“IT is the last time that Jesus walks through the faithless city. He is invisible to the eyes of the people who denied Him, but visible to His disciples, and goes before them, as heretofore the pillar of fire led on the Israelites. How beautiful and imposing a sight! Mary, the disciples, and the holy women accompanying Jesus on his heavenward journey, which is to lead Him to the right hand of his eternal Father! It was commemorated in the middle ages by a solemn procession before the Mass of Ascension day. What happy times were those, when Christians took delight in honouring every action of our Redeemer! They could not be satisfied as we are, with a few vague notions, which can produce nothing but an equally vague devotion.”
— Dom Prosper Guéranger, “The Ascension of Our Lord”
“Ascending on high, he led captivity captive: he gave gifts to men.” — Ps. lxvii
“HE ascended because the glorious kingdom of the highest heavens, not the obscure abode of this earth, presented a suitable dwelling place to Him whose glorified body, rising from the tomb, was clothed with immortality. He ascended, not only to possess the throne of glory and the kingdom which He purchased at the price of His blood, but also to attend to whatever regards the salvation of His people. He ascended to prove thereby that His; ‘kingdom is not of this world,’ (8) for the kingdoms of this world are earthly and transient, and are based upon wealth and the power of the flesh; but the kingdom of Christ is not, as the Jews expected, an earthly, but a spiritual and eternal kingdom. Its riches, too, are spiritual, as He shows by placing His throne in the heavens, where they who seek most earnestly the things that are of God abound most in riches and in abundance of all good things, according to these words of St. James: ‘Hath not God chosen the poor in this world, rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which God hath promised to them that love him?'”
Now it is very much like this: as if we were sailing in ships across cold water, over the sea-waves, beyond the wide ocean in water-steeds traversing the floods. The waters are perilous, the waves immeasurable, amid which we journey here through this frail world, the stormy oceans, across the paths of the deep. Dangerous was that life before we came to land across the rough waves. Help came to us that we might be led to a haven of healing, God’s Spirit-Son, and gave us grace that we might find, by the ship’s side, where we could moor our water-steeds, our ancient wave-horses securely anchored. Let us fasten our hope on that haven which the Ruler of the skies opened for us, holy in the heights, when he ascended into heaven.
“THE natural man understandeth not the things that are of God. A holy life, a supernatural life, is deemed visionary, idle, superstitious. If there is to be any virtue at all, it is to be only within the sphere of sense and nature to round and perfect both, such as the manly virtues of prudence, justice, temperance, and fortitude, provided they strike not deeper nor rise higher than the life that ‘now is.’
“It is idle to speak of the expediency of the Ascension or, indeed, of the supernatural at all to such as these; nor do I, except by way of warning. We live in an age of no belief, or half belief, or make belief. But the truth, ‘The word of the Lord endureth forever,’ and our attitude towards it, can make no difference. God is still in the world, behind its forces, and guiding and controlling them, even though men neither see nor believe in Him. Men and women are still His creatures, the works of His hands–adorned with grace and destined for glory. We are on earth, it is true, but our eyes and heads, aye, and hearts too, point to the skies. No sophist, nor school of sophists, with all their arts of style and argument, have ever yet persuaded mankind at large that life ends at the grave, and that the happiness we crave and strive for and can never reach on earth is an empty dream, never to be realized. No! God made nothing in vain. We are made and destined for a higher, larger, and nobler life than the present, of which the Ascension forcibly reminds us. It reminds us, too, of the life of grace, the life of true, pure holiness over and above mere natural rectitude, a necessary precedent to the life of glory; and which our Lord, by withdrawing Himself visibly, enables us, if we will, to live.
“Let us therefore lift up our hearts to heaven where Christ has gone ‘to prepare a place for us.’ We have not seen Him ascend; but we know by faith He is there. He is the head of the mystic body of which we are members, and limbs should join the head. ‘Ubi caput praecessit ibi spes vocatur et corporis.‘ Be faithful, then, to grace, lead a life not of pleasure, but of duty. Peace is only found where God placed it – in a dutiful, self-denying life.”
John Calvin whose peculiar fad
It was to call God murderous,
Which further led that feverish cad
To burn alive the Servetus.
The horrible Bohemian Huss,
the Tedious Wycliffe, where are they ?
But where is old Nestorius ?
The wind has blown them all away.
“FINALLY, we paternally exhort all students and ministers of the Church to approach the Sacred Scriptures with ever greater affection, reverence, and piety, for their understanding will not be opened to them in a salutary and fitting manner unless they distance themselves from the arrogance of earthly knowledge and stir within themselves the holy desire for the wisdom that comes from above. Once introduced to this discipline and enlightened and strengthened by it, they will be in the best position to discover and avoid the deceptions of human science and to perceive and refer its solid fruits to the supernatural order; thus warmed, their hearts will strive more vehemently for the reward of virtue and divine love: ‘Blessed are those who investigate its testimonies and seek him with all their heart.'”
— Pope Leo XIII, Encyclical Providentissimus Deus; November, 1893
“THE catechism is always a lesson. The Gospel is a story. Why try to teach as a lesson what can be taught as a story? A child can ‘endure’ a lesson, but never tires of stories. A child doesn’t listen to a story as we do, distant, leaving us strangers to the action: the child enters, is completely absorbed, with their imagination, their sensitivity; everything takes shape, everything comes alive for them, and then, if they are told about Our Lord, if they are told about His life, where the simple and flowery tales of the parables are woven into the Palestinian narrative, with the marvelous element of miracles, through which His Divinity shines forth, the child sees Jesus, hears Him, listens to Him, follows Him, and very soon begins to love Him; and if care is taken to direct their faith, their heart, their piety toward the tabernacle to constantly remind them that the Jesus of the Gospel, the same Jesus, is there hidden, alive in the Sacrament, with us, for us, the work of formation, of religious education, is done effortlessly. Can one conceive of a practical Catholic who has never read the Gospel? Well, that is the case for the vast majority. One could be perfectly instructed in religion simply by knowing the Gospel, because it contains all the substance of the Catechism; but the reverse is not true, because the Catechism does not contain the entire Gospel.”
