While meditating, we often fail to link the episodes of Our Lord’s life to ourselves and the world around us.
Consequently, we are shocked at the inconsistency, hatred and ingratitude of those who crucified Our Lord, after having honored Him as their Savior, days before.
However, Our Lord’s killers are not alone in their ingratitude and inconsistency. Our Lord still endures this conflicting adoration and hostility in various countries and in the hearts of many faithful.
Thus, we should not merely wince at the infamy of those who killed Our Lord. It is far more useful to contemplate our own infamy and trust in God’s goodness. Only then, can we truly amend our lives.
Reparation for Today’s Offenses
Everyone knows that sin is an insult to God. By committing a mortal sin, a person expels God from his heart, refuses Him the filial respect He deserves as Creator and rejects His grace. If we commit a mortal sin, we crucify Our Lord in our hearts, and thus imitate those who killed Him. Often, we do so shortly after having glorified Him with good deeds. Thus, we reenact the whole of Christ’s Passion, from Palm Sunday to the Crucifixion. How often this happens in men’s souls today!
To repair these offenses, we should become “souls of reparation.” If our virtue is insufficient for the task, we should practice a sincere humility that stems from intelligent, sensible and solid reasoning, not flowery words and emotional chest-beating. This alone will suffice to console Our Lord in His affliction.
During this holy Lenten season, we should strive to become these “souls of reparation,” through the practice of sincere humility, and thus make reparation before the throne of God for the countless offenses committed against Him at every moment.
Friday, March 1, 2013
Friday, February 22, 2013
An Invitation to Love the Holy Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ - Dr. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira
While commemorating the forty days Our Lord fasted in the desert, we should remember a great and supreme truth that should illuminate all Lenten meditations.
The holy Gospels clearly show how much our merciful Savior pitied our spiritual and physical pains. Hence, He performed spectacular miracles to mitigate them. However, let us not imagine that these healings were the greatest gift He gave mankind.
This would not take into consideration the central aspect of Our Lord’s life: He was our Redeemer, Who willingly endured the cruelest sufferings to carry out His mission.
Even at the height of His Passion, Our Lord could have put an end to all His pains instantly by a mere act of His Divine will. From the first moment of His Passion to the last, He could have ordered His wounds to heal, His precious blood to stop pouring forth and the lacerations on His Divine body to disappear without a scar. He could have overcome the persecution that was dragging Him to death and gained a brilliant and jubilant victory.
However, He did not will this. He wanted to be led along the Via Dolorosa to the height of Golgotha. He willed to see His most holy Mother engulfed in the depths of sorrow and He wanted to cry out in piercing words that will echo until the consummation of the ages: “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” (Matt. 27:46).
We understand that by calling each of us to suffer a portion of His Passion, He clearly indicated the unrivaled role of the cross in the history of the world, His glorification and the whole of men’s lives. Thus, we still must pronounce our own consummatum est at death, despite the pains and sorrows of life.
If we misunderstand the role of the cross, refuse to love it and fail to walk along our own Via Dolorosa, we will shirk Providence’s designs for us. We will be unable, with our dying breaths, to repeat the sublime exclamation of Saint Paul: “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. As for the rest, there is laid up for me a crown of justice, which the Lord the just judge will render to me in that day” (2 Tim. 4:7-8).
Any quality, however exalted, will be useless, unless it is founded on a love of Our Lord’s cross, with which we obtain everything, though weighed down by the holy burden of purity and other virtues, unceasing attacks and mockeries of the Church’s enemies and betrayals of false friends.
The greatest foundation, of Christian civilization is a generous love for the Holy Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ in each and every person.
May Mary help us, and through her omnipotent intercession, we shall reconquer for her Divine Son, the reign of God that flickers so faintly in the hearts of men.
The holy Gospels clearly show how much our merciful Savior pitied our spiritual and physical pains. Hence, He performed spectacular miracles to mitigate them. However, let us not imagine that these healings were the greatest gift He gave mankind.
This would not take into consideration the central aspect of Our Lord’s life: He was our Redeemer, Who willingly endured the cruelest sufferings to carry out His mission.
Even at the height of His Passion, Our Lord could have put an end to all His pains instantly by a mere act of His Divine will. From the first moment of His Passion to the last, He could have ordered His wounds to heal, His precious blood to stop pouring forth and the lacerations on His Divine body to disappear without a scar. He could have overcome the persecution that was dragging Him to death and gained a brilliant and jubilant victory.
However, He did not will this. He wanted to be led along the Via Dolorosa to the height of Golgotha. He willed to see His most holy Mother engulfed in the depths of sorrow and He wanted to cry out in piercing words that will echo until the consummation of the ages: “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” (Matt. 27:46).
We understand that by calling each of us to suffer a portion of His Passion, He clearly indicated the unrivaled role of the cross in the history of the world, His glorification and the whole of men’s lives. Thus, we still must pronounce our own consummatum est at death, despite the pains and sorrows of life.
If we misunderstand the role of the cross, refuse to love it and fail to walk along our own Via Dolorosa, we will shirk Providence’s designs for us. We will be unable, with our dying breaths, to repeat the sublime exclamation of Saint Paul: “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. As for the rest, there is laid up for me a crown of justice, which the Lord the just judge will render to me in that day” (2 Tim. 4:7-8).
Any quality, however exalted, will be useless, unless it is founded on a love of Our Lord’s cross, with which we obtain everything, though weighed down by the holy burden of purity and other virtues, unceasing attacks and mockeries of the Church’s enemies and betrayals of false friends.
The greatest foundation, of Christian civilization is a generous love for the Holy Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ in each and every person.
May Mary help us, and through her omnipotent intercession, we shall reconquer for her Divine Son, the reign of God that flickers so faintly in the hearts of men.
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
“Pater, non mea voluntas, sed tua fiat”
“Pater, non mea voluntas, sed tua fiat”
Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira (*)
“When Jesus had said these things, He went forth with His disciples over the brook Cedron, where there was a garden, into which He entered with His disciples” (John, 18:1).
Jesus went forth from Jerusalem. This was not an ordinary departure followed by a prompt return, but a true and profound separation.
The Messiah loved the Holy City, its walls shrouded with glory, its Temple of the living God proudly standing therein, the Chosen People its inhabitants. It was because of this that, with special fondness, He had preached the Good News within it and contested its vices with an especially ardent vigor. But, He had been rejected. He was, therefore, leaving the accursed city.
It was night. Jerusalem glittered with all its lights. There was warmth and plenty within its houses and liveliness in its streets. A great unconcern hovered over the joyful and tranquil city. About Jesus, with all His beauty, grace, wisdom, and goodness, the city was little concerned. No one noticed the moment that He left the city, no one knew it, save perhaps one or another passerby who glanced at Him with indifference.
The Jews felt no need of Jesus. To guide their souls, they preferred Annas, Caiphas, and their kind. To watch over their national interests, they had Herod. They tolerated Pilate with a deeply resigned ill-humor. Under the care of these spiritual and temporal shepherds they could eat, drink, and enjoy themselves freely, then console their consciences later with a prayer or sacrifice in the Temple. Thus was everything arranged, with a somnolent and conformist outlook.
Jesus had come to disturb this peace. He had spoken about death, judgment, Heaven, and Hell without understanding that the world around Him did not tolerate such preaching and that a rabbi’s first duty lay in adapting himself to the demands of the times. Endowed with a profound understanding of the Sacred Scriptures, skillful in His reasoning, adept at impressing the multitudes and in attracting people into the intimacy of His persuasive colloquies, He seemed resolved to demonstrate the irremediable incompatibility between religion on the one hand and the easygoing, unbridled, and commodious life on the other. He thus pulled on both sides of the bow and sooner or later would reduce everything to ruins. But this did not bother Him, for He was neither balanced nor reasonable.
Accentuating the dangerous effect of His words, He performed miracles and, bolstered by the prestige gained thereby, He further disturbed souls by teaching that the road to Heaven is narrow, thus emphasizing the need of purity, honesty, and uprightness for gaining entry into it. Had He, who so preached mercy, no feeling for the travails of soul, the dramas of conscience He thus created? Did He, who so preached humility, not recognize the need to conform Himself with the example of prudence being given Him by the Chief Priests?
It is true that at one time He seemed to be on the verge of succeeding, but the Sanhedrin had acted in time. Generously opening its coffers, it had sent emissaries amidst the multitude, raising suspicions against the insolent one. These emissaries were agile, and they knew how to strike the right psychological chords. The rabbi’s chances had been eliminated. Jerusalem would not be His. Even more! His death was agreed upon and the people would applaud it. This death was one last and insignificant corollary in the whole affair, a small matter for the police. Yes, the Jesus of Nazareth “case” was closed. The populace could once again plunge itself into pleasure, gold, and the long ceremonies in the Temple. Everything would return to normal. Yes, a great unconcern made the air seem lighter during that tranquil and satisfied night.
Jesus’ preaching was over and He was leaving the city, for there was nothing for Him to do there. To associate with the tepid and drowsy tranquility of the somnolent consciences He had tried to awaken was incompatible with His perfection. The only recourse was to leave. Leave, yes, so as to express a complete estrangement, a complete separation, an undisguised incompatibility. So He departed.
Left behind were the lights as He penetrated the darkness of the night. Left behind was the multitude, as He took with Him only a handful of followers. Left behind was everything of power, of wealth, of human glory as He searched for a solitary and poor place accompanied by only a few foreigners without social standing, without cultural qualifications, with nothing. Behind Him were the joys of life; He was walking towards the desolation of those who are abandoned and the terrible anguishes of those awaiting death.
“And He saith to His disciples: Sit you here, while I pray” (Mark, 14:32).
His isolation was greater than it would seem at first sight. The Apostles followed Him, it is true, but with their souls filled with attachment to everything they were leaving behind in this terrible separation and with dread in face of everything that their hazy perspectives of the future allowed them to foresee. Their souls no longer felt like praying: This was the beginning of their defection, since he who does not pray is tumbling headlong into the abyss. Pray? They “could not.” Return to Jerusalem? They would not. They remained there, “sitting.” And they agreed to let the Master go on further, to leave Him to Himself. The Apostles, for sure, considered themselves heroes for having remained there “sitting.” They felt their own pain so much, that they could not think about the Lord’s. They thus allowed themselves to be crushed by the suffering.
Sitting. Soon they were fast asleep, and soon after they fled!
Not praying, thinking little about Christ’s Passion and much about one’s own sorrows, all of this leads one to “sit down” alongside the road and let Jesus walk on. After this, there is only heaviness, slumber, lukewarmness... and flight.
It is a terrible, terrible lesson for all those who set out on the long journey on the road to perfection!
Jesus had warned them, “Pray, lest you enter into temptation” (Luke 22:40). They did not pray, and so they succumbed.
“And taking with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, He began to grow sorrowful and to be sad.” (Matt. 26:37).
A selection, as some were less dulled by the pain of abandonment, defeat, and total separation from the world. The suffering of Jesus pained them more vividly. They deserved to be called aside and to witness the beginning of the infinitely precious sorrows of the Redeemer.
How many receive the same call! Grace attracts them to a greater piety, a more profound orthodoxy, a more exact understanding of the terrible situation of the Church in our days. To correspond to these graces requires the courage to participate in Our Lord’s sadness, and this requires generosity, strength, and seriousness.
How does one refuse this grace? By refusing the sadness of Our Lord, dwelling on bagatelles, idolizing sports, centering one’s life on radio and television, jesting as the sole theme of one’s conversations; by fleeing from a consideration of the terrible duties our times impose and the gravity of the problems they cause, instead becoming engulfed in petty concerns of daily life.
Such people do not receive the adorable trust of the sorrows of the Heart of Jesus. They are like toads, which live with their bellies hugging the earth, and not like eagles, which penetrate the highest heavens with their powerful flight.
