Vatican probes Francis

 

Our culture - and this includes large segments of the Church - has succumbed to satanic pride. As the sexual abuse crisis explodes throughout the Church, as errors cripple the Mystical Body of Christ, as the Culture of Sodomy continues to metastasize like a cancer, officials in the Church hold committee meetings and form panels and conduct studies. All in the vain hope of solving these problems themselves. Pride.

What then is the solution? It is right before our eyes. But it is so simple the proud of this world are not capable of seeing it:

Satan,

proud-winged!

Bold and brazen,

Crushed by

Simple

Sandalled Maiden!

It was Saint Louis de Montfort who explained that, "Mary must become as terrible as an army in battle array to the devil and his followers, especially in these latter times. For Satan, knowing that he has little time - even less now than ever - to destroy souls, intensifies his efforts and his onslaughts every day. He will not hesitate to stir up savage persecutions and set treacherous snares for Mary's faithful servants and children whom he finds more difficult to overcome than others.

It is chiefly in reference to these last wicked persecutions of the devil, daily increasing until the advent of the reign of anti- Christ, that we should understand that first and well-known prophecy and curse of God uttered against the serpent in the garden of paradise. It is opportune to explain it here for the glory of the Blessed Virgin, the salvation of her children and the confusion of the devil. "I will place enmities between you and the woman, between your race and her race; she will crush your head and you will lie in wait for her heel" (Gen. 3:15).

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.

Thus the most fearful enemy that God has set up against the devil is Mary, his holy Mother. From the time of the earthly paradise, although she existed then only in his mind, he gave her such a hatred for his accursed enemy, such ingenuity in exposing the wickedness of the ancient serpent and such power to defeat, overthrow and crush this proud rebel, that Satan fears her not only more than angels and men but in a certain sense more than God himself. This does not mean that the anger, hatred and power of God are not infinitely greater than the Blessed Virgin's, since her attributes are limited. It simply means that Satan, being so proud, suffers infinitely more in being vanquished and punished by a lowly and humble servant of God, for her humility humiliates him more than the power of God. Moreover, God has given Mary such great power over the evil spirits that, as they have often been forced unwillingly to admit through the lips of possessed persons, they fear one of her pleadings for a soul more than the prayers of all the saints, and one of her threats more than all their other torments.

What Lucifer lost by pride Mary won by humility. What Eve ruined and lost by disobedience Mary saved by obedience. By obeying the serpent, Eve ruined her children as well as herself and delivered them up to him. Mary by her perfect fidelity to God saved her children with herself and consecrated them to his divine majesty.

God has established not just one enmity but "enmities", and not only between Mary and Satan but between her race and his race. That is, God has put enmities, antipathies and hatreds between the true children and servants of the Blessed Virgin and the children and slaves of the devil. They have no love and no sympathy for each other. 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 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.

But 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." (True Devotion to Mary, 50-54).

Pope John XXIII looked forward to a New Pentecost and Pope John Paul II spoke of a new Civilization of Love. And we shall have these. Even if they do not occur in the manner most people expect. In many places a cleansing, a purification is needed in individual temples before the Holy Spirit will enter with His Bride. We read in the Gospel of Matthew how, "Jesus entered the temple area and drove out all those engaged in selling and buying there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who were selling doves. And he said to them, 'It is written: My house shall be a house of prayer, but you are making it a den of thieves.'" (21: 12, 13).

And what is our soul but His temple? Have we made His house a house of prayer? Or have we succumbed to lust, materialism and pride and made His house a den of thieves who have no place there? We have to become Marian. We have to become Mary-like before Christ is reborn again in our modern world through the power of the Holy Spirit.

There will indeed be a New Pentecost in the hearts of men and a Civilization of Love which will endure forever. But only after the Church has been purified through Calvary:

"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." (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 675).

Satan's goal is to make a physical and spiritual wreckage of all God's creation. To accomplish this, he enlists men through the lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes and pride of life. And isn't this what we've witnessed even in the Church? Priests - ministers of the Living God - who have become so arrogant, so puffed up with pride, that they came to view even innocent children as objects to be used for their own sexual gratification and a laity which has also [for the most part] lost the sense of sin and no longer feels a need to confess and live a truly sacramental life.

Pride has brought the Church to her present state. We must become more Mary-like. We don't need more committee meetings, panels, studies, seminars and countless "experts" - men and women with a string of letters after their names but lacking wisdom - to bring us back to sanity. They are not up to the task. If a blind man lead another blind man, both end up in a ditch.

We need holy men and women who are on fire for the Lord Jesus and who recognize their poverty, their smallness. What we need is children of Mary - the same children (despised by this proud world) whom Saint Louis de Montfort says, "..will become, in Mary's powerful hands, like sharp arrows, with which she will transfix her enemies." (True Devotion, No. 56), It is such prayer-warriors who "..will be like thunder-clouds flying through the air at the slightest breath of the Holy Spirit. Attached to nothing, surprised at nothing, troubled at nothing, they will shower down the rain of God's word and of eternal life. They will thunder against sin, they will storm against the world, they will strike down the devil and his followers and for life and for death, they will pierce through and through with the two-edged sword of God's word all those against whom they are sent by almighty God." (True Devotion, No. 57)..

This isn't a time for hand-wringing. Neither is it a time to look to so-called "experts," intellectual frauds who rely on their own intelligence. Fools. Now is the time to have recourse to Mary. The victory has been promised to the simple sandalled maiden. This is something the proud cannot understand or accept. Our Lady will crush the Devil's head - the seat of his intellect - and she will accomplish this without an academic degree or countless meetings. She will accomplish what the proud cannot. And she will do this through her children, her heel, those little souls consecrated to her.

If we will not have Christ, we will have chaos

An editorial in The New York Post:


"In yet another sign that idealistic protests have given way to mindless destruction, vandals over the weekend targeted two statues of … the Virgin Mary.

It was graffiti in Elmhurst, Queens: 'IDOL' spray-painted across her skirt in the early morning outside the Cathedral Preparatory School and Seminary on 92nd Street.

And arson in Dorchester, Mass.: a statue outside of Saint Peter’s Parish damaged by burns to the face, hands and arms. Fr. John Currie, the pastor, was 'disappointed' by the desecration, noting, 'Our image of our lady is so important to us in our faith.'

Maybe these are simply anti-Catholic bigots who figure they might as well join in on the attacks against monuments.

Maybe the perps pretend they’re somehow forwarding the Black Lives Matter message — after all, BLM thinker Shaun King recently said that images depicting Jesus as a 'white European' should be torn down as forms of 'white supremacy' and 'racist propaganda.'

Whoever’s behind it, it shows that mob rule leads straight to madness."

But the protests we've been subjected to were never "idealistic" expressions of moral outrage.  But rather the immature and hate-filled rage of angry haters of God, His Commandments and His order.

The violence we are witnessing across America today is rooted in hatred of truth.  Today there is a demand for sex without love, for a licentiousness in sex which has wrought a heartless society in which individuals do not care for anyone but themselves. The fruit of this demonic theology is the slaughter through abortion and euthanasia of human beings created in the Imago Dei. It is a theology of violence which is rooted in hatred of truth. For at the heart of immorality is falsity, the hatred of truth.

Fr. Vincent P. Miceli, in an essay entitled "The Taproot of Violence," explains: "...violence entered creation from the rebellion of Lucifer. This rebellion arose from the heart of pride. But the sin of pride is the offspring of the vice known as hatred of truth. Hatred of truth is the result of the creature's attempt to rearrange God's hierarchy of beings and values into an order which the creature prefers to the plan of God. This attempt immediately produces the violence of disorder, the chaos of falsity and immorality. For hatred of truth is really hatred of God who creates all things wisely and governs them lovingly. Lucifer, the Morning Star, was instantly deformed into the Prince of Darkness because he attempted to live a lie. He wanted to dethrone God and become God himself..."

We live in an environment where there is a "violence of disorder" because we have abandoned truth.  And hatred of truth leads to violence.  It is the very root of violence.  Jesus said to the Pharisees, "If God were your Father, you would love me, for I proceeded and came forth from God; I came not of my own account, but he sent me.  Why do you not understand what I say?  It is because you cannot bear to hear my word.  You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires.  He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him.  When he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.  But, because I tell the truth, you do not believe me." (John 8: 42-45).

It is rejection of truth which leads to violence.  And so we read in verse 59 of the same Chapter, "So they took up stones to throw at him; but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple."  If there is exaggerated rhetoric and violence across our society, it is because many have rejected God's created order.

