No smoke. No mirrors. Just a simple, totally “orthodox” explanation of key Old and New Testament Scriptures and the divine connections between the Bible, Jesus, Mary, the Evangelists, the Early Church Fathers, the constant teachings of the Catholic Church, and the authentic beliefs and practices of the Christian faithful.
Most people have probably never heard, read, or seen this information before – but it’s all true and it’s all right there in the Bible, for anyone to plainly see.
by Doug Lawrence
There is a horrific accident. Some people die. Some are spared.
Is it just a random game of numbers, or is there more to this than meets the eye?
Catholics and even some non-Catholic Christians will tell you about their guardian angels – powerful, pure spirit beings, personally assigned by God almighty, to keep us safe from harm.
Even less understood and appreciated are the “Kinsman Redeemers” who step forward to right wrongs and save their people from poverty, starvation, death – and worse.
Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, made man, is the ultimate Kinsman Redeemer, but the Bible shows us many more.
The story of Ruth and Boaz is probably the next most significant, since through their timely meeting and subsequent marriage, the sacred blood line of the coming Messiah was preserved. (See 4:22, below.)
Ruth 4:9-22
(9) And he said to the ancients, and to all the people: You are witnesses this day, that I have bought all that was Elimelech’s, and Chelion’s, and Mahalon’s, of the hand of Noemi:
(10) And have taken to wife Ruth, the Moabitess, the wife of Mahalon, to raise up the name of the deceased in his inheritance lest his name be cut off, from among his family and his brethren and his people. You, I say, are witnesses of this thing.
(11) Then all the people that were in the gate, and the ancients, answered: We are witnesses: The Lord make this woman who cometh into thy house, like Rachel, and Lia, who built up the house of Israel: that she may be an example of virtue in Ephrata, and may have a famous name in Bethlehem:
(12) And that the house may be, as the house of Phares, whom Thamar bore unto Juda, of the seed which the Lord shall give thee of this young woman.
(13) Boaz therefore took Ruth, and married her: and went in unto her, and the Lord gave her to conceive, and to bear a son.
(14) And the women said to Noemi: Blessed be the Lord, who hath not suffered thy family to want a successor: that his name should be preserved in Israel.
(15) And thou shouldst have one to comfort thy soul, and cherish thy old age. For he is born of thy daughter in law: who loveth thee: and is much better to thee, than if thou hadst seven sons.
(16) And Noemi taking the child, laid it in her bosom, and she carried it, and was a nurse unto it.
(17) And the women, her neighbours, congratulating with her, and saying, There is a son born to Noemi, called his name Obed: he is the father of Isai, the father of David.
(18) These are the generations of Phares: Phares begot Esron,
(19) Esron begot Aram, Aram begot Aminadab,
(20) Aminadab begot Nahasson, Nahasson begot Salmon,
(21) Salmon begot Booz, Booz begot Obed,
(22) Obed begot Isai (Jessie), Isai (Jessie) begot David.
Nor are Kinsman Redeemers required to be presently alive, here on earth. Catholics will explain the concept of the Communion of Saints – that great cloud of faithful witnesses who have gone before us – now in Heaven – eternally perfected in God’s power, grace and mercy.
These holy souls have the right to approach the throne of the Most High God with their petitions – hopefully, interceding with him for us – their beloved progeny and “kin”.
This goes much, much further and it is much more powerful than we might imagine – since by virtue of our baptism, we are all adopted children of God – brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ – with his mother – the Blessed Virgin Mary, also ours.
Saint Paul sums things up quite nicely:
Romans 8:28-39
(28) And we know that to them that love God all things work together unto good: to such as, according to his purpose, are called to be saints.
(29) For whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be made conformable to the image of his Son: that he might be the Firstborn amongst many brethren.
(30) And whom he predestined, them he also called. And whom he called, them he also justified. And whom he justified, them he also glorified.
(31) What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who is against us?
(32) He that spared not even his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how hath he not also, with him, given us all things?
