Cardinal Mercier's Prayer to the Holy Spirit

The secret to sanctity.

The reality of Satan

To be sure, there are some individuals who see Satan everywhere and in every evil they encounter in life. Such people approach life in a very superstitious manner and see the Evil One behind every evil action and circumstance. However, such people are the exception today. Our present epoch is imbued with the belief that there is no personal devil and that evil is merely a lack of human goodness in the world. Many theologians, such as Fr. Richard P. McBrien, have contributed to this belief. Father Richard McBrien once said on Nightline that the Catholic Church had never expressed dogmatically her belief in a personal devil.


However Fr. McBrien (and this is an old story) is simply wrong. In a dogmatic degree of the Fourth Lateran Council (1215), we read:

"We firmly believe and openly confess that there is only one true God, eternal and immense, omnipotent, unchangeable, incomprehensible, and ineffable, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; three Persons indeed but one essence, substance, or nature absolutely simple; the Father (proceeding) from no one, but the Son from the Father only, and the Holy Ghost equally from both, always without beginning and end. The Father begetting, the Son begotten, and the Holy Ghost proceeding; consubstantial and coequal, co-omnipotent and coeternal, the one principle of the universe, Creator of all things invisible and visible, spiritual and corporeal, who from the beginning of time and by His omnipotent power made from nothing creatures both spiritual and corporeal, angelic, namely, and mundane, and then human, as it were, common, composed of spirit and body. The devil and the other demons were indeed created by God good by nature but they became bad through themselves; man, however, sinned at the suggestion of the devil. This Holy Trinity in its common essence undivided and in personal properties divided, through Moses, the holy prophets, and other servants gave to the human race at the most opportune intervals of time the doctrine of salvation.

And finally, Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God made flesh by the entire Trinity, conceived with the co-operation of the Holy Ghost of Mary ever Virgin, made true man, composed of a rational soul and human flesh, one Person in two natures, pointed out more clearly the way of life. Who according to His divinity is immortal and impassable, according to His humanity was made passable and mortal, suffered on the cross for the salvation of the human race, and being dead descended into hell, rose from the dead, and ascended into heaven. But He descended in soul, arose in flesh, and ascended equally in both; He will come at the end of the world to judge the living and the dead and will render to the reprobate and to the elect according to their works. Who all shall rise with their own bodies which they now have that they may receive according to their merits, whether good or bad, the latter eternal punishment with the devil, the former eternal glory with Christ."

The fact that so many Catholics today (and among them priests and theologians) no longer believe in a personal devil is evidence of the extent of the breakdown in belief. The truth of the matter is that the Catholic Church has consistently taught in every age that there is a personal evil being: Satan.

In its Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Vatican II taught that Satan is the one who deceives human beings and leads them away from God: "But rather often men, deceived by the Evil One, have become caught up in a futile reasoning and have echanged the truth of God for a lie, serving the creature rather than the Creator (cf. Rom. 1: 21, 25)." (No. 16).

In 1975, the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith published Les Formes de la superstition to help the faithful understand the Church's teaching regarding demonic spirits:

"It would be a fatal mistake to act as if history were already finished and redemption had achieved all its effects, so that it were no longer necessary to engage in the struggle [against the devil and demons] of which the New Testament and the masters of the spiritual life speak....To maintain today, therefore, that Jesus' words about Satan express only a teaching borrowed from his culture and are unimportant for the faith of other believers is evidently to show little understanding either of the Master's character or of his age. If Jesus used this kind of language and, above all, if he translated it into practice during his ministry, it wsa because it expressed a doctrine that was to some extent essential to the idea and reality of the salvation that he was bringing....Satan whom Jesus attacked with his exorcisms and confronted in the wilderness and in his passion, cannot simply be a product of the human ability to tell stories and personify ideas nor a stray survival of a primitive culture and its language....Satan's action on man is admittedly interior but it is impossible to regard him as therefore simply a personification of sin and temptation....It was for all these reasons that the Fathers of the Church were convinced from Scripture that Satan and the demons are the enemies of man's redemption, and they did not fail to remind the faithful of their existence and action." (Les formes de la superstition, in Vatican Council II: More Post Conciliar Documents, Northport: Costello Publishing Company, 1982), pp. 456-485.

While there are some who approach the question of evil from a superstitious perspective, seeing Satan behind every evil action and circumstance, still, the belief in a real personal devil may not be attributed to superstition:

"What are the Church's greatest needs at the present time? Don't be surprised at our answer and don't write it off as simplistic or even superstitious: one of the Church's greatest needs is to be defended against the evil which we call the Devil....Evil is not merely an absence of something but an active force, a living, spiritual being that is perverted and that perverts others....It is a departure from the picture provided by biblical and Church teaching to refuse to acknowledge the Devil's existence...or to explain the Devil as a pseudoreality, a conceptual, fanciful, personification of the unknown causes of our misfortunes...St. Paul calls him the 'god of this world,' and warns us of the struggle we Christians must carry on in the dark, not only against one Devil, but against a frightening multiplicity of them..." (Pope Paul VI, General Audience given on November 15, 1972).

On most Fridays during Lent I eat at S&S Lobster on Rte 2A in Fitchburg, Massachusetts. I was there today and ran into some acquaintances from Holy Rosary Parish in Gardner. I was told of AFA's latest petition regarding big corporations and the homosexual agenda. The petition may be found here: http://www.afa.net/petitions/businesses/businesses.asp

Please take the time to complete this petition which consists of only one question.

Paul.

I See More Martyrs....

There is news of homosexual infiltration into Catholic schools in Canada: http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2007/mar/07032803.html

And this shouldn't surprise us. On September 12, 1820, venerable Anne Catherine Emmerich related a vision:

"I saw a strange church being built against every rule...No angels were supervising the building operations. In that church nothing came from high above...There was only division and chaos. It's probably a church of human creation, following the latest fashion, as well as the new heterodox church of Rome, which seems of the same kind....I saw again the strange big church that was being built there [in Rome]. There was nothing holy in it....Everything was being done according to human reason. I saw all sorts of people, things, doctrines, and opinions. There was something proud, presumptuous, and violent about it, and they seemed to be very successful. I did not see a single angel nor a single saint helping in the work. But far away in the background, I saw the seat of a cruel people armed with spears, and I saw a laughing figure which said: 'Do build it as solid as you can; we will pull it to the ground.'"

And from August to October of 1820: "I see more martyrs, not now but in the future....I saw the secret sect relentlessly undermining the great Church. Near them I saw a horrible beast coming up from the sea....[My note: the "sea" in prophecy usually is taken to refer to the world of politics which is so tumultuous] When the Church had been for the most part destroyed [by the secret sect], and when only the sanctuary and altar were still standing, I saw the wreckers enter the Church with the Beast. There they met a Woman of noble carriage [The Blessed Virgin] who seemed to be with child because she walked slowly. At this sight, the enemies were terrorized, and the Beast could not take but another step forward. It projected its neck towards the Woman as if to devour her, but the Woman turned about and bowed down [towards the altar], her head touching the ground. Thereupon, I saw the Beast taking to flight towards the sea again, and the enemies were fleeing in the greatest confusion....Then, I saw that the Church was being promptly rebuilt, and she was more magnificent than ever before."

