Tuesday, 11 November 2014

Mouse in The Darkness

It is 6:22 here and it is pitch black. No long, lingering twilight one gets in England occurs here in Malta.

I do not mind going out at night in Sliema, as the entire city is out and about at night. But, where I am renting an efficiency flat, there are stretches of scary places. I do not venture out after dark.

By the solstice, it will be dark at 5:00 p.m. Now, Sliema is just waking up at 5:00, but in Valletta and where I am, the darkness sneaks into the houses, shuts the doors, and all becomes quiet, except for the busy streets full of cars.

The roads in my neighborhood, after dusk, belong to the Cats of Malta. I have one at my backdoor now, as I fed it chicken last week and actually shared my McDonald's with it today. I am feeding slave to this cat.

Of course, now in the darkness, I miss Mouse, my little cat who adopted me in NC, and followed me around all the time I was outside, and waited by my cabin door for me to come out daily.

I miss Mouse, and would have it in a minute with me. Sigh. It is too expensive to ship a cat from SC to Malta, and the famous Cats of Malta may not accept an American cat.

Here is the latest photo of Mouse below. I do miss this intelligent and friendly cat. In the darkness of this evening, I am reminded of the darkness of the Dark Night, wherein God detaches me from all people, all places, all things, and, all pets.....

Raissa Maritain writes of detachment: "A process of detachment is taking place in my soul. It is becoming indifferent to the judgement of others. It jealously guards its own treasure. I think I ought to enter courageously on the way of solitude which is bitter to nature, but very salutary. To live with God alone To see only him in everything. To count for nothing what comes from men. For "every man is a liar" even when he is a very veracious person for he lies without meaning to when he disappoints someone who has placed some hope in him. He lies when he give purely human advice to someone who is asking for divine light. He lies when human prudence directs him in his counsels.



Only God does not lie. The soul, in the silence of prayer, conforms more and more to this divine veracity, to this integrity in which there is no guile. 

Before God, the soul is utterly confident. If it is in fault, it knows that He wants to correct it and forgive it. If it asks for divine grace, for charity, for humility, it knows its heavenly Father will not give it stones instead of bread. Oh, that is the one thing necessary! To live open before God, to implore Him unceasingly to purify our heart. To make every effort not to let ourselves pass over anything: to keep our eyes well open to our defects, to our sins, to make a very strict confession of them. 

How good it is to live in the sole desire to please God. As regards our neighbour, only one thing is good: the love which is charity."

Raissa speaks for me today as I sit in the dark and think of Mouse so far away.

"God, my God, have pity on me, allow me to live in your presence with an upright soul, wholly lifted towards You; a sincere soul, drinking in your sweet Veracity; a very humble soul, looking only to you for all its good. But a soul that also has great confidence in its Father's goodness, and receives the manifestations of Your Love as simple as a child."

I last read these words in 2004, ten years ago, and in 1984, before I got really busy with marriage and a child. In those early years, I aspired to be in this state of complete dependency on Divine Providence. God has brought me here and Bjorn has sent this book just at the right time to see how far I have come in these ten busy years. Malta is my place of detachment from all people and things I love the most.

Raissa has been my guide since 1979, when I first bought the book, her Journal. The discovery of this book and de Caussade's book on abandonment changed my life. But, as my son reminded me recently, I was busy about many things, working hard as a single mum, and maybe not as focused on pursuing perfection as I should have been.

God changed all that in 2002, when I had a death experience, and since then, the process has been slow, but steady. I learned to be open and generous with God. One needs a generous heart to follow God. When I got cancer in 2009, I had another chance to be generous with God. Again and again, He has called me to give up, give in, give all to Him.

Goodbye, Mouse. I miss you. Like all things, places, creatures, and people, I give you back to God.

To be continued....

Last Post Out of Six on Natural Law Today and Yesterday

As the fundamental and all-embracing obligation imposed upon man by the Creator, the natural law is the one to which all his other obligations are attached. The duties imposed on us in the supernatural law come home to us, because the natural law and its exponent, conscience, tell us that, if God has vouchsafed to us a supernatural revelation with a series of precepts, we are bound to accept and obey it. The natural law is the foundation of all human law inasmuch as it ordains that man shall live in society, and society for its constitution requires the existence of an authority, which shall possess the moral power necessary to control the members and direct them to the common good.  

