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The Intercession of the Saints

10/31/2023

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THE INTERCESSION OF THE SAINTS

"In this present time let your abundance supply their want, that their abundance also may supply your want, that there may be an equality."— -2 COR. 8, 14.

One of the most glorious articles of our faith is the Communion of Saints. The Catholic Christians remain truly united among themselves whether they are in heaven, on earth or in purgatory. This communion is not a communion of bodies but of souls, which confines their love, their desires and their compassion for their brethren to no place, and therefore they mutually remember each other throughout all space and time and continue their love and compassion towards each other forever. Every day Catholic Christians depart from this life, but yet in such a way that they are not completely and forever separated from us, in so far as they go into eternity in the grace of God. And as our Divine Saviour is the head of all Christians in heaven, on earth and in purgatory, so the Catholic Church always remains by the Communion of Saints in heaven as triumphant, in purgatory as suffering, and on earth as the militant Church. The more the blessed in heaven are united with Jesus, the greater is their love towards us, their brethren on earth, in order that we may share in the same happiness. The more the poor souls in purgatory suffer, the stronger is their desire for bliss, and the greater their wish that we Christians on earth may lessen their pains through our prayers and zealously make use of the means of grace of holy Church for ourselves and for them. And if the poor souls are unable to help themselves by prayer to God, they the more zealously pray God for us, the more we help them.

Yes, marvelous is this Communion of Saints. The saints in heaven who behold God are holy; we all, my friends, have been sanctified in Baptism and should become still holier by the Sacraments; and the poor souls are holy, for although they still suffer and do penance, they are nevertheless on the way to their bliss. Hence St. Paul says so beautifully and truly speaking of the Communion of Saints, that the abundance of the saints in heaven supply our want that there may be an equality. And they do it, since the abundance of their merits and sufferings on earth and intercession in heaven come to our aid, while we again on earth effectively help the poor souls and can apply the abundance of our means of grace to them. This takes place especially by indulgences. Therefore I shall speak today on the intercession of the saints and show how their abundance of merits are applied to us through indulgences.

O Jesus, assist me with Thy grace.

I. The Apostle St. Paul imposed on a public sinner of the Christian congregation at Corinth which he
the Apostle -- by his indefatigable zeal and preaching the Gospel had established, a severe and public penance. He dismissed him from the communion of the faithful " with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ," and excluded him from participation in divine service, in the holy sacrifice and the holy sacraments, "in order that he might be saved in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ," as the holy Apostle expresses himself in his epistle to the faithful at Corinth. After the example of this great Apostle, and by virtue of the power confided to her by the Saviour, Holy Church has also imposed similar and long penances upon public sinners. And after the example of that sinful Christian of Corinth, and other Christians who had the misfortune to fall into public and grievous sins, have with the same willingness, yes, mostly of their free will, submitted to such penances in order that they also " would be saved in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ." St. Paul later remitted to this sinner the remainder of the penance and that, too, as he himself writes in his second epistle to the Corinthians : " For what I have pardoned I have done it for your sakes in the person of Christ." (2 Cor. 2, 10.) The holy Apostle therefore grants to this sinner an indulgence. But from his own words we learn two important truths in reference to indulgences: the first is that St. Paul, and consequently the other Apostles and in general the Church, has the power to grant indulgences in the person of Christ. Secondly, St. Paul made use of this power on account of the intercession, the prayers and merits of the faithful at Corinth, " for your sakes." Indulgences show forth in the most resplendent manner the Communion of Saints and intercession for fallen Christians. For, where one member of the body of Christ, namely of the Holy Church, rejoices, there rejoice also the other members, the other holy Christians ; but where one member suffers, there suffer also the other members with him. His misery of soul, his unhappiness to have fallen so low goes to their hearts. Therefore they offer for his welfare their prayers, the holy sacrifice, the reception of the sacra ments and their merits. And just as God for the sake of the faithful grants to many sinners the grace of conversion so also the Church for their sake grants to the contrite, but still penitential sinners, pardon of their penance, that is an indulgence. Just as Jesus Christ in the hour of His death besought God to have mercy on us poor sinners, and in order to be heard, applied his merits to us, so those holy Christians at Corinth turned their compassionate eyes towards their fallen brother and besought the Apostle to pardon him.

This constantly takes place in the Church of God. The holy Martyrs who fearlessly professed the Christian faith before the courts of the heathens, amidst the greatest pains on the rack and were thrown into prison, joyfully beheld a bloody death — the Martyrs, who on account of their courageous profession, still living in prison, the objects of the joy of the Church, were the admiration and honor of the faithful, these holy Martyrs thought constantly of the suffering of their fallen brethren and made intercession for them. If in spite of their wounds they were still able to write, they wrote the names of the penitents whom they made intercession for, which are called libella or the books of the martyrs; if they could not write they simply gave the names of their proteges to the deacons, who visited the martyrs in prison, administered to them holy communion, bound up their wounds or brought them food, which privilege they bought from the heathen jailers. The deacons brought these written or verbal recommendations to the Bishop, and the Bishop, for the sake of the martyrs, shortened the penitent's time of penance. He granted therefore after the example of the Apostles an indulgence. The glorious doctrine of the Communion of Saints, and consequently of the faithful on earth consists especially in this that the merits and good works and prayers are of benefit to one another. Therefore we behold how whole congregations interceded for those who had fallen on account of the fear of martyrdom, or who had denied the faith, if they saw that they were really contrite. We see how saints in prison and on the rack, by the glory and the constancy of their faith, in the greatest sufferings encouraged the faithful and caused public sinners to return to the faith and like the dying Saviour in compassionate love besought the Church to forgive them.

