. 5.
Thus far, I have touched upon the creation of the civil power; secondly, upon its consecration by Christianity; thirdly, upon the harmony and union between the civil and the spiritual powers when united; fourthly, on the separation and divorce which has been accomplishing itself between them. I now come to the last point, which is a consequence of that divorce--the desecration of civil society, the stripping off, the effacing of the sacred and Christian character from all political institutions.
For clearness, I will give an example of what I mean; and I do it sadly, and with the greatest tenderness of sympathy. If any word I speak should seem to be wounding to noble, Christian, Catholic, chivalrous France, I disclaim beforehand whatever may seem to come from my lips. In the year 1789, as I told you the other night, was published to the world a document called the The Principles of the Rights of Man. I told you then, that in that document we find nothing about the duties of man, or the rights of God. The rights of man, indeed, are there; as if man were the lord and king of all things: as if he had no duties to anybody, and no one had rights over him. What was the consequence of this beginning? There were two of the greatest pestilences at that time spreading in France, the forerunners and causes of its downfall--the infidel philosophy of Voltaire, and the flagrant immorality of Rousseau; the two false prophets, who destroyed the one the faith, the other the morals of society. You will remember how the worship of Christianity was then abolished, the name of Jesus Christ blasphemed, the church of Notre Dame profaned; Reason, personified as my tongue refuses to describe, set upon the altar. Atheism took possession of men's minds, or rather of their lives. And there came a day when, as by a concession towards belief, the Assembly voted the existence of the Supreme Being. You know what followed: a reign of terror, blood, blasphemy; horrors beyond the imagination of man; revolutions in every city; civil war in the streets; an infidel empire. At last, Christianity was restored as a public policy; and no doubt, under that politic device, faithful men and faithful pastors began once more to do their work. Souls once more were saved; but the heart of faith was sick unto death.
Such was France for a long period of years; and the seeds of infidelity were cast far and wide. They sank so deep, that never to this day has Atheism been finally eradicated. In the midst of that noble, Christian, Catholic people, the roots of infidelity are now so deeply set, and the taint of indifferentism is so wide, that all the prayers, labors, sufferings of the faithful and fervent cannot restore to France its Christian laws, and the sovereignty of Jesus Christ. After awhile, came a restoration; you know with what results. I will not go into detail. We have seen, I think, some five revolutions, and in three of them blood running in the streets. But all this has passed away; and the horrors of the past are pale in the horrors before us at this moment. We used to look back upon the first French revolution as a time of such exquisite terror, that I, for my part, have often wondered how our forefathers could have endured the daily tidings of misery and blood so near to their doors; but you and I have been hearing worse, day by day, for weeks, and in this last week worse than all. The other day we read these words: "In a little while all religion will disappear from the schools of the Commune; the crucifix will disappear as a violation of liberty of Conscience." A little while afterwards there was a question whether or not the churches should be closed; and it was answered, "That the churches be kept open, and that in them Atheism shall be taught, to disabuse the minds of men from the prejudice of belief." And do we, then, wonder that the chief pastor of that flock and some score of his faithful clergy are cast into prison? and in this moment of horrible suspense God only knows whether they be among the living or the dead.
It is almost out of place to quote the words I now repeat; but they are so intensely horrible, that lest I should seem to exaggerate, I here transcribe them. They are from Comte, one of the false prophets who has been contributing to the ruin of France by the moral and intellectual action of his false philosophy for the last thirty years. He is held in honor by some in England, and has disciples among us, who teach the same intellectual enormities. These are his words: "In the name of the past and the future, the servants of humanity, both its philosophical and practical servants --come forward to claim as their due the general direction of this world. Their object is to constitute at length a real Providence in all departments, moral, intellectual, and material. Consequently, they exclude once for all, from political supremacy, all the different servants of God, Catholic, Protestant, or Deist, as being at once behindhand and a cause of disturbance (Catechism of positive Religion, preface)." I told you in the beginning, of the three cities typical of civilization, and that the new Jerusalem of progress is Paris. We see that new Jerusalem at this moment illuminated, not with the light of God and of the Lamb, but by the flames of its burning palaces, and by the conflagration of its homes. And to what one supreme cause is this to be ascribed? To the rejection of God and of His Christ, to the rejection of the sovereignty of our Divine Redeemer. "The nation and the kingdom that will not serve Him shall perish;" and noble, Christian, Catholic France, except it acknowledge once more the sovereignty of Jesus Christ, by that Divine law of prophecy must perish. But I have better hopes. I know, from my own personal knowledge, that through the provinces of that noble people there are millions who are true and faithful. They are casting off, by the almighty help of God, the tyranny and the dominion of a corrupt and infidel sect.
It is more than time to make an end: I will therefore draw a general conclusion from what I have said, that the unimaginable horrors, of which Paris is at this moment the field, come from the revolt of civil society from God. They are the offspring, the legitimate, the lineal working out, of the principles of infidelity and impiety which were set in motion a century ago. And let statesmen and politicians lay to heart, that the first rising, in 1789, was a rising against the king and those that surrounded him; the next rising in 1830 and 1848, was of the middle class against those that were immediately above them; but the rising now is the rising of the masses, of the multitudes, who, having been neglected, outcast, and therefore morally outlawed, have been robbed of their Christian education. They have grown up a terrible generation, to be the scourge and the overthrow of civil society. I need not, then, repeat that Pius IX., in the Syllabus, taught wisely and well, that it is a falsehood, and an error to be condemned by Christian men, to say that the civil society of the world is the fountain and origin of all right, and cannot be circumscribed. The Church of God and God Himself are the fountain and the origin of rights higher than the civil state; and the authority of God and of His laws circumscribes the authority of the civil order.
