TIME?

Just a quick note. Are we in the end times? Everything is upside down. Right is wrong, and wrong is right! The 'catholic' church is in disarray. People are NOT taught right from wrong. God doesn't chastise anyone. Everything is hunky-dory, right? Newer converts are ignorant of the eternal Truth sent forth by Jesus Himself and His Apostles. 80+% of those in the pews don't believe in the Real Presence anymore. He is handled like a playing card, or sucked up in a sweeper if fragments fall to the floor. (Check out the 'Angel's prayer to the right. It is for our times, for sure.) Who's at fault for this unbelief in the pews? Our leaders! They will be held accountable at their demise for not teaching the Truth that has been passed on for almost 2000 years. They have taught what they learned, which is pap! What I say is this: You can reject His mercy if you choose to, but you cannot escape His justice. Just sayin'

This reminds me of a joke which is not really funny. I'm going to share it:

Satan was sending three of his apostles into the world to create havoc. He asked the first one what he will do. The response was that he would tell the people that there was no God. The 'boss' said that this was fine, but he probably wouldn't get that many to accept it. When asked the same question, the second said that he would teach that there was no 'satan'. The 'boss' said this was fine, but not that many would accept this either. Upon asking the third what he would do to reap souls for 'his' earthly kingdom, he responded that he would tell the people that they have a lot of time left.


Do you have a lot of time left? Every instance of a new breath is one step closer to your end and judgment.

Tuesday in Holy week

'We ought to glory in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, in Whom is our salvation, life and resurrection; by Whom we have been saved and delivered.'

These are the words of the Introit in today's Mass. Yesterday in reading found Jesus, on His way to Jerusalem, cursing the fig tree because He had found no fruit on it. Today, that same tree has withered, and this was commented on by the Apostles. The old fig tree represents the Jews and their religion, which had been favored. However, it has become stagnant. The religion that Jesus has been teaching is the True teaching, fulfilling the old, and will supercede that one at the moment when He expires on the Cross.






I'm going to end with another hymn; this one taken from the Greek Church, concerning the Passion:

The life-giving wound of thy side, O Jesus! like the fountain that sprang from Eden, waters the spiritual garden of thy Church. Thence, dividing itself into the four Gospels, as into so many master streams, it freshens the world, gladdens creation, and teaches all nations to bow down in Faith, and venerate thy kingdom.

Thou wast crucified for me, that thou mightest be to me as a fountain pouring out forgiveness upon me. Thou wast nailed to the Cross, that I, confessing the greatness of thy power in the depth of thy Passion, might sing to thee, O Christ, thou giver of life: glory be to thy Cross and Passion, O Saviour!

Thou, O Christ, didst, on thy Cross, tear the handwriting that was against us. Thou wast numbered among the dead, and there didst bind down the tyrant, and, by thy Resurrection, didst set us all free from the chains of death. It is thy Resurrection that has given us light, O God, thou lover of mankind! To thee do we sing: Remember us, also, O Saviour, in thy kingdom!

To thee, most merciful Lord, we bring thy Mother, that she may intercede for us, she that conceived thee and was a Virgin, she that gave thee Birth and was a spotless Virgin. May her prayers obtain from thee the unceasing pardon of sin to all that cry out to thee: Remember us, also, O Lord, in thy Kingdom.



THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK: 'We can refuse His mercy, but cannot escape His justice.'

Monday in Holy Week

I'm going to post each day this week, in memory of Holy Week, which I don't think I've done in years past. I will be taking sections from 'The Liturgical Year' by the Abbot Gueranger. Maybe when pondering these readings, we can truly appreciate all that Jesus did for us.

THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK: 'We can refuse His mercy, but cannot escape His justice.'

MONDAY

This morning, also, Jesus goes with His disciples to Jerusalem. He is fasting, for the Gospel tells us that He was hungry. He approaches a fig tree, which is by the wayside; but finds nothing on it, save leaves only. Jesus, wishing to give us an instruction, curses the fig tree, which immediately withers away. He would hereby teach us what they are to expect, who have nothing but good desires, and never produce in themselves the fruit of a real conversion. Nor is the allusion to Jerusalem less evident. This city is zealous for the exterior of divine worship; but her heart is hard and obstinate, and she is plotting, at this very hour, the death of the Son of God...

...The suffering of our Redeemer, and the patience wherewith He is to bear them, are thus prophesied by Isaias, who is always so explicit on the Passion. Jesus has accepted the office of victim for the world's salvation; He shrinks from no pain or humiliation: He turns not His Face from them that strike Him and spit upon Him. What reparation can we make to this infinite Majesty, who, that He might save us, submitted to such outrages as these? Observe these vile and cruel enemies of our divine Lord: now that they have Him in their power, they fear Him not. When they came to seize Him in the garden, He had but to speak, and they fell back upon the ground; but He has now permitted them to bind His hands and lead Him to the high priest. They accuse Him; they cry out against Him; and He answers but a few words. Jesus of Nazareth, the great teacher, the wonder-worker, has seemingly lost all His influence; they can do what they will with Him. It is thus with the sinner; when the thunderstorm is over, and the lightning has not struck him, he regains his courage. The holy angels look on with amazement at the treatment shown by the Jews to Jesus, and falling down, they adore the holy Face, which they see thus bruised and defiled: let us, also, prostrate and ask pardon, for our sins have outraged that same Face.

But let us hearken to the last words of our Epistle (Isaias 50:10): He that hath walked in darkness, and hath no light, let him hope in the Name of the Lord and lean upon his God.

The following prayer is taken from the ancient Gallican liturgy:

O great and sovereign Lord! Adonai! Christ our God! crucify us, with thyself, to this world, that so thy life may be in us. Take upon thee our sins, that thou mayst crucify them. Draw us unto thyself, since it is for our sake that thou wast raised up from the earth; and thus snatch us from the power of the unclean tyrant: for though, by flesh and our sins, we be exposed to the insults of the devil, yet do we desire to serve, not him, but thee. We would be thy subjects; we ask to be governed by thee; for, by thy death on the Cross, thou didst deliver us, who are mortals and surrounded by death. It is to bless thee for this wonderful favour, that we this day offer thee our devoted service; and humbly adoring thee, we now implore and beseech thee, to hasten to our assistance, O thou our God, the eternal and almighty! Let thy Cross thus profit us unto good, that thou, by its power, mayst triumph over the world in us, and thine own mercy may restore us, by thy might and grace, to the ancient blessing. O thou, whose power hath turned the future into the past, and whose presence maketh the past to be present, grant that thy Passion may avail us to salvation, as though it were accomplished now on this very day. May the drops of thy holy Blood, which heretofore fell upon the earth from the Cross, be our present salvation: may it wash away all the sins of our earthly nature, and be, so to say, commingled with the earth of our body, rendering it all thine; since we, by our reconciliation with thee, our Head, have been made one body with thee. Thou that ever reignest with the Father and the Holy Ghost, now begin to reign over us, O God-Man, Christ Jesus, King forever and ever. Amen.

PALM SUNDAY

This Sunday is Palm Sunday, the day we think about Jesus entering Jerusalem riding on a donkey. In a few days, the same people who honored Him this day will cry out for His death. How quick some people turn against you! Anyway, our beloved Abott Gueranger describes the scenario for us:

'Early in the morning of this day, Jesus sets out for Jerusalem, leaving Mary His Mother, and the two sisters Martha and Mary Magdalene, and Lazarus, at Bethania. The Mother of sorrows trembles at seeing her Son thus expose Himself to danger, for His enemies are bent upon His destruction; but it is not death, it is triumph, that Jesus is to receive today in Jerusalem. The Messias, before being nailed to the gross, is to be proclaimed King by the people of the great city; the little children are to make her streets echo with their to the Son of David; and this in presence of the soldiers of Rome's emperor, and of the high priests and pharisees: the first standing under the banner of their eagles; the second, dumb with rage.

The prophet Zachary had foretold this triumph which the Son of Man was to receive a few days before His Passion, and which had been prepared for Him from all eternity. 'Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Sion! Shout for joy, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold thy fling will come to thee; the Just and the Saviour. He is poor, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt, the foal of an ass.' Jesus, knowing that the hour has come for the fulfilment of this prophecy, singles out two from the rest of His disciples, and bids them lead to Him an ass and her colt, which they would find not far off. He has reached Bethphage, on Mount Olivet. The two disciples lose no time in executing the order given them by their divine Master; and the ass and the colt are soon brought to the place where He stands.

The holy fathers have explained to us the mystery of these two animals. The ass represents the Jewish people, which had been long under the yoke of the Law; the colt, upon which, as the evangelist says, no man yet hath sat, is a figure of the Gentile world, which no one had ever yet brought into subjection. The future of these two peoples is to be decided a few days hence: the Jews will be rejected, for having refused to acknowledge Jesus as the Messias; the Gentiles will take their place, to be adopted as God's people, and become docile and faithful.