Human laws are valid and equitable only in so far as they correspond with, and enforce or supplement the natural law; they are null and void when they conflict with it...... Logicallychronologically, and ontologically antecedent to all human society for which it provides the indispensable basis, the natural or moral law is neither—as Hobbes, in anticipation of the modern positivistic school, taught—a product of social agreement or convention, nor a mere congeries of the actions, customs, and ways of man, as claimed by the ethicists who, refusing to acknowledge the First Cause as a Personality with whom one entertains personal relations, deprive the law of its obligatory basis. 

from the Catholic Encyclopedia on natural law...

Catholic teaching has been clear on the fact that we can come to know Divine Law, through reason, our consciences, and through Divine Revelation.

If there is confusion, it is that some people are listening not the Holy Mother Church, but to the siren songs of the world, the flesh and the devil.

Natural and supernatural laws are not options. These laws are not to be ignored by humans, who risk their immortal souls by not considering God and His Ways.

Human laws, tragically, having deviated from both natural law and the law of Revelation. Souls are lost daily because the understanding of free will and natural law have been ignored.

I hope the last few posts, plus the long list of posts on free will answer some questions.

All the information I have shared is the Teaching of the Church, founded by Christ.

Check out other tags as well.


Reminders on Natural and Supernatural Law from The CCC

http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s1c3a1.htm

It is the duty of every Catholic to study and learn the Faith. No one is exempt except those who are mentally challenged, and even they can learn discipline according to the natural moral law.

There is, in this time of an explosion of information on the Net, no excuses for not learning. If a person has time to sit down in front of the telly for two hours a day, that person has time for prayer, reading Scripture and studying. 

We are not forever children and we must appropriate our adult faith.

