Where are the athleta Christi?

http://www.crisismagazine.com/2015/europe-a-land-without-love

I taught ancient Greek and Roman History. My students loved the stories of Marathon and even
Thermopylae. The great exploits of the armies of Sparta and Athens inspired generations of students before my classes read about the battles which made Europe Europe.

Same with the history of the battles of Vienna and Lepanto. Same with the Battle of the Bulge.

Tyrants who hated liberty and tyrants who hated God lay in the dust because of brave men, like my dad, still alive at 92, and a World War II veteran.

The above article reveals a perspective not new to me. I remember asking my class of mostly young men in 2003 in Alaska if they would fight another war to save the Church and the West. The answer was a resounding "No"! I knew my students, all Catholic, and I knew what their answer would be, but I was still disappointed.

Boys who do not learn to sacrifice do not become men.

Patriotism is a minor virtue. It springs from the virtue of duty towards one's parents, a command of God to honor one's parents,and by extension, one's home land.

Patriotism includes a love of place, of a people with whom one can identify. The great heresies of individualism, an American blight, and relativism, both parts of the heresy of Modernism, has ruined the hearts of so many Americans and Catholics. The lack of patriotism is a lack of identity with the common good.

Some love countries other than, or in addition to the land of their births. I am like that type of person. loving the country which gave me my son, and moving there years before I was married and had a child because of a deep identity with this certain country.

One cannot always explain a "spiritual home" but for me, the Faith which built Europe, was still more obvious in Great Britain, than in Protestant America, despite years of oppression, when I move there so many, many years ago.

What causes love of a country is this identity, and for me, the identity of Catholicism. Having read history in college, as well as theology and philosophy, I knew the great heritage of thought and practice which made Europe unique, totally believing even as a young person, like Belloc, that Europe was the Faith and the Faith was Europe. I loved the heritage of art, architecture, music, education, even food, which was the heritage of Christian Europe.

I read every book (and still have every book) on this subject that Christopher Dawson ever wrote as early as the late 1970s. Because I knew history, I could sense the signs of the times. Because I knew my religion, I understood what was happening on the European front of the war, as well as on the American front.

The Catholic Church has lost great influence in the European world, just as Protestantism morphed into secularism in America. We know witness the rise of pagan nations, and paganism is rooted in selfishness, self-love and not love of a people or nation.

This passing of patriotism must be mourned by those of us who understand what this death of the heart means. Charity towards neighbor dies in a land of those who do not love their country. Civilization dies once individual desires take the place of sacrifice for the common good.

Men like my dad who spent their youth in trenches fighting against the real tyranny of  Nazism perhaps no longer exist in the numbers needed to preserve freedom. And, when a nation turns its back on God, to be honest, freedom no longer exists to preserve.

God will let nations die for lack of love, love of patria, love of neighbor, love of Him. He will punish nations which turn to lust, greed, gluttony, pride and so on. He will let people go their own way until there is no other way to turn but to Him.

This movement of punishment, death and rebirth forms a persistent theme in the Old Testament, when God called His People to repentance over and over through the words and deeds of the Prophets, who frequently, where killed rather than heeded. 

Christ Himself prophesied the Fall of Jerusalem and He wept, one of the few times mentioned of His weeping.

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, killing the prophets and stoning those who are sent to you! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not! Luke 13:34

Satan has successfully spent years emasculating the men of my and following generations. Leadership simply cannot be found, either in the Church or in the State. We face the death of nations for one simple reason. Without Christianity, without God being the center of one's life, men stay as children, lost in the never, never land of self , pleasure, sloth.

How many times I have written about the "peter pans". The Lost Boys were lost not only physically but mentally, psychologically, spiritually. But, even they fought in the story, pushed to rescue and defend their own little world.

We have no defense, no cohesive energy to withstand whatever enemies decide to come against us. Women who are Christian have seen this for two, if not three, generations, lamenting the lack of protectors and the overwhelming presence of predators among the males with whom they come into contact at work, college, or even in church.

We await the canonization of the first couple to be canonized together, Louis and Zelie Martin. Louis was a quiet, monklike man who God called to raise a house of saints. His type, the sacrificial man, is so rare that the day of his canonization, along with that of his brave and loving wife, will be a tribute to a truly lost generation.

Catholics forget that God commanded the take-over of the Promised Land. Abraham fought, Moses fought, Joshua fought, Gideon fought. David fought--all saints, all men of God.

No Charles Martel, no Charlemagne, no Men of the West, no Louis Martin walks the streets of Athens today, or Chicago, or Canberra. The heart needs God, needs Christ to be a patriot.

All the pagan cities fell to the energies of the new generations of those focused on Christ and His Kingdom. Christendom died a long time ago, but now, even the vestiges of civilization crumble from the lack of will and, more importantly, the lack of virtue.

