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| MSM Already Using Capitol Hill Riot To Call For More Internet Censorship |
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Posted by: Stone - 01-07-2021, 12:59 PM - Forum: Socialism & Communism
- Replies (2)
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MSM Already Using Capitol Hill Riot To Call For More Internet Censorship
Zero Hedge | Jan 07, 2021
The United States received a very small taste of its own medicine today as rioting Trump fanatics temporarily forced their way into the nation’s Capitol building, and now the whole nation is freaking out.
I am being generous when I say that America was given a very small taste of its own medicine; unlike the horrific coups and violent uprisings the US routinely orchestrates in noncompliant nations around the world, this one stood exactly zero chance of seizing control of the government, and only one person was killed.
I am also being generous when I say the rioters “forced their way” in; DC chose not to increase its police presence in preparation for the protests despite knowing that they were planned, and there’s footage of what appears to be cops actively letting them through a police barricade. There was some fighting between police and protesters, but contrasted with the unceasing barrage of police brutality footage which emerged from Black Lives Matter demonstrations a few months prior it’s fair to say the police response today was relatively gentle.
Quote:the police opened the [*****] gates. pic.twitter.com/HyDURXfoaB
Predictably, this entirely American disruption has blue-checkmarked commentariat shrieking about Vladimir Putin on social media.
Quote:Of course. Of course. pic.twitter.com/00Xw0eC7Uw
Future historian: "As right-wing mobs were terrorizing the Capitol, liberal truth-tellers kept their eyes on the real villain." #BlueAnon pic.twitter.com/VNpLASbD1L
Just as predictably, it’s also got them calling for the censorship of social media.
The New York Times has published two new articles titled “The storming of Capitol Hill was organized on social media” and “Violence on Capitol Hill Is a Day of Reckoning for Social Media”, both arguing for more heavy-handed restrictions on speech from Silicon Valley tech giants.
In the former, NYT’s Sheera Frenkel writes “the violence Wednesday was the result of online movements operating in closed social media networks where people believed the claims of voter fraud and of the election being stolen from Mr. Trump,” citing the expert analysis of think tank spinmeister Renee DiResta of “Tulsi Gabbard is a Russian asset” fame. As usual no mention is made of DiResta’s involvement in the New Knowledge scandal in which a Russian interference “false flag” was staged for an Alabama Senate race.
Quote:“These people are acting because they are convinced an election was stolen,” DiResta said.
“This is a demonstration of the very real-world impact of echo chambers.”
“This has been a striking repudiation of the idea that there is an online and an offline world and that what is said online is in some way kept online,” DiResta adds.
The storming of the capital hill was organized on social media. Time to stop acting like things said online don't translate into real-world action. https://t.co/tpEZZ2KfGZ
This narrative which seeds the idea that unregulated communication on the internet will lead to violent uprisings is funny coming from Frankel, who, as a Twitter follower recently observed, wrote a piece in 2018 condemning the Iranian government for restricting protesters’ social media access during the demonstrations at that time.
“Social media and messaging apps have become crucial to antigovernment demonstrators around the world, as a means of both organizing and delivering messages to other citizens,” Frankel wrote.
“Not surprisingly, restricting access to such technology has become as important to government crackdowns as the physical presence of the police.”
In the other article, co-authored by Frankel, Mike Isaac and Kate Conger, the message is driven home even less subtly.
“As pro-Trump protesters stormed the Capitol building on Wednesday and halted the certification of Electoral College votes, the role of social media companies such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube in spreading misinformation and being a megaphone for Mr. Trump came under renewed criticism,” reads the article, adding, “So when violence broke out in Washington on Wednesday, it was, in the minds of longtime critics, the day the chickens came home to roost for the social media companies.”
The article reports on the US president’s temporary suspension of social media privileges for allegedly inciting violence with his posts, then discusses the various kinds of disinformation and violent ideation being circulated in Trump discussion forums.
“Those alternative social media sites were rife with Trump supporters organizing and communicating on Wednesday,” NYT tells us. “On Parler, one trending hashtag was #stormthecapitol. Many Trump supporters on the sites also appeared to believe a false rumor that Antifa, a left-wing movement, was responsible for committing violence at the protests.”
“We know the social media companies have been lackadaisical at best” at stopping extremism from growing on their platforms, Jonathan Greenblatt, director of the Anti-Defamation League, told NYT. “Freedom of expression is not the freedom to incite violence. That is not protected speech.”
Quote:“Those alternative social media sites were rife with Trump supporters organizing and communicating on Wednesday,” NYT tells us. “On Parler, one trending hashtag was #stormthecapitol. Many Trump supporters on the sites also appeared to believe a false rumor that Antifa, a left-wing movement, was responsible for committing violence at the protests.”
“We know the social media companies have been lackadaisical at best” at stopping extremism from growing on their platforms, Jonathan Greenblatt, director of the Anti-Defamation League, told NYT. “Freedom of expression is not the freedom to incite violence. That is not protected speech.”
Violence on Capitol Hill Is a Day of Reckoning for Social Media https://t.co/UqDuAWShfg
We will likely see many more such articles in the coming days, arguing for increased regulation of internet communication to prevent future incidents like today.
In and of itself this won’t sound terribly concerning to the average citizen. Nothing wrong with taking steps to prevent people from plotting violence and terrorism on social media, right?
But how do you predict what protests are going to be “violent”? How do you decide which protests and what political dissent need to be censored and which ones should be permitted to communicate freely? Do you just leave it up to Silicon Valley oligarchs to make the call? Or do you have them consult with the government like they’ve been doing? Are either of these institutions you’d trust to regulate what protests are worthy of being permitted to organize online?
But how do you predict what protests are going to be “violent”? How do you decide which protests and what political dissent need to be censored and which ones should be permitted to communicate freely? Do you just leave it up to Silicon Valley oligarchs to make the call? Or do you have them consult with the government like they’ve been doing? Are either of these institutions you’d trust to regulate what protests are worthy of being permitted to organize online?
Because the actual power structures in the United States seem to be interested in simply censoring the internet to eliminate political dissent altogether.
In 2017 top officials from Facebook, Twitter and Google were brought before the Senate Judiciary Committee and admonished to come up with policies that will “prevent the fomenting of discord” in the United States.
Quote:Friendly reminder that last year representatives of Google/Youtube, Facebook and Twitter were instructed on the floor of the US Senate that it is their responsibility to "quell information rebellions" so as to "prevent the fomenting of discord.”https://t.co/X4Hc56fH0k
World Socialist Website reported the following in 2017.
Quote:Democratic Senator Mazie Hirono of Hawaii demanded, for her part, that the companies adopt a “mission statement” expressing their commitment “to prevent the fomenting of discord.”
The most substantial portion of the testimony took place in the second part of the hearing, during which most of the Senators had left and two representatives of the US intelligence agencies testified before a room of mostly empty chairs.
Clint Watts, a former U.S. Army officer, former FBI agent, and member of the Alliance for Securing Democracy, made the following apocalyptic proclamation: “Civil wars don’t start with gunshots, they start with words. America’s war with itself has already begun. We all must act now on the social media battlefield to quell information rebellions that can quickly lead to violent confrontations and easily transform us into the Divided States of America.”
He added, “Stopping the false information artillery barrage landing on social media users comes only when those outlets distributing bogus stories are silenced — silence the guns and the barrage will end.”
That sounds an awful like government officials and operatives telling social media corporations that it’s their job to censor communication which could facilitate any kind of unrest, no matter how justified.
Do you trust these monopolistic megacorporations to decide whether or not people’s dissident speech is acceptable? I don’t.
As Julian Assange is condemned to remain falsely imprisoned and the mass media ramp up their case for more imperial narrative control, we are now in a battle for the sovereignty of our very minds.
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| The Mystical City of God by Venerable Mary of Agreda |
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Posted by: Stone - 01-07-2021, 09:48 AM - Forum: Resources Online
- Replies (58)
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THE MYSTICAL CITY OF GOD
THE DIVINE HISTORY AND LIFE OF THE VIRGIN MOTHER OF GOD
[ POPULAR ABRIDGEMENT]
by Venerable Mary of Agreda
Translated from the Spanish by Reverend George J. Blatter
1914, So. Chicago, Ill., The Theopolitan; Hammond, Ind., W.B. Conkey Co., US..
IMPRIMATUR:
+H.J. Alerding
Bishop of Fort Wayne
Mystical City of God, the miracle of His omnipotence and the abyss of His grace the divine history and life of the Virgin Mother of God our Queen and our Lady, most holy Mary expiatrix of the fault of eve and mediatrix of grace. Manifested to Sister Mary of Jesus, Prioress of the convent of the Immaculate Conception in Agreda, Spain. For new enlightenment of the world, for rejoicing of the Catholic Church, and encouragement of men. Completed in 1665.
Translation from the Original Authorized Spanish Edition by Fiscar Marison (George J. Blatter). Begun on the Feast of the Assumption 1902, completed 1912.
This work is published for the greater Glory of Jesus Christ through His most Holy Mother Mary and for the sanctification of the militant Church and her members.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
THE MYSTICAL CITY OF GOD, THE DIVINE HISTORY AND LIFE OF THE VIRGIN MOTHER OF GOD
INTRODUCTION [see below]
THE MYSTICAL CITY OF GOD - BOOK 1
THE MYSTICAL CITY OF GOD - BOOK 2
THE MYSTICAL CITY OF GOD - BOOK 3
THE MYSTICAL CITY OF GOD - BOOK 4
THE MYSTICAL CITY OF GOD - BOOK 5
THE MYSTICAL CITY OF GOD - BOOK 6
THE MYSTICAL CITY OF GOD - BOOK 7
THE MYSTICAL CITY OF GOD - BOOK 8
* * *
INTRODUCTION
SPECIAL NOTICE TO THE READER
NOTHING that essentially differs from the teachings of the Catholic Church can rightfully be taught or believed by any man or under any pretext. Moreover, even the essential doctrines can be taught and expounded only in the sense and spirit approved, or at least not disapproved, by the Church. This at once will establish the position which private revelations, whether coming from Heaven or originating from hallucination, merely human or devilish, hold in the Church of God.
There can be no doubt that God can and does manifest to chosen souls hidden things in addition to what He teaches through the public ministry of His Church. It is also an accepted truth that He sometimes reveals them to his friends for the express purpose of communicating this extra knowledge to other well disposed persons through the natural and human means at the disposal of those receiving his revelations. These manifestations He invariably surrounds with enough evidence to satisfy all requirements of a cautious and well founded human belief. It follows naturally that whenever He thus surrounds private revelations with evidences of their heavenly origin, He will be pleased with a rational and loving belief and dissatisfied with a captious and obstinate unbelief of the facts or truths thus privately revealed. Where, however, these external evidences are wanting, or wherever holy Church intimates the least direct or indirect disapproval, there any faith in private revelation would be not only foolish, but positively wrong.
FULL APPROVAL
The Church has as yet given no public and full approval to private revelations of any kind; nor will she ever do so, since that would be really an addition to the deposit of faith left by Christ. But tacitly and indirectly she has approved many private revelations, and among them the writings of Mary of Agreda. She could well do so, since there are no writings of that kind which exhibit more reliable human proofs of divine origin than the “Ciudad de Dios” of the Venerable Servant of God, Mary of Jesus of Agreda.
The existence of the Bible justifies the query, whether there are not other books that have been written under supernatural guidance, though we know of course that none of them can ever have the same importance and authenticity as the Bible. For the Bible was provided as the record of the general revelations of God to mankind at all its stages to the end of times.
A VAST FIELD BETWEEN
Evidently there remains an immense domain of truths outside the range of natural human knowledge and not specially revealed in the Bible. You will at once say: that whole field is covered by the one true religion. Of course it is. The teaching and ministry of men especially appointed for that purpose, the practice and example of those eminent in the Christian virtues, the writings of those versed in higher truths, are the ordinary means of spreading truth and leading men to their great destiny. But besides all this, history proves that God, for special purposes, often grants to his friends higher insight into supernatural truths and facts, which, if at his command they are recorded in writing, are intended by Him as an additional source of higher knowledge and well deserve to be considered as private revelations.
EARMARKS OF DECEIT
Past ages simply teem with writings that claim to be derived from or based on divine revelation or inspiration. Many of them are clearly nothing but frauds, showing the signs of conscious or unconscious hallucination. Many again seem beyond mere natural human powers of insight, but at the same time in their authorship and tendencies show nothing divine or beneficent, thus proving that besides human error and malice the sinister and treacherous knowledge of malign spirits often finds its way into such writings. Ancient sorcery and magic and modern spiritism have their root in this sort of preter natural communication.
TO BE CLOSELY SCRUTINIZED
Hence it would be foolish not to demand the closest inquiry into anything put forward as private revelation. Fortunately it is easy to apply sure and unfailing tests. All that is necessary, is to ascertain the character and motives of the writer and the result or drift of his writings. Mahomet proves himself an epileptic adventurer and his Koran a travesty of Judaism and Christianity, settling like a blight upon civilization. Joseph Smith and his companions turn out to be rebellious incendiaries and murderers and their book of Mormon a ridiculous fake, establishing a fanatic and bigamous theocracy.
The fakir Dowie pretending prophecy, ends as a lunatic in a bankrupt Zion, yet leaving millions to his relatives. The humbugging Eddy, after crazy-quilting scraps from the Bible with shreds of Buddhism, Brahmanism and Theosophy, shuffles off her wrinkled coil amid a numerous following of dupes who rather expected her faked science to keep her perpetually alive or raise her up from the dead.
Is there any difficulty in discovering the fraud in revelations of such a kind? Yet they claim divine inspiration and very often contain passages which show sources of information and deceit not altogether human. The sinister manifestation of spiritism and the astounding information often furnished by mediums, are not all sleight of hand or illusion of the senses; some of these things can be explained only by assuming interference of a sinister spirit world.
REALLY ANOTHER ARGUMENT FOR PRIVATE REVELATIONS
Would it not be absurd to concede the communication with evil spirits or departed souls, damned or otherwise, (and all reasonable people concede it), and deny the possibility of communing with the good spirits or souls and with God? Who would want to limit the power of God in this way? It will not do to claim that all the communication of God and the good spirits takes the ordinary course provided in the public ministry of the true religion. For it does not. Saint Paul saw things that he dared not reveal, though he was not slow in writing down his other revelations. The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception and the Infallibility was privately revealed many times before they were officially defined and accepted as self-understood truths by all reasonable men. Before these doctrines were defined, who had the greater prudence and insight? Those people who refused to believe these truths because they were privately revealed, or those who examined those revelations and finding them humanly credible, and not contrary to the true religion, simply accepted them as revealed by God? I should think the latter showed themselves ahead of their times and far more enlightened in their belief than the former, who persisted in a finical unbelief concerning all private revelations.