1954 Man participates in the wisdom and goodness of the Creator who gives him mastery over his acts and the ability to govern himself with a view to the true and the good. The natural law expresses the original moral sense which enables man to discern by reason the good and the evil, the truth and the lie:
The natural law is written and engraved in the soul of each and every man, because it is human reason ordaining him to do good and forbidding him to sin . . . But this command of human reason would not have the force of law if it were not the voice and interpreter of a higher reason to which our spirit and our freedom must be submitted.5
1955 The "divine and natural" law6 shows man the way to follow so as to practice the good and attain his end. The natural law states the first and essential precepts which govern the moral life. It hinges upon the desire for God and submission to him, who is the source and judge of all that is good, as well as upon the sense that the other is one's equal. Its principal precepts are expressed in the Decalogue. This law is called "natural," not in reference to the nature of irrational beings, but because reason which decrees it properly belongs to human nature:
Where then are these rules written, if not in the book of that light we call the truth? In it is written every just law; from it the law passes into the heart of the man who does justice, not that it migrates into it, but that it places its imprint on it, like a seal on a ring that passes onto wax, without leaving the ring.7 The natural law is nothing other than the light of understanding placed in us by God; through it we know what we must do and what we must avoid. God has given this light or law at the creation.8
1956 The natural law, present in the heart of each man and established by reason, is universal in its precepts and its authority extends to all men. It expresses the dignity of the person and determines the basis for his fundamental rights and duties:
For there is a true law: right reason. It is in conformity with nature, is diffused among all men, and is immutable and eternal; its orders summon to duty; its prohibitions turn away from offense . . . . To replace it with a contrary law is a sacrilege; failure to apply even one of its provisions is forbidden; no one can abrogate it entirely.9
1957 Application of the natural law varies greatly; it can demand reflection that takes account of various conditions of life according to places, times, and circumstances. Nevertheless, in the diversity of cultures, the natural law remains as a rule that binds men among themselves and imposes on them, beyond the inevitable differences, common principles.
1958 The natural law is immutable and permanent throughout the variations of history;10 it subsists under the flux of ideas and customs and supports their progress. The rules that express it remain substantially valid. Even when it is rejected in its very principles, it cannot be destroyed or removed from the heart of man. It always rises again in the life of individuals and societies:
Theft is surely punished by your law, O Lord, and by the law that is written in the human heart, the law that iniquity itself does not efface.11
1959 The natural law, the Creator's very good work, provides the solid foundation on which man can build the structure of moral rules to guide his choices. It also provides the indispensable moral foundation for building the human community. Finally, it provides the necessary basis for the civil law with which it is connected, whether by a reflection that draws conclusions from its principles, or by additions of a positive and juridical nature.
1960 The precepts of natural law are not perceived by everyone clearly and immediately. In the present situation sinful man needs grace and revelation so moral and religious truths may be known "by everyone with facility, with firm certainty and with no admixture of error."12 The natural law provides revealed law and grace with a foundation prepared by God and in accordance with the work of the Spirit.
1961 God, our Creator and Redeemer, chose Israel for himself to be his people and revealed his Law to them, thus preparing for the coming of Christ. The Law of Moses expresses many truths naturally accessible to reason. These are stated and authenticated within the covenant of salvation.
1962 The Old Law is the first stage of revealed Law. Its moral prescriptions are summed up in the Ten Commandments. The precepts of the Decalogue lay the foundations for the vocation of man fashioned in the image of God; they prohibit what is contrary to the love of God and neighbor and prescribe what is essential to it. The Decalogue is a light offered to the conscience of every man to make God's call and ways known to him and to protect him against evil:
God wrote on the tables of the Law what men did not read in their hearts.13
1963 According to Christian tradition, the Law is holy, spiritual, and good,14 yet still imperfect. Like a tutor15 it shows what must be done, but does not of itself give the strength, the grace of the Spirit, to fulfill it. Because of sin, which it cannot remove, it remains a law of bondage. According to St. Paul, its special function is to denounce and disclose sin, which constitutes a "law of concupiscence" in the human heart.16 However, the Law remains the first stage on the way to the kingdom. It prepares and disposes the chosen people and each Christian for conversion and faith in the Savior God. It provides a teaching which endures for ever, like the Word of God.
1964 The Old Law is a preparation for the Gospel. "The Law is a pedagogy and a prophecy of things to come."17 It prophesies and presages the work of liberation from sin which will be fulfilled in Christ: it provides the New Testament with images, "types," and symbols for expressing the life according to the Spirit. Finally, the Law is completed by the teaching of the sapiential books and the prophets which set its course toward the New Covenant and the Kingdom of heaven.
There were . . . under the regimen of the Old Covenant, people who possessed the charity and grace of the Holy Spirit and longed above all for the spiritual and eternal promises by which they were associated with the New Law. Conversely, there exist carnal men under the New Covenant still distanced from the perfection of the New Law: the fear of punishment and certain temporal promises have been necessary, even under the New Covenant, to incite them to virtuous works. In any case, even though the Old Law prescribed charity, it did not give the Holy Spirit, through whom "God's charity has been poured into our hearts."18
1965 The New Law or the Law of the Gospel is the perfection here on earth of the divine law, natural and revealed. It is the work of Christ and is expressed particularly in the Sermon on the Mount. It is also the work of the Holy Spirit and through him it becomes the interior law of charity: "I will establish a New Covenant with the house of Israel. . . . I will put my laws into their hands, and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people."19
1966 The New Law is the grace of the Holy Spirit given to the faithful through faith in Christ. It works through charity; it uses the Sermon on the Mount to teach us what must be done and makes use of the sacraments to give us the grace to do it:
If anyone should meditate with devotion and perspicacity on the sermon our Lord gave on the mount, as we read in the Gospel of Saint Matthew, he will doubtless find there . . . the perfect way of the Christian life. . . . This sermon contains . . . all the precepts needed to shape one's life.20
1967 The Law of the Gospel "fulfills," refines, surpasses, and leads the Old Law to its perfection.21 In the Beatitudes, the New Law fulfills the divine promises by elevating and orienting them toward the "kingdom of heaven." It is addressed to those open to accepting this new hope with faith - the poor, the humble, the afflicted, the pure of heart, those persecuted on account of Christ and so marks out the surprising ways of the Kingdom.
1968 The Law of the Gospel fulfills the commandments of the Law. The Lord's Sermon on the Mount, far from abolishing or devaluing the moral prescriptions of the Old Law, releases their hidden potential and has new demands arise from them: it reveals their entire divine and human truth. It does not add new external precepts, but proceeds to reform the heart, the root of human acts, where man chooses between the pure and the impure,22 where faith, hope, and charity are formed and with them the other virtues. The Gospel thus brings the Law to its fullness through imitation of the perfection of the heavenly Father, through forgiveness of enemies and prayer for persecutors, in emulation of the divine generosity.23
1969 The New Law practices the acts of religion: almsgiving, prayer and fasting, directing them to the "Father who sees in secret," in contrast with the desire to "be seen by men."24 Its prayer is the Our Father.25
1970 The Law of the Gospel requires us to make the decisive choice between "the two ways" and to put into practice the words of the Lord.26 It is summed up in the Golden Rule, "Whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them; this is the law and the prophets."27
The entire Law of the Gospel is contained in the "new commandment" of Jesus, to love one another as he has loved us.28
1971 To the Lord's Sermon on the Mount it is fitting to add the moral catechesis of the apostolic teachings, such as Romans 12-15, 1 Corinthians 12-13, Colossians 3-4, Ephesians 4-5, etc. This doctrine hands on the Lord's teaching with the authority of the apostles, particularly in the presentation of the virtues that flow from faith in Christ and are animated by charity, the principal gift of the Holy Spirit. "Let charity be genuine. . . . Love one another with brotherly affection. . . . Rejoice in your hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints, practice hospitality."29 This catechesis also teaches us to deal with cases of conscience in the light of our relationship to Christ and to the Church.30
1972 The New Law is called a law of love because it makes us act out of the love infused by the Holy Spirit, rather than from fear; a law of grace, because it confers the strength of grace to act, by means of faith and the sacraments; a law of freedom, because it sets us free from the ritual and juridical observances of the Old Law, inclines us to act spontaneously by the prompting of charity and, finally, lets us pass from the condition of a servant who "does not know what his master is doing" to that of a friend of Christ - "For all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you" - or even to the status of son and heir.31
1973 Besides its precepts, the New Law also includes the evangelical counsels. The traditional distinction between God's commandments and the evangelical counsels is drawn in relation to charity, the perfection of Christian life. The precepts are intended to remove whatever is incompatible with charity. The aim of the counsels is to remove whatever might hinder the development of charity, even if it is not contrary to it.32
1974 The evangelical counsels manifest the living fullness of charity, which is never satisfied with not giving more. They attest its vitality and call forth our spiritual readiness. The perfection of the New Law consists essentially in the precepts of love of God and neighbor. The counsels point out the more direct ways, the readier means, and are to be practiced in keeping with the vocation of each:
[God] does not want each person to keep all the counsels, but only those appropriate to the diversity of persons, times, opportunities, and strengths, as charity requires; for it is charity, as queen of all virtues, all commandments, all counsels, and, in short, of all laws and all Christian actions that gives to all of them their rank, order, time, and value.33

