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Devotion to the Holy Face and the Golden Arrow ​Sister Marie de Saint-Pierre (1816-1848)

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Devotion to the Holy Face and the Golden Arrow

Sister Marie de Saint-Pierre (1816-1848)

from Le Sel de la terre 110, Autumn 2019

(continued)

Gravity of Blasphemy

“He made me understand that men are incapable of understanding the insult done to God by this sin of blasphemy; blasphemies pierce His heart and make Him a second Lazarus covered with wounds (Luke 16, 20). He invited me to imitate the dogs who comforted poor Lazarus by coming to lick his wounds; I would do Him a great service by employing my tongue to glorify every day the most holy Name of God despised and blasphemed by sinners, without considering whether this exercise gave me interior consolations; it would be enough for me to think that I was healing His divine wounds and causing Him great satisfaction.”

The Holy Face of Christ Offended by Blasphemies

“I understood that, as the Sacred Heart of Jesus is the sensitive object offered to our adoration to represent His immense Love in the most holy Sacrament of the altar, so, in the work of reparation, the Face of Our Lord is the sensitive object offered to the adoration of the associates to repair the outrages of the blasphemers who attack the Divinity of which it is the figure, mirror, and expression. By the virtue of this adorable Face, presented to the eternal Father, we can appease His anger and obtain the conversion of the impious and blasphemers.”

“Our Lord made me see that the Church, His Spouse, is His mystical Body, and that religion was the face of this body; then He showed me this face in the face of the enemies of His Name, and I saw that the blasphemers and the sectarians were renewing on the Holy Face of Our Lord all the opprobrium of His Passion. I saw, thanks to this divine light, that the impious, by uttering evil words and blaspheming the Holy Name of God, were spitting on the Face of the Savior and covering it with mud; that all the blows given by the sectarians to the holy Church, to religion, were the renewal of the many blows that the Face of Our Lord received, and that these unfortunate people were making this august Face sweat by striving to annihilate its works.”

“Our Lord showed me, with the help of a simple and just comparison, that the impious by their blasphemies attacked His adorable Face, and that the faithful glorified it by the homage of praise rendered to His Name and to His person.”

“Merit is in persons, but the glory that accompanies them is in their name; it bursts forth when it is pronounced; the merit or demerit of a person passes into his name. The most holy Name of God expresses the divinity, and contains in it all the perfections of the Creator; it follows from this that the blasphemers of this sacred Name attack God himself. Now let us remember these words of Jesus: “the Father is in me and I in the Father.” (Jn. 10:38). Jesus made Himself passible by the Incarnation; and He suffered, in His adorable Face, the outrages done by the blasphemers to the Name of God, His Father.”

“Our Lord has shown me that there is something mysterious about the face of a despised man of honor; yes, I see that his name and his face have a special connection. Behold a man distinguished by his name and merits, in the presence of his enemies; they do not lay hands on him, but they overwhelm him with insults, they add bitter derision to his name, instead of the titles which are due to him. Notice then what happens to the face of this insulted man; would you not say that all the outrageous words that come out of the mouths of his enemies come to rest on his face and cause him to suffer a real torment? We see this face covered with redness, shame, and confusion; the opprobrium and ignominy it suffers are more cruel to bear than real torments in the other parts of its body. Well, here is a weak portrait of the Face of Our Lord outraged by the blasphemies of the impious! Let us represent this same man in the presence of his friends, who, having learned of the insults he has received, hasten to console him, to treat him according to his dignity, pay homage to the greatness of his name by calling him by all his titles of honor; do you not then see the face of this man feel the sweetness of these praises Glory rests on his forehead and, shining on his face, makes it all shiny: joy shines in his eyes, a smile is on his lips; in a word, his faithful friends have healed the bitter pain of this face outraged by his enemies, glory has passed the reproach. This is what the friends of Jesus do through the work of reparation; the glory they give to His Name rests on this august forehead, and rejoices His most Holy Face, in a very special way, in the most holy Sacrament of the altar.”

Healing the Blasphemers

• 3 November 1845:

“According to the care you will take to repair My portrait, which was disfigured by blasphemers, I will take care to repair yours, which was disfigured by sin. I will reprint My image on it, and I will make it as beautiful as it was when it came out of the font of baptism. Abandon yourself therefore into My hands and be willing to suffer all the operations necessary for the restoration of this image. Do not be troubled if you experience sadness and darkness, for you know that in an image, the dark colors serve to bring out those that are more vivid. Men have the art of restoring bodies; but only I can be called the restorer of souls, and who restores them to the image of God. I have made known to you this work of reparation, I have shown you its excellence, and now I promise you the reward.”

“Oh! If you could see the beauty of my Face! Your eyes are still too weak!”

• 5 January 1846:

“Our Lord made me aware that Lucifer willingly left to other demons the care of leading other flocks of sinners, such as for example: the impure, the drunkards, the greedy; but the blasphemers form his favorite flock. He made it known to me that this work of reparation embraces not only the reparation of blasphemy proper, but also that of all other blasphemies uttered against religion and the Church; however, it applies especially to blasphemies of the Holy Name of God.”

[…]

Changing the Wine of Justice Into the Wine of Mercy

“I saw other punishments prepared to satisfy this Justice. When I saw this, I said to Our Lord : Sweet Jesus, if only I could drink the rest of this cup, so that my brothers might be spared!”

“He answered me that He accepted my good will, but that I was not capable of emptying this cup, and that only He could drink it. The Savior, seeing my pain, beckoned me to enter His divine Heart; in His excessive mercy, He gave it to me as a vessel worthy of being presented to the eternal Father to receive this wine of His wrath, making me understand that, passing through this channel, it would be changed for us into the wine of mercy. But He does not want to entirely infringe the rights of justice; if I may express myself in this way, He wants to make a covenant between His justice and His mercy, and for this purpose He asks for the establishment of the work of Reparation to the glory of His Name. Yes, He will disarm the anger of God, His Father, if He offers Him a work of reparation for us! Is it not the least we can do, O sweet Jesus, to make reparation by our prayers, by our groans and by our adoration, for the enormous sins of which we are guilty towards the majesty of God? This, Mother, is the prayer that Our Lord put into my mouth, and which I want to repeat unceasingly:

‘Eternal Father, look upon the divine Heart of Jesus which I offer to you to receive the wine of your justice, so that it may be changed for us into the wine of mercy’.

He made me understand that, each time I made this offering, I would obtain a drop of this wine of divine anger, which, falling, as I said above, into the vessel of the sacred Heart of Jesus, would change into the liquor of mercy.”

Waging War on the Communists

In 1847, the League of Communists was founded in London. Two of its members, Marx and Engels, received the mission to write the doctrinal manifesto that appeared in February 1848 under the title Manifesto of the Communist Party 1.

On March 14, 1847, Sister Marie de Saint-Pierre wrote to her superior:

“Our Lord today, after Holy Communion, made me understand that the plagues we have been struck with were only the forerunners of those which His justice is preparing for us if His anger is not appeased, and He showed me the sins of blasphemy and the profanations of Sunday under the emblem of two pumps, with which the men who are guilty of these crimes draw the waters of His wrath over France and expose themselves to being submerged by them, if this work of reparation which He gives her in his mercy as a means of salvation is not established. Then He told me that the sectarians called Communists had only made one excursion: ‘Oh’! He added, ­‘if you knew their secret and diabolical machinations, and their anti-Christian principles! They are only waiting for a favorable day to set fire to France. Ask, therefore, for the work of Reparation to whom it belongs, in order to obtain mercy.’”

• 29 March 1847:

“Our Lord has entrusted me with a new mission which I would be afraid of if I were anything; but as I am nothing but a weak instrument in His powerful hand, I am perfectly at peace.

He commanded me to make war on the communists, whom He told me were the enemies of the Church and of His Christ, making me understand that these lion cubs were, for the most part, born in the Church whose cruel enemies they now declared themselves to be. Then He added:

‘I have made it known to you that I hold you in My hands like an arrow. Now I want to shoot this arrow at My enemies. I give you the weapons of My Passion to fight them: My Cross, whose enemies they are, and the other instruments of My torture. Go to them with the simplicity of a child and the courage of a valiant soldier. Receive, for this mission, the blessing of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost’.

Then I prayed to the Blessed Virgin to be the custodian of these divine weapons, given to me by her dearest Son, who is compared to the Tower of David, from which hang a thousand shields. Our Lord gave me, on this subject, several other lights which it would not be easy for me to relate. “Lord,” I said, “train my hands for battle, and teach me to use your instruments.”

He said to me:

‘The weapons of My enemies give death, but Mine give life.’

How to Fight the Enemies of God

This is the prayer I often recite for this purpose:

Eternal Father, I offer you, against the camp of your enemies, the Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ and all the instruments of His holy Passion, that You may put division between them; for, as Your beloved Son has said, every kingdom divided against itself will be destroyed [Mt. 12:25].

[…] Jesus gives me grace to draw my weapons; today, after Holy Communion, He encouraged me to fight, and He promised to give me a cross of honor, which, He told me, would open heaven for me, if I were faithful […]. But, Reverend Mother, after having fought the enemies of God with all my strength during these three days of feasting, I now feel almost contrition. I explain myself: it is because I fear having made imprecations against them.

I know that the holy King David does the same in his psalms (108, for example); but I do not know if I am allowed to do so. Finally, I have said everything that Our Lord, it seems to me, inspired me to say; if it is wrong, and I am mistaken, I will not do it again.

I will tell you that I begin by placing my soul in the hands of Our Lord; then I beg him to bend His bow and shoot His arrows at His enemies; then I fight them first by His Cross and by the instruments of His Passion, as He taught me; then by the virtue of the most holy Name of God. And this is my concern for the imprecations, for if it is wrong, I have repeated these words a hundred times; but I had no intention of wishing harm to these criminal people; I am only angry at their malice and their passions; I only want to kill the old man in them. So this is what I say:

Let God arise, let His enemies be dispelled, and let all those who hate Him flee from His face.

May the name of the thrice holy God overturn all their plans.

May the sacred name of the living God divide all their feelings.

May the terrible name of the God of eternity destroy their impiety.

I say some more, and when I have thus beaten them well, I add:

I do not want the sinner to die, but to be converted and live. Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” [Lk. 23:34]

I do these exercises without restraint of spirit and with great ease, because I let myself be led by the grace that guides me.

PROMISES OF OUR LORD JESUS-CHRIST

revealed to sister Marie de Saint-Pierre

1. By offering My Face to My Eternal father, nothing will be refused, and the conversion of many sinners will be obtained.

2. By My Holy Face, they will work wonders, appease the anger of God, and drow down mercy on sinners.

3. All those who honor my Face in a spirit of reparation, will by so doing perform the office of the pious Veronica.

4. According to the care they take in making reparation to my Face disfigured by blasphemers, so will I take care of their souls which have been disfigured by sin. My Face is the Seal of the Divinity, which has the virtue of reproducing in souls the image of God.

5. Those who, by words, prayers or writings defend My cause in the work of reparation, especially My priests, I will defend before My Father, and will give them My kingdom.

6. As in a kingdom they can procure all that is desired with a coin stamped with the king’s effigy, so in the Kingdom of Heaven they will obtain all they desire with the precious coin of My Holy Face.

7. Those who on earth contemplate the wounds of My Face shall in Heaven behold it radiant with glory.

8. They will receive in their souls a bright and constant irradiation of My Divinity, that they by their likeness to My Face they shall shine with particular splendor in Heaven.

9. I will defend them; I will preserve them, and I assure them of final perseverance.

Two Sermons of His Excellency Bp Gerardo Zendejas

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1. Sermon of His Excellency Bp Gerardo Zendejas

at Ordination of three Subdeacons

for the Society of the Apostles of Jesus and Mary

in the church of the Dominicans in Avrillé (France)

April 2, 2022

 

M;. l’abbé Paul ROUSSEAU

M. l’abbé Etienne PEREZ

M. l’abbé Emeric BLANCHET

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Your Excellency [Bp Faure], Rev. Fathers, Sisters, Seminarians, Brethren,

It is a great honor to be here among all of you, on this singular occasion for giving the first major order within the frame of the Sacrament of the Holy Orders, for the purpose of continuing the priestly Crusade launched to preserve the Traditional Roman Rite of Ordinations by our venerable Founder Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre.

As a matter of fact, in the midst of today’s darkness which is confusing minds and hearts, we are witnessing how the Operation Survival worked out in 1988 by the Archbishop still continues to be a spring source, inspiring young men to come over into the ranks of the Traditional Catholic priesthood. Here and now we have three candidates willing to receive the subdiaconate and not long from today to pursue their priestly Ordination.

To become a priest needs much courage and determination in your part, but it essentially needs the grace of God from above – gratia supponit naturam. Hence, there is a need to cooperate with the grace of God in the mystery between what is Divine and what is human. Certainly, clergy and laity today look at the human part with all its struggles and implore the Divine Grace to recapitulate all things in Christ. In that sense, Pius XII said that “if at times there appears in the Church something that indicates the weakness of our human nature, it should not be attributed to her essential foundation, but rather to that regrettable inclination to evil found in each individual which its Divine Founder allows even at times in the most exalted members of His Mystical Body, FOR THE PURPOSE OF TESTING THE VIRTUE OF THE SHEPHERDS no less than of the flocks…. That is not a reason why we should lessen our love for the Church but rather a reason why we should increase our devotion to Her members” (Pius XII, Mystici Corporis, June 29, 1943).