On April 20, 1820: "I had another vision of the great tribulation. It seems to me that a concession was demanded from the clergy which could not be granted. I saw many older priests, especially one, who wept bitterly. A few younger ones were also weeping. But others, and the lukewarm among them, readily did what was demanded. It was as if people were splitting into two camps."

On April 22, 1823: 'I saw that many pastors allowed themselves to be taken up with ideas that were dangerous to the Church. They were building a great, strange, and extravagant Church. Everyone was to be admitted in it in order to be united and have equal rights: Evangelicals, Catholics, sects of every description. Such was to be the new Church....But God had other designs." And again: "I see that when the Second Coming of Christ approaches, a bad priest will do much harm to the Church. When the time of the reign of Antichrist is near, a false religion will appear which will be opposed to the unity of God and His Church. This will cause the greatest schism the world has ever known. The nearer the time of the end, the more the darkness of Satan will spread on earth, the greater will be the number of the children of corruption, and the number of the just will correspondingly diminish."

The nearer the time of the end, the more the darkness of Satan will spread on earth... Isn't this precisely what we see today? The moral evils of abortion, homosexuality, contraception, pornography and a host of other evils and impurities are accepted today as normal. Evil is called good and good is called evil, thus fulfilling the prophecy of Isaiah.

Important....

Ecclesiastical Freemasonry and the Religion of Humanitarianism

In an interview with the The Latin Mass magazine, "Present at the Demolition," Dr. Alice von Hildebrand alluded to communist and masonic infiltration into the Church:

TLM: You realize, of course, Doctor, that as soon as you mention this idea of infiltration, there will be those who roll their eyes in exasperation and remark, “Not another conspiracy theory!”

AVH:: I can only tell you what I know. It is a matter of public record, for instance, that Bella Dodd, the ex-Communist who reconverted to the Church, openly spoke of the Communist Party’s deliberate infiltration of agents into the seminaries. She told my husband and me that when she was an active party member, she had dealt with no fewer than four cardinals within the Vatican “who were working for us.”
Many a time I have heard Americans say that Europeans “smell conspiracy wherever they go.” But from the beginning, the Evil One has “conspired” against the Church – and has always aimed in particular at destroying the Mass and sapping belief in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. That some people are tempted to blow this undeniable fact out of proportion is no reason for denying its reality. On the other hand, I, European born, am tempted to say that many Americans are naïve; living in a country that has been blessed by peace, and knowing little about history, they are more likely than Europeans (whose history is a tumultuous one) to fall prey to illusions. Rousseau has had an enormous influence in the United States. When Christ said to His apostles at the Last Supper that “one of you will betray Me,” the apostles were stunned. Judas had played his hand so artfully that no one suspected him, for a cunning conspirator knows how to cover his tracks with a show of orthodoxy.

TLM: Do the two books by the Italian priest you mentioned before the interview contain documentation that would provide evidence of this infiltration?

AVH:: The two books I mentioned were published in 1998 and 2000 by an Italian priest, Don Luigi Villa of the diocese of Brescia, who at the request of Padre Pio has devoted many years of his life to the investigation of the possible infiltration of both Freemasons and Communists into the Church. My husband and I met Don Villa in the sixties. He claims that he does not make any statement that he cannot substantiate. When Paulo Sesto Beato? (1998) was published the book was sent to every single Italian bishop. None of them acknowledged receipt; none challenged any of Don Villa’s claims.
In this book, he relates something that no ecclesiastical authority has refuted or asked to be retracted – even though he names particular personalities in regard to the incident. It pertains to the rift between Pope Pius XII and the then Bishop Montini (the future Paul VI) who was his Undersecretary of State. Pius XII, conscious of the threat of Communism, which in the aftermath of World War II was dominating nearly half of Europe, had prohibited the Vatican staff from dealing with Moscow. To his dismay, he was informed one day through the Bishop of Upsala (Sweden) that his strict order had been contravened. The Pope resisted giving credence to this rumor until he was given incontrovertible evidence that Montini had been corresponding with various Soviet agencies. Meanwhile, Pope Pius XII (as had Pius XI) had been sending priests clandestinely into Russia to give comfort to Catholics behind the Iron Curtain. Every one of them had been systematically arrested, tortured, and either executed or sent to the gulag. Eventually a Vatican mole was discovered: Alighiero Tondi, S.J., who was a close advisor to Montini. Tondi was an agent working for Stalin whose mission was to keep Moscow informed about initiatives such as the sending of priests into the Soviet Union.
Source: http://www.latinmassmagazine.com/articles/articles_2001_SU_Hildebran.html

Our Lady told Fr. Stefano Gobbi of the Marian Movement of Priests:

"I am weeping because the Church is continuing along the road of division, of loss of the true faith, of apostasy and of errors which are being spread more and more without anyone offering opposition to them. Even now, that which I predicted at Fatima and that which I have revealed here in the third message confided to a little daughter of mine (i.e. Sister Lucia) is in the process of being accomplished. And so, even for the Church the moment of its great trial has come, because the man of iniquity will establish himself within it and the abomination of desolation will enter into the holy temple of God." (To the Priests, Our Lady's Beloved Sons, No. 362, September 15, 1987, p. 572.)

And again:

"The black beast like a leopard indicates Freemasonry; the beast with the two horns like a lamb indicates Freemasonry infiltrated into the interior of the Church, that is to say, ecclesiastical Masonry, which has spread especially among the members of the hierarchy. This Masonic infiltration, in the interior of the Church, was already foretold to you by me at Fatima, when I announced to you that Satan would enter in even to the summit of the Church. If the task of Masonry is to lead souls to perdition, bringing them to the worship of false divinities, the task of ecclesiastical Masonry on the other hand is that of destroying Christ and his Church, building a new idol, namely a false christ and a false church." (To the Priests, Our Lady's Beloved Sons, No. 406, June 13, 1989, p. 649)

The false church Our Lady refers to was also foretold by Anne Catherine Emmerich (1774-1824), a German Augustinian nun, stigmatist, and miracle-worker, who subsisted entirely on water and Holy Communion for many years. Venerable Emmerich received numerous visions of the future crisis in the Church and the infiltration of the Masons. In her visions, she describes men in aprons destroying the Church with a trowel, The Masons wear aprons and their symbol is the Mason's trowel. The following excerpts are from page 565 of the Life of Anne Catherine Emmerich, Vol. 1, by Rev. K.E. Schmöger, Tan Books, 1976:


"I saw St. Peter's. A great crowd of men was trying to pull it down whilst others constantly built it up again. Lines connected these men one with another and with others throughout the whole world. I was amazed at their perfect understanding.