War began in Heaven. It was an extremely short war, but the battles continue on Earth. St. Michael, one of the lower echelons of the heavenly host, won the day. However, the mop-up falls to us.

Thirteen years ago, when I was facing death, I told my young son that I wanted a certain phrase on my tombstone. This phrase was one I had pondered for many, many years before this occurrence. 

Now, we do not even have heroes of fiction.

I put the phrase in boldface.

“I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.

"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. 

All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

 J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

I decided to become a saint, and to raise a saint. That is what Louis and Zelie Martin decided to do.

That is the call of every Catholic parent. Some saints may become leaders, even leaders of war.

Pray that God puts a heart of warriors into some of the sons born to real Catholics today. The great spiritual war is not over, yet.

I have given God a spiritual warrior. May other parents give their sons to God, both for prayer and penance, and even for war.

St. David, pray for us. St. Martin, pray for us. Saint Joan of Arc, pray for us. St. George, pray for us.

(P.S. Did you read the encyclical in the previous post on the Church Militant in my repost?)

On The Fathers of St. Joseph

A great group of guys in my area---I have met several of the members. It is my hope that this group would spread across the Catholic world.

http://fathersofstjoseph.org/

Here are some selections from the website, and the books, which one can buy. There are more on the site.

The Fathers of St. Joseph is a confraternity of men who follow the timeless wisdom and example of the man who was father to the Son and son of the Father. With St. Joseph as our leader, each father strives to become as he became – an icon of God the Father. As God the Father entrusted His Son to St. Joseph’s care, we also strive to entrust ourselves as children, who are fathers, to this father who will teach us to father, and lead us to the Father. This way of fatherhood is called Joseph’s Way – The Call to Fatherly Greatness. Join us on this journey to discover the power of authentic fatherhood.

Among the most serious crises facing human civilization is the famine of fatherhood. Children, families, the Church and our world are hungering, if not starving, for true fathers to re-enter the human drama and assist God in the mission of saving the world from self-destruction. Indeed, society goes by way of the family, and the family goes by way of the father. Lying at the center of the famine of fatherhood is a deeper crisis: the father’s loss of his identity. The human father has lost touch with his true identity, with his true mission and the person that God has created him to be. The human father knows little of himself because he knows God the Father so little. The human father’s identity leads not only to his destiny, but also, his family’s destiny. The human father, by assuming his identity as an icon of God the Father—an initiator of self-giving love—enables his family to achieve and receive its authentic identity, and assuming this identity, the human family can alter—for the better—the world’s destiny. The Father’s of St. Joseph are committed to providing men the opportunity to gather around St. Joseph himself. To place his life and example at the center of our gatherings with the intention of discovering the timeless sanctity of the vocation of fatherhood, to learn the meaning of authentic fatherhood, to equip fathers to become the fathers God intends them to be by understanding and living the spirituality that enables St. Joseph to become a father on earth like the Father in heaven. The sole aim and purpose of The Fathers of St. Joseph is to labor for the restoration, revitalization and redemption of human fatherhood, in order that it may become what it has been created to be: an efficacious icon that directs the human family to its Father.

1. To discover the timeless sanctity of the vocation of fatherhood.
2. To be taught and to teach the meaning of authentic fatherhood.
3. To supply for the spiritual, familial or financial needs of our fellow fathers.
4. To learn how to become an authentic father by becoming children of the Father. To become leaders who serve by following the Servant and Master Who leads.
5. To immerse ourselves in the timeless wisdom, fatherly example and person of St. Joseph, the son of the Father and father of the Son.
6. To learn how to encourage and edify our families in their pursuit of personal sanctity.
7. To learn how to honor and cherish the dignity of our wives and all women by overcoming lust by means of receiving the redemptive power of Christ

PROTECT THE DIGNITY OF WOMAN

As Joseph refused to expose Mary to shame so too we will become successful fathers by becoming guardians of the dignity and value of woman.

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BECOME ICONS OF THE TRINITY

The Holy Family became the first domestic church, an icon of the inner love or family life of the Trinity. As fathers we will strive to erect the domestic sanctuary and assist our family in becoming an icon of the life of the Trinity.

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ASSUME CHARITABLE AUTHORITY

As fathers made in the image of the Father, we accept our position of ‘charitable authority’ over our household and like Joseph, the hidden Son of David – an underground king – we acknowledge our hidden kingship over our family.

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SPIRITUALLY ADOPT OUR CHILDREN

We are not mere biological fathers but rather choose to ‘spiritually adopt’ our children and commit ourselves to the fatherly experiences of ‘protecting, feeding and teaching’ and by means of these experiences grow in understanding of our dependence upon the generosity of God the Father.