NO DIFFICULTY TO DISTINGUISH THE TRUE FROM THE FALSE
If we find that the author of alleged private revelations has been a faithful adherent of the one true religion established by God, that he has led a good and blameless life, that his writings do not run counter to the Bible nor to the public teachings of the true Church, that he was not actuated by motives of selfish gain, pecuniary or otherwise, that the writings themselves tend toward the practice of perfection both as far as the writer as well as the reader is concerned, that they have not been openly disapproved by the Church; then certainly, if the information recorded is such that it would presuppose supernatural inspiration or direct communication with the higher world, we are not justified in immediately rejecting the writings as fraudulent. Closer examination may easily lead to reasonable certainty that they are privately revealed. But we all know that this acceptance can never mean anything more than a mere human belief, not the belief of faith, such as for instance is demanded by holy Scripture. In fact, as soon as any such writing lays claim to implicit faith, it certainly is no revelation and ought to be rejected at once as spurious.
MARY OF AGREDA
She was the daughter of Francis Coronel and Catherine of Arana, born April 2, 1602, in the small town of Agreda near Tarazona in Spain. In 1617 she entered the convent of the discalced Franciscan Nuns in the Convent of the Immaculate Conception in Agreda and took her vows one year later. In 1625 she was chosen abbess, much against her wishes, and, except during a short intermission, was re-elected every three years until she died, in 1665. The fame of her prudence and foresight, not only in the government of her convent but in other matters, soon spread outside the convent walls and persons of the highest rank in state and Church were eager to obtain her counsel in important affairs. King Philip IV visited her several times in her convent and corresponded with her about national affairs for many years. But she was no less famous for her exalted virtues. In many respects her life was a faithful copy of that of St. Francis. The miracle of bilocation related of her is in fact more remarkable and lasted a longer time than that recorded anywhere in the lives of the saints. Her good sense, her truthfulness, her sincerity, her humility, her unselfish love of God and man eminently adapted her for the communication of messages from God to men.
WHAT INDUCED HER TO WRITE
In all writing that lays claim to private revelation, the motives of the writer must be closely scrutinized. If it appears to be a self-imposed task, for selfish ends, pecuniary or otherwise, tending to particularity in religious teachings or practice not approved by the established faith or written without knowledge or consultation of the rightful superiors, it ought to be rejected as spurious. God will reveal nothing for such purpose or under such circumstances, and He will permit human error and deceit and the sinister influence of hell to run their natural course. Nothing of all this appears in the writings of Mary of Agreda. Though she was urged interiorly and exteriorly to record the facts of history revealed to her concerning the Mother of God, she resisted for twelve years and was finally induced to write only through the positive commands of her superiors. Reluctantly she began her history in the year 1637 and finished it in the year 1645, continually asking to be relieved from the task because she thought herself unworthy. As soon as the insistence of her superiors relaxed and an error of judgment on the part of an outside confessor gave her a plausible excuse, she burned all her writings, thus destroying the labor of many years. When this came to the knowledge of the higher authorities and when they insisted on her rewriting the history which continued to be supernaturally made known to her, she again succeeded in delaying the task for ten years. Only the strictest command under obedience and the threat of censures finally induced her to write the manuscript which she began in 1655 and finished in 1665, and which is still preserved in the convent of Agreda.
WHY REVEALED TO A WOMAN
It is to be remembered that God’s almighty power is restricted to no particular instrument; He creates out of nothing. In the case of Balaam, he used not only that wicked man but even his beast for special revelation. It does seem that He prefers women for private revelation. He chose men to reveal the great public truths of the Bible and to attend to the public teaching, but to women in the new law He seems to have consigned the task of private revelations. At least most of the known private revelations have been furnished us by women and not men. We must infer from this that they are better adapted for this work. In fact, no special learning or great natural insight is required of a messenger; such qualities might tend to corrupt or narrow down the inspired message to mere human proportions, whereas private revelation is given precisely for the purpose of communicating higher truths than can be known or under stood naturally. Humility, great piety and love, deep faith are the requisites of God’s special messengers. Women as a rule are more inclined to these virtues than men, and therefore are not so apt to trim the message of God down to their own natural powers of understanding. In choosing women for his special revelations He gives us to understand from the outset, that what He wishes to reveal is above the natural faculties of perception and insight of either man or woman.
HOW WAS “CIUDAD” (CITY OF GOD) RECEIVED?
As soon as the “City of God” appeared in print it was welcomed and extolled as a most wonderful work. The different translations found no less enthusiastic welcome in nearly all the European countries. It secured the immediate approbation and encomium of the ordinaries, the universities, the learned and eminent men of Christendom. There is probably no other book which was so closely scrutinized by those in authority, both civil and religious and afterwards so signally approved as the “City of God.” By order of Innocent XL, Alexander VIIL, Clement IX., Benedict XIIL, and Benedict XIV. it was repeatedly subjected to the closest scrutiny and declared authentic, worthy of devout perusal and free from error. The title “Venerabilis” was conferred upon the author. A large sized volume would be required to record the praises and commendations written in favor of the great “City of God.”
OPPOSITION
As the “City of God” so strenuously maintains the prerogatives of the Mother of God and the authority of the Popes, it was not to be expected that it should escape the malicious slander and intrigues of those tainted with Jansenism and Gallicanism. Many members of the Sorbonne in Paris were secret or open adherers of these sects at the time when the “Ciudad” was first published in French about the year 1678. The first translation in French was very inexact and contained many interpolations and false versions of the original. Dr. Louis Elias du Pin and Dr. Hideux of the Sorbonne made this translation the foundation of virulent attacks. Du Pin was called by Pope Clement XI. “Nequioris doctrinse homi-nem,” “A man of pernicious doctrines.” Hideux turned out to be a rabid and fanatical Jansenist, cut off from the Church as a heretic. As they and other members of the Sorbonne succeeded in enlisting the sympathy of influential Gallican courtiers and church dignitaries, both in Paris and at Rome, they secured a clandestine prohibition of the “City of God,” which appeared in the acts of the Congregation of the Office. When it was discovered, no one could be found who would dare stand 1–2 sponsor for it, and immediately Pope Innocent XL, on November 9, 1681, annulled the act, positively decreeing that the “City of God” be freely spread among the clergy and laity. The very fact that this prohibition did not issue from the Index Commission but from a department not concerned with the examination of books, proves that it owes its insertion to Gallican intrigue, secretly extending even to high circles in Rome, and to the fair- minded, this sectarian attempt will be a convincing argument for the excellence and orthodoxy of the doctrines contained in the revelations of Mary of Agreda.
MANY EDITIONS
The popularity and excellence of the great history of the Mother of God is also evidenced by its widespread diffusion. It has appeared in over sixty editions in Spanish, Italian, French, Portuguese, German, Latin, Arabic, Greek, and Polish. Does it not seem providential that the first English translation of this great work should have been reserved for our own times? No other language on the face of the earth is the medium of so many theories, sects and isms as the English language and the “City of God” is a most timely and efficient antidote for the epidemic of false doctrines, which is sweeping over all the earth, and affects especially the English-speaking portion of the human race.
EXPECTATIONS OF THE TRANSLATOR
The translator and promoter of the “City of God” is confident that it will not be one of the books idly filling the shelves of libraries, but one which at the first cursory inspection will arouse the desire of further inquiry and lead to repeated and attentive perusal.
The translation herewith offered is as exact and as perfect a rendition of the original Spanish into English, as ten years of assiduous labor and a considerable experience in literary production give a right to expect. The subject-matter surely ought to secure for it a proper place in the more elevated ranks of English Literature.
May this first English translation, under the guidance of our holy faith, bring forth abundant fruits of the Spirit among English-speaking people in all parts of the world.
APPROBATIONS
THE first Pope officially to take notice of “Ciudad de Dios” was Pope Innocent XI, who, on July 3, 1686, in response to a series of virulent attacks and machinations of some members of the Sorbonne, known to be Jansenists, issued a breve permitting the publication and reading of the “Ciudad de Dios.” Similar decrees were afterward issued by Popes Alexander VIII, Clement IX and Benedict XIII. These decrees were followed by two decrees of the Congregation of Rites, approved by Benedict XIV and Clement XIV, in which the authenticity of “Ciudad de Dios” as extant and written by the Venerable Servant of God, Mary of Jesus, is officially established. The great pope Benedict XIII, when he was archbishop of Benevent, used these revelations as material for a series of sermons on the Blessed Virgin. On Sept. 26, 1713, the bishop of Ceneda, Italy, objecting to the publication of the “City of God,” was peremptorily ordered by the Holy Office to withdraw his objections as interfering with the decree of pope Innocent XI for the universal Church.
The process of canonization of Mary of Agreda was promoted by the Spanish bishops and other eminent men of the Church soon after her death in 1666. It has resulted so far in securing her the title of Venerabuis, thus clearing the way to her beatification, for which, let us hope, God will soon raise a promoter among the many pious and eminent men who hold in esteem her writings and have learned of her holy life and of the miracles wrought at her tomb.
Feast of the Annunciation
Fiscar Marison
(Rev. George J. Blatter)
To download a PDF of this book, click HERE.
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| UK Lockdown Cops To Stop People In The Street, Issue Fines, Target "Anti-Lockdown, Anti-Vaccine Prot |
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Posted by: Stone - 01-07-2021, 09:25 AM - Forum: Pandemic 2020 [Secular]
- No Replies
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UK Lockdown Cops To Stop People In The Street, Issue Fines, Target "Anti-Lockdown, Anti-Vaccine Protesters"
Zero Hedge | Jan 07, 2021
Senior Scotland Yard officials have announced the adoption of a new ‘hardline’ lockdown policy to stop and question people if they are out in the street, and to issue on the spot fines if they cannot provide a reasonable excuse for being out of their houses.
The London Telegraph reports that London’s MET police issued a statement noting that “With fewer ‘reasonable excuses’ for people to be away from their home in the regulations, Londoners can expect officers to be more inquisitive as to why they see them out and about.”
“Where officers identify people without a lawful reason to be away from home they can expect officers to move more quickly to enforcement,” the statement further noted.
Quote:The Met has outlined a stricter #Covid #coronavirus enforcement approach following the introduction of new national lockdown restrictions. https://t.co/ciKspZ691d
New lockdown laws, announced Monday by Prime Minister Boris Johnson by way of a TV briefing, are yet to be debated or voted on by parliament.
Police have the power now to issue on the spot fines of £200, which can be doubled every time a lockdown ‘breach’ is committed.
Fines of up to £10,000 can also be handed out to anyone holding gatherings or house parties.
A woman who organised a New Year's Eve party in #Kensington has been reported for a £10,000 fine for breaching #Covid regulations.
Quote:It is up to all of us to do the right thing and officers will continue to take action against those who break the rules. https://t.co/WwHddd796X
Scotland Yard says that the fines will be more readily handed out, even to those who are simply not wearing a mask.
“After ten months of this pandemic, the number of people who are genuinely not aware of the restrictions and the reasons they are in place is vanishingly small,” commented MET Police Deputy Assistant Commissioner Matt Twist, adding that the responsibility of police is to “preserve life”.
“We know the overwhelming majority of Londoners will do the right thing by staying at home, wearing masks and not gathering, but a small minority continue to ignore rules put in place to protect the NHS and save lives,” Twist added.
“We can no longer spend our time explaining or encouraging people to follow rules they are wilfully and dangerously breaching,” he continued, emphasising that police will no longer be lenient with those daring to leave their houses.
“Less than a month ago we launched a new digital fines system, which makes it quicker and easier for officers to issue fines on the spot,” Twist warned, adding “if people continue to break the rules, putting themselves, their families and their communities at greater risk, our officers are ready to act robustly.”
John Apter, the chairman of the Police Federation stated that policing of the third lockdown will be amped up, noting “It will be easier for police to have one consistent rule for people to follow across the whole country, which means it is easier for people to understand and comply with what is expected of them.”
Apter specifically singled out ‘anti-lockdown, anti-vaccine protesters’, saying that “we now have a hardcore element who are against the rules.”
“The majority of the public will do what is expected of them, but I think there is a real issue over the virus and lockdown fatigue. There is a real frustration and the police often deal with the sharp end of that as people are angry when challenged,” Apter added.
Evidence of the ramped up lockdown policing has already been witnessed with dozens police officers marching through Hyde Park in military fashion before stopping to demand IDs from people:
Quote:Platoon of Police patrolling Hyde Park demanding ID@JuliaHB1 @talkRADIO pic.twitter.com/MuyGNlm9RT
In an incident at Marble Arch, cops questioned an old woman for feeding pigeons:
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| Quebec Bans Outdoor Walking as Part of COVID-19 Curfew |
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Posted by: Stone - 01-07-2021, 09:15 AM - Forum: Pandemic 2020 [Secular]
- No Replies
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Quebec Bans Outdoor Walking as Part of COVID-19 Curfew
Breitbart | 6 Jan 20210
The Quebec government is imposing an overnight curfew beginning on Saturday until at least February 8, ostensibly to reduce the spread of the novel coronavirus.
Quebecers intercepted by law enforcement outside their homes “without good reason” between 8:00 p.m. and 5:00 a.m. will be subject to fines between $1,000 and $6,000 (CAD), or approximately $850 and $4,750 (USD).
Quebec’s official website warns that people outside their residences must justify their travels — specifics of such justifications were not provided by authorities — if set upon by police officers in transit (translated from French to English with Google Translate):
Quote:As of Saturday, January 9, a curfew will now be in effect. Between 8 p.m. and 5 a.m., anyone will be prohibited from moving outside their place of residence, except in the case of exceptions justifying the move, for example to benefit from health care, for humanitarian reasons or for carry out work considered a priority.
Statements of offense may be given by the police to those who do not respect the curfew, unless their displacement is justified. Details of this curfew will be provided shortly.
The office of Premier Francois Legault, the province’s chief executive, is allowing people to walk dogs within one kilometer (approximately 3/5 of a mile) of their homes during the curfew’s hours.
Legault scoffed at opposition to his criminalization of walking streets or trails between the hours of curfew. Prohibiting such walks is “about saving lives,” he claimed.
“For people who say, ‘I won’t be able to go for a walk anymore,’ well, come on,” Legault said. “If you want to work a little bit later, you can work after 8 p.m. at home, and go for a walk during the day. We’re talking here about saving lives and we’re talking about saving our health-care system.”
Quote:For the (many) people who have asked: I have confirmed with the Premier's office that people will be allowed to walk their dogs after the 8 P.M. curfew but ONLY within 1 km of their homes. @CTVMontreal
In November, provincial authorities prohibited people living apart — including family, friends, and other loved ones — from visiting one another in their homes. The province also decreed that masks be worn indoors in all businesses and organizations.
Quebec also shut down businesses and other operations arbitrarily deemed “non-essential.” The province does not provide a framework outlining how distinctions between “essential” and “non-essential” are made.
The latest lockdown decree forbids people from visiting anyone else at another address while providing four categories of exceptions (translated from French to English with Google translate):- a single visitor from another address for single people (it is requested to always receive the same person in order to limit social contacts)
- a caregiver
- people providing service or support
- labor for planned work
Churches, houses of worship, and other group religious practices are prohibited. An exception was granted for funerals, which are allowed a maximum of ten persons excluding funeral company workers and volunteers.
“The province acknowledged it can’t point to a scientific study on the effectiveness of curfews in limiting the spread of the virus,” admitted the Toronto Star, a left-wing newspaper.
Virtually all tweets from Quebec’s Twitter profile in recent weeks pertain to COVID-19.
