The Generals of Satan

Father Dan shared in one talk that an exorcist told him about the Five Generals of Satan. These are major demons who work for the Evil One as generals over troops. According to this exorcist, these are called The Council or the Table. Interesting that the exorcist had this information and passed it on to Father Dan,...who shared this with us.

The SCOTUS decision gave three of these generals of Satan control over American lands.

(I referred to some of these in my Synod series last October and later--you may want to go back and look at those posts.)

The first evil demon "general" now in power is Asmodeus, homosexuality in men. The second and third, out of the five, are Lilith, the passive demon of homosexuality in women and Leviathan, the agressive one.

Two other generals are still not in control. One is Baal, the old God of the Canaanites, of whom I have written on this blog in the past.

The point Father Dan wanted to make was that these demons now have a foothold in our country and more and more demons, (there are millions), will gather in the States like flies. Father used the metaphor of flies to explain that once a general is in an area, the troops follow.

We are now living in a besieged land spiritually.

This is another reason why I want to set up a house of prayer, like a little area of troops behind enemy lines. And, why this country needs contemplative, intercessory prayer.

Father Dan said that we have to prepare ourselves for the coming onslaught of evil. (One reason for this blog).

Knowing one is living in a land under the rule and troops of evil spirits sobers one's thoughts and hopefully focuses one on becoming holy, and, may I add again, moving into some sort of community.

I add here the famous section from Daniel concerning the angels fighting.  From the book of Daniel:

8 And I being left alone saw this great vision: and there remained no strength in me, and the appearance of my countenance was changed in me, and I fainted away, and retained no strength.

9 And I heard the voice of his words: and when I heard, I lay in a consternation, upon my face, and my face was close to the ground.

10 And behold a hand touched me, and lifted me up upon my knees, and upon the joints of my hands.

11 And he said to me: Daniel, thou man of desires, understand the words that I speak to thee, and stand upright: for I am sent now to thee. And when he had said this word to me, I stood trembling.

12 And he said to me: Fear not, Daniel: for from the first day that thou didst set thy heart to understand, to afflict thyself in the sight of thy God, thy words have been heard: and I am come for thy words.

13 But the prince of the kingdom of the Persians resisted me one and twenty days: and behold Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, and I remained there by the king of the Persians.

14 But I am come to teach thee what things shall befall thy people in the latter days, for as yet the vision is for days.

Our Angels fight with demons. This is not news.

I shall continue this later....

Retreat Talk continued

Father Dan referred to something in his talk which was taught to me when I was in community in the 1970s.

Dissociation. Psychological disassociation is the state of a person being detached from reality. Father Dan used an example, almost the same type used by my spiritual mentors forty years ago.

A friend of mine in 2008 and I experienced this type of caused by demons.

But, this state is exhibited either because a person is detached from reality by serious sin and demonic influence interiorly, or by exterior demonic influences.

Two examples--the external influence first. A person in a room says something important to another person and that person hears something completely differently--the demons of the air have taken the words and either twisted these, or interfered with the hearing of these words.

One can correct this oppression by repeating the sentence or words clearly and by unmasking the demon of the air -- which is what I was taught years ago to do.

In the second example, this dissociation is caused by interior chaos, sin, trauma, shock, and the person separates from reality either as a coping mechanism, or as a complete retreat from reality.

Christian families can be infected with this demonic influence. Many people who have been abused experience dissociation.

Father Dan noted that porn causes dissociation. I would go farther and state that obsession with computer games.

I extrapolate.

Dissociation stops spiritual reality from sinking in.

I have met people who have fallen into dissociation. The result is a tragic loss of humanity and identity.

Fantasy and living lives which seem holy but are really facades as one is living beyond the grace of God, pretending, may also be symptoms of dissociation.

Prayer must be intense and real. Conversion and complete abandonment to Divine Providence.

All those dissociated people in power will try to make our lives miserable.

to be continued....

First Talk of The Retreat

The first talk on this retreat by Father Dan may be summarized in three words. Most, if not all, of what we are experiencing in the sudden decay of America is demonic. The second word would be that what we are experiencing will get much worse. The third point is that we must learn how not to fall under this influence.

Worse demonic influence.

Worse --- life will get worse in all ways.

Demons --- these will be more and more active.

Influence --- we need to prepare ourselves so that we shall not be influenced by either chaos or loss, the worst which can happen, or demons. More later.

Future

http://www.afr.com/business/agriculture/billionaires-beef-up-in-bush-20150710-gi8qlk

The more I read about the shrinking of the middle class through debt and gross consumerism, as well as unemployment, and the more I read about the fast growing underclass completely dependent on the government, the more I am reminded of the old story The Time Machine.

Those with gobs of money seem to be buying up land in many areas, They will control the food supplies.

I predict, and I have thought this for a long time, that in the end, after financial chaos, there will be two classes-the mega-wealthy privileged, who belong to Bilderberg et al, and a slave class.

What I saw in Europe was the sadness of the middle class, from which most of us online have come, as they see their rights and status slipping into the ocean of big interests. In America, people pretend they have money by using credit, and have slipped into la-la land regarding their personal financial futures.

The American Dream was never a reality, but a progressive fallacy based on the isms of Americanism, materialism, consumerism. My intelligent wealthy friends are not in debt, have sold their investments, and are buying land. Why? They know the value of land, and the not-so-future need for access to food supplies. They can see the take-over of a few multi-national companies and they are nervous about this government's ability to control OWG interests.

Big is in, small is out.

The easiest examples to see must be the almost total lack of Ma and Pa shops of any kind. Yesterday, a friend of mine and I had to go through my old neighborhood on our way to a restaurant. He is much younger than I am and we had worked on moving my books in the afternoon.

Time for dinner at a new Middle Eastern place brought us through the streets which in the 1950s and 1960s were choc-a-bloc with all the shops necessary for baby-boomer parents-small independent shops and businesses, now all gone--all but one barbershop.

In two generations, small entrepreneurs, once the backbone of America business, have disappeared.

More than that, the good, old work ethic has been swept away as well.


Up and down those blocks were large houses of large families of children of Catholic and Lutheran parents, playing ball, swimming in the local pool, now gone, going in and out of each others' houses and walking to school.

That middle class and lower middle class groupings have contracepted themselves into extinction.

Churches have been decimated and at most daily Masses, I am one of the youngest in the pews, at 66!

The frenetic seeking for comfort has destroyed the middle and lower middle class ability to wait until one has the money to buy something, to put children before goods, to be content with small.

Catholics wanted to be Americans first and Catholics second--this lack of family life and the lack of a cohesive communities are results.

Bargain hunting is now the main entertainment for many people....and garage sales sell things people have bought in knee-jerk compulsive buying.  When I speak to people about frugality or simplicity of life, except for the few, most do not understand the language of temperance.

Less is more. But, the middle class has forgotten this. This class will be forgotten in the future, as a failed experiment growing out of the prosperity and new trade, family banking systems and businesses of the great boom of the birth of the bourgeoisie.

This demographic change will affect the Catholic Church, which historically in America, was made up of the lower middle class and the lower upper classes, not the middle class until the 20th century.

We were a Church of the poor and the wealthy who knew what noblesse oblige was all about. That concept went the way of gross greed and gross capitalism based on gross individualism.

Result: an underclass stuck dependent on the socialist system the Founding Fathers never dreamed of and would decry; and the institutionalized greed of the mega-wealthy.

I shall not see this future of master and slaves, as the process will escalate only after many other changes, which will give power to the few who have been planning this destruction of Christian lifestyles, but this cultural scenario has all happened before in pagan times. Now, that we are in the great time of the Neo-Pagans, one cannot expect either a work ethic or noblesse oblige.

The Church keeps us from the worst errors a civilization can endure and still continue. Without the Church, no family is protected, children are not protected, women are not protected, and the general communal spirit which brings people to work together in simplicity and sharing falls away, decays, and dies.

