The supernatural principle will be preserved only by those who cling to the divine essence in prayer...

Today, a growing army of lost souls - the children of Belial - are feverishly preparing a world which will be ready and eager to accept the reign of Antichrist, a rule which will be thoroughly saturated with witchcraft and occultism, a demon-state where daily libations of human bodies and blood will be offered in satanic worship to placate the Man-God and his master Satan.  Under the banner of a political and militarily organized atheism, this army of secular and occult humanists are uniting to deny the true God and His plan for humanity.

Only those who remain faithful to prayer will persevere to the end.  This explains why so many who once professed the Christian faith have now abandoned the faith altogether or remain in the Church only in a bodily manner (see Lumen Gentium, No. 14).

Father Livio Fanzaga reminds us that, "Prayer is another fundamental weapon for the great battle of the end times. When man will glorify himself and proclaim the Antichrist as God made man, the supernatural principle will be preserved only by those who cling to the divine presence in prayer.  These will 'experience' God, His existence, lordship, power and glory.  In the time of Antichrist, the power of suggestion will cloud reason.  Only those who intimately experience the supernatural in prayer will have the strength to acknowledge God's existence, despite the apparent evidence to the contrary...in an era marked by the seduction of the heart, of a general obscuring of the mind, and of the folly of reason, only those who have had a strong experience of God in prayer will preserve the faith.  In that supernatural experience the faith will be conserved and you will conform to it.  If you look to the sun and see the light, even if man denies the existence of the sun, what can you say?  Having seen the sun you will not vacillate in the faith.  You will be a rock in the waves of the sea." (Wrath of God: The Days of the Antichrist, pp. 149, 150).

Romano Guardini, in his classic work entitled The Lord, warns us that the Antichrist's arguments, "will be so impressive, supported by means of such tremendous power - violent and diplomatic, material and intellectual - that to reject them will result in almost insurmountable scandal, and everyone whose eyes are not opened by grace will be lost." (p. 513).

We pray because we love the Lord Jesus and desire to have an intimate relationship with Him.  Our prayer is rooted in love.  And this love will preserve us from the Man of Sin (even if we lose our bodies to martyrdom).  This is the love that has made the martyrs, virgins, apostles and all the saints.  St. Paul assures us that because of this love, "Neither death, nor life, nor angels...nor things present, nor things to come, nor might...nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus Our Lord." (Romans 8: 35).

In my last post, I quoted Marian Horvat, referring to Francis' Apostolic Constitution Vultum Dei Quaerere, which she correctly observes, "effectively asks all contemplative women to embrace the social agenda of the post-conciliar Popes, which eschews prayer for conversion to the Catholic Faith and the primary goal of contemplative life in the past: becoming victim souls to appease the just anger of Our Lord for the sins of individuals and nations...

A new signpost is erected: to offer “intercessory prayer for prisoners, migrants, refugees and victims of persecution.” These intercessory prayers must also extend to the unemployed, the poor, sick, drug addicts, AIDS victims and others in such “urgent” situations. That is to say, the contemplative sisters are to change their focus from prayer for conversion and salvation of souls to prayer for the social well-being and health of bodies. (n. 16)

Persevere in prayer and in fidelity to the Lord Jesus. Dark days are ahead. Soon, all will appear to be lost.  For the Church, like her Master, must pass through Calvary.  Soon, the Mass will be suppressed.  Blood will flow in the streets. But afterward will come Resurrection.  And then, finally, the world will burst into flower.

Terence Weldon's "Queering the Church" Website Continues to Blaspheme Against Christ

At his latest Blog post, radical homosexual activist and propagandist Terence Weldon insists that he is not guilty of blasphemy.  An individual purporting to be a Catholic priest and calling himself smply "FrJohnQ," left a comment at this post defending Mr. Weldon while criticizing me.  He writes:

"What's really telling to me about the attack on Terence as a 'blasphemer' is the definition of blasphemy that Paul Anthony Melanson uses: 'It consists in uttering against God...words of hatred, reproach, or defiance; in speaking ill of God; in failing in respect toward him in one's speech; in misusing God's name' (Catholic Catechism). Melanson assumes that by speculating that Jesus might have had a same-sex inclination Terence is being hateful, reproachful, and disrespectful toward God. My question is: Why? Why is it hateful to suggest that Jesus might have been what we now term "gay"? Why is it disrespectful? It's only so if you believe that being gay is a bad thing. Terence clearly does not, and neither do I, and neither, frankly, does God.

In my own prayer life I have a sense of a Jesus who was not gay, but perhaps this is simply a failure of my own imagination. Jesus was, as Terence points out, fully human; this means that he was (and is) a sexual being and that he loved, though selflessly. To make Jesus sexless is to deny his humanity. In any case, if someone labels me as gay--which I am--I do not take this as a gesture of disrespect, hatred, or reproach. I take it as an accurate estimation and as a compliment.

Why would God be offended by being associated with gay people? He socialized during his time on earth with others seen by many as outcast and inferior--prostitutes, tax collectors, etc. Would he not now sit down for a fabulous banquet with the gays? Why not? God loves us."

Now, I never said that Jesus would not associate with persons who suffer from a homosexual inclination.  So "Father John Q" is being dishonest here.  But it is blasphemous to suggest that Jesus may have been a homosexual.  One would think that a Catholic priest (if this individual is indeed a Catholic priest) would understand that.