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| SiSiNoNo: What Should We Make of Assisi 1986? |
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Posted by: Stone - 01-07-2021, 08:55 AM - Forum: Vatican II and the Fruits of Modernism
- Replies (2)
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Si Si No No
February 2002 No. 45
WHAT SHOULD WE MAKE OF ASSISI 1986?
Archbishop Lefebvre's Letter to Eight Cardinals About Assisi 1986 - [see letter here]
It is a truism that men come to accept anything if they see it often enough; hence it is good to recall the theological criteria by which to judge this kind of undertaking. The review SISINONO published an excellent study in 1986 which is reprinted here because of its timeliness.
What Should We Make of Assisi?
It has been said, with undoubtedly unintended exactness, that the "prayer meeting" at Assisi is a "personal initiative" of Pope John Paul II. In so far as it is only a "personal" initiative, it does not engage his mandate as "pastor and teacher of all Christians" (Vatican I). By conforming itself to the political theme set by the United Nations, which proclaimed the year 1986 an "international year of peace," neither does it concern doctrine.
At Assisi, next October 27, not only will the Catholics gather at Assisi, but also "the representatives of the world's other religions" will join them in an assembly for peace.1 Those whom Pope John Paul II has called "the representatives of the other religions" the Church has always more appropriately called infidels. "Broadly speaking, infidels are those who do not possess the true faith; in the strict sense infidels are the unbaptized. They are divided into monotheists (Jews and Moslems), polytheists (Hindus, Buddhists, etc.), and atheists."2 What Pope John Paul II has called the "other" religions, the Church has more properly called the false religions. A false religion is any non-Christian religion "in so far as it is not the religion that God revealed and wants to see practiced. Moreover, every non-Catholic Christian sect is false in so far as it neither accepts nor faithfully practices the entire content of Revelation."3 This having been said, in light of the Catholic Faith, the prayer meeting of religions at Assisi can be considered tantamount to: 1) an insult to God; 2) a denial of the universal necessity of Redemption; 3) a lack of justice and charity towards the infidels; 4) a danger and a scandal to Catholics; and 5) a betrayal of the Church's and Peter's mission.
1) An Insult to God
All prayer, including petition, is an act of worship.4 As such, it must be addressed to Whom it is due, and in the right way. To whom it is due: The one true God, Creator and Lord of all men, the one to whom the Lord Jesus Christ has brought them back (I Jn. 5:20) by confirming the first commandment of the Law. "I am the Lord thy God ...Thou shalt not have strange gods before me ....Thou shalt not adore them, nor serve them..." (Ex. 20:2-5).5 In the right way: Thus, it must be prayer that corresponds to the fullness of Revelation without admixture of error: "But the hour cometh and now is, when the true adorers shall adore the Father in spirit and in truth. For the Father also seeketh such to adore him" Jn. 4:23).
Prayer which is addressed to false gods or inspired by religious opinions differing in whole or in part from divine Revelation, is not an act of worship, but of superstition. It does not honor God; it offends Him. At least, objectively, it is a sin against the first commandment.6 To whom are the persons to gather at Assisi going to pray, and in what way? Invited in their capacity as "representatives of the other religions," "everyone will pray in his own way and customary style." This was explained by Cardinal Willebrands, President of the Secretariat for Non-Christian Religions.7 This was confirmed last June 27 by Cardinal Etchegaray at a press conference published by Documentation Catholique of September 7-21, 1986, under the rubric "Acts of the Holy See": "It involves respecting each one's prayer, and allowing everyone to express himself in the fullness of his faith, of his belief."
On October 27 at Assisi, superstition will be widely practiced in its most serious forms, from the "false worship" of Jews who, during the era of grace, pretend to honor God by denying His Christ,8 to the idolatry of Hindus and Buddhists who offer a cult to creatures instead of to God.9
The Catholic hierarchy's apparent approbation of this is especially insulting to God, for it supposes and allows it to be supposed that He looks with equal complacency upon acts of true worship and acts of superstition, upon manifestations of faith and manifestations of incredulity, upon the true religion and upon the false religions; in short, upon truth and upon error.
2) Denial of the Universal Necessity of Redemption
There is but one Mediator between God and men: the Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God and true man (I Tim. 2:5). By nature, men are "children of wrath" (Eph. 2:3); by Him, they have been reconciled with the Father (Col. 1:20), and it is only by faith in Him that they can have the boldness to approach God with entire confidence (Eph. 3:12). To Him was given all power in heaven and on earth (Mt. 28:18), and at His name every knee must bend, in heaven, on earth, and under the earth (Phil. 2:10,11). No one goes to the Father save by Him (Jn. 14:6), and there is no other name under heaven given to man by which he must be saved (Acts 4:12). He is the Light that enlightens every man who comes into the world (Jn.1:9), and whoever does not follow Him wanders in darkness (Jn. 8:12). Who is not with Him is against Him (Mt. 13:30), and who does not honor Him also dishonors His Father who sent Him (as the Jews do) (Jn. 5:23). To Him has the Father given the judgment of men, but he who refuses belief has already been judged, because he has not believed in the name of the Only Son of God (Jn. 3:18), nor in the Father who sent Him (Jn. 17:3). He is, moreover, the Prince of Peace (Is. 9:6),11 for divisions, conflicts, and wars are the bitter fruit of sin from which man cannot free himself by his own virtue, but only in virtue of the Redeemer's blood.
What place will the Lord Jesus Christ have at Assisi in the prayer of the "representatives of the other religions"? None, for to them He remains either unknown, or a stumbling block, or a sign of contradiction. The invitation that was addressed to them to pray for peace in the world supposes, and inevitably allows it to be supposed, that there are people - the Christians - who must approach God by the mediation of the Lord Jesus Christ and in His name, and others - the rest of the human race - who can approach God directly and in their own name, without regard to the Mediator; that there are some men who must bend the knee before the Lord Jesus Christ, and some who are exempt; some men who must seek peace in the reign of the Lord Jesus Christ, and others who can obtain peace outside His reign and even in opposing it.
This is the idea that comes from the declarations of the two cardinals quoted above: "While for us Christians Christ is our peace, for all believers peace is a gift of God" 12; "for Christians, prayer goes through Christ."13
The "prayer meeting" of Assisi, then, is the public negation of the universal necessity of Redemption.
3) A Lack of Justice and Charity Towards the Infidels
"Jesus Christ is not optional," said Cardinal Pie. There are not some men who are justified by faith in Him, and others who are justified without regard to Him: Every man is either saved by Christ or is lost without Him. Nor are there any purely natural ends for which a man can opt instead of his unique supernatural end. If, gone astray in sin, he finds himself out of Christ, the unique Way (Jn. 4:6) by which to attain the end for which he was created, all that is left him is everlasting ruin.
Real faith, and not mere "good faith," is the subjective condition for salvation for everyone, even for the pagans. Since it is a necessity of means, "if it is lacking (even involuntarily) it is absolutely impossible to effect eternal salvation."14 Voluntary infidelity, St. Thomas explains, is a fault and involuntary infidelity is a punishment. In fact, the infidels who are not lost because of the sin of incredulity, that is, by the sin of not having believed in Christ about whom they never knew anything, are lost by their other sins, the remission of which cannot be given to anyone without the true faith."15
Nothing, then, is more important for man than to accept the Redeemer and union with the Mediator: it is a matter of eternal death or life. This is what the infidels have a right to hear announced by the Catholic Church, in conformity to the divine command.16 And this is what the Catholic Church has always announced to the infidels by praying, not with them, but for them.
What will happen at Assisi? They certainly won't pray for the infidels, thus presuming implicitly and publicly that they no longer need the true faith. Instead of that, they will pray in union with them, or rather, according to the rabbinical subtlety of Radio Vatican, they will pray near them, presuming thus implicitly and publicly that prayer dictated by error is received by God as much as prayer made "in spirit and in truth." "It involves respecting each one's prayer," Cardinal Etchegaray explained in his brief declaration. That means that the infidels who will gather at Assisi, who, let us be clear, are not "savages brought up in the forest" who have "never known anything about the faith," as the theologians hypothesize when discussing the problem of the salvation of infidels,17 will be "respectfully" left "in the darkness and in the shadow of death" (Lk. 1:79).
Authorized to pray in their distinctive costumes as "representatives of the other religions" and in conformity with their erroneous religious beliefs, they are even encouraged to persevere in sins, at least material, against the faith: infidelity, heresy, etc… Invited to pray for peace in the world, defined as a "fundamental" and "supreme" good,18 they are turned away from the eternal goods towards a temporal good, towards a secondary natural end, as if they didn't need to procure their supernatural last end, which really is fundamental and supreme: "Seek first the kingdom of God and His justice, and all these things shall be added unto you" (Mt. 6:33). For all these reasons, the "prayer meeting" of Assisi is, at least viewed from the outside, a lack of justice and charity towards the infidels.
4) A Danger and a Scandal to Catholics
True faith is indispensable for salvation. Catholics are thus obliged to avoid every proximate danger to their faith. Among the exterior dangers is contact with infidels when it is not the result of genuine necessity. This contact is illicit in virtue of divine and natural law even without considering ecclesiastical law, and even in the case where ecclesiastical law does not prohibit it, for example in social relations: Haereticum hominem devita (Avoid the heretic) (Tit. 3:10).
Moreover, out of maternal concern, the Church has always forbidden not only what might be a danger to the faith but also an occasion of scandal.19 As for the false religions, the Church has always refused them the right to public worship. She has tolerated it when it was necessary, but tolerance always means "in relation to an evil to be allowed for a proportionate reason."20 In any case, she has always avoided and forbidden any apparent approval of non-Catholic rites.
What is going to happen at Assisi? Catholics and infidels "will gather to pray" (even though it will not be "to pray together"...). That simply means that they will pray together at Assisi, first simultaneously in their own residences, and then, by turns when united at the closing ceremony before the basilica of St. Francis. And this is not being done in order to protect the faith of Catholics or to at least avoid scandalizing them. Rather, it is to allow all to pray "according to their own manner and style," and to "respect each one's prayer" and to "allow everyone to express himself in the fullness of his faith, of his belief."21 All this constitutes at least an exterior approbation of: 1) false religions, to which the Church as always denied any right; 2) religious subjectivism, which she has always condemned under the names of indifferentism or latitudinarianism, and which "seeks to justify itself under the pretended claims of liberty, failing to recognize the rights of objective truth which are made manifest either by the lights of reason or by Revelation.22
Religious indifferentism, which is "one of the most deleterious heresies" and which "places all religions on an equal footing," inevitably leads one to consider the truth of religious belief as merely a matter of utility for a well-regulated life .... "One ends by considering religion as an entirely individual thing which can be adapted to the dispositions of each one, letting everyone form his own personal religion, and by concluding that all the religions are good even though they contradict each other." 23 But with this point of view we are outside the Catholic act of faith, and have reached something ...like an act of incredulity towards divine Revelation.
Revelation is a reality, a fact, a truth accredited by God by sure signs, because error in this domain would have had disastrous consequences for men.24 But in the presence of an undeniable fact or of an evident truth, one cannot be tolerant to the point of approving the attitude of those who consider them to be non-existent or false. That would suppose that we do not really believe or are not fully convinced of the truth of our position, or that we are (or deem ourselves to be) dealing with a matter that is absolutely banal or indifferent, or that we would consider truth and error to be purely relative positions.25
And since the "prayer meeting" is characterized by all of that, it is an occasion of scandal for Catholics and of grave danger to their faith. Because of ecumenism, they find themselves united to the infidels, but in their "common ruin."26
5) Betrayal of the Mission Confided to Peter and to the Church
The Church's mission is to announce to all nations that 1) there is one true God, who revealed Himself for the benefit of all men in our Lord Jesus Christ; 2) that there is only one true religion, the only one by which God wishes to be honored, because He is Truth, and everything in the false religions which goes against the truth is repugnant to Him: doctrinal errors, immoral laws, unseemly rites; 3) that there is only one Mediator between God and men, by whom men can hope to be saved, because all are sinners and remain in their sin if they are deprived of the Blood of Christ; 4) that there is one true Church, the perpetual guardian of this Blood, and that "it is necessary to believe that no one can be saved outside the apostolic Roman Church, which is the unique ark of salvation, and those who do not enter it will perish in the deluge27; moreover, among their moral dispositions must be the desire, explicit or implicit, to fully accomplish the will of God, if their ignorance is truly invincible.28
The Church's proper mission is to announce all this: "Going therefore, teach ye all nations: baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you" (Mt. 28:19-20). "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved: but he that believeth not shall be condemned" (Mk. 16:16).
So that the Church could accomplish with assurance this mission throughout the centuries, our Lord Jesus Christ conferred on St. Peter and his successors the mission of visibly representing Him (Mt. 16, 17-19; Jn. 21:15-17)
The Vicar of Jesus Christ is not charged with establishing a new doctrine with the help of new revelations, nor of creating a new order of things, nor of instituting new sacraments: such is not his function. He represents Jesus Christ at the head of His Church, whose constitution has been finalized. This essential constitution, that is to say, the creation of the Church, was Jesus Christ's proper task which He, Himself, had to conclude, and of which He said to the Father: "I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do" (Jn. 17:4). Nothing more needs to be added; it only remains to maintain this creation, to assure the Church's work and preside over the functioning of its organs. Two things are necessary for this: govern it, and perpetuate the teaching of the truth. Vatican Council I reduced to these two points the supreme function of the Vicar of Jesus Christ. Peter represents Jesus Christ under these two aspects.29
There is no power in the Church like Peter's, but it is power as vicar, and as such, is no wise absolute, but limited by the divine right of Him whom he represents. "The Lord confided to Peter, not Peter's sheep, but His own in order to pasture them, not in his own interest, but God's."30 It is not within Peter's power, therefore, to promote initiatives in disaccord with the mission of the Church and of the Roman Pontiff, as clearly is the "prayer meeting" of Assisi. The Vicar of Him who said: "Begone, Satan, for it is written, ‘The Lord thy God thou shalt adore, and him only shalt thou serve’" (Mt. 4:10; Deut. 6:13), cannot invite "the representatives" of the false religions to pray to their false gods in places consecrated to the faith in the true God. The Successor of him who obtained the primacy by his act of faith when he said, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God" (Mt. 16:16; cf. Jn. 6:69-70), cannot authorize anyone to treat Jesus Christ as irrelevant. The Successor of him who received the commission to confirm his brethren in the faith (Lk. 22:32), has no right to be a stumbling block for their faith.Ω
1. Cf. L'Osservatore Romano, Jan. 26-27, 1986.
2. Roberti-Palazzini, Dizionario di teologia morale, p.813.
3. Ibid.
4. Summa Theologica, II-II, Q.83.
5. . Mt. 4:3-10; Jn. 17:3; Tim. 2:.5. See also on this topic Pietro Cardinal Palazzini, Vita a virtu cristiane, p.52, and Garrigou-Lagrange, De Revelatione (Rome-Paris: 1918), vol. 1, p.136.
