An Obvious Problem And An Obvious Choice: Knowledge of Divine Things Eighteen Fides et Ratio Ten

It is an illusion to think that faith, tied to weak reasoning, might be more penetrating; on the contrary, faith then runs the grave risk of withering into myth or superstition. By the same token, reason which is unrelated to an adult faith is not prompted to turn its gaze to the newness and radicality of being. John Paul II, Fides et Ratio.


The very problem which I am addessing is exemplified by my readership in the past four days.

Sadly, readers of  the political posts outnumber readers to the philosophical ones 3:1, proving my point that people still want to put out brush fires instead of dealing with the forest fire. Also, it leaves those readers who are not interested in the basic questions to remain in lowly places of humility and complete obedience. This is the lay choice and always has been.

The laity has two choices: either be content to be lowly and not study, therefore not engaging in ministries of leadership, but remaining hidden and holy, in complete obedience in matters one does not understand, or tackling the studies necessary for an adult appropriation of the faith, reflecting, praying and still being obedient, but now in matters which one understands. One cannot act out of ignorance which one has allowed to be the norm because one does not want to pursue the hard questions.

The fact that the majority only wants to deal with action and not reflection highlights the weakness of the Church, especially in America, a land of "doers" not "be-ers".

Until reflection is preferred to action and until the ego is destroyed by humility in the knowledge of one's self, this problem will continue to exist and weaken the Church from within. Action follows knowledge and reflection and appropriation of knowledge, not before. Why do you think we are having the problems in the synod? Because too many of the clergy act without prayer, study, reflection...

And one cannot "cram" in the spiritual life of the intellect.

Where are the brilliant lay leaders in the Church who could be instructing our clerics at the synod on grace, sacramental theology, faith and reason?

3:1.

Meditations on The Keyboard

This blog helps me as much as it does my readers. I wrote months ago how I meditate with a pen in my hand, as did Blessed Cardinal Newman. Some of us work out insights in writing. I shall repost that next.

But, since August, I have seriously considered dropping the blog for three reasons.

First, as God shows me more and more of my hidden sins, those predominant faults, the more I realize I have no right to write about anything.

Second, the times are such that people must now make decisions and stop reading how to be perfect, and become perfect. One can only share so much and then it is time for readers to act.

Third, being in the Dark Night is exhausting. I cannot imagine how Mother Teresa kept going in fifty years of the Dark Night. Will power keeps me going...sometimes passion.

But, I cannot yet leave off the blog...not yet. I keep waiting to hear that clear voice I heard to start, stop and re-start again.

My blogging is a work of love and passion, for God and for the Church, which is all of you out there in the blogosphere.

But, knowing how much I am the wounded healer becomes more and more of a burden.

Today, I read this, by the Pope Emeritus:

"Redemption is not 'wellness' it is not about basking in self-indulgence; on the contrary it is a liberation from imprisonment in self-absorption. This liberation comes at a price, the anguish of the Cross."

Being a writer demands some sense of self-absorption. One must be a wordsmith, working with ideas on paper, on the computer, moving pieces of type around mentally in order to communicate clearly.

But, for those of us called to write, the action is part of who we are as well as what we do.

To break through the self-absorption, one must reflect and pray much, and, listen. I must daily listen to God and listen to His People.

My liberation from sin comes at a price. Someday, God will clearly say, "Stop writing."

That day has not come, yet.

But, I wait on orders, knowing that more of me will die when I have to give up the blog.

Today, in the Carmelite Church where I went to Mass, I saw the large modern stained-glass window of Blessed Titus Brandsma. A bit of comfort, as there is a window of him in the Carmelite Church I attended regularly the summer of 2013. It was almost as if he was saying-"No, you cannot quit yet. Keep going."

The Cross is writing in the pain of knowing I have no right to write, that my readers need to out-grow me, and that so many I love the most do not read this blog. I write for the absent ones as well as you.

Here was a post on this subject.

Friday, 26 July 2013

Titus Brandsma and Thoughts on Time

In the Carmelite Church on Whitefriars in Dublin, the sacristan has moved the statue of Blessed Titus 

Brandsma from its place in a small shrine, to the front of the church, in honour of his feast day tomorrow. 

Already, dozens of candles have been lit for intercessions.

In the small shrine, at the back on the left-hand aisle, are now placed a few letters from Blessed Titus to 

various people, concerning his stay in Ireland in the 1930s. I read the translations, and was reminded 

of the letter in the Church of the Circumcision in Valletta, from St. Ignatius of Loyola. (no longer there in Oct. '14)

I find it moving to see the handwriting and read the words of saints. These men were doing what God asked 

them to do on earth. Now, their letters are second class relics.

And, I was reminded at how fast the world changed from the writing of these letters of Bl. Titus to the 

day he was murdered. Freedom of speech was taken for granted when he wrote his letters in the mid 1930s. 

How quickly things changed for him. He was actually killed today, July 26th, in 1942, less than eight years 

from the dates when he was writing freely in Ireland, just before his trip to the States in 1935.

How fast things can change, dear brothers and sisters in Christ. Bl. Titus was arrested on January 19 and 

died on July 26th. Not much time to prepare for martyrdom...

We have more time to think of freedom of the press, freedom of speech for Catholics; perhaps a year 

and half will pass before we are fined for writing on certain subjects. I am extrapolating from recently passed laws.

Blessed Titus is a great saint for modern times. May he bless all of us who pray and write for the glory of 

God and His Kingdom.

Bl. Titus' Press Pass from http://carmelnet.org/brandsma/html/biog6.html

Yet another repost

Tuesday, 8 July 2014

The Particular Judgment

Posted by Supertradmum

I am running out of time to share Garrigou-Lagrange’s Providence with you, so I want to skip some bits, not that these are not worthy, in order to concentrate on the last few chapters.

Recommending pages 251, 252, 253, 257, 264 and 292, I am skipping to the discussion on the particular judgment. Now, I have written on this before many times on this blog. One of my friends experienced his particular judgment over a year ago, for three days, seeing all the sins and failings. A strong man, he told me he sobbed during those three days, realizing his great lack of holiness and love for God.

As noted in a post quite a while ago, I had one experience of the horror of one venial sin.

Garrigou-Lagrange writes this: “Once the body has been left behind, the soul has direct vision of itself as a spiritual substance, in the same way that the pure spirit has direct vision of itself, and in that instant it is made aware of its moral condition. It receives an interior illumination rending all discussion useless. God passes sentence, which is then transmitted by conscience, the echo of God’s voice. The soul now sees plainly what is its due according to its merits and demerits, when then stand out quite distinctly before it.”