(33) Who shall accuse against the elect of God? God is he that justifieth:
(34) Who is he that shall condemn? Christ Jesus that died: yea that is risen also again, who is at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.
(35) Who then shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation? Or distress? Or famine? Or nakedness? Or danger? Or persecution? Or the sword?
(36) (As it is written: For thy sake, we are put to death all the day long. We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.)
(37) But in all these things we overcome, because of him that hath loved us.
(38) For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor might,
(39) Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
So, the next time things turn out miraculously better than you might ever have expected, don’t forget to thank God, thank your guardian angel, and thank your “extended family” in Heaven. (But why wait? Take a moment to give God thanks and praise, right now!)
The article that inspired this post:
Toddler cheats death after car crashes into buggy and crushes it against wall
All witches believe in the power of charms and spells – indeed witchcraft is largely about exercising this power.
What are we to think of this claim to spiritual power through charms, spells, and curses?
From my experience and from consulting people from this and other countries, I have not the slightest doubt that spells and curses do have power, can really affect people, including people who do not know that they have been the object of spells and curses. I am even more certain however, that Jesus can protect his followers from any and every spell and curse, even though they may sometimes have to pass through a difficult time.
Last year I spoke with an English Catholic doctor who had been working in the Pacific islands.
Quite a number of times, people who had been cursed would be brought to the hospital. There was nothing wrong with them physically, but they simply and rapidly faded away and died. He said to me how frustrating it was. He would tell them with vigour that there was no medical reason for them to die – but they did die!
A missionary from Nigeria told me of a similar case, in which a healthy young man at the university after being cursed by a witch simply declined and died within two weeks.
A member of our monastic community who comes from Ghana assures me that witch doctors’ curses and spells in that country can have real power to harm, including harming people who do not know that they have been cursed. (A Dutch medical anthropologist working in Ghana confirmed this.)
A Catholic doctor in this country consulted me about the case of a woman here who had been cursed by another woman at work – and the health of the first woman collapsed and remained collapsed in a way which was medically inexplicable.
A Catholic man from the third world came to us one evening seeking help. He had been a university lecturer and indeed a government minister in his country. His wife, from whom he has separated, was very deeply involved in witchcraft and she had got him cursed by ‘experts’. His life was now in a state of total disarray and he could not concentrate to read a book or write letters – and there were other very difficult problems.
In the name of Jesus we prayed against all curses and demonic attacks. He was immediately much better, and after a few more sessions he was able to work normally again. He then got a responsible job in an organisation helping the third world.
In nearly all third world countries the people living there seem to believe in the power of curses and spells. Indeed, their lives may become an existence of fear and misery, unless they have a truly living faith in Jesus.
Increasingly, also in our own country and the rest of the first world, people are coming up against the power of the occult and witchcraft. How sad it is to find Catholics, including some priests, who do not believe in the existence of demons and who therefore are not able fully to help so many needy people.
Excerpted from:
I Saw Satan Fall – The Ways of Spiritual Warfare by Benedict Heron OSB
While there is no indication that Francis knows the writings of Bernardin, who died in 1996, many say the pope’s remarks repeatedly evoke Bernardin’s signature teachings on the “consistent ethic of life” – the view that church doctrine champions the poor and vulnerable from womb to tomb – and on finding “common ground” to heal divisions in the church.
Ironically, the re-emergence of Bernardin — a man who was admired by a young Chicago organizer named Barack Obama — is exposing the very rifts he sought to bridge, especially among conservatives who thought his broad view of Catholicism was buried with him in Mount Carmel Cemetery, outside Chicago.
Editor’s note: Pope Francis’ ill considered rhetoric has already alienated a good part – the most consistently faithful part – of the Catholic Church.
No “seamless garment” is going to be able to patch that up.
At least the late Cardinal Bernadin (who was my archbishop, as well as a working associate of Barack Obama/Barry Sotero) managed to conduct his nefarious business without insulting huge numbers of Catholics and that’s probably why he was such a remarkably effective operator.