“Then He saith to them: My soul is sorrowful even unto death: stay you here, and watch with Me” (Matt. 26:38).
“My soul is sorrowful,” says the Saviour, not “I am sorrowful.” He wanted to indicate that His torment was an entirely moral torment. That of His body had not yet begun. The pains of His flesh are much dwelt on in the Passion, and this is good. Nevertheless, the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus came to emphasize the sorrows of His soul, and this is excellent, for sorrows of the soul are more profound, more excruciating, and more noble than those of the body; they stand in greater opposition to the defects of soul that most offend God.
And with what was Christ’s soul suffering? With what should we suffer? With seeing the will of the Eternal Father violated and Jesus, Our Lord, rejected, denied, and hated. To ponder this, to measure the scope and gravity of this is to suffer within us the spiritual pains of Our Lord.
Jesus Christ and His Church constitute just one whole. Every time we encounter an immoral advertisement, an unjust statement, an institution or a law opposed to the Church’s doctrine, we should suffer. If not, if for this we have neither zeal nor strength, than we are good for nothing but to remain “sitting” and, when the hour of danger arrives, to flee.
“Sorrowful unto death.” In other words, a supreme sadness. The sadness of seeing God’s law violated, the Church persecuted, the glory of God denied, should be in us a supreme sadness and not just one of those emotional and ephemeral little sadnesses emanating from frivolous and impressionable souls like the ignis fatuus of swamps and cemeteries. It should not be merely a petty sadness, one only skin-deep, that does not wrench from us serious resolutions, profound zeal, effective renunciation of everything so that we live exclusively in the fight. A soul “sorrowful unto death” is not consoled with magazines, with fine clothing or restaurants, with strolls, with trifles, honest... or dishonest! It will live in the mortal sorrow of seeing God’s glory scorned and will find a palliative only, but only, in the interior life and in the apostolate.
“Stay here,” that is, do not mingle with the perfidious sons of Jerusalem, nor with the lukewarm who slumber a few steps away.
“Stay with me.” Yes, participate in My solitude, in My defeat, in My sorrow. And make of this your glory, your joy, your riches.
“And going a little further, He fell upon His face” (Matt. 26:39). Why did He go “a little further” after having told the three Apostles to “stay with Me”?
To stay with Our Lord is to stay close to Him in spirit, it is be united with Him. Staying with Him means standing with the Church with one’s whole heart, one’s whole soul, one’s whole understanding. He who in the hours of agony thinks of Our Lord and not of himself, “stays” with Him. He who thinks only about Our Lord, and not about the world, its spirit and delights, “stays” with Him.
Our Lord advanced just “a little,” a “stone’s cast,” says St. Luke (22:41). Why “go further?” And why just “a little”?
Our Lord wanted to be seen so as to maintain His three chosen Apostles in their fidelity. He wanted to console them and to console Himself by feeling them close by. It was necessary, however, that He “go further” because an hour of special gravity had arrived. He was going to speak with God, and God with Him. Just as in the Jewish worship the priest entered the Holy of Holies alone, so also Our Lord wished to take this first step of His Passion alone.
Have we holy solitudes in our souls such as this one? Peaks upon which only God and we stand, and to which no confidant, no friend, no earthly affection climbs and to which we admit only the gaze of our spiritual director?
Or are we of those souls with no reservation or nobility, open to any wind, any scrutiny, any step, like some dull public square?
“He fell upon His face.” A complete humiliation, a total renunciation; this is the victim prepared for the holocaust.
What preparation for prayer! When we speak with God, do we “fall upon our face” beforehand? In other words, do we approach humbly, ready to obey, desirous of renouncing everything, recognizing our worthlessness? Or do we approach with reservations, with reticence, with sore points in which God cannot ask of us a sacrifice? When we listen to the Church, do we throw ourselves face down on the ground, renouncing all of our opinions, all of our choices, so as to obey? In face of those who edify us, bringing us closer to the Church and the Pope, do we “fall upon our faces,” accepting their influence? Or do we erect barricades, set up restrictions?
“Praying and saying: My Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from Me. Nevertheless not as I will but as Thou wilt” (Matt. 26:39).
To be prostrate on the ground, but at the same time praying, with the body lying on what is most lowly, the ground, and with the soul ascending to the highest of Heaven, the throne of God! In this consists the invincibility of the true Catholic. In the apex of affliction, of humiliation, of abandonment, he has in his hands the weapon that overcomes all adversaries. How true this is for the struggles of the interior life. With no resources for finding the right path, or resisting, we pray... and we end up successfully. And how true this is in the apostolate.
Are we intimidated by the impetus of the paganizing wave? Immediately we think of conceding, in which we sacrifice the accidental because it is accidental, then the secondary essentials because they are secondary, and finally that which is fundamental... “so as to avoid greater harm.” If only we knew the strength of prayer, if only we knew how to throw ourselves face down on the ground and pray, we would understand better the efficacy of our supernatural weapons, the meaning, worth, and usefulness of Christian intransigence. The Divine Saviour suffered here for the pessimists, for those who are discouraged and have no idea of the Church’s triumphant force.
“Let this chalice pass from Me.” What chalice? It was the approaching atrocious, crushing, and unjust suffering that Jesus foresaw. At this moment, the Divine Master suffered for all those who sin through optimism; for all those who, confronted with the perspective of having to fight, with anguish and pain, resort to the ostrich policy and choose to imagine that “all goes well.” To foresee the pain, to prepare courageously for it, this is elevated, most elevated, virtue. And this, whether in our private lives or for the cause of the Holy Church. In this moment in which She is so warred against, let us not have the foolishness to say that all goes well. Let us recognize the gravity of the hour and let us view the threats posed by the future in a manly and Christian manner, with a resolute and confident spirit, ready to react with prayer, combativeness, and full acceptance of the sacrifice.
Such was the example given us by the Divine Master. He withdrew from everyone so that, face to face with God, He could fathom the full depth of the ocean of pain and sorrow into which He was to be immersed and take a stand in face of this perspective.
What stand? “If it be possible, let this chalice pass from Me. Nevertheless not as I will but as Thou wilt.”
Two supplications are comprised here. In one, the God-man asks that these pains and sorrows be removed from Him “if it be possible.” In the other, He accepts them in the event they cannot be avoided.
A holy attitude this, one with no theatrics or vainglory. Pain naturally provokes fear in man, and Our Lord, not only true God but true man as well, dreaded this pain. He asked, therefore, that it pass from Him “if possible.” Avoiding pain is legitimate, wise, holy. But avoiding it at any price, no! -- only “if it be possible.”
“If possible.” What does this mean? It means that, if the Divine Will, in light of the humble plea of a Just One crushed by the anticipation of the pains, would show Itself compassionate by removing the suffering, let it be so. On the contrary, if removing the suffering were to introduce a change in the plans of Providence, with a diminution of God’s glory, of the good of the Church to be founded, and of souls, then it would be better to suffer everything.
“If it be possible....” What a sublime conditional, unknown to our century. And because of this the whole world is in crisis, in distress, in agony. Earthly goods, wealth, glory, health, beauty, all of these are good in the measure in which we give precedence to God’s will. But, if it be necessary for us to renounce everything, because in light of this or that interior or exterior circumstance “it is not possible” to have these things without displeasing God, then let us make the complete renunciation. If all men were to think and feel this way, the world would be another! Because of the absence of this conditional -- which comprises the entirety of order and good -- civilization perishes.
“Not as I will but as Thou wilt.” Upon these words rests the entire life of the Church, of souls, and of nations. Holy, sweet, hard, and terrible words that today’s man chooses not to understand. These words provide a perfect definition of obedience, of that obedience which the world, from Luther’s day until now, has hated with increasing hatred.
Yes, may the will of God be done rather than mine; I will fulfill the Commandments and will not follow my own whims. I will think as the Pope thinks, even if another doctrine seems preferable to me. I will obey everyone who exercises a legitimate authority over me, for he represents God and I will therefore do his will and not mine.
My Jesus, in view of this, how can one explain that Thou art called a revolutionary and that Thou didst come to bring the Revolution to the earth?
After this, there is silence. The Gospels do not tell us what answer He received, nor what Jesus replied to this answer. Why say it? And with what words?
More than likely, only one person on this earth saw, knew, and adored everything: Mary Most Holy, present undoubtedly in spirit and participating in everything.
The matter is too elevated for us to interpret this silence, which not even the Evangelists chose to break. Let us beseech the Mediatrix of all graces that She introduce us into the recollection of the interior life and into the ineffable mysteries of this moment of silence.
Jesus accepted. “And there appeared to Him an angel from Heaven, strengthening Him. And being in agony, He prayed the longer. And his sweat became as drops of blood, trickling down upon the ground” (Luke 22:43-44).
Thus began the Passion. Jesus had foreseen the pain and death and had accepted them. The very foresight of the inevitable placed Him in face of an overwhelming accumulation of torments.
But “an angel strengthened Him.” Yes, His humble prayer had been heard. God was giving Him strength to overcome the invincible torment, to bear the unbearable pain, to accept with conformity the unacceptable injustice.
If only we understood this! The Commandments seem too heavy for us, the wind of unbridled appetites and diabolical temptations roars within us. If only we understood that this is the hour of God. If we only “prayed the longer.” If only we accepted the visit of the angel who strengthens us!
Yes, because for us also, an angel always comes, so long as we pray. At times it is an interior movement of grace, or a good book, or a friend who gives us good example or good advice. But, we do not pray. As a result, we fall.
In the Agony, the angel came, as a fruit of prayer. After the visit, Our Lord continued to pray. Yes, praying the harder is the secret of victory. He who prays, saves himself; he who does not pray, damns himself, St. Alphonsus Liguori used to say. And how right he was!
Jesus sweat blood. The redeeming blood flowed because of the pressure of the moral sorrow. One can say that it was blood from the heart. What a magnificent theme for devotees of the Sacred Heart.
Sweating blood is the utmost of pain. It is the highest pressure point of the moral suffering upon the body. One would say that Our Lord was enduring every suffering possible. Nevertheless, He had not yet taken even the first step of His Via Sacra.
His martyrdom was beginning where that of others reaches its apex. How does one explain this incomparable resistance?
It is because “there appeared to Him an angel from Heaven, strengthening Him,” and because “He prayed the longer.”
Oh, the value of the supernatural! And we dare say that we capitulate in the interior life or in the struggles of the apostolate from lack of strength!
Three times did Our Lord present his ”fiat” (cf. Matt. 26:39-44), returning to His disciples after each time.
After the first, “He found them sleeping” (Matt. 26:40), and He advised them, “Watch ye, and pray that ye enter not into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Matt. 26:41).
But they paid no heed. Why? They were drowsy. Theirs was a somnolence stemming from two opposite excesses. On the one hand, despair, on the other, presumption. -- Despair: Faced with the human defeat of Jesus, their dreams of worldly grandeur were undone. What was left them? Only that darkness, that solitude, that hard and ordinary ground on which they rested. Their careers were cut short, O sorrow of sorrows! Under the burden of this sorrow, the only thing to do was sleep. -- Presumption: Nevertheless, they considered themselves strong. They had fought so much; certainly it was an insult to doubt their strength. Convinced of their resistance, unconcerned with their perseverance, they “killed time” by sleeping.
It was a sleep that was rude as well. The Lord suffered and they slept! What could they care about the Lord? Were they not already rendering Him an infinite favor by being there with Him in that abandonment? What else did He want? For them to pray at so late an hour? By no means. He could watch if He wanted to. As for the Apostles, they were going to sleep.
The more one enters into sleep the heavier it becomes. Such also is the progress of lukewarmness. The second time, Jesus “found them sleeping, for their eyes were heavy with sleep” (Matt. 26:42), a sleep of mediocrity, of indolence, of softness. Did they still follow the Master? Yes and no. Yes, because after all, they were there. No, because they no longer listened to Him. He would speak and they would disobey. He would suffer and they would sleep. It was the beginning of a rupture.