"The demolishers, mostly apostates and members of different sects, broke off whole pieces and worked according to rules and instructions. They wore WHITE APRONS bound with blue riband. In them were pockets and they had TROWELS stuck in their belts. The costumes of the others were various.

"There were among the demolishers distinguished men wearing uniforms and crosses. They did not work themselves but they marked out on the wall with a TROWEL where and how it should be torn down. To my horror, I saw among them Catholic Priests. Whenever the workmen did not know how to go on, they went to a certain one in their party. He had a large book which seemed to contain the whole plan of the building and the way to destroy it. They marked out exactly with a TROWEL the parts to be attacked, and they soon came down. They worked quietly and confidently, but slyly, furtively and warily. I saw the Pope praying, surrounded by false friends who often did the very opposite to what he had ordered..."

Back in October of 2005, I exposed one of these Catholic priests, a priest of the Diocese of Manchester, New Hampshire, who is working under the banner of the New Ecclesiology while loudly proclaiming that man has come of age: http://lasalettejourney.blogspot.com/2005/10/reading-from-prophecy-of-malachi.html

This is the religious deception of the Antichrist: "The supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh." (CCC, 675).

We have witnessed the gradual emergence of this false church within Christ's Church. And that which this false church proposes is a new religion in which man, and not God, is the object of worship. And all will be accomplished in the name of humanitarianism. Through one of his characters in his prophetic book The Lord of the World, Fr. Robert Hugh Benson describes this humanitarian religion:

"Humanitarianism...is becoming an actual religion itself, though anti-supernatural. It is a pantheism. Pantheism deifies all nature, God is the world, but naturally, man above all is God since he is the highest expression of nature. It is a religion devoid of the 'super' natural, because since God is nature itself, there is no longer a distinction between Creator and creature. The creature is God* and hence arbitrator of his own destiny and establishes the moral law for himself. Nature, and man is its highest expression, has all the divine attributes. Humanitarianism is a religion devoid of the supernatural. It is developing a ritual under Freemasonry; it has a creed, 'God is man'; and the rest. It has, therefore, a real food of a sort to offer religious cravings: it idealizes, and yet makes no demands upon the spiritual faculties. Then, they have the use of all the churches except ours, and of all the Cathedrals; and they are beginning at last to encourage sentiment. Then they may display their symbols and we may not: I think they will be establishedlegally in another ten years" (Introduction, p. xvii).

*Genesis 3:5.

Signs of the times...

More on ecclesiastical masonry later today...

And on the abortion front....

One can feel things beginning to accelerate.

The New Order will not tolerate opposition to homosexuality

Expect the persecution against Christians who refuse to accept homosexual acts to intensify. Proponents of the New Age religion will not tolerate any dissent on this matter.

Meanwhile, within the Church:
http://www.twincities.com/mld/pioneerpress/news/local/16926967.htm

While there is still time....

I am prolonging the time of mercy for the sake of [sinners]…. While there is still time, let them have recourse to the fount of My mercy… He who refuses to pass through the door of My mercy must pass through the door of My justice. —Diary of St Faustina, 1160, 848, 1146

On January 22, 1980, Our Lady told Fr. Gobbi of the Marian Movement of Priests, that: "Humanity is now on the brink of that destruction which it could bring upon itself by its own hand. Indeed, that which was predicted to you by Me at Fatima, concerning the final closing of this age of yours, has already begun."

And on January 1, 1980, Our Lady told Fr. Gobbi that: "You are now being called to enter a time in which great sufferings await you. First of all, my Church will have to suffer as it is called to a more intense and painful process of purification." There are very definite signs that this hour of Calvary for the Church has already begun: http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/4865

The Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us that: "Before Christ's second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers. The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth will unveil the 'mystery of iniquity' in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth. The supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist*, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh." (CCC, No. 675).

As Mr. Mark Mallett has made clear, there is a "marking of souls" taking place. "The Lord is sifting, the divisions are growing, and souls are being marked as to whom they serve." (Source: http://www.markmallett.com/blog/?p=257#more-257).

This is the fundamental choice we must all make: whom will we serve. *Jesus says in John 5:43: "I am come in the name of my Father, and you receive me not: if another shall come in his own name, him you will receive. In the Latin Vulgate, "Ego veni in nomine Patris mei et non accipitis me si alius venerit in nomine suo illum accipietis."

Antichrist comes in his own name. And many will follow him and his supreme religious deception. Indeed many are already receiving his mark as they choose the Man of Sin and reject the Lord Jesus and His Mystical Body which is the Church.

"As the sun when it riseth to the world in the high places of God, so is the beauty of a good wife for the ornament of her house." (Ecclus xxvi 1-3).

I have just discovered a beautiful Catholic Blog created by a devout Catholic woman who goes by the name Sanctus Belle. I am so impressed with her Blog that I am adding it to my links section.

Read Sanctus Belle at: http://ourladystears.blogspot.com

Paul.

Opposing the feminization of Christianity....

"Since men continue to want to be masculine, they will continue (unless there are major changes in the Church) to put a greater or lesser distance between themselves and the Church...Feminism and homosexual propaganda dominate the liberal churches, and both drive men even further away.* Apart from some groups of evangelical Protestants, whose commitment to Scripture has made them aware of the lack of men and led them to use tactics which have had at least initial effectiveness, all other varieties of Western Christianity are totally bent on expanding the role of women in the Church and choose to ignore the absence of the male laity. Homosexuals who want to change are welcome even (perhaps especially) in evangelical and revivalist churches, but Catholic and mainline Protestant churches that cultivate a gay atmosphere (Archdiocesan Gay and Lesbian Outreach, gay choirs, gay tolerance talks in schools) will keep heterosexual men away...Christianity has within it the resources that allow it to appeal to men, to show that not only will Christianity not undermine their masculinity, but it will also fulfill and perfect it." (Dr. Leon J. Podles, "The Church Impotent: The Feminization of Christianity," pp. 196-197).

* See Thomas C. Reeves, The Empty Church, The Suicide of Liberal Christianity, New York: Free Press, 1996; pp. 146-151).


Dr. Podles is right. A testosterone-free Church is not appealing to men. Effeminate priests and ministers do not inspire healthy young men to consider a vocation within the Church. There is absolutely no reason why Christianity should remain a testosterone-free zone.

More on Dr. Maneker.....

Virginity or celibacy for the sake of the kingdom signifies and anticipates heavenly communion. The Catholic Church teaches definitively that it is better and more blessed to remain in the state of Christian virginity or celibacy than it is to be joined in sacramental marriage.

Moreover, Pope John Paul II taught that: "Virginity or celibacy for the sake of the Kingdom of God not only does not contradict the dignity of marriage but presupposes it and confirms it. Marriage and virginity or celibacy are two ways of expressing and living the one mystery of the covenant of God with his people." (Familiaris consortio, 16, AAS 74, 1982, 98).