Thank God he died before they could elect him pope!
Let’s take the Mass, for instance.
Scott Hahn, a world-renowned Catholic theologian converted from evangelical Calvinism, surreptitiously attended a Catholic Mass in Wisconsin in the early 1980s before his conversion. Bible in hand, he began to follow this “strange” liturgy in an attempt to take notes and return to his students to show how the Catholic Mass was the ultimate sacrilege.
Long story short, Hahn states that “something hit me.” He realized that the words on the liturgy of the Mass were coming from the open Bible beside him. A line from Isaiah, another from Paul, another from a psalm.
Hahn learned later that during the Liturgy of the Word, Catholics, over a three-year period, hear the Scriptures proclaimed from the Old and New Testaments and the four Gospels. Furthermore, Hahn points out, during the Eucharistic Liturgy part of the Mass, the believer is drawn not only into the Last Supper but also into the glorious New Heavenly Jerusalem of the Book of Revelation with all its hymns and praises.
FAITH
Faith in God
1. Who made you?
God made me.
2. Why did God make you?
God made me to know him, love him and serve him in this world, and to be happy with him for ever in the next.
3. To whose image and likeness did God make you?
God made me to his own image and likeness.
4. Is this likeness to God in your body, or in your soul?
This likeness to God is chiefly in my soul.
5. How is your soul like to God?
My soul is like to God because it is a spirit, and is immortal.
6. What do you mean when you say that your soul is immortal?
When I say my soul is immortal, I mean that my soul can never die.
7. Of which must you take more care, of your body or of your soul?
I must take more care of my soul; for Christ has said, ‘What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and suffers the loss of his own soul?’ (Matt. 16:26)
8. What must you do to save your soul?
To save my soul I must worship God by Faith, Hope and Charity; that is, I must believe in him, I must hope in him, and I must love him with my whole heart.
9. What is faith?
Faith is a supernatural gift of God, which enables us to believe without doubting whatever God has revealed.
10. Why must you believe whatever God has revealed?
I must believe whatever God has revealed because God is the very truth, and can neither deceive nor be deceived.
11. How are you to know what God has revealed?
I am to know what God has revealed by the testimony, teaching, and authority of the Catholic Church.
12. Who gave the Catholic Church divine authority to teach?
Jesus Christ gave the Catholic Church divine authority to teach, when he said, ‘Go therefore, make disciples of all the nations’. (Matt. 28:19)
The Ten Commandments For A Husband And Father
I. Develop an intimate, personal relationship with Jesus, allowing Him to forgive you of your past, to talk to you, to heal you and to guide you. Then, trust the Holy Spirit in all things. Trust Him to provide everything you need, including financial help.
II. Get your priorities in order: Jesus first, your wife second, your children third, your work fourth, etc. Develop a weekly schedule, blocking out quality time for the Lord, your wife, each child and the family as a whole. A husband’s most important time during any given day is the first five minutes when he gets home from work and the love and attention he shows his wife and children at that time. Remember that your human fatherhood is rooted in the Divine Fatherhood of Almighty God (cf. Ephesians 3:14-15; cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2214).
III. Realize that you are the “priest” of the home. It is your primary responsibility to oversee the TV and its influence, the internet and its influence, as well as the books and magazines that enter into your home. You must stand firmly against all evil influences, asking constantly for God’s strength and guidance to lead your family in living a pure, holy and non-violent lifestyle. Esto vir! (Be a man!). A father fosters moral virtue within his home first and foremost by example. Get into the habit of blessing your children – both alone and with your wife – before they go to sleep at night or before they leave the house in the morning.