More on Natural Law

Continuing with the theme of yesterday on natural law, I would like to quote the philosopher Jacques Maritain.

"For the perfecting of the species, that is to say in order that the highest exigencies of the natural law with regard to the human species should be recognized and supernaturally confirmed and that the rigour which is thus demanded from each one should raise the moral level of the species."

Thus, as Raissa Martain notes in her Journal, marriage, although temporary,  is a sacrament for the "perfection of the species."

What is missing from marriage preparations is this idea that marriage between two people is exactly for the making of saints, for the personal holiness of each person in the marriage.

In natural law, we know that marriage is between a man and a woman and for life. This is something which the Church has upheld for centuries. Christ did not change the Ten Commandments and, in fact, made marriage more than a covenant.

That the moral level of humans is raised by the process of following natural law, which then leads to Revelation and the laws of the Church, may be seen in the history of the Church.

When a union of a man and woman contravenes natural and supernatural law, this public act of either fornication or adultery affects the entire community, not just the couple. There is no such thing as a completely "private" relationship.

Marriage not only can and should bring a couple to holiness, but the entire community benefits from the goodness of the marriage. Excellent Catholic families strengthen the Church and bring merit into parishes.

To ignore the natural law and to stop the process of moving from natural law to supernatural law indicates a mind-set which is sub-human, less that human.

to be continued...






Series Updates

I shall continue on natural law for a few days, and then resume Fr. Manelli's book on Jesus as our Eucharistic Love. Then, I shall be commenting on the way of perfection again, using Raissa Martain, who, with her husband Jacques, was not only a personal friend of Garrigou-Lagrange, but also helped this holy priest with editing.

There are some important points in comments in the past few days.

Get back later today....

For the honored dead today...


Pray for the souls of all soldiers who died, that we may experience freedom.

They Were Catholics

Many years ago, when I wrote a book of historical poetry and monologues on Fountains Abbey, I had access to two libraries' special collections. I also had a Reader's Pass to the British Library.

In these collections, I discovered books of the actual letters of Thomas Cromwell's visitators to the abbeys and monasteries of England and Wales. As the master-mind behind the suppression of the monasteries, Cromwell dictated the rules, organized the men, and oversaw the systematic theft, destruction, and murder of the land, buildings, and inhabitants, not only of Fountains, but the hundred of other holy houses.