Let's let Fr. Kenneth Baker, S.J., explain: "Our Lord Jesus Christ is both God and man.  The union of his human nature and his divine nature is effected in the Person of the Word, the second Person of the Blessed Trinity.  Because of the Hypostatic Union, Christ's human nature is said to be substantially holy.  The reason for this is that the Word of God, who is uncreated holiness itself, imparts a special holiness to his own created human nature.  Since the relationship between Jesus' human nature and the Word of God is in the substantial order by virtue of the Hypostatic Union, then it is legitimate to say that his humanity is endowed with substantial sanctity or holiness.  For, it is impossible to have a more intimate union between a creature and God than the Hypostatic Union in Jesus Christ.  A suggestion of Jesus' substantial holiness is given in Luke 1:35, 'And so the child will be holy and will be called Son of God.'..

In addition to the special 'grace of union,' as the above is called, Christ's soul is also holy by reason of the fullness of sanctifying grace with which it is endowed.  By 'sanctifying grace' here is meant the created habitual grace that inheres in the soul of the justified.  Jesus possesses the fullness of that grace.  Thus Pope Pius XII said in his encyclical letter on the Mystical Body in 1943: 'In Him (Christ) dwells the Holy Spirit with such a fullness of grace that greater cannot be conceived.'  Basing their opinion on the Gospel of St. John, all theologians ascribe sanctifying grace in its fullness to the human soul of Christ: 'And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us...full of grace and truth....And of his fullness we have all received, grace for grace' (John 1: 14, 16).  In Acts 10: 38 we read that 'God annointed him with the Holy Spirit'; in St. Luke we find that Jesus was 'filled with the Holy Spirit' (4: 1); he also quoted Isaiah and said, 'The spirit of the Lord has been given to me, for he has annointed me.' (4: 18).

St. Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theologica III, q. 7, art. I), bases the sanctification of Jesus' humanity through sanctifying grace on three facts: 1) on the Hypostatic Union which demands the fullness of grace in Christ's soul according to the principle, 'The nearer an effect is to its cause, the more it partakes of its influence';  2) on the nobility of Christ's soul which enjoys the immediate  vision of God;  3)  on the relationship of Christ to all men since he is the Head and source of their grace." (Fundamentals of Catholicism, Volume II, pp. 260-261).

The Council of Constantinople II condemned those who defended the impious Theodore of Mopsuestia who asserted that Christ "was troubled by the sufferings of the soul and the longings of the flesh" and declared such people anathema (excommunicated).  To suggest that Jesus may have had a homosexual inclination is blasphemy because Jesus is perfect in both His natures - divine and human, He is the Head and source of all grace.  The Magisterium of the Church teaches authoritatively that, "Although the particular inclination of the homosexual person is not a sin, it is a more or less strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil; and thus the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder." (Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons, No. 3).

Deacon Nick Donnelly has noted in one of his Blog posts over at Protect the Pope that Mr. Weldon is an Extraordinary Minister of the Eucharist.  Now an individual purporting to be a Catholic priest is standing with him in blaspheming against the Lord Jesus.

The Bishops need to address this most serious matter immediately.

"....hated by the world..."

It was Archbishop Fulton John Sheen who once said, "The acceptance of the fullness of Truth will have the unfortunate quality of making you hated by the world. Forget for a moment the history of Christianity, and the fact that Christ existed. Suppose there appeared in this world today a man who claimed to be Divine Truth; and who did not say, 'I will teach you Truth,' but 'I am the Truth.' Suppose he gave evidence by his works of the truth of his statement. Knowing ourselves as we do, with our tendency to relativism, to indifference, and to the fusing of right and wrong, how do you suppose we would react to that Divine Truth? With hatred, with obloquy, with defiance; with charges of intolerance, narrow-mindedness, bigotry, and crucifixion. That is what happened to Christ. That is what our Lord said would happen to those who accept His Truth."

We have only to meditate upon the Fifteenth Chapter of the Gospel of John, verses 18-19.

Have you ever noticed how worldly people achieve great fame and success and are entirely welcomed by others but that those who give themselves entirely to God meet with only resistance and persecution? St. Alphonsus de Liguori said that, "As soon as souls give themselves completely to God, God Himself causes or permits others to despise and persecute them." As Archbishop Oscar Romero, the martyred Archbishop of San Salvador, said: "A preaching that does not point out sin is not the preaching of the gospel. A preaching that makes sinners feel good so that they become entrenched in their sinful state, betrays the gospel's call. A preaching that does not discomfit sinners but lulls them in their sin leaves Zebulun and Naphtali in the shadow of death. A preaching that awakens, a preaching that enlightens -- as when a light turned on awakens and of course annoys a sleeper -- that is the preaching of Christ, calling, "wake up! Be converted!" this is the church's authentic preaching. Naturally, such preaching must meet conflict, must spoil what is miscalled prestige, must disturb, must be persecuted. It cannot get along with the powers of darkness and sin."

I have experienced and continue to experience this hatred, this persecution within my own Diocese. At St. Joseph's Parish in Fitchburg, I was treated with a contempt which was palpable. This is the cost of authentic discipleship.

Related reading here.