No one ever said it would be easy.
I think all of us recognize that there’s some truth to that old saw, especially those of us who strive, however poorly in the case of the present writer, to walk in the ways of Him who said:
“Pick up your cross and follow me … for the gate is narrow and the way is hard.”
For Catholics of a more traditional bent, who endure all manner of derision and persecution in our day, not only from unbelievers outside of the Church, but also from within at the hands of men who occupy even the highest offices, the “hard way” is an especially tangible reality.
This being the case, it is perhaps understandable that we sometimes lose sight of the fact that ours is a faith of glorious paradoxes, wherein suffering and joy; mystery and simplicity; thirst and nourishment; far from being mutually exclusive, are in some way bound together one to the other in this vale of tears.
A reminder, therefore, may be in order; that the soldiers of Christ enlisted in the Church Militant may ever be mindful that we serve Him who also said:
“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
This morning, as I pondered the nonsense that seems to flow out of Rome and elsewhere in the Church on a near daily basis, it occurred to me how dreadfully laborious the life of the neo-Catholic conservative commentator must be.
When events such as those that took place at the Vatican on Pentecost unfold, or when the Vicar of Christ refrains from making the Sign of the Cross out of “respect for the consciences” of non-Catholics, or when he publicly anoints religious pluralism “a gift,” or when he refers to a heretical layman in a clerical costume as a “brother bishop,” or encourages Muslims to hold fast to the Qur’an and their false religion, or whatever the offense against Our Blessed Lord du jour may be, the neo-Catholic mind is immediately compelled to contort and twist and reconfigure whatever fragments of Catholic sense still remain; suppressing not only the voices of Pontiffs past but also the forces of logic and reason; all in an effort to buttress an unstable faith built upon the post-conciliar illusion of “continuity.”
At stake for the neo-Catholic conservative commentator is nothing less than the required work permit for those who wish to trade in a newchurch pseudo-apostolate; the key without which access to the diocesan machine and anything that is darkened by its considerable shadow is even remotely possible.
The so-called “traditionalist” (aka Catholic), by contrast, immediately recognizes and identifies offenses against Our Lord for what they are, regardless of the source; he laments them, makes reparations for them, and to whatever extent his sphere of influence may allow, he corrects them.
No mental gymnastics; no spin jobs; no tortured translations necessary.
At the end of the day, nothing could be simpler.
No one ever said it would be easy.
That’s true enough, but it’s also true that conforming one’s mind to the Church in all things, in some ways, is nothing short of the easy life.
You’re right, Mr. V.
It has become easier to tell right from wrong, good from evil, shepherd from wolf.
But if only we can go all the way to putting our trust in God to the extent St. Ignatius of Antioch did on his way to be fed to the lions, when he said to his disciples:
“I am glad to die for God provided you do not hinder me. I beg you not to show me any misplaced kindness. I would rather you coaxed the beasts to ..leave no scrap of me behind. I shall be a true Disciple of Christ when the world no longer sees my body. May nothing visible or invisible rob me of my prize, which is Jesus Christ. The fire, the cross, packs of wild beasts, lacerations, rendings, wrenching of bones, mangling of limbs, crushing of the whole body, the horrible tortures of the devil–let all these things come upon me, if only I may gain Jesus Christ!”
then we could really relax.
A life without serious crosses is a sign of reprobation. And, every suffering, offered up in a state of grace, lessons our expiation in the next life. So, let us welcome them indeed, including this one.
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(Of course that’s easier for someone who didn’t lose their livelihood over proclaiming the true faith without compromise to say.)
It is the Catholic faith that gives meaning to suffering. For us we can offer it up to God in reparation for our sins, or for the sins of souls in purgatory or for the sins of our persecutors. Protestants don’t have an answer for suffering other than that it is some sort of punishment. For us it is a reward and a chance to follow Christ in His Passion. Indeed the yoke of Christ is “easy” and it is in becoming slaves to Christ that we are set free from the temptations of the world.
For example, I often think of that peculiarly modern form of satanic slavery which consists in trying to be “cool”. Think about it. What is “cool” today by definition will not be “cool” tomorrow. So constantly striving to be “cool” means constantly re-inventing yourself in sometimes contradictory ways. How easy it is to lose the sense of “who you are” and indeed to lose your very soul in the process.
While those who take on the yoke of Christ can rest in the comfort that He is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow… secula seculorum. This is True Peace and True Freedom. This is the gift of the Holy Spirit which we find by following the immutable teachings of the Catholic faith.
(Which is why I say, “Don’t be cool, be Catholic.”)