6. Cf. Summa Theologica, II-II, QQ 92-96.
7. See L'Osservatore Romano, January 27-28, 1986, p.4.
8. Summa Theologica, Il-II, Q92, Art.2, ad 3, and I II, Q10, Art. 11
9. Cf. Acts 17:16.
10. Cf. Summa Theologica, II-II, Q94, Art. 1.
11. Cf. Eph. 2:14 and Mich. 5:.5.
12. Cardinal Willebrands in L'Osservatore Romano cited above.
13. Cardinal Etchegaray, cited above in Documentation Catholique.
14. Dizionario di teologia morale, p.66.
15. See Mk. 16:15-16; Jn. 20:31; Heb. 11:6; Council of Trent in Denzinger 799 and 801; Vatican II, Dz. 1793. Cf. Summa Theologica, II-II, Q. 11, Art. 1.
16. Mk. 6:16; Mt. 28:19-20.
17. St. Thomas Aquinas, De Veritate, 14, 11.
18. John Paul II and Cardinal Willebrands in L'Osservatore Romano, April 7-8, and Jan. 27-28, 1986, respectively.
19. See the 1917 Code of Canon Law, canons 1258 and 2316; and Summma Theologica,II-Il, Q. 10, Art. 9-11.
20. Dizionario de teologia morale, p.1702.
21. See the declarations of Cardinals Willebrands and Etchegaray cited above.
22. Dizionario de teologia morale, p.805.
23. Ibid.
24. Pope Leo XIII, encyclical letter Libertas, 1888.
25. Dizionario di teologia morale, p.1703.
26. Pope Pius XII, Humani Generis, 1950.
27. Pope Pius IX, Dz.1647.
28. Ibid.
29. Dom Adrien Gréa, De l’Eglise et de sa divine constitution; cf. Vatican I, constitution Pastor Aeternus, Ch. 4
30. St. Augustine, Sermon 285, No.3.
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| Archbishop Lefebvre: 1986 Letter to Eight Cardinals - Against Assisi |
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Posted by: Stone - 01-07-2021, 08:39 AM - Forum: Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre
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Archbishop Lefebvre: Letter To Each of Eight Cardinals
Econe, August 27, 1986
Your Eminence,
Confronted with the events taking place in the Church that are coming from John-Paul II, and confronted with what he proposes to do in Taize and Assisi in October, I cannot help addressing myself to you, in order to beg you in the name of numbers of priests and faithful, to save the honor of the Church being humiliated as she has never before been humiliated in all her history.
The speeches and actions of John-Paul II in Togo Morocco, India and the Synagogue of Rome, fill our hearts with righteous indignation. What do the holy men and women of the Old and New Testaments think of all this? What would the Holy Inquisition do, if it was still in existence?
The very first Article of the Credo and the first of the Ten Commandments are being outraged in public by the occupant of the See of Peter. Incalculable scandal is being given to Catholic souls. The Church is being shaken to her very foundations.
If faith in the Church as the one and only Ark of Salvation disappears the Church herself disappears. All her supernatural strength and activity are based upon this Article of our faith.
Is John-Paul II going to continue wrecking the Catholic Faith, in public, especially at Assisi, where a procession of religions is due to follow him through the streets of St. Francis’ home-town, with the religions then spreading out amongst the Basilica’s chapels to practise their worship in favor of peace as it is understood at the United Nations? That is what is being announced by Cardinal Etchegaray, the organiser of this abominable Congress of Religions.
Is it conceivable that no voice of authority is speaking out within the Church to condemn these public sins? Where are the Machabees of today?
Your Eminence, for the honor of the one and only true God, Our Lord Jesus Christ, make a public protest. Come to the help of the bishops, priests and faithful who are still Catholic.
Your Eminence, if I have taken the liberty of making this approach to you, it is because I cannot doubt how you feel in this matter.
I am addressing this appeal to each of the eight Cardinals here named, to enable you, if you so wish, to take joint action.
May the Holy Ghost come to your aid, your Eminence, and be so good as to accept the expression of my fraternal and devoted sentiments in Jesus and Mary.
+ Marcel Lefebvre
Archbishop-Bishop Emeritus of Tulle
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| Archbishop Lefebvre: Absolutely Against Agreement with a 'Modernist' Rome |
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Posted by: Stone - 01-07-2021, 08:34 AM - Forum: Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre
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Archbishop Lefebvre: Absolutely Against Agreement with a 'Modernist' Rome
MONS. MARCEL LEFEBVRE: Excerpts from letters to the Dominicans of Avrillé. Le Sel de la Terre n ° 96, spring 2016
Ecône, December 29, 1986
“[…] Betting on an agreement with the Pope is an illusion. The Pope will grant us everything we want on the disciplinary and liturgical level, but on the condition of admitting his modernist ideas about religious freedom and ecumenism, that is, of our Catholic faith.
No hope must be seen on that side. Rome is occupied by modernism and liberalism! When will Our Lord decide to stop this scandal? He is the teacher! We wait patiently and have confidence in the Lord and His holy Mother who know better than us this tragic situation[...] ”
Ecône, January 10, 1989
“After being absent for 15 days, I take care to answer your good letter, accompanied by numerous interesting documents.
But I must tell you that it is the letter of Bishop Perl that has held my attention. He doesn't flatter you by saying that your community is a "sister" of Chémeré!
Do not rediscover it, I beg you, you will raise doubts among your friends. The only answer to give is that they initiate the Council Reform to remove the errors. It is only then that we can trust them.
Whatever the canonical privileges they may give, their acceptance means for them communion with the Holy See, with the Pope and with the Council, therefore an implicit acceptance of all that modernism that we fight following St. Pius X and all [Fathers] before the Council.
They want to neutralize Tradition, so that it is no longer an obstacle for their ecumenist companies and for the Revolution in the Church […]
Do not have a point of contact with the one who is in charge of destroying Tradition. They don't know what to do to divide us and are surprised at so much resistance. They seem not to understand that it is a problem of Faith from the beginning. ”
February 20, 1989
“[…]Roman modernists are bandits, revolutionaries under sheep skins. They have no supernatural spirit. It is about this that we must take our effort: relearning to live on faith like the Apostles, the Martyrs, the Fathers of the Church and Saint Thomas Aquinas, who has achieved the tour de force of using all the sciences for the queen of the sciences; the theology that is worked in Heaven by the grace of the Holy Spirit. The Summa is the great catechism of Saint Thomas Aquinas and that of the Church even more than that of Trent. I try to explain this to the seminarians so that they have the worry of living from the best catechism that exists and that they are taught. It is very important that in our seminarians we keep a safe and approved line by the Church, that of Saint Thomas, which should give us pastoral principles that give the faithful true spirituality away from Jansenism and charismatism. The morality that is limited to the commandments is disposable. The moral of grace, of the virtues, of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, which does not forget the commandments, that which Saint Thomas advocates is more in line with the spirit of Our Lord, of the Gospel, and even more urgent for the fervent souls. It is time to return the Catholic faith exciting, generous, missionary, as it was for the first Christians. […] ”
Ecône, April 22, 1989
“[…]The consecrations have been the occasion to tell the true traditionalists, refusing to reconcile Rome. Unity has been made on this point and the division has been made with the ralliés to modernist Rome […] ”.
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| Archbishop Lefebvre: 'I Accuse the Council!' [online] |
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Posted by: Stone - 01-07-2021, 08:05 AM - Forum: Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre
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Preface to the English Edition
The reader will no doubt find this a difficult book to read. But he will not fail to recognize that the struggle at Vatican II of a small number of conciliar Fathers became, in the long run, the same struggle carried on by the small number of those who resist the world-wide subversion of Socialism and Communism.
The triumph of ecumenical liberalism at the Council was the greatest victory for Communism. Christian civilization forthwith lost its self-confidence and thought it could adopt the principles of its enemies, viz. the rights of man, human dignity, and religious liberty. This adoption opened a one-sided dialogue and raised the banner of détente and of pacifism. Consequently, Communism has spread over the world without hindrance.
Vatican II, which should have been the anti-Communist Council as the Council of Trent was anti-Protestant, was taken over by the Liberals and became the instrument for the destruction of all the moral and spiritual barriers against Communism. When soldiers have lost the ideal for which they fight their weapons fall from their hands. Since there is no longer a Christian civilization to defend, the field is left open to the Satanic revolution.
In the discussions which appear in these pages, nothing less than the Catholic Faith and the future of so-called Christian nations is at stake. Those who worked to disarm the truth and surrendered it to error bear a heavy responsibility.
May these pages kindle the courage to revive the Catholic Faith for which so many martyrs shed their blood.
May those who contributed so much to this edition be abundantly rewarded. May God recompense them by a wide distribution of this book.
Marcel Lefebvre
Rickenbach, Switzerland
March, 1982
* * *
A Note on the Title
Why is this book called I Accuse the Council ? We have chosen this title because we are justified in asserting—a judgment based on both internal and external criticism—that the spirit which dominated the Council and which inspired so many of its ambiguous, equivocal and even clearly erroneous texts, was not that of the Holy Ghost, but the spirit of the modern world, the spirit of Liberalism, of Teilhard de Chardin, of Modernism, in opposition to the kingdom of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
Submission to the official reforms and orientations coming from Rome is demanded and imposed in the name of that Council. The tendency of all of these, it will be noted, is openly Protestant and Liberal.
It is only since the Council that the Church, or at least churchmen in possession of key posts, has taken a direction definitely opposed to tradition and to the official Magisterium of the Church.
Such men have imagined themselves to be the living Church, and mistress of the truth, with freedom to impose new dogmas advocating progress, evolution, change, and a blind, unconditional obedience on clergy and laity alike. They have turned their backs on the true Church; they have given her new institutions, a new priesthood, a new form of worship, new teachings ever in search of something fresh, and always in the name of the Council.
It is easy to think that whoever opposes the Council and its new Gospel would be considered as excommunicated, as outside communion with the Church. But one may well ask them, communion with what Church? They would answer, no doubt, with the Conciliar Church.
It is imperative, therefore, to shatter the myths which have been built up around Vatican II. This Council had wished to be a pastoral Council because of its instinctive horror for dogma, and to facilitate the official introduction of Liberal ideas into Church texts. By the time it was over, however, they had dogmatized the Council, comparing it with that of Nicaea, and claiming that it was equal, if not superior, to the Councils that had gone before it!
Fortunately, this operation of exploding the erroneous ideas of the Council has already begun, and begun satisfactorily with the work of Professor Salet in the Courrier de Rome[2] on the Declaration on Religious Liberty. His conclusion is that this declaration is heretical.
There are a number of points about the Council which should be studied thoroughly and analyzed, for example:
-the questions of the relationship of the bishops and the Pope in the constitutions on the Church, on the Bishops, and on the Missions;
-the priesthood of clergy and laity in the introduction to Lumen Gentium;
-the purpose of marriage in Gaudium et Spes;
-liberty of worship and conscience and the concept of liberty in Gaudium et Spes;
-ecumenism and relations with non-Christian religions and with atheists, etc.
A non-Catholic spirit can quickly be discerned in all this. An examination of these points leads us inevitably to look at the reforms which came from Vatican II and suddenly we see the Council in a new and strange light. Then the questions follow: Had those who brought off this astonishing maneuver thought it out in depth before the Council opened? Who are they? Did they get together before the Council?
Gradually one’s eyes are opened to behold an astounding conspiracy prepared long beforehand. Such a discovery makes one wonder what part the Pope played in all this work and how responsible he was for what happened. In spite of the desire to find him innocent of this appalling betrayal of the Church, it would seem that his involvement was overwhelming.
Even, however, if we leave it to God and to Peter’s true successors to sit in judgment of these things, it is nonetheless certain that the Council was deflected from its purposes by a group of conspirators and that it is impossible for us to take any part in this conspiracy despite the fact that there may be many satisfactory declarations in Vatican II. The good texts have served as cover to get those texts which are snares, equivocal and denuded of meaning, accepted and passed.
We are left with only one solution: to abandon these dangerous examples and cling firmly to tradition, i.e., to the official Magisterium of the Church throughout two thousand years.
We hope that the pages which follow will throw the light of truth on the consciously or unconsciously subversive enterprises of the enemies of the Church.
Let us add that the reactions of Liberal clergy and laity, of Protestants, and of Freemasons to the Council only make our apprehensions stronger. Would not Cardinal Suenens be right in declaring that this Council has been the French Revolution of the Church![3]
Thus our duty is clear: to preach the kingdom of Our Lord Jesus Christ against that of the goddess Reason.
Marcel Lefebvre
Paris, France
August 27, 1976
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| Archbishop Lefebvre: 1976 Sermon on the Feast of the Immaculate Heart |
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Posted by: Stone - 01-07-2021, 07:58 AM - Forum: Sermons and Conferences
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The Angelus - July 2013
The Name Written on Her Heart
Sermon by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, August 22, 1976
Dear Brethren,
The feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, whose solemnity we celebrate today, is a comparatively new feast and an example of what the Church can do and has done in relatively recent times to adapt the spirit and the riches of the Church to the present day. If any feast reminds us of the truths we need, of truths that when meditating we desire to apply to our souls, that of the Immaculate Heart of Mary certainly does.
This feast clearly has a special link to the apparitions of Our Lady at Fatima, and it was Pius XII who wished that we honor the Immaculate Heart of Mary on the octave day of the Assumption.
Ah, yes, since the 17th century devotion to the Hearts of Jesus and Mary has existed. We just celebrated this week the feast of St. John Eudes, who founded congregations under the patronage of the Hearts of Jesus and Mary. But if our Holy Father Pius XII decided to honor in a special way the Immaculate Heart of Mary, it was because our times had need of the devotion.
In these times of hardship, in these times where Christians are deprived of what they formerly had, we need the manifestation of the charity of Our Lord, which was so clearly seen during other Christian centuries. One saw religious houses everywhere. Throughout Christendom monasteries, convents, and hospitals were thickly sown. So many religious houses peopled our villages, our countryside, and our cities, that we had the impression—I imagine that the people who lived in those times had the impression—to be entirely surrounded by the love of our Lord Jesus Christ. For His love was made manifest, as you might say, on every street corner. There were calvaries; there were images of Our Lady; there were hospitals run by religious; there were refuges for the poor, pilgrims, and those in suffering. Everywhere the charity of Our Lord was manifest.
But in our times, how harsh our world has become! We no longer find this charity of Our Lord in our cities or our countryside. Oh, there are still, of course, souls devoted to Our Lord, but how many compared to the total population? And how much work there remains to do in those countries that do not yet know of Our Lord’s charity, enormous lands like China, Africa, and many others that are still far from this charity!
And so it seems to me that we need the Blessed Virgin Mary in our times. We need the Blessed Virgin to help us keep the faith, to feel the warmth of Our Lord’s love for us. We no longer see His love with our eyes, and as we see it less and less, we need to feel that Our Lady is near us. And I think that is why Our Lady asked at Fatima that we pray to her Immaculate Heart. We need the divine love which fills the Heart of the Blessed Virgin.
And we also need her Immaculate Heart: immaculate, that is without stain, without sin. God knows that we no longer have around us the example of lives entirely devoted to our Lord Jesus Christ, who carry out the law of Our Lord, His law of love, for the commandments of God are contained in love of God and love of neighbor.