How do such disastrous falls occur? To sleep while Jesus speaks is, for me, to be inattentive, indifferent, lukewarm when I am spoken to by those who represent the Holy Church, by those who would guide me along the ways of sanctity, by those who personify for me -- because of their example -- orthodoxy, generosity, hunger and thirst of virtue. When I fall into this sleep, what remedy is there, except to wake up, “watching and praying lest I fall into temptation?” And if I do not do so, what is the outcome?
The result is failure in one’s spiritual life and in one’s vocation. The third time, Our Lord’s words are a rebuke: “Sleep ye now and take your rest; behold the hour is at hand, and the Son of man shall be betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise, let us go: Behold he is at hand that will betray Me” (Matt. 26:45-46).
It was past the hour. Not even the affectionate and doleful supplication, “couldest thou not watch one hour?” (Mark 14:37) had moved them.
Shortly thereafter, “while he was yet speaking, cometh Judas Iscariot, one of the twelve: and with him a great multitude with swords and staves” (Mark, 14:43). And soon afterwards, “his disciples leaving Him, all fled away” (Mark 14:50).
Yes, they fled, for they had been lukewarm, had slept, and had not prayed. If I, Lord, do not wish to flee, I must be steadfast, I cannot sleep, I must pray.
Grant me, Lord, this grace of perseverance in every situation, every anguish, every bitterness; this grace of fidelity in every abandonment, every forsaking, every defeat; this grace of constancy even when all have abandoned Thee, oppressed by sleep or maddened by concupiscence for the things of this world. Otherwise, my God, take me from this life, for there is one thing I do not want, that is, to flee.
Through the omnipotent intercession of Thy Most Holy Mother, Lord Jesus, this is the grace of perseverance I beseech of Thee.
Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira (*)
“When Jesus had said these things, He went forth with His disciples over the brook Cedron, where there was a garden, into which He entered with His disciples” (John, 18:1).
Jesus went forth from Jerusalem. This was not an ordinary departure followed by a prompt return, but a true and profound separation.
The Messiah loved the Holy City, its walls shrouded with glory, its Temple of the living God proudly standing therein, the Chosen People its inhabitants. It was because of this that, with special fondness, He had preached the Good News within it and contested its vices with an especially ardent vigor. But, He had been rejected. He was, therefore, leaving the accursed city.
It was night. Jerusalem glittered with all its lights. There was warmth and plenty within its houses and liveliness in its streets. A great unconcern hovered over the joyful and tranquil city. About Jesus, with all His beauty, grace, wisdom, and goodness, the city was little concerned. No one noticed the moment that He left the city, no one knew it, save perhaps one or another passerby who glanced at Him with indifference.
The Jews felt no need of Jesus. To guide their souls, they preferred Annas, Caiphas, and their kind. To watch over their national interests, they had Herod. They tolerated Pilate with a deeply resigned ill-humor. Under the care of these spiritual and temporal shepherds they could eat, drink, and enjoy themselves freely, then console their consciences later with a prayer or sacrifice in the Temple. Thus was everything arranged, with a somnolent and conformist outlook.
Jesus had come to disturb this peace. He had spoken about death, judgment, Heaven, and Hell without understanding that the world around Him did not tolerate such preaching and that a rabbi’s first duty lay in adapting himself to the demands of the times. Endowed with a profound understanding of the Sacred Scriptures, skillful in His reasoning, adept at impressing the multitudes and in attracting people into the intimacy of His persuasive colloquies, He seemed resolved to demonstrate the irremediable incompatibility between religion on the one hand and the easygoing, unbridled, and commodious life on the other. He thus pulled on both sides of the bow and sooner or later would reduce everything to ruins. But this did not bother Him, for He was neither balanced nor reasonable.
Accentuating the dangerous effect of His words, He performed miracles and, bolstered by the prestige gained thereby, He further disturbed souls by teaching that the road to Heaven is narrow, thus emphasizing the need of purity, honesty, and uprightness for gaining entry into it. Had He, who so preached mercy, no feeling for the travails of soul, the dramas of conscience He thus created? Did He, who so preached humility, not recognize the need to conform Himself with the example of prudence being given Him by the Chief Priests?
It is true that at one time He seemed to be on the verge of succeeding, but the Sanhedrin had acted in time. Generously opening its coffers, it had sent emissaries amidst the multitude, raising suspicions against the insolent one. These emissaries were agile, and they knew how to strike the right psychological chords. The rabbi’s chances had been eliminated. Jerusalem would not be His. Even more! His death was agreed upon and the people would applaud it. This death was one last and insignificant corollary in the whole affair, a small matter for the police. Yes, the Jesus of Nazareth “case” was closed. The populace could once again plunge itself into pleasure, gold, and the long ceremonies in the Temple. Everything would return to normal. Yes, a great unconcern made the air seem lighter during that tranquil and satisfied night.
Jesus’ preaching was over and He was leaving the city, for there was nothing for Him to do there. To associate with the tepid and drowsy tranquility of the somnolent consciences He had tried to awaken was incompatible with His perfection. The only recourse was to leave. Leave, yes, so as to express a complete estrangement, a complete separation, an undisguised incompatibility. So He departed.
Left behind were the lights as He penetrated the darkness of the night. Left behind was the multitude, as He took with Him only a handful of followers. Left behind was everything of power, of wealth, of human glory as He searched for a solitary and poor place accompanied by only a few foreigners without social standing, without cultural qualifications, with nothing. Behind Him were the joys of life; He was walking towards the desolation of those who are abandoned and the terrible anguishes of those awaiting death.
“And He saith to His disciples: Sit you here, while I pray” (Mark, 14:32).
His isolation was greater than it would seem at first sight. The Apostles followed Him, it is true, but with their souls filled with attachment to everything they were leaving behind in this terrible separation and with dread in face of everything that their hazy perspectives of the future allowed them to foresee. Their souls no longer felt like praying: This was the beginning of their defection, since he who does not pray is tumbling headlong into the abyss. Pray? They “could not.” Return to Jerusalem? They would not. They remained there, “sitting.” And they agreed to let the Master go on further, to leave Him to Himself. The Apostles, for sure, considered themselves heroes for having remained there “sitting.” They felt their own pain so much, that they could not think about the Lord’s. They thus allowed themselves to be crushed by the suffering.
Sitting. Soon they were fast asleep, and soon after they fled!
Not praying, thinking little about Christ’s Passion and much about one’s own sorrows, all of this leads one to “sit down” alongside the road and let Jesus walk on. After this, there is only heaviness, slumber, lukewarmness... and flight.
It is a terrible, terrible lesson for all those who set out on the long journey on the road to perfection!
Jesus had warned them, “Pray, lest you enter into temptation” (Luke 22:40). They did not pray, and so they succumbed.
“And taking with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, He began to grow sorrowful and to be sad.” (Matt. 26:37).
A selection, as some were less dulled by the pain of abandonment, defeat, and total separation from the world. The suffering of Jesus pained them more vividly. They deserved to be called aside and to witness the beginning of the infinitely precious sorrows of the Redeemer.
How many receive the same call! Grace attracts them to a greater piety, a more profound orthodoxy, a more exact understanding of the terrible situation of the Church in our days. To correspond to these graces requires the courage to participate in Our Lord’s sadness, and this requires generosity, strength, and seriousness.
How does one refuse this grace? By refusing the sadness of Our Lord, dwelling on bagatelles, idolizing sports, centering one’s life on radio and television, jesting as the sole theme of one’s conversations; by fleeing from a consideration of the terrible duties our times impose and the gravity of the problems they cause, instead becoming engulfed in petty concerns of daily life.
Such people do not receive the adorable trust of the sorrows of the Heart of Jesus. They are like toads, which live with their bellies hugging the earth, and not like eagles, which penetrate the highest heavens with their powerful flight.
“Then He saith to them: My soul is sorrowful even unto death: stay you here, and watch with Me” (Matt. 26:38).
“My soul is sorrowful,” says the Saviour, not “I am sorrowful.” He wanted to indicate that His torment was an entirely moral torment. That of His body had not yet begun. The pains of His flesh are much dwelt on in the Passion, and this is good. Nevertheless, the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus came to emphasize the sorrows of His soul, and this is excellent, for sorrows of the soul are more profound, more excruciating, and more noble than those of the body; they stand in greater opposition to the defects of soul that most offend God.
And with what was Christ’s soul suffering? With what should we suffer? With seeing the will of the Eternal Father violated and Jesus, Our Lord, rejected, denied, and hated. To ponder this, to measure the scope and gravity of this is to suffer within us the spiritual pains of Our Lord.
Jesus Christ and His Church constitute just one whole. Every time we encounter an immoral advertisement, an unjust statement, an institution or a law opposed to the Church’s doctrine, we should suffer. If not, if for this we have neither zeal nor strength, than we are good for nothing but to remain “sitting” and, when the hour of danger arrives, to flee.
“Sorrowful unto death.” In other words, a supreme sadness. The sadness of seeing God’s law violated, the Church persecuted, the glory of God denied, should be in us a supreme sadness and not just one of those emotional and ephemeral little sadnesses emanating from frivolous and impressionable souls like the ignis fatuus of swamps and cemeteries. It should not be merely a petty sadness, one only skin-deep, that does not wrench from us serious resolutions, profound zeal, effective renunciation of everything so that we live exclusively in the fight. A soul “sorrowful unto death” is not consoled with magazines, with fine clothing or restaurants, with strolls, with trifles, honest... or dishonest! It will live in the mortal sorrow of seeing God’s glory scorned and will find a palliative only, but only, in the interior life and in the apostolate.
“Stay here,” that is, do not mingle with the perfidious sons of Jerusalem, nor with the lukewarm who slumber a few steps away.
“Stay with me.” Yes, participate in My solitude, in My defeat, in My sorrow. And make of this your glory, your joy, your riches.
“And going a little further, He fell upon His face” (Matt. 26:39). Why did He go “a little further” after having told the three Apostles to “stay with Me”?
To stay with Our Lord is to stay close to Him in spirit, it is be united with Him. Staying with Him means standing with the Church with one’s whole heart, one’s whole soul, one’s whole understanding. He who in the hours of agony thinks of Our Lord and not of himself, “stays” with Him. He who thinks only about Our Lord, and not about the world, its spirit and delights, “stays” with Him.
Our Lord advanced just “a little,” a “stone’s cast,” says St. Luke (22:41). Why “go further?” And why just “a little”?
Our Lord wanted to be seen so as to maintain His three chosen Apostles in their fidelity. He wanted to console them and to console Himself by feeling them close by. It was necessary, however, that He “go further” because an hour of special gravity had arrived. He was going to speak with God, and God with Him. Just as in the Jewish worship the priest entered the Holy of Holies alone, so also Our Lord wished to take this first step of His Passion alone.
Have we holy solitudes in our souls such as this one? Peaks upon which only God and we stand, and to which no confidant, no friend, no earthly affection climbs and to which we admit only the gaze of our spiritual director?
Or are we of those souls with no reservation or nobility, open to any wind, any scrutiny, any step, like some dull public square?
“He fell upon His face.” A complete humiliation, a total renunciation; this is the victim prepared for the holocaust.
What preparation for prayer! When we speak with God, do we “fall upon our face” beforehand? In other words, do we approach humbly, ready to obey, desirous of renouncing everything, recognizing our worthlessness? Or do we approach with reservations, with reticence, with sore points in which God cannot ask of us a sacrifice? When we listen to the Church, do we throw ourselves face down on the ground, renouncing all of our opinions, all of our choices, so as to obey? In face of those who edify us, bringing us closer to the Church and the Pope, do we “fall upon our faces,” accepting their influence? Or do we erect barricades, set up restrictions?