The disciples spread their garments upon the colt; and our Saviour, that the prophetic figure might be fulfilled, sits upon him, and advances towards Jerusalem. As soon as it is known that Jesus is near the city, the Holy Spirit works in the hearts of those Jews, who have come from all parts to celebrate the feast of the Passover. They go out to meet our Lord, holding palm branches in their hands, and fondly proclaiming Him to be King. They that have accompanied Jesus from Bethania, join the enthusiastic crowd. Whilst some spread their garments on the way, others out down boughs from the palm-trees, and strew them along the road. Hosanna is the triumphant cry, proclaiming to the whole city that Jesus, the Son of David, has made His entrance as her King.'


How these Jews missed seeing what was really happening before their eyes I can't begin to understand. The important ones of that religion knew what was to come, they had read the scriptures. I guess having it happen in their time was beyond their scope of their understanding. Like now, I think I see signs pointing to things at the end, and I think they are here now, but if you tell anyone about it, they think you are nuts! I personally hope that I am put in a detention camp; you know, the ones for all of those dangerous sorts to be kept in. Think of the possible conversions that could happen if we were to be put into one of them. Know your Faith! Be ready to use it to help someone else.

In the next few days, we will be reading the Passion from all four of the Evangelists, keeping in mind about all the sufferings that Jesus endured for us unworthy ones.

Let us pray for a true conversion of our hearts, so that we may be made worthy of His love, forgiveness, and eternal happiness with Him, His Mother, and all of the Saints of all ages. Won't it be awesome finally getting to meet them?!

Lord Jesus, have mercy on us sinners. Please?



Also, while contemplating this coming week, I want to show what is believed to be the pillar that Jesus was scourged on. I don't know about you, but in 'The Passion of the Christ' by Mel Gibson, this scene gets to me more than the Crucifixion in a way. Satan had entered into those who are the doing the scourging, and they turn into savage beasts. Especially when the chunks of His skin are ripped away from His adorable Body, it is most unsettling. Think about this during this upcoming week.

Thoughts on Mary--Lourdes

"I am the Immaculate Conception." These are the words with which our Blessed Mother addressed herself to Bernadette in Lourdes, France. Pope Pius IX proclaimed in 1854 this Feast which was to be held in honor of this title of our Lady. Since we, this year, so close to the Annunciation, I thought I would throw this in for our contemplation.


OUR LADY of LOURDES
(1858)

The first of the eighteen apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary to the humble Bernadette Soubirous took place at Lourdes on February 11, 1858. On March 25th, when Bernadette asked the beautiful Lady Her name, She replied: "I am the Immaculate Conception." The Church for long centuries had believed in Her Immaculate Conception, Her exemption from every trace of the original sin which through Adam, our first and common father, separated man from his God. It was never proclaimed a dogma, however, until 1854. Mary Herself, in 1830, had asked of a Vincentian Sister at the Rue du Bac in Paris, that a medal be struck bearing Her likeness and the inscription: "O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to Thee." Our Lady by Her apparitions at Lourdes in 1858 seems to convey Her appreciation for the formal proclamation of Her great privilege, by Pius IX, in 1854. Countless and magnificent miracles of healing have occurred at Lourdes, confirmed by physicians and recorded in the Lourdes shrine "Book of Life." To name but one: a doctor wrote a book describing the great miracle he had witnessed for a dying girl, whom he had observed on the train that was carrying handicapped persons from Paris to Lourdes. He had not expected her to survive and return home from the sanctuary.

Through the Lourdes Apparitions, the devotion of persons in all parts of the world to the Immaculate Mother of God has been wonderfully spread, and countless miracles have been wrought everywhere through Her intercession. The Virgin Mother of God is truly the chosen Messenger of God to these latter times, which are entrusted to Her, the chosen vessel of the unique privilege of exemption from original sin. Only with Her assistance will the dangers of the present world situation be averted. As She has done since 1858 in many places, at Lourdes, too, She gave us Her peace plan for the world, through Saint Bernadette: 'Prayer and Penance, to save souls.
'

I remember when working that a certain believer(not Catholic), would talk about Jesus's immaculate conception. I told him that this 'Title' pertained to His Mother, because Jesus was perfect, not needing any kind of special graces. I asked him that if he could have formed his own mother, wouldn't he want her to be as perfect as possible? He answered in the affirmative. I then told that Jesus did too, and that He did it for her at her conception, because nothing is impossible to God. I had told him that the only way we could be made clean in God's eyes was not to have any sins on our souls. Mary, then, had to be made clean from her beginning, her conception. I left him to ponder this, which I'm sure he did, because he was a very contemplative type of person. Although, he didn't bring it up again. It must have been one of those crossroads for him, since he was a minister in the United Brethren church. We still got along great anyway, with many discussions on all sorts of topics. May God rest his soul, since he passed away a few years ago. He did, however, look just like Santa Claus, as we have seen in many portrayals.

Anyway, Bernadette's appeal for us was, and is: "Penance, penance, and penance." May this upcoming Lent keep us whole, and keep reminding us of this appeal.

Also, please remember in your prayers for my friend, Jim. He had a bout with the big "C" a couple of years ago and lost. Just when he thought he was clear of this disease, it came back with a vengeance. He had been told that it is now inoperable and incurable. I know he believed in Jesus, but he was not Catholic. I read the prayers for the dying from the "Pieta" book, which are very beautiful. I told him that the prayers were Catholic, but that the word catholic means universal, so every one can use the effects. He wasn't offended. I hope they console him wherever he is now. Also, I would like to ask for prayers for his wife. I don't know if she is a believer, but she can use the prayers. Maybe we can help her in her grief and sorrow, hopefully to bring her around so that she doesn't despair and reject God entirely.

Lord, have mercy.



Hymn

Hail, thou star of ocean!
Portal of the sky!
Ever Virgin Mother
Of the Lord most high!

Oh! by Gabriel's Ave,
Uttered long ago,
Eva's name reversing,
Establish peace below.

Break the captives' fetters,
Light on blindness pour;
All our ills expelling,
Every bliss implore.

Show thyself a Mother;
Offer Him our sighs,
Who for us Incarnate
Did not thee despise.

Virgin of all virgins!
To thy shelter take us:
Gentlest of the gentle!
Chaste and gentle make us.

Still, as on we journey,
Help our weak endeavor,
Till with thee and Jesus
We rejoice for ever.

Through the highest heaven,
To the almighty Three,
Father, Son, and Spirit,
One same glory be. Amen

V. Grace is poured forth on thy lips.
R. Therefore God hath blessed thee for ever.

Today is also the birthday of St. Teresa of Avila. This was 500 years ago. She is called St. Teresa of the Child Jesus. She arrived 20+ years after Columbus came here to the Americas, and a few years before Luther started the 'deformation'. I'm not going to say a lot about her, since it's not her feast day. However, one thing she said hit a nerve for me: "For mental prayer in my opinion is nothing else than an intimate sharing between friends; it means taking time frequently to be alone with Him who we know loves us. The important thing is not to think much, but to love much and so do that which best stirs you to love. Love is not great delight, but a desire to please God in everything."

St. John Damascene--Doctor

You know, the Church really knows what it is doing. We know of the Birth of Christ, the Magi coming to proclaim Him the One, His presentation in the temple to offer Him to God, etc. And, have you noticed that since the Birth, we have had Saints and Doctors of the Church in our calendar, all pointing to Him and His Church to lead us to eternal happiness. Nothing happens except for our good. I personally don't believe in 'coincidence'. EVERYTHING happens for a reason!

Today we have yet another Saint and Doctor of the Church, John Damascene, or John of Damascus. He was a great defender of images being held in esteem by believers. These are OK just as long as we don't worship them. They make you think about someone who was living a holy life, and trying to emulate them. I have quoted St. John at times, but have failed to add his name to those who I post about. This year is going to be different. Anyway:

SAINT JOHN DAMASCENE
Doctor of the Church
(676-780)

Saint John was born in the late 7th century, and is the most remarkable of the Greek writers of the 8th century. His father was a civil authority who was Christian amid the Saracens of Damascus, whose caliph made him his minister. This enlightened man found in the public square one day, amid a group of sad Christian captives, a priest of Italian origin who had been condemned to slavery; he ransomed him and assigned him to his young son to be his tutor. Young John made extraordinary progress in grammar, dialectic, mathematics, music, poetry, astronomy, but above all in theology, the discipline imparting knowledge of God. John became famous for his encyclopedic knowledge and theological method, later a source of inspiration to Saint Thomas Aquinas.