But today, you are witnesses of what goes on in our society, where we murder children, where people commit suicide. Did you know that here in Switzerland, there are more suicides than fatalities due to car accidents? A newspaper recently reported that there were 1800 suicides last year, but only 1600 deaths due to car accidents: 1800 suicides! And mostly of young people. What does that mean? It means that these poor souls no longer felt the love of Our Lord around them; they were disgusted by the life that surrounded them, to the point that they committed suicide. And if what happens in a large number of other countries was made public, we would be horrified.
When one thinks about divorce! So many abandoned children who are torn between father and mother. We live painful lives in a harsh society, where charity is no longer practiced.
Blessed Virgin Mary as Mother
I experienced this personally when I was sent to the African nations, where I worked for 30 years. What struck me the most was the hatred one sensed there. The people were full of hate: one village hated another, one family hated another. The result of this hatred was suicide, poisonings and murders. The love of our Lord Jesus Christ did not reign.
We do not know how fortunate we are to have our Lord Jesus Christ as our Father and the Blessed Virgin Mary as our Mother. From these examples we must draw our love for God and for our models. For if the Blessed Virgin Mary had a most loving heart, her love was all for our Lord Jesus Christ and for all those “attached” to Him, and to lead all souls to our Lord Jesus Christ, to her Son Jesus. She lived for this love.
And because she loved Our Lord she was never able to offend Him; she simply couldn’t. She was conceived immaculate, born immaculate, and she remains immaculate all her life. She is then for us a model of purity of heart, of obedience to the law of our Lord Jesus Christ.
And because she loved Our Lord, she wanted to suffer with Him and share His sufferings. Sharing suffering is a sign of love. She saw her Son Jesus suffer and she wished to suffer with Him. When the heart of Jesus was pierced, so was hers, the heart of Mary! These two pierced hearts lived in unity for the glory of God, for the reign of God, for the reign of our Lord Jesus Christ. They fought for that alone.
And for this reason we too must be ready to suffer for the reign of our Lord Jesus Christ. He no longer reigns in our societies, nor in our families, nor in our own selves. Yet we need His reign. It is the only reason for the existence of our souls, our bodies, of humanity, and this earth and all of God’s creation: that Jesus Christ may reign; that He may give to souls His life, His salvation, His charity, His glory.
It is because we are aware of what has been happening in the Church for over 15 years—a true revolution has occurred, attacking the Kingship of our Lord Jesus Christ, clearly and evidently intending to destroy His reign—that our eyes were opened and that we were able to see this. Our Lord Jesus Christ’s law is no longer followed, and, unfortunately, those who should teach us to follow His law encourage us on the contrary to disobey it.
For seeking the secularization of the state brings about the destruction of Christ’s Kingship. When doubt is cast on the reality of the sanctity of marriage and its laws, the love of our Lord Jesus Christ in our homes is destroyed.
When we fail to speak, or fail to speak loudly and openly against abortion, we do not build Christ’s reign.
Devotion to Christ the King
When devotion to Christ the King is torn down, the reign of Christ in souls is destroyed.
The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, dear brethren, is nothing other than the proclamation of the reign of Christ the King.
How did our Lord Jesus Christ reign? Regnavit a ligno Crucis. He reigned by the wood of the Cross. He defeated the devil and defeated sin with the wood of the Cross. So the renewal on the altar of the Holy Sacrifice of Our Lord at Calvary is a declaration of the royalty of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is a declaration of His divinity.
And somehow, by destroying the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, one destroys the affirmation of the Kingship of our Lord Jesus Christ.
This is why adoration of the Blessed Sacrament has diminished so much in our times. Rather let us say that sacrileges have grown innumerably since the Council. It must be said. It is clear and obvious.
Our Lord Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist has been sent away from the altar. He is no longer adored. People do not genuflect before the Blessed Sacrament any more. But recognizing the reign of our Lord Jesus Christ means recognizing that He is God. It means recognizing that He is our King. And therefore we must express this love of our Lord Jesus Christ, recognize the existence of His divinity.
For proof I need only refer to something that just occurred and is publicly known in the United States. At the Eucharistic Congress in Philadelphia, was a procession with the Blessed Sacrament held? No! There was no procession with the Blessed Sacrament, just like four years ago at the Eucharistic Congress in Melbourne, where I was present.
Why no procession with the Blessed Sacrament? Because they wanted to make the Eucharistic Congress an ecumenical congress. Ecumenical, that means bringing together Protestants and Jews, people who deny the divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, who are opposed to His reign.
How can we pray with people who are opposed to our faith, who reject our faith?
The condition set by the non-Catholics invited was, “We will be happy to participate in the Eucharistic Congress as long as there is no procession with the Blessed Sacrament.” In other words, as long as no homage is paid to the One who is our King and our Father, our Creator and our Redeemer, the One who shed His blood for us. People no longer want to honor Him. And this condition was accepted: In order to have Protestants and Jews at the Congress, no procession with the Blessed Sacrament was held.
On top of that, a sort of concelebration was held with the Protestant ministers, and it was a Protestant minister who presided over the event!
All of this cries out to heaven for vengeance! Our Lord is no longer honored, our Lord is no longer King. He is insulted by events like these.
And if one day Communist armies take over our countries, well, we will have richly deserved it for the sacrileges committed that we allowed, that we did not put a stop to, for the honor denied to our Lord Jesus Christ. If we refuse our Lord Jesus Christ as our King, we will have the devil for king. He will come and then we will see what liberty is... Those who desired liberty wanted a liberty that would free man from the commandments of God and of the Church.
Liberation! They wanted to free themselves from our Lord… Another prince will come to teach us about liberty!
And so we who are fortunate enough to understand these things, who are fortunate enough to believe in the divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, in His Kingship, we must make manifest, we must proclaim His Kingship in our families and wherever we are. We must join forces with those groups of Christians who still believe in the divinity of Christ and in His Kingship and who have love in their hearts, the love that the Blessed Virgin Mary had for her Son Jesus.
1789 in the Church
And may those who share that love join forces and hold fast, without faltering. Those Christians are the Church. They are the ones, not those who tear down the reign of our Lord. This fact must be proclaimed!1
Cardinal Suenens said: “The Council was 1789 in the Church.” I didn’t make up this definition. Yes, I believe he was right: it was 1789 in the Church. He rejoiced at it; we deplore it. For 1789 in the Church means the reign of the goddess Reason, worshipped by our ancestors of 1789, who worshipped the goddess Reason, who led clergy and religious to the scaffold, who pillaged our cathedrals, destroyed our churches, violated our houses of worship.
And is the revolution we are witnessing now not worse than that of 1789?
If we review what has happened since the Council in our churches, our homes, our schools, our universities, our seminaries, our religious congregations, the result is worse than in 1789.
For at least in 1789 the monks and nuns climbed the scaffold and spilled their blood for our Lord Jesus Christ, and I think that you are ready to give your blood for our Lord Jesus Christ.
But today, how shameful it is to see these priests who have abandoned their priesthood, and to see how every month still so many priests send to Rome a request for permission to abandon the vow they made to serve our Lord Jesus Christ so that they can get married. And a mere three weeks later they receive permission to marry.
Is that not worse? Would it not be better for these priests to climb the scaffold, declaring their faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, instead of abandoning Him?
What has happened since the Council is worse than what happened in the Revolution. It is better to have enemies openly declaring war on the Church and on our Lord Jesus Christ. But that those who ought to honor our Lord Jesus Christ, who ought to adore Him, who ought to make their faith in Him known, that these should teach us to commit sacrilege, to abandon Our Lord, to vilify Him in a way—that, we cannot accept!
We are the Catholic Church. They have separated themselves from the Catholic Church.2 We are not schismatic. We long for the reign of our Lord. We want His Kingship proclaimed. We are ready to follow! If our pastors everywhere said, “We want one God alone, our Lord Jesus Christ. We have only one King, our Lord Jesus Christ,” then we would follow them!
But we cannot allow, for instance, the cross to disappear from our altars; we will not allow the cross to disappear from our churches. That we must maintain. We must be firm on these points.
And it is because I proclaim all of this that I am called disobedient, that I will soon be called schismatic. But not at all! I am neither disobedient nor schismatic because I obey the Church and our Lord Jesus Christ.
“You disobey the pope.”I disobey the pope insofar as the pope identifies with the revolution that took place at the Council and after the Council.
For this revolution is the Revolution of 1789, and I cannot obey the Revolution of 1789 in the Church. I cannot obey the goddess of Reason; I will not bow down to the goddess of Reason.
And that is what they want us to do. They want us to close this seminary so that all together we may adore the goddess of Reason, Man, and the cult of Man.
No. Never! We will not accept. We will obey God, submit ourselves to our Lord Jesus Christ. We will submit ourselves to the extent that those who must transmit to us our Faith submit themselves to the Faith as well. They have no right to sell off the Faith: it is not theirs. The Faith belongs to God, it belongs to our Lord Jesus Christ. And the pope and the bishops exist to transmit it.
Insofar as they transmit it, we fall to our knees, we obey; we are ready to obey immediately.
Insofar as they destroy our faith, we no longer obey. We cannot allow our faith to be destroyed.
Our faith is attached to our hearts until we die. That is what we must say and what we must proclaim.
So we are not disobedient; we are obedient to our Lord Jesus Christ. That is what the Church has always asked of the faithful.
And when we are told, “You are judgmental; you judge the pope, you judge the bishops,” it is not we who judge the bishops, but our Faith, our Tradition, our pocket catechism!
A five-year-old child can correct his bishop. If a bishop were to tell a child, “You have been taught that the Blessed Trinity has three Persons, but that is not true,” the child could refer to his catechism and say, “My catechism teaches me that there are three Persons in the Blessed Trinity. You are wrong, and I am right.”
The child would be right. He would be right because he has all of Tradition on his side, all of the Faith on his side.
And that is what we have, nothing else. We say, “Tradition condemns you; Tradition condemns what you are currently doing.”
We Must Stand Firm
We are with two thousand years of the Church, not with twelve years of a new Church, a conciliar Church, as we were told when Msgr. Benelli asked us to submit ourselves to the “conciliar Church.” I do not know this conciliar Church; I only know the Catholic Church.
So we must stand firm on our positions. For our Faith, we must accept everything, all the snubs, the scorn, excommunication, blows, persecution. Tomorrow, perhaps, the civil authorities may persecute us as well; that too may come.
Why? Because those who are currently destroying the Church are doing the work of Freemasonry. Freemasonry is in control everywhere.
So if Freemasonry realizes that we are a force that may threaten their plans, governments will persecute us.
Then we will return to the catacombs; we will go anywhere, but we will continue to believe; we will not abandon our Faith. We will be persecuted, but many others were persecuted before us for their Faith. We will not be the first. But we will at least honor Our Lord, be faithful to Him, not abandon Him, not betray Him. That is what we must do.
We must therefore be strong and ask the most blessed Virgin Mary on this day that we, like her, may have only one love in our hearts: that of our Lord Jesus Christ; only one name written on our hearts: that of our Lord Jesus Christ.
He is God! He is the Redeemer. He is the Eternal Priest. He is King of all and He is King in heaven. He is alone King in heaven. There is no other king than our Lord Jesus Christ in heaven. He is the joy of the elect, of the angels, of His Blessed Mother, of St. Joseph.
And we too wish to partake of this honor, this glory, this love of our Lord Jesus Christ. We know Him alone and we wish to know Him alone.
In the name of the Father…
1 The year before delivering this sermon, Archbishop Lefebvre was suspended a divinis and commanded to shut down his seminary and the SSPX. These Roman punishments gave the appearance of placing the SSPX outside of the Church’s legal framework, and this appearance troubled some consciences, making them think that fidelity to Tradition was infidelity to the Church. Thus, the Archbishop emphasizes here that, in fact, those who destroy the Church cannot properly be said to belong to her, while those who are faithful to Tradition do properly belong to her. He is speaking of belonging to the Church in a specific sense, i.e. by sharing her ideals and mission. He is clearly not speaking of belonging to the Church through baptism or by being part of its visible hierarchy, as such a sense would falsify his statement. Such verbal ambiguity is part and parcel of the rhetorical context of a sermon, and is in fact needed to emphasize a key point, as the Archbishop does here.
2 In common speech, we do not say that a traitor or a spy within an army belongs to that army, because his intentions are completely contrary to those of the moral body of which he is a part. Similarly here, although certain Modernists are baptized Catholics and really are part of the visible hierarchy, yet they have separated themselves from the Church’s spirit and ideals, and in that sense do not belong to her. Such expressions, as Fr. Gleize points out, take the part for the whole. It is not just those who have the spirit of the Church (part) that make up the Catholic Church (whole), but it can be said in a certain sense that only those who have the spirit of the Church belong to the Church, a point the Archbishop wishes to emphasize here.
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| The Liturgical Year: January 7th - Second Day of the Octave of the Epiphany |
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Posted by: Stone - 01-07-2021, 07:50 AM - Forum: Christmas
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January 7 – Second Day within the Octave of the Epiphany
Taken from The Liturgical Year by Dom Prosper Gueranger (1841-1875)
A solemnity of such importance as the Epiphany could not be without an Octave. The only Octaves during the year that are superior to this of the Epiphany are those of Easter and Pentecost. It has a privilege which the Octave of Christmas has not; for no Feast can be kept during the Octave of the Epiphany, unless it be that of a Patron of first class; whereas, Feasts of a double and semi-double rite are admitted during the Christmas Octave. It would even seem, judging from the ancient Sacramentaries, that anciently, the two days immediately following the Epiphany were Days of Obligation, as were the Monday and Tuesday of Easter and Whitsuntide. The names of the Stational Churches are given, where the Clergy and Faithful of Rome assembled on these two days.
In order that we may the more fully enter into the spirit of the Church during this glorious Octave, we will contemplate, each day, the Mystery of the Vocation of the Magi, and we will enter, together with them, into the holy Cave of Bethlehem, there to offer our gifts to the Divine Infant, to whom the Star has led the Wise Men.
These Magi are the harbingers of the conversion of all nationals to the Lord their God; they are the Fathers of the Gentiles in the faith of the Redeemer that is to come; they are the Patriarchs of the human race regenerated. They arrive at Bethlehem, according to the tradition of the Church, three in number; and this tradition is handed down by St. Leo, by St. Maximus of Turin, by St. Cesarius of Arles, and by the Christian paintings in the Catacombs of Rome, which paintings belong to the period of the Persecutions.
Thus is continued in the Magi the Mystery prefigured by the three just men at the very commencement of the world: Abel, who by his death was the figure of Christ; Seth, who was the father of the children of God, as distinct from the family of Cain; and Enos, who had the honor of regulating the ceremonies and solemnity to be observed in man’s worship of his Creator.
The Magi also continued, in their own person, that other Mystery of the three new parents of the human family, after the Deluge, and from whom all races have sprung: Sem, Cham, and Japheth, the Sons of Noe.
And thirdly, we behold in the Magi that third Mystery of the three fathers of God’s chosen people: Abraham, the Father of believers; Isaac, another figure of Christ immolated; and Jacob, who was strong against God, (Genesis 32:28)and was the father of the twelve Patriarchs of Israel.
All these were but the receivers of the Promise, although the hope of mankind, both according to nature and grace, rested on them; they, as the Apostle says of them, saluted the accomplishment of that Promise afar off.