Vatican II, in its Decree on Priestly Training (Optatam Totius), No. 10 teaches that: "Students who follow the venerable tradition of celibacy according to the holy and fixed laws of their own rite are to be educated to this state with great care. For renouncing thereby the companionship of marriage for the sake of the kingdom of heaven (cf. Mt 19:12), they embrace the Lord with an undivided love altogether befitting the New Covenant, bear witness to the resurrection of the world to come (cf. Lk 20:36), and obtain a most suitable aid for the continual exercise of that perfect charity whereby they can become all things to all men in their priestly ministry."

For Rev. Dr. Jerry Maneker, however, "..when any institution requires celibacy as a condition of fulfilling a calling, such as being a Roman Catholic priest, that institution is being unbiblical..and is setting itself up for the recruitment of very frustrated, sexually and emotionally immature officials."

What Dr. Maneker does not mention is that while Christ does approve of marriage for the Christian clergy, He prefers that they do not marry. Christ made this abundantly clear when He praised His Apostles for giving up "all" to follow Him: "And every one that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands for my name's sake, shall receive an hundredfold and shall possess life everlasting." (Mt 19: 27-29).

Furthermore, the Holy Spirit explains to us through St. Paul why the state of virginity or celibacy is preferable to the married state for the Christian clergy: "He that is without a wife, is solicitous for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may please God. But he that is with a wife, is solicitous for the things of the world, how he may please his wife: and he is divided." (1 Cor 7: 32-33).

In an article entitled "RC Priest Sexual Abuse" and published here: http://www.christianlgbtrights.org/2007/03/rc-priest-sexual-abuse.html, Dr. Maneker writes, "In my opinion, celibacy in and of itself is not the cause of the tremendous Roman Catholic priest abuse scandal, if that celibacy is a gift from God! However, when that celibacy is not a gift given to a person, and that person is forced to suppress a most primal urge, and that person is malleable and weak enough to acquiesce to that demand, that person is more likely than not going to be an emotional and sexual wreck.."

First of all, from a statistical standpoint, children are far safer with celibates than they are with married men. Apparently Dr. Maneker hasn't been watching any of the "To Catch a Predator" programs in which the majority of sexual predators are married men from various walks of life, including the field of education. As Raymond Arroyo has said, a "study by Penn State Professor Philip Jenkins reveals that a mere 0.3 percent of priests are pedophiles. Married men abuse children in far greater numbers. Anywhere from 3 to 8 percent, if you believe the studies."

In no way is celibacy an issue. Rather, homosexuality is. As one article makes clear:

An explosion of homosexuality is occurring in our midst. Flaunted by the mass media and promoted throughout our society, it has suddenly become a high profile issue. Yet this “coming out” is no surprise to those who have diligently worked for years to advance the cause of homosexuality, and this is especially true for the proponents of homosexuality that we find entrenched in the Catholic Church today.

The sex abuse scandal that broke out in 2002 was a loud signal that things have gone far astray. Although only 2.7 percent of the total number of priests nationwide were involved in sexual abuse cases (note that the number of homosexuals in the general population is estimated to be about 2 percent), the John Jay Study found 81 percent of the abuse cases to be homosexual in nature.

Yet the USCCB and the gay community insist that the problem is one of pedophilia and not homosexuality. Since pedophilia is defined as sexual contact with children who are prepubescent, and the vast majority of victims were post-pubescent males between the ages of 11 and 18, it is clear that the bulk of the crisis is directly linked to the practice of homosexuality.." (Source: http://www.speroforum.com/site/article.asp?id=3942 ).

Abandoning the holy is not the answer. Careful psychological screening is. Men who possess a homosexual orientation do not belong in seminaries. The homosexual inclination is objectively disordered and ordaining men with such an inclination is, pastorally speaking, extremely imprudent.

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Sodomy:


Dr. Jerry Maneker is Professor Emeritus of Sociology at California State University, Chico. At his internet biography page, which may be found here: http://www.radicalchristianity.net/page18.html, Dr. Maneker says: "For many years, I have had a weekly column in the Sacramento Valley Mirror entitled 'Christianity and Society,' where I deal with a variety of social issues from a biblical and sociological perspective. I've also written many articles dealing with lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights and progressive Christianity for the webzine, 'Speak From The Heart.' I also contribute regularly to the online magazine, 'Whosoever,' that deals with topics of relevance to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Christians and their allies, and I have a blog entitled, 'A Christian Voice For Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, And Transgender Rights'...The major thrust of my ministry is to help rescue the Bible and Christianity itself from those who pervert the only Gospel to be found in Christianity: the Gospel of grace, faith, love, peace, reconciliation, and inclusiveness. So many 'religious' leaders preach a false gospel of legalism and perfectionism that has the effect, beyond financial and/or psychological and/or social gain, of excluding, and even demonizing, others."

And who does Dr. Maneker have in mind when he speaks of those who "pervert the only Gospel found in Christianity?" In an interview which may be found here: http://livelovelearn247.blogspot.com/2006/09/interview-with-rev-dr-jerry-maneker.html, Dr. Maneker says:

"I'm an evangelical, dammit! And I won't allow purveyors of a false gospel, about whom the Apostle Paul felt so strongly that he wrote, "God damn them" (Galatians 1:8-9), to pervert the beauty of the Gospel of liberation into their twisted notions of God, the Bible, themselves, and other people, thereby seeking to put yokes of bondage on people, the very yokes of bondage from which Jesus came to set us free. These legalists and biblical literalists have thrown God's grace back in His face, and are seeking to lead gullible, vulnerable, biblically iliterate people away from the only Gospel to be found in Christianity. And for that grievous sin, as well as for the sin of wittingly or unwittingly helping to create and "legitimate" the shame, self-loathing, suicides, bashings and murders of LGBT people, they are to be assiduously confronted and told in no uncertain terms that they are not speaking for God, the Bible, or for the Gospel!"

There you have it. For Dr. Maneker, a "progressive Christianity" must continually oppose the "false gospel" of "legalists" and "biblical literalists" who accept what Sacred Scripture has to say regarding homosexual acts. And when Christians accept what the Holy Spirit says through St. Paul in Romans Chapter 1, namely that males who give up "natural relations with females" and "burn with lust for one another" are engaging in "perversity" (v. 27) and that "the just decree of God" is that "all who practice such things deserve death," (v. 32) such people are following a "false gospel." For Dr. Maneker, Christians who accept what God's Word reveals in 1 Corinthians Chapter 6: "Do not be deceived; neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers nor boy prostitutes nor practicing homosexuals nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor robbers will inherit the kingdom of God" (v. 9-10), are really "purveyors of a false gospel" who are 'seeking to put yokes of bondage on people."

We shouldn't be surprised that there are people like Dr. Maneker in this world who oppose God's Holy Word and attempt to deceive us. We read in 2 John v. 7-9 that: "Many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh; such is the deceitful one and the antichrist. Look to yourselves that you do not lose what we worked for but may receive a full recompense. Anyone who is so 'progressive' as not to remain in the teaching of the Christ does not have God; whoever remains in the teaching has the Father and the Son."