"See how they love one another" cannot merely be a dream but a reality in the face of the shock of the future, to make a pun out of a famous book.

God will allow us all to be purged of sins, all sins, and purified. Thanks be to God for these times in which we live, but saints are more necessary than ever.

My view of the future of the Church is that God will raise us mighty saints in these times-men like Bernard, Dominic, and Benedict, and women like Etheldreda, Mechthild, Catherine.

I may not see these great saints, but for the Church to survive in the future, families could be these great souls for the benefit of the universal Church.

Exciting but trying times ahead. From today's Lauds:

Habakkuk 3 The Lord will appear in judgement In spite of your anger, Lord, have compassion. Lord, I heard what you gave me to hear, and I was struck with awe of your work. In the midst of the years, bring it to life; in the midst of the years you will make it known. When you are angry, you will remember your mercy. God will come from Theman, the holy one from the mountain of Pharan. His glory has covered the heavens and the earth is full of his praise. His brightness shall be like light itself, rays shining from his hands – there is his strength hidden. You went forth for the salvation of the people, for salvation with your anointed one. You made a way through the sea for your horses, in the silt of many waters. I have heard you, Lord, and my stomach churns within me; at the sound of your voice my lips tremble. My bones rot away, my steps stumble. I will rest and be quiet on the day of tribulation and let it overtake those who have invaded us. For the fig will not flower, the vines will not fruit, the work of the olive will be lost. The fields will yield no food, the flocks will be cut off from the sheepfold, there will be no cattle in the stalls. But I will rejoice in the Lord, take joy in God my saviour. The Lord God is my strength. He will make me as sure-footed as the deer. He will lead me up to the heights. Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen. In spite of your anger, Lord, have compassion.

The Spirit of Malice and The Party Spirit

This post is divided as it is about division.

Some of these thoughts were incorporate into two other posts, one on another blog in years past.

In the first part, I highlight what I call the Spirit of Malice.

The society is seeing an explosion of malice outside and inside the Church. For years, malice has been subtle and underground, but now, it is obvious and terribly nasty. What is malice? Malice is the intention to do evil on purpose. Those who fall into the habit of malice reveal a will which is always inclined towards evil.

This evil can exhibit itself in words, actions, thoughts through the will, and not through passion. A malicious person chooses to do a certain evil. That person is not acting out of the emotions, the passions. Thomas Aquinas explains this for us.

One can see how despicable this sin is. It is a willed habit. Aquinas states that the sin comes from either a corruption within the person; in other words, the sin "presupposes some inordinateness"; or through habit; but malicious becomes a habit of the will.

Signs of malice can be multiple. Have you ever met a person who constantly is negative, who undermines other people on a regular basis, who is constantly finding fault? Have you ever met someone who thinks mean practical jokes are funny, or destroying someone's reputation a game? Have you ever met someone who simply hates everyone and delights in slander, calumny, gossip? Have you met someone who purposefully wants to hurt others, manipulate them, make them suffer?

These are malicious people. Sometimes someone will say to me, "I really do not like being around this person because she carries a cloud around with her and dampens joy and positive attitudes in others."

That is a good description of the sin of malice.

Or, someone will say, "I get the feeling this person is not real in his liking of me, but that he is waiting to hurt me somehow."

That is another good description of malice.

Of course, Catholics know who the Father of Malice is , the Father of Lies, a Liar from the his first and only sin against God-Satan.

One cannot choose to be friends with persons who are addicted to being malicious unless one is patient and kind. And, this is not necessarily good for a person on one's own. It is not healthy to be around malicious people, as they are living in a powerfully negative world and desire to bring other's down into their hells, which they have created. Pray for such people if you must deal with them at work or in the family. Kindness is a good Christian virtue to combat malice.

Here is Garrigou-Lagrange on the sin of malice, which is a bit of a repetition from the perfection series, but helpful here again.

In contradistinction to the sin of ignorance and that of frailty, the sin of malice is that by which one chooses evil knowingly. In Latin it is called a sin de industria, that is, a sin committed with deliberate calculation, design, and express intention, free from ignorance and even from antecedent passion. The sin of malice is often premeditated. This is not equivalent to saying that evil is willed for the sake of evil; since the adequate object of the will is the good, it can will evil only under the aspect of an apparent good.
Now he who sins through malice, acting with full knowledge of the case and through evil will, knowingly wills a spiritual evil (for example, the loss of charity or divine friendship) in order to possess a temporal good. It is clear that this sin thus defined differs in the degree of gravity from the sin of ignorance and that of frailty. But we must not conclude from this that every sin of malice is a sin against the Holy Ghost. This last sin is one of the gravest of the sins of malice. It is produced when a man rejects through contempt the very thing that would save him or deliver him from evil: for example, when he combats recognized religious truth, or when by reason of jealousy, he deliberately grows sad over the graces and spiritual progress of his neighbor.
The sin of malice often proceeds from a vice engendered by multiple faults; but it can exist even in the absence of this vice. It is thus that the first sin of the devil was a sin of malice, not of habitual malice but of actual malice, of evil will, of an intoxication of pride.
It is clear that the sin of malice is graver than the sins of ignorance and frailty, although these last are sometimes mortal. This explains why human laws inflict greater punishment for premeditated murder than for that committed through passion.
The greatest gravity of the sins of malice comes from the fact that they are more voluntary than the others, from the fact that they generally proceed from a vice engendered by repeated sins, and from the fact that by them man knowingly prefers a temporal good to the divine friendship, without the partial excuse of a certain ignorance or of a strong passion.
In these questions one may err in two ways that are contradictory to each other. Some lean to the opinion that only the sin of malice can be mortal; they do not see with sufficient clearness the gravity of certain sins of voluntary ignorance and of certain sins of frailty, in which, nevertheless, there is serious matter, sufficient advertence, and full consent.
Others, on the contrary, do not see clearly enough the gravity of certain sins of malice committed in cold blood, with an affected moderation and a pretense of good will or of tolerance. Those who thus combat the true religion and take away from children the bread of divine truth may be sinning more gravely than he who blasphemes and kills someone under the impulse of anger.
Sin is so much the more grave as it is more voluntary, as it is committed with greater light and proceeds from a more inordinate love of self, which sometimes even goes so far as contempt of God. On the other hand, a virtuous act is more or less meritorious according as it is more voluntary, more free, and as it is inspired by a greater love of God and neighbor, a love that may even reach holy contempt of self, as St. Augustine says.

Thus he who prays with too great attachment to sensible consolation merits less than he who perseveres in prayer in a continual and profound aridity without any consolation. But on emerging from this trial, his merit does not grow less if his prayer proceeds from an equal degree of charity which now has a happy reaction on his sensibility. It is still true that one interior act of pure love is of greater value in the eyes of God than many exterior works inspired by a lesser charity.
In all these questions, whether good or evil is involved, particular attention must be paid to what proceeds from our higher faculties, the intellect and will: that is, to the act of the will following full knowledge of the case. And, from this point of view, if an evil act committed with full deliberation and consent, like a formal pact with the devil, has formidable consequences, a good act, such as the oblation of self to God, made with full deliberation and consent and frequently renewed, can have even greater consequences in the order of good; for the Holy Ghost is of a certainty infinitely more powerful than the spirit of evil, and He can do more for our sanctification than the latter can for our ruin. It is well to think of this in the face of the gravity of certain present-day events. The love of Christ, dying on the cross for us, pleased God more than all sins taken together displeased Him; so the Savior is more powerful to save us than the enemy of good is to destroy us. With this meaning, Christ said: "Fear ye not them that kill the body and are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him that can destroy both soul and body in hell." (28) Unless we open the door of our hearts to him, the enemy of good cannot penetrate into the sanctuary of our will, whereas God is closer to us than we are to ourselves and can lead us strongly and sweetly to the most profound and elevated meritorious free acts, to acts that are the prelude of eternal life.

http://www.christianperfection.info/tta33.php

Malice leads to divisiveness in a community, to the party spirit in a church.

