Raissa's Journal Perfection Series VIII Part XXXIV

It is not a coincidence that my reading of Raissa's Journal, with selections written in France at the outbreak of WWII should occur this week.

The anxiety and terror of two women, Raissa and her sister, Vera, both Jewish converts to Catholicism, bubbled up at the beginning of war in 1939. Vera was given by God several consoling messages regarding the fact that they would be safe and that Paris would not burn.

Seeing the Seine for the first time in my life allowed me a glimpse of the love the Parisians have for their city. I hope to go back and have time for the usual touristy things, which I did not in my travels during the past few days.

raira

Vera's words from God encouraged all of those who lived in the house, but sadly, the three, Vera, Jacques and Raissa were to go to Toronto, into exile, for safety.

Raissa knew that the war was a direct result of man's sins. That God gave men and women free will and that some used it against Christ and His Reign on Earth could not be denied.

I understand what it feels like, the intense suffering of having to leave one's home and go into exile. Raissa lost Meudon, where she had been given the Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, where she felt safe and able to carry on her deep prayer. Jacques notes in the Journal that at some point, God denies the person called to contemplation, the place where this is easily done.

I understand this perfectly. Jacques writes this, “She was flung into the hazards of the swirling waters of the world and found herself henchforth having to contend, and in particularly hostile circumstances, with the relentless energy of things which make man dispersed. She had to wrench by sheer force from the malevolent hours whatever time she could, however scrappy, for that contemplative prayer without which it impossible for her to live.”

The huge difference between Raissa and myself, flung into increasingly hostile places, is that she was already in the Illuminative and then Unitive States. Because of her high level of contemplation, Raissa kept this mode of being constantly, underneath all that she did and endured.

This, my Dear Readers, is what to which God is calling all of us in order to be able to endure what is coming.

Raissa writes this: “My own life, my very imperfect life, has reached that maturity of soul which is acquired only at the price of extra-ordinary misfortune, personal or otherwise; that age at which nothing is let of childhood or of happiness of living. My life comes to this climax much less because of the trials that I myself have endured, than because of the misfortune which has fallen upon all humanity. For justice wears mourning, the afflicted are not—cannot--be consoled, the persecuted are not succoured, because God's truth is not spoken, and suddenly the world has become to little, so narrowed for the spirit , by the monotony of that lie which rules it and which almost alone make itself heard.”

This is from another book I have, We Have Been Friends Together.

Is this not the call of all today who are in the remnant?

For many years, I have, like Raissa, been without a dwelling of my own, without my own things, and in exile. Raissa calls this “the divine bitterness of living and dying.” As soon as the Gestapo entered Paris, they began looking for Jacques, now safely in America for however long the occupation would last. Raissa suffered terribly not only from this exile, but from the worry of her loved friends in Poland and other places. She also suffered from those enemies of Jacques, who were in the Vatican undermining his important work of neo-Thomism.

Sadly, a bit later than this time, their great friend Henri Bergson died without baptism. This was his desire in wanting to identify with the Jews being persecuted under the Nazis. Raissa was finally, in December of 1940, given the knowledge that Jesus was her only place of peace in the world, and from this knowledge, she came into some peace.

For those who have never been forced to give up their homes, and all the things they love, this message must seem unreal. However, we are on the edge of those times again, and I am merely the lighthouse, showing others what is to come in the darkness.

We are on the edge of that darkness.

Raissa's Journal Continued Perfection Series VIII Part XXXIII

The fact that 100,000 Jews have left Paris in the past year, out of 400,000, and many more are seriously considering leaving, reveals the fact that the French government cannot protect its own citizens, many of whom have had families here for over 400 years.

Raissa at the end of 1945, discovered the loss of many of her friends in the Holocaust. She wrote this:

"....speaking of the six million of whom so little is said, we counted very close friends among them: three of the Jacobs--the old mother, his daughter Babet, his son Manu....And Fondane and his sister and the elder brother of our friends Jean an Suzanne Marx...And, as you know, when one can put a name to a few of those who died in Auschwitz, in Belsen, or in Dachau and call up a face among the, the vast sorrow one feels for all the other victims itself assumes a face which haunts you with unspeakable horror and compassion. In spite of all this, God preserves in our souls a weight and stability of peace which I cannot understand; it is thus, no doubt, and much more powerfully still, that he preserved the souls of martyrs against despair." pp. 303-304.

We shall face this again and again as Catholics. Are you getting ready?