The author continues, and then refers to Newman, who I referred to a few days ago. Here is the passage from The Dream of Gerontius quoted:

“When then—if such they lot—thou seest thy Judge,

The sight of Him will kindle in thy heart

All tender, gracious, reverential thoughts.

Thou wilt be sick with joy, and yearn for Him

That one so sweet should e’er have placed Himself

At disadvantage such, as to be used

So vilely by a being so vile as thee.

There is a pleading in His pensive eyes,

Will pierce thee to the quick, and trouble thee,

And thou wilt hate and loathe thyself; for, though

Now sinless, thou wilt fell that thou hast sinned

As never thou didst feel; and wilt desire

To slink away, and hide thee from His sight;

And yet wilt have a longing eye to dwell

Within the beauty of His countenance.

And those two pains, so counter and so keen—

The longing for Him, when thou seest Him not;

The shame of self at thought of seeing Him—

Will be thy veriest, sharpest purgatory.

….

It is the face of the Incarnate God

Shall smite thee with that keen and subtle pain;

And yet the memory which it leaves will be

A sovereign febrifuge to heal the wound;

And yet withal it will the wound provoke,

And aggravate and widen it the more.”

Garrigou-Lagrange continues, “Justice will then mete out condign punishment for sins committed, to last for a time or eternity. “

And, “…the sinner clearly realizing that through his own fault he has failed forever to attain his destined end.”

The Dominican reminds us that both mercy and justice are mysteries. We cannot understand God’s mercy nor His justice. And, although we define these as separate attributes of God,  but are in reality inseparable.

To be continued…and
http://supertradmum-etheldredasplace.blogspot.com/2013/06/confusion-as-to-purgatory-and-sin-more.html

Catholic Education Daily Articles

Common Core

Common Core

Gates-Funded Lobby Pushes Common Core in Catholic Schools, Targets Newman Society
9/23/2014Sara Pruzin, a state operations associate for the Council for a Strong America (CSA) and former communications intern for U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, unwittingly contacted a Cardinal Newman Society leader to rally Catholic support for the Common Core.

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Catholic Schools Struggle to Appeal to Right Market, Argues Writer
9/18/2014"Catholic schools are under tremendous financial pressure," wrote Jennifer Fitz, but trying to appeal to a more mainstream, wealthier market can have the undesirable side effect of diluting the faith taught in the school.

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Common Core ‘Raises an Alarm’
9/11/2014The Common Core “rightfully raises an alarm” when all its factors are considered, argued Dan Guernsey, director of The Cardinal Newman Society’s K-12 program, in a recent segment on Register Radio.

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Culture Influences Student Performance, Says Author Russell Shaw
8/13/2014Russell Shaw of OSV Newsweekly recently shared his take on the controversy surrounding the Common Core and the broader problem of the negative impact the culture has on student performance.

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10 Facts Every Catholic Should Know About the Common Core
8/1/2014As a part of The Cardinal Newman Society’s work to help Catholic families, educators and Church leaders better understand the Common Core State Standards, the Newman Society has released “10 Facts Every Catholic Should Know About the Common Core.”

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Oklahoma Supreme Court Upholds Legislative Repeal of Common Core
7/16/2014A lawsuit accused the Oklahoma legislators of overreaching their constitutional authority, but the court ruled 8-1 in favor of the legislature.

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Support Grows for Congressional Investigation into Common Core 
6/10/2014“The idea that the richest man in America can purchase and–working closely with the U.S. Department of Education–impose new and untested academic standards on the nation’s public schools is a national scandal.”

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U.S. Bishops’ Common Core Document Focuses on Catholic Identity, Says Expert
6/5/2014“The benefit of the Common Core controversy is that it has surfaced some of the threats of secularization in our schools,” writes Dr. Dan Guernsey.

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Milwaukee Archbishop Listecki Responds to Parents’ Petition Against Common Core
6/5/2014Archbishop Jerome Listecki said the standards are a useful “reference” but that the schools maintain a “strong commitment to Catholic identity” in education, according to FoxNews.com.

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Bishops' Common Core Statement Could Be 'Turning Point,' Says Newman Society President
5/20/2014“This is an opportunity for Catholic schools to rediscover and embrace their core mission,” Cardinal Newman Society President Patrick J. Reilly told Breitbart News. 

Very Interesting News

http://www.cardinalnewmansociety.org/CatholicEducationDaily/DetailsPage/tabid/102/ArticleID/3544/Christian-Persecution-Research-Project-Launched-at-Notre-Dame-Georgetown.aspx

Caution Yet Again, Part Three

I think the big sin behind the misunderstandings about spiritual warfare is the lack of humility.

If one is not humble, if one is not pursuing holiness hourly in some way, even with small prayers, one will fall into sins of curiosity and pride, thinking one can deal with things which may not even be our business.

Because of the prevalence of the occult, more and more people are being possessed. One can listen to Fr. Ripperger on this.

As we are all sinners, as we have defects and imperfections, satan will use anything against us, including past sins.

Humility is the needed virtue for all growth and for all spiritual warfare.

If you only have time for one talk, I recommend this one. And, if you are being stubborn and still do not see the evil in Harry Potter, listen to 1.08.36 on or so.

 http://www.sensustraditionis.org/webaudio/Tulsa/Newman.mp3

Being in schism means not holding the teachings of the Church

http://www.churchmilitant.tv/daily/?today=2014-09-08

Here is something you can do about this: WRITE!

At 1:37 PM -0400 9/6/14, Bob Marshall wrote:

Friends,

This letter was Faxed today to the Apostolic Delegate who holds Ambassador rank from the Vatican to the United States.

Please share it as you wish.

Delegate Bob Marshall

September 6, 2014

H. E. Most Rev. Archbishop Carlo Vigano

Apostolic Nuncio

3339 Massachusetts Avenue N W

Washington, DC 20008

Your Excellency Archbishop Vigano:

New York's Cardinal Dolan, appointed as Grand Marshal of the 2015 St. Patrick's Day Parade praised the decision to allow an openly gay group to march in the St. Patrick's Day Parade. ''I have no trouble with the decision at all ...  I think the decision is a wise one.'' 

His action leaves many Catholics, including elected officials like myself, puzzled and disheartened when we measure Cardinal Dolan's new policy with his predecessor, John Cardinal O'Connor.