We certainly have to acknowledge, and to be aware of the tragic situation in which our Catholic Faith is going through, leading by heresies into a general apostasy. One cannot close his eyes in witnessing today’s crisis in the world and within the Church. The realities are right there in front of us; we witness to all of the horrible things that are happening in the Holy place, in the Holy of the Holies, as well as in public lives of the sacred ministers who celebrate the holy sacrifice of the Mass, the veritable holocaust of Calvary. The more time goes by, the more the errors with their blasphemies are spreading, and the more not only the faithful but also priests are losing the practicing of Catholic Faith by exercising the coldness of Charity. “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” (Luke, 18)

Here moreover are some words said by Archbishop Lefebvre: “Right now we do not have the happiness of living in peace and in total confidence in the hierarchy. We are caught up in a great disorder but it is our duty to maintain the most appropriate attitude, so we don’t go astray and don’t hold in our hearts certain sentiments and orientations that would lead us straight out of the Church” (Ecône, September 7, 1981).

Indeed, the Church is divine; She will always possess the eternal Truth. She does objectively communicate to us divine realities, in particular the Holy Eucharist. Yes, the Church is divine, but She is also human. On the contrary, the Church is made up of sinful men. It is true for instance that the Pope has a share in the divinity of the Church to a certain degree by the charism of the Infallibility, yet he remains ‑ outside of that infallible quality ‑ a man entangled with the consequences of the original sin which could prompt him to sin. Then, it is the same tragic scenario for any other churchman who has received the Sacrament of the Holy Orders.

Are we supposed to separate then ourselves from the Roman Catholic Church?

Are we supposed to attach ourselves one by one directly to our Lord Jesus Christ in order to belong to any Christian church but without Christ Himself?

In spite of all difficulties and adversities inflicted against the Church, and in the midst of all persecutions that religious and laity are suffering, even from those who have authority in the Church, let us not abandon the Roman Catholic Church, the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ.

We want to continue the Tradition in the Church by transmitting the Royal Priesthood of our Lord Jesus Christ, by celebrating the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass of Saint Pius V, by administering and receiving the true Sacraments, by believing the Latin Bible, by teaching the true and perennial Catechism of Trent, by learning the teachings of Saint Thomas Aquinas, and by practicing the Canon Law without any doctrinal contamination fostered since the Second Vatican Council.

Absolutely, for that end Archbishop said, “one thing only is necessary for the continuation of the Catholic Church: bishops who are fully Catholic, without the least compromise with error, who found seminaries where young aspirants may be nourished on the milk of true doctrine, placing our Lord Jesus Christ in the center of their minds, of their wills, of their hearts; a lively faith, a profound charity, a boundless devotion will unite them to our Lord; like Saint Paul they will ask us to pray for them, so that they might advance in the knowledge and the wisdom of the MYSTERIUM CHRISTI, where all the divine treasure is to be found” (Spiritual Journey, p 9).

*

Now let me say some words for you who are receiving the first of the three great Orders: the subdiaconate.

The Council of Trent registered it among the major Orders; it confers the right to arrange everything in the sanctuary, and to assist the priest at the altar. As subdeacons you are going to come into the Holy of the Holies, to the Sanctuary where the Blessed Sacrament is adored. That’s why in this ceremony, coming forward with a step, you are going to pledge yourself to the celibacy which will give you a perpetual honor; and to the recitation of the Breviary, which will make you an official churchman of public prayer.

1.‑  CELIBACY

In ecclesiastical law, from the beginning of the ordination to the subdiaconate, the bishop warns the candidates that perpetual chastity is imposed upon them and that no one may be admitted to this holy order without the sincere will to accept celibacy (Canon 132).

The ceremonial of the Subdiaconate remarks the holiness of the priesthood, which is an inward holiness. It finds concrete expression in the decision to give oneself completely to Jesus-Christ and to leave the world, to abandon all the cares of the world.

My dear subdeacons, celibacy is like a shining beam of light coming from the sublimity of Our Lord reflecting on you. With holding nothing back, you are desiring to belong entirely to almighty God. Nothing manifests the holiness of the Church like this commitment. Indeed, the more the virtue of purity is present in your soul, the stronger it will be the crystal integrity of the doctrine in your thoughts, words, and deeds, because you are going to participate in the great mystery of God in a manner even more effective and profound.

In true, the essential element for consecrating priestly celibacy is the same reason for which the most Blessed Virgin herself remained a virgin. It was fitting that she remained a virgin because she had carried our Lord in her womb. The priest also brings God to earth by the words which he pronounces at the consecration when saying Mass. He has such closeness to God, who is spiritual Being, a Spirit above all, that it is good and just and eminently fitting that the Priest should be a virgin and to remain celibate. This is the essential element for his chastity.

More than ever, the public presence of the religious habits in today’s filthy chaos, is in much need, in particular from those who have received major Orders or have pronounced religious vows. That’s why it is a divine honor to belong to the Holy Trinity in this particular manner through the incredulity of today’s world imbued in its satanic hedonism. Doubtless to say that the grace of God is always ready to protect us, as Saint Augustine explained that God does not ask us anything impossible, in response to Him he said, “ask me whatever You want but give that grace to do so.”

2.‑ BREVIARY

In order to allow the subdeacons to raise their mind regularly to God, the Church commands them to recite the breviary, under the penalty of Mortal sin (Canon 135). Their new state demands of them a profound spirit of faith and the practice not only of purity of body but also of soul.

Saint Joseph of Cupertino, a Franciscan friar, was once asked by a bishop the best means to sanctify his clergy,  “Get your priests ‑ he said ‑ to recite the Divine Office with attention and to celebrate Mass with devotion. These two exercises are enough to make them perfect.”

What is the Breviary? It is an admirable compendium of all Christian truths; it is a magnificent picture in which, one by one, the mysteries of our Faith come into view and how the great Christians have been produced; it is THE CATHOLIC PRAYER; it is the praising united with both the Triumphant Church and the Militant Church, with the Suffering Church; it is the ETERNAL PRAYER ‑ Jesus Christ Yesterday, Today, and the same Forever.

Indeed, in reciting the Breviary what do you do? You present yourself as one chosen by the whole Church to adore God, to praise Him, to give Him thanks and to entreat with Him of the Eternal interests of souls in interceding for all, as an ambassador from Heaven.

And how should you recite the Breviary? Digne, Attente, et Devote. Saint Augustine said, “What do you profit with clashing words if your heart is silently careless? It should be with Dignity, with Attention and with Devotion”.

So, from today onward, you are going to carry the prayer of the whole Church through your Breviary, and you are going to pray every day, until the end of your life, to ask God to spread His graces over the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. This is a necessity of the Church ‑ the prayer of the validly ordained priest. In manifesting your spirit of prayer, you will be rejoicing the Church; you will be rejoicing the hearts of the faithful, and you will inhabit the shrine of the Holy Trinity.

**

Lastly, let us remember that some of those who have received Majors Orders have abandoned our Lord and His true Church; some others have faithfully remained to their religious duties for the greater Glory of God and the eternal salvation of many souls. What group you would like to be accounted in?

Therefore, let’s take care of our duties because to the extent that we move away from our Lord Jesus Christ, then dissensions certainly would arise, and hatred, and divisions, and wars among the faithful and priests, among the individuals and countries, within and without the Church. So, we must not give into discouragement ‑ Oportet Illum regnare, He Must Reign, said Saint Paul; Viva Cristo Rey, said the Cristeros in offering their lives to our Lord Jesus Christ.

Let us not faint in the combat we are waging for Christ the King, in order to contribute for the Kingdom of God on earth as it is in Heaven, for the preservation of the priesthood of Our Lord Jesus-Christ according to the Roman Latin Rite, against the Communist and Globalist Agenda with their satanic idols and pluralist Green Religion of mother earth and Pachamama.

On the contrary, We should contribute in our level but with all our strength, to the restoring of the kingdom of Our Lord Jesus-Christ over hearts, over souls, families, nations… May Christian civilization be restored, and for that purpose we ask the intercession of Saint Pius X in order to re-enkindle the fire and zeal of the tribe of Judah of the New Testament, as he named after this beloved country of France.

And above all, let’s have a great devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, who in several times has manifested her maternal protection, as She did at “Rue du Bac”, in the Apparition of the Miraculous Medal: Oh Mary conceived without Original Sin, Pray for us who have recourse to Thee. Amen.

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2. Sermon of His Excellency Bp Gerardo Zendejas

for the ordination of a Deacon at the Seminary of

the Society of the Apostles of Jesus and Mary

in Morannes (France)

April 9, 2022

 

 

M. l’abbé Paul ROUSSEAU

 

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Dear confreres in the priesthood, seminarians and sisters, dear faithful.

We are gathered in the chapel of the Seminary of Saint Louis-Marie to celebrate this ceremony of ordination to the diaconate. In today’s particular circumstances, we find ourselves in the Alma Mater of the Congregation of the Apostles of Jesus and Mary — in fact, we find ourselves in the heart of the Resistance, so to speak, where the vital principles for the fight of our Faith are forged against the pluralistic modernism, impregnated with political humanism, and by which the churchmen are leading to the apostasy of the faith, resulting in the abandonment of Catholic civilization.

We absolutely oppose to the masonic principles of the Second Vatican Council, as Archbishop Lefebvre has given us not only the means but also the example to continue the royalty of the sacred priesthood instituted by Our Lord Jesus Christ.

We must continue to defend our Faith in spite of the reigning chaos in which we live. Yes, we must continue to be faithful even alongside and in the battle line where many priests are truly remarkable, either for their fidelity in practicing the priesthood, or for their tepidity in practicing their consecrated priestly life which is at last going to be the driving force in abandoning the doctrine of the Deposit of the Faith.

No doubt these principles of action were also experienced in the ministry of the Apostles after the ordination of the seven deacons — Stephen, Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, Nicholas (Acts 6:5-6). The history of the Church teaches us about those events that followed the ordination of the first deacons. Hence, we should at least remember two things: the first is the greatness of St. Stephen due to his faithfulness to the Holy Ghost, and the second is the downfall of Nicholas, who inoculated the virus of the plague of the Nicolaitan heresy, characterized by committing sins against the flesh (and all impurities) in spite of their consecrated life to God, as it is said in the book of the Apocalypses (Rev. 2).

Certainly, the living testimony of the Faith according to the revealed Truth is maintained by the practice of the Christian virtues. This is why it is always good to meditate on the example of the saints so that we might always admire them, as sometimes might imitate them as well. Catholic deacons should be inspired by the example of St. Stephen, protomartyr, well-known in the Greek rite — the Catholic rite — for his zeal to preach until his death, which at that time his death led to the conversion of Saul into Saint Paul.

Deacons must also contemplate the fidelity of St. Lawrence, who is a glory of the Roman Rite. It is a very important fact in order to understand the word romanitas which Archbishop Lefebvre has talked about in his book Spiritual Journey (Itinéraire spirituel à la suite de Saint Thomas d’Aquin).

As a matter of fact, deacons receive the Holy Ghost by the ceremony of the Ordination, alike to St. Stephen and St. Lawrence who were filled with the Holy Ghost, and through their fidelity they preached the Truth supernaturally revealed in the Holy Scriptures. So, their fidelity to the Deposit of Faith is the example that we must keep alive.

In addition to the power of preaching, the deacon receives the grace to baptize begetting children of God in order to lead them to the heavenly glory, and to administer the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist ‑ Let us not forget this principle when receiving Holy Orders: the closer a sacred minister comes to the altar, the more power he receives over the Mystical Body of Our Lord Jesus Christ. This is why the deacon has a place of honor in the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice of the Altar — to the right of the priest.

On the other hand, let us not forget the infidelity of Nicholas, deacon. Most certainly, Our Lady of La Salette referred to the loss of faith in some sacred ministers by leading a double life — one on the outside by keeping the appearances of the consecrated life, but another on the inside by indulging in sins of the flesh and impurity against the Sixth and Ninth Commandments of the Law of God. One can see with his own eyes the deep crisis in which some ministers consecrated to God are living, transmitting the horrible consequences of doctrinal errors, full of heresies that certainly are leading to the General Apostasy. Let us remember that corruptio optimi pessima — from the corruption of the best comes the worst.

So, let us consecrate ourselves to the Blessed Virgin Mary in order to remain faithful to our religious vocation in the midst of the darkness of today’s world. God will surely give us the grace to continue carrying the Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Let us also ask for the grace of divine joy, because the fight in defending the Faith we perhaps may encounter the temptation to get some envy and bitter zeal, for example when priests criticize priests, when bishops criticize bishops.…

Envy is sadness for the good of others, says St. Thomas; and bitter zeal DESTROYS the charity of God in the soul, says Dom Marmion. Let us not be envious or bitter like the Pharisees.

Finally, may Our Lord give us the graces of martyrdom, like all the saints who were martyred in the region of La Vendée (France), whose general said in the heat of action, “If I advance, follow me; if I retreat, kill me; if I die, avenge me.”

Or like José Sanchez del Rio, that 12-year-old boy who joyfully offered his life for the love of Jesus Christ in the Holy Sacrament, whose last words were “Long live Christ the King!”

Amen.

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Devotion to the Holy Face and the Golden Arrow

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Devotion to the Holy Face and the Golden Arrow

​  Sister Marie de Saint-Pierre (1816-1848)

  from Le Sel de la terre 110, Autumn 2019

1. A Life Hidden in God

Perrine ELUERE, who was to become Sister Marie de Saint-Pierre in the Carmelite Order, was born on October 4, 1816 in Rennes (French Britanny). Born into a family of twelve children, she lost her mother at the age of twelve and asked the Blessed Virgin to be her mother.

Deciding to become a nun, she had to wait several years before realizing her vocation and invoked Saint Martin of Tours for this intention. On November 11, 1839, her feast day, she left Rennes for the Carmel of Tours.

