May those who sow in tears
reap with shouts of joy.
Those who go out weeping,
bearing the seed for sowing,
shall come home with shouts of joy,
carrying their sheaves.
(Psalm 126:5-6)
Death Valley is one of the hottest, driest places on earth. No one expects to find life there and yet something unusual happened during the winter of 2004: it rained a lot. Several inches of rain fell during a short period of time. The spring season of 2005 came and the parched floor of the Death Valley surprised everyone with flowers and grass growing suddenly everywhere. There was life latent under the surface, life patiently waiting for that rain that comes only once in many generations. Death Valley had a hidden Life Valley ready to bloom as soon as there was enough water.
I am sure you guessed my simple analogy. Those who know the history of the Church know that once the Catholic Church bloomed and produced the lush landscape of Western Civilization. The great achievements of yesterday seem almost impossible today in this Church when many temples are empty or closed, when sterile theologies bark from so many pulpits their empty message, and mediocre pastors seek to revive the flock with the bitter waters of paganism.
When the Second Vatican Council came in the 1960’s, Modernism had already dried up many areas of the Church’s life. Back then many were convinced that the Church had to keep up with the times. A number of measures were taken to make the Church more attractive, more Protestant-like, more attuned with the post-war world of optimism and prosperity. That spirit of renewal was not the Spirit. No matter how many doves were painted on the walls of the old edifice, the idea did not do us any good to this day. Liberation Theology, New Age Theosophy, pastoral engagement, the option for the poor, the synodal way, and the walking together, and all those shiny slogans of the “church of nice” did nothing but deepen the crisis. The Church grew in those far away places where brave missionaries lived the Gospel of Jesus Christ with all their hearts, far away from the stifling bureaucracies of Rome and the venomous fumes of the Theology of Liberation. The center of the Church could only come up with mere marketing ideas: the youth encounters, pop music at Mass, and other simplistic proposals that had no depth, only faintly connected to the rich sap of Christ’s words of life, sad copies of Madison Avenue style commercials.
But now we know that the once seemingly unstoppable impulse of Modernism turned out to be all roar and no substance. The pathetic spectacle of the successors of the Apostles of Christ sheepishly participating in a fake pagan ceremony with half naked natives from the Amazon must have filled the devil’s heart with gladness. The proliferation of gigantic concrete shoe-box cathedrals and churches, where cheap music and dubious “dances” try to inject life into a vacuous liturgy, are a witness to the apparent victory of the forces of darkness over the once luminous Catholic Church. The whole thing is a crying shame.
From the pulpits of Christendom, the words of Christ once inspired millions of souls to seek salvation by transforming the world. We are not building anymore. Today, Rome is telling us to obey the United Nations and make sure to sort our garbage to help the global civilization of usury, sodomy and waste last a little longer. Is it any surprise that some are reporting that Rome does not believe in the Divinity of Christ any longer? Is anyone shocked to see Peter denying the Lord anew with words and actions?
This has happened before. The awful night before Calvary, Peter denied the Lord three times and then –as predicted by Jesus– the cock crowed announcing the dawn of a new day. The faithful Church, Mary of Nazareth and John the Divine climbed to Calvary with their Master while the princes of the Church scurried away abandoning Him to the Cross.
For if they do this when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry? (Luke 23:31 NRSVCE)
That was His Passion. This is ours. We are entering the passion of the Church. The parched spiritual landscape, the result of centuries of human effort to expel Christ and his message from the Catholic Church cannot produce anything but death now. The hired pastors have fled, abandoning the flock to its fate. But there is life under the surface. A few will climb with us to Calvary. A few will cry with us as we again seed the world with our blood. The rest will join the abomination and even rejoice in the mere possession of their thirty silver coins of usury and sodomy. But you, think of the words of St. John Climacus: “If you wish to be saved with the few, live like the few.” Take the straight and narrow road that leads to the gate of life. Wait for the rain for this parched land shall blossom under God’s blessing once again, not for a moment but forever.