In 1993, when GLBT groups and government officials demanded that openly homosexual groups be included in the Parade, Cardinal O'Connor vowed in a St. Patrick's Day sermon that he "could never even be perceived as compromising Catholic teaching."  "Neither respectability nor political correctness is worth one comma in the Apostles Creed."  (New York Times, 1/20/93)

At that time, the New York Times also noted that, "The Hibernians and Cardinal O'Connor have said there is no place for a gay contingent in the parade because it is a Catholic event and the church teaches that homosexual acts are sinful."

Yet, Cardinal Dolan claimed, "Neither my predecessors as archbishops of New York nor I have ever determined who would or would not march in this parade," adding that "the parade would be a source of unity for all of us."  (NYTimes 9/3/14)

Would Cardinal Dolan, as Parade Marshal, applaud the inclusion of Irish abortion clinic owners or Planned Parenthood employees in a Parade honoring Saint Patrick?  On what logical grounds does he applaud openly GLBT marchers and reject openly pro abortion Catholics, including some "Catholic" nuns?

Perhaps organizations which advocate to legalize prostitution and pornography should also be permitted to march?  What about promoters of euthanasia for the elderly and disabled or advocates of physician assisted suicide?  Where does Cardinal Dolan draw the line?

The St. Patrick's Day Parade sponsored by the Irish Catholic Ancient Order of Hibernians under the auspices of and with the blessing of the Catholic Archdiocese of New York, is not a purely secular event, despite the fact that secular politicians participate. It honors a Catholic saint who converted pagans to the Faith and away from immoral behavior.

Promoters of homosexual behavior take part in many "gay pride" marches and parades, but these are not events sponsored by the Catholic Church or a Catholic organization.  Therein lies the problem.

Same sex "marriage" advocates say they feel marginalized by the Church, yet the Church has been very clear that it is a hospital for sinners, and no one is sinless. Jesus saves us from being "marginalized" by our sin, so long as we seek Him and seek to do His will.

Everyone who rejects God's word, or who ignores or violates the Ten Commandments (and we all guilty of that) feels "marginalized" at times, but we don't re-write the Commandments to make us feel less marginalized.

News reports indicate that NBC which televises the Parade, New York's Mayor, Guinness Brewery and others were pressuring the Parade sponsors to include openly GLBT groups. Choosing money over truth is never a good choice.

This situation is not about judging individual souls. God loves all his children, and fortunately He is the only one who can judge men's hearts, but we live in a world of actions that have individual, social and legal consequences.

Equality of persons is not the same as equality of behavior. What message does Cardinal Dolan's decision give? The U.S. Supreme Court is considering whether to hear challenges to state laws allowing only one-man, one woman marriage.  Cardinal Dolan's statement and actions here are most untimely.

I grew up in Washington DC, worked in Congress for six years, have been privileged to serve the people of Virginia as a member of the Virginia General Assembly since 1992, was chief co-sponsor of the 2006 Virginia Marshall-Newman, voter approved one-man, one woman Marriage Amendment, and pro life legislation. I have overridden Governors of Virginia on abortion and GLBT issues, beat the ACLU in federal court on pornography prohibitions, and in 2008 won a precedent setting law suit overturning a tax law supported and defended in court by the Governor, Attorney General and Speaker.

I know from a lifetime in and around politics that federal judges and Members of Congress read newspapers. They are influenced by the actions of moral leaders. They gauge what they can "get away with" by what Catholic prelates "tolerate."

We do our brothers and sisters no service by pretending that God's teaching or the "Laws of Nature and Nature's God" are not important today. No one can change Natural Law or the Word of God, written in the blood of Our Savior for our wellbeing and redemption.

I haven't talked to one Catholic who thinks that what Cardinal Dolan did was prudent or helpful in defending the Faith, marriage or morals. Converts, especially, are distressed.

Some contemporary American Catholics falsely think that "tolerance" is exercised by maintaining indifference towards ideas, opinion or even error, or holding that all points of view are equal. For a Church authority to embrace political correctness at such a time will have consequences which extend far beyond the parade route.

Cardinal Dolan's actions will make enacting legislation in conformity with the Natural Law immeasurably harder to defend especially for lay Catholics or Catholic legislators.

Please pass my letter on to the appropriate Church officials.  Thank you.  You can contact me at 703-853-4213, delbmarshall@house.virginia.gov, bob@delegatebob.com,  or delegatebob@gmail.com. 

Sincerely,

Delegate Bob Marshall

Good, Better, Best

The seculars in the West simply do not understand religion. Because secular thinking people have omitted God from their lives, they cannot understand a religious perspective.

Political correctness is a symptom of secular, liberal thinking. But, it is only a symptom. PC thinking grows out of a mindset which does not recognize authority, which cannot be obedient to any higher Good.

So many times, I hear people say, "Oh, he is a good man, but...." The but becomes a list, of either large or small of sins, many mortal, such as ambition, adultery, fornication, greed.

The use of terms such as "good, better, best" meant something in a society where the people held objective norms of judgment based on Christian principles.

This Christian basis for judgment has been gone in America and in Europe for a long time, perhaps my entire life.

Language reveals beliefs. As I wrote the other day, ideas have consequences. So does language. Hitler knew this when he used terms to hide hideous hatred and subhuman systems of genocide.

Propaganda, first used by the Machiavellian Queen Elizabeth I, misuses language in order to brainwash, purposefully  to change the minds and hearts of the people. Propaganda may be used in ordinary conversation, as well as by organizations and nation states.

Goodness rests in God alone. Only God is good. We become more like we are intended to be, sons and daughters of God, adopted by baptism, heirs to heaven, only when we cooperate with grace.

We, as practicing Catholics, need to stop using language in vague and distracting ways.

Who is good? Who is better? Who is best? What is good, better, best?

As you all know from my long perfection series, now close to or over 1,000 posts over the years, we are all called to be saints.

Being a saint means appropriating grace, which is hard work. To be a saint is to be the best we can be, not for the sake of earthly comfort, but in order to give glory to God and to spread the Good News of the Gospel.

I had a shock, (well, not really, as I suspected something), yesterday. I found out that the vast majority of Catholic men who go to Mass every Sunday in a community near where I now live belong to one or another of the common secret societies. This has been happening for generations. Some, most, belong to the Grangers, the Elks, the Masons. Yet, they use language of Christianity and call each other "good". Others call these men "good". They have ignored over 200 years of Church teaching on secret societies.

Almost all, if not all, these men belong to a group which undermines the teaching of the Catholic Church and follows the heresies of eirenism, indifferentism and modernism, all explained in the post added below.