But there is a consequence to this rejection of truth.  As Dorothy Sayers reminded us, if we will not have Christ, we will have chaos.

"Pope" Francis: All the Saints who invoked Mary as Co-Redemptrix were foolish

Spirit Daily reports:

"...Francis appeared to flatly reject proposals in some theological circles to add 'co-redemptrix' to the list of titles of the Virgin Mary, saying the mother of Jesus never took anything that belonged to her Son, and calling the invention of new titles and dogmas 'foolishness.'"

With attacks against the Catholic Church increasing from both within and without, now more than ever the remnant faithful need to pray and work for the Church to solemnly declare that our Blessed Mother is Coredemptrix, Mediatrix and Advocate.

It's not surprising that Francis, presiding over a sodomite cabal within the Vatican, would oppose the title of Mary Co-Redemptrix.  For an infallible definition of these three roles of Mary will unleash graces on the world such as one cannot imagine.

It was Saint Maximilian Kolbe, priest and martyr, prophet pointing the way to a new civilization of love, who said (in the early 1940s, before the Nazis put him to death):

"In the Catholic Church they have not yet officially declared in public as certain belief that the Immaculata is the Mediatrix of all Graces. But it is a certain truth. It has been well known from the time of the advent of Christians....But when the faithful voice a desire requesting to admit it as a public belief, the Church must verify this truth and declare it....The source of all graces is God. Everything begins in God. But the graces given to human beings are not given directly from God but through Mary. If you have time to discuss or debate the issue, you should rather pray more. Holy Mary will be pleased if we pray for the early announcement that she is the Mediatrix of all Graces."

There are graces which Our Lady wants to give us but will not be able to until the Church infallibly defines her as Coredemptrix, Mediatrix and Advocate. What better time to do so than the present hour when the Church finds herself under vicious attack and the demonic tyranny of a sodomites cabal?

Perhaps we should all listen to Saint Kolbe and "pray more" for such an announcement?

What the modernistic Francis views as "foolishness" - the worldly always view Holy things as "foolish" - the Saints have not.

In an article entitled, "Mary Co-redemptrix: A Dogmatic Crowning for the Queen?" Dr. Mark Miravalle made this point writing:

"What do St. Padre Pio, St. Francis Xavier Cabrini, St. Gemma Galgani, St. Maximilian Kolbe, St. Leopold Mandic, St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, St. Jose Maria Escrivà, Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, Servant of God, John Paul II, and Sr. Lucia of Fatima all have in common (beyond their eminent sanctity as witnessed by the twentieth century)? They all repeatedly invoked Our Lady as the “Co-redemptrix” and taught the doctrine of Marian coredemption concerning Mary’s unparalleled role with and under Jesus Christ in the Redemption of the human family.

One of the greatest examples of Catholic development of doctrine is visible with the historical unfolding of Marian dogma. Like a small acorn which grows over years into a towering oak tree, the divinely planted seeds of Scripture regarding Mary have grown under the nurturing of the Holy Spirit into solemnly declared dogmas of faith, which constitute the highest form of recognized Catholic truth.

In 431, the Council of Ephesus solemnly declares Mary the Mother of God, or literally the “God-bearer” (Theotokos) in the midst of the Nestorian controversy over the nature and person of Christ.[1] Two centuries later (649), Pope Martin I declares the “Perpetual Virginity” of Our Lady, that she was virginal before, during, and after the birth of Jesus Christ.[2]

A span of over a thousand years passes before the next Marian dogma is proclaimed with the solemn papal definition of the Immaculate Conception (1854) by Bl. Pope Pius IX, whereby the Holy Father exercises the charism of papal infallibility to pronounce that from the moment of Mary’s conception, she is free from original sin and full of grace.[3] A century later, Venerable Pope Pius XII again exercises papal infallibility by solemnly defining the Assumption of Mary (1950), that at the end of earthly life, the Mother of Jesus was taken body and soul into heavenly glory.[4]

The present four Marian dogmas identify the principal prerogatives of the Blessed Virgin Mary during her earthly life and in relation to her Divine Son. But the sublime tasks assigned by the Holy Trinity to the Virgin Mother do not cease there. Mary received a fifth role with specific relation to the human race, which was declared first by her Crucified Son as his final gift to humanity before his redemptive death: “Woman, behold your Son!…Behold, your Mother!” (Jn. 19:25-27).

Not only is Mary Mother of God made man, the Perpetual Virgin of Virgins, the Immaculate Conception, and the Assumed One, she is also the Spiritual Mother of all peoples and all nations. As the Second Vatican Council teaches: “Taken up into heaven, she did not lay aside this saving office, but by her manifold intercession continues to bring us the gifts of eternal salvation… Therefore the Blessed Virgin is invoked in the Church under the titles of Advocate, Helper, Benefactress, and Mediatrix” (Lumen Gentium, 62).

As Spiritual Mother of all humanity, Our Lady exercises three maternal functions on behalf of her earthly children. She is a “Mother suffering” or “Co-redemptrix.” The prefix “co” does not mean equal but “with,” as exemplified in St. Paul’s call for all Christians to be “co-workers with God” (1 Cor. 3:9). Mary cooperated “with Jesus” in ways unlike any other human or angelic creature, by her shared suffering with Him in the work of redemption. Vatican II again reminds us that the Blessed Virgin “faithfully persevered in union with her Son unto the cross, where she stood, in keeping with the divine plan, enduring with her only begotten Son the intensity of his suffering, associated herself with his sacrifice in her mother’s heart, and lovingly consented to the immolation of this victim which was born of her” (LG 58). John Paul II of happy memory called Mary the “Co-redemptrix” on six occasions.[5]

Her second motherly function for humanity is as a “Mother nourishing” or “Mediatrix of all graces.” As the fathers, doctors, saints, and popes teach us, every grace that we receive from the redemption of Jesus Christ comes to us through the intercession of Mary. Cana makes clear the Mother’s ability to release the graces and miracles of her Son for the needs of humanity (Jn. 2:1-10). The late great John Paul called Mary the “Mediatrix of all graces” on seven occasions.[6]

Her third maternal function is as a “Mother pleading” or “Advocate.” There is no greater intercessor to the throne of her Kingly Son than that of the Queen Mother. As King Solomon could deny his mother the Queen nothing, (cf. 1 Kings 2:19) so too, Christ the King denies his Queen Mother nothing.

Since Our Lady’s Spiritual Motherhood under its three aspects of Co-redemptrix, Mediatrix of all graces, and Advocate is already part of the authoritative doctrinal teachings of the Papal Magisterium, why the need for a papal definition of these three titles? From where did the movement for a papal definition of Our Lady’s universal mediation derive?

Apart from certain misunderstandings that the movement for a fifth Marian dogma has its origins in private revelation, the actual historical beginnings of this international Church drive date back to the first two decades of the twentieth century with the efforts of the renowned Belgian cardinal, Cardinal Mercier and the enthusiastic support of St. Maximilian Kolbe.

By the end of 1915, Pope Benedict had received numerous petitions for the dogmatic definition of Our Lady’s universal mediation from Cardinal Mercier, fellow bishops, religious superiors, and clergy.[7] Cardinal Mercier issued a pastoral letter calling for the dogma of Our Lady’s mediation, which specifically included the concept of Coredemption as an integral part of her mediation, in 1918.[8] With the papal approval by Pope Benedict XV for the mass and office of “Mary, Mediatrix of all graces” at the request of Mercier and others in 1921, the worldwide movement for the solemn papal definition of Mary’s universal mediation of grace was launched in a letter from Cardinal Mercier to all the bishops of the world (April, 1921), wherein he expressed his deepest hope for this dogmatic crowning of Our Lady’s mediation.[9]

The illustrious Belgian cardinal continued his advocacy for the dogma with Pius XI on the very day of his papal election (Feb. 6, 1922).[10] The newly elected pontiff responded immediately to the petition for the dogma by ordering the establishment of three theological commissions to study the question in 1922. The Belgian and Spanish commissions concluded strongly in favor of the papal definition, while the conclusion of the Roman commission was never released.[11]

From that time to the present, great numbers of petitions have continued to flood the Holy See for the papal definition of Our Lady’s universal mediation. Petitions for a new Marian dogma from only the last ten years (approx. 1994-2004) number over six million from over 165 countries, and include over 550 bishops and 45 cardinals.[12] Although these numbers do not include the hundreds of bishop petitions, along with the multitudinous number of clergy and lay petitions submitted to the Holy See by Cardinals Mercier,[13] Gagnon, and others prelates from 1930 to 1994, the recent petition campaign of the last decade for this fifth Marian dogma represents the largest per annum petition drive in the history of the Church.