On Failure....

Raissa noted the death of Charles du Bos. She quoted him as stating, “The mark of a great life is failure.”

When I first read this, as a younger person, I skimmed over this mysterious line. But, now, I understand, at least is part, what this means.

First of all, one must understand that success in the world is not the same as living a great life. One knows “great” people who did not have success in this life. The list proves to be endless: all the martyrs, such as SS. Edmund Campion, or Philip Howard, or Margaret Clitherow; those who were simple in the eyes of the world who never obtained “success”, such as Joseph Cupertino, Gemma Galgani or Pier Georgio Frassati and so on.

It is one thing to say that saints did not have success, but another thing to note that they experienced failure.

Failure is absolutely not tolerated by modern society. If someone fails at a career, or financially, or even in relationships, that person evokes either disdain or pity, but not admiration.

So, what did Charles du Bos mean by failure?

One can only surmise, but here is my take on this mysterious sentence.

One must fail in one's self, one's pride, one's own confidence in order to find the love of God. One cannot be “successful” in the eyes of God. One is merely a creature prone to sin and doomed to die.

In fact, the lives of the saints reveal failure consistently.

For example, St. Bernadette died from a long and painful disease, tuberculosis of the bone, and yet, the Blessed Virgin showed her the location for the sacred spring which has healed so many generations of faithful Catholics. Bernadette may be see as a failure, one not healed through one's own given charism.

Or, take the case of St. Maximilian Kolbe, who resisted the Nazis and ended up in prison, in a concentration camp, being put to death for sacrificing his life for another. In the eyes of the State and many people, his death would be considered the end of a life of failure.

Or, take dear and glorious St. Joseph, hardly recognized even in the Gospels, yet chosen to be the Foster-Father of Christ, the Son of God. Joseph, a humble and lowly carpenter, living in poverty all his life, may easily be seen as a failure in the eyes of the world.

To be a failure could mean that one allowed God to strip one of all pretensions and false views, to destroy the ego, and make room for God in one's soul.

Some people fail in their careers, some in the eyes of their families, and yet, these same people carry the light of God into the world.

To have a “great” life may be a subjective ideal, but one cannot deny that those saints whom the Church venerates form a groups of considerable failures.

Defiance!

The French do demonstrations better than any national group--all over France today more pro-freedom marches are due.

I hope others than Hollande refer to the Antisemitism. 700,000 demonstrated yesterday, and more will today.

Excellent Article

http://www.france24.com/en/20150110-land-free-speech-stays-taboo/

and interesting one

http://www.france24.com/en/20150108-paris-attack-charlie-hebdo-french-unity-far-right-national-front-lepen-hollande-republic/

Helping Europe Find Europe

One of the hard lessons of the past few days here in France is that Europe must rediscover her spirituality, her true religion, the Catholic Faith. He wrote that famous sentence, "Europe is the Faith, and the Faith is Europe."

Many people have disagreed with this statement, but not I, as I taught Belloc and most of his books for years. 

 The point of this statement is that the Church created not merely the culture of Europe, but the civilization of Europe and Europe protected the Church until the Protestant Revolt, which destroyed both the unity of the Faith and Christendom.

One cannot be see that the identity of Europe may be beyond recognition. Can we help Europe be Europe, by spreading the Gospel, or it is too late?

Many people I have spoken with in the past few days believe it is too late to save Europe, that the preoccupation with materialism and consumerism, secularism and cynicism, has created generations of those who no longer understand the religious yearnings of men and women.

Many people still deny that a "religion" is behind the recent murders. Some deny that religion can be a positive force in creating civilization.

Europe is at a crossroads. One cannot have witnessed all the carnage of the past few days and not admit that this is so.

It is sad that the EU no longer wants missionaries, either from Africa or from America. The draconian immigration laws of some nations allow in terrorists, while denying the need for Catholic missionaries, lay, clerical, religious.

