WHY worship God when you can worship (and show off your supposed virtue) the Most Holy and Immaculate Migrant instead?

“Heterodox Cardinal Blase Cupich told Catholics gathered for a ‘City of Welcome’ event that advocacy for immigrants “belongs to every single disciple of Jesus, and it is, in its truest sense, an act of divine worship,” again collapsing legal and illegal immigration into a single moral claim.

“The October 3 homily at the Archdiocese of Chicago celebration titled ‘Celebrating a City of Welcome, where Catholic Solidarity and the Journey of Migration Meet,’ praised Chicago as a city ‘woven from the courageous journeys’ of earlier immigrants, African American migrants, and more recent Latino and Asian communities.”

Link

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DECREE of Pope Saint Pius V on the power of the Holy Rosary:

“…And so, Dominic considered this simple way of praying and supplicating God, which is called the Rosary, or Psalter of the Blessed Virgin, accessible to all and completely devout. In it, the Blessed Virgin is venerated with the angelic salutation repeated one hundred and fifty times, that is, according to the number in the Psalter of David, and with the Lord’s Prayer in each decade. Interspersed with these prayers are certain meditations that illustrate the entire life of Our Lord Jesus Christ, thus completing the method of prayer devised by the Fathers of the Holy Roman Church. This same method was propagated by Saint Dominic and disseminated by the friars of Blessed Dominic (…). The faithful of Christ, inflamed by these prayers, immediately began to be transformed into new men. The darkness of heresy began to dissipate, and the light of the Catholic faith was revealed. In many places, the friars of the Order began to found confraternities in honor of this prayer (…). Following the example of our predecessors, seeing that the Church militant, which God has placed In our hands, shaken in these times by so many heresies, and gravely afflicted by so many wars and by the depravity of men’s morals, we also raise our eyes, weeping, but full of hope, towards that same mountain, from which all help arises, and we encourage and admonish every member of Christ’s faithful to do the same in the Lord.”

“Rome, St. Peter’s Basilica, September 17, 1569, the fourth year of Our Pontificate.”

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“FROM this healthy exercise have grown up numberless good fruits in the Christian Commonwealth. Among these deserveth well to be named that great victory over the Sultan of Turkey, which the most holy Pope Pius V, and the Christian Princes whom he had roused, won at Lepanto, (on the 7th day of October, the first Lord’s Day in the month, in the year of our Lord 1571) The day whereon this victory was gained was the very one whereon the Guildbrethren of the most holy Rosary, throughout the whole world, were used to offer their accustomed prayers and appointed supplications, and the event therefore was not unnaturally connected therewith. This being the avowed opinion of Gregory XIII, he ordered that in all Churches where there was, or should be, an Altar of the Rosary, a Feast, in the form of a Greater Double, should be kept for ever upon the first Lord’s Day of the month of October, to give unceasing thanks to the Blessed Virgin, under her style of (Queen of) the (Most Holy) Rosary, for that extraordinary mercy of God. Other Popes also have granted almost numberless Indulgences to those who say the Rosary, and to those who join its Guilds.

“In the year 1716, Charles VI, Elect-Emperor of the Romans, won a famous victory over countless hordes of Turks, near Timisoara, in the kingdom of Hungary, upon the day when the Feast of the Dedication of the Church of St. Mary of the Snows was being kept, and almost at the very moment when the Guild-brethren of the most holy Rosary were moving through the streets of Rome in public and solemn procession, amid vast multitudes, all filled with the deepest enthusiasm, calling vehemently upon God for the defeat of the Turks, and entreating the Virgin Mother of God to bring the might of her succour to the help of the Christians. (more…)

FROM The Great and Enduring Heresy of Mohammed by Hilaire Belloc:

Mohammedanism was a heresy: that is the essential point to grasp before going any further. It began as a heresy, not as a new religion. It was not a pagan contrast with the Church; it was not an alien enemy. It was a perversion of Christian doctrine. Its vitality and endurance soon gave it the appearance of a new religion, but those who were contemporary with its rise saw it for what it was – not a denial, but an adaptation and a misuse, of the Christian thing. It differed from most (not from all) heresies in this, that it did not arise within the bounds of the Christian Church. The chief heresiarch, Mohammed himself, was not, like most heresiarchs, a man of Catholic birth and doctrine to begin with. He sprang from pagans. But that which he taught was in the main Catholic doctrine, oversimplified. It was the great Catholic world – on the frontiers of which he lived, whose influence was all around him and whose territories he had known by travel – which inspired his convictions. He came of, and mixed with, the degraded idolaters of the Arabian wilderness, the conquest of which had never seemed worth the Romans’ while. (more…)

“While the world changes, the cross stands firm.”