Although he was brought up under the Muslim rule of Damascus, this was not to affect his or his family's Christian faith or cause any grievances with the Muslim countrymen who held him in high esteem. To the extent that his father held a high hereditary public office with duties of chief financial officer for the caliph, Abdul Malekunder, apparently as head of the tax department for Syria.

When John reached the age of twenty-three, his father sought out to find a Christian tutor who could provide the best education for his children available at the time. Records show that while spending some time in the market place John's father came across several captives, imprisoned as a result of a raid for prisoners of war that had taken place in the coasts of Italy. This man, a Sicilian monk by the name of Cosmas, turned out to be an erudite of great knowledge and wisdom. John's father arranged for the release of this man and appointed him tutor to his son. Under the instruction of Cosmas, John made great advances in fields of study such as music, astronomy and theology. According to his biographer, he soon equaled Diophantus in algebra and Euclid in geometry.

When his father died, the caliph made of him his principal counselor, his Grand Vizier. Thus it was through Saint John Damascene that the advanced sciences made their apparition among the Arab Moslems, who had burnt the library of Alexandria in Egypt; it was not the Moslems who instructed the Christians, as was believed for some time in Europe. Saint John vigorously opposed the ferocious Iconoclast persecution instigated by the Emperor of Constantinople, Leo the Isaurian. He distinguished himself, with Saint Germain, Patriarch of Constantinople, in the defense of the veneration of sacred images.

The Emperor, irritated, himself conjured up a plot against him. A letter was forged, signed with Saint John's name, and addressed to himself, the Emperor of Constantinople, offering to deliver up the city of Damascus to him. That letter was then transmitted by the Emperor to the Caliph of Damascus, advising him as a "good neighbor" should do, that he had a traitor for minister. Although Saint John vigorously defended himself against the charge, he was condemned by the Caliph to have his right hand cut off. (the right hand is used for everything except for cleaning oneself, so it is very important)

The severed hand, by order of the Caliph, was attached to a post in a public square. But Saint John obtained the hand afterwards, and invoked the Blessed Virgin in a prayer which has been preserved; he prayed to be able to continue to write the praises of Her Son and Herself. The next morning when he awoke, he found his hand joined again to the arm, leaving no trace of pain, but only a fine red line like a bracelet, marking the site of the miracle.

The Saint was reinstated afterwards to the favor of the local prince, but he believed that heaven had made it clear he was destined to serve the Church by his writings. He therefore distributed his property and retired soon thereafter to the monastery of Saint Sabas near Jerusalem, where he spent most of his remaining years in apologetic writings and prayer. Occasionally he left to console the Christians of Syria and Palestine and strengthen them, even going to Constantinople in the hope of obtaining martyrdom there. However, he was able to return to his monastery. There he died in peace at the age of 104, and was buried near the door of the monastery church, in the year 780.


John spent most of his life in the monastery of St. Sabas, near Jerusalem, and all of his life under Muslim rule, indeed, protected by it. He was born in Damascus, received a classical and theological education, and followed his father in a government position under the Arabs. After a few years he resigned and went to the monastery of St. Sabas.

He is famous in three areas. First, he is known for his writings against the iconoclasts, who opposed the veneration of images. Paradoxically, it was the Eastern Christian emperor Leo who forbade the practice, and it was because John lived in Muslim territory that his enemies could not silence him. Second, he is famous for his treatise, Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, a summary of the Greek Fathers (of which he became the last). It is said that this book is for Eastern schools what the Summa of Aquinas became for the West. Thirdly, he is known as a poet, one of the two greatest of the Eastern Church, the other being Romanus the Melodist. His devotion to the Blessed Mother and his sermons on her feasts are well known.

John defended the Church’s understanding of the veneration of images and explained the faith of the Church in several other controversies. For over 30 years he combined a life of prayer with these defenses and his other writings. His holiness expressed itself in putting his literary and preaching talents at the service of the Lord.

Quote:

“The saints must be honored as friends of Christ and children and heirs of God, as John the theologian and evangelist says: ‘But as many as received him, he gave them the power to be made the sons of God....’ Let us carefully observe the manner of life of all the apostles, martyrs, ascetics and just men who announced the coming of the Lord. And let us emulate their faith, charity, hope, zeal, life, patience under suffering, and perseverance unto death, so that we may also share their crowns of glory” (Exposition of the Orthodox Faith).


His feast day in the Orthodox Church is December 4.


A Prayer to the Most Holy Theotokos, by St John of Damascus From His Third Sermon on the Dormition
, (the "falling asleep" or death of Mary, the mother of Jesus (literally translated as God-bearer), and her bodily resurrection before being taken up into heaven.)

No one stands between Son and Mother. Accept, then, my good-will, which is greater than my capacity, and give us salvation.


Heal our passions,
Cure our diseases,
Help us out of our difficulties,
Make our lives peaceful,
Send us the illumination of the Spirit.
Inflame us with the desire of thy son.

Render us pleasing to Him, so that we may enjoy happiness with Him, seeing thee resplendent with thy Son’s glory, rejoicing forever, keeping feast in the Church with those who worthily celebrate Him who worked our salvation through thee, Christ the Son of God, and our God.


To Him be glory and majesty, with the uncreated Father and the all-holy and life-giving Spirit, now and forever, through the endless ages of eternity. Amen.


Read on to see what this great Saint and Doctor of the Church thought about that 'peaceful' religion, I***m.

St. John Damascene's critique of Islam

The following passage is from Saint John’s monumental work, the Fount of Knowledge, part two entitled Heresies in Epitome: How They Began and Whence They Drew Their Origin. It is usually just cited as Heresies. The translator’s introduction points out that Fount of Knowledge is one of the most “important single works produced in the Greek patristic period,…offering as it does an extensive and lucid synthesis of the Greek theological science of the whole period. It is the first great Summa of theology to appear in either the East or the West.” Saint John (+ 749) is considered one of the great Fathers of the Church, and his writings hold a place of high honor in the Church. His critique of Islam, or “the heresy of the Ishmaelites,” is especially relevant for our times. (It is quite long, but maybe we need to know the truth of this false 'religion'. Bear with me. Keep in mind, what they say Jesus said is NOT what really happened. It's ALL lies! The footnotes at the end show where they are in the Quran.

There is also the superstition of the Ishmaelites which to this day prevails and keeps people in error, being a forerunner of the Antichrist. They are descended from Ishmael, [who] was born to Abraham of Agar, and for this reason they are called both Agarenes and Ishmaelites. They are also called Saracens, which is derived from Sarras kenoi, or destitute of Sara, because of what Agar said to the angel: ‘Sara hath sent me away destitute.’ [99] These used to be idolaters and worshiped the morning star and Aphrodite, whom in their own language they called Khabár, which means great. [100] And so down to the time of Heraclius they were very great idolaters. From that time to the present a false prophet named Mohammed has appeared in their midst. This man, after having chanced upon the Old and New Testaments and likewise, it seems, having conversed with an Arian monk, [101] devised his own heresy. Then, having insinuated himself into the good graces of the people by a show of seeming piety, he gave out that a certain book had been sent down to him from heaven. He had set down some ridiculous compositions in this book of his and he gave it to them as an object of veneration.

He says that there is one God, creator of all things, who has neither been begotten nor has begotten. [102] He says that the Christ is the Word of God and His Spirit, but a creature and a servant, and that He was begotten, without seed, of Mary the sister of Moses and Aaron. [103] For, he says, the Word and God and the Spirit entered into Mary and she brought forth Jesus, who was a prophet and servant of God. And he says that the Jews wanted to crucify Him in violation of the law, and that they seized His shadow and crucified this. But the Christ Himself was not crucified, he says, nor did He die, for God out of His love for Him took Him to Himself into heaven. [104] And he says this, that when the Christ had ascended into heaven God asked Him: ‘O Jesus, didst thou say: “I am the Son of God and God”?’ And Jesus, he says, answered: ‘Be merciful to me, Lord. Thou knowest that I did not say this and that I did not scorn to be thy servant. But sinful men have written that I made this statement, and they have lied about me and have fallen into error.’ And God answered and said to Him: ‘I know that thou didst not say this word.” [105] There are many other extraordinary and quite ridiculous things in this book which he boasts was sent down to him from God. But when we ask: ‘And who is there to testify that God gave him the book? And which of the prophets foretold that such a prophet would rise up?’—they are at a loss. And we remark that Moses received the Law on Mount Sinai, with God appearing in the sight of all the people in cloud, and fire, and darkness, and storm. And we say that all the Prophets from Moses on down foretold the coming of Christ and how Christ God (and incarnate Son of God) was to come and to be crucified and die and rise again, and how He was to be the judge of the living and dead. Then, when we say: ‘How is it that this prophet of yours did not come in the same way, with others bearing witness to him? And how is it that God did not in your presence present this man with the book to which you refer, even as He gave the Law to Moses, with the people looking on and the mountain smoking, so that you, too, might have certainty?’—they answer that God does as He pleases. ‘This,’ we say, ‘We know, but we are asking how the book came down to your prophet.’ Then they reply that the book came down to him while he was asleep. Then we jokingly say to them that, as long as he received the book in his sleep and did not actually sense the operation, then the popular adage applies to him (which runs: You’re spinning me dreams.) [106]

When we ask again: ‘How is it that when he enjoined us in this book of yours not to do anything or receive anything without witnesses, you did not ask him: “First do you show us by witnesses that you are a prophet and that you have come from God, and show us just what Scriptures there are that testify about you”’—they are ashamed and remain silent. [Then we continue:] ‘Although you may not marry a wife without witnesses, or buy, or acquire property; although you neither receive an ass nor possess a beast of burden un-witnessed; and although you do possess both wives and property and asses and so on through witnesses, yet it is only your faith and your scriptures that you hold unsubstantiated by witnesses. For he who handed this down to you has no warranty from any source, nor is there anyone known who testified about him before he came. On the contrary, he received it while he was asleep.’