The "party spirit" has nothing to do with balloons or cake.

Few Catholics understand what the “party spirit” is and how it comes about. Factions have been within the Church since day one. St. Paul refers to such in 1 Corinthians 1:10-17, in Roman 12: 9-21 and Romans 14: 1-12.

St. Paul tells us that the party spirit is a spirit, or demon, of division. Divisiveness is never from God within the Church. Divisiveness is not the same as criticism, which should include positive solutions to problems.

For example, one may criticize a catechetical program in a church, but not offer to find alternatives which may be better or teach. Those who judge and criticize merely to stir up trouble build the doorway for the party spirit.

Divisiveness usually means three things. Firstly, that a lack of charity and forbearance has crept into a parish or a group. This lack of charity comes from concentrating on people’s sins and failings, rather than encouraging their good points.

Secondly, egotism, which rears its hydra head, creates division. Egotism must be heard, seen and is in everybody’s face. Egotism is not humble ever and defends itself constantly.

Thirdly, the seeking for power creates a party spirit. To the extreme, this seeking of power creates entirely new churches, such as the four churches found in the 1960s on one corner in my home town, all split-offs from the other. Division caused confusion, anger, even hatred.

In 2 Timothy 3:1-5, St. Paul tells us where the party spirit comes from.

“But understand this, that in the last days, there will come times of stress. For men will be lovers of self, love of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, inhuman, implacable, slanderers, profligates, fierce haters of good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, loves of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding the form of religion but denying the power of it. Avoid such people.”

The last phrase must include the discernment to know when to avoid and when to correct.
Avoiding means not being friends with those who are untrustworthy of the Gospel of the Lord. Avoiding means that if one does not avoid slanderers or the abusive or the arrogant, on becomes like them and loses the gifts of discernment, temperance, and prudence.

We do not have to win every battle and even fight every battle in the Church. Some battles require great holiness and purity of heart. Some require patience and intense prayer and fasting.

How does one avoid strife in groups? St. Paul has the answer, “Put on then, God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness and patience, forbearing one another, and if one has a complaint against another, forgiving one another; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all of these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.”Colossians 3:12-15

One must find peace within one’s self in order to spread peace and only those who have found peace, through meekness to God can truly stay away from unnecessary conflicts.

Grieving the Holy Spirit, another one of Paul’s inspirations, comes about when people engage and encourage, wrath, anger, bitterness, clamor, and slander. See Ephesians 4: 25-32 on these points.

If one reads all the epistles, one finds the theme of communal harmony is almost in each one. If St. Paul had to address divisiveness over and over, one can see that it can be a persistent problem.
I cannot refer to all the passages on this theme, but list a few ways to avoid divisiveness in the Church, in our parishes, in our communities, in our families, and so on.

One, look to one’s own sins in humility and truth. If one sees the horribleness of one’s own weaknesses and failings, one cannot judge nor cause dissension by pointing to another’s faults.

Two, think on Christ and not on one’s self. If one is truly in love with Christ, the Bridegroom, one supernaturally wants to love His brothers and sisters and find creative ways to show this love.

Three, forgiveness covers a multitude of sins and failings. To forgive is to forget, which some priests do not teach. I would hope people in my life forgive and forget instead of constantly saying a litany of my faults to me. This concentration on negativity rises from unforgiveness and even hatred. The negative litany destroys community.

Four, egotism must go. The rule of the saints and the great teachers on purity of heart, mind and soul tell us that the ego stands between us and God, between us and His Perfect Will in our lives, between us and the community, between us and eternity. If the ego is not destroyed, we shall not see God after our particular judgment as we have chosen our self-will over Him.

Lastly, egotism and narcissism constantly fall back on talking about one’s self and one’s grievances. As we say here in Iowa, “Get over it, he (or she) is not that into you.” I have discovered that really most people are truly not interested in me, but only in themselves. This should be a freeing experience of grace, enabling one to concentrate on God and not one’s self.

St. Paul wraps up this discussion so poignantly: “I hear that there are divisions among you ; and I partly believe it, for there must be factions among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized.”

The genuine are not those who cause the factions, but the Truth of the Gospel itself causes factions-however, we can teach, preach, instruct, but never judge. “For if we judge ourselves truly, we should not be judged. But when we are judged by the Lord, we are chastened, so that we may not be condemned along with the world.”

The genuine are those who allow God to purify them and those who cling to the orthodoxy of the Church in all things.

The Wrong Focus

Years ago, I told a seminarian not to confuse politics with religion. I was warning him of a pitfall that many priests fell into during the past sixty years--believing that politics can "save" people.

Liberation theology would be an extreme example of this idea that political actions trump doctrine, or traditional religious practice. Or thinking that prayer cannot change events, people, even history.

We are now in a pagan society and most likely, we shall most likely not be able change the slide into further paganism of the West. 

While we do not have to dwell on the savage movement of Godlessness in our countries, we should not give up on praying for God to intervene.

We have to respond and follow the Mind of Christ, which is expressed in the Church, but we do not have to figure out ways to deal with arguments or discussion until these happen. Too many people are becoming obsessed with sin and are not obsessed with God.

Wrong focus....

Depression comes from concentrating on the negative. Joy comes from embracing suffering and becoming closer to Christ.

Confidence in God must transcend the horror of sin in the world. To doubt Divine Providence is actually an insult to God.

Believing in Divine Providence must not include a denial of suffering. Believing in Divine Providence is not a "pie in the sky" attitude.

A belief in Divine Providence does not ignore reality. A trust in Divine Providence demands a great humility.

Here is a list which is a holiness check list. Here is my St. Paul list of coming to understand that God is in control, not me.

Garrigou-Lagrange makes it clear that trusting in Divine Providence means that the secret, hidden meaning behind “hindrances, contradictions, reverses, disappointments, misfortunes, and failures” which may involve either the disorder in our own lives or in that of others, are all for a higher purpose in God’s perfect and permissive wills.

The Dominican refers to these as part of “providential schooling”.

Years ago, when something “bad” happened, I began to ask God this question, “What do you want me to learn from this, O Lord?”

Now, I frequently have the answer immediately. Something which exercises my patience, and if for my good, is allowed by God.

I made up this check list for those who have a tendency to only see the negative and who fall into complaining, which are clear signs of a political mind and not a disposition of trusting in Divine Providence.

1)      If I am ill, do I complain at what is not being done, or am I patient and submissive?

2)      If someone makes a snide or unkind comment, do I get angry or try to understand the other person’s upset? Do I realize I deserve the unkindnesses for my sins?

3)      If a bank or billing company makes an error, do I patiently explain the mistake, or do I get angry and snippy? Do I realize that people are no longer trained to be efficient or careful? Do I feel for this lost generation, who have been cheated by inferior schooling?

4)      If someone is late for a meeting, do I go with the flow and try to understand the situation? Do I really know that my time is not more important than theirs?

5)      If someone is continually unkind to me, do I forgive immediately and constantly? Do I respond in love and not judgment, knowing God forgives me constantly?

6)      Am I aware that a contradiction lies behind my responses and the seeming way to perfection? Do I see that my responses point to my predominant fault?

7)      Do I use bad and stressful situations for opportunities for prayer? For example, I do not have a car, so when I wait for a bus or ride, I say the rosary.

8)      Do I ask God to remove critical and judgmental language or even thoughts from my memory, understanding and ask specifically for purification of the mind? Do I judge myself, which is also sinful?

9)      Do I let people make mistakes instead of being a control freak? Do I let go of things, events, people, in the daily course of my life? Do I respond in spontaneity and goodness?

10)  Am I patient with others who have never experienced illness, poverty, degradation and cannot understand the way of purification? Do I pray for the right words to help them to understand?