There she was favored with revelations from Christ, on the gravity of blasphemy and desecration of Sundays and the need to make reparation for so many crimes that directly offend God. Jesus taught her a prayer of reparation – The Golden Arrow – and also asked for the establishment of a brotherhood of reparation. He entrusted France to her prayers.

Sister Marie de Saint-Pierre lived in great devotion to the Child Jesus and the Holy Face. Very humble, helpful, and patient, she accepted the most modest tasks with obedience, following the example of the Child Jesus.

Put to the test by her superiors, to whom she had opened up about the revelations she had received, she always showed obedience and humility. Stricken with pulmonary tuberculosis, she died in the odor of sanctity on July 8, 1848, in her thirty-third year, after a painful agony.

Six months after her death, in January 1849, a miracle in Rome popularized devotion to the Holy Face throughout Christendom and encouraged the saintly man from Tours, Mr. Dupont, to exhibit the image in his salon, which quickly became a very popular oratory because of the miracles that multiplied there.

But even before that, Mr. Dupont, who knew Sister Marie de Saint-Pierre personally, advised everyone to pray at her tomb to ask for graces. Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus, in turn, had a special devotion to the Carmelite nun of Tours, from whom she drew inspiration for her childlike way.

2. Making Reparation for the Blasphemies and Offenses Against God

The Golden Arrow

On August 26, 1843, during the evening prayer, Sister Marie de Saint-Pierre received the inspiration to spread a devotion named The Golden Arrow. The holy man from Tours, Mr. Dupont, who learned about it later, saw it as a response from Heaven, for he had prepared the feast of St. Louis (August 25) with a novena asking the holy king for his intercession and help in the fight against blasphemy in France. Sister Marie de Saint-Pierre reported to her Mother Superior in these words:

“Our Lord opened His Heart to me, gathered the powers of my soul in it, and addressed these words to me: ‘My Name is blasphemed everywhere; even children blaspheme!’ “And He made me hear how this awful sin hurt His divine Heart more painfully than all the others; by blasphemy, the sinner curses Him to his face, attacks Him openly, annihilates the Redemption, and pronounces himself his condemnation and his judgment. Blasphemy is a poisoned arrow, which continually wounds His Heart: He told me that He wanted to give me a golden arrow to wound Him delightfully, and to heal the wounds of malice that sinners make Him.”

“Here is the formula of praise that Our Lord, in spite of my great unworthiness, dictated to me for the reparation of blasphemies against his holy Name. He gave it to me like a golden arrow, assuring me that every time I say it, I will wound his Heart with a wound of love:

Golden Arrow:

May the most holy, most sacred, most adorable, most incomprehensible, and ineffable Name of God be forever praised, blessed, loved, adored, and glorified forever in Heaven, on earth, and under the earth, by all the creatures of God, and by the Sacred Heart of Our Lord Jesus Christ in the Most holy Sacrament of the Altar. So be it.

“Our Lord, having given me this golden arrow, added: ‘Pay attention to this favor, for I will ask you to give an account.’”

“At that moment it seemed to me that streams of grace for the conversion of sinners were coming out of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, wounded by this golden arrow.”

Jesus’ Great Desire: to Glorify the Name of the Father

A month later (September 29, feast of St. Michael), the sister communicated to her Mother Superior:

“Our Lord inspired me to join to the praise of the Golden Arrow some prayers to make reparation, by twenty-four adorations, the blasphemies professed at each hour of the day, and He was kind enough to let me know that He accepted this exercise. This divine Savior made me share in the desire He feels to see the Name of His Father glorified; He told me to apply myself to praising and blessing this adorable Name, in imitation of the angels who sing in heaven perpetually: Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus; and thus I will fulfill the order He gave me to honor His Heart and that of His holy Mother, for they are both wounded by blasphemy. He also made me understand that this would not prevent me from honoring Him in His mysteries, as I am accustomed to do, because in all the mysteries of His life His Heart has suffered for the sin of blasphemy.”

Gravity of the Desecration of Sundays

On November 24, the sister relayed these words of Our Lord:

“The earth is covered with crimes! The breaking of the first three commandments of God has angered My Father; the blasphemy of the Holy Name of God and the profanation of the Holy Day of Sunday have added to the measure of iniquity; these sins have reached the throne of God and provoked His wrath, which will be poured out if His Justice is not appeased. I desire, but with a strong desire, that a well-approved and well-organized association be formed to honor my Father’s name.”

[…]

3. The Holy Face of Our Lord

Offering Jesus to His Father

On December 25, 1843, Sister Marie de Saint-Pierre made an act of perfect donation to the Most Holy Child Jesus according to the extent of His will for the accomplishment of His designs to the glory of the Holy Name of God. From this date on, Jesus asked her to join devotion to His holy Face to acts of reparation against blasphemies:

“He said to me, ‘Just as in a kingdom you can get everything you want with a silver coin marked with the effigy of the prince, so with the precious coin of My holy Humanity, which is my adorable Face, you will get everything you want in the kingdom of heaven’”.

“It seems to me that we should only pray and present ourselves before the eternal Father with some merit of His Son in our hands, in order to offer it to Him and thus oblige Him to fulfill the admirable promise of our Lord: ‘Amen, amen, I say to you: if you ask the Father anything in my name, He will give it you.’ (Jn. 16:23). If we have no virtues to offer to God, let us offer Him all those of Jesus our Savior, who sanctified Himself for us. Let us offer His gentleness, humility, patience, obedience, poverty, fasts, vigils, and zeal for the glory of His Father and the salvation of souls! Let us also offer His divine and effective prayers; He prayed during his mortal life; the Gospel says that He withdrew at night to pray; He prays in Heaven; He shows His wounds to His Father for us; finally He prays in the most holy Sacrament of the altar.”

“O what an ineffable mystery! A Savior God praying for His creatures, and prayed to by these same creatures!”

“Let us unite our prayers with those of the incarnate Word, and they will be answered; let us offer to the eternal Father the sacred Heart of Jesus, His adorable Face, and His divine wounds; let us offer His tears, His blood and His sweat; let us offer His travels, works, words, and silence, all that He suffered in each of His mysteries; finally, let us always have our eyes fixed on the Gift of God; let us search in this treasure unknown to the world; let us, if we can, enumerate all the goods we possess in Him, and we will soon be rich and enrich poor sinners: For we can offer the humility of Jesus for the conversion of the proud, His poverty for the avaricious, His mortification for the sensual, His zeal to glorify His Father for the blasphemers, finally all the accusations He suffered from the Jews saying He was violating the Sabbath law, for the conversion of the true violators of the holy day of Sunday.”

“O gift of God that I have ignored for too long, You will be my only treasure from now on; I discover new riches in Thou every day.”

Importance of Reparation

On February 2, 1844, Jesus expressed again the great concerns of His Heart, the honor of His divine Father and that of His holy spouse:

“O you who are My friends and My faithful children, see if there is a pain similar to Mine; My divine Father and My Spouse, the holy Church, the object of the delights of My Heart, are despised, outraged by My enemies. Will no one arise to console Me, by defending them against those who attack them? I can no longer remain in the midst of this ungrateful people; see the torrents of tears that flow from My eyes. Will I find no one to wipe them away, making reparation to the glory of My Father and asking for the conversion of the guilty?”

To Intercede for Sinners

“Another day, He showed me the multitude of those who continually fall into hell, inviting me in the most touching way to help these poor sinners, and making me understand the strict obligation of the Christian soul towards these blind wretches who are precipitating themselves into the eternal abyss and to whom His mercy would open their eyes, if charitable hearts interceded for them. He told me that if He would ask the rich for an account of the temporal good He had entrusted to them to help the needy, how much more would He ask a Carmelite, a religious soul, rich with all the goods of the heavenly Spouse, for a rigorous account of the use she had made of them to help unfortunate sinners? Then this amiable Savior, opening to me His immense treasures composed of the infinite merits of His life and passion, added: –‘My daughter, I give you my Face and My Heart, I give you My Blood, I give you My wounds: draw and pour! Draw and pour! Buy without money, My Blood is the price of souls. Oh, what a sorrow for My Heart to see that remedies that cost Me so much are despised! Ask My Father for as many souls as I shed drops of blood in My Passion.’”

Gravity of Blasphemy

“He made me understand that men are incapable of understanding the insult done to God by this sin of blasphemy; blasphemies pierce His heart and make Him a second Lazarus covered with wounds. He invited me to imitate the dogs who comforted poor Lazarus by coming to lick his wounds; I would do Him a great service by employing my tongue to glorify every day the most holy Name of God despised and blasphemed by sinners, without considering whether this exercise gave me interior consolations; it would be enough for me to think that I was healing His divine wounds and causing Him great satisfaction.”

The Holy Face of Christ Offended by Blasphemies

“I understood that, as the Sacred Heart of Jesus is the sensitive object offered to our adoration to represent His immense love in the most holy Sacrament of the altar, so, in the work of reparation, the Face of Our Lord is the sensitive object offered to the adoration of the associates to repair the outrages of the blasphemers who attack the Divinity of which it is the figure, mirror, and expression. By the virtue of this adorable Face, presented to the eternal Father, we can appease His anger and obtain the conversion of the impious and blasphemers.”

“Our Lord made me see that the Church, His Spouse, is His mystical body, and that religion was the face of this body; then He showed me this face in the face of the enemies of His Name, and I saw that the blasphemers and the sectarians were renewing on the holy Face of Our Lord all the opprobrium of His Passion. I saw, thanks to this divine light, that the impious, by uttering evil words and blaspheming the holy Name of God, were spitting on the Face of the Savior and covering it with mud; that all the blows given by the sectarians to the holy Church, to religion, were the renewal of the many blows that the Face of Our Lord received, and that these unfortunate people were making this august Face sweat by striving to annihilate its works.”

“Our Lord showed me, with the help of a simple and just comparison, that the impious by their blasphemies attacked His adorable Face, and that the faithful glorified it by the homage of praise rendered to His Name and to His person.”

“Merit is in persons, but the glory that accompanies them is in their name; it bursts forth when it is pronounced; the merit or demerit of a person passes into his name. The most holy Name of God expresses the divinity, and contains in it all the perfections of the Creator; it follows from this that the blasphemers of this sacred Name attack God himself. Now let us remember these words of Jesus: “the Father is in me and I in the Father.” (Jn. 10:38). Jesus made Himself passible by the Incarnation; and He suffered, in His adorable Face, the outrages done by the blasphemers to the Name of God, His Father.”

“Our Lord has shown me that there is something mysterious about the face of a despised man of honor; yes, I see that his name and his face have a special connection. Behold a man distinguished by his name and merits, in the presence of his enemies; they do not lay hands on him, but they overwhelm him with insults, they add bitter derision to his name, instead of the titles which are due to him. Notice then what happens to the face of this insulted man; would you not say that all the outrageous words that come out of the mouths of his enemies come to rest on his face and cause him to suffer a real torment? We see this face covered with redness, shame, and confusion; the opprobrium and ignominy it suffers are more cruel to bear than real torments in the other parts of its body. Well, here is a weak portrait of the Face of Our Lord outraged by the blasphemies of the impious! Let us represent this same man in the presence of his friends, who, having learned of the insults he has received, hasten to console him, to treat him according to his dignity, pay homage to the greatness of his name by calling him by all his titles of honor; do you not then see the face of this man feel the sweetness of these praises Glory rests on his forehead and, shining on his face, makes it all shiny: joy shines in his eyes, a smile is on his lips; in a word, his faithful friends have healed the bitter pain of this face outraged by his enemies, glory has passed the reproach. This is what the friends of Jesus do through the work of reparation; the glory they give to His Name rests on this august forehead, and rejoices His most holy Face, in a very special way, in the most holy Sacrament of the altar.”

Healing the Blasphemers

• 3 November 1845:

“According to the care you will take to repair My portrait, which was disfigured by blasphemers, I will take care to repair yours, which was disfigured by sin. I will reprint My image on it, and I will make it as beautiful as it was when it came out of the font of baptism. Abandon yourself therefore into My hands and be willing to suffer all the operations necessary for the restoration of this image. Do not be troubled if you experience sadness and darkness, for you know that in an image, the dark colors serve to bring out those that are more vivid. Men have the art of restoring bodies; but only I can be called the restorer of souls, and who restores them to the image of God. I have made known to you this work of reparation, I have shown you its excellence, and now I promise you the reward.”

“Oh! If you could see the beauty of my Face! Your eyes are still too weak!”

• 5 January 1846:

“Our Lord made me aware that Lucifer willingly left to other demons the care of leading other flocks of sinners, such as for example: the impure, the drunkards, the greedy; but the blasphemers form his favorite flock. He made it known to me that this work of reparation embraces not only the reparation of blasphemy proper, but also that of all other blasphemies uttered against religion and the Church; however, it applies especially to blasphemies of the holy name of God.

To Draw Tirelessly From the Gold Mine

“Our Lord […] again gave me the order to pray for France, telling me […] that I should draw on His divine wounds for His sheep; finally, that He was giving Himself to me like a gold mine, to pay to His divine Father the debts which our country owes to His justice, allowing me to take for this the great treasures of His Heart. Then Our Lord made me understand that I must be careful not to act like the lazy servant of the Gospel who did not use his talent: He will ask me for an account one day, and it is very easy for me to take from this gold mine that He himself dug by his works and sufferings. I believe that He very much desires to find someone who will oblige Him, through prayer, to show mercy to France.”

Intercede for France

  • 23 January, 1846:

‘The face of France has become hideous in the eyes of My Father, provoking His justice; offer Him therefore the Face of His Son, in whom He is pleased, in order to draw mercy on this France; otherwise, it will be punished.’