Moreover, they call us Hetaeriasts, or Associators, because, they say, we introduce an associate with God by declaring Christ to the Son of God and God. We say to them in rejoinder: ‘The Prophets and the Scriptures have delivered this to us, and you, as you persistently maintain, accept the Prophets. So, if we wrongly declare Christ to be the Son of God, it is they who taught this and handed it on to us.’ But some of them say that it is by misinterpretation that we have represented the Prophets as saying such things, while others say that the Hebrews hated us and deceived us by writing in the name of the Prophets so that we might be lost. And again we say to them: ‘As long as you say that Christ is the Word of God and Spirit, why do you accuse us of being Hetaeriasts? For the word, and the spirit, is inseparable from that in which it naturally has existence. Therefore, if the Word of God is in God, then it is obvious that He is God. If, however, He is outside of God, then, according to you, God is without word and without spirit. Consequently, by avoiding the introduction of an associate with God you have mutilated Him. It would be far better for you to say that He has an associate than to mutilate Him, as if you were dealing with a stone or a piece of wood or some other inanimate object. Thus, you speak untruly when you call us Hetaeriasts; we retort by calling you Mutilators of God.’

They furthermore accuse us of being idolaters, because we venerate the Cross, which they abominate. And we answer them: ‘How is it, then, that you rub yourselves against a stone in your Ka’ba [107] and kiss and embrace it?’ Then some of them say that Abraham had relations with Agar upon it, but others say that he tied the camel to it, when he was going to sacrifice Isaac. And we answer them: ‘Since Scripture says that the mountain was wooded and had trees from which Abraham cut wood for the holocaust and laid it upon Isaac, [108] and then he left the asses behind with the two young men, why talk nonsense? For in that place neither is it thick with trees nor is there passage for asses.’ And they are embarrassed, but they still assert that the stone is Abraham’s. Then we say: ‘Let it be Abraham’s, as you so foolishly say. Then, just because Abraham had relations with a woman on it or tied a camel to it, you are not ashamed to kiss it, yet you blame us for venerating the Cross of Christ by which the power of the demons and the deceit of the Devil was destroyed.’ This stone that they talk about is a head of that Aphrodite whom they used to worship and whom they called Khabár. Even to the present day, traces of the carving are visible on it to careful observers.

As has been related, this Mohammed wrote many ridiculous books, to each one of which he set a title. For example, there is the book On Woman, [109] in which he plainly makes legal provision for taking four wives and, if it be possible, a thousand concubines—as many as one can maintain, besides the four wives. He also made it legal to put away whichever wife one might wish, and, should one so wish, to take to oneself another in the same way. Mohammed had a friend named Zeid. This man had a beautiful wife with whom Mohammed fell in love. Once, when they were sitting together, Mohammed said: ‘Oh, by the way, God has commanded me to take your wife.’ The other answered: ‘You are an apostle. Do as God has told you and take my wife.’ Rather—to tell the story over from the beginning—he said to him: ‘God has given me the command that you put away your wife.’ And he put her away. Then several days later: ‘Now,’ he said, ‘God has commanded me to take her.’ Then, after he had taken her and committed adultery with her, he made this law: ‘Let him who will put away his wife. And if, after having put her away, he should return to her, let another marry her. For it is not lawful to take her unless she have been married by another. Furthermore, if a brother puts away his wife, let his brother marry her, should he so wish.’ [110] In the same book he gives such precepts as this: ‘Work the land which God hath given thee and beautify it. And do this, and do it in such a manner” [111]—not to repeat all the obscene things that he did.

Then there is the book of The Camel of God. [112] About this camel he says that there was a camel from God and that she drank the whole river and could not pass through two mountains, because there was not room enough. There were people in that place, he says, and they used to drink the water on one day, while the camel would drink it on the next. Moreover, by drinking the water she furnished them with nourishment, because she supplied them with milk instead of water. Then, because these men were evil, they rose up, he says, and killed the camel. However, she had an offspring, a little camel, which, he says, when the mother had been done away with, called upon God and God took it to Himself. Then we say to them: ‘Where did that camel come from?’ And they say that it was from God. Then we say: ‘Was there another camel coupled with this one?’ And they say: ‘No.’ ‘Then how,’ we say, ‘was it begotten? For we see that your camel is without father and without mother and without genealogy, and that the one that begot it suffered evil. Neither is it evident who bred her. And also, this little camel was taken up. So why did not your prophet, with whom, according to what you say, God spoke, find out about the camel—where it grazed, and who got milk by milking it? Or did she possibly, like her mother, meet with evil people and get destroyed? Or did she enter into paradise before you, so that you might have the river of milk that you so foolishly talk about? For you say that you have three rivers flowing in paradise—one of water, one of wine, and one of milk. If your forerunner the camel is outside of paradise, it is obvious that she has dried up from hunger and thirst, or that others have the benefit of her milk—and so your prophet is boasting idly of having conversed with God, because God did not reveal to him the mystery of the camel. But if she is in paradise, she is drinking water still, and you for lack of water will dry up in the midst of the paradise of delight. And if, there being no water, because the camel will have drunk it all up, you thirst for wine from the river of wine that is flowing by, you will become intoxicated from drinking pure wine and collapse under the influence of the strong drink and fall asleep. Then, suffering from a heavy head after sleeping and being sick from the wine, you will miss the pleasures of paradise. How, then, did it not enter into the mind of your prophet that this might happen to you in the paradise of delight? He never had any idea of what the camel is leading to now, yet you did not even ask him, when he held forth to you with his dreams on the subject of the three rivers. We plainly assure you that this wonderful camel of yours has preceded you into the souls of asses, where you, too, like beasts are destined to go. And there is the exterior darkness and everlasting punishment, roaring fire, sleepless worms, and hellish demons.’

Again, in the book of The Table, Mohammed says that the Christ asked God for a table and that it was given Him. For God, he says, said to Him: ‘I have given to thee and thine an incorruptible table.’ [113]

And again, in the book of The Heifer, [114] he says some other stupid and ridiculous things, which, because of their great number, I think must be passed over. He made it a law that they be circumcised and the women, too, and he ordered them not to keep the Sabbath and not to be baptized.

And, while he ordered them to eat some of the things forbidden by the Law, he ordered them to abstain from others. He furthermore absolutely forbade the drinking of wine.

Endnotes
:
99. Cf. Gen. 16.8. Sozomen also says that they were descended from Agar, but called themselves descendants of Sara to hide their servile origin (Ecclesiastical History 6.38, PG 67.1412AB).

100. The Arabic kabirun means ‘great,’ whether in size or in dignity. Herodotus mentions the Arabian cult of the ‘Heavenly Aphrodite’ but says that the Arabs called her Alilat (Herodotus 1.131)

101. This may be the Nestorian monk Bahira (George or Sergius) who met the boy Mohammed at Bostra in Syria and claimed to recognize in him the sign of a prophet.

102. Koran, Sura 112.

103. Sura 19; 4.169.

104. Sura 4.156.

105. Sura 5.Il6tf.

106. The manuscripts do not have the adage, but Lequien suggests this one from Plato.

107. The Ka’ba, called ‘The House of God,’ is supposed to have been built by Abraham with the help of Ismael. It occupies the most sacred spot in the Mosque of Mecca. Incorporated in its wall is the stone here referred to, the famous Black Stone, which is obviously a relic of the idolatry of the pre-Islam Arabs.

108. Gen. 22.6.

109. Koran, Sura 4.

110. Cf. Sura 2225ff.

111. Sura 2.223.

112. Not in the Koran.

113. Sura 5.114,115.

114. Sura 2.

From Writings, by St John of Damascus, The Fathers of the Church, vol. 37 (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1958), pp. 153-160. Posted 26 March, 2006.