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WORK AS EXPRESSION OF LOVE

Working side by side with our children, we will teach them the art of self-giving love. Like Joseph and Jesus who crafted the cross of self-giving love within the workshop at Nazareth, by means of work, we will provide our children the necessary materials to build the temple of the Holy Spirit – which they are.

Retreat Notes on The Virtues

Father Xavier spoke of the virtues with regard to breaking demonic influences of obsession and oppression.

The virtues on which he concentrated are the cardinal virtues, again defined on this blog in both posts on virtues and posts on the way to perfection.

Father assumed that his audience knew the definitions of these, but he did emphasize some rather than others.

Prudence, temperance, justice and fortitude provide means to counter demonic influences in our lives. Father said plainly that children must be confirmed, and that too many are not being confirmed. These virtues are necessary, not only as natural virtues, according to the ancient Greeks, but as supernatural virtues given as gifts for all confirmed Catholics to use daily.

Father noted that the demons do not want to attack a person who has control over their bodies and their emotions.

There are antecedent appetites which need to be controlled. Father gave the example of people sleeping too much. If one gives into such a pleasure, one is allowing the possibility of demonic  influences over the body. Prudence, which is right reason applied to practice, allows us to be temperate in our lives regarding food, sleep and other things, perhaps connected to the passions which can drive us.

The cardinal virtues inform reason, the intellective appetites, so that we can overcome sin, weaknesses, and demonic influences. Practicing the virtues also gives us confidence in fighting demonic influences. Obviously, if we are slothful, and bombarded by demons of sloth for example, the opposite virtue of temperance would be a necessary practice in our lives. Temperance is won through chastity, fasting, and abstinence, which combat demonic influences. Father emphasized the necessity in spiritual warfare for fighting demons with temperance.

The other virtues, justice, prudence and fortitude, also are necessary in combating evil in our lives.

The importance of battling daily cannot be underestimated. I came away from this retreat realizing that there is little "down time" in the effort to become perfect, to become holy. Father Xavier said to beg God for the virtues and the graces to become holy.

I am begging....And remembering that to overcome even venial sin with the virtues, one should do the opposite of the fault or vice.

One more point which slightly overlapped with my reading of the City of God.

Father said that there are people out there building on purpose the City of Satan. We cannot deny this.
Becoming holy means being a member of the Church Militant.

End of retreat notes....

Spiritual Pacifists

Someone recently made a comment that they did not like the phrase "Church Militant". This person thought it was too militaristic.

What about the old teaching that at Confirmation we become "soldiers of Christ"?

Three battles wage daily and we are part of these battles.

First, the battle in our own soul, mind, heart, imagination and will.

Second, the battle against the world and all the pressures and distraction it brings into our lives.

Third, the battle against Satan and his legions of demons.

I think the Church Militant is a most appropriate name, as opposed to those who want to be in the Church Mushy.

How is it that so many Catholics have become spiritual pacifists?

Christ Himself waged spiritual war not only in His forty days in the desert, but on the Cross.

The Cross is a sign of victory.

Caught Up in Chaos

So many Catholics do not see what is happening. I am aware of much more persecution of the Church in so-called civilized nations which I am not free to share on this blog.

But, let me share this. We are all going to be caught up in chaos just by being Catholics.

Whether we desire to suffer or not, this type of suffering will happen soon.

Even peripherally, some of us will be involved in the persecution of others who have been more public, more brave than we are.

Do not kid yourselves on this subject of being involved because you are Catholic.

All Catholics will soon have to make serious decisions about their Faith.

In the past two days, two things have happened in European countries which have seriously impinged on the ability of priests to preach the Gospel and the truth of the Catholic Church.

Some lay people have chosen to back down from confrontations which others have brought into their worlds. Some Catholics want the Church to change teachings in order to avoid confrontations with national governments. They are afraid. To compromise seems a good to these people who cannot see how these compromises their very salvation.

I try and tell people this protection because of compromise will not happen, but people are becoming so afraid, they are being encouraged into believing safety is in cooperating with evil. I understand this fear and instability. I have known that as a blogger I am more vulnerable than most Catholics. All Catholic bloggers will fact the decision as to whether to continue or not in the face of growing opposition to the topics we cover. But, all educators and preachers are vulnerable. Very....

One must balance prudence with ministry. This takes prayer and discernment.

To think that Catholics will be able to avoid chaos and the result of chaos is naive.

As I have written before, when nations become paranoid, they look for scapegoats. Read my series earlier this year marked in the tags about Rome, February 24.

The Christians in Rome lived very low-key lives. Yet, they became seen as a great threat to the government which demanded that all people conform to the state religion.

The state religion of the West is now gross secularism, which denies both natural law and absolute truth. Those of us who know the truth are seen as threats to those supporting the institutionalized denial of God's law and man's real nature. The soul is being denied. When that happens in law, chaos will follow.