“Praying and saying: My Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from Me. Nevertheless not as I will but as Thou wilt” (Matt. 26:39).
To be prostrate on the ground, but at the same time praying, with the body lying on what is most lowly, the ground, and with the soul ascending to the highest of Heaven, the throne of God! In this consists the invincibility of the true Catholic. In the apex of affliction, of humiliation, of abandonment, he has in his hands the weapon that overcomes all adversaries. How true this is for the struggles of the interior life. With no resources for finding the right path, or resisting, we pray... and we end up successfully. And how true this is in the apostolate.
Are we intimidated by the impetus of the paganizing wave? Immediately we think of conceding, in which we sacrifice the accidental because it is accidental, then the secondary essentials because they are secondary, and finally that which is fundamental... “so as to avoid greater harm.” If only we knew the strength of prayer, if only we knew how to throw ourselves face down on the ground and pray, we would understand better the efficacy of our supernatural weapons, the meaning, worth, and usefulness of Christian intransigence. The Divine Saviour suffered here for the pessimists, for those who are discouraged and have no idea of the Church’s triumphant force.
“Let this chalice pass from Me.” What chalice? It was the approaching atrocious, crushing, and unjust suffering that Jesus foresaw. At this moment, the Divine Master suffered for all those who sin through optimism; for all those who, confronted with the perspective of having to fight, with anguish and pain, resort to the ostrich policy and choose to imagine that “all goes well.” To foresee the pain, to prepare courageously for it, this is elevated, most elevated, virtue. And this, whether in our private lives or for the cause of the Holy Church. In this moment in which She is so warred against, let us not have the foolishness to say that all goes well. Let us recognize the gravity of the hour and let us view the threats posed by the future in a manly and Christian manner, with a resolute and confident spirit, ready to react with prayer, combativeness, and full acceptance of the sacrifice.
Such was the example given us by the Divine Master. He withdrew from everyone so that, face to face with God, He could fathom the full depth of the ocean of pain and sorrow into which He was to be immersed and take a stand in face of this perspective.
What stand? “If it be possible, let this chalice pass from Me. Nevertheless not as I will but as Thou wilt.”
Two supplications are comprised here. In one, the God-man asks that these pains and sorrows be removed from Him “if it be possible.” In the other, He accepts them in the event they cannot be avoided.
A holy attitude this, one with no theatrics or vainglory. Pain naturally provokes fear in man, and Our Lord, not only true God but true man as well, dreaded this pain. He asked, therefore, that it pass from Him “if possible.” Avoiding pain is legitimate, wise, holy. But avoiding it at any price, no! -- only “if it be possible.”
“If possible.” What does this mean? It means that, if the Divine Will, in light of the humble plea of a Just One crushed by the anticipation of the pains, would show Itself compassionate by removing the suffering, let it be so. On the contrary, if removing the suffering were to introduce a change in the plans of Providence, with a diminution of God’s glory, of the good of the Church to be founded, and of souls, then it would be better to suffer everything.
“If it be possible....” What a sublime conditional, unknown to our century. And because of this the whole world is in crisis, in distress, in agony. Earthly goods, wealth, glory, health, beauty, all of these are good in the measure in which we give precedence to God’s will. But, if it be necessary for us to renounce everything, because in light of this or that interior or exterior circumstance “it is not possible” to have these things without displeasing God, then let us make the complete renunciation. If all men were to think and feel this way, the world would be another! Because of the absence of this conditional -- which comprises the entirety of order and good -- civilization perishes.
“Not as I will but as Thou wilt.” Upon these words rests the entire life of the Church, of souls, and of nations. Holy, sweet, hard, and terrible words that today’s man chooses not to understand. These words provide a perfect definition of obedience, of that obedience which the world, from Luther’s day until now, has hated with increasing hatred.
Yes, may the will of God be done rather than mine; I will fulfill the Commandments and will not follow my own whims. I will think as the Pope thinks, even if another doctrine seems preferable to me. I will obey everyone who exercises a legitimate authority over me, for he represents God and I will therefore do his will and not mine.
My Jesus, in view of this, how can one explain that Thou art called a revolutionary and that Thou didst come to bring the Revolution to the earth?
After this, there is silence. The Gospels do not tell us what answer He received, nor what Jesus replied to this answer. Why say it? And with what words?
More than likely, only one person on this earth saw, knew, and adored everything: Mary Most Holy, present undoubtedly in spirit and participating in everything.
The matter is too elevated for us to interpret this silence, which not even the Evangelists chose to break. Let us beseech the Mediatrix of all graces that She introduce us into the recollection of the interior life and into the ineffable mysteries of this moment of silence.
Jesus accepted. “And there appeared to Him an angel from Heaven, strengthening Him. And being in agony, He prayed the longer. And his sweat became as drops of blood, trickling down upon the ground” (Luke 22:43-44).
Thus began the Passion. Jesus had foreseen the pain and death and had accepted them. The very foresight of the inevitable placed Him in face of an overwhelming accumulation of torments.
But “an angel strengthened Him.” Yes, His humble prayer had been heard. God was giving Him strength to overcome the invincible torment, to bear the unbearable pain, to accept with conformity the unacceptable injustice.
If only we understood this! The Commandments seem too heavy for us, the wind of unbridled appetites and diabolical temptations roars within us. If only we understood that this is the hour of God. If we only “prayed the longer.” If only we accepted the visit of the angel who strengthens us!
Yes, because for us also, an angel always comes, so long as we pray. At times it is an interior movement of grace, or a good book, or a friend who gives us good example or good advice. But, we do not pray. As a result, we fall.
In the Agony, the angel came, as a fruit of prayer. After the visit, Our Lord continued to pray. Yes, praying the harder is the secret of victory. He who prays, saves himself; he who does not pray, damns himself, St. Alphonsus Liguori used to say. And how right he was!
Jesus sweat blood. The redeeming blood flowed because of the pressure of the moral sorrow. One can say that it was blood from the heart. What a magnificent theme for devotees of the Sacred Heart.
Sweating blood is the utmost of pain. It is the highest pressure point of the moral suffering upon the body. One would say that Our Lord was enduring every suffering possible. Nevertheless, He had not yet taken even the first step of His Via Sacra.
His martyrdom was beginning where that of others reaches its apex. How does one explain this incomparable resistance?
It is because “there appeared to Him an angel from Heaven, strengthening Him,” and because “He prayed the longer.”
Oh, the value of the supernatural! And we dare say that we capitulate in the interior life or in the struggles of the apostolate from lack of strength!
Three times did Our Lord present his ”fiat” (cf. Matt. 26:39-44), returning to His disciples after each time.
After the first, “He found them sleeping” (Matt. 26:40), and He advised them, “Watch ye, and pray that ye enter not into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Matt. 26:41).
But they paid no heed. Why? They were drowsy. Theirs was a somnolence stemming from two opposite excesses. On the one hand, despair, on the other, presumption. -- Despair: Faced with the human defeat of Jesus, their dreams of worldly grandeur were undone. What was left them? Only that darkness, that solitude, that hard and ordinary ground on which they rested. Their careers were cut short, O sorrow of sorrows! Under the burden of this sorrow, the only thing to do was sleep. -- Presumption: Nevertheless, they considered themselves strong. They had fought so much; certainly it was an insult to doubt their strength. Convinced of their resistance, unconcerned with their perseverance, they “killed time” by sleeping.
It was a sleep that was rude as well. The Lord suffered and they slept! What could they care about the Lord? Were they not already rendering Him an infinite favor by being there with Him in that abandonment? What else did He want? For them to pray at so late an hour? By no means. He could watch if He wanted to. As for the Apostles, they were going to sleep.
The more one enters into sleep the heavier it becomes. Such also is the progress of lukewarmness. The second time, Jesus “found them sleeping, for their eyes were heavy with sleep” (Matt. 26:42), a sleep of mediocrity, of indolence, of softness. Did they still follow the Master? Yes and no. Yes, because after all, they were there. No, because they no longer listened to Him. He would speak and they would disobey. He would suffer and they would sleep. It was the beginning of a rupture.
How do such disastrous falls occur? To sleep while Jesus speaks is, for me, to be inattentive, indifferent, lukewarm when I am spoken to by those who represent the Holy Church, by those who would guide me along the ways of sanctity, by those who personify for me -- because of their example -- orthodoxy, generosity, hunger and thirst of virtue. When I fall into this sleep, what remedy is there, except to wake up, “watching and praying lest I fall into temptation?” And if I do not do so, what is the outcome?
The result is failure in one’s spiritual life and in one’s vocation. The third time, Our Lord’s words are a rebuke: “Sleep ye now and take your rest; behold the hour is at hand, and the Son of man shall be betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise, let us go: Behold he is at hand that will betray Me” (Matt. 26:45-46).
It was past the hour. Not even the affectionate and doleful supplication, “couldest thou not watch one hour?” (Mark 14:37) had moved them.
Shortly thereafter, “while he was yet speaking, cometh Judas Iscariot, one of the twelve: and with him a great multitude with swords and staves” (Mark, 14:43). And soon afterwards, “his disciples leaving Him, all fled away” (Mark 14:50).
Yes, they fled, for they had been lukewarm, had slept, and had not prayed. If I, Lord, do not wish to flee, I must be steadfast, I cannot sleep, I must pray.
Grant me, Lord, this grace of perseverance in every situation, every anguish, every bitterness; this grace of fidelity in every abandonment, every forsaking, every defeat; this grace of constancy even when all have abandoned Thee, oppressed by sleep or maddened by concupiscence for the things of this world. Otherwise, my God, take me from this life, for there is one thing I do not want, that is, to flee.
Through the omnipotent intercession of Thy Most Holy Mother, Lord Jesus, this is the grace of perseverance I beseech of Thee.
Sunday, January 20, 2013
The Three crises in married love and their resolution - The crisis of Tolerance and its resolution - Bishop Fulton J Sheen
The Crisis of Tolerance - Even the discovery of personality brings its crisis, namely the divergence of interests. This is the civil-war period of marriage. What has happened is not that the personality which was discovered is lost; rather, it is rendered opaque by egotism of each.
The second crisis is due to a series of complex causes, both physical and psychical. There is no longer anything to be revealed; mystery is ended. Discovery and revelation, which were essential for the unfolding of love, are gone; there is nothing left to be told that has not been told. There is not a mood or thought of one that is not known to the other; every idiosyncrasy, deformity, habit, gesture which was once hidden is now placarded and evident. the woman feels herself less beautiful, not only because of years, but also because she is loved less tenderly, for love does help create beauty. The husband, on the other hand, feels that others would be more devoted to him if they were given a chance. There are moments when each wishes that he or she could start life all over again. In the heart of each are the words: "You say that I am not what you thought, but then you yourself are not what I thought."
Love is not transformed into comradeship, union into juxtaposition, and marriage into an exchange of egotism from force of habit. Taine, the French Historian, sarcastically said that marriage was made up of three weeks of curiosity, three weeks of love, three years of argument and 30 years of tolerance. Though this formula is an exaggerations, marriage is really likely to settle down to as state in which husband and wife live independent existences unless there is a purification of love; they may sleep in a common dormitory, they may eat at a common refectory, they may meet their children in a common hall but there is no internal unity. Each agglomeration of atoms demands considerable tolerance, allowing him to do whatever he pleases, this being the surest way for each to preserve his own egotism.
There are many indications when couples are living in the period of tolerance; the one who walks ahead on the street is the one who is mad; in the car, he occupies the front seat, and she sits in the rear; she inquires why he cannot be clean in the house like Mr. Brown; he in turn wonders why she can't be thin like Mrs. Green. Each looks for perfection in the other, though the reason they married was because each confessed to being imperfect without the other. It is curious that when a man buys an automobile he never complains because it does not cut the grass, nor does a woman blame a new hat because it does not sprout a garden. But in the age of tolerance, a man expects a wife to be something which she is not, for example, pretty at forty-eight, when he married her because she was a good cook. And if she married him because he was rich, she still manages to blame him becasue he is not the romantic type.