This is my list. What is interesting in Garrigou-Lagrange on the duty of the moment is that he writes that grace is sometimes a destroyer. Yes, I have learned this. He notes, “…yet it its workings within us, it does not destroy, but perfects any good there is in nature, restoring and sublimating it. We may say of grace as was said of God: ‘It killeth and maketh alive’ (1 Kings 2:6)

I “grew up” on Pere de Caussade. My favorite book in graduate school was Abandonment to Divine Providence. I think I still have the original copy I bought years ago, about 1979, or so in an old, used book store.

God was guiding me even then, but I was not paying attention as I am now. I had so many things to do. I remember reading this book on a hot summer’s day at Notre Dame, the campus all green and quieter, as summer school had less students and less activity. The old, venerable book showed me that the daily routine of my life was sacred, every moment was sacred. The Present Moment is all we have, as de Caussade  taught me. The past was gone and the future totally in the Hands of God.

Garrigou-Lagrange writes this, which is connected to de Caussade’s direction: “In the spiritual order more than anywhere else real knowledge can be acquired only by suffering and action. Though our Lord’s holy soul form the moment of His coming into the world enjoyed the beatific vision and an infused knowledge, yet He willed also to have an experiential knowledge which is acquired day by day and enables us to view things under that special aspect which contact with reality gives when they have been infallibly foreseen.”

Trusting in Divine Providence is the lesson of denial of self. For some of us, this is done directly by God. If I merely complain and murmur, I would miss the lessons. I would try to control the situation by looking for alternatives, even inconveniencing ones. That is not the lesson God wants me to learn through these things.

Garrigou-Lagrange writes, “This is the school of the Holy Ghost, in which His lessons have nothing academic about them, but are drawn from concrete things. And He varies them for each soul, since what is useful for one is not always so for another. …let us in all simplicity listen to what Providence has to say to each one of us personally in these concrete lessons it gives. We must not treat this doctrine in a purely material and mechanical way: it is a question of being supernaturally-minded in everything, in all simplicity and without disputings or foolish questionings.”

Yes, we must act and continue to work for change, work hard for the Kingdom of God on earth. But, we must underline all our actions with deep, reflective prayer.

Prayer creates holiness which will attract those who have fallen into paganism. "See how they love one another" needs to be our focus. And this state of love is only possible when we each have a relation with Christ, and let God be God in our lives. Trusting in Providence reveals or is a sign of our love for God, even in times of severe trial.

Sometimes, as St. Therese writes, love is not felt; there is “unfelt love”.  De Caussade writes, “O unknown Love! …no one sees that Your inexhaustible activity is a source of new thoughts, of fresh sufferings, and further action…of new saints.”

Rest in the unfelt love. When one waits, love comes.

I have written somewhat on infused contemplation, also called passive contemplation. This is a high state for proficients. This is not the same, as I have repeated many, many times, as meditation or active contemplation.

Again, the prayer of simplicity is a prayer for active contemplation moving into infused or passive contemplation. Simplicity is simply looking at Christ, the glance to the Cross, or the reflection on the Attributes.

Again, know that different authors call the stages of prayer by different names. Most of us can do meditation of the Scriptures, the Life of Christ. Most of us can think on the Attributes of God in active contemplation.

I wrote on the connection between prayer and Divine Providence from Garrigou-Lagrange’s book. Today, I want to repeat a few of the ideas in order to tie together the idea of prayer and self-abandonment to God.

The Dominican notes that “Prayer is not our invention.” We are inspired to pray by God and from all eternity He knew and willed our prayers. When we pray, if we have allowed God to purify our intentions, our hearts, minds, wills, we are praying in the will of God.

This is a repeat but an important one, “True prayer, prayer offered with the requisite conditions, is infallibly efficacious because God has decreed that it shall be so, and God cannot revoke what He had once decreed. It is not only what comes to pass that has been foreseen and intended (or at any rate permitted) by a providential decree, but the manner in which it comes to pass, the causes that bring about the event, the means by which the end is attained.”

Providence desired a certain effect and our prayer is part of that. If we are purified, and to the extent that we are purified, our prayers are answered.

All self-abandonment opens us up to efficacious prayer. If there is too much egotism, too much self-interest and not real self-abandonment, our prayers will not be answered, or, at least, delayed. But, God also tests our faith, our perseverance. In real prayer, our wills are lifted up, states Garrigou-Lagrange, to cooperate with the will of God.

We begin to will what God wills. How wonderful, how freeing this is.

Why is a saint canonized when a prayer or prayers are answered? Because this shows the Church that prayer in the will of God is more powerful than science or disease, or trauma.

Garrigou-Lagrange writes: “It is a spiritual energy more potent than all the forces of nature together. It can obtain for us what God alone can bestow, the grace of contrition and of perfect charity, the grace also of eternal life, the very end and purpose of the divine governance, the final manifestation of its goodness.”

"God never permits evil except in view of some greater good. He wills that we co-operate in this good by a prayer that become daily more sincere, more humble, more profound, more confident, more persevering, by a prayer united with action, in order that each succeeding day shall see more perfectly realized in us an din those about us that petition of Our Father: ‘Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.’”

Problems On Father Z's Blog?

Is anyone else having trouble with comments on Fr. Z's blog? I cannot read any of the comments as my computer states the page is not on the server.

Thursday Theme

Martyrdom seems to be a theme today. Please check out this neat article and a second one, on the Carmelite, Titus Brandsma, I highlighted earlier this week.

He encourages me.

http://guildofblessedtitus.blogspot.com/2011/07/our-patrons-feast-day-blessed-titus.html

http://guildofblessedtitus.blogspot.com/2015/07/passivity-vs-activity.html

The Martyrs of China

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/92/Chinesemartyrs-htm_sm.jpg