Families will be affected as individuals are affected. Religious brothers and sisters will be affected, as well as priests and bishops.

The greatest persecution of Catholics the world has ever seen, including that of the old Soviet Union and China, will come upon us all.

Support those who have the freedom to write, make videos, make television shows, etc. Support your Catholic bloggers. Some groups will be able to continue longer than others, but one reason God put me here is to see the army of the enemy pushing towards the trenches. The language of warfare is the necessary vocabulary for the spiritual warfare we are seeing increasing in both Europe and America.

Take advantage of the freedom we know and now have for a short while.

You will not have such clear teaching as you have had to date in the future. Pray for me and some others who are facing the world alone without a community. We are moving rapidly into dangerous times, and you all need to seek community.

I have already been affected personally, and things will get worse. Pray for me to find that community where God wants me to be very quiet and pray. The days for blogging are numbered, believe me. Today and yesterday, I had personal warnings of this reality.

I may have to tell you one day very quickly that the blog is ending. Do not be surprised by this.

The two virtues one must develop at this time are prudence and wisdom.

Pray for those in yourself and in me.

STM

The Growing Shadow of Mordor

It is interesting that the prequel game related to the LOTR came out this past September.

Some Catholics and I have been experiencing the long arm of Mordor. Some of us are exhausted by the spiritual warfare coming out of Rome and the final public heads of the enemies coming above the trenches. Those who hate Christ and His Church, who are within the Church, now are obvious.

We call it the Shadow of Mordor.

My energies have been sapped by the level of evil coming out of those leaders, who are schismatic and bringing their flocks to perdition.

Some of my good Catholic friends have felt the shadow of evil falling upon their parishes, neighbourhoods, towns, cities, nations.

The shadow is beginning to cover Malta. When the majority of people turn away from God and His Church and live, as one good layman said today, a life of immorality and selfishness, the shadow is fed. The shadow is being fed by those who do not love Christ or His Church.

This miasma is like a fog of pestilence moving into the churches with great speed and clutching at the heels of the Faithful to bring them down.

Like a plague, this shadow interrupts normal daily life.

A friend of mine shared with me a terrible vision this evening. He saw nations with two classes-the rulers and the slaves, as in the movie The Time Machine, which I wrote about on this blog years ago. The rulers will feed off the slaves. I can believe this type of time may come. The man who shared this with me is holy and sensitive to God's Ways. He feels the pressure of this shadow which I feel as well.

Another holy layman told me last week that he sees shadows on those who are not walking with God, the unbaptized, the unrepentant. He sees a growing number of people in Malta with a shadow on their faces.

I believe God is allowing the forces of evil to come out of this shadow and be more obvious. I had wondered why some people on the bus and in the street  stare at me when I am out. My friend said it was because they see the light in those of us in sanctifying grace and they wonder at this. Light is getting lighter and dark is getting darker. Some are attracted to the light, which is Christ and some are repelled.

I shall have to change my habits and go into my cell more, as the fighting of the enemy is wearing me out. Pray God leads me soon to a community. Like a lone guerrilla soldier, I need a break and am not getting it. I need a pod.

Neither are many of my friends getting rest, those who are isolated, who absolutely need daily Mass and the rosary.

We are the vanguard, and I am warning all of you it will come to this, into your lives.

My entire life has been one of prophetic movements, which God has allowed. What I have experienced privately, the Church has experienced.

As one who loves the Church passionately, I have felt on my own body the whips satan uses against Holy Mother Church.

Grieving over the great ruptures in the unity of Catholicism, which have been there my entire adult life, but which are now obvious. forms part of this suffering.

God will prevail. The Church will remain until Christ comes again.

But, those of us in the remnant may have to learn to live under the shadow of evil, without giving in.

We are a generation like our fathers or grandfathers who fought in WWII. Get ready. The battle is real and it is hard.

Duty

Some Catholics do not understand that it is not only their privilege to become holy, but their duty. Knowing that only the perfect see God and that the Church desperately needs saints are concepts lost on the vast majority of Catholics.

Too often the laity blames the clergy, instead of taking responsibility for the salvation of souls.

That is our duty.

We cannot neglect our duty except at peril of eternal damnation.

This passage is a command from Christ, the Second Person in the Blessed Trinity, the Son of God.

Matthew 28:19Douay-Rheims 

19 Going therefore, teach ye all nations; baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

Christ did not tell us to do this in peaceful, tolerant countries, or on sunny days only.

We are to teach in good times and in bad times, and we are in bad times. All of us who are confirmed in the Catholic Faith are soldiers of Christ.

Soldiers, do your duty.

How does one want to die?

In yesterday's Financial Times, there is an article on the countries in the world which are "aging". Most of these are European countries, plus the United States, but not all.