—- St. Bruno, (1101 A.D.) founder of the Carthusian Order of Monks

The Monastery of the Grande Chartreuse
by a Carthusian monk, 1893

“Most Catholics are aware that a Carthusian monastery consists of a number of little houses all grouped together, and that each monk has a little establishment of his own. He has a bed-room, a study, and an eating-room, all as bare and plain as can be. The eating-room was also originally a kitchen, but it was found that so much time was taken from prayer and study by the duties of cookery, that a common kitchen supplied the meals of all by means of a little sort of turn about, where the monk finds his meals at stated hours. He has also a work-room for manual labour, and a little garden of his own. There is no denying that the life is a very trying one: the perpetual silence, the monotony, the abstinence from all fleshmeat, the long night Offices, render it impossible to all save those who have from God the privilege of a Carthusian vocation. But it is a very happy life to the faithful son of St. Bruno, and what is more, a very healthy one ; the average longevity is far in excess of the world outside. The Carthusians have had centenarians not a few, and the general health is remarkably good. The law respecting flesh-meat is an absolute one; not even to save his life, or under most urgent medical advice, is a Carthusian allowed to let it pass his lips.

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KATHY G. writes:

I received an e-reader as a gift and was downloading The Liturgical Year by Dom Guéranger and these words, written by Gary Potter, from the introduction of the Loreto Publication’s version reveal a keen understanding of history and the splitting of the spiritual from the material in the minds of men:

There is a dimension of the work that can surprise the American reader. Political is the only fit word for that dimension. This is to speak of politics, not in terms of parties or elections, but simply as the means whereby the life of a society is regulated or governed. Dom Guéranger believed the means should be Christian because he believed society itself should be. We Americans may believe our society is fundamentally Christian, or used to be, but every schoolboy knows we have never had Christian government. That would be exclusionarу.

As a consequence, we [contend] that the real target of modern revolutionaries, whether in France in 1789 or Russia in 1917, has been the Christian Faith – that they have overthrown governments in order to get at it. Dom Guéranger knew this view was wrong, that it was backwards. He saw what had really happened: that the revolutionaries began their march to power in the 18th century by first undermining religious belief, including belief in the very existence of God and, above all, His Incarnation, in order to dethrone Christ as King of Society. The Christian political order, not the Christian religion, was their real target. They were determined to replace Christ with themselves. Instead of Christian government, there would be government according to their lights.

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“THE Church of Christ, the faithful depository of the teaching of Divine Wisdom, cannot and does not think of deprecating or disdaining the particular characteristics which each people, with jealous and intelligible pride, cherishes and retains as a precious heritage.

[…]

“Nor is there any fear lest the consciousness of universal brotherhood aroused by the teaching of Christianity, and the spirit which it inspires, be in contrast with love of traditions or the glories of one’s fatherland, or impede the progress of prosperity or legitimate interests. For that same Christianity teaches that in the exercise of charity we must follow a God-given order, yielding the place of honor in our affections and good works to those who are bound to us by special ties. Nay, the Divine Master Himself gave an example of this preference for His Own country and fatherland, as He wept over the coming destruction of the Holy City.” [bold added]

— Pope Pius XII, Summi Pontificatus, 1939

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“HOLINESS consists simply in doing God’s will.”

— St. Thérèse of Lisieux

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“OUR Lord needs from us neither great deeds nor profound thoughts. Neither intelligence nor talents. He cherishes simplicity.”