I reposted the entire article, but here is the link.

http://supertradmum-etheldredasplace.blogspot.com/2012/01/cradle-of-modernist-heresies.html

Now I understand why this area suffers from several generations who did not receive proper catechesis or hard, solid truths from the pulpit in that area to which I refer. Now I know why there have been few is any vocations in this area.

Yet, these men claim they are "Catholic". Language becomes twisted.

What is a Catholic? What does it mean to be automatically excommunicated?

What does it mean to be obedient to the Church's teaching on secret societies?

What does it mean to be living in heresy and worse, worshipping the dark side?

Only when religious language really means something, only when people talk from their souls, hearts and renewed minds, can one trust language. The seculars have, like Hitler, ruined language. Those Catholics who have compromised are twisting language.

Good, better, best are words, concepts which only make sense when one is walking with God in the Catholic Church, being a member of the Church Militant, acting like an adopted son or daughter of God.

Pay attention how you speak. Your words reveal your soul and your true beliefs. Pray for those in your families who have no moral framework with which to judge language.

We do.

Wednesday, 1 February 2012

The Cradle of Modernist Heresies

Posted by Supertradmum

In 1983, Cardinal Josef Ratzinger, who was prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, now Pope Benedict XVI, issued a document under the name of the Declaration on Masonic Associations.  The link is on the name.

In that document, the long history of the condemnation of Freemasonry by the Church, since 1738, was reiterated and clearly defined. The original condemnation of Clement XII, In eminenti apostolatus specula  was upheld.

Since that time, I have had many Catholics, in the United States and in Europe claim that the Church had removed the automatic excommunication on a Catholic who joined the Masons. This is not and has never been so. One has to understand that the Church's condemnation of Masonry is based not merely on the fact that it is a secret organization, but that it upholds several Modernist heresies. Firstly, Cardinal Ratizinger wrote that:

Therefore the Church’s negative judgment in regard to Masonic association remains unchanged since their principles have always been considered irreconcilable with the doctrine of the Church and therefore membership in them remains forbidden. The faithful who enrol in Masonic associations are in a state of grave sin and may not receive Holy Communion.

He went on to state that no bishop had any right to change this. It is interesting that the SSPX press, Angelus Press, has one of the best books on the evils and pitfalls of Masonry. One can find it here. However, I want to concentrate on a few of the Modernist heresies found in Freemasonry.

The first is indifferentism. This heresy proclaims that all religions are the same and that religion has no place in the public life of a nation or people.Mirari Vos  On Liberalism and Religious Indifferentism written in 1832 by Gregory XVI is a forgotten document of the Church.

Indifferentism leads to a relativism about religion, stating that all are either the same, or so subjective as to mean only what a person sincerely believes. This pluralism leads to another aspect that because all religions are relative and the same, these beliefs have no role in the public life, cannot affect politics, or governmental decisions. Of course, as the Catholic Church is the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, this heresy is condemned as contrary to both Revelation and Tradition. Indifferentism leads to a denial of the supernatural, as if all beliefs are equal or subjective, there is no hierarchy, no Revelation from God. Also denied in this heresy would be dogma, for the same reasons. It is interesting that in the Catholic Encyclopedia of 1907, itself peppered with some Modernist heresies, that this statement from Newman is quoted in the section on indifferentism: 

No truth, however sacred, can stand against it (the Catholic Church) in the long run; and hence it is that in the Pagan world, when our Lord came, the last traces of the religious knowledge of former times were all but disappearing from those portions of the world in which the intellect had been active and had a career" (Apologia, chap. v). 

The second heresy of many in Masonry is eirenism.This is what I call the forgotten heresy. 


The condemnation of eirenism is found in Pope Pius XII's encyclical, Humani Generis. This great work condemns existentialism, historicism (Gramsci watch), immanentism and other isms. The point of eirenism is, in the words of the Pope: setting aside the questions which divide men, they aim not only at joining forces to repel the attacks of atheism, but also at reconciling things opposed to one another in the field of dogma. And as in former times some questioned whether the traditional apologetics That branch of the science of theology which explains the reasons for the Church's existence and doctrine of the Church did not constitute an obstacle rather than a help to the winning of souls for Christ, so today some are presumptuous enough to question seriously whether theology and theological methods, such as with the approval of ecclesiastical authority are found in our schools, should not only be perfected, but also completely reformed, in order to promote the more efficacious propagation throughout the world among men of every culture and religious opinion.


This heresy clearly seeks after a type of syncretism, a religion of unity, wherein divisions vanish and people come together to worship some sort of agreed upon god. I would venture to say that eirenism leads directly to Worship of the State.


This is the atmosphere of religion and philosophy in the United States at this very moment. The State declares that there is no religious right to conscience, thereby setting up its own standards for so-called moral or ethical behavior. To use an example, abortion is ok because a Supreme Court decision determined it was so, and because further legislation supports it. The State has substituted itself for the Church in matters of conscience. 


Wake up, American Catholics. So, the heresies sleeping in Masonry have awakened and taken over the mind-set of the nation's leaders. Simple and neat.


What is happening and has happened in Catholic education, wherein schools are rebelling against the Teaching Magisterium (look here in California today, this minute) is a direct result of the concepts of eirenism. Schools and other facilities play down differences for the sake of community unity to the detriment of Catholic Teaching. 


It is too late to change this huge momentum, hidden in Masonry by choice, and held in some minds by lethargy and laziness. To take the easiest way out, to placate, to be politically correct is eirenism. 


The greatest heresy in Masonry is immanentism, which destroys the Revelation of God as Trinity, replacing Him with a vague, abstract presence found in the world. Pope Pius X condemned this in  Pascendi Dominici Gregis.


As Catholics, we do not have much time to read all of these documents, but what is happening today in America, with the attack on the Church from the present administration concerning freedom of religion and freedom on conscience is an attack prophesied by all the documents above. If Church leaders knew their own teaching, they would have seen this coming, or even better, stopped these idealistic heresies from fomenting in the people in the pews. And, as laymen, we only have ourselves to blame if we find ourselves marginalize, persecuted, imprisoned, martyred. See my post below on the stages of persecution and the ideologies which push these heresies. The one I have left for this posting is Freemasonry, which seems to hold many of the Modernist heresies and is able to produce these in the market place as goods.