One more Belloc quotation seems timely today:

The story must not be neglected by any modern, who may think in error that the East has finally fallen before the West, that Islam is now enslaved—to our political and economic power at any rate if not to our philosophy. It is not so. Islam essentially survives, and Islam would not have survived had the Crusade made good its hold upon the essential point of Damascus. Islam survives. Its religion is intact; therefore its material strength may return. Our religion is in peril, and who can be confident in the continued skill, let alone the continued obedience, of those who make and work our machines? ... There is with us a complete chaos in religious doctrine.... We worship ourselves, we worship the nation; or we worship (some few of us) a particular economic arrangement believed to be the satisfaction of social justice.... Islam has not suffered this spiritual decline; and in the contrast between [our religious chaos and Islam's] religious certitudes still strong throughout the Mohammedan world lies our peril. Hilaire Belloc, The Crusades, 1937

Aftershocks

http://www.france24.com/en/20150110-france-security-intelligence-charlie-hebdo-terrorist-attacks-qaeda/

http://www.france24.com/en/20150110-france-police-hunt-accomplices-deadly-attacks-paris/

Talking to my Arab expert friend--Define what it means to be French

Today, I had a chance to speak with a friend of mine who is an expert in Arabic culture, language, and Muslim culture and language. He has taught these subjects at the university level. I shall not share his name.

He said the French need to get together and pray and they need to find out what is really means to be French.

They have forgotten, said this man, that to be French, the identity of being French is not the same as nationalism.

Patriotism is not nationalism.

What does it mean to be French? What separates a French man or woman from other peoples?

Even Sartre and Camus, or Foucault, had a line of departure, which was Catholic, liberal arts education.

This is missing.

"Prayer and study is what they need," he stated.

"The French cannot believe the secular myth that all peoples are the same and that all religions are the same. They need to reassess what it means to be French. What would Charles Martel have done, or Louis XIV?"

A new priest from a traditional school

Father Stephen Morrison is the first priest from the boys of Chavagnes. There are two teachers who have become priests. But,  the new priest is the first alumnus of Chavagnes International College.

The school has been a resource for parents who want a traditional Catholic education based on the English style of boarding.

Chavagnes lies in the great historically Catholic are of The Vendee. Headmaster Ferdi McDermott said today that "Father Morrison was with us for three years and played a key role in building up our school. Our boys today are inspired by him and his example."


http://marklambert.blogspot.fr/2014/12/father-stephen-morrisons-first-ef.html

For more information about Chavagnes, look here. http://www.chavagnes.org/

Raissa on Separation-The Anathemata Perfection Series VIII Part XXXVl

Raissa notes again and again that she is separated from others, events, the world.

This separation happens and is not the same as withdrawal.

Withdrawal from the world is an act of the will. Many who go into monasteries willingly withdraw from the world.

However, to become separated indicates that God is taking the initiative in removing a person from those around her. One can be in the world and still separated and one could be withdrawn and still worldly.

The state of separation by definition shows us that there are two worlds. These two worlds can be understood by those who are in this state of separation. As Raissa points out, if a person does not understand what God is doing, one can become confused.

This was never my problem. One suffers in the "separated" state, as Raissa makes clear. One is not allowed to be attached to people, time, place, circumstances.

Why God demands this separation is unclear but I have a theory.

In the days of the Old Testament, a sheep or goat was chosen once a year and the high priest took this animal into the Temple, In a ritual, the priest would say all the sins of the community over this animal, the "scapegoat. Then, this animal was taken out into the desert and let go. Of course, it would die, eventually, either from thirst and the elements or from a natural predator.

The scapegoat was called "the anathemata", a word which means both one thing and the opposite. The anathemata was both considered highly sacred and highly sinful.

Christ is the ultimate anathemata, taking the sins of the world onto Himself, like the scapegoat, innocent, but carrying the burden of sins on His own Body.

Thus, Christ is both Sacred and Profane on the Cross. He is given back to God, like the scapegoat was given to God, and even like the Greeks, who invented this word, made something sacred and gave it back to the gods.

Of course, I think the most elegant and profound long poem ever written in the English language is David Jones' The Anathemata, which is about Christ and the Eucharist.

Raissa reveals her personal knowledge of being separated, being set apart by God to be sacred and to do reparation for the sins of others.

We do not choose this state, but God does. and only those who are separated know the great pain of this call.

Some Catholics are anathemata.

I have some original David Jones' in a box in Silvis. How I wish I could access my stuff.....

  

The Progress of Holiness

God is purifying Europe. He will purify the States.

It is just a matter of time.

The Sin of Cynicism

Matthew 18 New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition 

18 At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” 2 He called a child, whom he put among them, 3 and said, “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. 4 Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. 5 Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.

One of the most common sins which is not being defined as sin by too many who should know better is the sin of cynicism.

Cynicism is more than just distrust or doubt. It is a firm conviction that most people are evil and that one is doomed to suffering.