— Bishop Maurice Landrieux, (1857–1926), Bishop of Dijon [Pastoral Letter]
Motherhood is a statement from God that things will be alright. The first person you meet in this world is the person who bore the most pain to bring you into it. She will be the first to fully embrace you. She will be the first to feed you. She will be the first to love you.
Motherhood is a declatory statement that human life will continue. It may not be easy, but life is worth it. Every mother is a sign of God’s love.
Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum. Benedicta tu in mulieribus, et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Iesus. Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen.
It must have been in 1955 or ’56 when my mother permitted me to stay up long enough to watch a TV police drama that was telecast in St. Louis at 9 or 9:30 p.m. She would likely have watched it anyway, even aside from my enthusiasm for it. It was a syndicated program called Highway Patrol. It featured tough-guy movie actor Broderick Crawford as the hero, Captain Dan Mathews. I was six to seven years old. Something in the program inspired my respect. I looked forward to it every week. But of course at that age, I could not articulate why it impressed me.
Now, seventy years later, it is perfectly clear. In recent months, I have watched dozens of episodes of Highway Patrol. The essence of that program lay in its moral-philosophical frame of mind. The stories were well-written and tightly edited. They were about good and evil. They embodied a code of moral standards that were shared by nearly all Americans in those years. There was no moral ambiguity or uncertainty in those episodes. The job of the Highway Patrol was to defend the lives, property, and rights of law-abiding citizens.
I was in the early years of parochial school when Highway Patrol inspired my respect. I enjoyed watching it and two other syndicated programs in those years — Rescue 8 and Sea Hunt — because they showed confident men doing heroic things to uphold a fixed code of moral-philosophical-cultural standards.
Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee, Rembrandt; 1633
“HE who is afraid of falling distrusts his own strength, avoids as much as possible all dangerous occasions, and recommends himself often to God, and thus preserves his soul from sin. But the man who is not fearful, but full of self confidence, easily exposes himself to the danger of sin: he seldom recommends himself to God, and thus he falls. Let us imagine a person suspended over a great precipice by a cord held by another. Surely he would constantly cry out to the person who supports him: Hold fast, hold fast; for Gods sake, do not let go. We are all in danger of falling into the abyss of all crime, if God does not support us. Hence we should constantly beseech him to keep his hands over us, and to succour us in all dangers.
“HOW beautiful art thou, O Michael, in thy heaven made armour, giving glory to the God, Whose enemy thou overcamest! Thine humble and fervent eye is fixed on the throne of the Jehovah, Whose rights thou defendedst, and Who gave thee the victory. Thy sublime cry: “Who is like unto God?” roused the faithful legions, and became thy name and thy crown. It will remind us, for all eternity, of thy fidelity to our Creator, and thy triumph over the dragon. Meanwhile, we enjoy thy loving protection; we are thy happy clients.”
The sanctuary of St. Michael on Mount Gargano in Apulia, Italy [pictured above] first became a site of veneration of the archangel in the fifth century, following the famous apparition of the saint there and many miracles attributed to him.
We do love you, Month, most fair,
For the precious name you bear;
And we hail you with delight;
Mary’s name sheds lustre bright;
Every flow’ret seems to say,
Mary’s is the month of May.
Welcome, Month of Mary!
Thus is unleashed the Operation of error or seduction of iniquity (II Thessalonians 2, 8-12), which consists of an impressive series of errors and doctrinal contradictions, false sacramental prodigies and heretical barbarities disguised as apparent Catholic orthodoxy that we will call fables or logics of Anomie, but which all contain a deadly deception; This Operation of Error was inaugurated with the advent of the Antichrist Montini, and above all, with the great apostasy he instigated, which culminated in the mass defection of the entire episcopal body, formalized on the fateful day of December 8, 1965, with the signing of the heretical acts of the accursed Second Vatican Council. The Operation of Error is a false power sent by God to lead astray those who did not love the Truth as revealed by God in Sacred Scripture and the Magisterium, but instead delighted in deceit and iniquity. It is a truly insidious seduction that strikes virtually all souls whom God has rescued from the world and its deceptions. Later, we will explain the modus operandi of this unfathomable mystery called the Operation of Error, and we will attempt to provide a way out, with the help of the Triune God, of this relentless universal deception.
“MARY knew that God is not to be found in the midst of the tumult and confusion of distracting cares, but that it is in silence and in solitude that He speaks to the heart (Osee ii. 14). She was teaching us to give, in some quiet retreat, now and again, our thoughts and our heart to God and God alone.”
Mary, it was thy lowliness,
Well pleasing to the Lord,
That made thee worthy to become
The Mother of the Word.
“DOTH not wisdom cry aloud, and prudence put forth her voice? Standing in the top of the highest places by the way, in the midst of the paths. Beside the gates of the city, in the very doors she speaketh, saying: O ye men, to you I call, and my voice is to the sons of men. O little ones, understand subtilty, and ye unwise, take notice.
“Hear, for I will speak of great things: and my lips shall be opened to preach right things. My mouth shall meditate truth, and my lips shall hate wickedness. All my words are just, there is nothing wicked nor perverse in them.They are right to them that understand, and just to them that find knowledge.Receive my instruction, and not money: choose knowledge rather than gold.”