As one can tell, I taught a history of ideas, history of encyclicals, history of heresies. Nothing has changed in 2012 which was not there in 1732 or earlier. Sadly, the revisionist historians within the Catholic Church look like they have won the day. I honestly feel that we are in the times of Arianism, the greatest heresy which rocked and split the Church. However, the Church prevailed, and will, as Christ promised until the end of time. But, the Lord did not assure us it would be a large, powerful, or influential Church. Perhaps the words of one of the Desert Fathers are applicable. I think, but I am not sure, it was Abba Pambo.


"When asked by a young monk if they were of the greatest generation because they saw and cast out devils, and prayed, fasted, and converted  and healed people, the Abba answered. 'No, we are not the greatest generation. We have obvious power. The next generation will see Christ establish His Kingdom among the Nations, and there will be unity for awhile. But, the greatest generation is the one, which under great persecution, will survive. They are the greatest and the last.'"

SPUC News

 from JOHN SMEATON, SPUC DIRECTOR

Saturday, 6 September 2014

Bishop Philip Egan addresses SPUC's national conference

Bishop Philip Egan

This morning SPUC's national conference 2014 was privileged to be addressed by the Rt. Rev. Philip Egan, the Catholic bishop of Portsmouth, on the forthcoming Synod on the Family and the Sensus Fidei. Here are the main points from Bishop Egan's address.

What is a Synod?
An "Ecumenical Council" means a 'gathering of all', in order to discuss and decide about important matters. Ecumenical Councils are rare. A synod is a smaller gathering of bishops, such as bishops across a region or a province.

In preparation for a synod, the synod's secretariat sends out a scoping document for dioceses. The responses are sent back to Rome; and from those responses the secretariat draws up an Instrumentum Laboris, a 'working document'.

A synod is an advisory body. The Pope participates in the synod, and following the synod he issues an Apostolic Exhortation in response to the synod.

The synod on the family to be held in Rome in October is an Extraordinary Synod. The last Extraordinary Synod was in 1987 on the Catechism of the Catholic Church. This year's Extraordinary Synod is also unusual, in two ways:
1) it will be followed by an Ordinary Synod next year. The Apostolic Exhortation will be the Instrumentum Laboris for the next year’s synod
2) The 39 pre-synod questions were circulated widely throughout the Church so as to put forward concerns.

Why the family?
Pope Francis announced the synod on the family at the 2013 World Youth Day in Rio. The Pope said that today many young people do not want to get married. Also, people get married lacking maturity. This is where pastoral care needs to comes in. The pastoral care of the family is very complicated, including issues such as annulments, divorce, and access to Holy Communion. Pope Francis said the family is in crisis worldwide. The topic needs two synods to give an adequate treatment.

Instrumentum Laboris
Instrumentum Laboris, to me, is a remarkable document. It unambiguously restates Catholic teaching on the main family issues. At the same time, it emphasises God’s mercy and the need to spread it; highlights the lack of faith and lack of sufficient catechesis. The beginning deals with the Gospel of the Family, which is the term I especially like. The crisis of faith leads to a crisis of relationships and families. The Instrumentum Laboris ends with the prayer of the Holy Family.

In summary the Instrumentum Laboris deals with:

• how to communicate Church’s teaching more effectively?
• how to support those in need more mercifully?
• how to support families in teaching about openness to life?

Crisis of faith
In Britain the crisis of the family is bound to the crisis of the faith. Secularism separates Church and State. The result is moral relativism. Nothing is solid.

It is no secret that many progressive Catholics look forward to changes in Church’s teaching and doctrine from the Synod. In contrast, Blessed John Henry Newman taught that Christian teaching tends to develop organically, like an acorn, with continuity. Doctrine develops rather than changes. Developments in doctrine must be consistent.

In history the Church has experienced major controversies. Today’s issue is the anthropology of a human being: what it means to created, fallen and then redeemed. The Sensus Fidei is the belief that the Holy Spirit endows each member of the Church, each baptised Christian, with an instinct to live in truth. Some members of the Church do not understand the Church’s teaching on marriage and family. Should the doctrine then be changed?

Bl. John Henry Newman taught observed that it has been the ordinary faithful who have passed on the Church's doctrine. Like others in the Church, the faithful should be consulted, not in a democratic way, but rather as a thermometer to check the weather. It is the doctrine that Christ wills for His Church. The doctrine is not always the balanced view, but it is the truth.

My personal hopes for the Synod:
1) A fresh, attractive, easy-to-understand idea of the Gospel of the Family. I would wish that the Synod requests from the Pope a presentation of the Christian understanding of birth, sex, death, male, and female. This would greatly assist religious education in our schools. I am actively considering appointing a couple in every parish as a ministry for marriage.
2) That the Synod will find a better way how to spread mercy for those in difficulties and irregular situations. Pope Benedict suggested we need a further study on the relation of faith and the Sacrament of Matrimony. Many people fall away from the Catholic Church because they fail to form a personal relationship with Christ.

Comments on this blog? Email them to johnsmeaton@spuc.org.uk

On Catholic Colleges and Universities

 

I am a Domer. (So is Michael Voris). Many of us deplored the giving of the doctoral degree to POTUS. This evening, I watched Rudy again with a friend who had never seen it. He liked it. He noted the difference in the movie between a Catholic student body and his. Now, the movie is old, and the styles more modest, but the point was being made not about clothes, but an "attitude" which was felt by the viewer.  

There use to be a pride about being a real Catholic.

Going to Notre Dame, being there for six years working on two degrees, I made great friends. But, friendship was based on shared Catholic morals, faith and vision.

My son experienced the same "family" atmosphere at Thomas Aquinas College.

To be in a college or university where one can find people who share goals and vision is to find a real community based on faith.

Not all young people live their faith in college or university, but some do. One of my friend's children went to the University of Illinois at Springfield. None of them lost their faith, all married practicing Catholics and all are having children. They joined an active Newman Club and made Catholic friends.

To blame university or college for the loss of faith ignores free will and the opportunities available.

Is it hard to keep the faith in a secular atmosphere? Yes, and it is much better for parents to encourage their children to attend Wyoming Catholic, Thomas Aquinas, Christendom and Ave Maria for obvious reasons.

Just getting to daily Mass is a great help in keeping the faith, staying pure, and so on.


One can create a community at college or university. One can seek out like-minded people.

Faith does not have to disappear.

As the school year starts, pray for students to be true to the gift of faith God has given them in Baptism and strengthened in Confirmation.

By the way, there are now 58 priests who are alumni of Thomas Aquinas College. One more alum is a seminarian in England!