The Latin of the Vulgate is "Omnis, qui ultra procedit et non manet in doctrina Christi, Deum non habet." This might be translated literally thusly: "Every one who proceeds beyond and does not remain in the teaching..." Isn't it ironic that Dr. Maneker would label his own peculiar brand of Christianity as "progressive Christianity?" Isn't it true that he has become so progressive as to not remain in the teaching of Christ?

Again, we read in Jude (v. 5-7):

"I wish to remind you, although you know all things, that [the] Lord who once saved a people from the land of Egypt later destroyed those who did not believe. The angels too, who did not keep to their own domain but deserted their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains, in gloom, for the judgment of the great day. Likewise, Sodom, Gomorrah, and the surrounding towns, which, in the same manner as they, indulged in sexual promiscuity and unnatural vice, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire."

Signs

Latin Mass Returning

Case for the Latin Mass

DIETRICH VON HILDEBRAND
Dietrich von Hildebrand, was one of the world's most eminent Christian philosophers. A professor at Fordham University, Pope Pius XII called him "the 20th Century Doctor of the Church." He is the author of many books, including Transformation in Christ and Liturgy and Personality.

[Reprinted from the October 1966 issue of TRIUMPH]

THE ARGUMENTS for the New Liturgy have been neatly packaged, and may now be learned by rote. The new form of the Mass is designed to engage the celebrant and the faithful in a communal activity. In the past the faithful attended mass in personal isolation, each worshipper making his private devotions, or at best following the proceedings in his missal. Today the faithful can grasp the social character of the celebration; they are learning to appreciate it as a community meal. Formerly, the priest mumbled in a dead language, which created a barrier between priest and people. Now everyone speaks in English, which tends to unite priest and people with one another. In the past the priest said mass with his back to the people, which created the mood of an esoteric rite. Today, because the priest faces the people, the mass is a more fraternal occasion. In the past the priest intoned strange medieval chants. Today the entire assembly sings songs with easy tunes and familiar lyrics, and is even experimenting with folk music. The case for the new mass, then, comes down to this: it is making the faithful more at home in the house of God.

Moreover, these innovations are said to have the sanction of Authority: they are represented as an obedient response to the spirit of the Second Vatican Council. This is said notwithstanding that the Council's Constitution on the Liturgy goes no further than to permit the vernacular mass in cases where the local bishop believes it desirable; the Constitution plainly insists on the retention of the Latin mass, and emphatically approves the Gregorian chant. But the liturgical "progressives" are not impressed by the difference between permitting and commanding. Nor do they hesitate to authorize changes, such as standing to receive Holy Communion, which the Constitution does not mention at all. The progressives argue that these liberties may be taken because the Constitution is, after all, only the first step in an evolutionary process. And they seem to be having their way. It is difficult to find a Latin mass anywhere today, and in the United States they are practically non-existent. Even the conventual mass in monasteries is said in the vernacular, and the glorious Gregorian is replaced by insignificant melodies.

MY CONCERN is not with the legal status of the changes. And I emphatically do not wish to be understood as regretting that the Constitution has permitted the vernacular to complement the Latin. What I deplore is that the new mass is replacing the Latin Mass, that the old liturgy is being recklessly scrapped, and denied to most of the People of God.

I should like to put to those who are fostering this development several questions: Does the new mass, more than the old, bestir the human spirit -- does it evoke a sense of eternity? Does it help raise our hearts from the concerns of everyday life -- from the purely natural aspects of the world-to Christ? Does it increase reverence, an appreciation of the sacred?

Of course these questions are rhetorical, and self-answering. I raise them because I think that all thoughtful Christians will want to weigh their importance before coming to a conclusion about the merits of the new liturgy. What is the role of reverence in a truly Christian life, and above all in a truly Christian worship of God?

Reverence gives being the opportunity to speak to us: The ultimate grandeur of man is to be capax Dei. Reverence is of capital importance to all the fundamental domains of man's life. It can be rightly called "the mother of all virtues," for it is the basic attitude that all virtues presuppose. The most elementary gesture of reverence is a response to being itself. It distinguishes the autonomous majesty of being from mere illusion or fiction; it is a recognition of the inner consistency and positiveness of being-of its independence of our arbitrary moods. Reverence gives being the opportunity to unfold itself, to, as it were, speak to us; to fecundate our minds. Therefore reverence is indispensable to any adequate knowledge of being. The depth and plenitude of being, and above all its mysteries, will never be revealed to any but the reverent mind. Remember that reverence is a constitutive element of the capacity to "wonder," which Plato and Aristotle claimed to be the indispensable condition for philosophy. Indeed, irreverence is a chief source of philosophical error. But if reverence is the necessary basis for all reliable knowledge of being, it is, beyond that, indispensable for grasping and assessing the values grounded in being. Only the reverent man who is ready to admit the existence of something greater than himself, who is willing to be silent and let the object speak to him- who opens himself-is capable of entering the sublime world of values. Moreover, once a gradation of values has been recognized, a new kind of reverence is in order-a reverence that responds not only to the majesty of being as such, but to the specific value of a specific being and to its rank in the hierarchy of values. And this new reverence permits the discovery of still other values.

Man reflects his essentially receptive character as a created person solely in the reverent attitude; the ultimate grandeur of man is to be capax Dei. Man has the capacity, in other words, to grasp something greater than himself, to be affected and fecundated by it, to abandon himself to it for its own sake - in a pure response to its value. This ability to transcend himself distinguishes man from a plant or an animal; these latter strive only to unfold their own entelechy. Now: it is only the reverent man who can consciously transcend himself and thus conform to his fundamental human condition and to his metaphysical situation.
Do we better meet Christ by soaring up to Him, or by dragging Him down into our workaday world?

The irreverent man by contrast, approaches being either in an attitude of arrogant superiority or of tactless, smug familiarity. In either case he is crippled; he is the man who comes so near a tree or building he can no longer see it. Instead of remaining at the proper spiritual distance, and maintaining a reverent silence so that being may speak its word, he obtrudes himself and thereby, in effect, silences being. In no domain is reverence more important than religion. As we have seen, it profoundly affects the relation of man to God. But beyond that it pervades the entire religion, especially the worship of God. There is an intimate link between reverence and sacredness: reverence permits us to experience the sacred, to rise above the profane; irreverence blinds us to the entire world of the sacred. Reverence, including awe-indeed, fear and trembling-is the specific response to the sacred.

Rudolf Otto has clearly elaborated the point in his famous study, The Idea of the Holy. Kierkegaard also calls attention to the essential role of reverence in the religious act, in the encounter with God. And did not the Jews tremble in deep awe when the priest brought the sacrifice into the rancta sanctorum? Was Isaiah not struck with godly fear when he saw Yahweh in the temple and exclaimed, "Woe is me, I am doomed! For I am a man of unclean lips . . . yet my eyes have seen the King?" Do not the words of St. Peter after the miraculous catch of fish, "Depart from me, 0 Lord, because I am a sinner," testify that when the reality of God breaks in upon us we are struck with fear and reverence? Cardinal Newman has shown in a stunning sermon that the man who does not fear and revere has not known the reality of God.