How should in that solemn moment, when by the last struggle of the martyrs our Divine Saviour was glorified before the world, the Church seals with a new glory her truths, when the martyrs are crowned with an eternal crown and the faithful celebrate with joy the victory of their brethren — how should in that solemn moment any member of our holy Church re main excluded from the common joy and continue in sadness? The very sight of the courageous confessors and martyrs was pain enough for the penitents that they had fallen so deeply by their sins. Therefore they should participate in this common joy, and for the sake of the martyrs and their intercession they were received again into the communion of the faithful and therefore granted an indulgence of the rest of their penance. Here the words of the Apostle are applicable: "That their abundance supply your wants that there may be an equality." An indulgence is consequently the forgiveness of ecclesiastical penance on account of the intercession and the merits of the saints and especially of Christ, and God pardons just as much of the temporal punishments in purgatory as we would have atoned for if we had really performed this penance. In indulgences we learn, my beloved, at the same time what a glorious consciousness once penetrated the Christians, how intimately they were united to the Christian community and were of one heart and one soul, Here we see that Christian morality and purity was the common spirit, the disapproval of vice and disobedience towards God and the Church was general, sorrow for sin was a common grief, love and intercession for the penitents in public prayer during divine service and the holy sacrifice of the Mass was performed by the common bond of charity. Yes, indulgence which the ignorant and unbelieving, puffed up with a miserable pride, despise and with vulgar stupidity ridicule — indulgence is one of the most beautiful and consoling doctrines of the Catholic Church.

3. Is intercession made no more for the sinner and the fallen? Most certainly, but in a different way. We have in the present day no martyrs and no public penances; ecclesiastical penances are supplemented by indulgences. Therefore, indulgence teaches us again that neither God nor Holy Church has joy in punishment, and that punishment is not inflicted in order to injure, but in order to make satisfaction to the divine Justice, in order — as the Apostle says — that the soul may be saved in the day of the Lord. If therefore this satisfaction to the divine Justice can be made in an other and a milder way, then the temporal punishment is all taken away. This is done by indulgences. The Church, my beloved, wishes to lead us to God by indulgences for our justification as she formerly did by penance. She relies on the free and willing zeal of the faithful and admonishes them to works of charity. She announces to them who wish to sanctify them selves and fulfill the conditions of indulgences, forgiveness of ecclesiastical penance on earth and temporal punishment in purgatory. By sincere zeal to gain indulgences reverence for the justice of God, which punishes the least sin, is always manifested. Who therefore does not strive with his voluntary penance to obtain indulgences exposes himself on the day of the Lord and will more deeply feel the penance of purgatory, the less he strove to make satisfaction to divine justice on earth.

Those Christians who are not satisfied with only contritely confessing their sins, but strive earnestly to do penance for them and as often as possible to obtain indulgences for them, obtain the intercession and the merits of the martyrs and confessors, the intercession and merits of the whole Church and of all holy people, the same as the penitents did in the first ages of the Church. Moreover, they share in the public prayers for sinners and penitents, the holy sacrifice, the good works, the suffering and persecution of the just. The catechism teaches us that the prayers, the merits and the good works of all the faithful are of benefit to all. This continually takes place on earth and will until the end of the world, but especially by indulgences.

The Saints will also make intercession for us. They give to us, when we strive to attain an indulgence, the abundance of their satisfying merits in order that there may be an equality. But the Saints grant to us not only their superfluous merits in indulgences as a charitable rich man would give of his surplus fortune in alms to the poor, but they intercede also for us at the throne of mercy. Once the holy martyrs and the faithful in the early Church called upon the Church for compassion and mercy to the fallen and the penitent, in order that they would, after the forgiveness of their penance, the sooner be received into the communion of the faithful and allowed to attend divine service and share in all the rights of the worthy Christian. At present we see in spirit the same confessors, martyrs and all the saints imploring for us the divine mercy at the throne of God in order that with the help of indulgences and the merits of the saints we may the sooner be permitted to share with them the celebration of the eternal Sunday and to join in the hymn of praise of the heavenly hosts around the throne of the immaculate Lamb. The holy longing of the Blessed is that we may not be for long years excluded from the doors of heaven and obliged to go the hard way of penance and pain in the fires of purgatory.

4. Oh, that you would all learn to understand rightly the glorious doctrine of indulgence and earnestly and zealously strive whenever possible to gain an indulgence! Then the saints in heaven would look down upon you with greater love when they would see that their penance on earth, their suffering and abundant merits are applied by the Church to you by indulgence. Yes, this application is the reason that the saints in heaven love you with a twofold and a threefold love, and always continue to be your protectors in the hard struggle for life on earth against the devil and sin, and your zealous intercessors at the throne of God until you have happily, with their help, escaped the deluge of sin on earth and have arrived at the portals of heavenly bliss. How consoling and mysterious, my beloved, appears indulgence to us in the glory of its truth, and if considered in that love, which, as an out pouring of the divine love of our Saviour, also penetrated the saints. Oh, if you could behold the hearts of those great saints who were inflamed with divine love, who passed their holy angelic pure lives in continuous self-denial, penance and suffering, and freely, just as our Divine Saviour, offered themselves to the divine Justice for the sins of their Christian brethren, so that they gained not only for themselves celestial glory but atoned for the punishments of others. Yes, at this sight you would be seized with the desire to strive to become good children of our holy Mother, the Church, and to make use of her treasure of grace by gaining indulgences. You would even be inflamed with the fire of Christian charity to come to the help of your suffering brethren in Christ as much as possible by prayers and good works, in order to do for them what the saints in heaven have done for you.

5. There remains, my beloved, another glorious truth, a rich source of consolation in suffering in regard to indulgences which I will communicate to you. From what you have already heard, have you not experienced the amiable beauty of this doctrine? Yes, truly, enlightened by this article of faith we learn first to appreciate the innocence and the suffering, the prayers and the penances of the just Christians in their entire supernatural greatness. They are precious in the sight of God, so that they have obtained not only for the saints an eternal bliss but also have atoned for the temporal punishment of their neighbors. What a consolation for all who suffer innocently! What a joy for holy Christians who experience sufferings, trials and tribulations! Who will still accuse God of in justice, who will continue to blaspheme Him?