— St. Thérèse of Lisieux

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“THE Lily of the valley asks but a single dewdrop, which for one night shall rest in its cup, hidden from all human eyes. But when the shadows shall begin to fade, when the Flower of the field shall have become the Sun of Justice, then the dewdrop — the humble sharer of His exile — will rise up to Him as love’s vapour. He will shed on her a ray of His light, and before the whole court of Heaven she will shine eternally like a precious pearl, a dazzling mirror of the Divine Sun.”

— St. Thérèse of Lisieux

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“SOMETIMES, when I read spiritual treatises, in which perfection is shown with a thousand obstacles in the way and a host of illusions round it, my poor little mind grows very soon weary. I close the learned book, which leaves my head muddled and my heart parched, and I take up the Holy Scripture. Then all seems luminous, a single word opens up infinite horizons to my soul, perfection seems easy; I see it is enough to realize one’s nothingness and give oneself wholly, like a child, into the arms of the good God.”

— St. Thérèse of Lisieux

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ONE way to destroy sacred mysteries is to cloak them in an excess of feeling.

The doctrine of guardian angels has been subjected to this phenomenon of sentimentality, partly in an effort to appeal to children, who are instinctively drawn to angels. But it’s adults who have made it drippy and superstitious. (See lots of examples of this on Youtube if you look up angel hymns.) Too much feeling is just as bad as too little.

One must tread very carefully around the subject of angels because of how much it has been abused by statuettes of cherubs and other inferior artworks, which tend to make angels less majestic, beautiful and awe-inspiring than they are.

It is not true that the angel is here only to comfort. The love of the guardian angel for the human being is not unconditional. “It is to be feared that the angels, who are at present our guardians, will become our accusers at the day of judgment,” said St. Aloysius Gonzaga.

And when the Son of man shall come in his majesty, and all the angels with him, then shall He sit upon the seat of His majesty. And all nations shall be gathered together before Him, and He shall separate them one from another, as the shepherd separateth the sheep from the goats: And He shall set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on His left. Matthew 25:31-32 [bold added]

Beneath the sentimentality lurks vanity — the belief that we will soar to heaven someday with our angel by our side because we are just so darn wonderful. The painting above by Domenico Fetti, The Guardian Angel Protecting a Child from the Empire of the Demon (1615-18) succeeds in avoiding sugary indulgence, I think. The angel points to what is higher. In the background, you see the enemy in shadow. The angel is beside us to warn.

We can’t fully understand the doctrine of angels and should not expect to in this life. The best way to comprehend it is through prayer, to which the worldly, the sappy, the sentimental and egotistical have little or no attraction whatsoever.

Pray to your guardian angel. “For my angel is with you.” – Bar. vi. 5 Pray that, through his intercessions, he save you from sentimentality’s animalistic attack on the holy and sustaining spirit of reverence that lies within you.

In every lodging, in every nook, have reverence for thine Angel. Dare not to do in his presence what thou wouldst not dare to do in mine. Or dost thou doubt whether he be indeed present, because thou seest him not? What if thou heardest him? What if thou touchedst him? What if thou smelledst him? Behold, not by sight alone is the presence of things made manifest.

— St. Bernard of Clairvaux

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October 2 is the Feast of the Guardian Angels.

THE knowledge that distinct angels watch over individual human beings has existed for thousands of years. Nabopolassar, father of Nebuchadnezzar the Great, said: “He (Marduk) sent a tutelary deity (cherub) of grace to go at my side; in everything that I did, he made my work to succeed.”

In the Bible this doctrine is clearly discernible and its development is well marked. In Genesis 28-29, angels not only act as the executors of God’s wrath against the cities of the plain, but they deliver Lot from danger; in Exodus 12-13, an angel is the appointed leader of the host of Israel, and in 32:34, God says to Moses: “my angel shall go before thee.” At a much later period we have the story of Tobias, which might serve for a commentary on the words of Psalm 90:11: “For he hath given his angels charge over thee; to keep thee in all thy ways.” (Cf. Psalm 33:8 and 34:5) Lastly, in Daniel 10 angels are entrusted with the care of particular districts; one is called “prince of the kingdom of the Persians”, and Michael is termed “one of the chief princes”; cf. Deuteronomy 32:8 (Septuagint); and Ecclesiasticus 17:17 (Septuagint). (Source)

This understanding grew through the ages through the aid of divine revelation and apparitions, such as the Guardian Angel who appeared to Tundale the 12th century Irish knight after he fell into unconsciousness. Tundale was never the same again.