To escape the tolerance, the indignity of being 'put up with' each goes his separate way, and the escape is generally found in some kind of service away from one another and the home. Egotism is transferred from the individual, where it was in the sex period, to the social arena. This transfer from individual to social egotism makes a man dedicate himself to business, profession and making money and makes a woman devote herself to politics or reform leagues, parties, fashion and bridge clubs. Both have 'expansive feelings', but there really is no charity or love for anybody in them; the expansive feelings is nothing but a boil on the neck of their egotism. Altruism of this kind is an escape from futility; though their deeds may be disguised under the name of philantrophy, there is no sacrifice of ego.
The second crisis is due to a series of complex causes, both physical and psychical. There is no longer anything to be revealed; mystery is ended. Discovery and revelation, which were essential for the unfolding of love, are gone; there is nothing left to be told that has not been told. There is not a mood or thought of one that is not known to the other; every idiosyncrasy, deformity, habit, gesture which was once hidden is now placarded and evident. the woman feels herself less beautiful, not only because of years, but also because she is loved less tenderly, for love does help create beauty. The husband, on the other hand, feels that others would be more devoted to him if they were given a chance. There are moments when each wishes that he or she could start life all over again. In the heart of each are the words: "You say that I am not what you thought, but then you yourself are not what I thought."
Love is not transformed into comradeship, union into juxtaposition, and marriage into an exchange of egotism from force of habit. Taine, the French Historian, sarcastically said that marriage was made up of three weeks of curiosity, three weeks of love, three years of argument and 30 years of tolerance. Though this formula is an exaggerations, marriage is really likely to settle down to as state in which husband and wife live independent existences unless there is a purification of love; they may sleep in a common dormitory, they may eat at a common refectory, they may meet their children in a common hall but there is no internal unity. Each agglomeration of atoms demands considerable tolerance, allowing him to do whatever he pleases, this being the surest way for each to preserve his own egotism.
There are many indications when couples are living in the period of tolerance; the one who walks ahead on the street is the one who is mad; in the car, he occupies the front seat, and she sits in the rear; she inquires why he cannot be clean in the house like Mr. Brown; he in turn wonders why she can't be thin like Mrs. Green. Each looks for perfection in the other, though the reason they married was because each confessed to being imperfect without the other. It is curious that when a man buys an automobile he never complains because it does not cut the grass, nor does a woman blame a new hat because it does not sprout a garden. But in the age of tolerance, a man expects a wife to be something which she is not, for example, pretty at forty-eight, when he married her because she was a good cook. And if she married him because he was rich, she still manages to blame him becasue he is not the romantic type.
To escape the tolerance, the indignity of being 'put up with' each goes his separate way, and the escape is generally found in some kind of service away from one another and the home. Egotism is transferred from the individual, where it was in the sex period, to the social arena. This transfer from individual to social egotism makes a man dedicate himself to business, profession and making money and makes a woman devote herself to politics or reform leagues, parties, fashion and bridge clubs. Both have 'expansive feelings', but there really is no charity or love for anybody in them; the expansive feelings is nothing but a boil on the neck of their egotism. Altruism of this kind is an escape from futility; though their deeds may be disguised under the name of philantrophy, there is no sacrifice of ego.
Saturday, January 19, 2013
The Three crises in married love and their resolution - First Crisis and resolution - Bishop Fulton J Sheen
The first crisis is The crisis of sex. The first crisis comes when what was one loved in a dream is at last possessed in reality. One is never thirsty at the border of a well. As soon as we get the things we desire, we begin to take them for granted. As in the mechanical order there is a loss of energy by friction, so, in physical love, constant proximity brings a decline in intensity. Indulgence produces satiety, and purely carnal love begins to exhaust itself in dull repetition. The loneliness from which one sought to escape by communion with another is now more intense than ever. The union one expected has not lasted; the goal of mystic incorporation with the other has not been achieved. Union is replaced by disunion, fragmentation, solitariness.
The passion for a crescendo of intimacy until oneness is achieved cannot be completely satisfied in the physical order, because after the act of unity, two separate personalities remain, each with his or her individual mystery. The paradox is clear: the souls of lovers aspire to unity, but their bodies, which are momentary symbols of that unity, cannot attain it. The flesh is inadequate for that kind of unity which alone can satisfy the spirit. No marriage is free from the tension which this produces.
Physical love does not continue with the same ecstasy. If flesh is the only medium of married love, then marriage must suffer the penalties of flesh: transience and death. As life goes on, a greater stimulus is required to produce and equal reaction to sensation. The eye can soon becomes used to beauty, and the fingers to the touch of a friend. The intimacy which at first was so desirable now becomes at time a burden. The " I wasnt to be alone feeling" and the " I think I will go home to mother feeling" come when the eyes are relieved of their rose -coloured glasses. Bills coming into the kitchen make love fly out of the parlour. The very habit of love becomes boring because it is a habit and not an adventure.
The assumption is that life is a perpetual honeymoon, and that the present moment is eternal. The thrill of holding hands, or watching waves roll on a moonlit beach, will never end. This false romantic idea is fostered in part by movies, where a plot is worked up to an arbitrary climax in which the boy and girl are married. This is assumed to be the end, when actually it is only the beginning. There is not the slightest suggestion that there will ever be bad cooking, too much Irish stew, and diapers to wash.
Marriage is thus interpreted in terms of sex. Love is identified with sex adjustment. rhinoceroses are sexually adjusted, but they do not love. Sex is only the frosting on the cake of love; it is the self-starter on the motor of life, but it is neither the highway nor the voyage.
At this point within two years after marriage, many marriages end. Because the biological side of marriage lacks a thrill, it is assumed that love no longer exists. Even a hot water bottle loses its heat after a time, but we do not throw away the bottle. The purpose of a vow is to enable couples to stay together amidst the emotional changes of love. A soldier may not retreat just because he meets opposition. The law now applies: Love can avoid destruction and death only by surmounting itself. There are certain beautiful things in life which cannot be captured permanently. At the Transfiguration, when he face of Our Lord shone as the sun and His garments were as white as snow, Peter wanted to capture the glory thereof by building a tabernacle round Him. But Our Lord reminded Peter that, before that glory could come in a permanent form, he would have to descend the hill of Transfiguration and mount the hill of sacrifice called Calvary. Love is glorified by pain and sacrifice. In the spiritual order, St. Theresa spoke of the various stages of the spiritual life as mansions; one passed from one mansion to another only after considerable purification. As one does not climb a mountain without passing through various stages of peril and hardship, so one does not mount the peak of love without first enduring succeeding crises.
The crises of sex are transformed by the discovery of personality. The body was leading the soul; now the soul leads the body. the mere fact that the biological becomes less automatic, less violent, less imperative and less animal enables each partner to discover that opposite him is, not sex, nor sexuality, but a personality. Interests is concentrated less in the pleasure, but more in the person who gives the pleasure. new attitudes are directed to the person, such as admiration, esteem, good will, confidence, and friendship. The vital forces are revitalized; each begins to live a different way. Sex is replaceable; but love is irreplaceable. No one can take the place of a mother or a brother, neither can anyone take the place of a wife or a husband. The change in the relationship corresponds to the physical crises of youth and is just as real as what happens when a child becomes a man. The will to love replaced the automatism of love: epidermic conflicts give way to a communion of personalities. before, love was like an electric switch; now it is deliberate, like shaking hands; the will is less passive and more active. gestures, acts of tenderness, sympathy not take on a new meaning - they are bearers of something spiritual, messages from a personality, a soul. There is less libido, and less desire; less selfishness and more consent. Instinct now gives way to the will which supplies a new force, higher than the force which comes from the glands. Love becomes less primitive and more educated.
The passion for a crescendo of intimacy until oneness is achieved cannot be completely satisfied in the physical order, because after the act of unity, two separate personalities remain, each with his or her individual mystery. The paradox is clear: the souls of lovers aspire to unity, but their bodies, which are momentary symbols of that unity, cannot attain it. The flesh is inadequate for that kind of unity which alone can satisfy the spirit. No marriage is free from the tension which this produces.
Physical love does not continue with the same ecstasy. If flesh is the only medium of married love, then marriage must suffer the penalties of flesh: transience and death. As life goes on, a greater stimulus is required to produce and equal reaction to sensation. The eye can soon becomes used to beauty, and the fingers to the touch of a friend. The intimacy which at first was so desirable now becomes at time a burden. The " I wasnt to be alone feeling" and the " I think I will go home to mother feeling" come when the eyes are relieved of their rose -coloured glasses. Bills coming into the kitchen make love fly out of the parlour. The very habit of love becomes boring because it is a habit and not an adventure.
The assumption is that life is a perpetual honeymoon, and that the present moment is eternal. The thrill of holding hands, or watching waves roll on a moonlit beach, will never end. This false romantic idea is fostered in part by movies, where a plot is worked up to an arbitrary climax in which the boy and girl are married. This is assumed to be the end, when actually it is only the beginning. There is not the slightest suggestion that there will ever be bad cooking, too much Irish stew, and diapers to wash.
Marriage is thus interpreted in terms of sex. Love is identified with sex adjustment. rhinoceroses are sexually adjusted, but they do not love. Sex is only the frosting on the cake of love; it is the self-starter on the motor of life, but it is neither the highway nor the voyage.
At this point within two years after marriage, many marriages end. Because the biological side of marriage lacks a thrill, it is assumed that love no longer exists. Even a hot water bottle loses its heat after a time, but we do not throw away the bottle. The purpose of a vow is to enable couples to stay together amidst the emotional changes of love. A soldier may not retreat just because he meets opposition. The law now applies: Love can avoid destruction and death only by surmounting itself. There are certain beautiful things in life which cannot be captured permanently. At the Transfiguration, when he face of Our Lord shone as the sun and His garments were as white as snow, Peter wanted to capture the glory thereof by building a tabernacle round Him. But Our Lord reminded Peter that, before that glory could come in a permanent form, he would have to descend the hill of Transfiguration and mount the hill of sacrifice called Calvary. Love is glorified by pain and sacrifice. In the spiritual order, St. Theresa spoke of the various stages of the spiritual life as mansions; one passed from one mansion to another only after considerable purification. As one does not climb a mountain without passing through various stages of peril and hardship, so one does not mount the peak of love without first enduring succeeding crises.
The crises of sex are transformed by the discovery of personality. The body was leading the soul; now the soul leads the body. the mere fact that the biological becomes less automatic, less violent, less imperative and less animal enables each partner to discover that opposite him is, not sex, nor sexuality, but a personality. Interests is concentrated less in the pleasure, but more in the person who gives the pleasure. new attitudes are directed to the person, such as admiration, esteem, good will, confidence, and friendship. The vital forces are revitalized; each begins to live a different way. Sex is replaceable; but love is irreplaceable. No one can take the place of a mother or a brother, neither can anyone take the place of a wife or a husband. The change in the relationship corresponds to the physical crises of youth and is just as real as what happens when a child becomes a man. The will to love replaced the automatism of love: epidermic conflicts give way to a communion of personalities. before, love was like an electric switch; now it is deliberate, like shaking hands; the will is less passive and more active. gestures, acts of tenderness, sympathy not take on a new meaning - they are bearers of something spiritual, messages from a personality, a soul. There is less libido, and less desire; less selfishness and more consent. Instinct now gives way to the will which supplies a new force, higher than the force which comes from the glands. Love becomes less primitive and more educated.