You sinners, when you contemptuously speak of the divine Justice and say: "I sinned yesterday, and what happened to me? I will sin today, and nothing will happen to me." You sinners, who trample on the commandments of God and of the Church and go still unpunished and even joyfully and blessed with temporal prosperity continue to live — whom have you to thank for this? Indulgences, the good works, the prayers and sufferings of holy Christians. You purse-proud people, you frivolous Christians, who so often laugh and scoff at the piety of your servants ; whom you often torment on account of their faith and devotion — whom have you often to thank if the judgment of God has not overtaken you, whom else but the piety and suffering innocence of Christian souls? They pray for you. You parents, who at the sick-bed of your little innocent children accuse God of cruelty — indulgence places for you the sick-bed of your child as an altar of atonement, the suffering innocence as a sacrifice of atonement for your sakes and for your sins. This sacrifice not infrequently turns aside the punishment from the guilty head of the parents and obtains for them mercy and grace.

May you all therefore be filled with reverence for this article of faith of the Catholic Church, which has a beauty and a truth which the miserable scoffers never dreamed of. May you strive by gaining indulgences to share in the merits of the saints in order that divine Justice may be appeased and that you may be spared in time and eternity. Amen.

Source: The Beauty and Truth of the Catholic Church, Vol. III  Imprimatur 1913




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The Communion of Saints

10/29/2023

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WE are so near the Feast of All Saints and the commemoration of all the faithful departed All Souls day- that we may well let our affectionate thoughts follow after our brethren who have gone before us and sleep in the peace of Christ.

There is scarcely one of us, dear brethren, who has not been familiar from childhood with the article of the Apostles Creed, "I believe in the communion of saints"; and there are few, if any, who have not derived consolation from this dogma of our faith, teaching, as it does, that we are not entirely cut off from those who have gone before us, but form with them one great family, of which the head is Christ and the members the souls of the just, whether in heaven or in purgatory, or still in the flesh.

But if this truth of holy religion brings consolation, it brings also the duty of praying for our brethren who are passing through the cleansing fires of purgatory; who, because of sin or the debt due for sin, cannot enter their eternal home until they have repaid the last farthing. They can do nothing for themselves their day of meriting is past; they look to us who are their friends to help them.

While they were with us they were very dear to us bound to us by ties of blood or friendship. Let us do our duty to them now; let us, by our good works in their behalf, show how much we love them; let us show that our affection for them was not selfish nor pretended, but so real and strong and lasting that death has but strengthened it and brought it to its fulness.

What one of us but has his daily task his allotted work? Yet as each day brings its own burdens, so each day is full of opportunities of gaining indulgence for the souls in purgatory. The many inconveniences we all of us are called upon to suffer, the many sacrifices of comfort and of pleasure we make, the disappointments we meet with, the fatigues we bear all these may be made sources of refreshment to our friends beyond the grave. If in the morning we would but offer to God all we shall do and suffer during the day for his honor and glory, and for the relief of the departed, oh ! how soon would the angels welcome them to their true country, and how many advocates we should have before the throne of God!

But if so much can be done without any particular effort on our part, what shall we say of the efficacy of the special prayers we recite for them and the Masses we have offered for their repose ! How shall we tell of their gratitude, of their unceasing supplications for us! We lose nothing, dear brethren, by praying for them; be assured we are rather the gainers, for not only do they pray for us, but more our charity towards them deepens in our souls our love for God, and makes us thirst the more after virtue and holiness, and wins for us a higher place in heaven and a brighter crown of everlasting glory.

Let us be generous, then; let us storm heaven with our prayers for the souls in purgatory, and we shall find rest for ourselves as well as for them.

Source: The Beauty and Truth of the Catholic Faith, Imprimatur 1913


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Religious Intolerance

10/27/2023

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"Keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding the profane novelties of words and oppositions of knowledge falsely so called. Which some promising, have erred concern-
ing the faith."—I Tim. vi, 20.


Our Divine Saviour frequently compares His Church to a field and Himself to the sower who went out to sow good seed. He has indeed cultivated this field in the bloody sweat of His brow and sown the seed of His divine doctrine and of His grace. His labors were well repaid by the splendid harvest which He reaped in the faith of the first Christians, and in the holiness of the martyrs, confessors and virgins. But "his enemy came and oversowed cockle among the wheat and went his way" (St. Matt. xiii, 25).

The cockle is not only sin, but also error. This cockle will remain in the field of God, the Church, until the end of time. It is, therefore, the height of injustice to doubt the truth and sanctity of the Catholic Church because, forsooth, a few of her children, and even some of her priests and bishops, have been guilty of heresy or of crime. For the very reason that the Catholic Church is God's field, the wheat and the tares must grow side by side, until the time of the harvest, the day of general judgment comes. But in spite of the fact that the cockle and the wheat grow in the same field, the Church retains her truth and holiness. Her doctrines and sacraments sow only
wheat; the enemy sows the cockle.

Our Divine Saviour Himself tells us that the cockle is spared until the time of the harvest only because of the wheat. Because of the good Christian, God spares the sinner; because of the true believer, He spares the infidel and the heretic. God waits patiently until they be converted, or until they die, when He will reward them according to their deeds. The wheat is, therefore, the greatest benefactor of the cockle. It is on account of His faithful followers that God tolerates scoffers, sinners, heretics and infidels. The godless should, therefore, thank God on their knees that there are still so many faithful on earth.

However, still another truth makes itself manifest in this parable of the wheat and the tares in the field of God. Just as the sower cannot tolerate the cockle in his field, so the Church cannot tolerate the cockle, namely sin and falsehood.

Her zeal for the truth and for the salvation of souls compels her to be intolerant of error under what guise soever it may appear, but for the sinner and the erring she is merciful and compassionate, and she prays for them. We must never forget that weeds will always be weeds and wheat always wheat. Weeds can never become wheat, unbelief can never be placed on the same footing with faith, sin and crime can never claim equal rights with Christian virtue, and for all of them the day of the harvest will come, when the cockle will be cast into the fire and the wheat will be gathered into the granary of heaven.

I will endeavor to show you today what is really meant by religious intolerance.
O Jesus, assist us with Thy grace!

