In his Encyclical Letter Ingravescentibus malis, Pope Pius XI insisted that, "Among the various public prayers which we successfully address to the Virgin Mother of God the Holy Rosary occupies a particular and distinct place. In the time of the Crusades one voice, one single supplication arose from all people throughout Europe. See here. Today also, the people must seek by their insistent entreaties to obtain from the powerful Mother of God that the enemies of Christianity and human civilization be deterred, and that true peace may shine upon tired and disturbed men."
If this be true - and it most certainly is - why are our ""shepherds" (for the most part) today in the Catholic Church remaining silent about the efficacy of this most powerful spiritual weapon? Could it be that many of these clerics are simply anxious to provide cover for the supporters of Satan and their crusade against Christ's Church?
The Universal Living Rosary Association (of which I am proudly a member), in their booklet on Father Mateo's Rosary Meditation, reminds us that, "The Heresy of Worldliness chiefly among the well-to-do and the ruling classes is this: Drink, dance, enjoy yourself, drain the cup of all the illicit pleasures and so make life a carnival and one unending round of pleasure without the least concern about death, judgment and eternity! The worldling lives or rather vegetates in a noisome swamp. And, all the while, in the somber underground, devious plots are being woven by secret societies to hold the Church in check, and to counteract Her work through secularized legislation.....The paganized laws of divorce, of the godless school, the secularized state, all tending towards the official ostracism of God and His Christ - all these laws have been nurtured by the modern Sanhedrin of the Masonic associations. It was the great Pope Leo XIII who wrote the famous encyclicals on the Rosary, ordered the three Hail Marys and the prayer to St. Michael to be said after Mass because he has explicitly in mind these Lodges and their vicious propaganda. Masonic groups have been solemnly condemned by nine Sovereign Pontiffs under the gravest censures!"
The Rosary Crusade against Satan and his followers is one of pity and mercy for sinners. It aims at the conversion of these poor lost souls. The Rosary, as the ULRA remins us, "..had its origin on the field of battle. It was raised as a fortified wall around the City of God to protect it from invasion by heresies."
Could this be why so many priests today refuse to preach on the Rosary or to encourage its devotion? In order that the Trojan Horse of Heresy may all the more easily infiltrate into that Holy City?
I have always viewed the sling which David used to slay Goliath as a harbinger, a sort of figure or sign pointing to the Holy Rosary which would be given to the faithful by Our Lady and by which they would “crush the head of Satan” – “the very seat of his pride” as Saint Louis de Montfort puts it. We read in 1 Samuel 17:
“With his shield-bearer marching before him, the Philistine also advanced closer and closer to David. When he had sized David up, and seen that he was youthful and ruddy, and handsome in appearance, he held him in contempt. The Philistine said to David, ‘Am I a dog that you come against me with a staff?’ Then the Philistine cursed David by his gods and said to him, ‘Come here to me, and I will leave your flesh for the birds of the air and the beasts of the field.’ David answered him: ‘You come against me with sword and spear and scimitar, but I come against you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel that you have insulted. Today the Lord shall deliver you into my hand; I will strike you down and cut off your head. This very day I will leave your corpse and the corpses of the Philistine army for the birds of the air and the beasts of the field; thus the whole land shall learn that Israel has a God. All this multitude, too, shall learn that it is not by sword or spear that the Lord saves. For the battle is the Lord’s, and he shall deliver you into our hands’…David put his hand into the bag and took out a stone, hurled it with the sling, and struck the Philistine on the forehead. The stone embedded itself in his brow, and he fell prostrate on the ground. Thus David overcame the Philistine with sling and stone..” (1 Samuel 17: 41-47, 49-50).
The Devil is the adversary of faithful Christians. And, like Goliath, he seems to cast a big shadow. But when we approach him on the battlefield [“For our struggle is not with flesh and blood but with the principalities, with the powers, with the world rulers of this present darkness, with the evil spirits in the heavens,” Eph 6:12] we have our own sling as a weapon – the Holy Rosary. And every bead, every Hail Mary prayerfully recited, is hurled as a weapon against the Devil’s head, the seat of his pride. Therefore, Montfort exhorts us, “So arm yourself with the arms of God, with the holy Rosary, and you will crush the devil’s head and stand firm in the face of all his temptations. That is why even a pair of rosary beads is so terrible to the devil, and why the saints have used them to fetter him and drive him from the bodies of those who were possessed.” (The Secret of the Holy Rosary, 85).
Related reading here.
I have personally witnessed priests who discouraged the Rosary. Such as Father Andre Dargis, an Assumptionist priest.
ReplyDeleteFrom St. Louis de Montfort's Secret of the Rosary:
Ninth Rose
Enemies
It is very wicked indeed and unfair to other souls to hinder the progress of the Confraternity of the Holy Rosary. Almighty God has severely punished many of those who have been so benighted as to scorn the Confraternity and who have sought to destroy it.
Even though God has set His seal of approval on the Holy Rosary by many miracles, and in spite of the Papal Bulls that have been written approving it, there are only too many people who are against the Holy Rosary today. These freethinkers and those who scorn religion either condemn the Rosary or try to turn others away from it.
It is easy to see that they have absorbed the poison of hell and that they are inspired by the devil - for nobody can condemn devotion to the Holy Rosary without condemning all that is most holy in the Catholic Faith, such as the Lord's Prayer, the Angelic Salutation and the mysteries of the life, death, and glory of Jesus Christ and of His Holy Mother.
These freethinkers who cannot bear others to say the Rosary often fall into a really heretical state of mind without even realizing it and some to hate the Rosary and its holy mysteries.