Ah and there is more. There is the joy of living in God’s love. A love which will never fail us even in the hardest of times and the most insufferable tortures. It is at these times that the Saints found the most joy in their being able to share in the sufferings of Christ. O, to suffer persecution in the name of Christ! What greater joy is there than that of the martyrs. O, to be a humble soldier in Christ’s army. That is who we are… the Church Militant… the followers of the Lamb of God in our daily battles with the world.
It really is simply in all the ways that matter. One does not have to become an apologist for satan in order to remain Catholic, which is what the counter-church is forcing confused people into. But the bizarre thing is that the ‘spirit of VII’ as made all necessity for any ‘apologetics’ outdated – anything goes. So it still surprises me to see neo-cons and other catholics who have bought VII hook-line-and-sinker, feeling the need to defend themselves against anything since everything, according to the novus ordo, is church. So novus ordo catholics and conservatives who cry ‘schism’ against sspx or others, pretty much for any reason has no basis. It could be argued that the spirit of VII has rendered the very idea of schism outdated, likewise heresy, apostasy, false-relgion – all these have been outdated by the VII aggiornamento. Indeed ‘sacrficie’ and ‘priest’ are being dissolved along with all the rest; this is what the spirit of Vii does – it ‘dissolves Christ’, which is what St Paul and numerous Popes of Christmas past tell us is the sign of anti-Christ.
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But this is why we have several claimants to the papal throne now who have publicly and with great fan-fare sinned against the 1st commandment and yet people still think they are vehicles for the Holy Ghost’s infallible sovereignty; they have preached the church of man, they have have scoffed at and overturned the works of their predecessors. I really would have to twist my brain and my heart into a Gordian knot to believe that.
p.s. addressing the wee curfuffle over the mention of sede-vacantists on the previous post, the irony is, that if the sede-vacantists are simply wrong, and that (as would have to be necessary for them to be wrong) open heretics (people the Popes of Christmas past would have no doubt about recognising and denouncing as heretics) can be legitimate popes, it doesn’t really matter; because the heretical popes have taught that the church is no longer necessary for salvation; that previously thought schismatics and false-relgionists and even atheists are all on thier way to heaven. So it would be a bit much to believe that for some reason, heretics, schismatics (Eastern Orthodox), false-religionists (deniers of Christ) and atheists are all gonna have the beatific vision, but not those poor deluded sede vacantists. Again, according to the ‘logic’ of the aggiornamento, this cannot be; so no non-sede-vacantist catholic need have any worries about association with or ‘dialogue’ with sede-vacantists.
I see the point and appreciate it in this post, Mr. V.
What I’d like to zero in on, if permitted, here-is the word endure. As most of you know, thanks be to God and I spent my youth in a time of a thriving, relatively healthy Church.
The then reigning Pontiff was counter cultural bar none. In my lived experience of them, so were Catholics, Almost totally lost today, is something Catholics lived then in family life–the embracing of the Cross. This is the opposite of endurance.
Persecution blanketed in a Christ centered humble and unannounced loving long suffering is the normal life of a Catholic.
A tragic consequence of this, in my opinion, is that I fear that when any of you youthful, Traditional and faithful Catholics, soldiers who press onward here, need encouragement to embrace the Crucifix, from those who surround you, from whence will that come?
Try to find a one who will not try to relieve your suffering, who will not rob you of your Cross. Not a one who will try to make you feel better, for such a one is to be avoided. Beg God and ask your Guardian Angel to let into your life someone to help you suffer well united with His Majesty.
I hope you will take this in the way in which it was intended, from a walking wounded Catholic not wishing to see the untainted youth wounded as well. Youth who cannot even rely, as I could, on the sound teachings of a Pontiff who is actually a Catholic.
Peace be to you.
“One does not have to become an apologist for satan in order to remain Catholic, which is what the counter-church is forcing confused people into.”
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Bingo. Spot-on. You couldn’t have summarised it and said it better.
I so agree. And to salvemur’s point, if I may say, a confused Catholic is one thing. Forcing a confused Catholic -if you’ll allow me-is a covert endeavor of the Enemy.
On the other hand, herein and in other places, lie the efforts of a true shepherd of the confused:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tFo8kThyD0
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Bl.Jacinta, pray for us.
Archbishop Lefebvre, protector of Catholicity undefiled, pray for us.
It seems people are feeling forced into this. Especially since the ‘canonization of VII’, and now the anti-pentecost.
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The Rosary is so important – 2014 is the 800 years of the Holy Rosary. And we still, as yet, have the Internet which affords access to so many authentic sources for Catholic education so that when one’s Catholic sense is challenged we can return to the Catholic authorities (you can find most papal encylicals online) who are as authentic today as they were yesterday (and who were not confused about their Faith), to make sure we are on the right track. While this will always be a poor substitute for face-to-face learning and sharing, it’s better than being left with flogging the dead horse still being paraded by the VII crowd.