But the question of “why” must again be addressed. If the Magisterium already teaches the truth of Marian mediation in its three components of Co-redemptrix, Mediatrix, and Advocate, then where is the need for a solemn papal definition of the same truth in the form of a dogma?

Historic graces and world peace. With every new Marian dogma proclaimed by the successor of Peter, bearer of the keys of the kingdom, a new ocean of graces descends upon the Church and the world. For Our Lady to exercise fully the motherly roles granted her by God, humanity must exercise its free will in accepting her roles that they may be activated on our behalf. God never forces his sanctifying grace upon us, but awaits our free “yes” before bestowing them.

Humanity’s “yes” as spoken by the Holy Father in a papal proclamation of our full acceptance of Our Lady’s Spiritual Motherhood would release extraordinary graces of peace and redemption to a world where internal wars of abortion, child abuse, pornography, divorce, drugs, depression, loneliness, and external conflicts of terrorism, poverty, famine, pestilence and natural disasters are threatening most every family, country, and society throughout the world.

The proclamation of the dogma would allow the Mother to have her chance to intercede for a new peace and grace for our world. The Holy Father would be declaring our acknowledgement, on the highest level of Catholic truth, that She truly is our universal Spiritual Mother, our Co-redemptrix, Mediatrix of all graces and Advocate, and that we humbly and trustingly beseech our Heavenly Queen and Mother for the interior peace of Christ in the hearts of humanity that is necessary for any authentic and perduring global peace.

The succinct but profound words of Blessed Teresa of Calcutta most eloquently summarize the heart and the imperative of the contemporary call for the fifth Marian Dogma:

Mary is our Coredemptrix with Jesus. She gave Jesus his body and suffered with him at the foot of the cross.

Mary is the Mediatrix of all grace. She gave Jesus to us, and as our Mother she obtains for us all his graces.

Mary is our Advocate who prays to Jesus for us. It is only through the Heart of Mary that we come to the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus.

The papal definition of Mary as Coredemptrix, Mediatrix, and Advocate will bring great graces to the Church.

All for Jesus through Mary.

God bless you"

A litany of humility for the Lenten season

A litany of humility for the Lenten season here.

In his classic work True Devotion to Mary, Nos 173-182, St. Louis de Montfort explains why so many fail to persevere in the faith:

"Why is it that most conversions of sinners are not lasting? Why do they relapse so easily into sin? Why is it that most of the faithful, instead of making progress in one virtue after another and so acquiring new graces, often lose the little grace and virtue they have? This misfortune arises, as I have already shown, from the fact that man, so prone to evil, so weak and changeable, trusts himself too much, relies on his own strength, and wrongly presumes he is able to safeguard his precious graces, virtues and merits.

By this devotion we entrust all we possess to Mary, the faithful Virgin. We choose her as the guardian of all our possessions in the natural and supernatural sphere. We trust her because she is faithful, we rely on her strength, we count on her mercy and charity to preserve and increase our virtues and merits in spite of the efforts of the devil, the world, and the flesh to rob us of them. We say to her as a good child would say to its mother or a faithful servant to the mistress of the house, "My dear Mother and Mistress, I realise that up to now I have received from God through your intercession more graces than I deserve. But bitter experience has taught me that I carry these riches in a very fragile vessel and that I am too weak and sinful to guard them by myself. Please accept in trust everything I possess, and in your faithfulness and power keep it for me. If you watch over me, I shall lose nothing. If you support me, I shall not fail. If you protect me, I shall be safe from my enemies."

This is exactly what St. Bernard clearly pointed out to encourage us to take up this devotion, "When Mary supports you, you will not fail. With her as your protector, you will have nothing to fear. With her as your guide, you will not grow weary. When you win her favour, you will reach the port of heaven." St. Bonaventure seems to say the same thing in even more explicit terms, "The Blessed Virgin," he says, "not only preserves the fullness enjoyed by the saints, but she maintains the saints in their fullness so that it does not diminish. She prevents their virtues from fading away, their merits from being wasted and their graces from being lost. She prevents the devils from doing them harm and she so influences them that her divine Son has no need to punish them when they sin."

Mary is the Virgin most faithful who by her fidelity to God makes good the losses caused by Eve's unfaithfulness. She obtains fidelity to God and final perseverance for those who commit themselves to her. For this reason St. John Damascene compared her to a firm anchor which holds them fast and saves them from shipwreck in the raging seas of the world where so many people perish through lack of such a firm anchor. "We fasten souls," he said, "to Mary, our hope, as to a firm anchor." It was to Mary that the saints who attained salvation most firmly anchored themselves as did others who wanted to ensure their perseverance in holiness.

Blessed, indeed, are those Christians who bind themselves faithfully and completely to her as to a secure anchor! The violent storms of the world will not make them founder or carry away their heavenly riches. Blessed are those who enter into her as into another Noah's ark! The flood waters of sin which engulf so many will not harm them because, as the Church makes Mary say in the words of divine Wisdom, 'Those who work with my help - for their salvation - shall not sin.' Blessed are the unfaithful children of unhappy Eve who commit themselves to Mary, the ever-faithful Virgin and Mother who never wavers in her fidelity and never goes back on her trust. She always loves those who love her, not only with deep affection, but with a love that is active and generous. By an abundant outpouring of grace she keeps them from relaxing their effort in the practice of virtue or falling by the wayside through loss of divine grace.

Moved by pure love, this good Mother always accepts whatever is given her in trust, and, once she accepts something, she binds herself in justice by a contract of trusteeship to keep it safe. Is not someone to whom I entrust the sum of a thousand francs obliged to keep it safe for me so that if it were lost through his negligence he would be responsible for it in strict justice? But nothing we entrust to the faithful Virgin will ever be lost through her negligence. Heaven and earth would pass away sooner than Mary would neglect or betray those who trusted in her.

Poor children of Mary, you are extremely weak and changeable. Your human nature is deeply impaired. It is sadly true that you have been fashioned from the same corrupted nature as the other children of Adam and Eve. But do not let that discourage you. Rejoice and be glad! Here is a secret which I am revealing to you, a secret unknown to most Christians, even the most devout.

Do not leave your gold and silver in your own safes which have already been broken into and rifled many times by the evil one. They are too small, too flimsy and too old to contain such great and priceless possessions. Do not put pure and clear water from the spring into vessels fouled and infected by sin. Even if sin is no longer there, its odour persists and the water would be contaminated. You do not put choice wine into old casks that have contained sour wine. You would spoil the good wine and run the risk of losing it.

Chosen souls, although you may already understand me, I shall express myself still more clearly. Do not commit the gold of your charity, the silver of your purity to a threadbare sack or a battered old chest, or the waters of heavenly grace or the wines of your merits and virtues to a tainted and fetid cask, such as you are. Otherwise you will be robbed by thieving devils who are on the look-out day and night waiting for a favourable opportunity to plunder. If you do so all those pure gifts from God will be spoiled by the unwholesome presence of self- love, inordinate self-reliance, and self-will.

Pour into the bosom and heart of Mary all your precious possessions, all your graces and virtues. She is a spiritual vessel, a vessel of honour, a singular vessel of devotion. Ever since God personally hid himself with all his perfections in this vessel, it has become completely spiritual, and the spiritual abode of all spiritual souls. It has become honourable and has been the throne of honour for the greatest saints in heaven. It has become outstanding in devotion and the home of those renowned for gentleness, grace and virtue. Moreover, it has become as rich as a house of gold, as strong as a tower of David and as pure as a tower of ivory.

Blessed is the man who has given everything to Mary, who at all times and in all things trusts in her, and loses himself in her. He belongs to Mary and Mary belongs to him. With David he can boldly say, 'She was created for me", or with the beloved disciple, "I have taken her for my own", or with our Lord himself, "All that is mine is yours and all that is yours is mine.'

If any critic reading this should imagine that I am exaggerating or speaking from an excess of devotion, he has not, alas, understood what I have said. Either he is a carnal man who has no taste for the spiritual; or he is a worldly man who has cut himself off from the Holy Spirit; or he is a proud and critical man who ridicules and condemns anything he does not understand. But those who are born not of blood, nor of flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God and Mary, understand and appreciate what I have to say. It is for them that I am writing.

Nevertheless, after this digression, I say to both the critics and the devout that the Blessed Virgin, the most reliable and generous of all God's creatures, never lets herself be surpassed by anyone in love and generosity. For the little that is given to her, she gives generously of what she has received from God. Consequently, if a person gives himself to her without reserve, she gives herself also without reserve to that person provided his confidence in her is not presumptuous and he does his best to practise virtue and curb his passions.