Cromwell oversaw and caused the downfall of SS. John Fisher and Thomas More, as well as the persecution of Katherine of Aragon and the death of Anne Boleyn. Cromwell said of the excellent Queen Katherine, (who should be canonized), that "If not for her sex, she could have defied all the heroes of History".  

He master-minded the complete change of the face of English spirituality. At the beginning of his several steps of suppression, there were at least 900 religious houses, including monasteries, priories and convents, involving over 12,000 persons in the land. He was responsible for the destruction of the shrine of Thomas a Becket, among all the other shrines, including Walsingham, the only place where Mary had appeared in England and, like Canterbury, one of the two major pilgrimage sites in England. All these places not only were physically destroyed, but ruined in memory.

At the end of the few years of violence, only a handful of religious houses remained, those which had gone over to Henry, all under the control of Cromwell. The Visitators were led and controlled by a group of commissioners of the Valor Ecclesiaticus, and the later general visitation of 1535, Richard LaytonThomas LeighJohn ap Rice and John Tregonwell, who "visited" the holy houses themselves and wrote back to Cromwell. One of the Visitators sent to Walshingham was the grandfather of St. Robert Southwell, Sir Richard Southwell, who became wealthy from his part of the theft. John Tregonwell, for example, went to Oxford to force the religious to take the Oath of Supremacy. At first, the suppression was supposedly a commission to collect data on the wealth of the religious houses, but quickly these visitations included the forcing of the oath, and the destruction of the houses.


Cromwell also raised Hugh Latimer and others to positions of great power in the newly formed Anglican "church".  The fact that letters remain testifies to the vast organization which Cromwell establish in order to destroy the Catholic Church.

Reading the actual letters of these men who were sent to Walsingham, Glastonbury, Furness, Buckfast and the long list, including Fountains, chilled my heart. Here is a list of the dissolved monasteries.  Such phrases relating to the monks and priests, such as this one, that they were "sore bent rathre to die then to yelde to  this youre royals style" indicate the great spiritual and physical battles surrounding the dissolution. Such phrases are found in the Original Letters, Three Chapters of Letters and other books complied and edited by such scholars as Ellis, Wright and Thompson, as well as State Papers, Published under the Authority of His Majesty's Commission. There are other compilations as well.

Today, one can estimate that the worth of the land, buildings, altar ware, goods, including sheep and cattle stolen would be over 1.07 billion pounds sterling. Even though the visitators claimed that many of the monks, priests and nuns were evil, some of the letters indicate that the vast majority were good, Godly people. We know this from many sources, that the evils of the monasteries were not only exaggerated, but downright deceitful reports, created in order to suppress the houses and kill the monks, nuns, and laity who were faithful. Most became the great martyrs and homeless of England and Wales--some, like St. John Houghton, killed at Tyburn, and some dying on the roads in ditches and hovels far from their original monasteries. One of the greatest scholars tracing the evils of this time is David Knowles. (I have at least one of his books on this time in a box in Silvis, Illinois).




Blaspheming God and committing the sin of sacrilege, such as at Fountains, when the men threw the Consecrated Hosts, the Body of Christ on the ground and forced their horses to trample God, these men then wrote back to the commissioners and Cromwell as to their "successes". The letters remain as proof of the greatest sins men can commit against Christ Himself in the Eucharist.


Some types of sacrilege cannot be published on this blog.

As a young person, I was shocked to realize that the vast majority of the men involved in violence against God, God's Church, the People of God, had been born and raised Catholic.

When I first did research into the dissolution, in 1979, I had somewhat of an idea of the horror which blighted the religious landscape of England and Wales. When I had finished my many months, and eventually years, of researching, reading and reflecting, I knew that we would see times like this again. We would witness Catholics destroying the Church of Christ, causing Christ to suffer the pains of Calvary again and again and again.


All these men, who perpetrated the murder of the martyrs and the desecration of the Eucharist had been or were still Catholics.

These men were Catholics who instructed the bullies to take the nuns out of the convents and push them onto the streets and wild roads of all the counties and shires of England and Wales. The bullies were or had been Catholics.

These men were Catholics who became wealthy lords, feasting on the backs of those who had provided livelihoods in farming, the wool trade, and even shoe-making for thousands of lay people, lay people who either lost their jobs, homes, and were separated from families, or who succumbed to the oath. 