More from the St. Etheldreda's Site

A homily given at St Etheldreda’s by Fr Tom Deidun on the occasion of the Feast of St Etheldreda, 2010

One evening, in the early 1840s, a student at Exeter College, Oxford, attended the annual Scots dinner for St Andrew’s day in College. On the menu were cockie-leekie, oyster soup and haggis; and the whisky flowed. Having over-indulged somewhat, the student confided to a friend at the end of the evening: ‘I am in a state now in which I might be drawn into any wickedness.’ Which doesn’t surprise me, since cockie-leekie sounds potent enough to me to draw any man into wickedness, with or without the whisky. What wickedness this young man was drawn into, if any, that evening, is not known, but first thing next morning he betook himself to the Anglican clergyman The Revd Dr Sewell, Fellow and Tutor of Exeter College, and Doctor of Divinity, to seek absolution for the previous evening’s excesses. Dr Sewell refused to give him absolution and offered him Epsom salts instead. The student later reported: ‘I came away from that ass at once. I asked my father for bread, and he gave me a stone. I asked for fish, he gave me a scorpion.’ ‘I asked for absolution and he gave me Epsom salts.’ (A century later someone wrote a biography of The Revd Dr Sewell entitled: Sewell: A Forgotten Genius. I have not read it myself, but I would be keen to see whether Dr Sewell’s pastoral use of Epsom Salts formed part of his forgotten genius.)¹
But to be serious: If it hadn’t been for that cockie-leekie and Dr Sewell’s Epsom salts, we would not be here now. For the young man was William Lockhart. He was an Anglican student of theology with High Church leanings, convinced, among other things, of the importance of Confession and sacramental Absolution, a view not shared by Dr Sewell nor by most of his fellow Anglicans. For Lockhart, no church that did not practise it could be called part of the true Church.
Not many years later Lockhart left the Anglican Church and was received into the Catholic Church by Fr Luigi Gentili, an Italian priest belonging to the Institute of Charity, recently founded by Antonio Rosmini. Shortly after that, Lockhart himself joined Rosmini’s Institute and was ordained a priest. He was sent to work among the poor in East London. In 1854 he became the first parish priest of Our Lady and St Joseph’s parish in Kingsland in the Borough of Hackney, still today a very flourishing parish. Fr Lockhart was phenomenally active there for the best part of twenty years, until, in 1870, Archbishop (later Cardinal) Manning suggested that the Rosminians hand the parish to the diocese and start a new parish in the Holborn area, also an area of great poverty. As most of you know, Fr Lockhart managed to purchase, at a knock-down price at auction, a thirteenth-century chapel in Ely Place taken from the Catholics in the sixteenth century courtesy of Henry VIII and after centuries of neglect and tasteless modification finally ending up being leased to the Welsh Episcopalians. Lockhart tells us that it would probably have been pulled down to make room for warehouses, if he hadn’t bought it. Lockhart set about restoring the church not only to the Catholic faith but also to something like its thirteenth-century simplicity and glory, the results of which restoration you can see around you. For this glory, we must thank Fr Lockhart, and many generous and imaginative souls through many generations. And, of course, we must thank The Revd Dr Sewell’s Epsom Salts, without whose hidden genius all this might never have happened.
And St Etheldreda is not the only saint that our founder and first Parish Priest has linked us to. We have already mentioned Rosmini, and we shall come back to him, but Lockhart is also the parish’s link to a third saint, one whose sanctity will be proclaimed to the country and to the world in just three months’ time, that is John Henry Newman, who will be beatified by Pope Benedict on Sunday 19th September.
When Lockhart first went up to Oxford as an undergraduate, Newman was already an influential religious and intellectual figure in the University. As well as being fellow and tutor at Oriel College, he was Vicar of the University Church of St Mary’s, which has been described as the ‘essence of the essence’ of nineteenth-century Anglicanism. It was while the freshman Lockhart was walking one day with a companion in High Street Oxford that he first caught sight of Newman, when his companion suddenly seized his arm and whispered: ‘Look, look, there is Newman!’ Through the mere sight of his demeanour Lockhart fell under his spell. (He later spoke of ‘the majesty of Newman’s countenance for those who have got to know him, his meekness, his intensity, his humility, the purity of a virgin heart in work and will that was expressed in his eyes, his loving kindness, his winning smile, the wonderful sweetness and pathos and delicate unstudied harmony of his voice.’) Now if Newman made such an impression on Lockhart through his outward demeanour, imagine what effect he was to have on him by the power of his intellect and the depth and intensity of his religious devotion when Lockhart became his disciple.
Now it was just at the time of Lockhart’s doubts about Anglicanism (which the Epsom salts episode did nothing to dispel) that Newman himself had decided that he must leave the Church of England. ‘I was already on my deathbed in regard to my relationship with the Church of England,’ Newman later wrote. But he never said that openly at the time, and he was very slow to make the decisive move. He did, however, virtually retire from University life to found a small monastic-like community at Littlemore on the outskirts of Oxford. Lockhart was one of the first to volunteer to join it, and Newman welcomed him. A small group of ardent Christians lived an intense Christian life together, practising a quite rigorous asceticism, broken only by the delights of conversations with Newman at dinner every evening (or occasionally by Beethoven’s sonatas played by Newman on the violin). Newman never spoke of his difficulties to Lockhart and his companions at Littlemore; and when the issue arose, he tried to discourage them from any thoughts of leaving the Church of England. When after less than a year Lockhart ‘could not bear the strain any longer’ (Lockhart’s own words), that is, the strain of reconciling his conscience with the claims of the Church of England (not the strain of listening to Newman’s violin), he left Littlemore and soon afterwards, during a visit to Fr Gentili, was received into the Catholic Church. Lockhart’s defection caused Newman great pain, but when, just two years later, Newman himself was received into the Catholic Church by the Passionist Father Dominic Barberi, one of the first things he did, Lockhart tells us, ‘was to pay me a most kind and loving visit at [the Rosminian community of] Ratcliffe College, where I was studying’.
So in the person of our first parish priest we have a link not only with the blessed Etheldreda and with Rosmini, recently beatified, but also with the soon to be beatified John Henry Newman. How right and proper it would have been, I think to myself, if Newman and Lockhart had been beatified together – not because they left the Church of England together but because truth and holiness shone through their minds and personalities whether as Anglicans or as Roman Catholics.
And to Rosmini too, we parishioners of St Etheldreda’s owe a special debt. For Rosmini was not just a milestone in that strange providential journey that brought Lockhart from Oxford and Littlemore, via Ratcliffe College and Kingsland to London EC1. Rosmini was also the main inspiration, under God, of Lockhart’s entire life as a Catholic. As Lockhart himself put it: ‘Newman had impressed me more perhaps than any but one other man, the master of thought under whom I passed when I left Newman – Antonio Rosmini, the founder of the Order to which I have the honour to belong.’ It was Rosmini who had sent the singularly gifted Luigi Gentili and other missionaries to England to hasten the ‘Second Spring’ of English Catholicism; it was under obedience to Rosmini that Lockhart became the founder of our parish; and it was to the person of Rosmini, to his mission, and writings, that Father Lockhart devoted the rest of his life.
Through Father Lockhart we have a very special access to a network of saintly persons, and not only saintly persons but gigantic figures in the history of the Church, whose spiritual stature, I am convinced, will be more and more widely recognized in the years to come. This is an unusual privilege for us as a parish. We ought to be aware of the rich history of our beginnings and be very grateful for it. St Etheldreda became our patron saint thanks to the labours and extraordinary spiritual journeys of some very remarkable people.
Others have sown, and we have reaped the harvest.
       _
^{1 I am indebted to Fr Nicholas Schofield for the anecdote about Lockhart, cockie-leakie and Epsom salts.}