PRAYER FOR OUR FAMILY Heavenly Father, most good and gracious God, sustain our family in Your love. Make our family home a place where holiness and love abound. In our daily actions, help each one of us to learn to be more like Jesus. Aid our family to imitate the Holy Family of Nazareth: Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Help our family to learn from the good example of those families that especially please You in their way of life. May our family members learn to give good example always by living lives in true Christian faith, hope and love. Assist our family in learning to bear pain and suffering as Jesus did. Aid our family members, too, in overcoming difficulties and carrying their crosses. Help our family life to lead to Jesus Christ, the Source of all Truth and happiness. We ask this through Your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, Who lives and reigns with You in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God for ever and ever. AMEN.
FAMILY PRAYER TO OUR BLESSED MOTHER, MARY Holy Mary, Virgin Mother of God, we seek your patronage and we invoke you under your title “Queen of Families.” O Blessed Mother, you were conceived without sin. May every family choose you this day as the model for their household, along with St. Joseph, your most loving, chaste and caring spouse. Through your Immaculate Conception, preserve all families from every disaster, from all violence and from every misfortune. O Holy Virgin, bless and protect all families, strengthen them in trial and keep them from every evil. AMEN.
Submitted by Robert K.
….We all know there is a liberal narrative of the Council, what Benedict called the “Council of the Media”; but there is also a conservative narrative, one which tries to absolve the Council itself of all possible wrongdoing and place the blame squarely on post-Conciliar innovations. That narrative is no longer plausible after reading this book.
Editor’s note: And just a few short years later, radical hippies similarly hijacked the Democratic Party of the United States.
Once upon a time on a sunny Saturday afternoon during the New Springtime following the Second Vatican Council, a well-meaning Catholic man worked up the courage to invite his Methodist neighbor to join him for Holy Mass.
After Mass the following morning, while enjoying coffee and donuts in the multi-purpose room (sponsored by the Knights of Columbus), the Methodist talked about how at home he felt and how comfortable the entire “service” was for him.
The Catholic wasted little time in seizing the opportunity to suggest that perhaps his neighbor might wish to avail himself of the unity for which Our Lord prayed by converting to the Holy Roman Catholic Church.
The Methodist, unfazed, wiped a dollop of Bavarian cream from his chin and replied, “Thanks for the offer, friend, but as you know, I am validly baptized. In other words, I received the Holy Spirit just as you did in your baptism, and it’s the Spirit that brings us into intimate union with Christ, so that He is the principle of the Church’s unity. Clearly I am not lacking in unity!”
Disarmed but not discouraged, the new evangelist laid hold of the big guns, firing back, “Yes, but the Catholic Church is the solitary means of salvation established by Christ.”
Catholics should be prepared with at least a brief reply to commonly cited events and issues in the Church’s two millennia past.
In the words of Blessed John Henry Newman, we need to be Catholics “who know so much of history that (we) can defend it.”
We might not be able to change someone’s mind when she asks us about why the Church was so mean to Galileo, but at least we can demonstrate that we know our history.
If she’s not willing to listen to a dissertation-length explanation, a few points might help her understand better. The fact that we know may impress her, open the door to more friendly conversation, and grant an opportunity to witness the reason for our joy in being Catholic.
This article offers some guidelines and hints for answering these historical questions.
One advantage any Catholic starts with when discussing our history is the position of the Catholic Church as a historic, unique institution. Our Founder entered human history at a definite place and time, established his Church upon St. Peter and the Apostles, and promised to protect and guide it until the end of time, when he returns.
With the Father, he sent the Holy Spirit to inspire it; yet he left imperfect humans to lead it as his representatives on earth. St. Peter had denied him thrice before his death on the cross; all but St. John had abandoned him during his Passion. Upon them, he founded the Church and gave them authority.
So the Church is distinctive among institutions in the history of mankind: it is human and yet divine; perfect, yet in need of reform; holy, yet made up of sinners; infallible, yet led by fallen, fallible humans.
That’s a hard concept to express to someone outside the Church—sometimes it’s hard for us inside the Church to remember it.
Let’s use marriage as an example. With marital love comes certain obligations and responsibilities—some more serious, others maybe not so serious. If we were to compile these individual acts of love into a list, we would end up with a very long list. This list contains obligations that we must follow if we want to preserve our love and want it to grow.