Angels, far more intelligent than human beings, are pure spirit and can travel as speedily as our thoughts. They number in the millions, both on earth and in heaven, where they ceaselessly adore God. “The providence of God, always infinitely wise, infinitely holy, and infinitely gracious, vouchsafes to employ superior created beings in the execution of his will in various dispensations towards other inferior creatures.” (Butler’s Lives of the Saints)

From by Fr. Paul O’Sullivan’s book All About the Angels (TAN, 1945):

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And another angel came, and stood before the altar, having a golden censer; and there was given to him much incense, that he should offer of the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar, which is before the throne of God. And the smoke of the incense of the prayers of the saints ascended up before God from the hand of the angel. — Apocalypse 8:3-4

(October 2 is the Feast of the Guardian Angels. Every baptized Christian has a guardian angel.)

FROM “The Twelve Works of our Guardian Angel” by St. Bonaventure of Bagnoregio, OFM, Doctor of the Church:

According to Sacred Scripture there are twelve works of charity which our guardian Angel accomplishes for us.

THE FIRST is to rebuke us for our faults. According to the Book of Judges, chapter 2, verse 1: The Angel of the Lord ascends from Galgala to the place of those weeping and says: I have lead you forth from the land of Egypt . . . And you have not heard my voice.

THE SECOND is to absolve us from the bonds of our sins. According to Book of Acts, chapter 12, verse 7: The Angel stood by . . . and the chains fell from his hands; yet this must be understood as disposing this to happen.

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O, Jesus Christ, I adore Thee and I thank Thee for all the graces Thou has given me this day. I offer Thee my sleep and all the moments of this night, and I beseech Thee to keep me without sin, wherefore I put myself within Thy Sacred Side and under the mantle of Our Lady. Let Thy holy angels stand about me and keep me in peace.

Amen.

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“THE night also brings us a great many blessings:

“1st. It instructs us by withdrawing from our use and our sight the creatures which surround us. It recalls to our mind the nothingness from which we have sprung, and the darkness of idolatry from which have have been freed by the gospel.

“2d. The night brings us rest and sleep, but it does it gently and with deference, to teach us that all things are made for us, and ourselves for God.

“3d. The night refreshes the air, and preserves the herbs and plants, which would perish if the sun were to remain always above the horizon.

“4th. It secures our lives against wild beasts. These beasts go forth during night to seek their prey, but if there were no night, hunger would force them to go forth during the day, and thus man would be incessantly exposed to their fury.”

— The Catechism of Perseverance, Abbé Jean Gaume (1858) (more…)

See also “Benjamin Franklin, Master Propagandist“

FROM Bernard Fay’s Revolution and Freemasonry, 1680-1800 (Little, Brown and Company, 1935):

It was by no means easy for America to break away from England — the only logical center for all colonies of English origin as well as for English people living on all continents.

There were thirteen small settlements separated by such distances that it took three weeks for a letter from Georgia to each Massachusetts; their governments were quite different; there was no unity or uniformity in their administrations, their religious affiliations, their customs and social standards, or even their racial composition.

[…..]  Masonry alone undertook to lay the foundation for national unity in America, because, through the very nature of its organization, it could spread throughout all the colonies and work steadily and silently. It created in a limited but very prominent class of people a feeling of American unity without which the American liberty could not have developed — without which there would have been no United States.

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O JESU Life, spring of the soul!
The Father’s power and glory bright!
thee with the Angels we extol;
From thee they draw their life and light.

Thy thousand thousand hosts are spread
Embattled o’er the azure sky;
But Michael bears thy standard dread,
And lifts the mighty Cross on high.

He in that Sign the rebel power.
Did with their Dragon Prince expel;
And hurled them from the heaven’s high towers,
Down like a thunderbolt to hell.

Grant us, with Michael, still, O Lord,
Against the prince of pride to fight;
So may a crown be our reward,
Before the Lamb’s pure throne of light.

To God the Father, with the Son
And Holy Paraclete, with thee,
As evermore hath been before,
Be glory through eternity.

Amen.

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