Why The Church Is Weak

http://jacheparra.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/sobieski021.jpg

In the past several years, in the perfection series, I have addressed the problem of Catholics not pursuing the highest levels of perfection as not answering the baptismal call to love and service.

I have noted again and again, that egotism and sin stop the process of purification and cause a person to possibly stagnate in the spiritual life, or go backwards, which will happen after some time of stagnation.

Also, in these posts, I have referred to the fact that those who refuse to be purified are not doing good works in the Lord, but only in and for the self.

The one and greatest weakness of the Catholic Church is the multitude of people doing ministries without first being holy.

Without holiness, one is not doing God's work, but merely building up one's own kingdom. Why?

We work out of our predominant faults until we let God in to wrench those out of us. Only in complete detachment from sin and detachment from self can we honestly state we are working in the Will of God. When one's will is finally joined with God's after the purification of the Dark Night, one can work in the Kingdom freely, with and in God, doing what He wants to do.

This problem is obvious in heretical sects, where some people are convinced they are doing God's work, while the entire focus of their ministries is a lie.

If one is truly doing God's work, one would be allowing God to purify one's mind, soul, and body, leading to a conversion to the Catholic Church.

This was the way of Blessed Cardinal Newman and Henry Cardinal Manning. This was the way of St. Augustine, St. Francis and St. Ignatius, all converted once, and then converted in the second conversion to follow the path of purification and allow God to live in them.

St. Paul writes this, showing us he understood and lived the life of perfection:

Galatians 2:19-21 DR

¹⁹ For I, through the law, am dead to the law, that I may live to God: with Christ I am nailed to the cross.

²⁰ And I live, now not I; but Christ liveth in me. And that I live now in the flesh: I live in the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered himself for me.

²¹ I cast not away the grace of God. For if justice be by the law, then Christ died in vain.

The Church is weak because people stop allowing God to purify the soul, the mind, the imagination.

This accounts for the number of weak priests, weak teachers, and weak parents.

I was thinking earlier today of three departments within a chancery office with which I was familiar in times past. In that department, some of the women were contracepting, believed in women priests, and divorce and remarriage without annulments. Some believed in same sex marriage.

They were not only living in mortal sin, but heretics. Now, that so many people in one chancery office were not "practicing" their faith weakened the Church from within. Bad decisions were being made, poor policies, and people were being taught fallacies.

If that diocese hired people who were committed to being saints, the diocese would have been in a stronger position.

The Church is not only weakened from within by bad or lax priests who are not pursuing holiness, but by thousands of lay Catholics who are content with their lives of compromise and errors.

Holy Mother Church suffers because of disobedience. The same scenario happens in convents, monasteries, retreat houses across the world, where the inhabitants live in serious sin, and do not even see the danger of habitual venial sin. I think of retreat houses wherein New Age heresies are taught.

Until Catholics realize that personal holiness is the only way the Church can be strong and effective in the world, we shall witness the weakness of the Church Militant.

Shipwrecked

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Conversion_of_Saint_Paul_(Caravaggio)#mediaviewer/File:The_Conversion_of_Saint_Paul-Caravaggio_(c._1600-1).jpg

One of the things which one learns from St. Paul, is, of course, that we all have different gifts. We are not all called to do the same jobs in the Kingdom of God.

Those who are not spiritual, do not understand this and want everyone to do the same things.

Some people are teachers, deacons, priests, nuns, sisters, moms, dads, mechanics, doctors, and so on.

Some people are called to have special needs, either mental or physical.

Some people are rich and some are poor. Some are middle class.

Some are black, some white, some red, some yellow, as in the classic divisions of the races.

What we are all called to be is to be saints. Few are actually saints. I have met some saints in my lifetime and they have all been young, under fifty.

Most have been under forty. Some have been in their twenties.

Saints are people who have allowed God to purify them, strip away the predominant fault, and have been filled with God's love. I know five in Ireland. I know several in England. I know several in America.

I hear some Christians criticizing those who are not doing a certain job in the Church. As we are all called to work in different ways, there is no need for this discrimination or criticisms.

I can think of saints who were called to very narrow social groups, saints like Faustina, or Therese, the Little Flower, or Pier Giorgio Frassati, who died because he was being ignored by his own family.

Some saints have been called to a slightly larger grouping, like Cardinal Newman or Thomas More.

Some saints have been called to international ministries, such as Bernard of Clairvaux or Catherine of Siena, or John Paul II.

We all have something to do in the Church Militant. No job is too small and no job is too big.

What is important is that in our small or large spheres, we make a difference.

How do we do this? But choosing perfection and the road to perfection--that makes the difference.

I was thinking of how St. Paul was shipwrecked on Malta. Because God allowed Paul to petition to be tried in Rome, as was his right, because God allowed a storm, all of Malta became Catholic at one point.

A shipwreck was part of his ministry.

Do you ever think that something which goes wrong, a tragedy or a failure may be part of a ministry?

As those who read my blog know, for three full years plus, I have been moving about, staying with friends, as I have not had a permanent home. Some call me indigent, some homeless, some a missionary.

God is in charge. Most people look down on me and now, I am almost getting use to this. The almost means I am still proud, and not humble.

God is in charge. I have lost count of the jobs to which I have applied. I have lost track of the letters I have written to those in power for help.