Next, it is a falsehood, and an error justly condemned, to say that, when the spiritual and the civil authorities are in conflict, the contention shall be determined by the superior authority of the civil power. The spiritual authority of God and of the Christian laws must circumscribe and limit the claims of the civil authority. Thirdly, it is a falsehood and an error to say that education is a matter of civil competence and ought to be secular. The education of Christian men must be Christian. The education of baptized children must be according to the faith of their baptism. Nothing can educate the heart, the soul, and the conscience but the laws of God. Again, it is a falsehood and an error to say that kings and princes are exempt from the superior jurisdiction of God and of His Church. They are bound like others, and bound with a heavier responsibility than others, and will have to give a heavier reckoning before the tribunal of the King of kings. And lastly, to say that the Church ought to be separated from the State, and the State from the Church, is a falsehood and an error to be condemned; because, in the natural order, the State is God's creation, and, in the supernatural order, the Church is God's creation, and these two ought to be in harmony and in union. They ought to act in concord, co-operating with one another to the highest ends of man.
And now there are two plain truths which I will add by way of corollaries from all that I have said. The civil powers of the world, in separating themselves from the authority of God and of His Church, are committing suicide; it is political self-murder. They are condemning themselves to one of two inevitable results--either to the despotism of military dictators, or to the worst form of tyranny, the tyranny of revolutions. The civil powers of the world at this moment are standing between two great movements, and between them they must make their choice. There is, on the one hand, the One Holy Catholic Church, with its Divine authority, its Divine faith, its Divine laws, and its Divine obligations, spreading throughout the world, penetrating into all nations. This there is on one side--and this is in the noonday light. But there is on the other a society which is in the darkness of midnight: the deadly antagonist of the Church. It is one, because it is compactly united: it is unholy, for it springs from Satan: it is universal, for it is international; it is invisible because it is hid out of the sight of men; and that is the universal international revolution of secret societies, allied together for the common purpose of overturning, if it were possible (as it is not,) the Church of God, and of overturning (as it is easily possible) all civil governments on earth. Between these two alternatives, the civil rulers of to-day have to make their choice. "O ye kings, understand: receive instruction, you that judge the earth (Ps. ii. 10)." The choice is before you; civil life or death: choose promptly, that you may live.
But, I fear, the choice is already made. If there be one thing that has been derided, scoffed at, cast out, misrepresented, in these last twenty years, it is the Temporal Power of the Pope. Yet what is it but the recognition of the sovereignty of Jesus Christ over men and over races, over public, law, over the whole of Christendom--the recognition that there is a King in heaven, Who is represented upon earth, and that on earth there is one from whom the interpretation of His law, and the sentence of His truth, comes with supreme authority? In this person alone are united together the two authorities, civil and spiritual; in order that, in all other nations of the world, those two authorities shall be separate: so that tyranny over the consciences of men and violation of the freedom of religious conviction shall be rendered impossible, because kings and princes and rulers are limited by a superior authority in all things that are spiritual. And inasmuch as that supreme spiritual authority has been, by Divine Providence, in a visible and marvellous manner, freed from all subjection to emperors or kings, having a perfect independence of his own, owing only to his Divine Master in heaven the account that he must give--that Providence of God is being visibly justified at this moment by the revolutions, now assailing all countries which have cast off their allegiance to the Christian Church. I see no hope for the Christian civilization of the world, unless men turn back again to the true foundation of Christian society, and acknowledge that this dark and bitter period of revolution has sprung from a rising against the authority of the Church of God, and that revolt and unbelief are the curse and scourge of Europe.
In the beginning I said that this subject, though it seems to be of a public and political kind, is also intrinsically moral and religious. It comes home to our consciences. Tomorrow, it may be, in the first newspaper that falls in your way, you will hear the principles of which I have been speaking denied and denounced. It is necessary, therefore, that we should, from time to time, turn back again to these great laws and principles of faith. They sprang from faith, and they belong to the morality of faith.
I have said these things because I am convinced that it is necessary you should be on your guard. Do not be deceived by the silvery sounds of "liberty," of "freedom," of "public rights," of "the rights of man," and of those rights which I spoke of last time, and for very shame will not utter again. Be on your guard. Do not be seduced or carried away by the talk and clamor of a revolting and unbelieving age. Remember the words of the Son of God: "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free (St. John viii. 32. )." "If the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed (Ibid. 36.)."
Liberty without Jesus Christ is the worst of bondage. The service of Jesus Christ is true liberty. Remember His own words: "Come to Me, all you that labor, and are burdened, and I will refresh you. Take up My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; because I am meek, and humble of heart, and you shall find rest for your souls. For My yoke is sweet, and My burden light (St. Matt. xi. 28-30)." This alone is the way of liberty. Liberty is in the heart. True liberty is in the service of Him who must "reign until He hath put all His enemies under His feet (1 Cor. xv. 25.)."
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