Some are Asian.

I have written on this blog before about the sad spiritual decay of the elderly in this country. The old are expected just to end their days entertaining themselves and spending lots of money on living as long as possible.

See this post but go to the end, as I have more to write about this.

Saturday, 1 February 2014

A Tragic Cultural Reality-Ignoring the Interior Life

Posted by Supertradmum

I was in the doctor's office on Thursday and decided to look at two magazines, which catered to those who are retired.

These types of magazines have names like "Maturity Plus", or "The Best Years", or "Modern Retirement",

I was shocked at what I saw.

An entire world of retirement unfolded in the pages which dealt with one thing only-pleasure.

Articles on sex after retirement, romantic relationships, advertisements for cruises, holidays in every warm place in the world, diets for the retired and even clothing for the comfort of the retired. Housing is also advertised.

The extremely depressing articles in these magazines were the calendars of events for the local retirements condos and communities. Let me make a list. These were daily occurrences.

Bridge and other card games
Dances
Movies
Talks on Flowers or whatever
Craft sales of trivia
Special theme dinners
Field trips
Fashion shows
Parties to cover all the holidays
Health issues seminars
Insurance seminars
More holiday information
Aerobics and other exercises
Golf
Swimming
Shopping trips (Why buy more?)

The elderly have been reduced to children in the playground. They are being led back to the sandbox when they should be concentrating on meeting God face to face. Now, these things may be good in themselves, but there comes a time when the interior life but take precedence over the exterior.

This is one reason why God lets us age and lose our outward beauty, so that we are faced with working on our inward beauty.


Where is there anything about the following?

Preparing for death
Examination of conscience
Developing a prayer life
Moving into the journey and final stages of purification
Meditations on the Last Four Things: Death, Judgement, Hell, Heaven
Outreach to charities
Counseling younger Christians
Going to Adoration
Praying outside the abortion clinics
Volunteering in churches, food banks, etc.
Spiritual direction
Bible studies

The other worrying thing I saw were services in some of these places in non-denominational chapels with non-denominational chaplains.

Mass? Confession? Adoration?

What have we done and why? God has blessed many of us with the declining years of our lives in order to come closer to him. These years should not be a mirror image of the active years of career or house making, child-bearing or making money.

These are the years left for the building of the interior life of the soul. But, if this generation of the elderly are being taught and encouraged only to think of the exterior and pleasure, as if they are getting their heaven on earth, their earthly reward, they are missing out on the possibility for true holiness, for perfection, which comes not from the pursuit of busyness or trivia, but from reflection, study, reading the Scriptures, intense prayer, quiet.

Not only have we created in the West a youthful generation of narcissists, we have allowed our elderly to fall under the spell of  "me-ism". How sad, that some, who thought they were on the way to heaven in their youth, may find the door shut to them at the end of a long life.

Matthew 25:11-13

Douay-Rheims 

11 But at last come also the other virgins, saying: Lord, Lord, open to us.

12 But he answering said: Amen I say to you, I know you not.

13 Watch ye therefore, because you know not the day nor the hour.

Manning to Gladstone on The Death of Caroline Manning

"God has been graciously pleased to lead me into a way that is desert, and to bid me to serve Him with entire surrender of myself."

And a few years later he wrote to Samuel Wilberforce concerning Caroline Manning's death: "For my part, I doubt if anything else would have made me so love and yearn for the unseen world as to counterpoise the stifling hold with which the world we see and act in weighs one down."

This is an exact example of one giving one's will to God, even in grief and loss, and railing, in some pagan manner, about fate or doom. Manning saw that God's will was for him "to toil in Christ's Church in warfare here on earth."

A Cardinal of the Church Militant.....

Mary and The Daughters of Eve

That Satan hates mankind is obvious. He is miserable and will be for all eternity, so he wants as many of God's human creatures to be as miserable as he is.

He also hates God Who Is All Goodness.

And, he hates Mary, the Perfect Mother of God, the Virgo Potens, who has crushed his head with her humility, purity and obedience, all things he lost in his instance of rebellion.

Because Satan hates Mary, the Daughter of God, the Bride of Christ and Mother of God, he hates all daughters, brides, and mothers. One of the reasons why there is so much contraception and abortion aimed at getting rid of girls is because Satan hates women.

Catholic women mold themselves into mini-Marys, trying to imitate the virtues of Mary as much as they possibly can, with the grace and virtues God has given them. But, Satan wants to hold back, and destroy those virtues in women, causing rebellion and the masculinizing of women across the world. Just as men have been feminized through the gay rights movements, so to have women become more masculine.

Mary is our model for complete femininity. She is our model for all feminine virtues.

Satan also shows his hatred for women in our society by destroying protectors. How many women do I know who have no protectors in this world? Many, many, many...