1. We frequently hear in our day the mass of unthinking men, especially her enemies, accuse the Catholic Church of intolerance against all those who profess a belief different from her own. What do we mean by intolerance? We can have a true and a false conception of its meaning. Our enemies give it the false interpretation; we will try to explain its true meaning.

In its true conception, my dearly beloved, religious intolerance is the solemn avowal that God alone can give mankind the true religion and reveal those heavenly truths which are absolutely necessary for eternal salvation. Every child can understand this. Hence religious intolerance condemns every religion and doctrine that does not come from God, that has its origin in the vagaries of the human mind, and must by that very fact be false and detrimental to the salvation of souls.

In this meaning God Himself must be intolerant, if we may so express ourselves. He cannot tolerate that man change the eternal truths and precepts to suit his fancy, or that he adore strange gods. God in His infinite love and mercy can never reward eternally those men who willfully transgress His divine law, who mutilate His divine truths, or who completely throw off the allegiance they owe Him. On the contrary His infinite justice demands that He inflict everlasting punishment on them. If God did not do so, He would thereby admit that He is not the only true God, that His commandments are not necessary and that His truths are not required to obtain eternal life. Who will dare utter such blasphemy? Therefore, even on the part of God, there must be a necessary and essential intolerance.

But even man is intolerant, and he cannot be otherwise without surrendering the rights that belong to him by nature or condition. No ruler can allow his subjects to alter or abrogate his laws at pleasure, nor can he permit them to decide for themselves whether they will obey the laws of the land or not. Whither would such a state of affairs lead us? To the ultimate overthrow of every duly constituted authority, and to boundless license. Public order and the security of life and property demand that all those responsible for the enforcement of the law be intolerant, that is, punish all law-breakers and disturbers of the
peace.

No father can allow his children to gainsay his commands, ridicule his admonitions, or repudiate their obligations. He must be intolerant in all these matters. No teacher can permit his pupils to maintain the opposite of what he has taught them, or to uphold their personal opinions as the only correct ones. No good could result from such a method, and so the teacher also is obliged to be intolerant. The same condition prevails between master and ap-which God raises before the world against religious indifference and infidelity. The cross tells us that God abhors every religion which He has not revealed to man, and that the infinite justice of God will punish all those who refuse to accept the grace and the doc-trine of the divine Redeemer, or who falsify them according to the caprices and the desires of their hearts. God is obliged to hate and punish sin and religious error, because He is infinite holiness and eternal truth. If God were indifferent to them He would thereby deny His own essence and being. If it be true that it is a matter of little consequence whether we possess the true faith and the true religion or not, why then did God not spare His only begotten Son, but give Him up to the ignominious death of the cross?

Again, who can doubt the infinite love, and mercy of Jesus toward all men, but especially sinners and the erring? And yet how intolerant Our Divine Saviour was of every deliberate error and contradiction in matters of revealed truth. How often and emphatically He pronounced judgment against all those who will not believe. "He who does not believe is already judged." "If he will not hear the Church let him be to thee as the heathen and the publican."

St. John, the disciple of love, writes :
" Whosoever revolteth and continueth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. . . .If any man come to you and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into the house, nor say to him, God speed you" (II St. John i, 9). But he also gives the reason for this. "He that believeth not the Son, maketh him a liar, because he believeth not in the testimony which God hath testified of His Son" (1 St. John v, 10).

3. And in fact, my dearly beloved, what other purpose did the Saviour have in view when He came into the world, than that of raising the human race out of the pit of infidelity and idolatry into which it had fallen, by means of the truths which He brought from heaven, and leading it back to God and salvation? If it were a matter of such complete indifference to what religion or religious error we give allegiance, is it not true that the Incarnation of Christ and His public ministry would be entirely superfluous? But who will dare to make so blasphemous an assertion? Since without Jesus there can be no truth, no eternal life, it follows that Our Divine Saviour was obliged to condemn openly every teaching that did not proceed from Him and, was for that very reason dangerous to the salvation of souls. Today, as always, He must be intolerant of every false religion that can only lead to perdition. For this alone "is eternal life," says Our Divine Saviour, "that they know Thee the only true God and Him thou hast sent, Jesus Christ." To be indifferent to religious error and to be tolerant of every false doctrine is equivalent to a denial of the veracity of God and of His revelation.

The Church then, cannot permit false teachings to arise; she must be intolerant. Just as God hates and punishes falsehood, so must the Church combat and condemn heresy, because she is the kingdom of truth. If she did not do so, or was lax in the accomplishment of this plain duty, she could no longer be the kingdom of God and of redemption on earth. She would be untrue to her vocation and fail to attain the purpose for which she was instituted, that is, to be the teacher of the human race, and she would thus accomplish her own annihilation. Indeed, if she also were indifferent, if she also asserted the equality of truth and falsehood, of revelation and heresy, if she also maintained that it mattered little whether one were Catholic or Protestant, Turk or Jew, she would be the first to deny the necessity of Redemption and of the true faith and likewise of the true Church. Can anyone imagine for a moment that the Church could ever subscribe to a doctrine so monstrous and at the same time so suicidal to herself ? She is, therefore, obliged by the very nature of things, and in justice to the Redeemer and to herself, to be intolerant of error.

4. There are two further reasons why God Himself, Our Lord and Saviour, and, consequently, the Church must necessarily exercise this true intolerance, namely, the salvation of souls and the removal of temporal disturbance and evils. As a matter of fact, what would become of mankind if proud or unbelieving individuals might with impunity transform the religion of Christ, curtail His doctrines or abolish His commandments? The Church cannot tolerate so reprehensible a course without betraying the sacred trust reposed in her by Jesus Christ, Grace and eternal life depend on the integrity of the faith, and therefore she could not tolerate any tampering with it without committing the most frightful treason against humanity and the salvation of souls. What would become of the unity of Catholic faith, of the sacraments, of divine worship, whither would Christianity have drifted if the Church had not constantly combated and condemned heresy? Hundreds of heresiarchs have sprung up in the course of nineteen centuries. Each one attacked a different dogma of the Church, each one asserted that his position was the correct one, each one arrogated to himself the right to teach the Church, the pillar and the ground of truth. Is, then, the Church to yield and be tolerant of heresy and thus betray Jesus Christ and the souls she was instituted to save? Any child can see that such a thing is radically impossible. The Church is obliged to be intolerant of error.