When St. Bonaventure writes in Itinerium Mentis ad Deum that only a man of desire (such as Daniel) can understand God, he means that a certain attitude of soul must be achieved in order to understand the world of God, into which He wants to lead us.

This counsel is especially applicable to the Church's liturgy. The sursum corda-the lifting up of our hearts-is the first requirement for real participation in the mass. Nothing could better obstruct the confrontation of man with God than the notion that we "go unto the altar of God" as we would go to a pleasant, relaxing social gathering. This is why the Latin mass with Gregorian chant, which raises us up to a sacred atmosphere, is vastly superior to a vernacular mass with popular songs, which leaves us in a profane, merely natural atmosphere.

The basic error of most of the innovations is to imagine that the new liturgy brings the holy sacrifice of the mass nearer to the faithful, that shorn of its old rituals the mass now enters into the substance of our lives. For the question is whether we better meet Christ in the mass by soaring up to Him, or by dragging Him down into our own pedestrian, workaday world. The innovators would replace holy intimacy with Christ by an unbecoming familiarity. The new liturgy actually threatens to frustrate the confrontation with Christ, for it discourages reverence in the face of mystery, precludes awe, and all but extinguishes a sense of sacredness. What really matters, surely, is not whether the faithful feel at home at mass, but whether they are drawn out of their ordinary lives into the world of Christ-whether their attitude is the response of ultimate reverence: whether they are imbued with the reality of Christ.

THOSE WHO RHAPSODIZE on the new liturgy make much of the point that over the years the mass had lost its communal character and had become an occasion for individualistic worship. The new vernacular mass, they insist, restores the sense of community by replacing private de- votions with community participation. Yet they forget that there are different levels and kinds of communion with other persons. The level and nature of a community experience is determined by the theme of the communion, the name or cause in which men are gathered. The higher the good which the theme represents, and which binds men together, the more sublime and deeper is the communion. The ethos and nature of a community experience in the case of a great national emergency is obviously radically different from the community experience of a cocktail party. And of course the most striking differences in communities will be found between the community whose theme is supernatural and the one whose theme is merely natural. The actualization of men's souls who are truly touched by Christ is the basis of a unique community, a sacred communion, one whose quality is incomparably more sublime than that of any natural community. The authentic we communion of the faithful, which the liturgy of Holy Thursday expresses so well in the words congregavit nos in unum Christi amor, is only possible as a fruit of the I-Thou communion with Christ Himself. Only a direct relation to the God-Man can actualize this sacred union among the faithful.

The depersonalizing "we experience" is a perverse theory of community.
The communion in Christ has nothing of the self-assertion found in natural communities. It breathes of the Redemption. It liberates men from all self-centeredness. Yet such a communion emphatically does not depersonalize the individual; far from dissolving the person into the cosmic, pantheistic swoon so often commended to us these days, it actualizes the person's true self in a unique way. In the community of Christ the conflict between person and community that is present in all natural communities cannot exist. So this sacred community experience is really at war with the depersonalizing 'we-experience" found in mass assemblies and popular gatherings which tend to absorb and evaporate the individual. This communion in Christ that was so fully alive in the early Christian centuries, that all the saints entered into, that found a matchless expression in the liturgy now under attack-this communion has never regarded the individual person as a mere segment of the community, or as an instrument to serve it. In this connection it is worth noting that totalitarian ideology is not alone in sacrificing the individual to the collective; some of Teilhard de Chardin's cosmic ideas, for instance, imply the same collectivistic sacrifice. Teilhard subordinates the individual and his sanctification to the supposed development of humanity. At a time when this perverse theory of community is embraced even by many Catholics, there are plainly urgent reasons for vigorously insisting on the sacred character of the true communion in Christ. I submit that the new liturgy must be judged by this test: Does it contribute to the authentic sacred community? Granted that it strives for a community character; but is this the character desired? Is it a communion grounded in recollection, contemplation and reverence? Which of the two -- the new mass, or the Latin mass with the Gregorian chant evokes these attitudes of soul more effectively, and thus permits the deeper and truer communion? Is it not plain that frequently the community character of the new mass is purely profane, that, as with other social gatherings, its blend of casual relaxation and bustling activity precludes a reverent, contemplative confrontation with Christ and with the ineffable mystery of the Eucharist?

OF COURSE OUR EPOCH is pervaded by a spirit of irreverence. It is seen in a distorted notion of freedom that demands rights while refusing obligations, that exalts self-indulgence, that counsels "let yourself go." The habitare secuni of St. Gregory's Dialogues-the dwelling in the presence of God-which presupposes reverence, is considered today to be unnatural, pompous, or servile. But is not the new liturgy a compromise with this modern spirit? Whence comes the disparagement of kneeling? Why should the Eucharist be received standing? Is not kneeling, in our culture, the classic expression of adoring reverence? The argument that at a meal we should stand rather than kneel is hardly convincing. For one thing, this is not the natural posture for eating: we sit, and in Christ's time one lay down. But more important, it is a specifically irreverent conception of the Eucharist to stress its character as a meal at the cost of its unique character as a holy mystery. Stressing the meal at the expense of the sacrament surely betrays a tendency to obscure the sacredness of the sacrifice. This tendency is apparently traceable to the unfortunate belief that religious life will become more vivid, more existential, if it is immersed in our everyday life. But this is to run the danger of absorbing the religious in the mundane, of effacing the difference between the supernatural and the natural. I fear that it represents an unconscious intrusion of the naturalistic spirit, of the spirit more fully expressed in Teilhard de Chardin's immanentism.

Again, why has the genuflection at the words et incarnatus est in the Credo been abolished? Was this not a noble and beautiful expression of adoring reverence while professing the searing mystery of the Incarnation? Whatever the intention of the innovators, they have certainly created the danger, if only psychological, of diminishing the faithful's awareness and awe of the mystery. There is yet another reason for hesitating to make changes in the liturgythat are not strictly necessary. Frivolous or arbitrary changes are apt to erode a special type of reverence: pie tas. The Latin word, like the German Pietaet, has no English equivalent, but may be understood as comprising respect for tradition; honoring what has been handed down to us by former generations; fidelity to our ancestors and their works. Note that pietas is a derivative type of reverence, and so should not be confused with primary reverence, which we have described as a response to the very mystery of being, and ultimately a response to God. It follows that if the content of a given tradition does not correspond to the object of the primary reverence, it does not deserve the derivative reverence. Thus if a tradition embodies evil elements, such as the sacrifice of human beings in the cult of the Aztecs, then those elements should not be regarded with pietas. But that is not the Christian case. Those who idolize our epoch, who thrill at what is modern simply because it is modern, who believe that in our day man has finally "come of age," lack pietas. The pride of these "temporal nationalists" is not only irreverent, it is incompatible with real faith. A Catholic should regard his liturgy. with pietas. He should revere, and therefore fear to abandon the prayers and postures and music that have been approved by so many saints throughout the Christian era and delivered to us as a precious heritage. To go no further: the illusion that we can replace the Gregorian chant, with its inspired hymns and rhythms, by equally fine, if not better, music betrays a ridiculous self-assurance and lack of self-knowledge. Let us not forget that throughout Christianity's history. silence and solitude, contemplation and recollection, have been considered necessary to achieve a real confrontation with God. This is not only the counsel of the Christian tradition, which should be respected out of pietas; it is rooted in human nature. Recollection is the necessary basis for true communion in much the same way as contemplation provides the necessary basis for true action in the vineyard of the Lord. A superficial type of communion -the jovial comradeship of a social affair -- draws us out onto the periphery. A truly Christian communion draws us into the spiritual deeps.