Now, some seculars think that this approach is the same as that of a Christian. We think many situations reveal evil and we also see the redemptive aspect of suffering.

But, the Christian knows that suffering has been overcome because of Christ on the Cross.

And, the Christian knows that people choose evil but do not have to do so. No one is "doomed" to evil. All humans have been given sufficient grace for salvation.

We all have free will and we all can choose good.

A cynic lacks a sense of humanity, what humans are called to be naturally and supernaturally.

A cynic may be someone who is disillusioned or jaded. A cynic has lost faith in God to move humans to become human. The cynic only sees the negative and not the entire picture, that men and women are created in God's image and likeness and that we have lost the likeness, which is grace.

Cynics believe that to see men and women as capable of goodness and virtue amounts to naivete. Hope can be natural, but it can also be supernatural, when it is based on the virtue of faith in God and His grace.


The cynic does not believe that we are called to become like little children...that we are called to trust in God.

The cynic does not believe that a person can become a saint, or become perfect.

Perhaps, the cynic does not really believe in Redemption, in Christ's sacrifice to free us from sin and death.

Sadly, the true cynic cannot see God working in the lives of individuals or society. Indeed, this is sad.

Some commentators have sent notes which reveal the sin of cynicism. I do not publish these, as sin has no part in rational discussions and sometimes cynicism reveals an underlying state of depression, which should not be publicized.

I pray that young people do not fall into cynicism. I pray that they see this as a sin against the First Commandment, a serious slight against God and Divine Providence.

The Generous Soul Perfection Series VIII Part XXXV

Raissa writes that generous souls die quickly to self; those who are not generous take longer in the Dark Night of the Soul. She claims she was not generous. I find this hard to believe. Some people seem to be in the Dark Night of the Soul longer than others. Why this is so one cannot judge from the outside. Perhaps God uses some people's sufferings for the benefit of others, Perhaps those who are in the Dark Night suffer not only for themselves but for others.

We cannot know the mind of God regarding the length of time it takes someone to become purified or holy. We cannot know the mind, heart, soul, imagination and will of another person.

But, for someone as gentle and holy as Raissa to have such a long period of purgation is a great mystery.

Perhaps, she was suffering for her husband Jacques, so that his work in neo-Thomism would be successful.

Perhaps she was suffering for the world, out of war and into war so quickly.

Perhaps, she was suffering for the Jewish people, her people.

When one suffers before purgation is complete, the suffering is not perfect, is not pure. Yet, there is always some merit in such suffering, but not as much as would have been gained after purification.

Raissa gives us a hint of her suffering. "By renouncing the good things of this world, which , in certain cases more numerous than one might think, sin would have procured us--by giving to God our human and temporal happiness, we give him proportionately as much as he give us, because we give him our all, the widow's mite of the Gospel."

Suffering involves mystery.

(please note that the numbering of this series is not in order of publication--explain later)

The Way of The Saints

We live in times some of us did not expect to witness. Some of us did.

Those of us who read the works of great minds of the past knew that these times would come upon us.

My mother lived through WWII and my dad fought in that war. They experienced much hardship and suffering which most people my age did not have to endure.

Three generations have passed since then and most of those in the Boomers, Gen X and Millennials did not have to suffer the great violence we are now witnessing in the world.

The Millennials will have to learn how to suffer and endure. The only way to do this is to become more than just "right with God", one has to become holy.

This blog has been dedicated to help all of us become holy.

This blog has used the best minds and souls in the Church to point the way to holiness.

What we have witnessed in France will not be isolated. Those who want to destroy what was once Christendom, the West, hate civilization and all it represents-liberal arts, fine arts. music, gracefulness, beauty.

When we create beauty, we are acting as we should as being created in the image and likeness of God.

God is Beauty, Truth, Peace, Glory and all of those creations which reflect His Being have been passed down in the West.

Western education began because of the great heritage of the Greeks, the Romans and the Catholics, who invented grammar schools, the Trivium and Quadrivium.

The Church encouraged painting, sculpture, music, architecture and drama. The great cathedrals and work of art in the West reflect the patronage of the Church.

Those who hate Christ and His Church hate beauty as they hate life.

Pray for yourselves and your closest ones to not only endure but overcome ugliness, violence, hatred.

Such is the way of the saints.