Friday, January 18, 2013
The Three crises in married love and their resolution - Introduction - Bishop Fulton J Sheen
The Three crises in married love and their resolution - Introduction
The Three crises in married love, which if not conquered lead to decay are:
1 - The crisis of sex
2 - The crisis of tolerance
3 - The crisis of boredom and divorce
Corresponding to these three crises are three elevations of love by which love is lifted to new peaks of peace, serenity and happiness. The three elevations corresponding to each crisis are:
1 - the discovery of personality
2 - the happiness of the beloved
3 - the divine origin of love
Love never mounts to a high level without a death to a lower one
Before applying this law to the crises of marriage, let us see how it applied to the love of Our Lord to His Blessed Mother. There were two phases in their relationship: one from Bethlehem to Cana; the other from Cana to Calvary.
In the first phase Mary was just the Mother of Jesus, Our Lord. But at the marriage feast of Cana she had to decide whether He was to work His first miracle, and thereby reveal Himself as the Messiah and Saviour of the world. This revelation would eventually lead to His Crucifixion. Once Mary had made her decision and had consented to His Ministry and Death, she mounted from the role of being His Mother to being the Mother of all whom He would redeem. To signify that universal womanhood, He called her at Cana and the Cross, not "mother", but "Woman" which typified the motherhood of redeemed humanity. She was the new Eve, just as He was the new Adam.
Applying the law to marriage, we find that crises do not mean the end of love: they are invitations to enjoy it one a higher plane.
A crisis does not mean that one has exhausted love, but only that one has hit the bottom of one's egotism and selfishness.
A crisis should never mean "I love you no more," but "Now i begin to love you in a different way."
Love is not an illusion; the illusion is to believe that one's love will never undergo a crisis.
The apparent emptiness comes, not from the other partner, but from the nature of life itself.
The Three crises in married love, which if not conquered lead to decay are:
1 - The crisis of sex
2 - The crisis of tolerance
3 - The crisis of boredom and divorce
Corresponding to these three crises are three elevations of love by which love is lifted to new peaks of peace, serenity and happiness. The three elevations corresponding to each crisis are:
1 - the discovery of personality
2 - the happiness of the beloved
3 - the divine origin of love
Love never mounts to a high level without a death to a lower one
Before applying this law to the crises of marriage, let us see how it applied to the love of Our Lord to His Blessed Mother. There were two phases in their relationship: one from Bethlehem to Cana; the other from Cana to Calvary.
In the first phase Mary was just the Mother of Jesus, Our Lord. But at the marriage feast of Cana she had to decide whether He was to work His first miracle, and thereby reveal Himself as the Messiah and Saviour of the world. This revelation would eventually lead to His Crucifixion. Once Mary had made her decision and had consented to His Ministry and Death, she mounted from the role of being His Mother to being the Mother of all whom He would redeem. To signify that universal womanhood, He called her at Cana and the Cross, not "mother", but "Woman" which typified the motherhood of redeemed humanity. She was the new Eve, just as He was the new Adam.
Applying the law to marriage, we find that crises do not mean the end of love: they are invitations to enjoy it one a higher plane.
A crisis does not mean that one has exhausted love, but only that one has hit the bottom of one's egotism and selfishness.
A crisis should never mean "I love you no more," but "Now i begin to love you in a different way."
The apparent emptiness comes, not from the other partner, but from the nature of life itself.
Sunday, January 6, 2013
Why Contraception is Wrong - Pope John Paul II. Familiaris Consortio: An Apostolic Exhortation on the integral role of the Christian family in the modern world.
It is precisely by moving [away] from “an integral vision of man and of his vocation, not only his natural and earthly, but also his supernatural and eternal vocation,” that Paul VI affirmed that the teaching of the Church “is founded upon the inseparable connection, willed by God and unable to be broken by man on his own initiative, between the two meanings of the conjugal act: the unitive meaning and the procreative meaning.” And he concluded by re-emphasizing that there must be excluded as intrinsically immoral “every action which, either in anticipation of the conjugal act, or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible.”
When couples, by means of recourse to contraception, separate these two meanings that God the Creator has inscribed in the being of man and woman and in the dynamism of their sexual communion, they act as “arbiters” of the divine plan and they “manipulate” and degrade human sexuality—and with it themselves and their married partner—by altering its value of “total” self-giving. Thus, the innate language that expresses
the total reciprocal self-giving of husband and wife is overlaid, through contraception, by an objectively contradictory language, namely, that of not giving oneself totally to the other. This leads not only to a positive refusal to be open to life, but also to a falsification of the inner truth of conjugal love, which is called upon to give itself in personal totality.
Saturday, December 29, 2012
Active Participation - 'Spirit of the Liturgy' by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger
Of course, external actions - reading, singing, the bringing up of the gifts - can be distributed in sensible way. By the same token, participation in the Liturgy of the Word (reading, singing) is to be distinguished from the sacramental celebration proper. We should be clearly aware that external actions are quite secondary here. Doing really must stop when we come to the heart of the matter: the oratio. (The Eucharist prayer). It must be plainly evident that the oratio is the heart of the matter, but that it is important precisely because it provides a space for the actio (action) of God. Anyone who grasps this will easily see that it is not now a matter of looking at or toward the priest, but of looking together toward the Lord and going out to meet him.
The almost theatrical entrance of different players into the liturgy, which is so common today, especially during the Preparation of the Gifts, quite simply misses the point. If the various external actions (as a matter of fact, there are not very many of them, though they are being artificially multiplied) become the essential in the liturgy, if the liturgy degenerates into general activity, then we have radically misunderstood the 'theo-drama' of the liturgy and lapsed almost into parody. True liturgical education cannot consist in learning and experimenting with external activities. Instead one must be led towards the essential actio that makes the liturgy what it is, toward the transforming power of God, who wants, through what happens in the liturgy, to transform us and the world. In this respect, liturgical education today, of both priests and laity, is deficient to a deplorable extent. Much remains to be done here.
The almost theatrical entrance of different players into the liturgy, which is so common today, especially during the Preparation of the Gifts, quite simply misses the point. If the various external actions (as a matter of fact, there are not very many of them, though they are being artificially multiplied) become the essential in the liturgy, if the liturgy degenerates into general activity, then we have radically misunderstood the 'theo-drama' of the liturgy and lapsed almost into parody. True liturgical education cannot consist in learning and experimenting with external activities. Instead one must be led towards the essential actio that makes the liturgy what it is, toward the transforming power of God, who wants, through what happens in the liturgy, to transform us and the world. In this respect, liturgical education today, of both priests and laity, is deficient to a deplorable extent. Much remains to be done here.
A little Christmas Meditation - Dr. Plinio Correa De Oliveira
The state of world events is so uncertain that it is impossible to know the conditions in which we will celebrate Christmas or what the New Year will bring. This will be a Christmas in which Americans are filled with uncertainty, trials and insecurity.
One could rightly ask: “Is it proper to have these concerns during Christmastime? Shouldn’t we have only consolations, joys and satisfactions during this season?”
To answer this question, we should consider the first Christmas night. Saint Joseph and, above all,Our Lady were filled with inexpressible joy in the grotto in Bethlehem.
However, before the Child Jesus was born,they suffered affliction. They had spent the night seeking a dignified place for Our Lord’s birth. Saint Joseph was humiliated seeing that his spouse would have to deliver the Christ Child in a stable where animals ate. While there could not have been a more stupendous event that evening, neither could there have been humbler surroundings.
The manger was all Saint Joseph and Our Lady had to offer the Child Jesus. Thus, the evening was filled with unfathomable joys, but also had its sufferings.
Although the Christ Child knew that Providence had dictated the conditions of His birth, it is possible that Our Lady and Saint Joseph did not know. They could have been filled with doubts concerning the reasons for their poor surroundings, perhaps even attributing them to a wrong doing of their own. Though faultless, Saint Joseph, who was most responsible for providing for the Holy Family,probably asked Our Lord’s pardon for the lowly accommodations he had furnished for His delivery.
Nevertheless, the joys of the evening so surpassed the sadness in it, that the latter was completely forgotten.
We should celebrate Christmas in the same manner, even though we are concerned with the crisis in the Church and breakdown of society and aware of our insufficiency to face these calamities.
The realization that we are chosen to follow Our Lady throughout these troubling times should fill us with joy and overcome the sadness we endure because our personal failings and the godlessness that surrounds us.
At the feet of the newborn Christ Child, we should thank Him for having called us to this struggle and these times. We should realize that we will be capable of persevering because of His Redemption for which His birth was a necessary condition. We ought to express this gratitude through the intercession of Our Lady, the Universal Mediatrix, and Saint Joseph.
We should ask Saint Joseph, Our Lady and the Christ Child for a soul continually mindful of Our Lady’s words at Fatima: “Finally, my Immaculate Heart will triumph!”
Thus, we will be able to overcome all sadness and advance joyfully in the fight, seeking heroism and even sacrifice.
One could rightly ask: “Is it proper to have these concerns during Christmastime? Shouldn’t we have only consolations, joys and satisfactions during this season?”
To answer this question, we should consider the first Christmas night. Saint Joseph and, above all,Our Lady were filled with inexpressible joy in the grotto in Bethlehem.
However, before the Child Jesus was born,they suffered affliction. They had spent the night seeking a dignified place for Our Lord’s birth. Saint Joseph was humiliated seeing that his spouse would have to deliver the Christ Child in a stable where animals ate. While there could not have been a more stupendous event that evening, neither could there have been humbler surroundings.
The manger was all Saint Joseph and Our Lady had to offer the Child Jesus. Thus, the evening was filled with unfathomable joys, but also had its sufferings.
Although the Christ Child knew that Providence had dictated the conditions of His birth, it is possible that Our Lady and Saint Joseph did not know. They could have been filled with doubts concerning the reasons for their poor surroundings, perhaps even attributing them to a wrong doing of their own. Though faultless, Saint Joseph, who was most responsible for providing for the Holy Family,probably asked Our Lord’s pardon for the lowly accommodations he had furnished for His delivery.
Nevertheless, the joys of the evening so surpassed the sadness in it, that the latter was completely forgotten.
We should celebrate Christmas in the same manner, even though we are concerned with the crisis in the Church and breakdown of society and aware of our insufficiency to face these calamities.
The realization that we are chosen to follow Our Lady throughout these troubling times should fill us with joy and overcome the sadness we endure because our personal failings and the godlessness that surrounds us.
At the feet of the newborn Christ Child, we should thank Him for having called us to this struggle and these times. We should realize that we will be capable of persevering because of His Redemption for which His birth was a necessary condition. We ought to express this gratitude through the intercession of Our Lady, the Universal Mediatrix, and Saint Joseph.
We should ask Saint Joseph, Our Lady and the Christ Child for a soul continually mindful of Our Lady’s words at Fatima: “Finally, my Immaculate Heart will triumph!”
Thus, we will be able to overcome all sadness and advance joyfully in the fight, seeking heroism and even sacrifice.
Thursday, December 27, 2012
Wednesday, December 26, 2012
St. John the Evangelist - 27th December 2012 - a commentary by Dr. Plinio
Biographical selection:
After martyrdom, the most noble and courageous sacrifice one can make to God is that of the virginity and chastity. This is why the liturgical calendar chose the first day after Christmas to celebrate of martyrdom of St. Stephen, model of the martyrs, and the second day, December 27, to celebrate the feast of St. John, model of virgins.
St. John was from the family of David, and therefore a member of the family of the Most Holy Virgin; he was a relative of Our Lord by flesh. While the others were Apostles and Disciples, he was the Friend of Our Lord. This predilection was because of his virginity.
He was, according to the Gospel, the Disciple that Jesus loved. This simple phrase is enough to give him glory. This love was for St. John the starting point of the other gifts he received. He was, for example, the first defender of the Divine Word, the Son as co-substantial to the Father, which was being denied by a heresy. The teachings of St. John on this point soar to the heights of the Divine Sun, like an eagle that flies toward the blazing star.