Satan has taken away from men that sense that women and children need protection by creating narcissists and peter pans.

I have written much on this topic.

Mary, especially as Virgo Potens, is our stronghold against the attacks of Satan on our womanhood.

Pray the rosary daily. Honor her. And, Satan will flee from your world. Mary instructs us to be women of the Church Militant as well.

Virgo Potens
Virgin Most Powerful

This illustration bears evident martial features.  Mary's picture is set against a shield, which is surrounded with a panoply of weapons, from bow and arrow to flags and cannons.  Mary holds in her hand a commander's staff; however, the motto around her head refers to Christ.  It says, "I can do everything in Him."  Right and left of Mary's image we read this inscription, "He made powerful things with his arm."

On the lower half of this illustration we find the representations of two powerful typological feminine figures of Mary in the Old Testament.  To the left we have Jael, who killed Sisera, the commander of the Canaanites, hammering and crushing his head with peg and mallet (Judges 5:26).  The woman to the right is Judith decapitating Holofernes (Judith 11:17).

"In your hand are virtue and power"  ( 1 Paral 29).

http://campus.udayton.edu/mary/prayers/virgopotens.html

The Age of The Laity Is Not A Liberal Trend

It seems ironic to me that men in families, even fathers, continue the "blame-game" towards priests, laying all the evils of the Church at the feet of the clerical shepherds. There has been a demise of the Church Militant among men.

The lay shepherds truly must face the fact that they have been part of the weakening of the Church as well. The "blame game" needs to start in the home. 

Over and over, I have tried to encourage the laity to see that the call of the Holy Spirit in this age of the laity is a real call, not a liberal trend. God knew from all time the weaknesses, the sins of the clergy which would happen in these times, and led the Church to emphasize the role of the laity. There is a reason for this. Just as Pope Francis wants more emphasis on the local Church, so too, we must have a mindset of building up the local Church.

We may very well not have clergy in our parishes, or even in our dioceses. I wrote a long time ago that dioceses may disappear, totally.

We must rise to this challenge, and stop moaning and complaining about bad clerical shepherds.

There are just as many, if not more, bad lay shepherds.

We have witnessed the collapse of the protector lay shepherd.

That churches will close, that schools have compromised the Faith, that liberal Catholics have seized the centers of catechesis is not merely a problem of the clergy, but of the laity.

That men complain of too many women in chancery offices. Stop complaining and get the degrees necessary to work in these offices.  Decide to let your family live more simply in order for the wage-earner man to work in the Church.

The key to understanding the process of all these decisions may be located in one word, sacrifice.

A good man may have to decide to allow his family not to follow the American Dream, which is a false construct and not based on Catholic Thinking.

Yesterday, I was discussing family dynamics in this day and age with a holy priest. He noted that the main impetus pushing decisions of fathers in even so-called good Catholics families has been materialism, (or consumerism). Catholic dads have fallen into the trap of putting financial decisions, or decisions concerning status of the family, before those necessary decisions directly involved with developing a spiritual life of the family.

To clarify this point, and to show the faulty thinking of many Catholic dads, one can look at five areas of the corruption of Catholic thinking into complete materialistic thinking.

The first area of concern has to do with where some dads have chosen to live. My father moved into a neighborhood so that we could easily get to Catholic schools, both elementary and secondary. Having access to good Catholic schools may be a priority to some Catholics who would not consider how important the entire Catholic school community may thrive simply by people living in close proximity to one another.

This ideal may be connected to the fact that people do not move near one another for the sake of community.

We did this in the 1970s, by watching when houses came up for sale in a neighborhood and phoning those in the community to consider the houses. That many families would move into a neighborhood was called "banding", as in banding together.  Many community relationships were built up simply by people not having to travel any distances to see each other during the week.

Dads must consider not merely the status of living in suburbia, but the larger needs which the families will face in hard times. Living close to real Catholic families must become a priority again.  Status must bend to the needs of the domestic church.

A second area of concern is the choosing of jobs for a higher wage rather than considering family time as a necessity. The domestic church take time to build up, time which must be a priority as we all face the growth of persecution. The formation of children in the virtues has to be a priority of the father, not merely the mother.

I have spoken with a father in recent days whose jobs has odd, irregular hours. He cannot always be home at the same time. Without a set schedule, his children suffer from the lack of the family rosary and even attending Mass together on Sunday, as he must work on Sundays.

Sadly, this state will not be able to be rectified in the near future. The domestic church cannot grow in chaos. Sometimes, a dad may not have a choice regarding jobs, but if he does, family prayer time and the formation of virtues among children must take precedence over all other considerations. This may mean the dad allowing the family to live a lower standard of comfort.

A dad must choose not to waste free time with trivia, as the days of trivia are quickly passing.