The path to a true Christian communion: Reverence . . Recollection . . Contemplation
Of course we should deplore excessively individualistic and sentimental devotionalism, and acknowledge that many Catholics have practiced it. But the antidote is not a community experience as such-any more than the cure for pseudo-contemplation is activity as such. The antidote is to encourage true reverence, an attitude of authentic recollection and contemplative devotion to Christ. Out of this attitude alone can a true communion in Christ take place. The fundamental laws of the religious life that govern the imitation of Christ, the transformation in Christ, do not change according to the moods and habits of the historical moment. The difference between a superficial community experience and a profound community experience is always the same. Recollection and contemplative adoration of Christ-which only reverence makes possible-will be the necessary basis for a true communion with others in Christ in every era of human history.

As the apostasy spreads.....

The Mystery of Iniquity

On September 18, 1988, Our Lady revealed to Fr. Stefano Gobbi that, "there will come to completion that fullness of time beginning with La Salette all the way to my most recent and present apparitions; the purification will come to its culmination; there will come to completion the time of the great tribulation, foretold in Holy Scripture, before the Second Coming of Christ; the mystery of iniquity, prepared for by the ever-increasing spread of apostasy, will become manifest; all the secrets which I have revealed to some of my children will come to pass and all the events which have been foretold will take place."

The Papal Preacher has already noted that Antichrist may already be among us:

http://www.zenit.org/english/visualizza.phtml?sid=103757 and there are growing signs of open confrontation between the forces of Antichrist both outside and within the Church (ecclesiastical masonry) and the Catholic Church united with Rome - with the Holy Father and the Magisterium:http://dtf-jayg.blogspot.com/2007/02/friend-of-court.html. Sean Cardinal O'Malley has expressed his concerns over the increasing persecution of Christians in Canada:

http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2007/mar/07030606.html.

And yet, many Catholics (and other Christians) are either blind as to what is occurring or refuse to see. On December 31, 1983, Our Lady told Fr. Gobbi that: "The signs the Lord sends are neither understood nor accepted; the dangers pointed out by 'my Pope' who courageously and anxiously is predicting the storm awaiting you, are not believed. The messages which I give, through simple and little souls chosen by me in every part of the world, are not taken into consideration. The appearances which I am still making, often in faraway and dangerous places, are ignored. And yet you are only inches from your ruin. When all will be shouting for peace, a new World War could suddenly fall upon you, spreading death and destruction everywhere."

Many reject the messages of Our Lady because they consider themselves "too sophisticated." Such souls have succumbed to the myth of "modern man," of "scientific man." For these individuals, Antichrist is a myth, a fairy-tale. They purposely ignore the fact that the rise of Antichrist is foretold in Sacred Scripture and was believed by all the Fathers of the Church.

It was Saint Augustine who said, "Daniel prophesies of the Last Judgment in such a way as to indicate that Antichrist shall first come, and to carry on his description to the eternal reign of the saints....But he who reads this passage, even half asleep, cannot fail to see that the kingdom of Antichrist shall fiercely, though for a short time, assail the Church before the last judgment of God shall introduce the eternal reign of saints. For it is patent from the context that the time, times, and half a time, means a year, and two years, and half a year, that is to say, three years and a half."

As the persecution intensifies, it is important to remember that while Satan is the Prince of this world and hates and seeks to destroy all that is of God, and will unleash a persecution through Antichrist which will be total, his time is short. Even now he awaits the heel which will crush his head. Even now he trembles in fear as the triumph of the Immaculata draws near. For Our Lady of Fatima has said it: "In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph."

Amen.

Exciting book offer from Spirit Daily....

His Power Is Among Us is a wonderful book which I read years ago. Great reading for Lent.

And in England....

Cardinal O'Malley cites religious persecution in Canada

God has established only one enmity....

"God has established only one enmity - but it is an irreconcilable one which will last and even go on increasing to the end of time. That enmity is between Mary, his worthy Mother, and the devil, between the children and the servants of the Blessed Virgin and the children and followers of Lucifer...

The children of Belial, the slaves of Satan, the friends of the world - for they are all one and the same - have always persecuted and will persecute more than ever in the future those who belong to the Blessed Virgin, just as Cain of old persecuted his brother Abel, and Esau his brother Jacob. These are the types of the wicked and of the just. But the humble Mary will always triumph over Satan, the proud one, and so great will be her victory that she will crush his head, the very seat of his pride. She will always unmask his serpent's cunning and expose his wicked plots. She will scatter to the winds his devilish plans and to the end of time will keep her faithful servants safe from his cruel claws...Mary's power over the evil spirits will especially shine forth in the latter times, when Satan will lie in wait for her heel, that is, for her humble servants and her poor children whom she will rouse to fight against him. In the eyes of the world they will be little and poor and, like the heel, lowly in the eyes of all, down-trodden and crushed as is the heel by the other parts of the body. But in compensation for this they will be rich in God's graces, which will be abundantly bestowed on them by Mary. They will be great and exalted before God in holiness. They will be superior to all creatures by their great zeal and so strongly will they be supported by divine assistance that, in union with Mary, they will crush the head of Satan with their heel, that is, their humility, and bring victory to Jesus Christ."

- St. Louis Marie Grignon de Montfort, True Devotion to Mary.

Signs of the Times

Our Lady of La Salette, pray for us.

Questions or comments?

cleghornboy@juno.com

Persecution Watch

Signs

Nuclear option?

http://www.raidersnewsnetwork.com/full.php?news=3270

In his Encyclical Letter Redemptor Hominis, Pope John Paul II provides us with an excellent definition of Christianity:

Man cannot live without love. He remains a being that is incomprehensible for himself, his life is senseless, if love is not revealed to him, if he does not encounter love, if he does not experience it and make it his own, if he does not participate intimately in it. This, as has already been said, is why Christ the Redeemer "fully reveals man to himself". If we may use the expression, this is the human dimension of the mystery of the Redemption. In this dimension man finds again the greatness, dignity and value that belong to his humanity. In the mystery of the Redemption man becomes newly "expressed" and, in a way, is newly created. He is newly created! "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus." The man who wishes to understand himself thoroughly-and not just in accordance with immediate, partial, often superficial, and even illusory standards and measures of his being-he must with his unrest, uncertainty and even his weakness and sinfulness, with his life and death, draw near to Christ. He must, so to speak, enter into him with all his own self, he must "appropriate" and assimilate the whole of the reality of the Incarnation and Redemption in order to find himself. If this profound process takes place within him, he then bears fruit not only of adoration of God but also of deep wonder at himself. How precious must man be in the eyes of the Creator, if he "gained so great a Redeemer," and if God "gave his only Son "in order that man "should not perish but have eternal life."