Teachers of heresy, at the expense of their fellowmen, seek only to satisfy their pride, ambition, and passions, and to sow divisions, discord and hatred. I do not speak here of those who have been led into error, of those who without any fault of theirs have been born and reared in heresy. They are deserving of our compassion, our love and our prayers. But I speak of those who knowingly and deliberately disseminate false doctrines. Such as these know perfectly well where they obtain the seed that they sow in the field of the Church. They know well that the doctrine which they try to spread by craft and violence is naught else than but the fabric of their own brain. They know that they are in conflict with the faith of the Catholic Church. They know that they are assailing Our Divine Saviour in His commandment and in His person—in His command to hear the Church, and in His person that has promised to abide forever in His Church.

Do you think, my dearly beloved, that it is proper for the Church to say nothing about these presumptuous practices of the teachers of error? Should she quietly abandon the Catholic faithful to temptation and thereby expose them to the danger of eternal perdition? Who will expect the Church to be so recreant to her duty? In such a case she would cease to be the true Church of Christ, she would no longer be the mother of the faithful, she would degrade herself to the level of her betrayers. In good sooth, the Church can never do this! Hence, as a warning to her children, she must exclude all heretical and godless men from her pale, she must condemn heresy. A father must exclude from the bosom of his family every person, every book that threatens to corrupt the morals of those who are entrusted to his care; the teacher must eradicate every evil influence from the midst of his pupils; a prince, a ruler must banish from among his people every element of disorder. This must be done lest misfortune and ruin overtake the family, the school, or the nation. So must the Church drive out heretics from among her children. She owes it to the Saviour, she owes it to herself, and, most of all, she owes it to the faithful, so that on the one hand they may recognize the false doctrine and, on the other, they may not lose their souls.

5. There is a still more cogent reason why the Church should excommunicate heretics. The experience of centuries teaches us that heretics have always and everywhere been the cause of terrible discord, of revolt, of persecutions against Catholics and of bloody wars. It has been thus from the time of Arius in the third century down to the days of Luther, who sowed the seeds of the Thirty Years' War in Germany, with all its attendant horror and ruin. No country where heresy has gained a foothold has ever remained at peace; it has either been rent asunder or has gone completely to ruin. Poland, Germany, France, Austria are sad examples of this. Protestant countries in our day furnish an apt illustration of the bitterness with which the Church is hated and of how little justice and fair play a Catholic may expect when his religious convictions come into conflict with the prejudices of his fellow citizens.

Is then, my dearly beloved, the Catholic Church,that has lived through nineteen centuries with all their happenings and knows the heart of man only too well, is she to look quietly on while heresies arise, and extend to them the tolerant hand of welcome? She cannot and must not do so, because of the salvation, the tranquillity, the welfare of the nations. She must be as uncompromising towards error as the father is towards the seducers of his children, or the ruler towards the rebels who incite his people to revolution.

Let the enemies of the Catholic Church accuse her of intolerance as much as they please. This uncompromising attitude of the Church toward the seducers of her children shows a large measure of wisdom, justice and mercy. She thus proves her right to the title of true kingdom of Jesus Christ, for her divine Founder can tolerate no revolt against His teaching and His commandments. The Church cannot give up the most precious heritage of Jesus Christ for the sake of a few proud or vicious men. Love as well as truth, obliges her to proclaim to all that the Catholic faith is the only true faith, and that he who lays a sacrilegious hand upon it attacks eternal truth itself, and that for him there is no hope of salvation unless he do penance and return to the faith. She is the Church of the martyrs, the Church of the holy Fathers, of the confessors and virgins and of all the saints. She has never to the present day hesitated to suffer and to shed her blood for the sake of her faith. She cannot, therefore, hesitate to defend the faith against the teachers of error, and declare them the enemies of her children, yea, even of the human race, and cast them out of her midst.

And we who are anxious to obtain everlasting life must be intolerant of ourselves, of our sins and shortcomings, we must cast them off, weep over them and flee from them. The deposit of faith has been kept intact in the Church until the present day because she has never entered into compromise with error. We too can maintain ourselves in grace, and in the faith by waging a relentless war against sin and falsehood, and thus we shall live to see the happy day when God Himself will forever separate the cockle from the wheat, and in recompense for our sturdy resistance against error and sin, will receive us into the realms of everlasting bliss. Amen.

The Beauty and Truth of the Catholic Church, Vol. I, Imprimatur 1911

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The Church Militant on Earth - Her Unbloody Persecutions

10/22/2023

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 "Blessed are they who suffer persecution for justice' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."  St. Matt. v, 10.

Nothing better demonstrates the truth of the Catholic Church than the constant persecution to which a godless world subjects her. She has inherited in all its fullness the hatred which Jew and Gentile, Pharisee and Herodian, not only bore in their hearts but openly manifested against her Divine Saviour. The Redeemer foretold that His Apostles, His servants, His faithful, and His Church would fare no better than He Himself : "If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you." And in the course of the ages this prophecy has been amply fulfilled, even before our very eyes. The Church as a faithful bride patiently shares the fate of her Lord. She too is crowned with thorns; she too is nailed to the cross; she too is bedewed with the blood of her martyrs. But just as the Redeemer is wonderful and adorable in His bitter passion and death, so the true Church shows in her bloody persecutions, in the countless numbers of her martyrs, a greatness, a truth, a beauty, a divinity, which surpasses a thousandfold all the other splendid efforts which she employs for the conversion of the world. Although the marks of the true Church, her unity, her sanctity, her catholicity and apostolicity betoken that God is with her—for indeed, He has, as it were, built the Church on these four mighty and indestructible pillars as His abode on earth and as a secure asylum for mankind—still the likeness which the Church shows to the suffering Saviour in her sorrows and her persecutions demonstrates far more clearly the divinity of her vocation to save the
world and to comfort the faithful.