If the face of Moses shone with light after he spoke with God, how much more brilliant and resplendent the face of St. John would have been after he rested his head over the Heart of Jesus, where he received secret treasures of wisdom and science.
Christ was the son of Mary. When He died, Jesus left Mary to St. John. Who on earth could merit such a legacy? The Savior could have left the care of the Most Holy Virgin to Angels. But from the height of the Cross He saw his virgin Disciple, and his chastity made him worthy of such a priceless treasure. The beautiful comment of St. Peter Damian describes this very well: “Peter received the Church, the Mother of men, as his inheritance, but John received Mary, the Mother of God.”
Comments of Prof. Plinio:
There are many profound thoughts in this selection based on Dom Gueranger. I will not comment on all, but just several points.
First, it is very true that the sacrifice of virginity, the oblation of chastity, is so agreeable to God that it second only to martyrdom. This is because it confers on a soul a special affinity with God. Although chastity is a virtue that pertains to the body, it is principally a virtue of the spirit that rejects what is sordid and leaves the soul free to take wing in the realm of the spirit.
It represents a victory of the spiritual over the material that ennobles and increases the dignity of a human creature, giving him greater affinity with God. For this reason Our Lord loved St. John. He is remembered as the disciple that Jesus loved. The others were Apostles and Disciples, but he was the Friend, which means that he was the one closest to Him, the one whom Our Lord honored with a great confidence and intimacy. Our Lord had an appreciation for him that He did not have for the others.
An episode at the Last Supper is very characteristic in this respect. St. Peter wanted to know which of them would betray Our Lord after He told them that this would happen. So, St. Peter requested St. John to ask the question. St. Peter was not able to ask Our Lord directly and went to St. John as mediator.
The latter rested his head over Jesus’ chest and asked Him. You see here an allusion to the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. St. John with his ear on the Divine Chest heard the Heart of Jesus beating. He understood those pulsations not only as a manifestation of love for mankind but also of anguish and sorrow because the Passion was drawing near.
Therefore, St. John appears as a virgin soul especially close to Our Lord and very devoted to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
Second, another gift unarguably beyond compare is that of receiving Our Lady as Mother. When He was dying, Our Lord left this priceless treasure, Our Lady, to His friend and favorite Disciple. To receive Our Lady is to receive the Queen of Heaven and Earth, the first among creatures after Christ. To receive Our Lady is to receive everything that God can give to a man. He could give nothing greater than that.
Here you have, then, another manifestation of the love God has for virgin souls. Our Lady was a virgin – a virgin who gave birth to a virgin Son, who at His death gave her to a friend, the virgin Disciple who was St. John.
Third, as a true counter-revolutionary, Dom Guéranger understood well that a full picture of St. John could not be sketched without mentioning that he was one of the first fighters against heresy. The first heresy that was already starting at that time regarded the human and divine natures of Our Lord Jesus Christ. St. John started fighting against those heretics as soon as they appeared. He was, therefore, a precursor of all those combatants for the Catholic Faith who would exist until the end of time, until the moment when Elias and Enoch will return to fight against the Antichrist.
We have, therefore, ample requests to present to St. John in our prayers. We should ask him to help us acquire the same qualities of soul he had in order to receive the reward granted to him: to have Our Lady with us always.
After martyrdom, the most noble and courageous sacrifice one can make to God is that of the virginity and chastity. This is why the liturgical calendar chose the first day after Christmas to celebrate of martyrdom of St. Stephen, model of the martyrs, and the second day, December 27, to celebrate the feast of St. John, model of virgins.
St. John was from the family of David, and therefore a member of the family of the Most Holy Virgin; he was a relative of Our Lord by flesh. While the others were Apostles and Disciples, he was the Friend of Our Lord. This predilection was because of his virginity.
He was, according to the Gospel, the Disciple that Jesus loved. This simple phrase is enough to give him glory. This love was for St. John the starting point of the other gifts he received. He was, for example, the first defender of the Divine Word, the Son as co-substantial to the Father, which was being denied by a heresy. The teachings of St. John on this point soar to the heights of the Divine Sun, like an eagle that flies toward the blazing star.
If the face of Moses shone with light after he spoke with God, how much more brilliant and resplendent the face of St. John would have been after he rested his head over the Heart of Jesus, where he received secret treasures of wisdom and science.
Christ was the son of Mary. When He died, Jesus left Mary to St. John. Who on earth could merit such a legacy? The Savior could have left the care of the Most Holy Virgin to Angels. But from the height of the Cross He saw his virgin Disciple, and his chastity made him worthy of such a priceless treasure. The beautiful comment of St. Peter Damian describes this very well: “Peter received the Church, the Mother of men, as his inheritance, but John received Mary, the Mother of God.”
Comments of Prof. Plinio:
There are many profound thoughts in this selection based on Dom Gueranger. I will not comment on all, but just several points.
First, it is very true that the sacrifice of virginity, the oblation of chastity, is so agreeable to God that it second only to martyrdom. This is because it confers on a soul a special affinity with God. Although chastity is a virtue that pertains to the body, it is principally a virtue of the spirit that rejects what is sordid and leaves the soul free to take wing in the realm of the spirit.
It represents a victory of the spiritual over the material that ennobles and increases the dignity of a human creature, giving him greater affinity with God. For this reason Our Lord loved St. John. He is remembered as the disciple that Jesus loved. The others were Apostles and Disciples, but he was the Friend, which means that he was the one closest to Him, the one whom Our Lord honored with a great confidence and intimacy. Our Lord had an appreciation for him that He did not have for the others.
An episode at the Last Supper is very characteristic in this respect. St. Peter wanted to know which of them would betray Our Lord after He told them that this would happen. So, St. Peter requested St. John to ask the question. St. Peter was not able to ask Our Lord directly and went to St. John as mediator.
The latter rested his head over Jesus’ chest and asked Him. You see here an allusion to the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. St. John with his ear on the Divine Chest heard the Heart of Jesus beating. He understood those pulsations not only as a manifestation of love for mankind but also of anguish and sorrow because the Passion was drawing near.
Therefore, St. John appears as a virgin soul especially close to Our Lord and very devoted to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
Second, another gift unarguably beyond compare is that of receiving Our Lady as Mother. When He was dying, Our Lord left this priceless treasure, Our Lady, to His friend and favorite Disciple. To receive Our Lady is to receive the Queen of Heaven and Earth, the first among creatures after Christ. To receive Our Lady is to receive everything that God can give to a man. He could give nothing greater than that.
Here you have, then, another manifestation of the love God has for virgin souls. Our Lady was a virgin – a virgin who gave birth to a virgin Son, who at His death gave her to a friend, the virgin Disciple who was St. John.
Third, as a true counter-revolutionary, Dom Guéranger understood well that a full picture of St. John could not be sketched without mentioning that he was one of the first fighters against heresy. The first heresy that was already starting at that time regarded the human and divine natures of Our Lord Jesus Christ. St. John started fighting against those heretics as soon as they appeared. He was, therefore, a precursor of all those combatants for the Catholic Faith who would exist until the end of time, until the moment when Elias and Enoch will return to fight against the Antichrist.
We have, therefore, ample requests to present to St. John in our prayers. We should ask him to help us acquire the same qualities of soul he had in order to receive the reward granted to him: to have Our Lady with us always.
Some notes from the book 'The Spirit of the Liturgy' - Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger
Now the priest - the 'presider', as they now prefer to call him - becomes the real point of reference for the whole liturgy. Everything depends on him. We have to see him, to respond to him, to be involved in what he is doing. His creativity sustains the whole thing. Not surprisingly, people try to reduce this newly created role by assigning all kinds of liturgical functions to different individuals and entrusting the "creative" planning of the liturgy to groups of people who like to, and are supposed to, "make their own contribution."
Less and less is God in the picture. More and more important is what is done by human beings who meet here and do not like to subject themselves to a 'pre-determined pattern'. The turning of the priest toward the people has turned the community into a self-enclosed circle. In its outward form, it no longer opens out on what lies ahead and above, but is closed in on itself. The common turning toward the east was not a "celebration toward the wall"; it did not mean that the priest "had his back to the people": the priest himself was no regarded as so important. For just as the congregation in the synagogue looked together toward Jerusalem, so in the Christian liturgy the congregation looked together 'toward the Lord'. As one of the fathers of Vatican IIs Constitution on the Liturgy' J.A. Jungmann, put it, it was much more a question of priest and people facing in the same direction, knowing that together they were in a procession toward the Lord. They did not close themselves into a circle; they did not gaze at one another; but as pilgrim People of God they set off for the Oriens, for the Christ who comes to meet us.
Less and less is God in the picture. More and more important is what is done by human beings who meet here and do not like to subject themselves to a 'pre-determined pattern'. The turning of the priest toward the people has turned the community into a self-enclosed circle. In its outward form, it no longer opens out on what lies ahead and above, but is closed in on itself. The common turning toward the east was not a "celebration toward the wall"; it did not mean that the priest "had his back to the people": the priest himself was no regarded as so important. For just as the congregation in the synagogue looked together toward Jerusalem, so in the Christian liturgy the congregation looked together 'toward the Lord'. As one of the fathers of Vatican IIs Constitution on the Liturgy' J.A. Jungmann, put it, it was much more a question of priest and people facing in the same direction, knowing that together they were in a procession toward the Lord. They did not close themselves into a circle; they did not gaze at one another; but as pilgrim People of God they set off for the Oriens, for the Christ who comes to meet us.
The Christmas Season Is a Time for Joy and Gratitude
The Christmas Season Is a Time for Joy and Gratitude - Abbot Guéranger, O.S.B
This is not the season for sighing or for weeping, for unto us a Child is born. He for whom we have been waiting is come, and He is come to dwell among us.
This is not the season for sighing or for weeping, for unto us a Child is born. He for whom we have been waiting is come, and He is come to dwell among us.
Great and long was our suspense; so much the more to let us love Him. The day will too soon come when this Child, now born to us, will be the Man of Sorrows, and then we will compassionate Him; but at present we must rejoice and be glad at His coming and sing around his crib with the angels. Heaven sends us a present of its own joy; we need joy, and forty days are not too many for us to get it well into our hearts. The Scripture tells us a secure mind is like a continuous feast, and a secure mind can only be where there is peace; now it is Peace that these blessed days bring to the earth; Peace say the Angels, to men of good will.
Intimately and inseparably united with this exquisite mystic joy is the sentiment of gratitude. Gratitude is indeed due to Him who, neither deterred by our unworthiness nor restrained by the infinite respect that becomes His sovereign Majesty, deigned to be born of His own creature, and have a stable for his birthplace.
Oh! How vehemently must He not have desired to advance the work of our salvation, to remove everything that could make us afraid of approaching Him, and to encourage us by His own example, to return, by the path of humility, to the heaven we had strayed from by pride!
Gratefully, therefore, let us receive the precious gift, this Divine Babe, our Deliverer.
Sunday, July 22, 2012
St John Eudes - Christ's relationship with man
A Christian has a union with Jesus Christ more noble, more intimate, and more perfect that the members of a human body with their head. He longs to be in you. He wants His breath to be your breath. His heart in your heart and His soul in your soul.
Sunday, June 3, 2012
Solemn High Mass in the Extra-Ordinary form of the Roman Rite, for the 50th anniversary of priestly ordination of Fr Jonathan Robinson of the Toronto Oratory
I was asked to recored the Solemn High Mass in the Extra-Ordinary form of the Roman Rite, for the 50th anniversary of priestly ordination of Fr Jonathan Robinson, provost of the Toronto Oratory. I hope you enjoy it.