AGOSTINO ZHAO RONG (+ 1815) AND 119 COMPANIONS, MARTYRS IN CHINA (+ 1648 – 1930) 1st. October 2000 http://www.vatican.va/news_services/liturgy/saints/ns_lit_doc_20001001_zhao-rong-compagni_en.html From the earliest beginnings of the Chinese people (sometime about the middle of the third millennium before Christ) religious sentiment towards the Supreme Being and diligent filial piety towards ancestors were the most conspicuous characteristics of their culture, which had existed for thousands of years. This note of distinct religiousness is found to a greater or lesser extent in the Chinese people of all centuries up to our own time, when, under the influence of western atheism, some intellectuals, especially those educated in foreign countries, wished to rid themselves of all religious ideas, like some of their western teachers. In the fifth century, the Gospel was preached in China, and at the beginning of the seventh century the first church was built there. During the T'ang dynasty (618-907) the Christian community flourished for two centuries. In the thirteenth, thanks to the understanding of the Chinese people and culture shown by missionaries like Giovanni da Montecorvino, it became possible to begin the first Catholic mission in the Middle Kingdom, with the episcopal see in Beijing. It is not surprising, especially in the modern era (that is, from the sixteenth century, when communications between the east and west began to be, in a way, more frequent) that there was on the part of the Catholic Church a longing to take the light of the Gospel to this people in order to enrich still more their treasure of cultural and religious traditions, so rich and profound. And so, beginning from the last decades of the sixteenth century, various Catholic missionaries were sent to China: people like Matteo Ricci and others were chosen with great care, keeping in mind their cultural abilities and their qualifications in various fields of science, especially astronomy and mathematics, in addition to their spirit of faith and love. In fact, it was thanks to this and to the appreciation that the missionaries showed for the remarkable spirit of research shown by the studious Chinese, that it was possible to establish very useful collaborative relationships in the scientific field. These relationships served in their turn to open many doors, even that of the Imperial Court, and this led to the development of very useful relations with various people of great ability. The quality of the religious life of these missionaries was such as to lead not a few people at a high level to feel the need to know better the evangelical spirit that animated them and, then, to be instructed with regard to the Christian religion. This instruction was carried out in a manner suited to their cultural characteristics and way of thinking. At the end of the sixteenth century and the beginning of the seventeenth, there were numerous people who, having undergone the necessary preparation, asked for baptism and became fervent Christians, while always preserving with just pride their Chinese identity and culture. Christianity was seen in that period as a reality that did not oppose the highest values of the traditions of the Chinese people, nor place itself above these traditions. Rather, it was regarded as something that enriched them with a new light and dimension. Thanks to the excellent relations that existed between some missionaries and the Emperor K'ang Hsi himself, and thanks to the services they rendered towards re-establishing peace between the “Czar” of Russia and the “Son of Heaven”, namely the Emperor, the latter issued in 1692 the first decree of religious liberty by virtue of which all his subjects could follow the Christian religion and all the missionaries could preach in his vast domains. In consequence, there were notable developments in missionary activity and the spread of the Gospel message; and many Chinese people, attracted by the light of Christ, asked to be able to receive baptism. Unfortunately, however, the difficult question of “Chinese rites”, greatly irritated the Emperor K'ang Hsi and prepared the persecution. The latter, strongly influenced by that in nearby Japan, to a greater or lesser extent, open or insidious, violent or veiled, extended in successive waves practically from the first decade of the seventeenth century to about the middle of the nineteenth. Missionaries and faithful lay people were killed, and many churches destroyed. It was on 15 January 1648 that the Manchu Tartars, having invaded the region of Fujian and shown themselves hostile to the Christian religion, killed Blessed Francis Fernández de Capillas, a priest of the Order of Preachers (Dominicans). After having imprisoned and tortured him, they beheaded him while he recited with others the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary. Blessed Francis Fernández de Capillas has been recognised by the Holy See as a Protomartyr of China. Towards the middle of the following century (the eighteenth) another five Spanish missionaries, who had carried out their activity between 1715-1747, were put to death as a result of a new wave of persecution that started in 1729 and broke out again in 1746. This was in the epoch of the Emperor Yung-Cheng and of his son, K'ien-Lung. Blessed Peter Sans i Yordà, O.P, Bishop, was martyred in 1747,at Fuzou. All four of the following were killed on 28 October 1748: Blessed Francis Serrano, O.P., Priest, Blessed Joachim Royo, O.P., Priest, Blessed John Alcober, O.P., Priest, Blessed Francis Diaz, O.P., Priest. A new period of persecution in regard to the Christian religion then occurred in the nineteenth century. While Catholicism had been authorised by some Emperors in the preceding centuries, Emperor Kia-Kin (1796-1821) published, instead, numerous and severe decrees against it. The first was issued in 1805. Two edicts of 1811 were directed against those among the Chinese who were studying to receive sacred orders, and against priests who were propagating the Christian religion. A decree of 1813 exonerated voluntary apostates from every chastisement, that is, Christians who spontaneously declared that they would abandon their faith, but all others were to be dealt with harshly. In this period the following underwent martyrdom: Blessed Peter Wu, a Chinese lay catechist. Born of a pagan family, he received baptism in 1796 and passed the rest of his life proclaiming the truth of the Christian religion. All attempts to make him apostasize were in vain. The sentence having been pronounced against him, he was strangled on 7 November 1814. Following him in fidelity to Christ was: Blessed Joseph Zhang Dapeng, a lay catechist, and a merchant. Baptised in 1800, he had become the heart of the mission in the city of Kony-Yang. He was imprisoned, and then strangled to death on12 March 1815. In this same year (1815) there came two other decrees, with which approval was given to the conduct of the Viceroy of Sichuan who had beheaded Monsignor Dufresse, of the Paris Foreign Missions Society, and some Chinese Christians. As a result, there was a worsening of the persecution. The following martyrs belong to this period: Blessed John Gabriel Taurin Dufresse, M.E.P., Bishop. He was arrested on 18 May 1815, taken to Chengdu, condemned and executed on 14 September 1815. Blessed Augustine Zhao Rong, a Chinese diocesan priest. Having first been one of the soldiers who had escorted Monsignor Dufresse from Chengdu to Beijing, he was moved by his patience and had then asked to be numbered among the neophytes. Once baptised, he was sent to the seminary and then ordained a priest. Arrested, he had to suffer the most cruel tortures and then died in 1815. Blessed John da Triora, O.F.M., Priest. Put in prison together with others in the summer of 1815, he was then condemned to death, and strangled on 7 February 1816. Blessed Joseph Yuan, a Chinese diocesan priest. Having heard Monsignor Dufresse speak of the Christian Faith, he was overcome by its beauty and then became an exemplary neophyte. Later, he was ordained a priest and, as such, was dedicated to evangelisation in various districts. He was arrested in August 1816, condemned to be strangled, and was killed in this way on 24 June 1817. Blessed Francis Regis Clet of the Congregation of the Mission (Vincentians). After obtaining permission to go to the Missions in China, he embarked for the Orient in 1791. Having reached there, for thirty years he spent a life of missionary sacrifice. Upheld by an untiring zeal, he evangelised three immense provinces of the Chinese Empire: Jiangxi, Hubei, Hunan. Betrayed by a Christian, he was arrested and thrown into prison where he underwent atrocious tortures. Following sentence by the Emperor he was killed by strangling on 17 February 1820. Blessed Thaddeus Liu, a Chinese diocesan priest. He refused to apostasize, saying that he was a priest and wanted to be faithful to the religion that he had preached. Condemned to death, he was strangled on 30 November 1823. Blessed Peter Liu, a Chinese lay catechist. He was arrested in 1814 and condemned to exile in Tartary, where he remained for almost twenty years. Returning to his homeland he was again arrested, and was strangled on 17 May 1834. Blessed Joachim Ho, a Chinese lay catechist. He was baptised at the age of about twenty years. In the great persecution of 1814 he had been taken with many others of the faithful and subjected to cruel torture. Sent into exile in Tartary, he remained there for almost twenty years. Returning to his homeland he was arrested again and refused to apostasize. Following that, and the death sentence having been confirmed by the Emperor, he was strangled on 9 July 1839. Blessed Augustus Chapdelaine, M.E.P., a priest of the diocese of Coutances. He entered the Seminary of the Paris Foreign Missions Society, and embarked for China in 1852. He arrived in Guangxi at the end of 1854. Arrested in 1856, he was tortured, condemned to death in prison, and died in February 1856. Blessed Laurence Bai Xiaoman, a Chinese layman, and an unassuming worker. He joined Blessed Chapdelaine in