Just as St. Joseph strove to defend from the machinations of Herod that most precious treasure entrusted to his care, the Divine Child, so the Church has ever striven to defend against the attacks of the Herods and the godless of all times, the Catholic faith, grace and redemption, as the most precious trust confided to her for the welfare of the world. Like St. Joseph she spares no pains, no effort; she recoils not even from persecution, if only she may preserve this priceless treasure. For this very reason she is called the Church Militant, against whom all the powers of iniquity have conspired.

I spoke last time of the bloody persecutions of the Church, in order to show her truth and beauty. Today I will speak of her unbloody persecutions, for they are worse and more dangerous than the former. They proceed from heretics and wicked governments; the former attack the Church in her faith, the latter in her possessions and her life.
         O Jesus, assist me with Thy grace!

1. An old Greek fable tells of the Titans, giants of prehistoric times, who in their audacity wished to scale high Olympus itself. To attain this end they heaped mountain upon mountain until the thunderbolt of an avenging god dashed them to the ground. Such Titans or giants of godlessness have ever arisen against the kingdom of heaven on earth, as Christ calls His true Church. This has given rise to the persecutions against the Catholic Church. The pagan emperors were the first giants of impiety. They attempted to wipe Christianity from the face of the earth by shedding the blood of the Christians in profu-sion. Nay more, they declared themselves divine and exacted for themselves divine honors and worship. The pagan emperors tolerated every form of superstition, ungodliness and vice. For the Church and the Christian faith alone they reserved their most relentless and cruel measures; at the price of her life-blood the Church, and she alone, preserved the faith and with it the benefits and the blessings of Christianity to the world. In the meantime the omnipotence of God dashed to the ground and annihilated the idolized pagan emperors with their empire.

But even during the days when the persecutions, instigated by the Roman emperors, were still raging in all their bloody fury, there arose a second generation of Titans to assail the kingdom of heaven. They appeared in the form of heretics, who did not, indeed, threaten the life of the faithful, but who designed to wage a far more pernicious warfare against what Christians prized even more highly than life itself, namely, the doctrines and the faith of the Church. If faith itself be destroyed, the Church will automatically cease to exist. The numerous herd of false teachers who rapidly succeeded each other did not at once direct their attack against the whole body of the Church's dogma, but slowly, steadily, one by one they took them up, disfigured them and tore them to pieces. In the course of centuries there is not a single Catholic doctrine, not an article of faith, not a mystery that has not been questioned or denied, so that at present there is not a tittle of divine revelation which has not been, or is not being, made the object of ungodly criticism or of impious denial. The very existence of God, the personality of our Divine Saviour, the Blessed Virgin in her dignity as Mother of God, the Divine Sacrifice, the immortality of the soul, eternity, heaven and hell, are made the mockery of vile tongues and are positively de- nied. This second persecution is promiscuously tolerant of every heresy, every folly, every madness of the ancient and the new world, down to the renewed theory of man's evolution from a monkey. It hates but one thing—one thing alone it pursues with its venom, and that is the Catholic faith. It is the destiny of the Church to suffer, through the ages, the same persecutions to which her Divine Lord was subjected by the Pharisees and the Sadducees, for they constantly attacked His teachings and cast suspicion on all He said and did.

The pagan emperors constituted themselves gods, and so, like them, the second Titans end by self-deification. It is the apotheosis of human reason, which places itself above God, above Jesus Christ, His Church and the teachings of the faith, and constitutes itself an infallible court before which everything must pass for judgment. It displays itself im-pudently in the sciences, in books and schools and periodicals, and is the cause of all perplexity, contradiction, doubt, ignorance, impiety, blasphemy and hatred. The omnipotence of God has likewise hurled this second attack against His Church to the ground. The force of this second storm is now well-nigh spent. The Protestants belonging to the numberless sects have at the present day no choice left but that of joining the Catholic Church, as so many have already done in England, Holland, Germany and our own country, or of becoming adherents of modern paganism.

The Catholic Church has splendidly withstood all the violence of this storm of centuries. There, impregnable as the Lord built her, she stands a beacon light to the nations. The tempest lashed the waves to fury and hurled them mountain high against her, but the waters fell back in harmless foam, and the beacon stands calm and undisturbed, sending forth the pure rays of her light of faith in undiminished power to guide the nations of all the world, on their way to God, to life eternal.

2. During the middle of the last century a third persecution against the Church had been gathering its forces out of the second. This is the most dangerous and ruthless of all. Just as the cruelty of Church Militant - Herod only benefited the innocent children, so the Roman emperors by their bloody persecutions only benefited Christianity; for never did she show herself in such radiance of truth and virtue as during the days of her greatest suffering. She took the pagan world by surprise and converted it. Nor have the countless heresies caused the Catholic Church any damage. What she lost in Europe by apostasy, she regained in Asia, Africa and America, and the Catholic faith shines as ever in the undimmed splendor of its unity throughout the world.

But this third persecution proceeded from the interior of the Catholic Church herself, and was directed against her own inner life. Consummate cunning and malice distinguished its procedure, for under the mask of friendship and protection, under the caption of reform and enlightenment, an attack was organized such as the world had never seen. This most baneful of all persecutions was reserved to Catholic princes and governments. They forced their way into the very sanctuary and hesitated not to lay their unhallowed hands upon the altar itself. They pretended to regulate everything and endeavored to gain control of even the most sacred functions. They hemmed in the Church on all sides, assumed tutelage over her and robbed her of her rights, her liberties and her possessions. They destroyed order and discipline, and forbade the conferring of ecclesiastical orders, the giving of blessings, the holding of processions and pilgrimages—all the manifestations of the Church's life. What was the result? Catholic life, once so flourishing, now languished, works of piety were forgotten, the zeal for charitable institutions died out, old habits of industry and honesty vanished and respect for constituted authority became a thing of the past even among Catholic nations. The Lord's day was neglected. Instead grew up religious indifference, ignorance of man's most sacred obligations, impiety, immorality, luxury, dishonesty, discontent, and, finally, revolution. Whole generations were corroded and remain so to this day.