In reality, the name for that deep amazement at man's worth and dignity is the Gospel, that is to say: the Good News. It is also called Christianity. This amazement determines the Church's mission in the world and, perhaps even more so,"in the modern world". This amazement, which is also a conviction and a certitude-at its deepest root it is the certainty of faith, but in a hidden and mysterious way it vivifies every aspect of authentic humanism-is closely connected with Christ. It also fixes Christ's place-so to speak, his particular right of citizenship-in the history of man and mankind. Unceasingly contemplating the whole of Christ's mystery, the Church knows with all the certainty of faith that the Redemption that took place through the Cross has definitively restored his dignity to man and given back meaning to his life in the world, a meaning that was lost to a considerable extent because of sin. And for that reason, the Redemption was accomplished in the paschal mystery, leading through the Cross and death to Resurrection." (RH, No. 10).

We are created in the image and likeness of God and have been endowed by nature with the capacities to reason and make free choices. And our dignity as persons is rooted in our relationship to God. Again, in the words of John Paul II: "The dignity of the person is manifested in all its radiance when the person's origin and destiny are considered: created by God in his image and likeness as well as redeemed by the most precious blood of Christ, the person is called to be a 'child in the Son' and a living temple of the Spirit, destined for the eternal life of blessed communion with God....In virtue of his personal dignity the human being is always a value in himself and for himself, and as such demands being considered and treated as a person and never as an object to be used, or as a means, or as a thing." (Christifideles laici, No. 37).

This phrase "child in the Son" points to Christianity's special basis for affirming the dignity of every human being. A dignity which St. Paul explains in Galatians 3: 26, 28: "In Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith....There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male or female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus."

Every human person is created in the image and likeness of God and as such is endowed with dignity. But this dignity also implies a responsibility: to seek religious truth, embrace it once it is found, and to live in accord with it - see Dignitatis humanae, No. 2 and Catechism of the Catholic Church, Nos. 2104-2109.

God loves each and every human person unconditionally. But being loved by God is not enough to be in friendship with Him because friendship is mutual love. Therefore, our first and greatest responsibility is to love God (see Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1822).

We will never fully appreciate God's love for us. It is an inexhaustible mystery. However, the choice is ours as to how to respond to that love. St. Louis de Montfort explains in his work Love of Eternal Wisdom:

"..in order to draw closer to men and give them a more convincing proof of his love, eternal Wisdom went so far as to become man, even to become a little child, to embrace poverty and to die upon a cross for them. How many times while here on earth could he be heard pleading, "Come to me, come to me, all of you. Do not be afraid, it is I. Why are you afraid? I am just like you; I love you. Are you afraid because you are sinners? But they are the very ones I am looking for; I am the friend of sinners. If it is because you have strayed from the fold through your own fault, then I am the good shepherd. If it is because you are weighted down with sin, covered with grime and utterly dejected, then that is just why you should come to me for I will unburden you, purify you and console you."

Eternal Wisdom, on the one hand, wished to prove his love for man by dying in his place in order to save him, but on the other hand, he could not bear the thought of leaving him. So he devised a marvellous way of dying and living at the same time, and of abiding with man until the end of time. So, in order fully to satisfy his love, he instituted the sacrament of Holy Eucharist and went to the extent of changing and overturning nature itself. He does not conceal himself under a sparkling diamond or some other precious stone, because he does not want to abide with man in an ostentatious manner. But he hides himself under the appearance of a small piece of bread - man's ordinary nourishment - so that when received he might enter the heart of man and there take his delight. Ardenter amantium hoc est - Those who love ardently act in this way. "O eternal Wisdom," says a saint, "O God who is truly lavish with himself in his desire to be with man."

[ The ingratitude of those who refuse]

How ungrateful and insensitive we would be if we were not moved by the earnest desire of eternal Wisdom, his eagerness to seek us out and the proofs he gives us of his friendship! How cruel we would be, what punishment would we not deserve even in this world, if, instead of listening to him, we turn a deaf ear; if, instead of loving him, we spurn and offend him. The Holy Spirit tells us, "Those who neglected to acquire Wisdom not only inherited ignorance of what is good, but they actually left in the world a memorial of their folly in that their sins could not go unnoticed" (Wisd. 10:8). Those who during their lifetime do not strive to acquire Wisdom suffer a triple misfortune. They fall (a) into ignorance and blindness, (b) into folly, (c) into sin and scandal. But how unhappy they will be at the door of death when, despite themselves, they hear Wisdom reproach them, "I called you and you did not answer (Prov. 1:24). All the day long I held out my hands to you and you spurned me. Sitting at your door, I waited for you but you did not come to me. Now it is my turn to deride you (Prov. 1:26). No longer do I have ears to hear you weeping, eyes to see your tears, a heart to be moved by your sobs, or hands to help you." How great will be their misery in hell! Read what the Holy Spirit himself has to say about the miseries, the wailings, the regrets and the despair of the fools in hell who, all too late, realise their folly and misfortune in rejecting the eternal Wisdom of God. "They are now beginning to speak sensibly - but they are in hell" (Wisd. 5:14). (LEW, Nos 70-72).

Papal Preacher: Antichrist may already be among us

In his classic work entitled "Trojan Horse in the City of God," Dr. Dietrich von Hildebrand (whom Pope Pius XII referred to as the 20th Century Doctor of the Church) had this to say:


"Because an antipathy to the condemnation of secular 'orthodoxies' and religious deviations characterizes the mentality of our time, it is necessary to emphasize that the call of the hour, the opportunity presented to the apostolate of the Church in a particular moment in history, implies not only the exploitation of the positive elements of an epoch, but also the unequivocal condemnation of the errors and evil trends. Condemnation and the unmasking of errors is widely seen today as something hostile to love. No longer understood is the basic principle enunciated by St. Augustine - interficere errorem, diligere errantem (kill the error, love the one who errs).

It is assumed that these two actions contradict one another, when in fact love necessarily requires the killing of error....it is precisely the Church's ultimate love for all human beings that calls for the condemnation of error and..these condemnations are an essential response to the call of he hour." (Trojan Horse in the City of God, p. 78, Sophia Institute Press).

The reign of Antichrist is almost upon us. Those who insist upon killing error (while loving the one in error) will no longer be tolerated by a Dictatorship of Relativism which seeks to pave the way for the Man of Sin and to enslave all in an ideology rooted in Hell.