When marital love grows dull, this list seems suffocating. So, too, in our relationship with Jesus. If our love is allowed to wane, then the Church’s teachings seem too hard. Thus, the problem is not rooted in obeying rules, but in not recognizing that the rules are more than arbitrary. Rather, they are the way to live and grow according to the law of love.
To avoid this apparent restrictive and joyless life for the Catholic, I would like to offer the following points for practical and personal application:
1.) Receive the Eucharist as often as you can. This is the very love of God poured forth into our hearts promised by Jesus. Even more astounding, it is Jesus, body, blood, soul, and Divinity, offered to us mysteriously under the appearance of bread and wine.
2.) Receive Him in a state of grace. That means to practice the Sacrament of Reconciliation at least monthly, or any time we are aware that we have willfully committed a grave sin. After all, one does not give sustenance to a corpse. We must be spiritually able to receive divine sustenance in order to benefit from this grace.
3.) Practice daily mediation. Pick up the Gospels and read a little and then stop when something strikes you. Put the book down, and let that point sink in. When you get overcome with distractions, pick up the Gospels and continue reading until the next thing strikes you. Repeat this process. This approach to prayer was encouraged by St. Theresa of Avila to her community. I have profited much from it myself, so I know that it works.
4.) When you are finished with your 20 minutes or more of spiritual reading, make a daily resolution. A resolution is a promise we make to God to respond to His grace by seeking to uproot some predominant fault that our spiritual reading has just uncovered. You can keep the same resolution daily, or change it up, depending on how the Holy Spirit moves you.
One note on this: the best way to uproot a fault is to work on the opposite virtue. As we develop the virtue, doing the good becomes easier, more joyful, and we act towards it more promptly. Thus, the life of repressing the evil inclination is replaced by a life of doing the good.
5.) Lastly, examine yourself at the end of the day and see how well you tended to your resolution. Thank the Lord for your days’ blessings, challenges, and benefits. Tell Him that you are sorry for offending Him by not keeping your resolution firmly if that is the case, and promise to put more effort into keeping your resolution tomorrow.
This is from the Hindu American Foundation: “Yoga is a combination of both physical and spiritual exercises, entails mastery over the body, mind and emotional self, and transcendence of desire. The ultimate goal is moksha, the attainment of liberation from worldly suffering and the cycle of birth and rebirth.”
As a Catholic the term “rebirth” in this excerpt should be very disconcerting. Catholics simply do not believe in rebirth. As Catholics we believe you are given one lifetime. You are baptized and will live your life as a believer in Christ as your Savior. You aren’t given multiple lives to work out your final destiny.
Additionally, Catholics “get” suffering. Maybe sometimes too much; but nonetheless, we don’t—as a group—run from suffering. We understand its redemptive value. While we may wish to be liberated from it and can certainly pursue that through Christ, we don’t see it as our “ultimate goal.” Our ultimate goal is to unite our lives with Christ, the Suffering Servant.
Or there is this from the Hindu American Foundation: “There is the concerning trend of disassociating Yoga from its Hindu roots. Yet, even when Yoga is practiced solely in the form of an exercise, it cannot be completely delinked from its Hindu roots.”
Psalms 96:3-6 Declare his glory among the Gentiles: his wonders among all people. (4) For the Lord is great, and exceedingly to be praised: he is to be feared above all gods. (5) For all the gods of the Gentiles are devils: but the Lord made the heavens. (6) Praise and beauty are before him: holiness and majesty in his sanctuary.
photo: Wikipedia
As we know, this magnificent angel – the greatest creature God had created up to that time – disobeyed God and fell into apostasy, and in so doing brought one third of the other angels with him. The angels who thought to themselves, “we would rather be wrong with Lucifer than right without him”, got their wish and became demons, while those who remained faithful to God, in spite of the apostasy of their divinely appointed leader, were immediately confirmed in grace and now reign with God in heaven.