(Hebrews 11:13)The Nations did not follow them by serving the true God; nay, the greater the light that shone on Israel, and the greater seemed the blindness of the Gentile world. The three Magi, on the contrary, come to Bethlehem, and they are followed by countless generations. In them, the figure becomes the grand reality, thanks to the mercy of our Lord, who having come to find what was lost, vouchsafed to stretch out his arms to the whole human race, for the whole was lost.
These happy Magi were also invested with regal power, as we shall see further on; as such, they were prefigured by those three faithful Kings, who were the glory of the throne of Juda, the earnest maintainers among the chosen people of the traditions regarding the future Deliverer, and the strenuous opponents of idolatry: David, the sublime type of the Messias; Ezechias, whose courageous zeal destroyed the idols; and Josias, who re-established the Law of the Lord which the people had forgotten.
And if we would have another type of these holy pilgrims, who come from a far distant country of the Gentiles to adore the King of Peace, and offer him their rich presents—the sacred Scripture puts before us the Queen of Saba, also a Gentile, who hearing of the fame of Solomon’s wisdom, whose name means the Peaceful, visits Jerusalem, taking with her the most magnificent gifts—camels laden with gold, spices, and precious stones—and venerates, under one of the sublimest of his types, the Kingly character of the Messias.
Thus, O Jesus! during the long and dark night in which the justice of thy Father left this sinful world did the gleanings of grace appear in the heavens, portending the rising of that Sun of thine own Justice, which would dissipate the shadows of death and establish the reign of Light and Day. But now, all these shadows have passed away; we no longer need the imperfect light of types: it is thyself we now possess; and though we wear not royal crowns upon our heads like the Magi and the Queen of Saba, yet thou receivest us with love. The very first to be invited to thy Crib, there to receive thy teachings, were simple Shepherds. Every member of the human family is called to form part of thy court. Having become a Child, thou hast opened the treasures of thine infinite wisdom to all men. What gratitude do we not owe for this gift of the light of Faith, without which we should know nothing, even while flattering ourselves that we know all things! How narrow and uncertain and deceitful is human science, compared with that which has its source in thee! May we ever prize this immense gift of Faith, the Light, O Jesus! which thou makest to shine upon us, after having softened it under the veil of thy humble Infancy. Preserve us from pride, which darkens the soul’s vision, and dries up the heart. Confide us to the keeping of thy Blessed Mother; and may our love attach us forever to thee, and her maternal eye ever watch over us lest we should leave thee, O thou the God of our hearts!
Let us now listen to the Hymns and Prayers of the several Churches in praise of the Mysteries of the glorious Epiphany. We will begin with this of Prudentius, in which he celebrates that never-setting Star, of which the other was but a figure.
Hymn
Quicumque Christum quæritis,
Oculos in altum tollite:
Illic licebit visere
Signum perennis gloriæ
O ye, that are in search of Jesus, raise up your eyes aloft: there shall you see the sign of his eternal glory.
Hæc stella, quæ solis rotam
Vincit decore ac lumine,
Venisse terris nuntiat
Cum carne terrestri Deum.
This Star, which surpasseth the sun’s disc in beauty and light, announces that God has come upon the earth clothed in human flesh.
Non illa servit noctibus,
Secuta lunam menstruam:
Sed solam cœlum possidens
Cursum dierum temperat.
It is not a Star that is made to serve the night, following the monthly changes of the moon; but it seems to preside over the heavens and mark the course of the day.
Arctoa quamvis sidera
In se retortis motibus
Obire nolint; attamen
Plerumque sub nimbis latent.
‘Tis true, that Polar Stars are lights that never set; yet are they often hid beneath the clouds.
Hoc sidus æternum manet:
Hæc stella numquam mergitur:
Nec nubis occursu abdita
Obumbrat obductam facem.
But this Star is never dimmed: this Star is never extinguished; nor does a coming cloud o’er-shadow her blaze of light.
Tristis cometa intercidat,
Et si quod astrum Sirio
Fervet vapore, jam Dei
Sub luce destructum cadet.
Let comet, the harbinger of ill, and meteors formed by Dog-star’s vaporous heat, now fade away before this God’s own light.
We take the three following solemn Prayers from the Gregorian Sacramentary.
Prayers
Deus, illuminator omnium gentium, da populis tuis perpetua pace gaudere, et illus lumen splendidum infunde cordibus nostris, quod trium Magorum mentibus aspirasti.
O God, the enlightener of all nations, give thy people to enjoy perpetual peace, and infuse into our hearts that shining light which thou didst enkindle in the minds of the three Magi.
Omnipotens et sempiterne Deus, fidelium splendor animarum, qui hanc solemnitatem electionis gentium primitiis consecrasti; imple mundum gloria tua, et subditis tibi populis per luminis tui appare claritatem.
Almighty and eternal God, the light of faithful souls, who has consecrated this solemnity by the first-fruits of the vocation of the Gentiles; fill this world with thy glory, and manifest thyself to thy devoted people by the brightness of thy light.
Concede nobis, omnipotens Deus, ut Salutare tuum nova cœlorum luce mirabile, quod ad salutem mundi hodierna festivitate processit, nostris semper innovandis cordibus oriatur. Per Christum Dominum nostrum. Amen.
Grant unto us, O Almighty God, that the Savior sent by thee, who was made known by a new light in the heavens, and comes down for the salvation of the world on this day’s solemnity, may arise in our hearts and give them a perpetual renovation. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
[img= 400x325]https://i2.wp.com/sensusfidelium.us/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/zmagi.jpg3_.jpg?resize=768%2C767&ssl=1[/img]
The following Sequence is found in the ancient Roman-French Missals.
Sequence
Epiphaniam Domino canamus gloriosam,
Let us sing to the Lord the glorious Epiphany.
Qua prolem Dei vere Magi adorant:
Wherein the Magi adore the true Son of God.
Immensam Chaldæi cujus Persæque venerantur potentiam.
The Chaldeans and Persians offer homage to his infinite power.
Quem cuncti Prophetæ cecinere venturum, gentes ad salvandas:
All the Prophets had foretold that he would come to save the nations.
Cujus Majestas ita est inclinata, ut assumeret servi formam.
His Majesty so far humbled itself, as to assume the form of a servant.
Ante Sæcula qui Deus, et tempora, homo factus est in Maria:
He that was God before all ages and time, was made Man in Mary’s womb.
Balaam de quo vaticinans: Exhibit et Jacob rutilans, inquit, stella,
Balaam thus prophesied concerning him: There shall go forth a bright star from Jacob,
Et confringet ducum agmina regionis Moab, maxima potentia.
And with exceeding power he shall break the armies of the chiefs of Moab.
Huic Magi munera deferunt præclara: aurum, simul thus et myrrham.
The Magi bring him rich presents, gold, and frankincense, and myrrh.
Thure Deum prædicant, auro Regem magnum, hominem mortalem myrrha.
By the frankincense they confess him to be God; by the gold, the great King; by the myrrh, a mortal Man.
In somnis hos monet Angelus, ne redeant ad regem commotum propter regna;
An Angel warns them in their sleep, that they return not to King Herod, who feared to lose his kingdom.
Pavebat etenim nimium Regem natum, verens amittere regni jura.
For he was exceedingly troubled at the birth of the new King, and trembled lest he should be deprived of his throne.
Magi, stella sibi micante prævia, pergunt alacres itinera, patriam quæ eos ducebat ad propriam, liquentes Herodis mandata.
The Magi, guided by a Star that went before them, set out on their journey with joy. The Star guided them to their own country, and Herod’s commands were not heeded.
Qui percussus corde nimium præ ira, extemplo mandat eludia magica non linqui taliter impunita, sed mox privari eos vita.
This prince, struck to the heart with exceeding wrath, straightway commands that the disobedience of the Magi be chastised, and that they be speedily put to death.
Omnis nunc caterva tinnulum jungat lauidbus organi pneuma,
Now, therefore, let this assembly sing its songs of praise accompanied by the organ’s shrill sounding notes.
Mystice offerens Regi regnum Christo munera, pretiosa,
And offer to Christ, the King of kings, its precious mystic gifts,
Poscens ut per orbem regna omnia protegat in sæcula sempiterna. Amen.
Beseeching him that he protect all the kingdoms of the universe for ever and ever. Amen.
St. Ephrem gives us the following beautiful Hymn upon the Nativity of our Lord.
Hymn
Nascente Filio, altis resonat clamoribus Bethlehem. Cœlo delapsi Vigiles canunt vocibus tonitruum imitantibus. Concentu exciti novo convenere silentes, silentium rupere laudes nascentes Filii Dei.
The Son being born, Bethlehem resounds with loud shouts of joy. The ever wakeful Angels come down from heaven, singing their hymn with voices loud as thunder. Men that were in still silence ran to the cave, aroused by the strange music: they too broke the silence with their praises of the new-born Son of God.
Plaudamus, aiebant, Infanti qui Evæ Adæque juventutis restituit anos. Confluxere pastores, gregum suorum proventum portantes, dulcis lactis copiam, mundas carnes, et decoram laudam.
‘Let us,’ said they, ‘give praise to the Infant, who has restored to Adam and Eve the years of their youth.’ These Shepherds came brining with them the produce of their flocks, abundance of sweet milk, clean meats, and songs of praise.
Distinxere munera, carnes Josepho, Mariæ lac, Filio laudem. Obtulere agnum lactentem paschali Agno, primum Primo, hostiam Hostiæ, agnum caduci temporis Agno veritatis sempiternæ.
Thus did they divide the gifts: the meats to Joseph; the milk to Mary; their praise to Jesus. They offered a lambskin to the paschal Lamb, a first-born to the First-Born, a victim to the Victim, a mortal lamb to the true eternal Lamb.
Decorum sane spectaculum! agnus oblatus Agno! balavit agnus Unigenito præsentatus, agnus Agno acceptam referebat gratiam, quod suo adventu greges et armenta mactationi subtraxisset, et novum a veteri Paschata traductum Pascha Filii introduxisset.
Fair sight indeed! A lamb offered to the Lamb! The lamb bleated, thus offered to the Only Begotten Son of God; it thanked him for that his coming would save the flocks and herds from being immolated, and that a new Pasch, that of the Son of God, would be brought in in place of the Pasch of old.
Illum adoravere pastores, et prophetantes Pastorum Principem salutarunt. Mosaica virga, aiebant, tuum, universalis Pastor, sceptrum commendat, quique illam gestavit Moses te magnum prædicat, dolens gregum suorum mutatas formas, et agnos in lupos transiise, ac oves evasisse dracones, et ferocissimas bestias. Scilicet et istæ in illa horribili solitudine passæ fuerant malum, quando furentes rabidæ in suum incubuere Pastorem.
The Shepherds adored him, and prophesying, saluted him as the Prince of Shepherds. They said: ‘Thy sceptre, O universal Shepherd! is prefigured by the rod of Moses; and Moses, who held it in his hand, declares thy greatness. But he grieves over the change that befell his flock: he grieves to see his lambs changed into wolves, and his sheep transformed into dragons and savage beasts. This evil happened to them in that terrible desert, where this flock, grown mad with rage, attacked their Shepherd.
Divine Puer, hanc tibi acceptam profitentur gratiam pastores, quod lupos et agnos in easdem caulas congregaveris: Puer Noe antiquior, et Noe recentior, qui intra arcam, pelago fremente, pacem dissidentibus vectoribus sanxisti.
‘O Divine Child! the Shepherds give thee thanks, for that thou hast united into the one fold both wolves and lambs. O Child! that art older and younger than Noe! ’twas thou didst establish peace among them that sailed in the ark on the stormy sea, and were enemies.
David proavus tuus agni necem leonis cæde vindicavit: tu vero, fili David, occultum peremisti lupum, a quo interfectus fuerat Adamus, agnus ille simplex, qi in Paradiso pastus est et balavit.
‘Thy ancestor David avenged the massacre of a lamb by slaying the lion: but thou, O Son of David! didst slay the invisible lion, wo murdered that simple lamb, who fed and bleated in Eden—our first parent Adam.’
The Greek Church gives us, in honor of the Virgin-Mother, this beautiful song of Saint Joseph the Hymnographer.
Hymn
Ut inferiores superioribus ac cœlestibus conjungeret solus omnium Deus, virginalem uterum ingressus est, cumque in similitudine carnis apparuisset, intermedio inimicitiæ pariete sublato, pacem interposuit, vitamque ac divinam redemptionem largitus est.
The one only God of all, wishing to unite the inferior creation with the superior and heavenly, entered the womb of the Virgin; and when he had appeared in the likeness of the flesh, he established peace between God and man, having taken away the wall of enmity that had stood between them; he also bestowed on us life and divine redemption.
Virgo casta post partum permansisti, O sanctissima: Deum enim Verbum genuisti similem nobis factum sine peccato.
Thou, O most holy Mary! didst remain a pure Virgin after thy delivery; for thou didst give birth to God the Word, made like unto us in all save sin.
Sana vulnera cordis mei, o puella, et motus animæ meæ recta ac felici tramite dirige, o Virgo, ad Dei voluntatem faciendam.
Heal the wounds of my heart, O Virgin! and direct the movements of my soul in a bright and happy path, so that I may fulfil God’s will.
Salve, o unica Genitrix illius qui carnem emendicavit. Salve collapsi mundi erectio, o imaculatissima: salve, mœroris dissolutio; salve, salus fidelium; salve, throne Dei altissime.
Hail, incomparable Mother of Him who deigned to take our flesh! Hail, O most immaculate Mary, that didst bring the fallen world its resurrection! Hail, thou dispeller of sorrow! Hail, thou that givest the faithful their Savior! Hail, most high throne of God!
Mente revolventes divine-loqui Prophetæ mysterii tui profunditatem, o Virgo, prophetice prænunciaverunt illud divino Spiritu illustrati. Nos vero cum illorum vaticinia opere completa nunc læti intueamur, credimus.
The divinely-speaking Prophets, revolving in their minds the depth of thy mystery, O Virgin! prophetically foretold it, for they were enlightened by the divine Spirit. We that now joyfully behold their prophecies fulfilled, we believe.
O Puella omnibus miraculis admirabilior; illum genuisti qui est ante omnia sæcula, nobis similem factum propter sumam misericordiam suam, ut salvos faceret eos qui canunt: Benedictus es Deus Patrum nostrorum.
O Virgin! thou that art more admirable than all miracles! thou didst give birth to Him who was before all ages, and who was made like unto us through his great mercy, for he came that he might save them that sing: Blessed art thou, the God of our Fathers!
Divinis verbis tuis hominum generationes inhærentes, beatam te dicunt, o semper beatissima, suaviter concinentes: Benedicite omnia opera Dominum.
All generations of men, keeping to thy most sacred words, call thee Blessed, O most Blessed Mother! and sweetly sing in choral hymns: All ye works of the Lord, bless the Lord!
O Virgo bonorum amatrix, bonam effice animam meam, peccati malitia depravatam: tu enim bonum Deum ac Dominum peperisti.
O Virgin, that lovest holy souls! make mine holy, for it is depraved by the evil of sin: make it good, for thou hast given birth to the good God and Lord.
Horrescunt Cherubim atque universa cœlestis natura ob reverentiam venerandæ Prolis tuæ incomprehensibilis, o immaculatissima, quæ similis facta est nobis propter ineffabilem misericordiam suam, et secundum carnem baptizata est, cujus divinam Apparitionem nunc omnes exsultantes celebramus.