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http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Catholic_Encyclopedia_%281913%29
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St Dominic, pray for us.
brethren,
In the “you can’t make this stuff up” dept:
http://thatthebonesyouhavecrushedmaythrill.blogspot.com/2014/06/dont-use-insults.html
Off topic but VERY IMPORTANT. Bergoglio has done ANOTHER interview. This one could top all the previous ones. “Call me Jorge”blog has the scoop:
http://callmejorgebergoglio.blogspot.com/2014/06/is-this-going-to-be-interview-number.html
Just a quick comment because I don’t have time to go into details right now. If you compare Bergoglio’s criticisms of the Catholic Church with regards to Judaism with a paid pro-Jewish hit piece that Martin Malachi wrote during Vatican II you will find that they make identical arguments. What does that tell us about the current state of the Catholic Church?
Please see more on Malachi’s hit piece “The Pilgrim” written under a pseudonym at the same time that he was working for Cardinal Bea on “ecumenism” during Vatican II:
http://mauricepinay.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-final-nail-in-malachi-martins-coffin.html
(My apologies for linking to the sometimes overtly anti-semitic “Maurice Pinay” blog, but he has at least had the courage to do accurate research and publish his results on this very controversial subject.)
– the Oscar winner for insults against the Faithful preaches that insults are a no-no. Why does the boy who cried wolf come to mind?
Ah, hahahahaha,
very good, my dear salvemur!
for some bizzare reason out of this long interview teeming with anti-faith-bergoglioisms, Rorate – http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2014/06/pope-francis-strongly-defends-legacy-of.html – chose to report on the one response where, after, no doubt, several tedious weeks of public and expensive acts of apostasy and heresy, Bergoglio finds it expedient to lean on the name of Pius XII, as an excuse to reiterate his continuing disbelief at what happened to Jewish people during wwii.
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Previously he said it wass ‘a great evil…such as never happened under the heavens.’ (the muer of God apparently slipped his mind) – yet out of this long interview all neo-cats will remember is that he spoke of Pius XII – that he spoke of him only to arrive back at the ‘greatest evil’ is obviously neither here nor there.
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http://mauricepinay.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/pope-francis-and-primacy-of-holocaust.html
Rorate Caeli is infected with NeoCatholic tendencies. Thus they direct themselves to the merely “tradition-minded,” they offer no examination of the errors of Summorum Pontificum, they use Orwellian newspeak such as “Ordinary/Extraordinary Form,” and they offer post with desperately absurd sub-headlines such as “A Pontificate that is less innovative than it was first thought.” More could be said. Finally, it’s clear that the aptly named “New Catholic” who runs the site quite enjoys the increasing popularity of his site.
Agreed and yes, more could be said and it is sickening, to be quite honest
While we suffer through this period in history, one can’t help but wonder how in the heck we who blog here came to learn and love and keep our Faith–despite all the confusion and error of our times. All things considered, it seems a miracle, and not a small one, either.
I know Divine Grace and pondering the meaning of suffering played a large part in it for us. I guess that proves how God uses even the worst things to bring greater good to those who will one day believe in Him, as the very things we lament the most about life today,are what drove us to be so receptive to the words and examples and writings of the Saints who have gone before us, which pointed the way to the One, True Church and made the Scriptures come alive for us.
The Saints really help to partially fill the gap created when friendships and even extended family relationships go sour the more you decide to strive to live a holy life while everyone else stays on the opposite path and begins to resent who you’ve become, and how uncomfortable even the goal of holiness makes them feel..
And then it gets to you even more, after years of experiences in which all the new people you meet require your services in their lives more as a teacher of morals and person to persecute who will return only love, than as someone with whom you can form a new healthy friendship based on shared values..
I apologize if this is “old news” to everyone reading this, but anyway, it’s really nice to get to exchange ideas with people who not only don’t have a problem with, but can actually relate to the thought of a person, or a couple who put God and the Church at the center of all they do, to the point where it makes them fit in almost nowhere today, and glad they don’t, actually..
I hope everyone who comes here to blog will sense the special love that can be shared between True Christians, which has become so rare in our society, and also will find it a place to share the truth, have friendly discussions and even arguments about the Faith, joke around in nice ways, and leave feeling refreshed -or at the very least bandaged up before another round with the world.
God Bless Louie Verrecchio for providing this oasis in the desert, and God bless all who meet to talk here. Pax Vobiscum
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How is it, I wonder, that you hope to persuade anyone who is duped as you portray them, to change their mind and follow you into schism because you proclaim your views as right on your own authority when all I see here is ridicule, insulting labels, and band-wagon tactics such as the Communists use in their propaganda techniques.