To have a loathing for confraternities is to fall away from God and true piety, for Our Lord Himself has told us that He is always in the midst of those who are gathered together in His name. No good Catholic should forget the many great indulgences which Holy Mother Church has granted to Confraternities. Finally, to dissuade others from joining the Rosary Confraternity is to be an enemy of souls because the Rosary is a sure means of curing oneself of sin and of embracing a Christian Life.
Saint Bonaventure said (in his Psalter) that whoever neglected Our Lady would perish in his sins and would be damned: "He who neglects her will die in his sins." If such is the penalty for neglecting her, what must be the punishment in store for those who actually turn others away from their devotions!
Edward Sri, in his book about the Rosary, tells one particularly sad tale:
ReplyDeleteHe was praying the Rosary one day in a church- he was dressed up in a suit and tie- and an old woman came up to him and told him that she was happy to see someone who was obviously intelligent praying the Rosary. When he asked her why, she said it was because a priest had told her that only ignorant old people prayed the Rosary anymore.
Very sad.
I have a quick question that you might be the one to help me with-
You mentioned the prayer of Pope Leo XIII. Can you direct me to a good version of the entire prayer that used to be said after low Masses? I've looked, but the ones I found came from sedevacantists sites, and I'd rather it be a good orthodox, and faithful Catholic resource, to make sure I'm not sucked into something I shouldn't be.
Thanks again for this blog and all you do Paul, and God Bless you always!
~Steven
Thanks for the kind note Steven. Pope Leo XIII's prayer may be found here:
ReplyDeletehttp://lasalettejourney.
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I'm quite capable of thinking for myself, thank you!
ReplyDeleteThink of the Cathars who were killed by the Inquisition pigs! Sure, the Cathars were screwballs too, but murdering them in cold blood??
You think that's OK, Paul??
Religion gone amok; it poisons everything!
Just my opinion!
Joseph, you are going to have to do much better than that! Apparently you CANNOT think for yourself:
ReplyDeleteTHE INQUISITION
Fr. William G. Most
This topic is a favorite for attacking the Church. We need to remember two things: 1) Actions are not the same as teachings. The fact that the Church had some abuses is clear. But as on slavery, the Church very early condemned it, repeated it twice more. Yet even churchmen had slaves. So did George Washington. This does not mean the teaching of the Church changed: only laxity on all sides. We think of the putting off of baptism in first centuries. St. Jerome was adult when baptized. St. Basil the Great, coming from a family with several saints in it, was not baptized until about age 26. Today polls show at least 90% of Catholics practice contraception.
2)The abuses were much less than most people think. For a good account see Warren Carroll, The Glory of Christendom (part of a seven volume series—the data below is from his work) on the Inquisition, and on sad abuses by the Popes in the Middle Ages. Further all governments of Europe around this period severely punished heresy. In England, the offender, often a Catholic priest who had merely said Mass, was hanged, drawn and quartered while still alive.
In France and Spain especially, the Cathar heretics were a danger not just to the Church, but to the state, and to all. In 1229 a council at Toulouse required that everyone in Languedoc, where most of the Cathars were, to take an oath and renew it every other year, to remain a good Catholic, and to denounce heretics. But Cardinal Frangipani heard testimony from a former Cathar, William of Solier, who said that to make such names public would endanger the lives of the informants. Out of this grew the Inquisition, established by Pope Gregory IX in 1233 to be staffed by Dominicans. The Cathars then were as dangerous as terrorists today, and brought fear, cruelty, bloodshed and war wherever they had sufficient numbers. In southern France it took the full armed power of the King of France to overcome them.
But then they went underground. Persons accused by the Inquisition were not allowed to know the accusers, to protect the accusers—this sort of thing happens in protection of witnesses in U. S. courts today. But the person arrested was to make a list of his personal enemies and none of their testimony would be used against him. What modern court allows such a thing? Torture was used, but quite infrequent, and not lasting in its effects. In the 50 years of the operation there were no more than 5000 executions, which was small in comparison to the total executed for other crimes in the same period. Some Inquisitors did abuse their power, but they were promptly and strongly curbed by Pope Gregory IX. In 1242 the Cathars murdered ten of the Inquisitors....
As to the Spanish episode, the Turks in 1480 attacked the south Italian city of Otranto. 12, 000 people were killed, the rest made slaves. The sacred book of Islam does call for killing all "infidels" (The Koran says: When ye encounter unbelievers, strike off their heads until ye have made a great slaughter among them, and bind them in bonds. . . ."—cited from B. Palmer, Understanding the Islamic Explosion, Horizon Books, 1980, p. 36). The Turks killed every cleric in the city and sawed the archbishop in two. So Queen Isabel sent a fleet to Italy. In September of 1480, when it was clear the Turks might do the same to any coastal city, Isabel established the Inquisition. It dealt with the special problem of those who pretended to become Christian, but were not really converted, and might open the gates of the city to the Turks.
ReplyDeleteTorture was used only occasionally and it was the government that inflicted that and death, after the Inquisition turned them over. The Inquisition had no authority over practicing Jews and Moslems, only over professed Christians suspected of being fakes. After the appointment of Tomas de Torquemada as Inquisitor General in 1483 its tribunals were so fair that many preferred to have it hear their cases rather than the regular courts. Again, those questioned could not see their accusers, but could make a list of their enemies, and all testimony from them was discarded.
We must remember again that every government in Europe punished treason and heresy by painful death. Yes, the Inquisition is to be blamed for some things, but not as badly as the legend says.