The Cherubim and the whole heavenly kingdom tremble in reverence before the incomprehensible majesty of thy Son, O most Immaculate Mother! He was made like unto us, through his ineffable mercy, and was baptized according to the flesh: and now do we all exultingly celebrate his divine Apparition.
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| The Liturgical Year: January 4th - Octave of the Holy Innocents |
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Posted by: Stone - 01-07-2021, 07:48 AM - Forum: Christmas
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January 4 – The Octave of Holy Innocents
Taken from The Liturgical Year by Dom Prosper Gueranger (1841-1875)
We finish today the Octave consecrated to the memory of the Holy Innocents of Bethlehem. Thanks be to God, who has given them to us, to be our intercessors and our models! Their name will not reappear on the Church’s Calendar until the return of the Christmas Solemnity; let us therefore devoutly approach these sweet Infant Saints—venerate them, love them, and address to them our farewell prayers.
The Holy Church, which on the feast vested in the color of mourning—and this out of condolence with Rachel’s grief—now, on the Octave day clothes herself in the red of her Martyrs in order to honor these Babes, who shed their blood for Jesus. Notwithstanding, she is full of tender compassion for these poor Mothers, who suffered such agonies of grief at the sight of the murder of their little ones: she continually alludes to it in today’s Liturgy and reads, in the Office of Matins, a passage from an ancient Sermon which vividly describes their feelings. We cannot withhold it from our readers. The Sermon from which it was taken was for a long time attributed to St. Augustine.
“When our Lord was born, there began lamentation, not indeed in heaven, but on earth! Lamentation for the Mothers, joy for the Angels, heaven for the Babes. He that is born is God: a victim must be offered him, and Innocents must be that offering, for he came to condemn the malice of this world. Tender lambs must be slain, for the Lamb who is come to take away the sins of the world is to be crucified. But the Mothers wail, because they lose their lambs that scarce have voice to make their bleatings heard. O wonderful martyrdom! O sight most cruel! The sword is unsheathed, and there is no enemy; jealousy alone spurs on the band, for He that is born would injure no man.
“There, then, sit the Mothers, weeping over their lambs. A voice in Rama is heard, lamentation and great mourning. These sweet pledges are not mere things entrusted to their care, they are the children of their own wombs; they are pledges, but they are not given, they are cruelly stolen from them. Nature herself is witness, it betrays the children whom the tyrant is in search of. The Mother tears her hair, for she has lost her beauty in losing her babe. Oh! how she sought to hide him, and the innocent one betrayed himself! He knew not how to be silent, for he had not yet learned to fear. The Mother struggled with the executioner; he seized her child, resolved to murder him; she clung to him, resolved to hold him to her bosom. ‘Why,’ she exclaimed, ‘why separate me from my child? I gave him birth, and I fed him at my breast untiringly. I bore him in my arms with fondest care, and thy cruel hand has dashed him to the ground! This fresh and lovely fruit—thus trampled on!’
“A second Mother bade the executioner take away her life together with that of her child: he would not, and she cried out to him: ‘Why dost thou send me away, having slain my son? If there was any fault, I only could be guilty: if there was no fault, let me die with my babe, and rid me of my wretched life.’ A third exclaimed: ‘What is it that ye seek? Ye are in search of one, and ye slay so many! and Him, who is One, ye cannot find!’ And again another cried out: ‘Come, O come, thou Savior of the world! How long shalt thou be sought for? Thou fearest no man: let these soldiers see thee, and so not slay our children.’ These were the lamentations of the Mothers; and the immolation of their Babes ascended as a sacrifice to heaven.”
Among these Children thus cruelly massacred, from the age of two years and under, there were some belonging to those Shepherds of Bethlehem, who had been called, on the Night of our Savior’s Birth, to go and adore him in his Crib. These, after Mary and Joseph, the first worshippers of the Incarnate Word, thus offered, to the God who had called them, the most precious treasure they possessed. They knew to what Child their children were sacrificed, and a holy pride filled their souls as they thought of this new proof of God’s singular mercy to them, in preference to so many others of their fellow creatures.
As to Herod, he was foiled in his schemes, as must ever be the case with them that wage war against Christ and his Church. His edict for the murder of every male child that was two years old or young, included Bethlehem and its entire neighborhood; but the Child he alone cared for and wished to destroy, escaped the sword and fled into Egypt. It was another proof of the world’s folly in opposing the designs of God; and in this instance, the very measure that was intended to effect evil, produced good—the tyrant enriched the Church of heaven with Saints, and the Church militant with so many fresh patrons.
Jesus, the newborn King of the Jews (Matthew 2:2), who causes Herod to tremble on his throne, is but a Little Child, without so much as one single soldier to defend him. Herod, like all the persecutors of the Church, has an instinctive knowledge which teaches him that this apparent weakness is real and formidable power: what neither he nor his successors knew was that it is worse than useless, and worse than folly, to attempt to crush a spiritual power by the sword. This apparent weakness of the Babe of Bethlehem will increase with his years; now he flees from the tyrant who seeks his life; but later on, when he has grown into Manhood, he will not escape from his enemies; they will fasten him to an infamous gibbet between two Thieves—but on that very day, a Roman Governor will declare this Jesus to be King; he will write, with his own hand, the inscription to be nailed on the Cross: Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews. Pilate will give Jesus, and with all possible formality, that very Title which now makes Herod turn pale: the enemies of Jesus will protest, they will insist on the Title being altered; but Pilate will not change an iota, and will say: What I have written, I have written (John 19:22). As on the day of his Crucifixion, he will admit one of the two Thieves to share in his triumph; so now that he is laid in the Crib, he will share his glory with the Innocents of Bethlehem.
† † †
Let us once more honour these dear Innocents, by culling their praises from the various Liturgies. We will begin with three Responsories from the Roman Breviary.
RESPONSORIES
℟. These that are clad in white robes, who are they, and whence came they? And he said unto me: * These are they who are come out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and have made them white in the Blood of the Lamb.
℣. I saw, under the altar of God, the souls of them that were slain for the Word of God, and for the testimony which they held. * These.
℟. These are they which have not defiled their garments; * They shall walk with me in white, because they are worthy.
℣. These are they who were not defiled with women; for they are virgins. * They.
℟. These Saints sang a new canticle before the throne of God and the Lamb; * And the earth resounded with their voices.
℣. These were purchased from among men, the first-fruits to God and to the Lamb, and in their mouth there was found no lie. * And the earth.
The two Collects which follow, are from the Leonine Sacramentary.
PRAYER
O God, who though great in great things, dost nevertheless work with exceeding glory in those that are the least: grant, we beseech thee, that we may rejoice on this the Feast of them, who bore testimony, though they spoke not, to thy Son, our Lord.
PRAYER
Grant, we beseech thee, O Lord, to thy faithful people, that, as thy Apostle saith, they may become children not in sense, but in malice; that thus they may imitate the Martyrs of this day’s Feast by the simplicity of their hearts, since they cannot attain to the merits they acquired. Through Christ our Lord.
We take the following beautiful prayer from the Mozarabic Breviary of the Gothic Liturgy of Spain.
CAPITULA
O Jesus, Light ineffable of the world! who, whilst yet in thy Crib, and not thyself a Martyr, didst give the palm of martyrdom to the army of Innocents: who, not being able to speak, did, by thy will, utter their many cries when being massacred by the cruel soldiers: whose souls, when thou didst freely die for all our sakes, were taken by thee from the depths of limbo: — to these same, O Jesus, inspire the desire of incessantly praying for us, the little and weak : that thus, not deserving to be cleansed from our sins by our own prayers, we may obtain both present and eternal purity by the intercession of them, that follow thee whithersoever thou goest, singing to thee their hymns and canticles.
The Missal of the same Church gives us also this prayer.
PRAYER
O God, whose mercy is granted to every age and sex; and who didst lavish on the Innocents such richness of fatherly love, that thou wouldst neither suffer them to be kept in Egyptian bondage, nor, (when they left this world under the Law, as their fathers had done,) to be deprived of the Gospel’s fullness of grace; but didst call them to thy kingdom, in common with them that were made perfect under the law of Grace, thus making them a lesson and an example to us of innocence that knows no evil: grant unto us thy servants, that laying aside our power for evil, and dying to the concupiscence of the flesh, we may have no will save that of being taught by thy instructions. May our soul be thus neither rigid nor proud; may she be gentle, and innocent, without being imprudent; may she be humble, without being weak; that hereby, by the timely judgment of discernment, she may both know thy good pleasure and do it, and ignore how to do that which offends thee. May she, moreover, possess that wholesome temperance, which flows from the guidance of counsel; that so, she both imitate the simplicity of these Innocents, in that they were children, and emulate their fortitude, in that they were combatants. Amen.
† † †
Prudentius, the Poet of the Mysteries and the Martyrs, and from whom the Church has taken her beautiful stanzas for the Feast of the Holy Innocents, Salvete, Flores Martyrum, celebrates the immolation of these lovely Babes of Bethlehem, in his exquisite Hymn for the Epiphany. It is from this Hymn that the Roman Liturgy has had recourse for several great Feasts; and we now extract from it the strophes which refer to our dear Innocents.
HYMN
The anxious Tyrant hears that the King of kings is come, who is to rule over the Jews, and sit on the throne of David.
Maddened by jealous fear, he calls a messenger, and says to him: “Our rival is at hand — we are in danger: go, slave, arm thee with thy sword, and bathe every cradle with blood.
“Let every male-child be slain, and every nurse be watched, and every Babe feel thy sharp-edged blade, even whilst he sucks his mother’s breast.
“Not a Mother about Bethlehem but I suspect her; then, watch them all, lest they hide their boys from thee.”
On this, the executioner goes, and, in his wild cruelty, plunges his naked dagger into the tender flesh and the but freshly formed hearts of these little ones.
But, where shall he strike? where find space enough to hold a gaping wound, in these infant-bodies not so big as the dagger in his hand?
Yet still these butchers murder every child. Here, it is an infant dashed against a rock, covering its flinty sides, oh! cruel sight! with blood, and brains, and eyes.
There, it is a lovely babe torn from his mother’s arms and thrown into a deep stream, whose gurgling waters weep whilst drowning sobs and life so sweet as these.
Hail, ye Flowers of the Martyrs! The enemy of Christ cut you down in the very threshold of life, as rose-buds are snapped by a storm.
First Victims for Jesus! Tender flock of his Martyrs! ye, with sweet simplicity, play with palms and your crowns, even at the very altar of your sacrifice!
And what does Herod gain by this dark crime? Does it give him what he sought? The single One he cared to kill is Jesus, and He still lives!
The stream of infant-blood has ceased to flow, and He alone is safe: the Virgin’s Child has escaped that sword, which robbed all other Mothers of their babes.
So was it in that time of old, when Moses, the liberator of his people, and the type of Christ, escaped the senseless edicts of the wicked Pharaoh.
We will close our selection by this Sequence of Notker, which is given in the collection of Saint Gall.
SEQUENCE
Praise be to thee, Jesus, Son of the all-perfect Father, Almighty God!
Unto whom the sweet hymns of the citizens of heaven are ever giving praise,
And the Innocent Babes are ever singing their melodious songs of praise in the courts above.
These Babes were slain by the ruthless sword, at the bidding of a wicked king, who hated thy name,
And now are richly rewarded in heaven, by thee Jesus, in return for the sufferings they endured;
Herein showing thy wonted mercy, which gives, to all who serve thee, crowns of richest beauty.
By the holy prayers of these Innocents, mercifully cleanse us, we beseech thee, from the sins of our past lives,
And lovingly grant, that they whom thou hast associated to thyself to give thee praise, may become our protectors here below.
On them bestow the light of endless glory; on us, the victory over earthly things,
That thus, by a life of holiness, we may merit an abundance of the riches of thy grace.
Of all that devoutly praise these thy holy Innocents, may none be made companions with Herod,
But may they all live for ever with thee, Lord, in the society of this sweet choir of. heaven. Amen.
† † †
Sweet Flowers of the Martyrs! your Feast is over in our Church on earth, but your patronage will never leave us. During this new year of the holy Liturgy which God has given us, you will watch over us, and pray for us to the Lamb who loves you so tenderly. We entrust to you the fruits of grace which our souls have gathered from the Christmas Feasts. We have become little children together with our Lord; we have begun a new life with him; pray for us, that we may grow with him in wisdom and age, before God and man (Luke 2:52). Secure us perseverance, by your prayers; and to this end, keep up in our hearts that Christian simplicity which is the special virtue of Children of Christ. You are innocent, we are sinners; still, we are brethren; love us, then, with brotherly love. You were garnered into heaven at the very dawn of the Law of Grace; our lives have fallen on the close of time, and the world has grown cold in charity; be near and help us; cheer and encourage us in our combat by showing us your lovely palms of victory; pray to our Lord, that we may speedily obtain by repentance the heavenly crown which his infinite mercy allowed you to win without the fatigues and risks of a battle.
Infant Martyrs! forget not the young generation which has just entered on the scene of life. You were taken to eternal glory at the age of infancy; these little ones are like you in their innocence; love them, watch over them, pray for them. The grace of their Baptism is upon them in all its freshness, and their pure souls reflect, as a mirror, the holiness of the God that dwells in them by grace. Alas! these Babes are to go through great trials; many of them will forfeit the grace of God, and their Baptismal garment will lose its unspotted purity. The world will seek to corrupt their heart and mind, and the frightful influence of bad example is almost always successful. Christian Mothers will have to weep over the ruin of their children’s souls, and what consolation is there for such a grief as theirs? There is a Christian Rama, and a Christian Rachel, ever wailing in the Church: do you, sweet Innocents of Bethlehem, comfort these mothers, by praying for their little ones. Pray that our times may grow less evil, and that parents may have less need to fear than they now have—that the first step taken by their children in the world will be death to their souls.
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| The Liturgical Year: January 2nd - Octave of St. Stephen |
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Posted by: Stone - 01-07-2021, 07:46 AM - Forum: Christmas
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January 2 – Octave of St Stephen, the First Martyr
Taken from The Liturgical Year by Dom Prosper Gueranger (1841-1875)
Yesterday, we finished the Octave of the Birth of Jesus; today, we shall finish the Octave of St. Stephen; but this, without losing sight, one moment, of the Divine Babe, whose Court is formed by Stephen, John the Beloved Disciple, the Holy Innocents, and St. Thomas of Canterbury. In five days, we shall see the Magi prostrate before the Crib of the newborn King; they are already on the way, and the Star is advancing towards Bethlehem. Let us spend the interval in reconsidering how great is the glory of our Emmanuel in his having lavished such extraordinary favors on these Saints whom he has chosen to be near him at his first coming into the world. Let us begin with Stephen, for this is the last day of the Octave dedicated to him by the Church. We must take leave of him now till the month of August, when we shall again meet him on the Feast of The Finding of his Relics.