Introit: Vocem Iucunditatis
Introit: Vocem Iucunditatis
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Fire at St. Jerome’s Catholic Church, Brampton - 29 may 2012
Please pray that the culprits are found and justice is delivered.
At approximately 3:45 a.m. the morning of May 29, 2012, suspicious activity prompted a fire at St. Jerome ’s Catholic Church in Brampton 8530 Chinguacousy Road
The church sprinkler system and fire crews prevented further damage to the building. No one was inside the church at the time of the fire.
Local fire and police officials are investigating. It appears the blaze was deliberately set.
The church has suffered damage significant enough that it will remain closed for at least one week.
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
The Book of Confidence - Chapter Four - Part 4
The Book of Confidence - Chapter Four - Part 4
The Sight of the Crucifix Should Revive Our Confidence
If ever in your intimate struggles you feel yourself weakening in confidence, meditate on the passages of the Gospel that I have just pointed out to you.
Contemplate that ignominious cross upon which your God expired. Look at His poor head crowned with thorns, falling inert upon His breast. Consider those candid eyes and the pale countenance whereon the precious blood coagulates. Look at the pierced feet and hands and at the mortally wounded body. Pay attention, above all, to the most loving Heart that was opened by the soldier’s lance; from it flows a few drops of bloodstained water. All this He gave you! How is it possible to distrust this Saviour?
From you, however, He expects the gratitude of affection. In the name of His love, in the name of His martyrdom, in the name of His death, make the resolution to avoid mortal sin in the future.
Weakness is great, I well know, but He will help you. In spite of having goodwill, you will perhaps have falls and relapses into evil, but the Lord is merciful. He only asks that you not let yourself fall asleep in sin, that you fight against bad habits.
Promise Him to confess promptly and never to pass through a night with a mortal sin on your conscience. If you keep this resolution courageously, you will be happy. Jesus will not have shed His precious Blood for you in vain.
Be calm regarding your intimate dispositions. In this way, you will have the right to serenely face the fearful problem of predestination. You will carry on your forehead the sign of the elect.
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
The Book of Confidence - Chapter Four - Part 3
The Book of Confidence - Chapter Four - Part 3
God Grants Us All the Necessary Helps for the Sanctification and Salvation of Our Souls
Certain anguished souls doubt their own salvation. They dwell too much on their past faults; they think of the violent temptations that at times assault all of us; they forget the merciful goodness of God. This anguish can become a veritable temptation to despair.
While a young man, Saint Francis de Sales experienced a trial of this kind. He trembled at the thought of not being predestined to heaven and passed through a number of months in this interior martyrdom. A heroic prayer freed him: the Saint prostrated himself before an altar of Mary, beseeching the Virgin to teach him to love her Son with a charity as ardent on earth as the fear he had of not being able to love Him in eternity.
In this form of suffering, there is a truth of faith that should console us immensely.We are lost only by mortal sin.
This we can always avoid, and, even when we have suffered the disgrace of committing it, we can always be reconciled with God. An act of sincere contrition, made immediately, without postponement, will purify us, while we await the obligatory confession, which should be made without delay.
Certainly the poor human will should always distrust its weakness. But the Saviour will never refuse us the graces that we lack. He will also do everything possible to help us in the supremely important endeavour to save our souls.
Behold the great truth that Jesus Christ wrote with His precious Blood and that we are now going to reread together in the history of His Passion.
Have you ever reflected upon how the Jews were able to seize Our Lord? Do you believe, perhaps, that they succeeded in this crime by cunning or by force? Is it possible to think that, amid the great turmoil, Jesus was overcome because He was the weaker?
Certainly not. His enemies could do nothing against Him. In the three years of His preaching, they wanted to throw Him from a cliff; on various occasions they took up rocks to stone Him. Always, however, the Divine Word frustrated the plans of the impious; the sovereign force of God held back their hands, and Jesus always calmly withdrew, without anyone having been able to do Him the slightest harm.
In Gethsemane, the soldiers of the Temple came to take possession of His sacred person. Upon His merely uttering His name, the whole band of soldiers fell to the ground, gripped by a strange fear. The soldiers could rise only after being given permission by Him.
If Jesus was taken prisoner, if He was crucified, if He was immolated, it was because He so wanted it, in the plenitude of His liberty and His love for us. “He was offered because it was His own will.”5
If the Master unhesitatingly shed His precious Blood wholly for us, if He died for us, how could He refuse us the graces that are absolutely necessary for us and that He Himself merited for us by His sufferings?
During His Passion, Jesus mercifully offered these graces to the most guilty souls. Two Apostles had committed enormous crimes; to both He offered pardon. Judas betrayed Him with a hypocritical kiss. Jesus spoke to him with a touching gentleness; He called him His friend. By tender affection He sought to touch that heart hardened by avarice. “Friend, whereto art thou come?” “Judas, dost thou betray the Son of Man with a kiss?”6 This is the last grace of the Master to the ungrateful one.
It is a grace of such force that we will never be able to measure adequately its intensity. Judas, however, rejects it; he is lost, because he formally prefers that state.
Peter believes himself to be very strong. He had sworn to accompany the Master till death, but he abandons Him when he sees Him in the hands of the soldiers. Thereafter, he follows Him only from a distance. He enters trembling into the courtyard of the palace of the High Priest.
Three times he denies his Lord – because he fears the derision of a maidservant.With an oath he affirms that he does not know “that man.” The cock crows… Jesus turns and fixes his eyes on the Apostle, eyes filled with merciful and gentle censures. Their gazes meet.
It is a grace, a fulminating grace, that is carried to Peter by that gaze. The Apostle does not reject it; he goes out and weeps bitterly over his faults.
As in the case of Judas and Peter, Jesus always offers us graces of repentance and conversion.We can accept or refuse them. We are free! It is for us to decide between good and evil, between heaven and hell. Salvation is in our hands. The Saviour not only offers us His graces, He does more: He intercedes for us before the heavenly Father. He reminds Him of the pains suffered for our Redemption. He takes up our defence before Him; He excuses our faults.
“Father,” He exclaims in the anguish of the agony, “forgive them, for they know not what they do.”7 During the Passion, the Master had such a desire to save us that He did not cease for an instant to think of us.
On Calvary, He gives His last gaze to sinners; He pronounces one of His last words in favour of the good thief. He extends His arms wide on the Cross in order to indicate with what love He receives each repentant soul in His most loving Heart.
Monday, May 21, 2012
The Book of Confidence - Chapter Four - Part 2
The Book of Confidence - Chapter four - part 2
Grace Can Sanctify Us in an Instant
Abyss of human weakness, tyranny of bad habits! How many Christians receive in the tribunal of Penance absolution for their sins. Their contrition is sincere, they make vigorous resolutions… and they fall again into the same sins, sometimes grave; the number of their falls grows without ceasing! Do they not have, then, abundant reason for discouragement?
Nothing is more just than that the evidence of our own misery keeps us humble. That it should make us lose confidence would be a catastrophe more dangerous than so many falls into error.
The soul that falls should rise immediately. It should not cease to implore the mercy of the Lord. Do you not know that God has His hours and can, in an instant, elevate us to a very high degree of sanctity?
Had not Mary Magdalen led a criminal life? Grace, nevertheless, transformed her instantaneously. Without transition, a sinner became a great saint. Now, then, the action of God has not been reduced in what it can do.
What it did for others it will be able to do for us. Do not doubt. Confident and persevering prayer will obtain a complete cure of our souls.
Do not tell me that time passes and that now, perhaps, your life is reaching its end.
Our Lord waited for the agony of the good thief in order to attract him victoriously to Himself. In one single minute, that man of such guilt converted! His faith and his love were so great that, in spite of his great crimes, he did not even pass through purgatory. He occupies an elevated place in heaven forever.
Let nothing, then, alter your confidence! Even though you be in the depths of the abyss, call out to heaven without ceasing. God will end by responding to your cry and will work His justice in you.
Sunday, May 20, 2012
The Book of Confidence - Chapter Four part 1
Chapter Four
Confidence in God and Our Spiritual Necessities
Our Lord Is Merciful to Sinners
Divine Providence feeds the birds of the trees; It also takes care of our bodies. What is this body of misery? A fragile creature, one condemned to death and destined to be consumed by worms.
In the mad rush of life, we think that all things lead to business or to pleasures. However, every step moves us closer to the end. We ourselves drag our corpses to the edge of the grave.
If God so concerns Himself with perishable bodies, with what solicitude will He not look after our immortal souls? He prepares for them treasures of grace, whose riches exceed all that we can imagine. He sends them superabundant help for their sanctification and salvation.
These means of sanctification that the Faith puts at our disposal will not be studied here.
I merely wish to speak to the worried souls that one finds everywhere. With the Gospel in my hand, I will show them the emptiness of their fears.
Neither the gravity of their faults nor their multiple relapses into errors should overwhelm them.
On the contrary, the more they sense the weight of their own misery, the more they should lean upon God. Let them not lose confidence! However horrible their state may be, even though they may have led a disorderly life for a long time, with the help of grace, they can convert and be raised to high perfection.
The mercy of Our Lord is infinite; nothing exhausts it, not even faults that appear to us to be the most degrading and criminal ones. During His mortal life the Master received sinners with a truly divine goodness; He never refused them pardon.
Moved by the ardour of her repentance, Mary Magdalen enters the banquet hall. Without worrying about worldly conventions, she prostrates herself before the feet of Jesus, inundating them with tears. Simon, the Pharisee, contemplates the scene with a sarcastic air; he becomes indignant within himself. “If this man were a prophet,” he thinks, “he would know surely what this woman is worth. He would reject her with disdain.” But the Saviour does not reject her. He accepts her sighs, her tears, all the sensible signs of her humble contrition. He purifies her of her stains and showers her with supernatural gifts. And His Sacred Heart overflows with immense joy, while on high, in the Kingdom of His Father, the angels vibrate with jubilation and praise. A soul that was lost has been found; a soul was dead, and, behold, it is again restored to true life!
The Master is not content with receiving poor sinners with sweetness; He goes so far as to take up their defence. And is this not, furthermore, His mission? Did He not make Himself our advocate?1
One day they bring him a wretched woman, surprised in the flagrant act of her sin. The harsh law of Moses condemns her formally; the guilty person must die the slow torment of stoning.
Nevertheless, the Scribes and Pharisees wait impatiently for the sentence of the Saviour. If He pardons her, His enemies will accuse Him for despising the traditions of Israel. What will He do?
A single word will fall from His lips, and this word will be enough to confound the proud Pharisees and save the sinful woman.
“He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.”2
An answer full of wisdom and of mercy. Hearing it, these arrogant men blush with shame. They withdraw, confounded, one after the other; the ancients are the first to flee.
And Jesus is left alone with the woman. “Where are they that accused thee?” He asks. “Hath no man condemned thee?”
She answers: “No man, Lord.” And Jesus continues: “Neither will I condemn thee! Go, and now sin no more!”3
When sinners come to Him, Jesus hurries to meet them. Like the father of the prodigal son, He is waiting for the return of the ungrateful ones. Like the good shepherd, He seeks after the lost sheep; and when He finds it, He puts it on His divine shoulders and restores it bloodstained
to the fold.
Oh! He will not irritate its wounds; like the good Samaritan, He will treat them with symbolic wine and oil. Over its sores, He will pour the balsam of penitence; and, in order to fortify it, He will make it drink of His Eucharistic chalice.
Guilty souls, do not fear the Saviour; it was especially for you that He came down to earth. Never renew the cry of despair of Cain: “My iniquity is greater than that I may deserve pardon.”4 How this would amount to being ignorant of the Heart of Jesus!
Jesus purified Magdalen and pardoned the triple denial of Peter. He opened heaven to the good thief. In truth, I assure you, if Judas had gone to Him after the crime, Our Lord would have received him with mercy.
How, then, would He not pardon you as well?
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