THE ANNUNCIATION!

Behold a Virgin shall conceive, and bear a Son, and His name shall be called Emmanuel. He shall eat butter and honey, that He may know to refuse the evil, and to choose the good.

The Annunciation

This is a great day, not only to man, but even to God Himself; for it is the anniversary of the most solemn event that time has ever witnessed. On this day, the divine Word, by Whom the Father created the world, was made Flesh in the womb of a human, and a Virgin, soon to dwell among us. We must spend it in joy. Whilst we adore the Son of God who humbled Himself by thus becoming Man, let us give thanks to the Father, who so loved the world, as to give His only-begotten Son; let us give thanks to the Holy Ghost, whose almighty power achieves the great mystery. We are in the very midst of Lent, and yet the ineffable joys of Christmas are still upon us: our Emmanuel is conceived on this day, and, nine months hence, will be born in Bethlehem, and the angels will invite us to come and honour the sweet Babe.

Jesus will be called 'the first-born of Mary', for she will give birth to Him. First-born is the correct term to be used, because she will have other children; and they will be US!

The time has come for the fulfillment of this promise. The world has been in expectation for four thousand years; and the hope of its deliverance has been kept us, in spite of all its crimes. During this time, God has made use of miracles, prophecies, and types, as a renewal of the engagement He has entered into with mankind. The blood of the Messias has passed from Adam to Noe; from Shem to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; from David and Solomon to Joachim; and now it flows in the veins of Mary, the daughter of Joachim. Mary is the woman by whom is to be taken from our race the curse that lies upon it. God has decreed that she should be Immaculate; and has thereby set an irreconcilable enmity between her and the serpent. She, a daughter of Eve, is to repair all the injury done by her mother's fall; she is to raise up her sex from the degradation into which it has been cast; she is to co-operate, directly and really, in the victory which the Son of God is about to gain over His and our enemy. (Satan knows very well that God could crush his head in an instant; but the thought that a human, and again a Woman, will be the one who will do it, this is humiliating in the highest degree, to say the least)

A tradition, which has come down from the apostolic ages, tells us that the great mystery of the Incarnation was achieved on the twenty-fifth day of March. (All women of the ages had prayed that this 'Saviour' would some day be born, as stated by the Prophets. They maybe even prayed that it be done through them.) It was at the hour of midnight, when the most holy Virgin was alone and absorbed in prayer, that the Archangel Gabriel appeared before her, and asked her, in the name of the blessed Trinity, to consent to become the Mother of God. Let us assist, in spirit, at this wonderful 'interview' between the angel and the Virgin: and, at the same time, let us think of that other interview which took place between Eve and the serpent. A holy bishop and martyr of the second century, Saint Irenaeus, who had received the tradition from the very disciples of the Apostles, shows us that Nazareth is the counterpart of Eden.

In the garden of delights there is a virgin and an angel; and a conversation takes place between them. At Nazareth a Virgin is also addressed by an angel, and she answers him; but the angel of the earthly paradise is a spirit of darkness, and he of Nazareth is a spirit of light. In both instances it is the angel that has the first word. 'Why,' said the serpent to Eve, 'hath God commanded you, that you should not eat of every tree of paradise?' His question implies impatience and a solicitation to evil; he has contempt for the frail creature to whom he addresses it, but he hates the image of God which is upon her.

See, on the other hand, the angel of light; see with what composure and peacefulness he approaches the Virgin of Nazareth, the new Eve; and how respectfully he bows himself down before her: 'Hail, full of grace! The Lord is with thee! Blessed art thou among women!' Such language is evidently of heaven: none but an angel, by the Authority of God Himself, could speak thus to Mary.

Scarcely has the wicked spirit finished speaking than Eve casts a longing look at the forbidden fruit: she is impatient to enjoy the independence it is to bring her. She rashly stretches forth her hand; she plucks the fruit; she eats it, and death takes possession of her: death of the soul, for sin extinguishes the light of life; and death of the body, which being separated from the source of immortality, becomes an object of shame and horror, and finally crumbles into dust.

But let us turn away our eyes from this sad spectacle, and fix them on Nazareth. Mary has heard the angel's explanation of the mystery; the will of heaven is made known to her, and how grand an honor it is to bring upon her! She, the humble maid of Nazareth, is to have the ineffable happiness of becoming the Mother of God, and yet the treasure of her virginity is to be left to her! Mary bows down before this sovereign will, and says to the heavenly messenger: 'Behold the handmaid of the Lord: be it done to me according to thy word.'

Thus, as the great St. Irenaeus and so many of the holy fathers remark, the obedience of the second Eve repaired the disobedience of the first: for no sooner does the Virgin of Nazareth speak her fiat, 'be it done,' ('Fiat'), that the eternal Son of God (who, according to the divine decree, awaited this word) is present, by the operation of the Holy Ghost, in the chaste womb of Mary, and there He begins His human life. A Virgin is a Mother, and Mother of God; and it is this Virgin's consenting to the divine will that has made her conceive by the power of the Holy Ghost. This sublime mystery puts between the eternal Word and a mere woman the relations of Son and Mother; it gives to the almighty God a means whereby He may, in a manner worthy of His majesty, triumph over satan, who hitherto seemed to have prevailed against the divine plan.

Never was there a more entire or humiliating defeat than that which this day befell satan. The frail creature (Eve), over whom he had so easily triumphed at the beginning of the world, now rises and crushes his proud head (through Mary). Eve conquers in Mary. God would not choose man for the instrument of His vengeance; the humiliation of satan would not have been great enough; and therefore she who was the first prey of hell, the first victim of the tempter, is selected to give battle to the enemy. The result of so glorious a triumph is that Mary is to be superior not only to the rebel angels, but to the whole human race, yea, to all the angels of heaven. Seated on her exalted throne, she, the Mother of God Himself, is to be the Queen of all creation. Satan, in the depths of the abyss, will eternally bewail his having dared to direct his first attack against the woman, for God has now so gloriously avenged her; and in heaven, the very Cherubim and Seraphim reverently look up to Mary, and deem themselves honored when she smiles upon them, or employs them in the execution of any of her wishes, for she is the Mother of their God.

Therefore is it that we, the children of Adam, who have been snatched by Mary's obedience from the power of hell, solemnize this day of the Annunciation. Well may we say of Mary those words of Debbora, when she sang her song of victory over the enemies of God's people: "The valiant men ceased, and rested in Israel, until Debbora arose, a mother arose in Israel. The Lord chose new wars, and He Himself overthrew the gates of the enemies." Let us also refer to the holy Mother of Jesus these words of Judith, who by her victory over the enemy was another type of Mary: 'Praise ye the Lord our God, who hath not forsaken them that hope in Him. And by me, His handmaid, He hath fulfilled His mercy, which He promised to the house of Israel; and He hath killed the enemy of His people by my hand this night. . . . The almighty Lord hath struck him, and hath delivered him into the hands of a woman, and hath slain him.'


Excerpted from 'The Liturgical Year', Abbot Gueranger O.S.B., goes on:

This day is just another awesome day in the life of the Church. Satan is so proud, that this announcement will crush him entirely, and yet he is left to persecute the Woman and her offspring, us. If we stick close to her, she will help us and, hopefully, save us on our final day. She is our only hope! Let us end our thoughts with this hymn from today's readings:

Hail, star of the sea! Blessed Mother of God, yet ever a Virgin! O happy gate of heaven!

Thou that didst receive the Ave from Gabriel's lips, confirm us in peace, and so let Eva be changed into an Ave of blessing for us.

Loose the sinner's chains, bring light to the blind,drive from us our evils, and ask all good things for us.

Show thyself a Mother, and offer our prayers to Him, who would be born of thee, when born for us.

O incomparable Virgin, and meekest of the meek, obtain us the forgiveness of our sins, and make us meek and chaste.

Obtain us purity of life, and a safe pilgrimage; that we may be united with thee in the blissful vision of Jesus.

Praise be to God the Father, and to the Lord Jesus, and to the Holy Ghost: to the Three one self-same praise.

Amen.


O Mary, please help us give a 'Fiat' to God.

O God, Who wast pleased that the eternal Word, according to the declaration of the angel, should take flesh in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary: Give to our humble petitions; and grant that we, who believe her to be truly the Mother of God, may be helped by her prayers. Through the same Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen.

Since this is one of the most important solemnities of the Church, all Lenten penances are lifted for the day. You can and should feast to celebrate God's great love for us in sending us His Son. After dinner tonight, serve an angel food cake with fruit, symbolizing the appearance of the angel and the "blessed Fruit" conceived in Mary's womb: Jesus. Also, today is the day that Catholics all over the world pray for the unborn.



Today is also the day we honor Margaret Clitherow. How fortunate for her; to be a mother, and to have died on the day of the Annunciation.