the refuge that was given to the missionary and was arrested with him and brought before the tribunal. Nothing could make him renounce his religious beliefs. He was beheaded on 25 February 1856. Blessed Agnes Cao Guiying, a widow, born into an old Christian family. Being dedicated to the instruction of young girls who had recently been converted by Blessed Chapdelaine, she was arrested and condemned to death in prison. She was executed on 1 March 1856. Three catechists, known as the Martyrs of MaoKou (in the province of Guizhou) were killed on 28 January 1858, by order of the Mandarin of MaoKou: Blessed Jerome Lu Tingmei, Blessed Laurence Wang Bing, Blessed Agatha Lin Zao. All three had been called on to renounce the Christian religion and having refused to do so were condemned to be beheaded. Two seminarians and two lay people, one of whom was a farmer, the other a widow who worked as a cook in the seminary, suffered martyrdom together on 29 July 1861. They are known as the Martyrs of Qingyanzhen (Guizhou): Blessed Joseph Zhang Wenlan, seminarian, Blessed Paul Chen Changpin, seminarian, Blessed John Baptist Luo Tingying, layman, Blessed Martha Wang Luo Mande, laywoman. In the following year, on 18 and 19 February 1862, another five people gave their life for Christ. They are known as the Martyrs of Guizhou. Blessed John Peter Neel, a priest of the Paris Foreign Missions Society, Blessed Martin Wu Xuesheng, lay catechist, Blessed John Zhang Tianshen, lay catechist, Blessed John Chen Xianheng, lay catechist, Blessed Lucy Yi Zhenmei, lay catechist. In the meantime, some incidents occurred in the political field that had notable repercussions on the life of the Christian missions. In June 1840, the Imperial Commissioner of Guangdong, rightly wishing to abolish the opium trade that was being conducted by the British, had more than twenty thousand chests of this drug thrown into the sea. This had been the pretext for immediate war, which was won by the British. When the war came to an end, China had to sign in 1842 the first international treaty of modern times, followed quickly by others with America and France. Taking advantage of this opportunity, France replaced Portugal as the power protecting the missions. Following on from this, a twofold decree was issued: one part in 1844 which permitted the Chinese to follow the Catholic religion; the other, in 1846, with which the old penalties against Catholics were abolished. From then on the Church could live openly and carry out its missionary activity, developing it also in the sphere of higher education, in universities and scientific research. With the multiplication of various top-level cultural Institutes and thanks to their highly valued activity, ever deeper links were gradually established between the Church and China with its rich cultural traditions. This collaboration with the Chinese authorities further increased the mutual appreciation and sharing of those true values that must underpin every civilised society. And so passed an era of expansion in the Christian missions, with the exception of the period in which they were struck by the disaster of the uprising by the “Society for Justice and Harmony” (commonly known as the “Boxers”). This occurred at the beginning of the twentieth century and caused the shedding of the blood of many Christians. It is known that, mingled in this rebellion, were all the secret societies and the accumulated and repressed hatred against foreigners in the last decades of the nineteenth century, because of the political and social changes following the Opium War and the imposition of the so-called “unequal treaties” on the part of the Western Powers. Very different, however, was the motive for the persecution of the missionaries, even though they were of European nationality. Their slaughter was brought about solely on religious grounds. They were killed for the same reason as the Chinese faithful who had become Christians. Reliable historical documents provide evidence of the anti-Christian hatred which spurred the “Boxers” to massacre the missionaries and the faithful of the area who had adhered to their teaching. In this regard, an edict was issued on 1 July 1900 which, in substance, said that the time of good relations with European missionaries and their Christians was now past: that the former must be repatriated at once and the faithful forced to apostasize, on penalty of death. As a result, the martyrdom took place of several missionaries and many Chinese who can be grouped together as follows: a) Martyrs of Shanxi, killed on 9 July 1900, who were Franciscan Friars Minor: Blessed Gregory Grassi, Bishop, Blessed Francis Fogolla, Bishop, Blessed Elias Facchini, Priest, Blessed Theodoric Balat, Priest, Blessed Andrew Bauer, Religious Brother; b) Martyrs of Southern Hunan, who were also Franciscan Friars Minor: Blessed Anthony Fantosati, Bishop (martyred on 7 July 1900), Blessed Joseph Mary Gambaro, Priest (martyred on 7 July 1900), Blessed Cesidio Giacomantonio, Priest (martyred on 4 July 1900). To the martyred Franciscans of the First Order were added seven Franciscan Missionaries of Mary, of whom three were French, two Italian, one Belgian, and one Dutch: Blessed Mary Hermina of Jesus (in saec: Irma Grivot), Blessed Mary of Peace (in saec: Mary Ann Giuliani), Blessed Mary Clare (in saec: Clelia Nanetti), Blessed Mary of the Holy Birth (in saec: Joan Mary Kerguin), Blessed Mary of Saint Justus (in saec: Ann Moreau) Blessed Mary Adolfine (in saec: Ann Dierk), Blessed Mary Amandina (in saec: Paula Jeuris). Of the martyrs belonging to the Franciscan family, there were also eleven Secular Franciscans, all Chinese: Blessed John Zhang Huan, seminarian, Blessed Patrick Dong Bodi, seminarian, Blessed John Wang Rui, seminarian, Blessed Philip Zhang Zhihe, seminarian, Blessed John Zhang Jingguang, seminarian, Blessed Thomas Shen Jihe, layman and a manservant, Blessed Simon Qin Cunfu, lay catechist, Blessed Peter Wu Anbang, layman, Blessed Francis Zhang Rong, layman and a farmer, Blessed Matthew Feng De, layman and neophyte, Blessed Peter Zhang Banniu, layman and labourer. To these are joined a number of Chinese lay faithful: Blessed James Yan Guodong, farmer, Blessed James Zhao Quanxin, manservant, Blessed Peter Wang Erman, cook. When the uprising of the “Boxers”, which had begun in Shandong and then spread through Shanxi and Hunan, also reached South-Eastern Tcheli, which was then the Apostolic Vicariate of Xianxian, in the care of the Jesuits, the Christians killed could be counted in thousands. Among these were four French Jesuit missionaries and at least 52 Chinese lay Christians: men, women and children – the oldest of them being 79 years old, while the youngest were aged only nine years. All suffered martyrdom in the month of July 1900. Many of them were killed in the church in the village of Tchou-Kia-ho, in which they were taking refuge and where they were in prayer together with the first two of the missionaries listed below: Blessed Leo Mangin, S.J., Priest, Blessed Paul Denn, S.J., Priest, Blessed Rémy Isoré, S.J., Priest, Blessed Modeste Andlauer, S.J., Priest. The names and ages of the Chinese lay Christians were as follows: http://blogs.luc.edu/ilweekly/2010/09/09/underground-catholic-church-photography-comes-to-the-soc/ Blessed Mary Zhu born Wu, aged about 50 years, Blessed Peter Zhu Rixin, aged 19, Blessed John Baptist Zhu Wurui, aged 17, Blessed Mary Fu Guilin, aged 37, Blessed Barbara Cui born Lian, aged 51, Blessed Joseph Ma Taishun, aged 60, Blessed Lucy Wang Cheng, aged 18, Blessed Mary Fan Kun, aged 16, Blessed Mary Chi Yu, aged 15, Blessed Mary Zheng Xu, aged 11 years, Blessed Mary Du born Zhao, aged 51, Blessed Magdalene Du Fengju, aged 19, Blessed Mary du born Tian, aged 42, Blessed Paul Wu Anjyu, aged 62, Blessed John Baptist Wu Mantang, aged 17, Blessed Paul Wu Wanshu, aged 16, Blessed Raymond Li Quanzhen, aged 59, Blessed Peter Li Quanhui, aged 63, Blessed Peter Zhao Mingzhen, aged 61, Blessed John Baptist Zhao Mingxi, aged 56, Blessed Teresa Chen Tinjieh, aged 25, Blessed Rose Chen Aijieh, aged 22, Blessed Peter Wang Zuolung, aged 58, Blessed Mary Guo born Li, aged 65, Blessed Joan Wu Wenyin, aged 50, Blessed Zhang Huailu, aged 57, Blessed Mark Ki-T'ien-Siang, aged 66, Blessed Ann An born Xin, aged 72, Blessed Mary An born Guo, aged 64, Blessed Ann An born Jiao, aged 26, Blessed Mary An Linghua, aged 29, Blessed Paul Liu Jinde, aged 79, Blessed Joseph Wang Kuiju, aged 37, Blessed John Wang Kuixin, aged 25, Blessed Teresa Zhang born He, aged 36, Blessed Lang born Yang, aged 29, Blessed Paul Lang Fu, aged 9, Blessed Elizabeth Qin born Bian, aged 54, Blessed Simon Qin Cunfu, aged 14, Blessed Peter Liu Zeyu, aged 57, Blessed Ann Wang, aged 14, Blessed Joseph Wang Yumei, aged 68, Blessed Lucy Wang born Wang, aged 31, Blessed Andrew Wang Tianqing, aged 9, Blessed Mary Wang born Li, aged 49, Blessed Chi Zhuze, aged 18, Blessed Mary Zhao born Guo, aged 60, Blessed Rose Zhao, aged 22, Blessed Mary Zhao, aged 17, Blessed Joseph Yuan Gengyin, aged 47, Blessed Paul Ge Tingzhu, aged 61, Blessed Rose Fan Hui, aged 45. The fact that this considerable number of Chinese lay faithful offered their lives for Christ together with the missionaries who had proclaimed the Gospel to them and had been so devoted to them, is evidence of the depth of the link that faith in Christ establishes. It gathers into a single family people of various races and cultures, strongly uniting them not for political motives but in virtue of a religion that preaches love, brotherhood, peace and justice. Besides all those already mentioned who were killed by the “Boxers”, it is necessary also to remember: Blessed Alberic Crescitelli, a priest of the Pontifical Institute of Foreign Missions of Milan, who carried out his ministry in Southern Shanxi and was martyred on 21 July 1900. Some years later, members of the Salesian Society of St John Bosco were added to the considerable number of martyrs recorded above: Blessed Louis Versiglia, Bishop, Blessed Callistus Caravario, Priest. They were killed together on 25 February 1930 at Li-Thau-Tseul.