One thing I do know is that God uses every moment I give Him and I have given Him my entire life.

The other day, one of my holy young friends said to me, "Maybe you are supposed to be moving around like this." I did not want to hear that. No, I did not.

Many years ago, (1983), someone I love dearly said to me, "Your life does not make sense without God." St. John Paul II said something similar in his book, Sign of Contradiction. He said that man can only understand himself with reference to God.

God is creative. He is Creativity. Perhaps in His Creativity, He calls some to be signs that materialism and consumerism are not "it".

The Catholic, each Catholic, is called to be a sign of contradiction in the world. My state is merely extreme.

St. Xenia of St. Petersburg chose to be a Fool for Christ after the death of her husband. She chose poverty and constant pilgrimage.

It was not thrust upon her. Therein lies her sanctity.

If you need or want the following, pray to St. Xenia as she is patron of employment, marriage, the homeless, for fires, for missing children, and for a spouse. (It is interesting that my nickname given to me by my students long ago was Zena).

Here are the hymns for her day, February 6th.

Troparion (Tone 4)

Having renounced the vanity of the earthly world,

Thou didst take up the cross of a homeless life of wandering;

Thou didst not fear grief, privation, nor the mockery of men,

And didst know the love of Christ.

Now taking sweet delight of this love in Heaven,

O Xenia, the blessed and divinely wise,

Pray for the salvation of our souls.

Troparion (Tone 8)

In you, O mother was carefully preserved what is according to the image.

For you took up the Cross and followed Christ.

By so doing, you taught us to disregard the flesh for it passes away,

But to care instead for the soul since it is immortal.

Therefore, O Blessed Xenia, your spirit rejoices with the Angels.

Kontakion (Tone 3)

Having been as a wandering stranger on earth,

sighing for the heavenly homeland,

thou wast known as a fool by the senseless and unbelieving,

but as most wise and holy by the faithful,

and wast crowned by God with glory and honor,

O Xenia, courageous and divinely wise.

Therefore, we cry to thee:

Rejoice, for after earthly wandering thou hast come to dwell in the Father’s house.

Kontakion (Tone 7)

Having loved the poverty of Christ,

You are now being satisfied at the Immortal Banquet.

By the humility of the Cross, you received the power of God.

Having acquired the gift of miraculous help, O Blessed Xenia,

Beseech Christ God, that by repentance

We may be delivered from every evil thing.

I am not sure why God has allowed my foolish life, but I have met wonderful people. I have met saints who help me be a better person. I have not had to live on the street or be in a homeless shelter because of excellent friends. But, I have had to move on.

I only hope I make a difference, but then, that may not be part of this journey. I may never know this or anything else about my life which makes sense until I die. But, I do trust entirely in Divine Providence. I did not ask for this lifestyle, nor do I like it. In fact, I have hated my crazy life, which is a good sign. I have not hated myself, of course, but this peripatetic manner of living.

People want me to do this or that, but I cannot make things happen. This is the great lie of America. One can try and try and still be poor. God is in charge. One works as hard as one can and then, one trusts in God. People get nervous, sometimes, around me, as they sense that they, too, could fall through the cracks, could be poor, could be displaced. But, those who trust in God do not get nervous.

I am resigned to this now, and trust in God.

John 12:25Douay-Rheims 

^{25 ..}. He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world, keepeth it unto life eternal.

I am a little homebody who loves simplicity, stability and security. I would love to be protected and special, to someone, but I am not. I am only special to God. In other words, I am a normal Christian woman.

I have prayed for years for my own little place and some way to make a small income. This has not happened despite my best efforts and despite some who have tried to help me in publishing, for example.

God is in charge.

Earlier this year, I said that in years to come, because of anarchy and tyranny, there will be many displaced persons.

Will you open your door to those people? Will you be so fearful that you could not open your house to a stranger?


Every Friday, I pray the Litany of Humility. I have put it on the blog before... here it is again.

And, here again, is a picture of Benedict Labre, one of my patrons. God is serious about this walk of humility. He is so serious, He allows us to be in situations which humble us.

To be very poor in America is truly humbling. To be very poor among fellow educated people becomes humbling, as those cannot understand or face failure.

To be very poor among people who judge poverty as a result of great sin is simply part of the deal.

Only the Russians of old knew that the indigenous fool was chosen by God to remind them of their mortality.

O Jesus! meek and humble of heart, Hear me.

From the desire of being esteemed, Deliver me, Jesus.

From the desire of being loved, Deliver me, Jesus.

From the desire of being extolled, Deliver me, Jesus.

From the desire of being honored, Deliver me, Jesus.

From the desire of being praised, Deliver me, Jesus.

From the desire of being preferred to others, Deliver me, Jesus.

From the desire of being consulted, Deliver me, Jesus.

From the desire of being approved, Deliver me, Jesus.

From the fear of being humiliated, Deliver me, Jesus.

From the fear of being despised, Deliver me, Jesus.

From the fear of suffering rebukes, Deliver me, Jesus.

From the fear of being calumniated, Deliver me, Jesus.

From the fear of being forgotten, Deliver me, Jesus.

From the fear of being ridiculed, Deliver me, Jesus.

From the fear of being wronged, Deliver me, Jesus.

From the fear of being suspected, Deliver me, Jesus.

That others may be loved more than I, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.

That others may be esteemed more than I, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.

That, in the opinion of the world, others may increase and I may decrease, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.

That others may be chosen and I set aside, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.

That others may be praised and I unnoticed, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.

That others may be preferred to me in everything, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.

That others may become holier than I, provided that I may become as holy as I should, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.

By the way, if someone wants to get me St. John Paul II's book, Sign of Contradiction, I would love to read the whole thing, and not merely excerpts.

More posts on the same theme....somewhere, in a box in Silvis, I have an icon similar to this one of Basil of Moscow. I bought it a long time ago.

http://supertradmum-etheldredasplace.blogspot.com/2014/07/fools-for-christ.html
http://supertradmum-etheldredasplace.blogspot.com/2013/11/will-blog-on-friday-but.html
http://supertradmum-etheldredasplace.blogspot.com/2013/11/signs-of-contradiction-in-world.html
http://supertradmum-etheldredasplace.blogspot.com/2013/11/moving-to-st-ignatius-of-loyola.html
http://supertradmum-etheldredasplace.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-lord-of-prism.html
http://supertradmum-etheldredasplace.blogspot.com/2013/06/aquinas-series-continuedon-job.html