This note leads to the third area of concern. One dad I have spoken with in the past three months told me that he was cutting out computer time, reading blogs and twittering in order to give more time for prayer and leading his family. I admire his decision. He said that he realized that his own spiritual growth had to be a priority if his family would be able to grow in virtue. The shepherd must be purified to lead the sheep to such.

The proverbial "couch potato" dad cannot be a true shepherd. Children do not automatically become saints.

Another area of concern has to do with the sad, sad ideal of American families which involves a gross type of independence, which keeps them from being open to other Catholic families.

I have written before about the fact that family relationships can become idolatrous-the Kingdom of God comes first, not extended non-religious families.  Those who choose to build the Kingdom sometimes must leave family members behind for a greater good. 

The last area of concern, which can stop real community building in a parish, and I see this particularly in TLM communities, is an snobbery concerning the poor. Too many trads fall into the horrible habit of judging those in their churches. I have seen this again and again. A middle class couple may judge someone who wears jean skirts, or needs a ride, or does not socialize by eating out at restaurants, as the persons cannot afford this. Instead of inviting and even paying for lunches, people are excluded from discussion groups after Mass attended by the middle class. I think part of the problem is the loss of the large families of the past, which gathered people in. Adults raised in small families have problems reaching out.

I am not sure of all the reasons why many of the TLM groups or other faithful Catholics,  are not forming into real communities, where people relate on a daily basis and help each other both spiritually and physically. 

But, unless this happens, many people will be swept away in the horrible times to come either out of fear, or from a lack of support.


Dads, how you lead your families to God when your local churches look like these photos?


See the other posts on community building and on men.....

Rocks

My dad is almost 91. He is a war veteran, who fought in the Battle of the Bulge. One of the stories he tells us is that when he was student at his parochial school, he had to walk through the Lutheran neighborhood. He would have been about eight or nine years old when the Lutheran boys began throwing rocks at him when he walked by their houses on their way to the public school.

My dad said he learned to run really fast. This all happened about 1931 on. The last acceptable prejudice in Iowa was anti-Catholicism. This prejudice still exists. But, there is a twist. The anti-Catholicism is within the Church, not outside the Church.

All those Catholics who are disobedient in any way, such as taking contraceptions, having abortions, supporting ssm and women priests, skipping Sunday Mass and so is really a new "anti-Catholicism".  "I do not have to believe what the Pope says." "I follow the Holy Spirit and He is also outside the Church, so I can believe what the Lutheran believe." "No one is going to tell me what to do in my bedroom." "The Church needs to change."

And, so on...

Anti-Catholicism is simply disobedience. Not to think and reflect about the teachings of the Church is to neglect one's duty in being a Catholics. Anti-Catholicism is also anti-intellectualism.

Rocks are being thrown at the faithful Catholics in the Church. We are attacked by so-called Catholics, who do not want to be Catholics, except superficially, which I do not understand.

Why be a Catholic if one is not going to be faithful? What is the point?

Rocks are thrown for one reason-malevolence.  Hatred for Rome and hatred for any of the beautiful, sublime teachings of the Church come from one source. The devil, who hates God and hates us, the children of God, hates the Church.

This battle, these rocks which are thrown at the good servants of God will continue until the day we die.

Ephesians 6:11-18

King James Version (KJV)

11 Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.
12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
13 Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.
14 Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness;
15 And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace;
16 Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.
17 And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God:
18 Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints;

I owe my faith to my father and mother and I owe much of the discipline and prayers from them. I learned about the domestic church from them, and how to sustain a Catholic identity from them. For these things, I am eternally grateful. But, in the past six years, we have split over politics. They cannot understand their daughter who has chosen the very narrow way, who has chosen to be a sign of contradiction in the world, and yet, I learned this from them..I think it is because they did not think I would have so many rocks thrown at me and therefore, I live in dire poverty and on the margins of society.  So, please pray for my elderly parents, especially my father, who endured rocks for the faith, to come to the end of their lived resting completely in the truth of the Catholic Faith. 

To watch others suffer is hard, especially when the person you are watching has taken everything you have said seriously.

In 1965, my dad said to me that to be in the world as a Catholic was to be counter-cultural. I took him seriously. I take my Father in Heaven seriously. One of the gifts God gave me is an overwhelming love of His Church. I love the Church and would die for the Bride of Christ. But, there are some who cannot understand that to love the Church is to be hated by the world and the devil.  The American dream of tolerance has ended, and those democratic ideals for which my father fought are disappearing. I cannot imagine the pain.

Rocks, and more rocks............

John 15:18

Douay-Rheims 

18 If the world hate you, know ye, that it hath hated me before you.

The Reason for The Perfection Series II:vii and Exit Strategy Points Six

Seventeen posts today, and counting-because time is short, very short.......................but, time enough.