St. Margaret Clitherow
St. Margaret is considered the first woman martyred under Queen Elizabeth's religious suppression. Margaret was raised a Protestant but converted to Catholicism about two to three years after she was married. According to her confessor, Fr. Mush, Margaret became a Catholic because she "found no substance, truth nor Christian comfort in the ministers of the new church, nor in their doctrine itself, and hearing also many priests and lay people to suffer for the defense of the ancient Catholic Faith." Margaret's husband, John Clitherow, remained a Protestant but supported his wife's decision to convert. They were happily married and raised three children: Henry, William, and Anne. She was a businesswoman who helped run her husband's butcher shop business. She was loved many people even her Protestant neighbors.

Margaret practiced her faith and helped many people reconcile themselves back into the Catholic Church. She prayed one and a half hours every day and fasted four times a week. She regularly participated in mass and frequently went to confession. When laws were passed against Catholics, Margaret was imprisoned several times because she did not attend Protestant services. Other laws were passed which included a 1585 law that made it high treason for a priest to live in England and a felony for anyone to harbor or aid a priest. The penalty for breaking such laws was death. Despite the risk, Margaret helped and concealed priests. Margaret said "by God's grace all priests shall be more welcome to me than ever they were, and I will do what I can to set forward God's Catholic service."

Margaret wanted her son Henry to receive a Catholic education so she endeavored that her son be sent outside the Kingdom to Douai, France for schooling. Such an act was considered a crime. When the authorities discovered their intention, the Common Council had the Clitherow house searched. They initially found nothing but later retrieved religious vessels, books and vestments used for Holy Mass. They also found a secret hiding place but no renegade priests. Still, Margaret was arrested. Margaret refused to plead and to be tried saying, "Having made no offense, I need no trial." English law decreed that anyone who refused to plead and to be tried should be "pressed to death." So on the morning of March 25, 1586, after sewing her own shroud the night before and after praying for the Pope, cardinals, clergy, and the Queen, Margaret was executed. She lay sandwiched between a rock and a wooden slab while weights were dropped upon her, crushing her to death. She did not cry out but prayed: "Jesu, Jesu, Jesu, have mercy upon me." She died at age 30.

Moved by her saintly life, all her children entered the religious life. Anne became a nun. Henry and William both became priests. (Way to go, Mom! That alone would have probably gotten her into heaven, but her Martyrdom sealed the deal)

On October 25, 1970, Pope Paul VI declared Margaret a Saint.

St. Gabriel, the eve of the Annunciation

Today is the feast day of St. Gabriel, the Archangel. It isn't celebrated any more in the 'new' church, but it still holds water for us who believe the entire Truth and try to adhere to it.

The name Gabriel signifies 'the Strength of God'. He is the angel who appeared to Daniel, and this prophet had the vision of the Persian and Grecian empires. Later, Gabriel appeared and told him of the exact hour of the coming of the Messiah. He is the angel who appeared to Zachary announcing the miraculous conception and birth of John the Baptist. He is the one who will announce, six months after this, to the Blessed Virgin Mary that she is chosen to be the Mother of Our Redeemer. We will celebrate this day tomorrow. He is the chosen one from the presence of God Himself to first speak those beautiful words: "Hail, full of grace,, blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb".

St. Gabriel, angel of light and strength of God, help us and pray for us. The following is from the Dominican breviary, and it is pretty nice:


Gabriel, angel of light, and strength of God! whom our Emmanuel selected from the rest of the heavenly princes, that thou shouldst expound unto Daniel the mystery of the savage goat.

Thou didst joyfully hasten to the prophet as he prayed, and didst tell him of the sacred weeks, which were to give us the birth of the King of heaven, and enrich us with plenteous joy.

"Tis thou didst bring to the parents of the Baptist the wondrous and gladsome tidings that Elizabeth, though barren, and Zachary, though old, should have a son.

What the prophets had foretold from the beginning of the world, this thou didst announce in all the fullness of the mystery to the holy virgin, telling her that she was to be the true Mother of God.

Thou, fair spirit, didst fill the Bethlehem shepherds with joy, when thou didst tell them the heavenly tidings; and with thee a host of angels sang the praises of the new-born God.

As Jesus was in prayer on that last night, when a bloody sweat bathed his limbs, thou didst leave heaven to be near him, and offer him the chalice that his Father willed him to drink.

O blessed Trinity! strengthen Catholic hearts with the heavenly gift of faith. Give us grace, as we to thee give glory for ever. Amen.



From 'Calefactory.org', the following:

When the fullness of time had come, Gabriel was sent several times as the harbinger of the Incarnation of the Most High God. First, to the Temple of Jerusalem, while Zachary stood at the altar of incense, to tell him that his wife Elizabeth would bring forth a son to be called John, who would prepare the way of the Lord. (Luke 1:17) Six months later the great Archangel again appeared, bearing the greatest message God ever sent to earth. Standing before the Blessed Virgin Mary, this great Archangel of God trembled with reverence as he offered Her the ineffable honor of becoming Mother of the Eternal Word. Upon Her consent, "the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us." It was he, we can readily believe, who also fortified Saint Joseph for his mission as virginal father of the Saviour.


Gabriel rightly bears the beautiful name, the 'strength of God', manifesting in every apparition the power and glory of the Eternal. According to some of the Fathers of the Church, it was Saint Gabriel, Angel of the Incarnation, who invited the shepherds of Bethlehem to come to the Crib to adore the newborn God. He was with Jesus in His Agony, no less ready to be the strength of God in the Garden than at Nazareth and Bethlehem. Throughout Christian tradition he is the Angel of the Incarnation, the Angel of consolation, the Angel of mercy.



Let us honor St. Gabriel and all of the holy angels this day and always, since they are here at our sides to help us reach our goal.

PASSION SUNDAY

This Sunday, called Judica from the first word of the Introit, is also called Passion Sunday, because from this day the Church occupies herself exclusively with the contemplation of the passion and death of Christ. The pictures of Christ crucified are covered today in memory of his having hidden Himself from the Jews until His entrance into Jerusalem, no longer showing Himself in public. (John XI. 54.) Our beloved Abbot Gueranger states: 'Let us go back, in thought, to the sad day of the first sin, when Adam and Eve hid themselves because a guilty conscience told them they were naked. Jesus has come to assure us of our being pardoned, and lo! He hides Himself, not because He is naked--He that is to the saints the garb of holiness and immortality--but because He made Himself weak, that He might make us strong. Our first parents sought to hide themselves from the sight of God; Jesus hides Himself from the eye of men.' How many times have we done wrong and tried to hide from ourselves and God. Joke's on us though; He sees and knows all!

In the Mass the Glory be to the Father, etc. is omitted, because in the person of Christ the Holy Trinity was dishonored. The psalm Judica is not said today, because on this day the high priests held council about our Lord, for which reason the Church in the name of the suffering Saviour uses these words at the Introit:

This Sunday is Passion Sunday. We are starting to think seriously about what Christ did for us. It should have already happened! Anyway, I'd like to put something in that we don't hear anymore, if that's OK with you. Even if it's not!, here goes. The following is called the 'Capitulum', because it is short. And besides, I like it.


The standard of our King comes forth; the mystery of the cross shines upon us, that cross on which Life suffered death, and by His death gave life.

He was pierced with the cruel spear, that, by the Water and the Blood which flowed from the wound, He might cleanse us from sin.

Here on the Cross was fulfilled the prophecy foretold in David's truthful words: 'God hath reigned from the tree.'

O fair and shining tree! beautified by the scarlet of the King, and chosen as the noble trunk that was to touch such sacred limbs.

O blessed tree! on whose arms hung the ransom of the world! It was the balance, wherein was placed the Body of Jesus, and thereby hell lost its prey.

Hail, O Cross! our only hope!

______________________________________________________________________
When Christ told the Jews the truth, He received insults and calumny; they called Him a Samaritan, that is, an unbeliever, a heretic, one possessed of a devil. This was a terrible slander, and it must have pained Him exceedingly, but at the same time it is a great consolation to those who are innocently calumniated, when they consider that Christ Himself received nothing better. St. Augustine consoles such by saying: "O friend, what is there that can happen to you that your Saviour did not suffer before you? Is it slander? He heard it, when He was called a glutton, a drunkard, a heretic, and a rebel, a companion of sinners, one possessed of a devil; He even heard, when casting out devils, that He did so by Beelzebub, prince of devils." (Matt. IX. 34.) He therefore comforts His apostles, saying, If they have called the good man of the house Beelzebub, how much more them of his household? (Matt, X. 25.) Are the pains bitter? There is no pain so bitter that He has not endured it; for what is. more painful, and at the same time more ignominious, than the death of the cross? For think, says St. Paul, diligently upon him who endured such opposition from sinners against himself: that you be not wearied (by all contempt and calumny), fainting in your minds." (Heb. XII. 3.)