Dioceses have to pay a fee

..for orders to come into a country in the EU. Did you know that? If a diocese sponsors persons from any religious order or a lay person, to come and set up a religious organization, the diocese has to pay for this; for example, if the SOLT or Franciscan Friars of the Renewal want to come, a diocese has to sponsor and pay for this. Amazing....

Letting The Dead Bury The Dead

Raissa notes that the vocation of the apostle is to walk with eyes fixed on Christ. But, the contemplative also must keep his eyes on Christ, especially Christ crucified.

While the apostles act, speak, preach, the contemplative does not do so, called to pray for the entire Church.

Here is Raissa again, "It is because the role of contemplatives among us is to be mirrors of the Image of God, reservoirs of his grace and his love--the unfailing memory of the Eternal amongst us....A memory without which darkness would obscure the earth. A memory in which we possess the archives of sanctity, for the mystics receive the command to speak...."

Until God takes me totally in silence, in a place, in a real cell, not merely the cell of my mind, I shall share the crumbs of memory which God gives me.

Today, in France, we have seen the darkness which is covering the earth because of evil, because of those who do not know Christ and His Love.

"Be still and know that I am God" is the command of deep prayer. Love grows in the silence. But, one cannot yet see God, as one may be in the darkness of faith.

The entire Church needs the heart of the contemplative to be totally centered on God, to keep a heart just for Him as a reservoir for those who are on the front lines, in the spiritual warfare. Raissa notes that the number of contemplatives "do not necessarily raise the moral level of society of their day...The grace of sanctity is the fruit of fidelity. To be sanctified and pacified, society too must begin by being faithful. Grace is not hereditary, it is not the patrimony of any one people."

On this day of more death, we should pay attention to these words.

Testing Two Perfection Series VIII Part XXXII

Reading in Raissa's Journal again, I found a comment from Jacques which really impressed me today.

"We are more and more terribly alone." This was written in March of 1935 when the world was becoming more and more secularized, as well as the Catholics becoming more liberal. Even then, two people who were living close to God were feeling and, indeed, isolated.

Another entry from Raissa is about the Dark Night. She writes this, "The time of childish things is over, the time of playing games, of make-believe, of eloquence, of 'let's pretend'---One has at last reached the point of realizing one's ignorance, on the brink of the abyss which separates the creature from the Uncreated."

This was written in 1937.

This is my experience of not being able to imagine or plan or do anything outside of God's Providence and Divine Will. The object of the Dark Night is to cleanse one of self-will and self-love.

Raissa continues. "Then, one no longer lives on anything but the alms of unknown, inapprehensible grace.

One does feel abandon by God, but one makes acts of faith, believing that God is there, despite one's feelings.

I would like my readers to pray for this contemplative vocation to which I have been called. In order to be still, one must be in a place to be still. This has not happened, yet.

And, God calls one to be still. to wait for God seeing Him in the eternal present, not looking at the past at all. Once a person understands that God does not want one going back into the past looking at old sins, trusting in His forgiveness, it is clear that one lives in the now, only.

To be continued...

Testing

Another person who is an English speaker told me he had the same problem with his computer here in France. The trouble is the default of Google.uk or Google.us keep flipping back to Google.fr

If anyone can help.....please contact me asap!

News

http://www.france24.com/en/join-the-community/

Interesting Discovery

One of the things I have qui Discovered in my travels Could Be Labelled "

Qui-have-been homeschool families MOST vulnerable if the working parents is a teacher. I have found out That Many great teachers since the 1990s, Reduced-have-been to Poverty, Because They refuse to compromise Their Catholic beliefs.

There Must Be Some justice in the next world for thesis Difficulties and Sufferings.

My own experience, When I was teaching, led me to NAPCIS schools, qui qui Were the only ones wanted true Catholics. Other schools allowed teachers to compromise the Faith, leading to real problems in the classroom.

Imagine teaching Marriage and Family Life for Two classes three times a week only to find out que la --other two teachers in the Catholic school did not believe in Humanae Vitae and were teaching that contraception is permissible and abortion sometimes necessary.

I assumed all these years that my situation was unusual, in coming against anti-Catholicism in Catholic institutions.

Not so. I guess I am a bit comforted in knowing that I was not the "only one", but to know how many brothers and sisters in Christ who are teachers have suffered for the Faith since the mid-1990s, like myself, only shows the long rot in Catholic education.

This kind of persecution will only get worse.

Because I am blogging in France and this is all being translated automatically from the French, as my own English gets translated into French and then back again into English, the grammar and spelling made me odd.