So the faithful servants of the Blessed Virgin may confidently say with St. John Damascene, 'If I confide in you, Mother of God, I shall be saved. Under your protection I shall fear nothing. With your help I shall rout all my enemies. For devotion to you is a weapon of salvation which God gives to those he wishes to save.'"
Why hasn't the Church been able to defeat the Culture of Death and the various evils which plague our society? Because pride has crippled us. The Devil is not conquered by pride but by humility. It was Saint Vincent de Paul who said that, "The most powerful weapon to conquer the Devil is humility. For, as he does not know at all how to employ it, neither does he know how to defend himself from it."
This is why the Devil hates and fears Our Lady and the Holy Rosary. Our Lady is the Model of Humility. And the Holy Rosary is her school of humility.
Let us all strive to imitate Our Lady's humility. Let us all enter her school of humility by consecrating ourselves to her each and every day and by prayerfully meditating upon her mysteries. We've tried things our way. How far has that taken us?

Proverbs 16:18

Bishop Manuel Linda of Portugal and the Serpent's torrent of water

As explained here, "The Bishop of Oporto. [Portugal] tells the Observador website that, 'we should never refer to the physical virginity of Mary.' 'The Old Testament says many times that Jesus was to be born of a maiden, a daughter of Israel, who was simple, poor, and humble. But this is truly just a reference to the full devotion of this woman to God. The gift of being mother of God was given to Mary because she had an undivided heart. What matters is full giving of herself...There certainly are women with a ruptured hymen who are more virgin in the sense of full devotion to God than some with an intact hymen.'"

Bishop Manuel Linda is, indeed, a heretic.  He is part of a movement to attack Our Lady in preparation for the Man of Sin.

Father Bernard Kunkel, who died in 1969 and who was the pastor of St. Cecilia's in Bartelso, Illinois, waged an almost impossible fight for purity and modesty even then the customary clothing was indecent. Here are some some of the things he wrote in the 1969 issues of Divine Love magazine and in an issue of the 1957 Marylike Crusader:

"One of the strange phenomena of history is the fact that the Devil has succeeded so well in keeping concealed the existence of the corrupting Body of Satan, with its long-range program for the destruction of the Church. Catholics just do not seem to be aware that, as soon as Christ instituted His Church---His Mystical Body---the Devil likewise organized his anti-church, his corrupting body. St. Augustine, St. John, St. Paul and other Saints have referred to it, as well as Pope Leo XIII and other Church leaders. The corrupting body of Satan still exists in our time and is very well organized in its efforts to use the modem fashions, filthy literature, indecent movies, pagan TV shows, drugs, drink, etc. to break down morality among Catholics in order eventually to destroy the Church and Christianity. Its most effective weapon was to be corruption from within...

Since the fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, Satan has been able to use the weapon of impurity very effectively In the 16th century he used as his tools the founders of the two Parent-Protestant religions in Germany and England, Martin Luther and King Henry VIII. The first founder entered a sacrilegious marriage, the second an adulterous one. Our Mother Most Chaste being dethroned from their hearts, there was no other logical course for them, than to exile Her from their man-made churches and from the hearts of their millions of followers. But the devil could not hope to corrupt completely Christ's Mystical Body, the Catholic Church, unless he could first succeed in dethroning Mary, the Mother Most Chaste, from the hearts of Catholics. 

The Lord Jesus is angry with many of His ministers. Our Lady told Fr. Gobbi that, "The hour of divine justice and of great mercy has now arrived. You will know the hour of weakness and of poverty, the hour of suffering and defeat, the purifying hour of the great chastisement. The great trial has arrived for your Church. Those errors which have brought people to the loss of the true faith have continued to spread. Many pastors have been neither attentive nor vigilant and have allowed many rapacious wolves, clothed as lambs, to insinuate themselves into the flock in order to bring disorder and destruction. How great is your responsibility, O pastors of the holy Church of God! You continue along the path of division from the Pope and of the rejection of his Magisterium..." (November 15, 1990).

To those consecrated to Her Immaculate Heart, Our Lady has said, "A great wonder is about to be accomplished in your time, even though for the present it is happening in silence and mystery. In the struggle between the Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed with the Sun, in which heaven and earth are taking part, the heavenly powers and those of hell, your Mother and Queen is each day accomplishing an important step in the realization of her victorious plan. Therefore I say to you: soon the desert will blossom, and all creation will become again that marvelous garden, created for man to reflect in a perfect manner the greatest glory of God." (November 28, 1979).

Our Lady is preparing us for the desert where the Man of Sin, the Son of Perdition, the Red Dragon, will pursue those of us who are consecrated to Her. To those of us who are Her offspring:


"..the woman was given the two wings of the great eagle, so that she could fly to her place in the desert, where, far from the serpent, she was taken care of for a year, two years, and a half year. The serpent, however, spewed a torrent of water* out of his mouth after the woman to sweep her away with the current. But the earth helped the woman and opened its mouth and swallowed the flood that the dragon spewed out of its mouth. Then the dragon became angry with the woman and went off to wage war against the rest of her offspring, those who keep God’s commandments and bear witness to Jesus." (Revelation 12: 14-17).

*  And what is this "torrent of water" Revelation speaks of?  The torrent of water consists of false theological opinions which attack Our Lady and her perpetual virginity.

"The powers of Hell fear the name and protection of Mary."

Men do not fear a powerful hostile army as much as the powers of hell fear the name and protection of Mary.

-St. Bonaventure

“God has established not just one enmity but ‘enmities’, and not only between Mary and Satan but between her race and his race. That is, God has put enmities, antipathies and hatreds between the true children and servants of the Blessed Virgin and the children and slaves of the devil. They have no love and no sympathy for each other. 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 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.

But 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.” (Treatise On True Devotion To The Blessed Virgin, 54).

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 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.

The Church remains spotless even when Her members sin...

In these times of scandal it is critical to remember that the Church remains spotless even when Her members sin. There is absolutely no doubt that the human history of the Church, like all of human history, has its dark pages. But if anyone cares to take an objective look at this history, one must quickly acknowledge that the doctrine of the Church has always implicitly condemned abuses introduced by Her members.

In the words of Dr. Dietrich Von Hildebrand, "There were sinners in the Church yesterday and there are sinners in the Church today. But the Church Herself, in her divine teaching, emerges gloriously unspotted in a history stained by human weaknesses, errors, imperfections, and sins." In the words of the great Cardinal Journet:

"All contradictions are eliminated as soon as we understand that the members of the Church do indeed sin, but they do so by their betraying the Church. The Church is thus not without sinners, but She is without sin. The Church as person is responsible for penance. She is not responsible for sins....The members of the Church themselves - laity, clerics, priests, Bishops, and Popes - who disobey the Church are responsible for their sins, but the Church as person is not responsible...It is forgotten that the Church as person is the Bride of Christ, 'Whom He has purchased with His own blood.'" (Acts 20:28).

Do not use scandals as an excuse to leave the Church.  Faithful Catholics need to stay and pray, to fight against the forces of dissent and perversion.

Our Lady has assured us that, in the end, her Immaculate Heart Will triumph.  In the end, Our Lady's heel* will crush the Devil's head.

*  See here

Francis: Mary was in the dark

CNA is reporting that: "Days before his trip to Fatima, Pope Francis said Mary’s ‘yes’ at the Annunciation was more than a yes to bearing the Son of God, but was also an acceptance of everything she would endure after – something every mother experiences with a new child.

'It was not easy to answer with a ‘yes’ to the angel's invitation; yet she, a woman still in the flower of youth, answers with courage, despite not knowing anything about the fate that awaited her.'"

Our Lady knew nothing of the fate which awaited her?  Wrong.

Our Lady was overshadowed by the Holy Spirit.  We know that she,  “kept all these things, pondering them in her heart” (Luke 2:19, 51).

Our Lady had deep insight into what God was doing in her.  We know this from the Magnificat:

"My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my Savior for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant. From this day all generations will call me blessed:
the Almighty has done great things for me, and holy is his Name. He has mercy on those who fear him in every generation. He has shown the strength of his arm, he has scattered the proud in their conceit. He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, and has lifted up the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty. He has come to the help of his servant Israel for he remembered his promise of mercy,
the promise he made to our fathers,
to Abraham and his children forever.
(Lk 1:46-55)

Venerable Mary of Agreda tells us, in her classic work of mysticism The Mystical City of God, that, "The Most Holy Mary knew all that was hidden from sight, as Wisdom says (Wis 7:21)." (p. 208).