But just as the pagan emperors ended by becoming self-made gods and then went down to their destruction, just as the heresies deified reason and are now in a state of dissolution, so the third persecution naturally culminates in the deification of the State. The mask is fallen, the State is without religion, without God—it is its own god. Therefore it has but one battle to fight and that is against the Catholic Church.—Its ultimate purpose is the dechristianization of the peoples. A State without a God must necessarily hate the Catholic Church as its natural-born enemy.

1. The dechristianization of the nations is effected in a twofold manner : First, the deified State declares that it is the source of all right and justice. But if the State is the only source of right and justice, it strictly follows that no other law or right has force or value; then there is no divine or ecclesiastical or international law, no personal or civil rights, no true freedom, no justice, no liberty of conscience or of opinion, except only in so far as the State may be pleased to allow it. Every justifiable opposition is branded as rebellion against the State, and so every effort is made to destroy the life and the activity of the Catholic Church. On the contrary, under pretext of enlightened toleration,—the toleration of the pagan emperors of old,—every protection and facility is given to lies and slanders and errors, aye they are welcomed with open arms as staunch allies in the one great fight—the fight against the Catholic Church.

2. Secondly—the aim is the dechristianization of our children by means of schools without religion, where the Catholic faith is misrepresented and held up to the scorn of the pupils in a multiplicity of ways; the dechristianization of the family by means of civil marriage and divorce; of the student body by means of infidel or irreligious universities under the pretext of advancing the cause of liberty and of science; of the adult world by means of a subsidized press, of theatres reeking with lewdness and immorality, and of secret societies. When the child, the family and civil society have been thus gradually dechristianized—then, of course, it is assumed that the Catholic Church will be very near her last end, and what is left of her can be destroyed without great difficulty. This saddest of all the persecutions is very much like the action of Herod, who did not indeed condemn Jesus, but clothed Him with a garment of mockery with the purpose of robbing Him of the last remnant of respect and love in which He was held by the people. In like manner godless governments clothe the Church in a robe of derision by abandoning her to every possible insult, with a view to depriving her of the people's love.

God also permits this persecution. It has furnished an excellent opportunity of drawing a sharp line of demarcation between the good and the wicked, between virtue and vice, between hatred and love; indeed it is a glorious time for the Catholic Church and her loyal children. It is particularly in our day, when the iniquities of the world have conspired against her, that the Catholic Church stands forth in all her grandeur and majesty, the true beacon light of unity in faith and salvation, a sure guide and consolation for the oppressed peoples. And it is this commanding attitude that fills her enemies with rage and drives them to despair.

3. The pagan emperors of old have gone down to ruin and their world-empire has been destroyed. The different heresies are now undergoing a slow but sure process of disintegration. Like them, all the States that have discarded God and His law are hastening to inevitable destruction. And it cannot well be otherwise. The adorable wisdom and providence of God have admirably adapted the Catholic faith to the life, the habits, the needs, the liberty, the aspirations of the individual as well as of whole nations. Take it away from them, and the individual as well as the nation will perish. Take a being out of the proper sphere of its existence, and see how it suffers. Look at the fish out of water, the bird deprived of air and freedom, the beasts of the woods and the mountains enclosed within the confines of a cage. Thus and much more does man suffer, do nations languish, when they are rudely torn from the atmosphere of Catholic life and faith. Such a life is no longer natural; it is injurious and a menace to existence itself. Those who tamper with the faith of a nation, who work at its dechristianization, call it by whatever name hypocrisy dictates, enlightenment, liberty or toleration, they are the peril and the enemy of that nation, for they are undermining its very life and existence. It is the first endeavor of every sectary and revolutionary to dupe the people, by means of insidious definitions, into throwing aside their Christian faith, so that in the resultant turmoil he may gain the mastery and acquire wealth.

In fact the man who has lost his Christian faith, who rejects Christian teachings and precepts, no longer believes in honesty, conscience, retribution, or charity. He throws off every restraint, he seeks his personal advantage in everything and earth is his paradise, procured, if necessary, by a life of public or private crime. What is true of the individual is
equally true of the nation. If there be any honesty, morality or loyalty left, it is owing solely and alone to Catholic faith, to Catholic life,—not so-called enlightenment, not to the promised happiness and brotherhood of man nor to the swarm of worthless periodicals.

My dearly beloved! When the Catholic Church opposes this avowed purpose of the deified State, when she vindicates her divine mission and her rights, she defends thereby the Christian family, true liberty, the true welfare and rights of the individual as well as of the nation. And if for this she is made to suffer, if she is persecuted and hated, she suffers and is persecuted because she, and she alone, can warn and save the nations. Infidelity and vice and error and secret conspiracies have never yet retarded the downfall of a people but have rather hastened it. The public press of our country is barely tolerant of, certainly not friendly to, the Catholic Church. For once that it is forced by circumstances to say something in her favor, it is a thousand times the vehicle of the vilest slanders and insults against her, her institutions and her children. And in this it enjoys the protection of the country's fundamental law. Why should this be so? Because the Catholic Church is the hereditary enemy, and the people must be taught to hate and to despise her and all that she stands for.

We Catholics have indeed been obliged in the past to listen to many a malevolent misrepresentation, many a sneer and taunt cast on our glorious faith. And we, good poor fools, have accepted all and kissed the rod that struck us. In this land of liberty, we alone are considered aliens and must apologize for having the temerity to exist. Are these the limitations of freedom of conscience? Are these the equal rights guaranteed to us by the constitution which our forefathers helped to frame and for which so much Catholic blood was shed?

The Catholic Church by strenuously opposing the dechristianization of the nations and suffering for her principles, can alone save the peoples. And if she cannot attain this object, not she, but the nations will suffer. Like her Divine Lord she battles against the impiety and the corruption of the world. And in this particular point she proves herself worthy of the Redeemer as His true Church. In this warfare she is more splendid than in peace and gives evidence of the divine power that is assisting her. She fights and suffers because she seeks for souls and desires to save the faith and redemption for the coming generations, until finally her efforts will be crowned with victory, and there will be but one flock and one shepherd on earth.