  • November 22:

This is what the divine Master told me: ‘My daughter, I take you today as My bursar, and I place My holy Face in your hands again, so that you may offer it unceasingly to My Father for the salvation of France. Make use of this divine talent; you have in it enough to do all the business of My house; you will obtain, through this holy Face, the salvation of many sinners; with this offering, nothing will be refused you. If you only knew how pleasing the sight of my Face is to My Father!’

Changing the Wine of Justice Into the Wine of Mercy

[…] I saw other punishments prepared to satisfy this justice. When I saw this, I said to Our Lord, “Sweet Jesus, if only I could drink the rest of this cup, so that my brothers might be spared!”

“He answered me that He accepted my good will, but that I was not capable of emptying this cup, and that only He could drink it. The Savior, seeing my pain, beckoned me to enter His divine Heart; in His excessive mercy, He gave it to me as a vessel worthy of being presented to the eternal Father to receive this wine of His wrath, making me understand that, passing through this channel, it would be changed for us into the wine of mercy. But He does not want to entirely infringe the rights of justice; if I may express myself in this way, He wants to make a covenant between His justice and His mercy, and for this purpose He asks for the establishment of the work of Reparation to the glory of His Name. Yes, He will disarm the anger of God, His Father, if He offers Him a work of reparation for us! Is it not the least we can do, O sweet Jesus, to make reparation by our prayers, by our groans and by our adoration, for the enormous sins of which we are guilty towards the majesty of God? This, Mother, is the prayer that Our Lord put into my mouth, and which I want to repeat unceasingly: ‘Eternal Father, look upon the divine Heart of Jesus which I offer to you to receive the wine of your justice, so that it may be changed for us into the wine of mercy’. He made me understand that, each time I made this offering, I would obtain a drop of this wine of divine anger, which, falling, as I said above, into the vessel of the sacred Heart of Jesus, would change into the liquor of mercy.

Waging War on the Communists

In 1847, the League of Communists was founded in London. Two of its members, Marx and Engels, received the mission to write the doctrinal manifesto that appeared in February 1848 under the title Manifesto of the Communist Party. On March 14, 1847, Sister Marie de Saint-Pierre wrote to her superior:

“Our Lord today, after Holy Communion, made me understand that the plagues we have been struck with were only the forerunners of those which His justice is preparing for us if His anger is not appeased, and He showed me the sins of blasphemy and the profanations of Sunday under the emblem of two pumps, with which the men who are guilty of these crimes draw the waters of His wrath over France and expose themselves to being submerged by them, if this work of reparation which He gives her in his mercy as a means of salvation is not established. Then He told me that the sectarians called Communists had only made one excursion: ‘Oh’! He added, –‘if you knew their secret and diabolical machinations, and their anti-Christian principles! They are only waiting for a favorable day to set fire to France. Ask, therefore, for the work of Reparation to whom it belongs, in order to obtain mercy.’”

• 29 March 1847:

Our Lord has entrusted me with a new mission which I would be afraid of if I were anything; but as I am nothing but a weak instrument in His powerful hand, I am perfectly at peace.

He commanded me to make war on the communists, whom He told me were the enemies of the Church and of His Christ, making me understand that these lion cubs were, for the most part, born in the Church whose cruel enemies they now declared themselves to be. Then He added: –‘I have made it known to you that I hold you in My hands like an arrow. Now I want to shoot this arrow at My enemies. I give you the weapons of My Passion to fight them: My cross, whose enemies they are, and the other instruments of My torture. Go to them with the simplicity of a child and the courage of a valiant soldier. Receive, for this mission, the blessing of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit’. Then I prayed to the Blessed Virgin to be the custodian of these divine weapons, given to me by her dearest Son, who is compared to the Tower of David, from which hang a thousand shields. Our Lord gave me, on this subject, several other lights which it would not be easy for me to relate. “Lord,” I said, “train my hands for battle, and teach me to use your instruments.”

He said to me: ‘The weapons of My enemies give death, but Mine give life.’

How to Fight the Enemies of God

This is the prayer I often recite for this purpose: –Eternal Father, I offer you, against the camp of your enemies, the cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ and all the instruments of His holy Passion, that You may put division between them; for, as Your beloved Son has said, every kingdom divided against itself will be destroyed [Mt. 12:25].

[…] Jesus gives me grace to draw my weapons; today, after Holy Communion, He encouraged me to fight, and He promised to give me a cross of honor, which, He told me, would open heaven for me, if I were faithful […]. But, Reverend Mother, after having fought the enemies of God with all my strength during these three days of feasting, I now feel almost contrition. I explain myself: it is because I fear having made imprecations against them.

I know that the holy King David does the same in his psalms (108, for example); but I do not know if I am allowed to do so. Finally, I have said everything that Our Lord, it seems to me, inspired me to say; if it is wrong, and I am mistaken, I will not do it again.

I will tell you that I begin by placing my soul in the hands of Our Lord; then I beg him to bend His bow and shoot His arrows at His enemies; then I fight them first by His cross and by the instruments of His Passion, as He taught me; then by the virtue of the most holy Name of God. And this is my concern for the imprecations, for if it is wrong, I have repeated these words a hundred times; but I had no intention of wishing harm to these criminal people; I am only angry at their malice and their passions; I only want to kill the old man in them. So this is what I say:

Let God arise, let His enemies be dispelled, and let all those who hate Him flee from His face.

May the name of the thrice holy God overturn all their plans.

May the sacred name of the living God divide all their feelings.

May the terrible name of the God of eternity destroy their impiety.

I say some more, and when I have thus beaten them well, I add:

I do not want the sinner to die, but to be converted and live. Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” [Lk. 23:34]

I do these exercises without restraint of spirit and with great ease, because I let myself be led by the grace that guides me.

Ten Punishments for the Violation of the Ten Commandments

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Ten Punishments for the Violation of the Ten Commandments

Editorial of Salt of the Earth 118, Fall 2021


MORE THAN 3,000 YEARS AGO, God struck Egypt with ten terrible plagues called the Ten Plagues of Egypt.

God wanted to force Pharaoh to let the Jewish people out of Egypt, as Moses had asked. But Pharaoh was hard-hearted and it was only at the tenth plague, the most terrible, that he let the Hebrews go.

St. Augustine showed in a sermon how the ten plagues of Egypt can represent the punishments God inflicts on men when they break the ten commandments. Now more than ever the world is transgressing the Ten Commandments. This explains the painful events we are undergoing and perhaps the more serious ones that still await us.

The transgression of each commandment is punished by the corresponding wound, not in the historical sense, but in its symbolic sense.

1. You shall have no other God but Me.

First plague of Egypt: water turned to blood. Pharaoh refused to listen to Moses, so Aaron, his brother, struck the waters of the river with his staff, and all the waters of the land were turned to blood. The fish died and the Egyptians could no longer drink.

Water means life, blood symbolizes death. The world that does not want to worship God, the author of life, is punished by death.

More than ever, the world rejects God, and especially rejects Our Lord Jesus Christ, the only true God. So it is punished with death. Death is found even before birth with abortion, it is found at the end with euthanasia, death is even now omnipresent: continuously the radio, the television, the media speak about death and dying.

2. You shall not take the name of God in vain.

Second plague: the plague of frogs that covered the land of Egypt. When they died in the houses, in the courtyards and in the fields, they were piled up in heaps, and the land was infected with them.

Men who no longer wish to pronounce the name of God with respect, and who blaspheme him, are given over by God to vain chatter, represented by the croaking of frogs. The heaps of dead and fetid frogs represent the bitterness that these conversations leave in the souls.

Today, we proclaim the right to blasphemy, while banishing the sacred name of Our Lord Jesus Christ, excluded in the name of “secularism”, as if God had not come to teach and save us.

The punishment is the hollow chatter of the media, of television, of the internet, of all these means of social communication, which croak like frogs, which never speak of the essential, and leave behind them emptiness and sadness in the soul.

3. Remember to keep the feasts holy.

Third plague: the invasion of flies.

Men who do not want to respect the Sunday rest live in unrest, the opposite of rest which the Latin quies signifies. Permanent agitation, continuous torment symbolized by the flies.

Go to a big city, look in the street: everyone is running, there is no more peace and quiet.

4. Honor your father and your mother.

Fourth plague: the sending of a gnat called the dog flea, which tormented the Egyptians by its bites.

Little dogs are born blind, they do not recognize their parents. This plague means that men who do not honor their parents, will themselves have to suffer from their children who will treat them cruelly.

The modern world crams old people into real warehouses, where they die of boredom when they are not victims of euthanasia.

No doubt good Christians do what they can to take care of their elderly parents, and some even make great sacrifices, but the fact remains that our society is hard on the elderly, it makes them suffer, and this is a punishment for the transgression of the fourth commandment.

5. Thou shalt not kill.

Fifth plague: the cattle plague which kills the Egyptians’ herds.

Murderers are often punished by dying like animals.

Our world is murderous: it not only kills children and old people, but it promotes terrorism, drugs, suicide, it multiplies useless and ever more deadly wars. As a punishment, men die like beasts. How many immortal souls have arrived in recent months at the threshold of death without any preparation? The priest is no longer called, and they even want to prevent him from approaching the dying.

6. You shall not commit impure acts.

Sixth plague: ulcers and tumors bulging into blisters.

Impurity is often punished with shameful diseases.

The modern world is afflicted by all kinds of diseases, including AIDS, which is one of the most deadly.

7. Thou shalt not steal.

Seventh plague: the hail that destroyed the crops of the Egyptians.

Those who steal often end up in misery. Spiritual misery, deprived of the only true wealth which is God, but also often material misery.

Our modern societies live by an organized theft called usury. We did not want to listen to the Church, we let the usurers take control of the financial world. The punishment for this will be the general ruin that will inevitably come. Communism in Russia and China led to general misery and terrible famines. The Neo-Communism that is being set up all over the world is also likely to result in misery and famine.

8. You shall not give false testimony.

Eighth plague: the locusts with their terrible teeth.

Those who live a lie end up devouring each other.

The modern world is one of institutionalized lying:

  • lie of secularism, which excludes God in the name of a false neutrality;

  • lie of Darwinism, which praises a world that would be self-constructing;

  • lie of Machiavellian democratization which openly replaces authority by the manipulation of the supposedly sovereign people.

The result: the modern world is a jungle where man is a wolf to man.

9. You shall not desire another’s wife.

Ninth plague: the darkness preventing one from seeing even in daylight.

Figure of the darkness of the heart ravaged by bad desires.

Alas, so many young people, so many adults even, are watching bad things on the screens. Here they are in thick darkness, which is only the prelude to the outer darkness where they will be thrown if they do not come to their senses.

10. You shall not desire the good of others

.

Tenth plague: the death of the firstborn.

The firstborn represents the soul, which should be dearer to us than anything else.

The sin of envy is punished by the death of the soul.

Through commercial advertising and revolutionary ideology, the modern world advocates envy as the engine of economic and social progress.

The result is the death of the soul, through sin and progressive dehumanization. We even come to advocate transhumanism.

✯

After having listed the ten plagues, punishments for the violation of the ten commandments, it is necessary to recall that the punishments of this world often have, in the designs of God, a medicinal value.

They are intended to correct, not to crush.

To show that they cannot really harm faithful men, these plagues were cruel only to the Egyptians, and did not reach the Hebrews.

The situation is not exactly the same today, since good Christians can suffer the consequences of crimes they did not commit. But in reality, nothing can harm them, because “all things work together for good to souls who love God” (St. Paul’s letter to the Romans, chapter 8, verse 28).

In the New Covenant, Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Innocent One par excellence, came to suffer for the guilty.

The sufferings of Christians serve not only to atone for their own sins, but to save many sinners.

If we have to suffer the punishments that God in his goodness sends to our guilty world, let us see it as an opportunity to sanctify ourselves.

Let us ask for the grace to accept them.

If we ourselves have transgressed the Ten Commandments, let us accept these sufferings as an expiation for our sins. And if we suffer for the sins of others, let us thank God for associating us with his Cross.

Translation by A.A.

Letter from the Dominicans of Avrillé–No. 37: January 2022

admin In defense of our convent, Our seminary, The Fight for the Faith

Letter from the Dominicans of Avrillé

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Adoration by the Magi (Lorenzo Monaco, 1421-1422).

No. 37: January 2022

O Great Mystery

Joy is one of the most striking sentiments of the liturgy for the mystery of the Nativity. The Church invites us constantly to be joyful recalling the words of the Angel to the shepherds “To you I announce good news which will be for you the source of great joy: a Savior is born”. (St. Luke 2: 10-11). The joy of Christmas is one of deliverance, of a conquered heritage, of peace, and especially of the vision of God given to men. “And he will be called Emmanuel”. (Isaiah 7: 14; St. Matthew 1: 23)

But this joy will only be assured if we remain faithful to the grace given to us by the Savior and which makes us His brothers. “O, Christian,” says St. Leo the Great in his sermon that the Church reads during the Holy night, “recognize your dignity. And participating in the Divinity, be careful not to fall from such a sublime state.”

“If you knew the gift of God” (St. John 4, 10), said Our Lord. If you knew this Son who is given to you! Let us receive Him as we should. May it not be said of us: “He came into the world and His own received Him not.” (Christmas Gospel) By creation we are all in the domain of God, we belong to Him; but there are those who have not received Him on this Earth. How many Jews and pagans have rejected Our Lord because He appeared in humility and corruptible flesh! Souls drowned in the darkness of pride and sensuality: “The light shown in the darkness and the darkness received it not.” (Last Gospel)

And how must we receive it? By Faith – those who “believe in His Name”. It is to those who believing in Him, in his words and works, have received this Child as God that it has been given in return to become themselves children of God.

Such is, indeed, the fundamental disposition that we must have in order that this great mystery (antiphon of the Octave of Christmas) produces in us all its fruits. Only by Faith may we know the terms and the manner in which it is realized. May we penetrate into the depths of this mystery and have a true knowledge worthy of God.