The Martyrs of Gorkum from the CE

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06651c.htm

The year 1572, Luther and Calvin had already wrested from the Church a great part of Europe. The iconoclastic storm had swept through the Netherlands, and was followed by a struggle between Lutheranism and Calvinism in which the latter was victorious. In 1571 the Calvinists held their first synod, at Embden. On 1 April of the next year the Watergeuzen (Sea-beggars) conquered Briel and later Vlissingen and other places. In June, Dortrechtand Gorkum fell into their hands and at Gorkum they captured nine Franciscans. These were: Nicholas Pieck,guardian of Gorkum, Hieronymns of Weert, vicar, Theodorus van der Eem, of Amersfoort, Nicasius Janssen, of Heeze, Willehad of Denmark, Godefried of Mervel, Antonius of Weert, Antonius of Hoornaer, and Franciseus de Roye, of Brussels. To these were added two lay brothers from the same monastery, Petrus of Assche and Cornelius of Wyk near Duurstede. Almost at the same time the Calvinists laid their hands on the learned parishpriest of Gorkum, Leonardus Vechel of Bois-le-Duc, who had made distinguished studies in Louvain, and also has assistant Nicolaas Janssen, surnamed Poppel, of Welde in Belgium. With the above, were also imprisoned Godefried van Duynsen, of Gorkum who was active as a priest in his native city, and Joannes Lenartz of Oisterwljk, an Augustinian and director of the convent of Augustinian nuns in Gorkum. To these fifteen, who from the very first underwent all the sufferings and torments of the persecution, were later added four more companions: Joannes van Hoornaer, a Dominican of the Cologne province and parish priest not far from Gorkum, who, when apprised of the incarceration of the clergy of Gorkum, hastened to the city in order to administer the sacraments to them and was seized and imprisoned with the rest, Jacobus Lacops of Oudenaar, a Norbertine, who after leading a frivolous life, being disobedient to his order, and neglectful of his religious duties, reformed, became a curate in Monster, Holland and was imprisoned in 1572; Adrianus Janssen of Hilvarenbeek, at one time a Premonstratensian and parish priest in Monster, who was sent to Brielle with Jacobus Lacops; and lastly Andreas Wouters of Heynoord, whose conduct was not edifying up to the time of his arrest, but who made ample amends by his martyrdom.


After enduring much suffering and abuse in the prison at Gorkum (26 June-6 July) the first fifteen martyrs were transferred to Brielle. On their way to Dortrecht they were exhibited for money to the curious and arrived atBrielle 13 July. On the following day, Lumey, the commander of the Watergeuzen, caused the martyrs to be interrogated and ordered a sort of disputation. In the meantime the four other martyrs also arrived. It was exacted of each that he abandon his belief in the Blessed Sacrament and in papal supremacy. All remained firm in their faith. Meanwhile there came a letter from William of Orange which enjoined all those in authority to leavepriests and religious unmolested. Nevertheless Lumey caused the martyrs to be hanged in the night of 9 July, in a turfshed amid cruel mutilations. Their beatification took place on 14 Nov., 1675, and their canonization on 29 June, 1865. For many years the place of their martyrdom in Brielle has been the scene of numerous pilgrimagesand processions.

Returning to Carmelite Spirituality

I shall be going on a short retreat for two days and will change the focus of this blog from the Framing Prayer series to reports on the talks given by Fr. Dan Samuel. However, as promised, I shall return to a few more insight from St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross and Elizabeth of the Trinity.

More later.

Continued The Soul of The Apostolate

Elizabeth of the Trinity, like Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, will be on hold until the books I am borrowing come in the post. But, I still want to share ideas from The Soul of the Apostolate, and, as everything is connected, this is good.

“Outside of Christ,” says St. Jerome, in his turn, “I am powerlessness itself.” The Seraphic Doctor, in the fourth book of his Compendium Theologiae, enumerates the five chief characteristics which the power of Christ takes on in us. The first is that it undertakes difficult things and confronts obstacles with courage: “Have courage and let your heart be strong.” 29 The second is contempt for the things of this earth: “I have suffered the loss of all things and counted them but as dung that I may gain Christ.” 30 The third is patience under trial: “Love is strong as death.” 31 The fourth is resistance to temptation: “As a roaring lion he goeth about . . . whom resist ye, strong in faith.” s” The fifth is interior martydrom, that is, the testimony not of blood but of one’s very life, crying out to Christ: “I want to belong to Thee alone.” It consists in fighting the concupiscences, in overcoming vice and in working manfully for the acquisition of virtues: “I have fought a good fight.”  

While the exterior man counts on his own natural powers, the man of interior life, on the other hand, sees them as nothing but helps; useful helps, no doubt, but far from being everything that he needs. The sense of his weakness and his faith in the power of God give him, as they did to St. Paul, the exact limit of his strength. When he sees the obstacles that rise up one after another before him, he cries out in humble pride: “When I am weak, then am I powerful”  

“Without interior life,” says Pius X, “we will never have strength to persevere in sustaining all the difficulties inseparable from any apostolate, the coldness and lack of cooperation even on the part of virtuous men, the calumnies of our adversaries, and at times even the jealousy of friends and comrades in arms . . . Only a patient virtue, unshakably based upon the good, and at the same time smooth and tactful, is able to move these difficulties to one side and diminish their power.” “ By the life of prayer, comparable to the sap flowing from the vine into the branches, the divine power comes down upon the apostle to strengthen the understanding by giving it a firmer footing in faith. The apostle makes progress because this virtue lights his path with its clear brilliance. He goes forward with resolution because he knows where he wants to go, and how to arrive at his goal. 

The Illuminative State becomes a reality.

This enlightenment is accompanied by such great supernatural energy in the will that even a weak and vacillating character becomes capable of heroic acts. Thus it is that the principle, “abide in Me,”in union with the Immutable, with Him who is the Lion of Juda and the Bread of the strong, explains the miracle of invincible constancy and perfect firmness, which were united, in so marvelous an apostle as was St. Francis de Sales, with a humility and tact beyond compare. The mind and the will are strengthened by the interior life, because love is strengthened. Christ purifies our love and directs and increases it as we go on. He allows us to share in the movements of compassion, devotion, abnegation, and selflessness of His adorable Heart. If this love increases until it becomes a passion, then Jesus takes all the natural and supernatural powers of man, and exalts them to the limit, and uses them for Himself. Thus it is easy to judge what an increase of merit will flow from the multiplication of energies given by the interior life, when one remembers that merit depends less upon the difficulty that may be entailed by an action, than upon the intensity of charity with which it is carried out. 