We too, my dear friends, must fight, at least for ourselves and for those who belong to us, so that we may preserve that most precious treasure entrusted to our care,—our Catholic faith. Everything depends on it, —not only grace and truth and eternal life, but also our very temporal existence, right and justice, order and well-being. And if in our sphere we have saved the Catholic faith from the machinations of the Herods, the Pharisees and the Jews, it will in turn save us for time and eternity and will lead us to the blissful vision of our Divine Saviour, to whom be praise forever. Amen.

The Beauty and Truth of the Catholic Church, Imprimatur 1911

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October 2nd - The Feast of the Holy Guardian Angels

10/1/2023

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             THE FEAST OF THE GUARDIAN ANGELS
We celebrate today, Christian wives and mothers, the feast of the Guardian Angels. The Gospel for this Sunday relates the story of the widow of Naim, whose tears and sorrow induced our Divine Saviour to raise her son to life. Truly, two important points for Christian mothers from which they may learn how to fulfill their calling.

One of the most touching proofs of the sublime providence of God for the welfare of our bodies and of our souls is the mission of the Holy Angels for our protection. It may appear strange to many that the Angels, who by their nature are so high above us, surround the throne of God and ceaselessly behold the face of God, should care for the earthly needs of mankind. But then it must, by far, appear more incredible, that the eternal and immortal God has made not only man but even the worm that crawls in the dust and the grass that grows unobserved in the fields the object of His Providence. Precisely this Providence over all, even over the smallest of His creatures brings the Majesty and Power of God nearer to the heart as to the understanding. Behold, thus increases the dignity of the Angels who, in a certain measure, share the sublime privilege of God in providing for the life of His creatures. And, in fact, the activity of our Guardian Angel is shown especially in the following:
1, they protect us in body and soul;
2, they encourage us to good and keep us from evil, and
3, they assist us in death.

1. The holy Guardian Angels protect us against the dangers that threaten body and soul. The body becomes the object of their solicitude because it is the dwelling-place and instrument of the immortal soul which is, as it were, the sister of the Angels and in the eternity of bliss the companion of the Angels in the beatific vision of God and in the praise of God.
This truth is confirmed in Holy Scripture emphatically, and also in the marvelous saving of so many Christians, especially children, from great dangers. But the soul is, more than the body, the particular object of the protection of the Holy Angels. Our soul is the sister of the Angels who never forget the high price by which they were purchased with the blood of Jesus. The soul is, moreover, the temple of the Holy Ghost, who watches over it. For this reason the Angels watch with such care over the souls confided to their protection. They are careful for the preservation of holy innocence and fight with indignation against the tempter. Our Divine Saviour Himself earnestly admonishes us: "Beware lest you scandalize one of these little ones," that is, lead them into evil "for their Angels behold the face of my Father" they are the accusers of the criminals against childish innocence.

2. But the Angels also encourage us to good and keep us from evil. As often as a good voice is heard within us, behold there is the voice of the Angel who encourages us to good or warns us from evil. If sin has been committed, then the Holy Angel speaks in our conscience in order to induce us to return. Soft and mild is his voice, and if we listen to it, it lisps from the justice and mercy of God. Well for the Christian who follows the voice of the Angel!

3. But the Guardian Angel also assists us in death. As he beholds full of pity the little child in the cradle, just baptized, so he beholds with still greater compassion his protege when attacked by the agony of death. There he appears to the dying, as the Angel appeared to our Saviour in His agony on Mt. Olivet and reached to Him the chalice of strength. The Guardian Angel inspires the dying Christian with contrition and confidence and leads the soul to the judgment of the Lord. Thus, too, you Christian mothers, share with the Angels the privilege to provide for the life of your children. With the Angels, Christian mothers should protect their children from dangers to their bodies and their souls,, encourage them to good and keep them from evil, and if God wills, assist them in a good death. The adults need above all in the manifold dangers of soul the invisible Angel as protector and counselor, but the children need the visible angel in the form of their parents and especially of their mother. Yes, God has placed over the paradise of innocent children's souls the mother in order that she by word and example may cultivate it and keep far from it the poisonous breath of sin. In union with the Angels of God she should stand by the side of the child, in order that in this protecting hand it may not lose the right path through this earthly life.

As the Angel of God battles with the soul of the adults, as soon as it is in danger of giving itself up to sin, so must the Christian mother battle with the weakness, the sickness and the death of the child. She assists the child against the partisanship of the brothers and sisters and against the excessive strictness of the father: she helps him through the gulfs of youthful inexperience and passion and through the different trials of this earthly life. And if the heart of the mother has gone silent to the touch of death, the child still looks back to the memory of her as to a friendly star.

Have you, Christian wives and mothers, after the example of the Angels of God, striven with might and main to be, by word and example, visible guardian angels to your children, and is the success, nevertheless, lamentable: are the grown-up children in consequence of many dangers, of bad example and allurements of the world gone astray, then there remains to the Christian mothers still an example for imitation and a consolation for a better future. It is the widow of Naim, who by her tears moved our Divine Saviour to compassion and to call back her dead son to life.

Yes, verily, the tears and prayers of Christian parents for the salvation and the betterment of their wayward children are not lost, they arise to God and move Him sooner or later to dispense grace and mercy. Therefore Christian mothers, never give up the hope to obtain the betterment and conversion of your sons and daughters. Well for the wayward son, for the wayward daughter, well for them if a Christian mother weeps and prays for them ! But the poorest among all poor children is the one who has no father or no mother to weep over him, for whom no father, no mother moves the Sacred Heart of Jesus to compassion in order that He might stop the funeral procession to open destruction and the child dead in sin be called back to life again.

Therefore, may the mercy of God grant you, Christian mothers, always His grace and His blessing, in order that you may fulfill your dignity and task as visible guardian angels for His honor, for your salvation and for the welfare of your children. And may none of you be placed in the position of the widow of Naim and be obliged to follow your children with a
broken heart, with tears and entreaties. Amen.

Source: The Beauty and Truth of the Catholic Church, Imprimatur 1913


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