There are different modes and degrees of knowledge.

“The ox and ass knew their God,” (Isaiah 1: 3) was written by Isaiah speaking of this mystery. They saw the Child lying in the manger. But what did they see? That which an animal can see: the form, the size the color, the movement- rudimentary knowledge which does not leave the realm of sensation. Nothing more.

The passers-by, the curious who came to the stable saw the Child; but for them, He seemed to be like all others. They did not go further than this purely natural knowledge. Perhaps they were struck by the beauty of the Child? Perhaps they were saddened by His destitution? But this sentiment did not last, and indifference took over quickly.

The shepherds, simple souls, “enlightened by a ray of light from on high” (St. Luke 2: 9) certainly understood more; they recognized in this Child the promised Messiah, the expectation of the Gentiles. (Genesis 49: 10) they gave Him homage and their souls were for a long time filled with joy and peace.

The angels also contemplated the New – Born, the Word made flesh. They saw in Him their God. This knowledge cast these pure spirits into stupor and admiration at such a debasement, impossible to understand. It is not the Angelic nature that He wanted to take, but the human nature. “For nowhere doth He taketh hold of the angels: but of the seed of Abraham he taketh hold.” (Hebrews 2: 16)

What would we say of the Blessed Virgin Mary when she saw Jesus? To what depth of this mystery did this regard so pure, humble and tender, full of kindness penetrate! We would not be able to be express with what graces the soul of Our Lord filled His Mother and what sublime adorations, what perfect homages Mary gave to Her Child, to Her God, and to all that of which the Incarnation is the substance and root.

There is finally, and this is undeniable, the regard of the Father contemplating His Son, made flesh for men. The Heavenly Father saw that which never, neither man nor angel nor Mary herself, will ever understand: the infinite perfections of the Divinity which are hidden in a Child. And this contemplation was the source of unspeakable glory, “Thou art by beloved Son. In Thee I am well pleased.” (St. Matthew 1: 11; St. Luke 3: 22)

When we contemplate at Bethlehem the Word made flesh, let us lift ourselves above our senses, and only look with our eyes of Faith. The Faith allows us to participate here below in the knowledge that the divine Persons have of one another. There is no exaggeration in this. Sanctifying Grace makes us indeed, participants of the Divine Nature. And the activity of the Divine Nature consists in the knowledge and love that the Divine Persons have for one another. So, we participate in this knowledge. And even as sanctifying grace opening itself into glory will give us the right to contemplate God as He sees Himself; so on Earth, in the shadows of Faith, grace gives us the possibility to look into the depths of these mysteries through the eyes of God. “A new ray of your greatness has shown in the eyes of our souls” (Preface of Christmas)

Extract of Dom Marmion,

Christ in His Mysteries


Community Chronicle

September 26th: In the beginning of the new school year a parish pick-nick allows our faithful to deepen the bonds of charity among each other and have an afternoon to speak with different Fathers of the community.

October 2nd: As history has proved, during times of great distress it is necessary to pray fervently, especially the rosary. On our little scale, as the world wide situation continues to go downhill, we try and help others to invoke our Lady. During this month October we organize a public Rosary in front of the cathedral every Saturday afternoon.

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Public Rosary in front of the cathedral.


November 14th: Better late than never! After about a two month’s delay we are at last able to start our different conferences for the formation of our faithful on such topics as catechism, philosophy and education.

November 16th: We sing a Requiem Mass for the repose of the soul of Father Xavier Ignatius, Indian priest and Dominican tertiary. He passed away after 70 years of priesthood and shortly before his 100th birthday. During many years he travelled all around the South of India in order to spread the Rosary Confraternity and support our tertiaries. One of our priests was able to visit him in 2004.

November 21st: Thanks to the generous help of many faithful, the annual winter market is the occasion to help finance our grade school and gather our parishioners for a pleasant afternoon.

December 8th: Once again this year we cannot do the procession through the streets of Angers because of the governmental restrictions. But we organize the Rosary in front of the cathedral in honor of the Immaculate Conception.

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The Nativity scene in our church.


December 22nd-January 5th: During Christmas vacation, with all the activities of our schools ceasing, our community gathers around the crib and the great mystery of the Word made flesh. These moments of greater calm and recollection remind us that Dominicans are contemplatives whose contemplation simply overflows into different forms of apostolate for the salvation of souls.

News from our worksites

We have begun enclosing the woods of our property with a real fence. During the past few months we have also finished up some smaller jobs such as the new school sacristy and a roof for our Lady’s statue in our woods. God willing, we shall shortly be able to start up the worksite of the future parish hall.

Thank you for all your help!

“Amen I say to you, as long as you did it to one of these my least brethren, you did it to me.” (Mt. 25, 40)

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Construction of the fence around our woods.


Remember, Oh Most Pious Virgin Mary!

In the face of a spiritual battle, spiritual weapons are needed. […] Human forces alone are unable to face the looming threat. For this we must understand how important and irreplaceable is the use of prayer and divine help, with the invincible weapon that the Blessed Virgin Mary has given us to fight the Enemy of mankind.

I invite everyone to a World Rosary Crusade, to obtain God’s intervention and victory over the unleashing of the forces of Evil through the powerful intercession of the Blessed Virgin.[…]

In all nations, in all cities of the world, may the cry of our prayer be raised confidently and loudly. As children gripped by tribulation we throw ourselves at the feet of our Mother, invoking her with the certainty of obtaining listening. Let us make our own the words of Saint Bernard: Remember, O most pious Virgin Mary, that it has never been heard in the world that some have resorted to your protection, begged for your help, asked for your help, and been forsaken.

Let us kneel to pray in our homes, churches, streets and squares of our cities. In recognizing that we are all in need of the help of the Virgin of the Holy Rosary, we honor the divine order against the infernal chaos, placing all our hope in her who at the foot of the Cross was given to us as Mother, and who as Mother loves and helps us, as it always has done throughout history.

May even the little ones accompany us in this Crusade, whose innocence moves Heaven. May the elderly and the sick also be spiritually united with us, offering their sufferings in union with the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ. The devil is terrified by the prayer of children and the penance of those who suffer, because in purity and sacrifice he sees the image of Christ, who has defeated him.

May our heartfelt prayer resound everywhere. We ask the Mediatrix of all Graces to put an end to this destruction of our world, of our freedom, of our identity, of our affections. We ask you to open our eyes, so as not to be pushed into the abyss of despair, hatred, social conflict, pandering to those who sow division in order to hit us in body and soul. […] We ask you to convert the Shepherds, to whom the Lord has entrusted his flock and to whom he will ask for an account of every soul. And for this to happen, we implore the forgiveness of our sins and the public sins of the Nations, since only with repentance and the resolve to no longer offend His divine Son can we hope to be heard.

Animated by this trust, I turn to you, O Mother, Virgin of virgins; I come to you, before you I bow down, repentant sinner. Do not, oh Mother of the Word, despise my prayers, but listen to me kindly and hear me.

+ Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop

January 6, 2022

The Epiphany of the Lord

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The Motu Proprio Traditionis Custodes

admin conciliar Church, FEATURED POSTS - Articles and Texts section

The Motu Proprio

  Traditionis Custodes

From Pope Francis

July 16, 2021


Dogs, Wolves and Sheep Skin

Editorial from Le Sel de la terre 117

(Summer 2021)

Domini canes: was the pun likening the sons of St. Dominic (Domini-cani) to the dogs of the Lord (Domini canes) approved – even prompted – by Heaven itself?

The way in which the founder of the Preachers was announced to his mother in a dream, under the figure of a little dog, might suggest this.

In any case, this underlines the originality of a religious order that owed its birth to a heresy, that of the Albigensians, and was specifically founded to respond to it.

“Like a shepherd’s dog, Dominic preached: Bringing back to the path the lost sheep. And knowing how to bark when the wolf roamed.” (hymn to St. Dominic).

* Domini canes or Traditionis Custodes?

But if the eighth centenary of his entry into Heaven (August 6, 1221) provided a beautiful opportunity to evoke St. Dominic, a burning current event has caught up with this anniversary. This summer, in the Church, much more than Domini canes, there was talk of Traditionis Custodes: the sarcastic title of a Motu Proprio signed by Pope Francis on July 16, when the Latin text was still unknown – it still is – and was probably not even written. A minor detail, compared to the substance of the matter, but indicative of the ever-increasing cynicism of conciliar Rome.

There was a time when it tried to keep up appearances. Now it is displaying its Machiavellianism more and more openly.

When Francis sticks this fine Latin title on a text that despises Latin as much as it despises Tradition, when he invokes collegiality to impose his personal ideas, when he trumpets that he wants to restore the liturgical authority of the bishops, but in fact grants them only the right to forbid the traditional liturgy and denies them the right to authorize it more broadly, no one can be deceived. Such obvious lies do not even try to be believed. The situation at least gains clarity.

* The Wolf and the Sheep Skin

Since 2007, like a sheep’s skin, the distinction posed by Benedict XVI between the ordinary and extraordinary forms of the one Roman rite 1 masked the reality. Francis is tearing apart this pretense. An indissoluble link unites Vatican II, the new Mass of Paul VI, and the new morality of Francis (which only logically applies the principles of the Council). It is the new religion. The conciliar wolf is naked.

Archbishop Lefebvre had perceived its voice as early as 1965:

“This pastoral Constitution is neither pastoral nor emanates from the Catholic Church […] never has the Church spoken like this. […]. We know the voice of Christ, our Shepherd. This one we do not know. The garment is that of the sheep; the voice is not that of the Shepherd, but perhaps that of the wolf 2. “

* The Ecclesia Dei Institutes facing reality

When the shepherd turns into a wolf, resistance is a duty:

“When the shepherd turns into a wolf, it is up to the whole flock to defend itself. According to the rule, no doubt, doctrine descends from the bishops to the faithful; and the subjects must not judge their leaders in matters of faith. But in the treasure of Revelation there are essential points, of which every Christian, by the very fact of being a Christian, has the necessary knowledge and obligatory custody 3.”

For fifty years, Archbishop Lefebvre, Bishop de Castro Mayer, Father Calmel O.P. and many others, have set an example of this resistance, clearly denouncing the errors of Vatican II (without, however, allowing themselves to judge and then recuse the leaders of the Church, as the sedevacantists want to do).

For thirty years, the Ecclesia Dei Institutes have tried to find a middle way, keeping the traditional liturgy without rejecting Vatican II. But the pope himself is dispelling their illusions, peeling off the sheep’s skin. Francis himself is destroying the famous hermeneutic of continuity, laboriously built up by Benedict XVI.

The Ecclesia Dei Institutes are up against the wall. Will they make the choice of consistency? Will they recuse Vatican II, like Archbishop Vigano or Bishop Schneider?

We need to pray for the future.

We must pray for this intention.

1 ‑ Benedict XVI, Motu proprio Summorum pontificum (July 7, 2007).

2 ‑ Excerpt from a text delivered by Archbishop Lefebvre to the Council Secretariat on September 9, 1965, concerning the Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et spes.

3 ‑ Dom Guéranger, Liturgical Year, Time of the Septuagesima, Feast of St. Cyril of Alexandria.

Letter from the Dominicans of Avrillé – No. 36: September 2021

admin Our seminary, The Convent, The Fight for the Faith

Letter from the Dominicans of Avrillé

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The Tavola, one of the first paintings of Saint Dominic, surrounded by his Brothers at table.


No. 36: September 2021

Motto of the Dominican Order

For the 800th anniversary of Saint Dominic’s birth into Heaven (August 6, 1221), let us give a few explanations on the motto of his Order: VERITAS. From the very beginning our Order has been faithful to the Truth and throughout the centuries the Dominicans have considered it as their first title of nobility. In 1266, Pope Clement IV, wanting to define the Dominican vocation officially proclaimed the Order of Saint Dominic “the keeper of Truth.” This means that above all we were founded to defend and spread the truth. The Dominican apostolate is essentially doctrinal and our first work is an intellectual one.

The intellect, handmaid of man, must establish our minds in truth and enable man to practice virtue. Without the base of truth, the will can lean on nothing solid to make resolutions. Whoever despises the intellect and truth removes from man his first force against the powers of disorder. It is a great misfortune that in Catholic preaching sentiment takes the place of the idea. The result is a piety without order which produces unbalanced souls, who only ask for the sensible in the mysteries of Faith. Joseph de Maistre wrote, “Man is only worth what he believes,” and Bonald “dogmas make people.”

Thus the Dominican wants above all to be a sower of truth, and to spread light. Before stimulating men, he wants to enlighten them. Confident in the Divine sense which Baptism has planted in the Christian soul, he does not fear to expose the highest truths even to the crowds, which he endeavors to bring to the heights of Christianity. He is persuaded that he will only bring the hearts of men to Christ by revealing God as much as God has revealed Himself.

A necessary consequence is that the Dominican spirit is without mercy for error. The measure of one’s love for Truth is the measure of one’s hatred for error. History shows the Dominican Order detesting heresy and pursuing it tenaciously to the point that we could summarize these 800 years as a long combat with error. Today, however, a despicable doctrinal liberalism makes all ideas equal, giving the same rights to both truth and error. Nothing is more hateful than this false modern tolerance. Error has no rights, except to disappear.

Far from hurting the apostolate, this doctrinal intolerance fructifies it. What is the first need of modern souls, lost in the complexity of systems without harmony and unity? Doctrine! Is there such a thing as a “modern” soul? No, there are simply ruined intellects. The Dominican applies himself to restore order, bring back the exiled truth, generous and magnificent Queen. In her escort, she will bring back all our old lost Christian glories.