I'd also like to add this prayer, from the Passion Sunday readings, which we again wouldn't hear otherwise, for the Holy Father:

O God, the Pastor and Ruler of all the faithful, look down, in thy mercy, on thy servant Francis, whom thou hast appointed Pastor over thy Church: and grant, we beseech thee, that both by word and example, he may edify all those that are under his charge: and, with the flock entrusted to him, arrive at length at eternal happiness. Through Our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns in unity with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God forever and forever. Amen.

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The following is an excerpt from an Irish priest, St. John Henaghan, who was martyred in the Philippines in 1945. It it worth reading, considering our problems in this life.

CALVARY
A poor tortured mangled body on a cross - such was the ending of the life of the Man-God. On Calvary was wrought the mightiest, the culminating deed of God's love for men. It was this thing, done on a spring day before high Heaven, that St. Paul had always before his eyes, being fascinated and enthralled by the glory and tenderness of such loving kindness. He wondered why the whole world could not see the vision that held his eyes by night and day: "O senseless Galatians, who hath bewitched you ... before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been set forth, crucified ... ?"

Before the fact of Calvary every other event in this world shrinks into insignificance. Until Christ came the curse of sin lay heavily on mankind. The world could not save itself. The blood of oxen or of goats could not redeem from sin; none of Adam's race could satisfy the justice of God. Someone was needed Whose innocence was great enough to make full atonement to God, Whose Blood would reach the very heart of God, One Who in some way had the power of extending His action to all men, to all times. God so loved the world as to give such a victim - His Only Son.

Everything has to be paid for, precious things in precious coin. What price did the son of God give in exchange for a soul? Come to the Passion and see.

In the supper room where He was to give us His Body for all time, He began to grow sorrowful and to be sad and the face that had glowed with tenderness over the bread and the chalice grew haggard and aged as He bade his followers farewell. In the garden He prayed that He might not drink the chalice of suffering, yet He immediately added - "Not My will, but Thine be done." Christ was like a broken man Whose hopes were gone. He struggled in pain; in the morning, in the place of His agony, the ground was trampled; and there were dark stains on the blades of grass.

Scourging in ancient times was the punishment reserved for the lowest criminals. A freeman was scourged with rods; a slave with whips; and Christ Who took upon himself the form of a Slave, was scourged with Roman whips, which consisted of four thongs, at the ends of which were attached small pieces of bone. The Victim was stripped; and His hands were bound to a low pillar; He had to bend His back to make it easier for the strikers. Take your place in a corner of that barrack room and watch. There was no squeamishness about those Roman soldiers. The whips hissed in the air; the cruel thongs ran round Christ's virginal flesh in stinging lines of pain. He trembled, while His warm red Blood ran down and trickled along the floor. The soldiers laughed at His pangs and the poor figure He cut. He was loosed from the pillar and staggered to where His clothes were laid; there He put on the seamless robe that Mary's fingers had woven.

A new thought came to the soldiers. He said He was a king - a king should have His purple, so they put on Him a soldier's dirty tunic. A King should have His crown: they made a circlet of rushes from the horses' litter, weaving into it thorn branches from the bivouac fire. A King should have His sceptre, so they placed a reed in His right hand. Here was sport for an army. They did things in the Roman style. A King should have His courtiers and His homage: the ranks retired and marched past in mock respect. He was a prophet, so they covered His head with a cloth, and asked Him to divine who struck Him. And as they went by they bent the knee in mockery, and they spat upon Him. "And many other things they did" - many things. Christ was lonely then; He was thinking of that long procession of souls through the ages who would never know He loved them, of sin that hurt more than soldiers' thongs, of thoughts sharper than His crown, of friends as false as Judas, of foes as fierce as the Jews, of men as indifferent to His suffering as those mocking Roman soldiers.

The crowd outside was growing impatient. He was quickly led to Pilate in the sad finery of His wounds. From the sole of His foot to the top of His head there was no soundness in Him. "Behold the man," said Pilate. He was rejected even by His Own; and a cry of hate broke over the assembly like the growl of an angry sea. Nothing so cows a man, so holds him in a grip of pain, as to read hatred in the faces of his fellows. They were getting angry and restless like a circus crowd anxious for a spectacle.

When Jesus was ordered to march off to Calvary, He was a doomed and dying man. We can see the crowds and hear the shouting of the mob mingling with children's voices, while Jesus sick and sore carries the planks that are to be His dying bed. We can see the bleeding figure falling under the Cross. On the way He met his mother - the evangelist does not try to paint that meeting. He grew so weak that they forced a passer-by to carry His Cross - the cruel kindness of men who wanted to see Him nailed upon it. To hang on a Cross for one minute was terrible. He hung for three hours, a mass of pain, suffering in every nerve, hurt in all the secret places of His soul. The least a dying man can ask without refusal is to be left alone to die. There was no privacy in Christ's death. Everything was shameful, cruel and savage. He was hissed and hooted out of life while enemies sat and watched His agony. A cry broke through the gloom and bowing down His head he died. No words were spoken by His friends at the foot of the gallows of shame; they could not speak while they heard the sighs and gasping breath of the victim. When all was over on the hill and darkness fell over the troubled city, a woman was sobbing. Let us share her grief and thus atone for the sins which wrought this agony.

Each year the Church takes her children to Gethsemane and Calvary lest they forget the love that brought Christ from Heaven - a love stronger than disgrace and shame, a love that did not shrink from a sea of sorrow, a love as strong as God Himself. What strange power do we hold within our souls that could lure God from Heaven to Calvary? Do we ever realize this for very joy of soul, that we have been and are so mightily loved by Him? See how much He cared: go around your crucifix on a voyage of discovery; search out and count those several wounds on His Body; look into that heart to know how much our ingratitude hurt; study the look of His bleeding body "where men have written hate and sin, and God has written love." "The Son of God ... loved me, and delivered Himself for me," cried out St. Paul like one intoxicated. Were we to realize the extent of Christ's love for us, could any humiliation on earth hurt us any more?

The Cross is the great pulpit from which Christ preaches what sin is, what God's mercy is, what a man's soul is worth, what the soul of a dying pagan child means to Him. It is Our Lord's final argument to melt the heart of the sinner and convince him of forgiveness - spoken in the plainest language, through a body crushed and broken. It changes the values of life, places strange worth upon pain that is borne in union with the crucified, and lifts the hearts of men to a kingdom that is not of this world.

The Cross, however, is not meant to be merely a comfort in remorse and suffering. The sight of our crucified Lord has another terrible side. We cannot trifle with such an offering of love. We must answer back with a love that yields pain for pain, life for life, love for love. Each one of us is tested by his attitude to the Divine sufferer. We hesitate to give ourselves without reserve. We haggle and bargain as if all we had were not His: we cower and are afraid to meet His Own extravagance of love upon the Cross, because our hearts are mean. Yet, until we surrender all, until we lay our life at His feet, until we learn to make an act of faith in the value of suffering with Him, until we trust Him so far that our minds can rise to an act of quiet contentment amidst our sorrow and poverty, we shall not have understood the pathos and appeal of those outstretched wounded hands.

Are you ready?

Saturday for Our Blessed Mother

This is Our Lady of Quito, in Ecuador. It is representing her seven sorrows that were predicted by holy Simeon in the temple at the Purification. Tomorrow, Sunday, is also the day of our Mother's Sorrows, besides being Passion Sunday this year. However, this is Saturday, and I'm going to add this sequence taken from the Cluny missal. Let us have recourse to Mary, the Refuge of sinners:


Hail Mary, full of grace! dear Mother of Jesus, and hope of the world!

O gate of heaven! O temple of God! O haven of the sea, where sinners confidently seek shelter and repose.

Thou art the worthy bride of the great King, and, by thy powerful prayers, thou art kind and loving to all.

Thou art light to the blind, and a sure path to such as are lame. Thou art, by thy loving affection, both Martha and Mary to the needy.

Thou wast the flower among the thorns; the flower that, by its rich graces, bloomed to the divine Flower, thy Jesus.

Thou didst speak thy word, and then conceivest the Word; thou didst give birth to the King of kings, thou that wast a Virgin.

Thou wast ever faithful to this King, thy Child; and, using a mother's privilege, thou didst feed him at thy breast.

Now, thou art united with Him, and in reward for thy merits, thou art made the Queen of heaven and earth.

Then pray for us, O Queen, to Him that is our King, beseeching Him to pardon us poor fallen sinners.