After the fall of the bad angels, God created man. He endowed the first man with the preternatural gifts of integrity, bodily immortality, impassibility, and infused knowledge, which perfected him according to nature, as well as the supernatural gift of grace, which elevated his soul to the supernatural level, thereby making him a “partaker of the Divine Nature” (2 Peter 1:4). By the gift of infused knowledge, Adam knew all that he had a natural aptitude to know (2), including knowledge of the physical universe, both material and spiritual, the moral law, the Divine Attributes of God, and man’s relationship to his creator” (3), as well as the supernatural knowledge necessary to guide him and his descendants to their supernatural end. (4) All of the gifts Adam received would have been passed down to his posterity, with the exception of infused knowledge.
The reason his descendants would not have received this gift, according to St. Thomas, is because Adam was to be the teacher of all other men. (5) As father of the human race, he was to instruct and govern mankind, just as Lucifer was to govern and enlighten the lower angels. As we know, Adam, the father of the human race and divinely appointed teacher of all men, disobeyed God and fell into sin, thereby causing the Fall of the entire human race. But unlike the angels who fell, God did not abandon man, but instead promised to send a Redeemer.
Moses taking one extra “whack” at the rock
Ephesians 2:8 For by grace you are saved through faith:
and that not of yourselves, for it is the gift of God.
Few persons are aware of the extent of their own deficiency in this respect. Most persons take the matter so completely for granted that they do not suspect themselves, and therefore do not examine themselves on the subject.
There is something so monstrous in not trusting God, that we should have thought it must be a rare thing among good people. But experience teaches very differently. Many aim at perfection, and few attain it. In almost every case the reason of the failure is the want of confidence in God.
Many persons live for years always intending to begin to form habits of prayer, or habits of particular examination of conscience, and never really begin either the one or the other. The real cause of this procrastination is want of confidence in God.
Men try to give up habits of sin, and either intermit their efforts, or abandon them entirely, through want of confidence in God. When a man is scrupulous, it is mostly from want of confidence in God.
Our knowledge of our own misery, which makes us brave when we have confidence in God, makes us cowardly and mean-spirited when we are destitute of that confidence. Many persons take up supernatural views of things as intellectual convictions; and yet, when they are thrown into circumstances which, as it were, compel the acting on these principles, we behold not a vestige of them in their conduct. This also is a result of want of confidence in God.
We really, far more than we believe, look at religion, at prayer, and at grace as if the whole was a lottery, or something like it. A real believing prayer is by no means common. This is probably the reason why such an immensity of prayer seems unanswered. Many men content themselves with a mere indeterminable hope, which can never carry heaven by storm as confidence does. Let us look into ourselves and see if we really have true and solid confidence in God. Many remain beginners all their lives, because they have not confidence in God.
Five general principles of discernment of God’s will that apply to all questions about it, and therefore to our question too, are the following:
Jesus Christ is the heir of King David, He is the fulfillment of the covenant promises made to David in 2 Samuel 7:16; 23:5, and repeated to Mary in Luke 1:26-36 [see the chart comparing the promises to David and Mary in the Chart section on the New Testament/ Mary].
Mary’s son Jesus, rules from the Kingdom of the heavenly Jerusalem.
It is fitting that His mother should enjoy the same role that other Davidic Queen mothers enjoyed, that is the royal office of the heavenly Gebirah.
It is in this sense that Catholics call her “the Queen of Heaven” and not in the pagan sense of that title as it is translated in English and found in Jeremiah 7:18; 44:17, 18, 19, & 25; which is a designation for an Egyptian goddess.
Since Jeremiah uses both terms, the Hebrew title Gebirah for the Queen mother of a Judahite king of the House of David, and the Hebrew word “queen” = meleketh for the Egyptian goddess, it is obvious that one does not equate to the other.
Sacred Scripture indicates that the Gebirah assumed a throne along side her son [see 1 Kings 2:19] and exercised her role as counselor [2 Chronicles 22:3] and intercessor to the king [1 Kings 2:13-21.