And again: "The Most High manifested to Her in..vision, by most special enlightenments, the new Law of Grace which the Redeemer of the world  was to establish, the Sacraments contained in it, the end for which He would leave them in his new Church of the Gospel, the gifts and blessings prepared for men, and his desire, that all should be saved and that all should reap the fruit of the Redemption..."(p. 210).

In short, Our Lady knew everything about the date which awaited her.  She understood Simeon's prophecy about a sword piercing her heart as well as the significance of the gifts presented by the Wise men.

It is fitting that Our Lady, Co-Redemptrix, Mediatrix and Advocate, would be privy to the entire plan of salvation.  But don't expect a modernist to acknowledge this.

La Salette Journey Crusade

Won't you join me in promoting the message of Our Lady of La Salette while encouraging reparation for offenses against her Immaculate Heart?

See here.

Reconciliation: Its meaning and value

Most of us are aware that sin destroys our relationship with God and that it also undermines our relationships with family members, friends and others with whom we come into contact. Reconciliation refers to that precise effect of Christ's redemption of the human race by His sacrificial death on the Cross which restores our relationship with God and breaks down the barriers of sin which prevent us from engaging in authentic relationships with others.

In the words of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, "Conversion is accomplished in daily life by gestures of reconciliation, concern for the poor, the exercise and defense of justice and right, by the admission of faults to one's brethren, fraternal correction, revision of life, examination of conscience, spiritual direction, acceptance of suffering, endurance of persecution for the sake of righteousness. Taking up one's cross each day and following Jesus is the surest way of penance." (1435).

In other words, our transformation in Christ, our daily conversion, is made manifest by such gestures of reconciliation by which we demonstrate our commitment toward the theological virtue of charity "by which we love God above all things for his own sake, and our neighbor as ourselves for the love of God" (CCC, 1822). We are told in Sacred Scripture that a faith without works is dead (James 2:14-19). An authentic reconciliation, therefore, will show itself in a charity which embraces both God and neighbor. As Jean Jaouen so eloquently puts it, "..Christian compassion cannot be a cerebral, fleshless reality. It is completely impossible for one who loves people coldly to dissociate eternal salvation from the temporal well-being of a human person. A person is a whole. Time is eternity already begun yet still not completely visible. The conflict will be resolved if Christian apostles learn to live with their people while remaining present to the Lady who, with her Son, weeps over both the death of souls and the death of little children. 'Lady of heaven, empress of earth.' Through the Virgin Mediator and Queen, apostles will find a balance between the demands of heaven and those of earth." (Jean Jaouen, m.s., "A Grace Called La Salette: a story for the world," pp. 327-328, grassroots publishing international, Enfield, New Hampshire, English edition 1991).

Pope Francis' devotion to Mary is "more personal" than Saint John Paul II's was?

From CNS:

"Mother and son: Pope Francis shares personal, intimate devotion to Mary

From Easter to Pentecost — and especially during the Marian month of May — Catholics recite the 'Regina Coeli' prayer 'with the emotion of children who are happy because their mother is happy' that Jesus has risen from the dead, Pope Francis said.

Although his devotion to the Mother of God is profound, it is simple in many ways: Mary is a mother to every believer; Jesus would not leave his followers orphans.

While his connection to Mary clearly is a matter of heart and mind, it is also physical. Whenever Pope Francis passes a statue or icon of Mary, he kisses it or allows his hand to rest tenderly upon it.


Honoring the Mother of God, of course, is a solid part of Catholic tradition and a mainstay in the devotion and teaching of the popes. St. John Paul II’s motto, 'Totus Tuus' ('All yours'), and the large M on his coat of arms were just the most graphic elements of a devotion that led to a whole body of teaching about Mary, her role in Catholics’ faith life and the importance of praying the rosary.

Pope Francis would not have an argument with any of St. John Paul’s Marian piety or discourse.

But there are differences.

'The sense of Pope Francis’ devotion to Mary is a little more personal, more intimate' than St. John Paul’s was, said Redemptorist Father Sabatino Majorano, a professor at Rome’s Alphonsianum Institute. Pope Francis expresses 'that feeling that exists between a son and his mother, where I think Pope John Paul’s was more that of a subject and his queen.'

The difference, he believes, comes from their roots: Pope Francis’ Latin roots — not just in Argentina, but also from his Italian family — and St. John Paul’s Slavic, Polish culture."

Francis' devotion to Mary is "more personal" than SAINT POPE JOHN PAUL II THE GREAT?

Really?

Pope John Paul's approach to Mary was less personal and more akin to the relationship between a subject and his queen than a son and his mother?

Is this the same Pope John Paul II who wrote:

"After recalling the presence of Mary and the other women at the Lord's cross, St John relates: "When Jesus saw his mother, and the disciple whom he loved standing near, he said to his mother, 'Woman, behold, your son!'. Then he said to the disciple, 'Behold, your mother!’" (Jn 19:26-27).

These particularly moving words are a "revelation scene": they reveal the deep sentiments of the dying Christ and contain a great wealth of meaning for Christian faith and spirituality. At the end of his earthly life, as he addressed his Mother and the disciple he loved, the crucified Messiah establishes a new relationship of love between Mary and Christians.

Interpreted at times as no more than an expression of Jesus' filial piety towards his Mother whom he entrusts for the future to his beloved disciple, these words go far beyond the contingent need to solve a family problem. In fact, attentive consideration of the text, confirmed by the interpretation of many Fathers and by common ecclesial opinion, presents us, in Jesus' twofold entrustment, with one of the most important events for understanding the Virgin's role in the economy of salvation.

Jesus completes his sacrifice by entrusting Mary to John

The words of the dying Jesus actually show that his first intention was not to entrust his Mother to John, but to entrust the disciple to Mary and to give her a new maternal role. Moreover, the epithet "woman", also used by Jesus at the wedding in Cana to lead Mary to a new dimension of her existence as Mother, shows how the Saviour's words are not the fruit of a simple sentiment of filial affection but are meant to be put at a higher level.

Although Jesus' death causes Mary deep sorrow, it does not in itself change her normal way of life: in fact, in departing from Nazareth to start his public life, Jesus had already left his Mother alone. Moreover, the presence at the Cross of her relative, Mary of Clopas, allows us to suppose that the Blessed Virgin was on good terms with her family and relatives, by whom she could have been welcomed after her Son's death.

Instead, Jesus' words acquire their most authentic meaning in the context of his saving mission. Spoken at the moment of the redemptive sacrifice, they draw their loftiest value precisely from this sublime circumstance. In fact, after Jesus' statements to his Mother, the Evangelist adds a significant clause: "Jesus, knowing that all was now finished...." (Jn 19:28), as if he wished to stress that he had brought his sacrifice to completion by entrusting his Mother to John, and in him to all men, whose Mother she becomes in the work of salvation.

3. The reality brought about by Jesus' words, that is, Mary's new motherhood in relation to the disciple, is a further sign of the great love that led Jesus to offer his life for all people. On Calvary this love is shown in the gift of a mother, his mother, who thus becomes our mother too.

We must remember that, according to tradition, it is John whom the Blessed Virgin in fact recognized as her son; but this privilege has been interpreted by Christians from the beginning as the sign of a spiritual generation in relation to all humanity.

The universal motherhood of Mary, the "Woman" of the wedding at Cana and of Calvary, recalls Eve, "mother of all living" (Gn 3:20). However, while the latter helped to bring sin into the world, the new Eve, Mary, co-operates in the saving event of Redemption. Thus in the Blessed Virgin the figure of "woman" is rehabilitated and her motherhood takes up the task of spreading the new life in Christ among men."

Astute Catholics will observe how everything Francis says and does is painted in such a light that he is made out to be "better than all previous popes." His devotion to Mary is "more personal" than one of the greatest pontiffs who has ever lived,  raised to the altars, a Pope who consecrated his whole being and ministry to the Immaculata; He draws "larger crowds" to the Vatican than Pope Benedict XVI; he prays three rosaries (he says) every day.

John Paul II prayed 10 hours a day.  But we didn't know that until the mystic died.  Unlike the self-promoting Francis, John Paul II took these words seriously:

“And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full.  But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you." (Matthew 6: 5-6).

Francis is always saying that he cannot abide with Pharisees and hypocrites. Shouldn't he take Our Lord's advice then?