Be like Mary and John and stick to Him until the bitter end. After the cowards are done denying the Lord thrice, the cock will crow announcing the dawn of a new world.
Praise the Lord!
Sing to the Lord a new song,
his praise in the assembly of the faithful.
Let Israel be glad in its Maker;
let the children of Zion rejoice in their King.
Let them praise his name with dancing,
making melody to him with tambourine and lyre.
For the Lord takes pleasure in his people;
he adorns the humble with victory.
Let the faithful exult in glory;
let them sing for joy on their couches.
Let the high praises of God be in their throats
and two-edged swords in their hands,
to execute vengeance on the nations
and punishment on the peoples,
to bind their kings with fetters
and their nobles with chains of iron,
to execute on them the judgment decreed.
This is glory for all his faithful ones.
Praise the Lord!
(Psalm 149)
On the feast of St Luke the Evangelist.
Recently my bishop visited our parish to listen to what we needed/wanted in a new pastor. In his initial comments he made an interesting observation about the purpose of many of the changes put into effect at Vatican II. He talked about the Euro-centric focus of the Catholic Church in the wake of the horrors of WWII, and the effect of such pervasive hatred that led to that war, and caused the extent of the deaths, especially in Nazi Germany. He talked about how wounded the population had become by it all: the hatred of one another, the evils of the war and the evils of what mankind could do to one another. In response the hierarchy of the Church chose to focus on the opposite of that hatred: love. And they made the focal point of the new teaching of the Church out of Vatican II to be the love of God for all of us, and the forgiveness that Christ promises to us all who love Him.
That made such sense to me. How it could have occurred that way. How the clergy could have bought into that plan… that approach to how to teach Europeans to forgive each other, to forgive themselves of what they’d done.
Problem was, of course, that in the process of assigning love as the solution to everything, the Church stopped teaching everything else. And in the process the people became ignorant of their Faith. We became illiterate, so to speak. Like as to barbarians. Because we no longer knew what we needed to know in order to achieve eternal life with God.
Now we add in some leftists, some liberation theologists, some outright atheists, a whole bunch of sinners as our clergy and the faithful clergy have been shut out, shut down and often silenced.
I am grateful for one modern convenience in all this horror. The advent of technology: the internet, email and even Facebook has meant that we who want to be faithful can find one another and take solace in the fact that there are more of us than “they” want to let on.
We can win this fight. But it is a fight, nevertheless. And the prize is our own souls.
In response to Rita 2019-10-18 at 4:04 p.m.
Very insightful observation, Rita. I almost wish it was true that the Church began to teach love above anything else. It is however a good excuse for the homosexual-masonic-communist cabal to justify firstly their own sodomitic vice, secondly their vision of themselves as gods, and thirdly their warped idea of social justice.
Just not to err by bringing some example that I do not know very well, I will offer my own experience. I was baptized, confirmed, and received my first communion on August 15, 2001 from a late bishop/cardinal belonging to the infamous Sankt Gallen group. I was later persecuted by the very priest that baptized me. He and his friends in the homosexual cabal showed me enough of their “love” and “tolerance” (sarcasm of course!) They are now in charge of almost everything in the Church and soon to be masters (or so they imagine) of planet Earth. That persecution continues unabated to this day. I do not see any love in their behavior. Should you have any doubts, please consult with Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò who can inform anyone about the “loving ways” of the present ecclesiastical establishment. Viganò lives in hiding as we speak. He fears someone in the curia will apply on him the “love and tolerance” they practice so well.
Those enemies of God invoke “love” but their invocation is a dog whistle, Orwellian double-talk for selectively directed hate. Such phrases with a secret meaning for the “understanding” (“entendidos,” in the Latin American homosexual argot) are these: “God does not punish,” or “walking together,” also “option for the poor,” and “a house for all,” etc. which seem innocuous enough to the uninitiated but mean something very different to those in the know.
Every dog will have its day and the hypocrites –that is how Jesus calls them– that have been inflicting all kinds of pain on the faithful will not last long. Even if there was no Internet, we would still be united like the extended Church of the first century was in spite of many enemies and persecutors. We will overcome and survive their pestiferous rule because God is against them and soon to bring about their ruin. Not one of them will escape the infernal rage.