It Gives Him Joy and Consolation only a burning and unchangeable love is capable of filling a whole life with sunlight, for it is love that possesses the secret of gladdening the heart even in the midst of great sorrows and crushing fatigue. The life of an apostolic worker is a tissue of sufferings and hard work. What hours of sadness, anxiety, and gloom await the apostle who has not the conviction that he is loved by Christ — no matter how buoyant his character may be — unless perhaps the demon fowlers make the mirror of human consolations and of apparent success glitter before this simple bird, to draw him into their inextricable nets. Only the man-God can draw from a soul this superhuman cry: “I exceedingly abound with joy in all our tribulation.”  In the midst of my inmost trials, the Apostle is saying, the summit of my being, like that of Jesus at Gethsemane, tastes a joy that, though it has nothing sensible about it, is so real that, in spite of the agony suffered by my interior self, 1 would not exchange it for all the joys of the world. 

When trials come, or contradiction, humiliation, suffering, the loss of possessions, even the loss of those we love, the soul will accept all these crosses in a far different manner than would have been the case at the beginning of his conversion. 

From day to day he grows in charity. His love has nothing spectacular about it, perhaps; the Master may give him the treatment accorded to strong souls and lead him through the ways of an ever more and more profound annihilation or by the path of expiation for himself and for the world. It matters little. Protected by his recollection, nourished by the Holy Eucharist, his love grows without ceasing, and the proof of this growth is to be found in the generosity with which he sacrifices and abandons himself; in the devotedness which urges him to press forward, careless of the difficulty, to find those souls upon whom he is to exercise his apostolate with such patience, prudence, tact, compassion, and ardor as can only be explained by the penetration of the life of Christ in him. Vivit vero in me Cbristus. The Sacrament of love must be the Sacrament of Joy. There is no interior soul that is not in the same time a Eucharistic soul, and consequently, one who enjoys inwardly the gift of God, delights in His presence, and tastes the sweetness of the Beloved possessed within the soul and there adored.

The life of the apostolic man is a life of prayer. And the Saint of Ars says: “The life of prayer is the one big happiness on this earth. O marvelous life! The wonder of the union of a soul with God! Eternity will not be long enough to understand this happiness …. The interior life is a bath of love, into which the soul may plunge entirely…. And there the soul is, as it were, drowned in love. . . . God holds the interior soul the way a mother holds her baby’s head in her hand, to cover him with kisses and caresses.” Further, our joy is nourished when we contribute to cause the object of our love to be served and honored. The apostle will know all these joys. Using active works to increase his love, he feels, at the same time, an increase of joy and consolation. A “hunter of souls” — venator animarum — he has the joy of contributing to the salvation of beings that would have been damned, and thus he has the joy of consoling God by giving His souls from whom He would have been separated for eternity. 

Zeal for souls is a real sign of the Illuminative State. One sees constantly with the Mind of Christ.

And finally he has the joy of knowing that he thus obtains for himself one of the firmest guarantees of progress in virtue and of eternal glory. 

Refines His Purity of Intention The man of faith judges active works by quite a different light from the man who lives in outward things. What he looks at is not so much the outward appearance of things, as their place in the divine plan and their supernatural results. And so, considering himself as a simple instrument, his soul is all the more filled with horror at any self-satisfaction in his own endowments, because he places his sole hope of success in the conviction of his own helplessness and confidence in God alone. 

Thus he is confirmed in a state of abandonment. And as he passes through his various difficulties, how different is his attitude from that of the apostle who knows nothing of intimacy with Christ! Furthermore, this abandonment does not in the least diminish his zeal for action. He acts as though success depended entirely on his own activity, but in point of fact he expects it from God alone.38 He has no trouble subordinating all his projects and hopes to the unfathomable designs of a God who often uses failure even better than success to bring about the good of souls. 

Amen to that!

Consequently this soul will remain in a state of holy indifference with respect to success or failure. He is always ready to say: “O my God, Thou dost not will that the work I have begun should be completed. It pleases Thee that I confine myself acting valiantly, yet ever peacefully, to making efforts to achieve results, but that I leave to Thee alone the task of deciding whether Thou wilt receive more glory from my success, or from the act of virtue that failure will give me the opportunity to perform. Blessed a thousand times be Thy holy and adorable Will, and may I, with the help of Thy grace, know just as well how to repel the slightest symptoms of vain complacency, if Thou shouldst bless my work, as to humble myself and adore Thee if Thy Providence sees fit to wipe out everything that my labors have produced.”

Those who love the Bride of Christ, the Church both mourn and love her.

The heart of the apostle bleeds, in very truth, when he beholds the sufferings of the Church, but his manner of suffering has nothing in common with that of the man animated by no supernatural spirit. This is easily seen when we consider the behavior and the feverish activity of the latter as soon as difficulties arise, and when we look at his fits of impatience and of dejection, his despair sometimes, his complete collapse in the presence of ruins beyond repair. 

This next section could be called a description of a saint in action and in contemplation.

The genuine apostle makes use of everything, success as well as failure, to increase his hope and expand his soul in confident abandonment to Providence. There is not the slightest detail of his apostolate that does not serve as the occasion for an act of faith. There is not a moment of his persevering toil that does not give him a chance to prove his love, for by practicing custody of the heart he manages to do everything with more and more perfect purity of heart, and by his abandonment he makes his ministry day by day more selfless. Thus, every one of his acts takes on ever more and more of the character of sanctity, and his love of souls, which at the outset was mixed with many imperfections, gets purer and purer all the time; he ends up by only seeing these souls in Christ and loving them only in Christ, and thus, through Christ, he brings them forth to God. “My children, of whom I am in labor again, until Christ be formed in you.” 30 f. 


It Is a Firm Defense Against Discouragement --important for our times.

Bossuet has a sentence which is beyond the comprehension of an apostle who does not realize what must be the soul of his apostolate. It runs: “When God desires a work to be wholly from His hand, he reduces all to impotence and nothingness, and then He acts.” Nothing wounds God so much as pride. And yet when we go out for success, we can get to such a point, by our lack of purity of intention, that we set ourselves up as a sort of divinity, the principle and end of our own works. This idolatry is an abomination in the sight of God. And so when He sees that the activities of the apostle lack that selflessness which His glory demands from a creature, he sometimes leaves the field clear for secondary causes to go to work, and the building soon comes crashing down. The workman faces his task with all the fire of his nature — active, intelligent, loyal. Perhaps he realizes brilliant success. He even rejoices in them. He takes complacency in them. It is his work. All his! Vent, vidi, vici. He has just about appropriated this famous saying to himself. But wait a little. Something happens, with the permission of God; a direct attack by Satan or the world is inflicted upon the work or even the person of the apostle; result, total ruin. But far more tragic is the interior upheaval in this ex-champion — the product of his sorrow and discouragement. The greater was his joy, the more profound his present state of dejection. Only Our Lord is capable of raising up this wreck. “Get up,” He says to the discouraged apostle, “and instead of acting alone, take to your work again, but with Me, in Me, and by Me.” But the miserable man no longer hears this voice. He has become so lost in externals that it would take a real miracle of grace for him to hear it — a miracle upon which his repeated infidelities give him no right to count. Only a vague conviction of the Power of God and of His Providence hovers over the desolation of this benighted failure, and it is not enough to drive away the clouds of sadness which continue to envelop him. What a different sight is the real priest, whose ideal it is to reproduce Our Lord! For him, prayer and holiness of life remain the two chief ways of acting upon the Heart of God and on the hearts of men. Yes, he has spent himself, and generously too. But the mirage of success seemed to him to be something unworthy of the undivided attention of a real apostle. Let storms come if they will, the secondary cause that produced them is of no importance. In the midst of a heap of ruins, since he has worked only with Our Lord, he hears clearly in the depths of his heart the “Fear not” — noli timere — which gave back to the disciples, in the storm, their peace and confidence. He runs to renew his love of the Blessed Sacrament, his deep, personal devotion to the Sorrows of Our Lady; and that is the first result of the trial. His soul, instead of being crushed by failure, comes out of the wine