Saint Dominic’s Testament

“My very dear brothers, this is what I leave to you as a possession to be held by right of inheritance by you, my children. Have charity, preserve humility, and possess voluntary poverty.”

Such was the testament of Our Father St. Dominic on August 6, 1221. “Do not weep, I will be more useful after my death than I was during my life,” he added before giving his soul to God.

A little beforehand, after making his general confession to Brother Ventura, he told the Brothers around him, “The mercy of God has conserved until this day my flesh pure and stainless. If you want this same grace, avoid all suspicious occasions. The way in which this virtue is kept makes the servant agreeable to Our Lord and gives him glory and credit before people. Keep serving God in the fervor of the spirit, apply yourselves to uphold and spread this Order which has only started, be constant in holiness, in regular observance and grow in virtue.”

After 800 years we can notice that this inheritance has been transmitted from generation to generation. The Order has had to be reformed many times because of human weakness, but has never ceased to produce Saints and to preach the Sacred Truth.

More than ever the harvest is great and the laborers few. Hence to celebrate St. Dominic this year, we dare ask all our friends to storm Heaven with their prayers for Dominican vocations.

The Religion of Medicine and the credulity of skeptics

Medicine holds a high place in the society of skeptics. The more man distances himself from Christian virtues, the more he attaches himself to life. Whether he believes to return to nothing, or the thought of an afterlife comes to torment him, to live a long time is his principal affair, since his nature abhors nothing and his conscience fears eternity.

He fears sickness not only because it is the privation of pleasure, the only happiness to which he looks for, not only because it causes pain, of which he ignores the price and against which his soul is powerless, but because it is the announcement or threat of this death which will either destroy him completely like an animal or perhaps deliver him to perish in the hands of the Supreme Justice. As long as he is well, he is voluntarily skeptical, and irreverent towards the art of healing, at the first sign of sickness, medicine becomes his only hope. He delivers himself to medicine docile to the point of cowardice, gullible to the point of stupidity.

The Religion of medicine knows no atheist among those who deny the rest. How often do we not see these people, mocking religious practices and abstinence, who as soon as they have a real or imaginary disease become sober, chaste, flee the world and its seductions, make a retreat to the countryside, and pilgrimages far off […]. There is nothing that medicine cannot obtain from them. Their body which gives them so many worries is submitted to penances without number. They pay and swallow without complaining the worst drugs, they stay in prison, and they walk vigorously through the countryside, whip themselves, exile themselves, or even go into icy or putrid waters. What will they not do?

If the doctor told them to spend every day two hours kneeling on a kneeler before a lighted candle, certainly they would fill our churches and force the State to build new ones.

-Louis Veuillot (1813-1883)

Community Chronicle

February 14th: Our senior class leaves for their pilgrimage to Rome accompanied by Father Terence. Because of the present circumstances the churches are rather empty, which thus allows a greater recollection for prayer.

February 27th: His Excellency Bishop Faure confers the tonsure on our Brothers Pie-Marie and Marie-Thomas as well as the second minor orders upon Brother Augustine-Marie.

April 21st: All the brothers available are called on to help plant 2500 potato seedlings in our garden.

May 23rd: Several of our Fathers are absent to accompany pilgrimages for the feast of Pentecost, for example at Ile Bouchard or Vézelay.

June 3rd: Father Prior represents the community at Riddes in Switzerland for the 60th anniversary of Father Epiney’s priestly ordination. Father Epiney is the priest who “welcomed” Archbishop Lefebvre to Ecône when the seminary was founded because Ecône is geographically in the parish of Riddes. Father has remained faithful despite many persecutions and trials over these 60 years.

June 19th: Part of the community assists at the ordinations conferred by His Excellency Bishop Faure at Morannes (about 45 minutes from our friary). Rev. Fr. Chirico (from Italy) was ordained to the priesthood and Rev. Mr. Nass (from Brazil) was ordained to the diaconate. Both of them followed their studies at our friary.

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July 4th: Fathers Innocent-Marie, Marie-Dominique and Emmanuel-Marie participate at the 50th anniversary celebration of the MJCF (a French Catholic youth movement for apostolate). Many conversions and vocations have come from this movement. The first members of our Dominican community also come from this youth group.

July: Among our summer apostolate there are two retreats (one men’s and one ladies’) and also several camps for young boys and young girls. It is an example of the Dominican life that preaches in all circumstances (from a Sunday sermon to classes in a school, from a spiritual retreat to two weeks in the mountains for a summer camp).

August 4th: This year it is the 800th anniversary of our Holy Father Saint Dominic’s entrance into Heaven (August 6th, 1221). His Excellency Bishop Faure honors us with his presence to help celebrate the occasion with a Pontifical High Mass and a conference on the present day crisis. In the evening our annual retreat begins preached by Father Dominique Rousseau on the mystery of the Transfiguration.

August 14th: For the Vigil of the Assumption our Brother Vincent makes his first vows while Brother Augustine-Marie renews his. As for Brother Jean, he makes his perpetual profession in the Third Order as an oblate brother.

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August 15th: Procession in honor of Our Lady through the streets of the neighborhood.

August 18th: Father Marie-Laurent leaves for a few days of apostolate in Prague and its surroundings.

August 19th: Father Alain accompanies our tertiaries on a pilgrimage in the footsteps of Saint Dominic at Fanjeaux.

August 22nd: For the feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Miss Juniper Figueroa (from St. Mary’s, Kansas) received the Dominican habit in the young community of teaching sisters just five minutes from our friary. Her name is now Sister Catherine-Marie (in honor of St. Catherine of Ricci).

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September 7th: Father François-Marie celebrates the funeral of his two parents, who died three days apart shortly after their 70th wedding anniversary.

September 13th: The school year begins once again for both our grade school and our boarding school.

News from our worksites

The Covidian Crisis brings along with it many delays. Among others, the construction companies are taking much longer to respond to our bidding invitations.

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Parish Hall Project

We are also considering enclosing the woods of our property with a real fence. Yet, it remains to be decided before God which worksites are the most important, taking into account our present means.

“Amen I say to you, as long as you did it to one of these my least brethren, you did it to me.” (Mt. 25, 40)

Small Catechism on the Spiritual Life – Part 3

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Small Catechism on the Spiritual Life – Part 3

  by Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen O.C.D

  (text in French published by Le Sel de La Terre)

(continued)

Chapter V The Difficulties of Mental Prayer

1. What are the principal difficulties encountered in mental prayer?

As mental prayer consists in lifting the soul to God, in other words occupying oneself with Him by thought and affection, the difficulties arise in mental prayer from all which hinders or makes more difficult this double application of our soul. With regards to thoughts, there are distractions, with regards to affections there is dryness.

2. What is meant by distraction?

We mean by distraction the intrusion into prayer of thoughts incompatible with the exercise that we are doing. They push us so that we occupy ourselves with something else. This assault of foreign and even contrary thoughts to the recollection of the intelligence with God can take place in two ways willingly or unwillingly. There is a great difference between the two ways

3. What do willful distractions consist of?

Willful distractions consist in the willful introduction or consented acceptance of thoughts which deviate our intelligence from the Divine Object of which it was occupied. In becoming distracted willingly, the soul either stops or interrupts mental prayer. If it is done without a sufficient reason, it is culpable of irreverence towards God. More so than a difficulty, the willful distraction in mental prayer makes it an infidelity. If on the other hand a wondering thought comes and is not accepted, the distraction is said to be involuntary.

4. What are the causes of involuntary thoughts?

We must accept two causes, the first occasional the second natural. The first is made by the impressions of the senses, the second by the intimate tendencies of our nature which engender spontaneously in us images and thoughts. We must distinguish, according to their origin, exterior or interior distractions.

5. Can we avoid distractions in mental prayer?

The exterior distractions can be avoided in a large part by the close watch on our senses and especially in choosing to pray in a surer place, as Our Lord suggests in the Gospel. We will avoid many distractions caused by the eyes in closing them or in fixing them on a religious object or a book of meditation. It is much more difficult to avoid interior distractions.

6. Where does this particular difficulty come from?

The particular difficulty of avoiding interior distractions comes from the spontaneity of the natural tendencies which are at the bottom of our being. They are manifested by the easy apparition of images and thoughts which relate to things we either like or fear. When our attention is fixed on an object of our consideration this interior world bound to these spontaneous tendencies remains more or less in obscurity, but as soon as our attention diminishes they are noticed. Then thoughts and memories appear in our mind which can contrast greatly with the mental prayer that we are doing.

7. Can one avoid interior distractions?

Yes, there is a way, at least in a certain measure, to avoid them either directly or indirectly:

* The direct way to resist the distractions consists in bringing back our attention to the religious topic that we are meditating on, or simply on God making an act of faith or love.

* The indirect way consists in intensifying our spiritual life. In becoming more profound one gains new energy which will reinforce the tendency of our soul towards God counter the natural tendencies which distract us. It should be noted that such a result will not be gained very quickly, but will be the fruit of a long application to the interior life.

8. Are the interior distractions sometimes unavoidable?

Yes, because they are spontaneous. Especially when the soul suffers from the difficulty in fixing its attention interior distractions can be very invading, insistent, and annoying. This difficulty in fixing the attention can come from an accidental cause. It can also come from a habitual disposition, as in the case of certain temperaments, very mobile. If the soul continues to suffer seeing itself distracted, and doing its best to remain attentive to God, these sorrowful distractions far from hurting it, transform it into an instrument of moral perfection and are an occasion of supernatural merit.

9. What is meant by dryness?

Dryness is the suppression of comfort that the soul feels often in the spiritual life, especially in the beginning which follows its conversion to a better life. The soul which recognizes that it possesses a more intense spiritual life has a certain joy because it is a psychological law that one is happy when he knows he possesses a great good. The intense spiritual life does not however consist in this comfort nor receive it. Also it can exist and develop outside all consolation, only because true devotion consists only in promptitude of the will to do the service of God.

10. Is dryness an evil?

The moral quality of dryness depends on the cause which produced it:

* If comfort disappears in the soul but if the resolution to give oneself completely to God remains in the will, far from being an evil, the dryness will be an occasion for good.

* If on the other hand the dryness comes from the weakness of the will it lacks recollection in the spiritual life.

11. Is there blameworthy dryness?

Of course, when they have their source in our infidelity. It can be greater or lesser. The soul called by God to a generous and mortified life who, after corresponding some time to grace, gives itself to look for small human satisfactions is no longer faithful to the invitation of God, and loses its original fervor, and remains weak in the will.

But more unfaithful still is the soul who falls into luke-warmness in committing deliberate venial sins. It is natural that such a soul can no longer forcefully express its love to God, precisely because it is no longer strong. It falls into dryness. The only way to cure the problem is to correct oneself returning to the original generosity.

12. Is there dryness which does not depend on the will?

Without doubt there are. Even the circumstances in which we live in are often occasions of dryness. They can provoke in us a sentiment of discomfort which deprives us of any consolation in the spiritual exercises, physical tiredness, physical problems, worries, small injuries, incomprehensions. All of that signifies for us causes of weight, annoyance, and overwhelming emotions and thoughts, which puts the soul in a sorrowful state where all joy and peace disappear. In this form of dryness the soul must arm itself with patience knowing that in supporting it for the love of God, the soul offers to Him a very agreeable sacrifice which proves its love for Him.

13. Can the dryness come from God?

Definitively, and even in the mentioned ones, we must affirm that it is caused by God since all circumstances in life are arranged by Providence. But sometimes the suppression of comfort that the soul feels in mental prayer is more directly the work of God, and precisely when He makes it impossible for the soul to meditate with the help of the imagination, and to make acts of love as beforehand. It is a common phenomenon to souls after some time of fervent application to mental prayer. St. John of the Cross teaches that by this type of dryness God invites souls to a more simple form of mental prayer that is called an initial contemplation.

14. How must the soul comport itself in this dryness?

The soul must not persist in wanting to continue the meditation as it is often obliged to do. It must, on the contrary, omit it simply and apply itself to remain tranquil in the presence of God looking at Him with a simple regard of faith and wanting to please Him at every moment. Little by little this regard of faith will become easier and more loving and the soul will pass gradually from a painful state of dryness to a peaceful rest in God.

15. How can the soul know that the dryness comes from God?

A sign that the dryness comes from God is that the soul perseveres in the exercise of virtues and prayer although it only feels dryness. As the application to virtues is more difficult in these circumstances the soul will find less success, but its repeated efforts show that its will remains strong. Such dryness cannot come from a culpable weakness of the will, but is the work of God.

16. What aim does God have in sending dryness to the soul?

By this trial God foresees to deliver the soul from the childlike sensitivity, to carry it to a more solid and hard ground of the will. Not finding sweetness for the spiritual life in the representations and sweet emotions as just a little time ago, when all went well, the soul sees itself constrained to hold on with the will to the exercises of faith and love. As this state comes from the Divine Will, the work of grace joins with the effort of the soul. Undoubtedly it will make great progress in the spiritual life. The dryness sent by God, besides the trial, is a great precious grace which the soul, far from being discouraged, will look to correspond generously.

Chapter VI The Presence of God

1. What is the presence of God?

The presence of God is an exercise of the spiritual life destined to maintain us in contact with God in our diverse daily occupations. It is in some way mental prayer which is prolonged during the whole day. As mental prayer it is composed of two elements – thought and affection. It is, in effect to think of God and to turn one’s heart towards Him.

2. What is the principal element of the presence of God?

The principle element is not the thought as most of people believe, but the affection. As in mental prayer, the thought serves to orient the heart or will towards God, and directs towards Him all its actions. It is easier to remain for a while in contact with God by means of the will than by the intelligence.