— “And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest render reward to thy servants the prophets and the saints, and to them that fear thy name, little and great, and shouldest destroy them who have corrupted the earth. ” (Revelation 11:18 Douay-Rheims)
— “Without [outside] are dogs [sodomites], and sorcerers, and unchaste, and murderers, and servers of idols, and every one that loveth and maketh a lie.” (Revelation 22:15 Douay-Rheims)
— “But if that wicked slave says to himself, ‘My master is delayed,’ and he begins to beat his fellow slaves, and eats and drinks with drunkards, the master of that slave will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour that he does not know. He will cut him in pieces and put him with the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (Matthew 24:48-51 NRSVCE)
Holy Scripture is clear enough. God have mercy on His faithful.
Oh I can’t say that this bishop was using the change in approach to excuse or even explain the clerical abuse problem, or even the deterioration in holiness of much of clergy itself. Rather, as a free-standing historical description of a change in the Church’s approach to catechesis and a set-up to a discussion about what we felt our parish needed for traits and skills in a new pastor right now.
Of course our parish showed its real need by asking for a pastor who, like the previous pastor, would host things like barbecues in celebration for Pentecost Sunday. When I asked for a pastor who would help us answer the secular demands of the world which views us Catholics as homophobic, misogynistic, narrow minded in every way possible and determined to force our views upon the world…when I asked for a pastor who would help prepare us for action (and reaction) if a nearby library were to plan to invite transvestites to read to children…when I asked for a pastor who would show us what it takes to save our souls… there was silence. Nothing. This parish has no idea that it lacks the tools to be good Catholics.
I am so pleased you were able to hold on to your faith through your abuse. It must have been terrible. I married a man who was a lapsed Catholic and found only after some 15 years of marriage that the reason he left the Church was that he’d been stalked by the 2 parish priests at his church and abused. The worked in consort with one another. I know very little more than that; other than the rage and abject pain & sadness when he let me know. He talked about his parents at the time, “How could they NOT see that something was wrong.” And so that child was left alone and his soul was damaged in unknown ways. He still doesn’t believe in God.
Whenever I reference what happened, I make certain that I don’t associate my full name publicly. Even his children don’t know.
This happened in the late 1950s, well before any Vatican II. So as you say, no sea change in teaching based on a return to peace in Europe explains a sinful, homosexual clergy that was already well at work in the Church. Rather, any shift in method of teaching and preaching just made it easier for them to grow their ranks and thrive.
In response to Rita 2019-10-19 at 10:20 p.m.
Yes, Rita. I have heard a number of those stories. I still hear them from time to time. When I was a kid, a good teacher taught me how to neutralize a grown up in case I was attacked. I had to use that “technique” more than once before I was 16. I would not doubt in using it against a priest or religious if it was necessary. It is a serious sin to punch a priest but if you are attacked by one who is trying to commit a crime, my best guess is that it is perfectly canonical to defend oneself.
This infiltration process is well over 100 years old. Things like this have been happening forever. Now they are convinced there is no God because no one has stopped them yet. God will surprise them.
“When therefore you shall see the abomination of desolation, which was spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place: he that readeth let him understand…. For there shall be then great tribulation, such as hath not been from the beginning of the world until now, neither shall be. And unless those days had been shortened, no flesh should be saved: but for the sake of the elect those days shall be shortened.” (Matthew 24:15-22)
The shortening of the times may apply to the end times in general. Or it can be applied to the time when the abomination becomes visible. That is why I do expect something to happen soon, perhaps before this year is over.
I just finished talking with a friend who told me: “I would go back to Mass but with the things that are happening in Rome, the things you report, I am afraid to go.” That is a poor excuse of course, the man wants God to save him without the bother to behave according to the Ten Commandments but one must see the gravity of the situation when even notorious sinners can rightly accuse the Church of not being virtuous.
If God was to allow that for a long time, it would be incomprehensible.