We have time to look at the reasons for most of the posts on this blog..............

We shall be a remnant. This will happen in my lifetime, I believe.

We have been warned a long time ago--in fact, 45 years ago, when I was 20.

We have all been too complacent and now, time is short. Read my novelettes. Read this below, again............by the Pope Emeritus as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.

"The church will become small"

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. "The church will become small." from Faith and the Future 

(San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2009).

Note the original publication date of Faith and the Future was 1969.

The church will become small and will have to start afresh more or less from the beginning.

She will no longer be able to inhabit many of the edifices she built in prosperity. As the number of her adherents diminishes . . . she will lose many of her social privileges. . . As a small society, [the Church]

It will be hard-going for the Church, for the process of crystallization and clarification will cost her much valuable energy.

It will make her poor and cause her to become the Church of the meek . . . The process will be long and wearisome as was the road from the false progressivism on the eve of the French Revolution — when a bishop might be thought smart if he made fun of dogmas and even insinuated that the existence of God was by no means certain . . . 

But when the trial of this sifting is past, a great power will flow from a more spiritualized and simplified Church. 

Men in a totally planned world will find themselves unspeakably lonely. If they have completely lost sight of God, they will feel the whole horror of their poverty. Then they will discover the little flock of believers as something wholly new. They will discover it as a hope that is meant for them, an answer for which they have always been searching in secret.

And so it seems certain to me that the Church is facing very hard times. The real crisis has scarcely begun. We will have to count on terrific upheavals. But I am equally certain about what will remain at the end: not the Church of the political cult, which is dead already, but the Church of faith. 

She may well no longer be the dominant social power to the extent that she was until recently; but she will enjoy a fresh blossoming and be seen as man's home, where he will find life and hope beyond death 

http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/Interiorlife/iloo13.htm

No Middle Ground

We belong to the Church militant ; and she is militant because on earth the powers of darkness are ever restless to encompass her destruction. Not only in the far-off centuries of the early Church, but down through the ages and in this our day, the enemies of God and Christian civilization make bold to attack the Creator’s supreme dominion and sacrosanct human rights. No rank of the clergy is spared ; and the faithful—their number is legion—inspired by the valiant endurance of their shepherds and fathers in Christ, stand firm, ready to suffer and die, as the martyrs of old, for the one true Faith taught by Jesus Christ. Into that militia you seek to be admitted as leaders. -Venerable. Pope Pius XII delivered on 14 October 1953 (Acta Apostalicae Sedis 45 (1953) pp 679 ff.) at the opening of the North American College in Rome.

 Pope Pius XII Prayer for the Church Militant

Bless, O divine redeemer, the sacred hierarchy, the ministers of the sanctuary and those who aspire to the priesthood, and all who, renouncing the world, have consecrated themselves to you in the various forms of religious life. Bless the courageous groups of the lay apostolate and revive among them in full measure the courage of their Christian profession, the ardor of their zeal, and the firmness of manly fidelity. Bless the rulers of nations and inspire in them ideals of justice and peace, of fraternal understanding and mutual cooperation so that, freed from all threat of domination and violence, all people may live and serve God quietly and peacefully, and then pass from their days of labor here on Earth to the joys of their Heavenly home. Bless the families in whose protective bosoms are nurtured the generations that will form the church of tomorrow.  Bless and assist young boys and girls, whose purity, strength, and spiritual joy are one of the most heartfelt concerns of your spouse, holy mother, the church.

Bless and encourage those whose sentiments, thoughts, words, and works have been sullied by Earthly allurements and deceitful errors.  Help them find again the way that alone can lead them from the depths of tepidity and indifference and separation from God to truth and salvation. Pour forth your blessing on all who are suffering in body and soul.  Raise up in every-increasing numbers generous souls who are ready to go wherever they may hear of tears, mourning, or sorrow, ready to dedicate their spiritual and physical strength and their material possessions to the care of the many infants that have been abandoned along the ways, to the support of the numerous old people who are destitute of all help.  May they be prepared to assist the needy who are incessantly torn between want and sickness, the innumerable exiles who are wandering about in search of a new country, and all who are oppressed and are the victims of human injustices.

Give courage to all who are groaning in hospitals, languishing in prisons, possibly even unjustly, or pining away in places of exile and suffering.  Strengthen the fortitude of those who are suffering in their honor, their liberty, and in their bodies for the defense of their faith.  May they be noble examples of fidelity in your service, O you who are the divine conqueror of death and the underworld.Triumph, O Jesus, be triumphant!  Come!  May your kingdom march forward!  May your sovereignty shine forth on the Earth, always better known and loved, in proportion to the infinite power of your divine blood, which was shed for the redemption of the whole world.

Amen