Show us thy wonted clemency, and, having obtained us the new life of remission of our sins, bring us to the kingdom, there to reign for ever. Amen.
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O God, at whose Passion, as foretold by Simeon, a sword of sorrow pierced the most sweet soul of glorious Mary, Virgin and Mother: grant in Thy mercy, that we who reverently call to mind her anguish and suffering, may be helped by the glorious merits and prayers of all the saints who faithfully stand at Thy Cross, and win the happy fruit of Thy Passion: Who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen.

(Roman Breviary)

St. Benedict

SAINT BENEDICT
Father of Western Monasticism
(480-543)
Saint Benedict, blessed by grace as his prophetic name seemed to foretell, was born of a noble Italian family in Umbria, in the year 480. As a boy he showed great inclination for virtue, and maturity in his actions. He was sent to Rome at the age of seven, to be placed in the public schools. At the age of fourteen, alarmed by the licentiousness of the Roman youth, he fled to the desert mountains of Subiaco, forty miles from Rome, and was directed by the Holy Spirit into a deep, craggy, and almost inaccessible cave, since known as the Holy Grotto. He lived there for three years, unknown to anyone save a holy monk named Romanus, who clothed him with the monastic habit and brought him food.

He was eventually discovered, when, one Easter day, God advised a priest who lived about four miles from there, to take food to His servant, who was starving. The priest searched in the hills and finally found the solitary, and they took their meal together. Some shepherds also knew of his retreat, and soon the fame of this hermit's sanctity began to spread. The demon persecuted him, but to no avail; when a temptation of the flesh assailed him, he rolled in a clump of thorns and nettles, and came out of it covered with blood but sound in spirit.

Disciples came to him, and under his direction, numerous monasteries were founded. The rigor of the rule he drew up, however, brought upon him the hatred of some of the monks, and one of them mixed poison with the Abbot's drink. When the Saint made the sign of the cross on the poisoned bowl, it broke and fell in pieces to the ground.

Saint Benedict resurrected a boy whose father pleaded for that miracle, saying "Give me back my son!" He replied, "Such miracles are not for us to work, but for the blessed apostles! Why will you lay upon me a burden which my weakness cannot bear?" But finally, moved by compassion, he prostrated himself upon the body of the child, and prayed: "Behold not, O Lord, my sins, but the Faith of this man, and restore the soul which Thou hast taken away!" And the child rose up, and walked to the waiting arms of his father. When a monk lost the iron head of his axe in a river, the Abbot told him to throw the handle in after it, and it rose from the river bed to resume its former place.

Six days before his death, Saint Benedict ordered his grave to be prepared, then fell ill of a fever. On the sixth day he asked to be carried to the chapel, and, having received the sacred Body and Blood of Christ, with hands uplifted and leaning on one of his disciples, he calmly expired in prayer, on the 21st of March, 543.

Reflection. The Saints never feared to undertake any work for God, however arduous, because distrusting self they relied for assistance and support wholly upon prayer.



St. Benedict who was born in the 5th century, but also to the more recent past, to the Christendom of France, in the year 1850, during the pontificate of Pope Pius IX. Living in a time of restoration in the aftermath of revolution which reduced the great European abbeys to rubble, Fr. Jean-Baptiste Muard, a diocesan missionary, was inspired by a signal grace of Providence to restore the monastic apostolate of the Church to its purest and original form, as lived by the disciples of the Apostles, the Fathers of the Church, the Desert Fathers in particular. Being led by the hand of God, he walked as a pilgrim from France to Italy, eventually arriving at the hallowed shrine of St. Benedict in Subiaco, east of Rome. He would later meet with the Holy Father still in exile at Gaëta, whounder the duress of revolution still raging and tearing apart Italy in the name of unity, had made himself abbot of St. Benedict’s original monastery. This heroic intervention of Pope Pius IX to save the Benedictine Order from extinction in his overall struggle to restore the Church in the time of unprecedented crisis would become the foundational principle of our present monastery.

From Rome, Fr. Muard would bring the Rule of St. Benedict back to France at the same time as other great works of restoration were already underway. The Cassinese Congregation of the Primitive Observance was thus born and under the continued guidance of Pius IX foundations were established throughout Europe, rising from the ashes of once glorious Christendom.
The restoration of the Church, in the mind of Pio Nono, would come through the Queen of Heaven, who herself would confirm his teaching through the miraculous apparitions at Lourdes, and also in the restoration of the contemplative monastic Orders. The faithful echo of this determined action would be heard again in our own day in the words of Archbishop Lefebvre, Without Monasteries, without religious consecrated to prayer, the Church will never be revived from the present crisis.

The conflict of civil revolution, the destruction wrought by World Wars, and the universal disorder of Modernism have become as the great fire that germinates the seed of the giant solitary Redwoods, and today in the critical context of restoration,the contemplative Orders are yet once again being re-founded. The sons and daughters of the saintly Fr. Muard have preserved his fervent desire for a return to the purity of the Rule of St. Benedict with its emphasis on the contemplative monastic life. In this work is found the integrity of a life, the sana doctrina, (Titus II, 1) the sane doctrine of the Church as found in the lives of her greatest saints. This newest branch of the great Benedictine tree is once again flourishing and the cause for the beatification of Fr. Muard is in Rome.


The Church has been blessed through Benedictine devotion to the liturgy, not only in its actual celebration with rich and proper ceremony in the great abbeys, but also through the scholarly studies of many of its members. Liturgy is sometimes confused with guitars or choirs, Latin or Bach. We should be grateful to those who both preserve and adapt the genuine tradition of worship in the Church.

Quote:

“Rightly, then, the liturgy is considered as an exercise of the priestly office of Jesus Christ. In the liturgy the sanctification of man is manifested by signs perceptible to the senses...; in the liturgy full public worship is performed by the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ, that is, by the Head and his members."

“From this it follows that every liturgical celebration, because it is an action of Christ the priest and of His Body the Church, is a sacred action, surpassing all others” (Vatican II, Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, 7). They at Vat. II actually had a 'blind squirrel' moment, meaning they found a nugget of Truth, at least in this instance.

St. Benedict, please pray for our Holy Father, and for priests, that they may return to the life expected of them.

FRIDAY THOUGHTS

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

5. We speak of the things which you see with your own eyes, which We both bemoan. Depravity exults; science is impudent; liberty, dissolute. The holiness of the sacred is despised; the majesty of divine worship is not only disapproved by evil men, but defiled and held up to ridicule. Hence sound doctrine is perverted and errors of all kinds spread boldly. The laws of the sacred, the rights, institutions, and discipline -- none are safe from the audacity of those speaking evil. Our Roman See is harassed violently and the bonds of unity are daily loosened and severed. The divine authority of the Church is opposed and her rights shorn off. She is subjected to human reason and with the greatest injustice exposed to the hatred of the people and reduced to vile servitude. The obedience due bishops is denied and their rights are trampled underfoot. Furthermore, academies and schools resound with new, monstrous opinions, which openly attack the Catholic faith; this horrible and nefarious war is openly and even publicly waged. Thus, by institutions and by the example of teachers, the minds of the youth are corrupted and a tremendous blow is dealt to religion and the perversion of morals is spread. So the restraints of religion are thrown off, by which alone kingdoms stand. We see the destruction of public order, the fall of principalities, and the overturning of all legitimate power approaching. Indeed this great mass of calamities had its inception in the heretical societies and sects in which all that is sacrilegious, infamous, and blasphemous has gathered as bilge water in a ship's hold, a congealed mass of all filth.

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

"The Universal Church is affected by any and every novelty" and the admonition of Pope Agatho (died 681): "nothing of the things appointed ought to be diminished; nothing changed; nothing added; but they must be preserved both as regards expression and meaning."
(Meaning: the Faith is to be passed on 'whole and inviolate')

As St. Cyprian wrote: "He who abandons the See of Peter on which the Church was founded, falsely believes himself to be a part of the Church." (How many in today's Church fall into this category?)

The previous reading is part of an Encyclical, MIRARI VOS,written by Pope Gregory XVI, in 1832. In part, it treated with Liberalism and Religious Indifferentism. Hard to believe that it wasn't written in these days. I guess problems were in force even then, when the 'Liberals' were infiltrating the Church, designing to take over and change beliefs. I guess times never change. I wonder what Gregory would say about the thoughts of today!? The above is part of the teachings from the Apostolic era. Therefore, ANYONE, no matter how up the ladder they are, who teaches anything different, IS WRONG!!!!!










From Cardinal de Torquemada in the 15th century:

"Were the Pope to command anything against Holy Scriptures, or the articles of faith, or the truth of the sacraments, or the commands of the natural or Divine Law, he ought not to be obeyed, but in such commands he is to be disregarded."

And, from Pope Innocent III (1160-1216), he states: "...it is necessary to obey the Pope in all things as long as he, himself, does not go against the universal customs of the Church, 'he need not be followed.'"

So, when our leaders of today do things such as these, we are NOT obligated to heed them. Me--2013

Just sayin'