In times of conquest both the king and his mother represented royal power and both were deposed [2 Kings 24:12]. The Gebirah was clearly the most important woman in the Kingdom of Judah; a king had many wives, but only one mother.
The Gebirah of the eternal Davidic Kingdom of Jesus Christ is Mary of Nazareth.
Upon her Assumption into heaven Her Son placed her in her well deserved place beside His throne as mother of the King of kings. She appears in this role in Revelation 12:1 ‘clothed with the sun and standing on the moon.
As Christ’s mother she reflects His light just as the moon reflects the light of the sun and she calls all her children in the family of the Church to follow her Son and to do, as she advised the servants at the wedding at Cana, whatever He tells you [John 2:5].
(Vatican II’s “Fantastic Six” didn’t really wear numbers)
Returning to the “myth” that Protestant observers did not contribute in creating the New Mass, to hold this position is to deny the obvious – not only in fact, but also in substance. In the first place, an ecumenical liturgy that would no longer offend Protestants was Fr. Annibale Bugnini’s intention from the get-go as he declared in 1965:
We must strip from our Catholic prayers and from the Catholic liturgy everything which can be the shadow of a stumbling block for our separated brethren that is for the Protestants… [my emphasis]
While we learn from the close confidant of Pope Paul VI, Jean Guitton:
The intention of Pope Paul VI with regard to what is commonly called the Mass, was to reform the Catholic Liturgy in such a way that it should almost coincide with the Protestant liturgy. There was with Pope Paul VI an ecumenical intention to remove, or, at least to correct, or, at least to relax, what was too Catholic in the traditional sense in the Mass and, I repeat, to get the Catholic Mass closer to the Calvinist mass” [my emphasis][4].
To accomplish this ecumenical goal, the Consilium
enlisted the help of these Protestant observers:
Their contribution in creating the New Mass was immortalized in a picture taken of them during an audience with Pope Paul VI after thanking them for their assistance. The image was subsequently published in L’Osservatore Romano on April 23, 1970 with the title: “Commission Holds Final Meeting, Pope Commends Work of Consilium”.
by Doug Lawrence
The Catholic Church in America appears to be almost evenly split between “libs” and “trads”.
For those who are new to these culture wars, “libs” might be described as Catholics who tend to be light on Catholic dogma and overly reliant on emotion and social work – especially when it comes to things like voting for pro-abortion, pro-homosexual politicians and the government funding of various welfare programs.
“Libs” also tend to be less concerned about the liturgy, and often have a less than complete understanding and appreciation for the sacraments – especially the need for the absolution of sins in the confessional and the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist.
For “libs”, emotion generally trumps faith and reason and malformed conscience trumps all – leading to the scandal of high profile, pro abortion and pro homosexual Catholic (and Protestant) politicians infesting all levels of government – along with a plethora of seriously defective Catholic In Name Only (CINO) charities, social justice organizations and even, religious orders.
All of these characteristics are really nothing new for Protestant groups – but they are new for Catholics, since they were essentially put into place by the post-Vatican II “reformers/enablers/revolutionaries” and others who have subsequently learned to invent such things, for their own nefarious purposes, from “whole cloth”.
To sum it up: Like most Protestants, Catholic “libs” generally find it difficult or impossible to believe in the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass as Christ’s one time, once for many, propitiatory sacrifice for the sins of mankind, the Catholic Church as the “Barque of Peter” – the world’s only universal sacrament of salvation, according to the grace, mercy and forethought of Jesus Christ – and the Bible as the inerrant, Holy Spirit inspired, written Word of God – so about all they have left is social justice work – and their poor choices will almost certainly tend to perpetuate the continuing need for it!
“Trads” tend to obtain their personal guidance through the exercise of faith and reason, based on a good working knowledge of the teachings of Jesus Christ, illuminated by two thousand years of Catholic Church Tradition, exquisitely reasoned, settled Catholic dogma and Magisterial teachings, the Ten Commandments, the Beatitudes, the lives of the saints and the Holy Bible.