Tom Horn and Cris Putnam deny Mary's sinlessness

In their latest work of anti-Catholic theology-fiction, Tom Horn and Cris Putnam, who were recently featured on Sid Roth's program 'Its Supernatural," attack Saint Jerome's translation of the Greek kecharitomene because the great scripture scholar, who was highly proficient in both Latin and Greek, used the Latin circumlocution gratia plena - "full of grace." (Luke 1: 28).

These two confused souls write, "Official Roman literature states, 'In consequence of a Special Privilege of Grace from God, Mary was free from every personal sin during her whole life.'  The only ostensibly scriptural argument given for this is from the Latin Vulgate rendering of Luke 1: 28 when the Angel addresses her, 'Hail, full of grace!'  Farfetched as it seems, this is the basis ffrom which they argue, 'since personal moral defects are irreconcilable with fullness of grace' then she must be sinless...we..argue that the phrase 'full of grace' is an erroneous Latin rendering that is even corrected in the NAB to read simply 'favored one.'  The Vulgate's distorted translation was the entire basis for the mistaken notion that sinless grace defined Mary's entire life.  Exegetically, it is also quite clear in the context of the passage that it is only a reference to her state at that moment when the Angel spoke." (Petrus Romanus, pp. 324-325).

And Cris Putnam is touted by this book as a "respected theologian and apologist."  Really?  Did he take his degree from an institution which advertises on the inside cover of a matchbook?  Luke 1:28 uses the perfect passive participle, kecharitomene.  The perfect stem of a Greek word denotes "continuance of a completed action" (Blass and DeBrunner, Greek Grammar of the New Testament, 175); and "completed action with permanent result is denoted by the perfect stem" (Smyth, sec. 1852:b.).

As Father Mateo explains, "On morphological grounds, therefore, it is correct to paraphrase kecharitomene as 'completely, perfectly, enduringly endowed with grace'...gratia plena is not at all a mistranslation.  It is a felicitous phrase, as close to the Greek as Latin can come and much to be preferred to modern efforts to improve it: 'favored one' (NAB [1986], RSV), 'highly favored' (NIV), and the monstrosity, 'highly favored daughter' (NAB [1970])...Catholics are not alone in this reading of kecharitomene.  In his Personal Prayer Book (1522), Luther wrote, 'She is full of grace, proclaimed to be entirely without sin...God's grace fills her with everything good and makes her devoid of all evil...'

Dave Armstrong adds, "Another important aspect of Luke 1: 28 should be noted.  The angel is here, in effect, giving Mary a new name ('full of grace')...It was as if the angel were addressing Abraham 'Hail, full of faith,' or Solomon 'Hail, full of wisdom' (characteristics for which they were particularly noteworthy).  The biblical and Hebraic understanding of one's name was quite profound.  God was very particular in naming individuals himself (e.g., Gen 17:5, 15, 19; Isa 45: 3-4; Matt 1: 21).  God renamed persons to indicate regeneration (as in Gen 17: 5, 15; 32: 28) or condemnation (as in Jer 20: 3).  For the ancient Hebrews, names signified the character, nature, and qualities of a person and were much more than mere identifying labels.  Thus, God chose His Son's name (Matt 1: 21).

Tom Horn and Cris Putnam should refrain from writing about things of which they have little knowledge.  They are only succeeding in making themselves look very foolish.

The Diocese of Worcester has tried dissent...it's time to try true devotion to Mary

Father Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen, O.C.D., in his classic work devoted to the interior life entitled Divine Intimacy, explains that, "Devotion to Our Lady of Mount Carmel indicates a strong call to the interior life, which, in a very special way, is Mary's life.  The Blessed Virgin wants us to resemble her in heart and mind much more than in externals.  If we penetrate into Mary's soul, we see that grace produced in her a very rich interior life: a life of recollection, prayer, uninterrupted giving of herself to God, and of constant contact and intimate union with Him.  Mary's soul is a sanctuary reserved for God alone where no creature has ever left an imprint; here reign love and zeal for the glory of God and the salvation of men.  Those who wish to live truly devoted to Our Lady of Mount Carmel, must follow Mary into the depths of the interior life...Every interior soul, even if living amid the tumult of the world, must strive to reach this peace, this interior silence, which alone makes continual contact with God possible.  It is our passions and attachments that make noise within us, that disturb our peace of mind and interrupt our intimate converse with God.  Only the soul that is wholly detached and in complete control of its passions can, like Mary, be a solitary, silent 'garden' where God will find His delights.  This is the grace we ask of Our Lady today when we choose her to be the Queen and mistress of our interior life." (Divine Intimacy, pp. 1147-1148).

When a soul is occupied with inordinate attachments to self or creatures or the vain and passing things of this world, it is unable to love God with all its strength and finds itself divided between God and self, between God and creatures, between God and the transitory things of this dying world.  But we are commanded, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with all thy strength and with all thy mind." (Luke 10: 27).

It is these inordinate attachments to self or creatures which lead to dissent and ultimately polarization within the Church.  The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in its Instruction on the Ecclesial Vocation of the Theologian, tells us that, "The Church 'is like a sacrament, a sign and instrument, that is, of communion with God and of unity among all men' (Lumen Gentium, 1).  Consequently, to pursue concord and communion is to enhance the force of her witness and credibility.  To succumb to the temptation of dissent, on the other hand, is to allow the 'leaven of infidelity to the Holy Spirit' to start to work." (No. 40).

This leaven of infidelity has, for many years now, crippled the Diocese of Worcester.  The dissent which has been embraced within this local Church has led to polaraization.  Why?  Because faithful Catholics who do not [and indeed cannot] accept the dissenting view are duty bound to resist it for the sake of the Church's authentic peace, a peace which Pope John XXIII said, "is not completely untroubled and serene; it is active, not calm and motionless.  In short, this is a peace that is ever at war.  It wars with every sort of error, including that which falsely wears the face of truth; it struggles against the enticements of vice, against those enemies of the soul, of whatever description, who can weaken, blemish, or destroy our innocence or Catholic faith." (Ad Petri cathedram).

There has been much dissent and subsequent polarization within the Diocese of Worcester because the leadership (and here we are being most generous in our terms) of the local Church has failed to inspire the faithful (and its own priests first and foremost) to strip themselves of all that is not of God.  While St. John of the Cross assures us that, "The soul has only one will, and if it occupies itself or encumbers itself with anything, it will not remain free, solitary, and pure, as is required for divine transformation," the Worcester Diocese has encouraged an atmosphere of self-will, self-assertion, self-affirmation and self-promotion.  Forgotten is the warning of the Holy Spirit that "God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble." (James 4: 6).

We (all of us) must become more Mary-like in heart and mind and not just in externals.  "In every deliberate sin," as Dr. Germain Grisez reminds us, such as dissent from Church teaching or deliberate non-assent, "freedom of self-determination is exercised contrary to what is known to be truly right and good.  In sinning, sinners tend to regard moral truths legalistically, as if they were mere rules blocking them from doing as they please.  Thus, deliberate sin seems to be self-affirming.  Affirming the self and rejecting the limits which deny some forbidden fruit, sinners try to be autonomous, as only God really can be."

Faith demands the renunciation of the sinful self which authentic devotion to Mary necessarily involves.  Pride must give way to humility.  Only then can one find the truth which sets one free (John 8: 32). 

The Worcester Diocese has tried dissent.  The faithful remain polarized.  Evangelization has suffered greatly.  Parishes are emptying. 

It's time to return to the Lord Jesus through true devotion to Mary.  Ad Jesus per Mariam!

Bishop Gerhard Mueller, the CDF's new Prefect, and the pillars of the Faith

It was Father Vincent Miceli who warned that, "Once the liturgy is humanized, Christ the Center and Object of it becomes the humanist par excellence, the liberator, the revolutionary, the Marxist ushering in the millenium; he ceases to be the Divine Redeemer.  We must be alerted to those who plan, by convincing us to abandon our sacred forms, at length to seduce us into denying our Christian faith altogether.  The Church is attacked by these Sons of Satan, in and outside her fold, because she is a living form, the sacrament - sign and instrument - of communion with God and of unity among all men; because she is the visible body of Religion.  Hence these shrewd masters of sedition know that when her sacred forms go, religion will also go.  Violate the lex orandi and you must inevitably destroy the lex credendi.  That is why they rail against so many devotions as superstitions, why they propose so many alterations and changes, a tactic cleverly calculated to shake the foundations of faith.."