3. From where does the difference come?

The difference between the ease of application of the intelligence and of the will comes from the fact that it is not practically possible to think of God in an uninterrupted way, given that many times our occupations take all our attention, and that we do not have the possibility to think at the same time about two different things. On the contrary when the intelligence is occupied with work that we are doing, the heart can remain turned towards God because even if the work is distracting in its nature, we can do it for God, meaning in order to fulfil His Will and to glorify Him.

4. How can we more easily hold our heart oriented towards God?

We can do it in nourishing the attention by small affective exercises as short prayers, pious invocations, the offering of our actions, asking God’s help, or short conversations with God in which we manifest to Him our love and our confidence. This will not however be possible for us if thoughts of God are not often present.

5. Is there a way to frequently recall the presence of God?

There are many diverse ways. We distinguish ordinarily the forms of the exercise of the presence of God using the means to recall this thought to our souls; so we speak of the presence of God external, imaginative, and intellectual.

6. In what does the practice of the thoughts of God external consist?

It consists in using an exterior object to often think of God. A crucifix that we always carry with us putting it before us during work, kissing it, venerating it, will maintain living in us the memory of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and will give us the occasion to speak affectionately to Him. Even the thought of the Eucharistic Presence which we come back to without stopping, can help hold us in contact with God and incite us to speak with Him. It is the same for pious images, etc.

7. In what does the practice of the presence of God imaginative consist?

This practice consists in representing to us by the imagination that God, Our Lady or some Saints are close to us, near us, and accompany us everywhere. We look to address ourselves to them by short spontaneous words or by diverse affectionate exercises to which we have already alluded to. Everybody however cannot practice this type of the presence of God which requires a lively imagination and a complete mastery of this faculty.

8. Does such a representation lack truth?

Not in any way because if the humanity of Our Lord or Our Lady or the Saints are not present to us physically, they are morally present in the fact that the Saints and Our Lady see us in the Divine Essence that they contemplate, and are in relation with us, and because the humanity of Our Lord exercises on us a physical influence in the communication of grace. This spiritual relation we can easily represent to us in putting ourselves in the company of God and the Saints.

9. Can we make the exercise of the presence of God in turning ourselves towards the Saints?

Evidently, because the thoughts of Our Lady and the Saints help orient our heart and our actions towards God. And in this orientation of the will is found the most necessary element of the presence of God.

10. What is the practice of the presence of God intellectual?

The practice of the presence of God intellectual is that by which we recall to our mind the memory of God by means of a thought of faith. The soul remembers, for example, of the continual presence of the Most Holy Trinity in it, and looks to please its Divine Guests, or it considers that its duties are the manifestation of the Divine Will, and the soul unites itself constantly to the Divine Will. With the supernatural light, it sees that all the circumstances of life are dispensed by Providence, and the soul tells its Heavenly Father “I am happy with all”, or knowing that God looks after it always, the soul looks to do something to make it agreeable in the eyes of God.

11. What is the best way to make the exercise of the presence of God?

The best way to do this exercise is the one which fits best our mentality, and it is not determined by reasons but by experience. It is to be remarked that we must not attach ourselves to an exclusive way or a determined formula, but we can very well vary them according to the circumstances. Ordinarily we will prefer a particular form of this exercise, and we will choose the one which is most useful for us. It is praiseworthy to use a holy freedom.

12. Can the exercise of the presence of God be united to the natural ordinary actions and even those of recreation?

Undoubtedly, we will find in this exercise the most practical way to sanctify these actions. Even in eating we can elevate our heart towards God, and in place of looking for satisfactions we eat food with a holy indifference with the goal of restoring our strength to serve God with more energy. St. Paul taught us “Whether you eat or drink, do all for the glory of God”. It must be the same for our recreations. We must offer them to God having in view to obtain new force to give in His honor. We must even put our sleep to this end. We will prepare it making an explicit offering to God. So the exercise of the presence of God will allow us to live the whole day and our life of love.

The End.

Small Catechism on the Spiritual Life – Part 2

admin Meditations, Spirituality

Small Catechism on the Spiritual Life – Part 2

  by Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen, O.C.D.

  (text in French published by Le Sel de La Terre)

(continued)

Chapter III. Preparation and Reading

1. Are there different kinds of preparation for mental prayer?

The Carmelite authors distinguish often a double preparation:

* The near preparation by which the soul puts itself in the presence of God to start the intimate conversation with Him;

* The distant preparation by which the soul uses its powers to gather one’s thoughts before praying.

2. What is necessary for the soul to be disposed for prayer?

It is necessary for one not be absorbed excessively by creatures, and have a tendency to occupy oneself with God. To favor these dispositions there are two parts which constitute the distant preparation:

* The first is to remove obstacles: it’s “negative”;

* The second is destined to produce a quality: it’s “positive”.

3. What is the “negative” element of the distant preparation?

One must absolutely avoid the distractions and [disordered] attachments of the heart. In order to practice the love of God easily, a free heart is necessary. This means one must have a great detachment from creatures. Who wants to love much, must reserve for God the strength and tenderness of his affection, and not spread it to people and things who easily draw a heart which is not protected.

On the other hand, the freedom of spirit is not attained without great mortification of the senses which are open windows to terrestrial things, and the control of the memory which brings us into the world by the memories we have. So, the soul must avoid the useless thoughts. The heart and soul must be watched.

4. What is the positive element of the distant preparation?

It is the exercise of the presence of God that we will look for and to make it continuous as much as possible. By this holy exercise our thoughts and will are recollected in God, and we keep a certain contact with God, even in the middle of the most material occupations; and we converse with Him often in the day. Faithfulness to this practice creates in us a certain facility to speak with God as well as a certain ease to put us in a more intimate contact with Him: this is the near preparation.

5. What spiritual attitude helps the soul the most for this contact with God?

It is the attitude of humble confidence which puts us before God in the position which fits us best. God, in effect is our Father, and He wants that we act towards Him as destitute children. We will anchor in us the sentiment of our poverty by the memory of our numerous faults which bring to light our misery. Far from folding in on ourselves or becoming discouraged at the sight of our nothingness, we will look for refuge in the arms of Our Lord who said to us “Without Me you can do nothing” That’s why saint Teresa of Avila invites us to examine our conscience at the start of the mental prayer, to say the Confiteor, and then to look for the company of Jesus.

6. What is the most practical manner to put the soul in the presence of God?

Any manner to put oneself in the presence of God is useful for this aim, provided that a large application and intensity is used. There are however two manners especially indicated for mental prayer: 1) put oneself in the presence of Most Holy Eucharist (if we do mental prayer before the Blessed Sacrament) and, 2) recollect in one’s soul, keeping in mind the Three Divine Persons who live in the soul that is in the state of grace and offer themselves to the soul to be known and loved. To start this colloquia with (God present) we will remind the subject chosen in the reading.

7. At what moment must the reading be done?

Preferably, before going to mental prayer, meaning during the fifteen minutes granted for the preparation. If we cannot do it at that time, we could do it in the beginning. In some religious communities it is the custom to do a short reading out loud at the beginning of mental prayer.

8. Why is there common reading?

It has as its aim to offer a subject of meditation to those who do not have one. There is no obligation to use what is read. Ordinarily those who meditate come with a prepared subject by the private reading. But if at this moment that which is read draws us more than the chosen subject, we can change it with great liberty.

9. Must the reading serve to prepare a subject of meditation?

Such is the original destination, and it is that which has a larger goal — to instruct us in the spiritual things. The reading we speak about serves to supply us immediately with a Truth that we will penetrate by reflection, to draw a more profound conviction of the love of God for us. For those who no longer do mental prayer in the meditation form, but reach the level that St. Theresa calls “recollection” or to a way even higher, the reading no longer serves to choose a subject, but to recollect the soul in disposing it to sweetly taste to rest in God.

10. What books must we prefer to choose to do this reading?

It depends on the aim of the reading. When it concerns finding a subject of meditation, besides the books for meditation, all those that enlighten the many manifestations of the love of God for us, will be able to serve this aim. It will be, however, good to use books already known. When the aim is to recollect oneself only, any writing which inspires an intense love of God will be useful. The works of the Saints belong to this category. The choice of the book is determined by the immediate aim of the reading, but the culture and spiritual age of the person will have to be considered in this choice. Books too intellectual or spiritual will not be well understood, and necessarily cause dryness.

11. Can the lives of the Saints be read?

These lives are not excluded, especially because many souls are touched by the example of the Saints who have lived the spiritual doctrine, than by explaining it speculatively. However, we must not read them to satisfy our curiosity and not to prolong unnecessarily our reading. Also, it is fitting to not read them as preparation for meditation, a “new” life, because it greatly excites the imagination. It would be better to read a summary of a saint already known.

12. How must we read?

We must read with attention, since the aim of the reading is to find a subject of conversation with God. It is necessary to read it carefully, to not let any light escape us. It will be read with devotion and recollection because this good disposition of the heart favors in us the seeking of something useful for the soul, making us attentive and sensible to good ideas. We will be able to foresee more easily and prepare in some way the affections that we want to express and the resolution to be taken. All of it without binding us too much, because the aim of the reading is simply to help us according to our needs. Let us add a last remark: if it is done in common before the mental prayer, the reading must be short so as not to annoy those who do not use it ‑ and they are many.

13. Can we take again our book during mental prayer?

It is not excluded and can even be indicated in particular occasions. St. Theresa never went to mental prayer without a book with her. It will happen sometimes that we will find ourselves so distracted that the most practical manner to return to God will be to gain another good thought by reading again. Also, when in mental prayer and in the company of God, our affection becomes difficult by tiredness. It is often good to read again our theme of mental prayer. It is an exterior aid for our attention. One must be careful not to turn it into a simple reading. It must remain at least a meditative reading in which we stop to allow affections and resolutions to enter. So, the reading itself becomes an instrument of our conversation with God.

Chapter IV. Meditation and Colloquia

1. Is the meditation always explained in the same way by the Carmelite authors?

The Carmelite authors have some differences in their explanation of the meditation, but all are in agreement on the essential. Some do not explain the different parts; some others make a distinction between the meditative reflection and the affectionate colloquia which is the aim of the reflection, which they call contemplation. Others separate in the meditative part the representation and the reflection. Those who do not classify explicitly these diverse elements refer more or less to them.

Most of the Carmelite authors distinguish three elements in the meditation:

* The representation as an act of the imagination,

* The reflection as an act of the intelligence,

* And the colloquia as an act of the will.

2. What is the representation?

It is an activity of the imagination by which we form: 1) an image or representation of the mystery we want to meditate on, or 2) sensible objects which lift our thoughts to God.

3. What is the usefulness of the representation?

The aim is to render easier the work of reflection which leans on natural representations of the imagination. It is easy to think of the scourging [of Our Lord] before an image. It offers the advantage to fix in some way our thoughts which, without an object to look at, easily digresses. A certain stability of imaginative knowledge helps our intellectual knowledge to have fewer distractions.

4. Is the representation always necessary?

The same authors do not insist on its necessity in mental prayer, but they explain to us in what way it can be useful. Its usefulness is evident when we consider the life of Jesus Christ or of the Saints. Even in the consideration of the most abstract mysteries, for example the Divine attributes, the intelligence can start by thinking of sensible things represented by the imagination. It is also praiseworthy to elevate ourselves from the beauty of nature to God, Supreme Beauty. The Carmelite Theologians distinguish different cases one can find himself in, when he meditates. Some have a lively imagination easily able to represent the mystery, others are almost unable to do it. The former should use their faculty of representation, the others should know that it is not an exercise at all cost. To be useful, the imaginative representations must not be very perfect, a vague representation is enough.

5. In what way must the representation be formed?

1) One must apply oneself to it, otherwise nothing serious will be done. But it is not fitting to excite the imagination too much in order to see what we are meditating on too quickly. Those who have an especially lively imagination will try to proceed with a great simplicity because, otherwise, the imagination would be led to illusion and make them believe that they are having visions.

2). As to those who look at the perfection of the representation, the details should not be too precise. The Carmelite authors have equally said that a representation schema can be enough for someone with little imagination. A representation that is more precise is more useful because it fixes more easily our thoughts. The Carmelite authors never speak of the application of the senses.

3) It is not necessary to consecrate much time to form the representation. Some instants are enough, but it is necessary that we have it present during the whole time of meditation. If we can do it, we will find it easier to avoid distractions.

Let us conclude in saying that, without being absolutely necessary, the representation is often useful and those who succeed, must not deprive themselves of this help. Those who, on the other hand, find it difficult, can omit it, and start directly the reflection.

6. Is the reflection or consideration more important?

Reflection is the first of the elements that directly make the meditation, which consists in a certain work of the intelligence. This must remain secondary in comparison with the affectionate conversation with God, which must find in the meditation the stimulating base.

7. Must this work of the intelligence remain a long time?

Its subordination to the affectionate conversation indicates that it must only last as long as necessary to lead the soul to this conversation, meaning until it produces in the soul a profound conviction that it is loved by God and invited to love Him in return. We would however be in error if we believed that we had to interrupt or put to the side the reflection as soon as we feel some pious affection which would suddenly vanish leaving us empty. We must on the contrary insist and continue until the will is completely stable and can remain at least some time in the affectionate attitude.

8. Must the reflection be done methodically?

It can be. St. Theresa following in it other contemporary authors, advices, in the meditation of the Passion of Our Lord, to consider who suffers, what does He suffer, why, with which dispositions? It is not however necessary that there is such a rigorous order in the order of the arguments and one can think without harm to go freely from one thought to the next, provided that it leads to the goal proposed to better understand the love of God for us which is manifested in the mystery meditated on.