In a Sermon, which was for a long time thought to have been written by St. Augustine, we find it mentioned that St. Stephen was in the flower of his youth when he was called, by the Apostles, to receive the sacred character of Deaconship. Six others were ordained Deacons with him; and these Seven, those office was to minister at the Altar here below, represented the Seven Angels whom St. John saw standing near the Altar in heaven. Stephen was appointed as the head of the Seven, and St. Irenæus, who lived in the second century, calls him the Arch-Deacon.
The characteristic virtue of a Deacon is fidelity. Hence, he is entrusted with the care of the treasures of the Church, treasures which consist not merely in the alms destined for the poor, but in that which is the most precious thing in heaven and earth—the Body of our Lord Jesus Christ, of which the Deacon is the minister, in virtue of his Order. For this reason, the Apostle St. Paul, in his first Epistle to Timothy, bids the Deacons hold the Mystery of Faith in a pure conscience. (1 Timothy 3:9)
It was therefore more than an appropriate coincidence that the First of all the Martyrs was a Deacon, for Martyrdom is the great proof of fidelity, and fidelity is the official virtue of the Deaconate. This same truth is still more strongly impressed upon us by the fact that the three, who stand preeminent amongst the Martyrs of Christ, are vested in the holy Dalmatic—the three glorious Deacons: Stephen, the glory of Jerusalem; Laurence, the pride of Rome; and Vincent, of whom Spain so justly boasts. The present holy season gives us Stephen, who has been gladdening us with his festal presence ever since Christmas Day, and Vincent, whose Feast falls on January 22nd. Laurence will come to us, with his rich waving Palm, in the sunny month of August; and Stephen, in the same month, will visit us a second time in the Feast of the Finding of his Relics.
With the intention of paying respect to the Holy Order of Deaconship in the person of its first representative, it is a custom in the great many churches on the Feast of St. Stephen that Deacons should fulfill every office which is not beyond their order. For example, the Chanter yields his staff of office to a Deacon; the Choristers, who assist the Chanter, are also Deacons, vested in Dalmatics; and the Epistle of the Mass is sung by a Deacon, because it is the passage from the Acts of the Apostles which relates the history of the holy Martyr’s death.
The institution of St. Stephen’s Feast, and its being fixed on the day immediately following that of our Lord’s Birth, are so ancient that it is impossible to assign their date. The Apostolic Constitutions, which were compiled, at the latest, towards the close of the 3rdcentury, mention this Feast as already established, and that too on the morrow of Christmas Day. St. Gregory of Nyssa and St. Asterius of Amasea, both of them earlier than the miraculous discovery of the Holy Deacon’s Relics, have left us Homilies for the Feast of St. Stephen, in which they lay stress on the circumstance of its having the honor to be kept the very day after the solemnity of Christmas. With regard to its Octave, the institution is less ancient, though the date cannot be defined. Amalarius, who wrote in the 9th century, speaks of this Octave as already established, and Notker’s Martyrology, compiled in the 10th century, makes express mention of it.
But how comes it that the Feast of a mere Deacon has been thus honored, while almost all those of the Apostles have no Octave? The rule followed by the Church, in her Liturgy, is to give more or less solemnity to the Feasts of the Saints, according to the importance of the services they rendered to mankind. Thus it is that the honor she pays to St. Jerome, for example, who was only a Priest, is more marked than that she gives to a great number of holy Popes. It is her gratitude which guides her in assigning to the Saints their respective rank in her Calendar, and the devotion of the Faithful to the saintly benefactors whom she now venerates as members of the Church Triumphant, is thus regulated by a safe standard. St. Stephen led the way to Martyrdom; his example inaugurated that sublime witnessing by the shedding one’s own blood, which is the very strength of the Church, ratifies the truths she teaches to the world and confirms the hopes of eternal reward promised by those truths. Glory, then, and honor to the Prince of Martyrs! As long as time shall last, so long shall the Church on earth celebrate the name of Stephen, who was the first to shed his blood for the God who died on Calvary!
We have already noticed St. Stephen’s imitating Jesus, by praying for and forgiving his enemies; it is the circumstance which the Church continually alludes to in her Office of his Feast. But there is another very important incident in the martyrdom of our Saint which we must, for a moment, dwell upon. One of the accomplices in the murder, which was being committed under the walls of Jerusalem, was a young man of the name of Saul. He made himself exceedingly active, for he was of an ardent temperament, and as the Fathers observe, he helped every man who stoned the holy Deacon, because he took care of the murderers’ garments while they committed the crime. Not long after, this same Saul, while travelling to Damascus, was converted into an Apostle of that Jesus whom he had heard Stephen confess as the Son of God. The blood of Stephen cried to heaven for mercy—and heaven sent to the Gentiles the Apostle who would bring them to the knowledge and love of Jesus. “What an admirable scene!” cries out St. Augustine. “Here is Stephen being stoned, and Saul taking care of the garments of them that stone him. But this Saul is now Paul, the Apostle of Jesus Christ, and Stephen is the servant of Jesus Christ … O Saul! thou hast been prostrated, and raised up again: prostrated a Persecutor, raised up a Preacher. Everywhere are thy Epistles read; everywhere art thou bringing to Christ them that are his enemies; everywhere art thou the good Shepherd, surrounded by a numerous flock. Thou art now reigning with Christ, in company with him thou didst once stone. Both of you are looking upon us; both of you now hear what I am saying; do both of you pray, also, for us. He who crowned you both, will hear both. Stephen was a lamb; Saul was a wolf; now, both are lambs, and both will acknowledge us as of the flock of Christ, and will pray for us that the Church of their Master may be blessed with a peaceful and tranquil life.” (Sermon 316: Third for the Feast of St Stephen) Stephen and Paul both visit us during this grand season of Christmas, for we shall keep the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul on the 25th of January; and thus, Stephen leads his spiritual conquest to the Crib of their common Lord and Master.
Catholic piety has chosen St. Stephen as one of the Patrons of a Happy Death. This choice was suggested by the death of the holy Martyr—a death so tranquil that the Scripture calls it a Sleep, in spite of the cruel torture to which his executioners put him. Let us therefore beg the intercession of St. Stephen for that awful hour of our death, when we must return to our Creator these Souls of ours; nay, let us ask him to pray that we may be habitually in such a disposition of mind as to be ever ready to make the total sacrifice of the life which God has given to us: it was a sacred deposit he entrusted to our keeping, and which we were to hold in readiness for him, whensoever he might demand it at our hands.
We will now select from the few additional pieces in honour of our Saint. We begin with two Responsories, and the proper Collect for this Octave-Day, as given in the Roman Breviary.
RESPONSORIES
℟. Stephen, the servant of God, whom the Jews stoned, saw the heavens opened; he saw and entered: * Blessed man, to whom the heavens were opened.
℣. While, therefore, the loud pelting of the storm of stones was beating against him, a divine brightness shone upon him from the ethereal recesses of the heavenly court. * Blessed man.
℟. The gates of. heaven were thrown open to Stephen, the blessed Martyr of Christ, who was the first among the Martyrs. * And he, therefore, triumphs in heaven, with his Crown upon him.
℣. For he was the first to pay back to the Saviour the Death our Saviour deigned to suffer for us. * And he.
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The Church of Milan, in its Ambrosian Missal, consecrates this Preface to the praise of the Prince of Martyrs.
PREFACE
It is truly meet and just, right and available to salvation, that we should always, and in all places, give thanks to thee, O Eternal God, who didst call Stephen to be the first of Deacons. He was the first, that dedicated unto thee the offering of Martyrdom: he was the first to shed his blood for thee: he it was that merited to see the heavens opened, and the Son standing at the right hand of the Father. He adored Jesus the Man-God on earth, and he proclaimed him to be the Son of the Father in heaven. He repeated the words of his Master; for, what Christ said on the cross, that did Stephen teach when shedding his blood in death. Christ, on the Cross, sowed the seed of his pardon: so did Stephen beseech his Lord to have mercy on them that stoned him.
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The same Liturgy has the following Collect for St. Stephen’s Feast:
COLLECT
O God, the teacher and ruler of them that are thy ministers, who didst adorn the early days of thy Church by the ministry and precious blood of blessed Stephen the Levite; grant, we beseech thee, that meeting with pardon at the hour of our death, we may deserve to follow his example, and be aided by his intercession. Through Jesus Christ our Lord.
† † †
The Gothic Liturgy of Spain gives us, in its Mozarabic Missal, the following admirable Prayer to St. Stephen.
CAPITULUM
Most blessed Protomartyr Stephen I thou shalt be called by a new name, which the mouth of the Lord hath named: for that thou, who didst suffer death for him, didst, by him, receive a Crown for thy name, and a Crown for thy virtue. Thou wast the first in Martyrdom, and first in its reward: first Martyr in the world, and the first in the courts of heaven. Here, stoned for Christ; there, exulting in the Crown he gave thee. Here, thou didst suffer, for his sake, the most cruel torments; there, thou didst receive the most precious Crown. Thou, therefore, that wast the first flower of the Church, be now her untiring patron; that so, by thy prayers, that Jesus, for whose sake thou wast a glorious Martyr, may be merciful unto us.
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The following Hymn, remarkable for its unction and simplicity of style,
is to be found in most of the ancient Roman-French Breviaries.
HYMN
O holy Protomartyr Stephen, most dear to God! in the virtue of charity, wherewith thou wast armed on every side, thou didst beseech the Lord to have mercy on thine enemies.
Thou art the Standard-bearer of heaven’s martyr-host; the herald of truth; the first witness of Christian grace; the living foundation-stone, and ground-work of martyrdom.
Stones were the instrument of thy martyrdom, not the sword. The sharp-edged stones, like knives of a second circumcision, tore thine innocent flesh; but, tinged in thy blood, they were made rubies for thy Crown.
Thou wast the first to tread the stony rugged path, that leads to heaven; thou wast the first to breast that sword, which had slain our Lord and lost its keen edge by piercing Him; thou wast the earliest winnowed wheat, that graced the granaries of Christ.
To thee were heaven’s gates first opened, showing thee Jesus in his power, for whom thou didst so bravely fight: He, standing at the right hand of his Father’s majesty, is with thee incessantly.
Pray now for this thy devout people, that our Lord, through thy prayers, may mercifully forgive us our sins, and grant us fellowship with the citizens of heaven.
Glory and honour to the God who gave thee thy Crown of roses and thy throne above the stars. May he free us from the sting of death, and save us sinners. Amen.
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We will close our selection with a Sequence, composed by Notker; we find it in the collection of Saint- Gall.
SEQUENCE
Let us solemnise this Feast in the union of fraternal charity,
Instructed by the sweet example of its Saint,
Who prayed for his guilty persecutors.
Hear us, O Stephen, thou standard-bearer of the infinitely merciful King,
Who heard the prayers thou didst offer him for thine enemies.
By thy prayers, O Stephen, that very Paul, who once persecuted thee, was converted to believe in Jesus,
And now exults with thee in that Kingdom, nigh which no persecutors come.
Then, we who humbly cry to thee for pity, and besiege thee with our prayers,
We, surely, shall be reconciled to our God by thy most holy prayers.
Peter ordained thee as a minister of Christ: and thou to the faithful Peter didst affirm and show this truth, that He, whom the mad populace crucified, is at the right hand of the Father.
Christ chose thee, O Stephen! as the example whereby he would give courage to his faithful ones, for he showed himself to thee amidst the shower of stones, and sweetly consoled thee.
Now amidst the red-robed army of the Martyrs thou shinest as The Crowned Prince.
† † †
We return thee our grateful thanks, glorious Stephen! for the help thou hast given us in this great Feast of Christmas. It is thy yearly office to initiate us into the sublime mystery of the Birth of Jesus. Thy Feast ever brings us into the company of this Divine Child, and the Church trusts to thy revealing him to the hearts of her children, as thou heretofore didst to the Jews. Thou hast done thy work, dear Saint! and here is our faith: — we adore this Babe of Bethlehem as the Word of God; we hail him as our King; we offer ourselves to him, to serve him as thou didst; we acknowledge his absolute right over us, and our obligation of serving him even to the last drop) of our blood, should he put our loyalty to that great test. Stephen, the Faithful Deacon! pray for us, that we may have the grace to give our whole heart to Jesus, from this time forward; that we may use our best efforts to please him; and that we may conform our lives and affections to his blessed will. Doing this, we shall have the grace to fight his Fight, if not before tyrants and persecutors, at least before the base passions of our own hearts.
We are the descendants of the Martyrs, and the Martyrs conquered the world; for Jesus, the Babe of Bethlehem, had conquered it before them: shall we, then, be cowards, and re-enslave ourselves to our eternal enemy? Obtain for us, also, that fraternal charity, which pardons every injury, and prays for them that hate us, and converts sinners and heretics when all means else have failed. O valiant Martyr of Jesus! watch over us at the hour of our death; assist us in our agony; show us that Jesus, whom thou hast shown us so often as the dear Babe of Bethlehem; show us him then as the glorified, the triumphant, but, above all, as the merciful Jesus, holding in his divine hands the Crown he has prepared for us; and may our last words be those which thou didst utter when going to thy God: Lord Jesus! receive my Spirit! (Acts 7:58)null
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| Congress certifies 2020 election for Biden, Trump promises peaceful transition of power |
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Posted by: Stone - 01-07-2021, 06:38 AM - Forum: General Commentary
- No Replies
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Congress certifies 2020 election for Biden, Trump promises peaceful transition of power
'Even though I totally disagree with the outcome of the election, and the facts bear me out, nevertheless there will be an orderly transition on January 20th'
January 7, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – President Donald Trump has committed to “an orderly transition” of power following the decision of Congress to confirm the electoral vote for Joe Biden as the next president of the U.S.
Vice President Mike Pence announced the results of the vote earlier this morning, pronouncing that Biden has finished with 306 electoral votes against Trump’s 232, giving Biden more than the baseline 270 votes necessary for the presidency.
In a tweet sent using White House Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Scavino’s account, after Congress certified the vote, the president said that “[e]ven though I totally disagree with the outcome of the election, and the facts bear me out, nevertheless there will be an orderly transition on January 20th.”
Trump continued, declaring that he is not yet done fighting for the true outcome of the election process: “I have always said we would continue our fight to ensure that only legal votes were counted. While this represents the end of the greatest first term in presidential history, it’s only the beginning of our fight to Make America Great Again!”
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| Litany of Humility |
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Posted by: Hildegard of Bingen - 01-06-2021, 09:23 PM - Forum: Litanies
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The Litany of Humility
O Jesus, meek and humble of heart, Give ear to my prayer.
From the desire of being esteemed, Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the desire of being loved, Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the desire of being exalted, Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the desire of being honoured, Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the desire of being praised, Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the desire of being preferred to others, Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the desire of being consulted, Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the desire of being approved, Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the fear of being humiliated, Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the fear of being despised, Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the fear of suffering rebuffed, Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the fear of being calumniated, Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the fear of being forgotten, Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the fear of being made fun of, Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the fear of being offended, Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the fear of being the object of suspicion, Deliver me, O Jesus.
That others may be loved more than me,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be esteemed more than me,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may grow in the opinion of the world and myself diminish,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be chosen and myself set aside,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be praised and myself neglected,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be preferred to me in all things,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may become more holy than me, insomuch as I become as holy as I can,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
Composed by Cardinal Rafael Merry del Val,
Secretary of State under Pope St. Pius X and
Secretary of the Congregation of the Holy Office under Pope Benedict XV
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