The Devil hates the Eucharist and Our Lady [recall how these two pillars played an important part in Don Bosco's prophetic dream as they stabilized the Church represented by a ship with Peter at the head] and never ceases to attack them.  He uses variations on gnosticism, symbolism and modernism to attack the authentic teaching of the Magisterium on the Holy Eucharist.  As the spiritual war continues to escalate all around us, the Devil's attacks against the Eucharist will multiply.  These attacks will intensify and reach a crescendo with the Man of Sin.  Do you doubt this?  Saint Alphonsus de Liguori, Doctor of the Church, has already warned us that:

"The devil has always managed to get rid of the Mass by means of the heretics, making them precursors of the Antichrist who, above all else, will manage to abolish, and in fact will succeed in abolishing, as a punishment for the sins of men, the Holy Sacrifice of the altar, precisely as Daniel had predicted." ("Le Messa e l'Officio Strapazzati" in Opere Ascetiche).

Pope Benedict XVI has just named Bishop Gerhard Ludwig Mueller, who was a student of Father Gustavo Gutierrez (credited with founding Liberation Theology), to head the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.  As this Blog post notes, Bishop Mueller has expressed some rather odd ideas regarding the Perpetual Virginity of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Real Presence of Our Lord Jesus Christ - Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity - in the Holy Eucharist:

"On the Perpetual Virginity of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary:


In his 900-page work "Katholische Dogmatik. Für Studium und Praxis der Theologie" (Freiburg. 5th Edition, 2003), Müller denies the dogma of the Perpetual Virginity of the Blessed Virgin Mary claiming that the doctrine is "not so much concerned with specific physiological proprieties in the natural process of birth (such as the birth canal not having been opened, the hymen not being broken, or the absence of birth pangs), but with the healing and saving influence of the grace of the Savior on human nature."


On the Real Presence of the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of the Lord in the transubstantiated Eucharistic species:

In 2002, bishop Müller published the book "Die Messe - Quelle des christlichen Lebens" (St. Ulrich Verlag, Augsburg). In this book, he speaks of the Sacrament of the Altar and warns against using the terms "body and blood" in this context. These terms would cause "misunderstandings", "when flesh and blood are considered to mean the physical and biological components of the human Jesus. Neither is it simply the transfigured body of the resurrected Lord that is being designated."

Bishop Müller continues: "In reality, the body and blood of Christ do not mean the material components of the human person of Jesus during his lifetime or in his transfigured corporality. Here, body and blood mean the presence of Christ in the signs of the medium of bread and wine."

Holy Communion transmits according to Müller a "community with Jesus Christ, mediated by eating and drinking the bread and the wine. Even in the merely personal human sphere, something like a letter may represent the friendship between people and, that is to say, show and embody the sympathy of the sender for the receiver." Bread and wine thus only become "symbols of his salvific presence".


That is how Mgr Müller explains a "change of being" in the Eucharistic gifts:

"The essential definition of bread and wine has to be conceived in an anthropological way. The natural essence of these offerings [bread and wine] as the fruit of the earth and the work of human hands, as the unity of natural and cultural products consists in clarifying the nourishment and sustenance of man and the communion of the people in the sign of a common meal [...]. This natural essence of bread and wine is transfigured by God in the sense that the essence of bread and wine is made to consist exclusively in showing and realizing the salvific communion with God."

Strange days.  Dark days.  The smoke of Satan has darkened many minds.

In his Encyclical Letter Mysterium Fidei, Pope Paul VI warned us that, "..among those who deal with this Most Holy Mystery [transubstantiation] in written or spoken word, there are some who, with reference either to Masses which are celebrated in private, or to the dogma of transubstantiation, or to devotion to the Eucharist, spread abroad such opinions as disturb the faithful and fill their minds with no little confusion about matters of faith, as if every one were permitted to consign to oblivion doctrine already defined by the Church, or to interpret it in such a way as to weaken the genuine meaning of the words or the approved import of the concepts involved." (No. 10).

Pope Paul VI goes on to warn in this important Encyclical that, "it is not allowable...to discuss the mystery of transubstantiation without mentioning the marvelous changing of the whole substance of the bread into the Body and of the whole substance of the wine into the Blood of Christ as stated by the Council of Trent, so that it consists in 'transignification' or 'transfinalization.' as they put it."

In No. 46 of Mysterium Fidei, the Pope explains:

"After transubstantiation has taken place, the species of bread and wine undoubtedly take on a new meaning and a new finality, for they no longer remain ordinary bread and ordinary drink, but become the sign of something sacred, and the sign of a spiritual food.  However, the reason they take on a new significance and this new finality is simply because they contain a new 'reality' which we may justly term ontological."

This is the teaching of the Council of Trent regarding Eucharistic dogma: "In the first place the holy Synod teaches...that in the precious Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, after the consecration of the bread and wine, Our Lord Jesus Christ, true God and true man, is truly, really and substantially contained under the species of those sensible things."

This is the Church's authoritative teaching.  And, as Pope Paul VI said, no one is free to "consign to oblivion" this defined doctrine or to weaken the Church's teaching or the concepts involved.

Pray and watch.  For a diabolical disorientation is clouding minds.  The smoke of Satan continues to wreak havoc.

Pray and prepare for the Man of Lawlessness

Our Lady told Father Stefano Gobbi on December 31, 1996, "Make reparation for the sins of this poor humanity, which finds itself completely under the power of my Adversary.  See how it has rejected God!  It has built a pagan civilization, founded on the unbridled quest for pleasures and material well-being.  The Law of the Lord is being completely subverted, and even the gravest moral disorders are being legitimized.  Pride has seduced minds; impurity has corrupted hearts; the darkness of sin and evil has obscured souls...

Make reparation for the infidelities of so many sons of the Church.  The lack of faith is spreading among its very shepherds, and the flock is being stricken by the impetuous wind of apostasy.  Errors are being spread, taught and followed; the sects are multiplying everywhere.  Who will still remain firm in the faith in Jesus and his Church?

Make reparation for my poor sinful children.  I ask of you that which I asked of the three children to whom I appeared at Fatima.  Do you wish to offer your life in a spirit of prayer and reparation for the salvation of all the sinners, especially those who have most need of divine mercy?

So form, with me, a great network of love and salvation, spread out over the whole world.  This then is the Ark of the New Covenant, the safe and awaited refuge, into which must enter those far away, the atheists, the sinners, the poor, the sick, the despairing, so that they may all enjoy the light, the peace and the joy which only the Immaculate Heart of your heavenly Mother can give you..."

I was reflecting upon these words as today as I pondered statistics published in this week's "Catholic Free Press," official newspaper of the Diocese of Worcester, Massachusetts:

Percentage of Catholics who believe it is morally acceptable to use contraceptives to prevent pregnancy: 83 percent.

Percentage of Catholics who believe same-sex "marriage" is acceptable: 53 percent.

Percentage of Catholics who believe that abortion is acceptable: 35 percent. (p. 4).

These statistics are the result of a Knights of Columbus-Marist Poll.

Of course, those who embrace abortion, contraception or same-sex "marriage" are no longer Catholic.  So the wording of this poll is entirely dishonest.  But it does reveal the extent of the apostasy we find ourselves in.

The Vatican is in disarray.  And this at a time when the Magisterium is increasingly being challenged.  Our time is the time described by Father Charles Arminjon in his classic treatise entitled, "The End of the Present World and the Mysteries of the Future Life": "Apostasies will be numerous, and courage will become rare....the leaders of peoples will be seen to bend the knee before the reigning idol, and, what is still more lamentable, among the dispensers of science, the luminaries of theology, and the golden tongues of sacred eloquence, a large number will abandon the truth and let themselves be carried along with the current of depravity....The just will be dishonored and despised; they will be called fools and disturbers of the peace..."(pp. 48-49).

Just yesterday alone, I received numerous hateful comments.  Two at this Blog and half a dozen on Facebook.  One anonymous individual assured me that the Diocese of Worcester will never permit me to discern a vocation because I "complain too much" about "gay marriage" and homosexuality - meaning that I defend the Church's Magisterial teaching regarding homosexuality and will not "go along" with the 53 percent of "Catholics" who believe that same-sex "marriage" is acceptable.

One individual on Facebook accused me of immorality and intolerance because of my opposition to same-sex "marriage."  These attacks are now multiplying and increasing in intensity.  I have received threats of physical violence as well as death threats.

Many are now succumbing to doctrines of demons.  The Restrainer has been removed.  Many hearts, no longer on fire for the Lord Jesus, have grown cold.  The Man of Lawlessness will soon reveal himself.  And all those who who are "destined to ruin because they have not opened their hearts to the truth in order to be saved" will be led by a perverse spirit "which leads them to give credence to falsehood."