9. What will the souls who “cannot meditate” do?

For souls who, because of a certain mobility of the imagination and of thought, have great difficulty stopping at a determined idea to go deeper by deep reflections, St. Theresa teaches another way to excite thoughts which excite love. This method consists in reciting slowly a vocal prayer full of substance stopping to consider with attention the sense of the words and taking the opportunity to form some reflections and express affections.

10. When does the affectionate colloquia start?

It starts when the soul has the strong conviction that it must answer wilt love for the love God gives to it. It all depends on how easy it is for the soul to put itself in this necessary disposition. It is acquired by practice.

11. What is said in the colloquia?

The soul expresses especially to God its will to love Him and show Him its love, taking the motive of its purpose in a particular mystery. It can be done in many different ways and the colloquia will be done in many ways as well. The soul can express its love not only to the Holy Trinity, but also to Jesus. It is also praiseworthy to speak affectionately to the Saints.

12. In what way is the colloquia done?

It can be done in many different ways. We can express our affection with words pronounced vocally, but we can also do it with interior expressions of the heart or will. These expressions can be short and happen with a certain frequency, or be prolonged for some time, saying them at longer intervals. The soul also can be happy only keeping company with God [without any expression].

13. Must the conversation be continuous?

We can answer yes in the way that the soul must remain in conversation with God, but no in the manner of “speaking” continuously. Also the Carmelite authors teach expressly that the conversation done by the soul must not be too long or agitated, but peaceful and many times interrupted, as to permit the soul to listen to God’s answer.

14. Does God speak in the colloquia?

If we were the only one to speak, it would not be a colloquia. On the other hand St. Theresa taught that God speaks to the soul when it prays with all its heart. One must not believe that God is heard in a material way. He answers the soul in sending it graces of light and love by which the soul understands better the ways of God and feels greatly inflamed to follow them with generosity. Listening consists in, for the soul, to accept these graces, and thinking how to look for profit.

15. Why is the colloquia called “contemplation”?

Because, when the soul speaks with God and listens, the soul stops reasoning as it did in meditation and now is happy to pay attention in a general way to the mystery better understood because of the meditation. Or even the soul looks simply at God the Father, or Son with Whom it speaks. In this simple look is realized the traditional notion of contemplation ( a simple look which penetrates the Truth). And as in the colloquia, God communicates to the soul His light. Under this aspect is realized in some way which is more fully the essence of the true contemplation: an infusion of heavenly light.

16. How long can this colloquia last?

There is no limit. It can occupy the whole time of mental prayer. Even more, the simplification of mental prayer consists to make the reflections shorter, to give more time to affections and to give them, little by little, a calmer form by prolonged acts. It is not easy for the soul in the beginning to stop from time to time to express its love. This is why we can have recourse to the last acts of mental prayer: thanksgiving, offering and asking.

17. Why do we need to thank God?

Many reasons push the soul to express its gratitude to God. We have received much from Him either in the natural or supernatural order: to be born of Catholic parents and to have been baptized without delay, to have been raised in the True Religion, and especially to have been given a vocation; so many free gifts from God for which we cannot thank Him enough. And also how many graces God surrounds us with, without stopping. Even the exercise of mental prayer is a call to Him to penetrate further into us. We must show ourselves grateful to these favors. Let us add to that the goodness of God towards those for whom we show an interest for: our friends, benefactors, those confided to our care. We can thank not only God but also the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Saints for their intercession in our favor.

18. What can we offer to God?

Having received all from God, it is praiseworthy on our part to offer ourselves to Him, wanting to use all our strength for His service. As our holy profession is a consecration of our whole life to God 1, we will be able to renew it. We should not be satisfied with general offerings which, because of their vagueness, do not exercise a large influence on our way of acting. It is good to take a particular resolution and to offer to God our will to practice such a virtue or to fight generously against a temptation or to willingly accept a trail of suffering. By these firm resolutions we put our mental prayer in contact with our daily life; this is why it is good for all to finish with a particular resolution even if an offering has not been done.

19. Whom must we pray for?

Our large spiritual destitution forces us to have recourse continually to prayer. After having told that “without Me you can do nothing”, Our Lord added, “ask and you shall receive, knock and it shall be opened to you.” Our spiritual progress depends extremely on the prayers that we will say with confidence and insistence.

We must pray for others: for their temporal and spiritual needs and especially for their sanctification and salvation.

We will have an interest in not only souls in particular but also our country, Religious Orders, our Spiritual Family, and Holy Church.

Knowing that the souls dear to Our Lord are more powerful on His Heart, desirous to obtain much from Him, we will try to make ourselves agreeable to His Majesty by a life detached from the world and oriented only to the research of intimateness with Him. In this way one will realize the ideal proposed by St. Theresa to her daughters: to become an intimate friend of God who uses this intimateness to make His Divine Graces overflow on this world.

(To be continued)

1 ‑ He is speaking here to religious.

800th ANNIVERSARY OF THE DEATH OF SAINT DOMINIC

admin Dominican Saints, FEATURED POSTS - Our Convent section

800th ANNIVERSARY OF THE DEATH OF SAINT DOMINIC

  (August 6, 1221 – August 6, 2021)

“Veritas”

A sermon for the Feast of Saint Dominic

(August 4)

given in Avrillé (France)

IN THE WORDS that Jesus spoke on earth, three resonated in the soul of St. Dominic that must resonate in ours. These words are: “Misereor super turbam­”, I have mercy on the crowd (Mk. 8:2). St. Dominic transposed them, saying: “Quid fient peccatores?” “What will become of sinners?” This pity for souls and the salvation of souls—is the secret of St. Dominic’s vocation, the fundamental impulse that moved him. That is why he is called: “Apostolicus Pater Dominicus”, the Apostolic Father, the father concerned about souls, who saw how far men are from the divine Truth, how much they ignore or despise this Truth; who therefore wore himself out in the service of the Truth, in order to contemplate it, and then to communicate it to souls and to organize an Order whose purpose would be to preach it.

These three things, in fact, summarize the life of Saint Dominic. This life, at first sight, is complex, but in reality it is simple. It is one because it rests entirely on a single principle: the Truth. ­The principle of unity in the life of St. Dominic and his Order is Truth. Therefore, we must grasp the life and work of St. Dominic in truth, starting from this fundamental inspiration of his apostolic soul, in the light of the principle which has become the motto of the Order which appears on his halo: Veritas.

The life of St. Dominic has three phases:

‑ The first is that of maturation in Osma, Spain;

‑ The second is that of the external apostolate, in Languedoc, in the middle of Cathar country;

‑ The third, which is the most fruitful — of a more hidden fruitfulness than the previous one, but more lasting — is the foundation of the Order. Each of these phases lasted about a decade. Each one, above all, was placed under the patronage of the Truth.

**

The first phase is that of maturation in Osma, in silence, strict observance of the religious rule, prayer, and study; it is the stage of knowledge and contemplation of the Truth.

Saint Dominic, in fact, began by drinking from the source of divine Truth for many years, by filling himself with its light, before communicating it to others. For, in order to be able to preach the Truth, to become “champions of the faith and true lights of the world”, as Pope Honorius III would say of the first Dominicans, one must first be deeply imbued with the faith and the first Truth, which is God

Faith makes contact with the divine Truth. Saint Thomas says with his usual precision:

“There is for us, even in this life, a certain participation and assimilation to such a cognition of divine truth, inasmuch as through the faith which is infused into our souls we adhere to the very First Truth on account of Itself. – fit nobis in statu viæ quaedam illius cognitionis participatio et assimilatio ad cognitionem divinam, in quantum per fidem nobis infusant inhæremus ipsi primæ veritati propter se ipsam”1

St. Dominic, therefore, began by living by faith, by knowing the first Truth in and for itself, without any utilitarian aim. Dante, in his ­Divine Comedy, says of St. Dominic that since his birth he married the Faith, just as St. Francis married Poverty (Paradise XII, 61).

This phase of our holy father’s life is essential, and we too must reproduce it with extreme fidelity, embracing faith in our turn through contemplation and silent and assiduous study of the First Truth. How, in fact, can we serve this divine Truth and preach the faith, if we are not intimately filled with it? We would fall into that inconsistency which, under the pretext of life and action, sinks into activism and sacrifices the absolute for the contingent that passes away; the divine for the human. Those who give in to this tendency, if they do not deny God or the reality of Revelation, are logically led to believe that God is conditioned by His creation and to erase from the Gospel the very idea of the divine attributes. They subordinate the primary Truth to passing truths or even to the opinions of the world, and become incapable of giving God to souls.

**

The second phase of St. Dominic’s life is that of the apostolate, of the preaching of the contemplated faith, of the expansion of the Truth. For about ten years, the saint traveled throughout Languedoc and preached to the heretics.

For truth is communicable. “Credidi propter quod locutus sum” – I believe, and that is why I have spoken, says St. Paul (2 Cor. 4:13): the evidence of faith irresistibly inclines us to communicate its content; hence these apostolic accents of St. Dominic, accents of tenderness for sinners, which recall those of Jesus: “What will become of poor sinners?” Not that these men are simply miserable or starving, but they do not know the Truth. This is the real misery, the most serious.

Jesus said of himself: “I am the Truth” (Jn. 14:6). He was moved by the desire to communicate the Truth that he had to proclaim, because he himself was the Truth in action ­in the bosom of the Father. In the same way, St. Dominic preached the Truth because he was filled with it, because he had espoused it, because he had made it his own. He had not forgotten the first phase during the second: the preacher must remain a contemplative, on pain of no longer preaching the word of God, but of preaching himself: “Contemplari et contemplata aliis tradere – to contemplate and transmit to others the truths contemplated.” Preaching must be nothing but the overflow of contemplation; what is preached must be nothing but the fruit of contemplation. And so, in the very structure of St. Dominic’s life, we find the economy of the life of Jesus: thirty years of silence and preparation, three years of preaching, and finally the sending of the Apostles on a mission throughout the world. This shows with what supernatural spirit the preaching of the Truth must be considered. It is grafted onto the faith; it is itself an act of faith, and this is what ensures its victory.

This second phase had all the hazards of a battle, with alternating failures, tribulations, and successes. For preaching is an adventure, so to speak: there is the Holy Spirit who instructs souls from within, there is the one who speaks externally, and there are those who listen – the agreement is not always easy. St. Dominic himself experienced the failure and hardness of souls who rebel against the Truth. But this, too, is part of the divine plan. And precisely in the hour of failure he saw souls close up to his word, he made a pact with the Virgin Mary, a pact that lasts for eternity. The Mother of Preachers, “the one who believed”, as the Gospel calls her, then gave St. Dominic an invincible weapon to touch souls and effectively communicate the Truth to them. This weapon is the Rosary – the Rosary, which transmits the substance of the faith and is both a prayer and a sublime means of preaching the great divine truths.

**

The third phase of St. Dominic’s life was the foundation of the Order of Preachers and the sending of the friars to the whole world.

After having hoarded the Truth and after having proclaimed it, the Saint organized its preservation, fruitfulness, and diffusion in time. For this he founded an Order. If the grain remains piled up, it dies; but if it is sown, it produces fruit.

An Order is the fruit of an act of wisdom (sapientis est ordinare); it is an organic whole of which one element is the principle of the others. One is part of the Order only if one is connected to the principle. The principle of our Order is St. Dominic; but more primitively, it is the Truth. To the extent that we guard and carry the Truth, we are part of the Order of Preachers, rightly called “the Order of Truth”; this is its trademark, its essential note, so to speak.

This third phase, like the second, was marked by success and trials. And this has continued in the history of the Order. There have been, there are, especially in our days, betrayals and defections within our Order. This is the crucial proof given by Our Lord himself: “You will know them by their fruits.” (Mt. 7:16,20). The fruits are the works of the Truth; where they are lacking, it is a sign that the Truth is no longer served; or, as St. John says: “They went out from us but they were not of us. For if they had been of us, they would no doubt have remained with us.” (1 John 2:19). They were not of us because they did not serve – or did not fully serve – the Truth.

**

These three phases of St. Dominic’s life are certainly successive, but one does not replace the other; they are linked and remain one in the other; there is penetration of the first into the second, and of the first two into the third.

And it must be so. For it is the depth of contemplation that preserves from activism in the apostolate; so it is necessary that the first phase penetrate the second. And it is also necessary that the first two phases unceasingly inspire the third. For only the contemplation of the Truth and zeal in the service of the Truth can preserve one from the sclerosis and decadence that threaten any work on this earth, even if it is holy and inspired by God, as a religious Order is. In short, we must carefully keep the principle: Veritas!

*

**

Saint Dominic left us his testament. This testament can be summed up in three words: “This, my brothers, is what I leave you as an inheritance: have charity, keep humility, possess ­voluntary poverty.”

But we can say that these three words are summarized and merged in this small word of seven letters which constitutes the motto of the Order: Veritas, Truth. For Dominican charity is above all the charity of truth; and the preaching of truth can only bear fruit if it is founded on humility and poverty.

This is what God revealed to the most illustrious daughter of St. Dominic, St. Catherine of Siena:

“St. Dominic wished to make the light of Truth the principal object of his Order. […] This why he appeared in the world as an apostle and sowed the seed of my word, full of light and truth, dispelling the darkness and distributing the light. […] Dominic is thus in harmony with my Truth, not wanting the sinner to die, but to be converted and live.”

“Veritas de terra orta est.” Truth springs forth out of the earth. Our earth, our roots, our father is St. Dominic. He bequeaths to us the Truth, thirst for the Truth, love of the Truth, and asks us to be faithful to the Truth. Let us strive, by our three vows, by our contemplative life, by our prayers and studies, by our doctrinal preaching, by our whole life, to be TRUE.

Holy Mary, Mother of Preachers, pray for us!

1 ‑ Expositio in libro Boetii de Trinitate, Proemium, q. 2, a. 2