Subsequently, “trads” tend to be very picky about the Masses they attend, the fidelity of the priests and bishops who minister to them, the integrity of the politicians who represent them in government, the causes they support, the Bibles they read and the sacraments they receive – most especially the Holy Eucharist, which they firmly believe to be the authentic body and blood of Jesus Christ, along with his soul and divinity.
The “trad’s” primary reliance on grace-giving sacraments – which for baptized Catholics, serve to engender and deeply nurture the cardinal virtues of faith, hope and charity, among others – is based on almost two thousand years of remarkably successful Catholic church history and tradition- which until fairly recent times, provided the spiritual underpinnings for all the best features of modern, western civilization.
For “trads”, faith and reason are employed in order to better understand the “mind” of the Catholic Church and hence, the mind of Jesus Christ, who is God and who will also be our final judge. Individual conscience certainly plays a big part – but only after all pertinent Catholic teachings and principles have already been carefully and prayerfully weighed and considered.
When “trads” need to get something done, they pray – often using the Rosary, or kneeling before the Blessed Sacrament – believing they will receive. Then, one of several things typically happens: 1) The problem simply evaporates and disappears (praise God); 2) The right course of action becomes apparent and that action is personally carried out, according to God’s grace, resolving or suitably mitigating the problem; 3) If it is within their limited area of competence – God sends a socially conscious Protestant, “lib” Catholic, or other person – to fix things; or 4) Life goes on as before – since even God isn’t willing to tackle certain problems that we create for ourselves, in this “valley of tears”.
Of course, there are exceptions and variations on both sides, but it’s just about that simple!
The wrath of God is our experience of the total incompatibility of unrepented sin before the holiness of God.
The unrepentant sinner cannot endure the presence, and the holiness of God. There is for such a one wailing and grinding of teeth, anger and even rage when confronted by the existence of God and the demands of His justice and holiness.
God’s wrath does not mean in some simplistic sense that God is “mad” as if being emotionally worked up to fury. God is not moody and unstable. God is not subject to temper tantrums like we are. Rather this, God is holy, and the unrepentant sinner cannot endure his holiness, but experiences it as wrath.
In his magnificent book The Devastated Vineyard (1973), Dietrich von Hildebrand warned against a false loyalty to the Church hierarchy in which Catholics uncritically accept every word and action of their bishop, while failing to acknowledge the harm that may be done to the Church by those words and actions:
A third false response, and perhaps the most dangerous one, would be to imagine that there is no destruction of the vineyard of the Lord, that it only seems so to us — our task as laymen is simply to adhere with complete loyalty to whatever our bishop says….
At the basis of this attitude is a false idea of loyalty to the hierarchy. When the pope speaks ex cathedra on faith or morals, then unconditional acceptance and submission is required of every Catholic.
But it is false to extend this loyalty to encyclicals in which new theses are proposed.
This is not to deny that the magisterium of the Church extends much farther than the dogmas. If an encyclical deals with a question of faith or morals and is based on the tradition of the holy Church — that is, expresses something which the Church has always taught — then we should humbly accept its teaching.
This is the case with the encyclical Humanae Vitae: although we do not have here the strict infallibility of a defined dogma, the content of the encyclical nevertheless belongs to that sphere of the Church’s magisterium which we must accept as true.
But there are many encyclicals which deal with very different (e.g., sociological) questions and which express a response of the Church to certain new conditions. Thus the encyclical of the great Pope Pius XI, Quadragesimo Anno, with its idea of a corporate state, differs on sociological questions with encyclicals of Paul VI. But when it is a question of practical ordinances such as concordats, or the suppression of the Jesuit order by Pope Clement XIV, or the introduction of the new missal, or the rearrangement of the Church calendar, or the new rubrics for the liturgy, then our obedience (as Vatican I declares), but by no means our agreement, is required….
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