These men were Catholics who committed the sins of blasphemy and sacrilege in the name of king, country and even the new false religion, with a new God of hatred and compromise, not the Trinity revealed and revered by those they sent to Tyburn, and other places of death.

These men were Catholics who killed such women as SS. Anne Line, Margaret Clitherow, Blessed Margaret Pole and others.

As I sit in my little "cell" in a country which is fast losing its Catholic identity, I consider the number of Catholics who are aiding this destruction of the Catholic Church from within. I consider the weak and heterodox priests, who have led their sheep into stinking marshes of falsehood, instead of green pastures with fresh water.


I have discovered the lies of some priests giving sinful advice to the laity. Priests and laity are men who are Catholics, creating a mind-set of anti-Catholicism from within the Church, which will end here, in this gorgeous country, with the abandonment and destruction of some of the most beautiful churches in the world,

Those who were Catholics destroyed Fountains. But, they also help to destroy souls. This is happening here. 


These priests are Catholics who preach and encourage not only contraception, but fornication, and even the supposed goodness of homosexual lust.

These men are Catholics who want to sell the beautiful churches, altar ware, vestments, and give the money to the poor, not realizing that it is their duty to clothe the naked and feed the poor. God deserves beauty and honor, and theirs is enough wealth here to keep all the churches and still care for the homeless and unemployed. But, such are the lies of the worldly, those Catholics who hate the Church, hate the Incarnate One, and hate the teachings of the Church.


May God preserve Malta. He did not preserve England and Wales, allowing free will to have supremacy in the mystery of His Divine Providence.

Therefore, we honor Edmund Campion, John Fisher, Thomas More, Oliver Plunkett and the myriad martyrs of England and Wales, the stars in the Church Triumphant,  some tortured, some mutilated, all killed by those who were. at one time in their lives, Catholics.



Further reading on one heroine, Margaret Pole:

Etheldredasplace: Margaret Pole and Perfection
27 May 2014
I think of Blessed Margaret Pole, one of my patrons I have adopted when thinking of confidence. She had to face the fact that she was being persecuted by her godson. Such hard times. Garrigou-Lagrange again:.
27 May 2014
A Fictive Monologue of Margaret Pole. Posted by Supertradmum. I sit and wait for the last call, being told by the jailer that I have one hour of life. What does one think of in one's last hour? I think briefly of my own sins, forgiven, ...
27 May 2014
The must sees today included Blessed Margaret Pole, so my week began with her and ended with her. How is that for synchronicity? How blessed was I to start the week in Sussex where Blessed Margaret's Mass was ...
28 May 2012
Today, as I am in the Diocese of Arundel and Brighton, this is the memorial day of Blessed Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury. She was the last Plantagenet and is a martyr for the faith. She is one of my personal patrons.
28 May 2013
I posted something about this great saint last year. Margaret Pole remains one of the most interesting saints of the horrible purge of Henry VIII, and one of his most famous victims. She was obviously a saint before her ...
28 May 2012
Today, as I am in the Diocese of Arundel and Brighton, this is the memorial day of Blessed Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury. She was the last Plantagenet and is a martyr for the faith. She is one of my personal patrons.








Stunning Voris

THE VORTEX

Love the Church

November 10, 2014

Hello, everyone, and welcome to The Vortex, where lies and falsehoods are trapped and
exposed. I’m Michael Voris.

What a horror, a dreadful horror it is that so many Catholics do not love the Church. 
When we say love, we mean cherish, honor, embrace, hold to our hearts with a depth of
affection that could only be offered to God.
When we consider what the Church is—this tremendous, beautiful, inspiring, glorious, 
majestic path to salvation—it is the cause of great sadness that so many supposedly in
Her ignore Her.

If they only knew the intimacy with which Our Blessed Lord approaches us, not laying
His omnipotence aside, but drawing us into it, to have a share of it.
It’s like the most handsome prince in the land, regal, noble-bearing, gentle, yet still
powerful, adorned with wealth and glory, and his courtiers, searching through the hovels
of a plague-infested village in search of the most homely woman he could find and
bringing her to His castle.
All those childhood fairy tales which end in the phrase “and they lived happily ever after”
are modeled on the reality of Our Lord and His Church.


  Read more here http://www.churchmilitant.tv/scripts/vort-2014-11-10.pdf