You speak of us as if we are too ignorant to think straight, or blinded by sin, when we are innocent as lambs can be having confessed regularly and received the Holy Eucharist (at our Diocesan approved Traditional Latin Mass, by the way). We have no problem reasoning clearly, that if you are wrong in your blanket condemnations and decisions to leave the authority God set in place, based on false assumptions, then it is you who are handicapped by the darkness sin which the Church has always taught brings a dullness over the intellect, and you will have to repent before re-entering the Church once Our Lord mercifully hears our prayers for a Pontiff who will carry out His will.
If you are not just playing a game with your friends who echo your thoughts, and truly think people like us like what is going on or are blind to it or coerced into acquiescing to it in any way, I’m hear to declare you wrong on all counts.
“if the sede-vacantists are simply wrong, and that (as would have to be necessary for them to be wrong) open heretics (people the Popes of Christmas past would have no doubt about recognising and denouncing as heretics) can be legitimate popes,”
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You’ve got a couple bad assumptions here.
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First, there have indeed been heretical popes in the past, yet, there is actually no record of anyone, priest or layman, pronouncing that they were no longer pope. One of the most notorious was John XXII, who taught, publicly, for years, that the saved do not see the Beatific Vision and will not until after the Judgement. [By the protection of the Holy Ghost he was, of course, prevented from binding the faithful to this error. Further, he recanted on his deathbed.]
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Second, if you have studied the sede vacantist thesis, you would be aware that, concerning popes that are formal heretic,s, the theologians who spoke on the issue line-up into two basic camps:
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1) Those that taught that such a man loses his office immediately upon becoming a formal heretic, of, if he were a formal heretic upon election, his election was not valid.
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2) Those that taught that such a man does not lose his office.
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However, the question is actually *moot* for Catholics, because ALL OF THEM taught that a canonically-elected pontiff is still to be treated as pope, even if he seems to be a formal heretic, until such time as the Church judges him.
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– So – even assuming that we can know with moral certainty who is a formal as opposed to merely material heretic – we cannot declare a validly-elected pope to be not the pope. Period. Even if we really, really don’t like the things he’s doing.
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“it doesn’t really matter; because the heretical popes have taught that the church is no longer necessary for salvation; that previously thought schismatics and false-relgionists and even atheists are all on thier way to heaven. So it would be a bit much to believe that for some reason, heretics, schismatics (Eastern Orthodox), false-religionists (deniers of Christ) and atheists are all gonna have the beatific vision, but not those poor deluded sede vacantists. Again, according to the ‘logic’ of the aggiornamento, this cannot be; so no non-sede-vacantist catholic need have any worries about association with or ‘dialogue’ with sede-vacantists.
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That’s an excellent point indeed, and one I make very often! Since the New Orientation embraces this error of ecumenism, not only “holding good hope for the salvation of non-Catholics” (a proposition condemned in the Syllabus), but essentially declaring all to be saved, it becomes very silly indeed to decide (as the neo-Catholics do) that the, well, everybody *but* the sedes, or everybody *but* the SSPX are on the narrow path. But that’s exactly what they do, again and again.
” A Pontificate that is less innovative than it was first thought.” Heheh. As we often say, you can’t make this stuff up!
dear A Catholic Thinker,
I apologize to you— and all—- if I’m writing this in the wrong place. Confused as to how to reply directly to you where you addressed me in an earlier posting. I just thought I could here, Hope that’s OK..
Thank you, friend, for stepping aside, if I may say, out of an objective engagement, to exercise an act of charity towards me, to alert me to what you perceived may be a danger to my spiritual well being. This touched my heart. This took time away from you, time selflessly given to me.
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I don’t really have anything to offer here as commenter ever at all—- which is at the high level of you articulate, erudite and learned Catholics.
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I’m grateful to Mr. V. for letting me speak about the only thing I can, that experiential knowledge of our Catholic religion as it was before the catastrophe.
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Yes, dear Catholic solder, I am aware of what you addressed. I knew three of those who later became known as the “nine,” before the Consecrations. Also, I personally met and had acquaintance with the Archbishop.
Without these Apostles, along with {I’m wearing metal knee guards now,} Malachi Martin, myself and my children, then abandoned & in dire poverty, would have been spiritual orphans. Fr. Martin {who, as you know, did not take the stance of the the stiuation as being in the state of interrugnum,} urged me as a young mother to seek pure water where the wells exist. So, thank you again for your kindness-I’ll stop here.
It is my view that Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre will be one of the greatest true saints of Holy Mother Church.
Peace be to you–press on.