Our Lady's Immaculate Heart is our sure refuge in these days of growing darkness.  Remain united to the Holy Father and his Magisterium.  Consecrate yourself daily to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary.  Purchase (if you haven't already) blessed candles made from pure beeswax.  Pray the Rosary every day. 

The Church approaches Calvary.  Only a tiny remnant will remain faithful to the Lord Jesus.  May we be counted as part of this company.

Wanted: Little children consecrated to Mary who will form her "heel"

Our world is in a mess isn't it?  We need holy men and women who are on fire for the Lord Jesus and who recognize their poverty, their smallness. What we need is children of Mary - the same children (despised by this proud world) whom Saint Louis de Montfort says, "..will become, in Mary's powerful hands, like sharp arrows, with which she will transfix her enemies." (True Devotion, No. 56), It is such prayer-warriors who "..will be like thunder-clouds flying through the air at the slightest breath of the Holy Spirit. Attached to nothing, surprised at nothing, troubled at nothing, they will shower down the rain of God's word and of eternal life. They will thunder against sin, they will storm against the world, they will strike down the devil and his followers and for life and for death, they will pierce through and through with the two-edged sword of God's word all those against whom they are sent by almighty God." (True Devotion, No. 57).

This isn't a time for hand-wringing. Neither is it a time to look to so-called "experts," intellectual frauds who rely on their own intelligence. Fools. Now is the time to have recourse to Mary. The victory has been promised to the simple sandalled maiden. This is something the proud cannot understand or accept. Our Lady will crush the Devil's head - the seat of his intellect - and she will accomplish this without an academic degree or countless meetings. She will accomplish what the proud cannot. And she will do this through her children, her heel, those little souls consecrated to her who are despised by the world.

And so, remembering the words of the Cure of Ars St. Jean Vianney (the Patron Saint of parish priests): "Humility is to the various virtues what the chain is to the Rosary; take away the chain and the beads are scattered, remove humility and all virtues vanish," we pray:


O Lord,

all our powers of body and spirit,

every gift both natural and supernatural,

outward and inward,

comes as a blessing from You

and reveals Your goodness,

generosity, and love,

for You have given us all that is good.

You know what is best to give each one;

and since it is clear

to You what each one's merits are,

it is for You and not for us to decide

why one has less and another more.

And so, O Lord God,

I can even consider it a great blessing

if I do not have much to bring me

praise and glory from man;

for when one does not have much,

he can look at his poverty and worthlessness,

and far from being burdened and sorrowful and dejected,

he can feel comforted and glad,

for it is the poor and humble

and despised in the eyes of the world

that You have chosen,

O god, to be familiar members

of Your household.


For when I am weak, it is then that I am strong.  We must not rely on ourselves.  When David and Goliath faced off in battle, Goliath relied on his strength and his natural abilities.  David relied on God; on His supernatural strength.  The rest is history.

Won't you join me in offering a Rosary and intercessory prayer each and every day for the needs of the Church and for our broken, hurting world - a world crippled by sin?

Clark University: An ideology inspired by the Devil

In her article entitled, "The Degradation of Women by Feminist Extremists," Bridget Geegan Blanton writes, "...from the repressive identity that reduced a woman’s worth to her body parts. Those tough-minded Suffragettes, pioneers of the women’s movement, risked everything in the fight for rights and equal treatment under the law for American women. Feminist Extremists have squandered that legacy with an assault on the dignity of women and a dark retreat to the repressive past by claiming that a woman’s worth is defined by and limited to her body as propagandized in the demeaning production known as ‘The Vagina Monologues’.

The annual goose step onto college campuses of this exercise in female degradation is announced every Valentine’s day with shock value PR tactics such as 40-foot inflatable vaginas. This offensive strike against traditional values is actually an overt attempt to hijack the romance associated with this day and replace it with a message of male-bashing and sexual deviance. In textbook leftist style, supporters of the play cloak their attack on values and morality under the guise of promoting awareness about violence against women. In reality, the play is a non-stop obsession with a body part and imparts zero information regarding the defense against or recovery from a violent attack...Promoters of the play peddle their pornographic, anti-male propaganda behind a smokescreen of feel-good phrases like ‘empowerment’, ‘breaking the silence’, ‘liberating women’ and ‘provocative’. The term ‘provocative’ is a rather benign description of vignettes that feature pedophilia and sexual perversion..."

But The Vagina Monologues is more than pornographic agitprop which degrades women.  This satanic play also represents an attack on the Virgin Mary, Mother of God.  Which explains why Clark University, which has a history of Catholic-bashing, is so in love with the production.  Bridget Blanton explains, "No devoted, rank and file leftist is worth their tainted salt if they fail to take a swipe at the Catholic Church. You’re not considered part of the club if this rite of passage is left undone. In ‘The Vagina Monologues’ actresses describe 'Vagina Sightings and Miracles', an ugly, rapacious smear against sightings of the Blessed Mother that have been attested to, by the faithful in locations such as Lourdes, France. Ensler scored high with secular progressives by employing this standard bashing method against the Catholic veneration of the Virgin Mary."

This is most significant because the enemies of Mary are the enemies of Christ.  And the enemies of Christ are the enemies of God.  When people engage in hatred against Mary, the Most Holy Mother of God, this is strong evidence that they are inspired by the devil and, in certain cases, it is evidence of demonic possession.  It was St. Louis de Montfort, in his classic work on the Holy Rosary entitled "The Secret of the Rosary" (Ninth Rose), who said that: "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!"

But isn't that precisely what those who promote The Vagina Monologues are doing?  They mock devotion to and veneration of Our Lady because they have absorbed the poison of Hell.  The importance of devotion to Our Lady, and more specifically devotion to the Holy Rosary, is often downplayed by those who, either consciously or unconsciously, have become instruments of the Evil One. The Devil knows full well that what St. Louis de Montfort says about the Holy Rosary is true: "I beg of you to beware of thinking of the Rosary as something of little importance - as do ignorant people, and even several great but proud scholars. Far from being insignificant, the Rosary is a priceless treasure which is inspired by God. Almighty God has given it to you because he wants you to use it as a means to convert the most hardened sinners and the most obstinate heretics. He has attached to it grace in this life and glory in the next. The saints have said it faithfully and the Popes have endorsed it." (Secret of the Rosary, White Rose).


The Devil frequently uses people (and this includes misguided Catholics) to frustrate or hinder the Confraternity of the Rosary. Why is this? Because, as St. Louis De Montfort explains: "Blessed Alan de la Roche, Fr. Jean Dumont, Fr. Thomas, the chronicles of St. Dominic and other writers who have seen these things with their own eyes [miracles of the Rosary] speak of the marvelous conversions that are brought about by this wonderful devotion. Great sinners, both men and women, have been converted after twenty, thirty or forty years of sin and unspeakable vice...I shall content myself with saying, in company with Blessed Alan de la Roche, that the Rosary is a source and a storehouse of countless blessings. 1. Sinners obtain pardon; 2. Those who thirst are refreshed; 3. Those who are fettered are set free; 4. Those who weep find joy; 5. Those who are tempted find peace; 6. Those in need find help; 7. Religious are reformed; 8. The ignorant are instructed; 9. The living learn to resist spiritual decline; 10. The dead have their pains eased by suffrages." (Secret of the Rosary, Fortieth Rose).

Clark University has clearly chosen sides in the Culture Wars.  And in the spiritual battle in which we find ourselves, Clark has sided with the evil spirits who both hate and fear Our Lady, the Immaculata.  Hence the attacks against her.  Again, St. Montfort: "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.


Thus the most fearful enemy that God has set up against the devil is Mary, his holy Mother. From the time of the earthly paradise, although she existed then only in his mind, he gave her such a hatred for his accursed enemy, such ingenuity in exposing the wickedness of the ancient serpent and such power to defeat, overthrow and crush this proud rebel, that Satan fears her not only more than angels and men but in a certain sense more than God himself. This does not mean that the anger, hatred and power of God are not infinitely greater than the Blessed Virgin's, since her attributes are limited. It simply means that Satan, being so proud, suffers infinitely more in being vanquished and punished by a lowly and humble servant of God, for her humility humiliates him more than the power of God. Moreover, God has given Mary such great power over the evil spirits that, as they have often been forced unwillingly to admit through the lips of possessed persons, they fear one of her pleadings for a soul more than the prayers of all the saints, and one of her threats more than all their other torments." (True Devotion to Mary).

The enemies of Mary, the enemies of Christ, know this full well.  Which explains their hatred and their rage directed against the Immaculata.

Related reading: At Clark University it's "okay" to mock Christianity.