Gloria Olivae

" PORTA FIDEI" ......Faith, again.

2012-01-30T14:37:00.019+11:00

Pope Benedict XVI had been speaking of "Faith" in many of his addresses. His "Ratzinger Report" was about the crisis of Faith. "Veritatis splendor" which he c0-authored with Pope John Paul II was about the true and false descriptions of Faith. His "year of St. Paul" was about Faith and its best proponent, St. Paul. His "Year of the Priests" was about the priests relearning their Faith. His "Instrumentum Laboris" was an order to Bishops to check the "Faith" of their priests. And now, the "Year of Faith." He signed it last October 2011; to start on October 2012 and end on November 2013.

There could be two reactions to these repetitious topic on "Faith." Pure boredom or the realization that there is no Faith in the Catholic Church. The latter would make this a very serious topic because Faith is what brings us into the Catholic Church and assures our salvation. The Pope just have to be repetitious.

Besides, Faith is presupposed in many Catholic activities. That is why it is useless to talk to other religions because we would be talking about supernatural Faith while they would be talking not even of natural faith. The same things goes with the useless dialogue with Protestants, we would speak in the supernatural level while they would remain in the natural level. And it would be useless for seminarians to study in the seminaries because understanding what they will learn in the seminary needs Faith because the truths taught are supernatural truths while most seminarians would have only natural faith or none at all. Teaching catechetics would be ineffective unless the teacher has Faith. And Bible teaching and interpretation is possible only for people who have Faith. Family apostolates would be useless unless the parents involved have Faith. So it is with good reason that the Holy Father is proclaiming a "year of Faith" where each one of us, bishops, priests and layman must check if we have Faith or not. .... for as he stated many of us Catholics work on the false presumption that we have Faith.

The devil had been attacking the Church from the very beginning. But the devil's attacks intensified at the 1900 and gradually increased onwards up to the present time. The battle in the spiritual sphere is awesome yet completely unnoticed on the ground. The Popes have gallantly fought for the Church. Pius IX had to fight his battles from exile in Gaeta. Pius X had to face an octopus at the very bosom of the Catholic priesthood....and to make the history short, Pope John xxiii had to battle the spirit of the French Revolution now perfected in Europe, in America and in some degree around the whole world. The Church had been surrounded since the 1900 but we had gallant Popes. The gallantry of Pope Pius IX was even prophesied by Our Lady in Quito, Ecuador, 200 years earlier.

Pope John XXIII surrounded by "Original sin" re-surrected and perfected in "Liberte (freedom from God,) Egalite ( equality with God,) Fraternite (friendship with the world which is emnity with God,)" had to call on the help of an Ecumenical Council, Vatican II, in his words: to increase Christians's commitment to their Faith, to make more room for charity (we need Faith to reach Charity).....with clarity of thought and greatnesss of heart (we need the mind to make the act of Faith and the heart to make the act of Charity). His goal was clearly the attainment of Faith that leads to Hope and Charity.

This was, likewise, the goal of Pope Paul VI, John Paul II and in greater part by Pope Benedict XVI. Pope Benedict issued the Motu Propio "Porta Fidei" last October 2011. And up to now, months after, very few bishops and priests know about it and its appendage, a program of implementation.

The first and most important part of "Porta Fidei" is a description of the dynamics of the Act of Faith. How is the Act of Faith made in detail. The description is not easy because it is a supernatural act aided by grace and so, impossible for all to make. The Motu Propio describes the role of the intellect and the free will in the Act of Faith but describes the actual roles of both faculties in summarized form due to the nature of the document. Then the document gives several Scriptural personages who made great acts of Faith for our examples. An exegesis of each personality in Scriptures will be a big help in aiding the faithful understand the acts involved in making the act of Faith.

Then "Porta Fidei" instructs all Bishop to teach the dynamics of the "Act of Faith" to all priests and they in turn to teach it to all the Faithful. In this way everyone can check if they have Faith or not. The document exhorts the entire Church to do this; the Catholic Bishop's conference is instructed to implement this, the Bishop should implement this in his diocese, and all the parish priests should implement this in all religious organizations, communities and each individual faithful. Absolutely nobody should be left out. This is so important a neglect could mean the damnation of souls. The Holy Father wants all to begin studying the dynamics of the Act of Faith from October 2011 to October 2012. Then to apply what we learn into action from October 2012 to November 2013 hoping that by the feast of Christ the King on November 2013 we are ready for the General Judgment......liturgically speaking.

"Porta Fidei" enumerates only the two general steps in the Act of Faith. One is an act of the intellect and the other is an act of the free will. But both the Bishop and his priests must study the 12 steps that make up the Act of Faith.; four acts of the intellect, four acts of the free will and four acts accomplished by both. The first four acts (2 by the intellect and two by the free will) are directed in knowing and desiring the goal of Faith. The next four acts (2 by the intellect and 2 by the free will) are directed to choosing the means to attain the goal Faith. These means should be learned from Divine Revelation and its proper interpretation that can come only from the Church. After making the goal Faith clear and finding the means towards that goal from Divine Revelation clear....or putting it another way.....after the assent of the intellect and consent of the free will .....follows the order of execution by which we make the Act of Faith. It took 12 steps to make an act of faith on one revealed truth of the Catholic Church. We have to make these 12 steps on all the truths of the Church. So we have to teach the "How" and the "What" as declared by Christ in His Apostolic Commission at the end of the Gospel of Matthew. These steps were never taught in the seminary......or maybe I wasn't listening.

"Porta Fidei" prescinds from discussing the Life of Repentance and the Life of the Moral Virtues that should precede the Act of Faith. Both Bishop and Priest must include both topics in explaining Faith to the Faithful, otherwise they would never reach Faith. The Life of Repentance consists of two steps according to Psalm 50; one is to know one's sin and the other is to keep one's sins ever before the eyes of one's mind. The first is difficult because one cannot know his sins unless he first stops sinning. The thief who continues to steal cannot know his sins and the adulterer who continues in his adultery cannot know his sin. Both must first stop their sins before they can know the sinfulness of their acts. The second is also difficult because great humility is needed to keep one's sins ever before one's eyes. In fact, most confessors advise their penitents to do otherwise, i.e. to forget their past sins.

The four moral virtues by which our acts become moral are natural virtues and so is available to all for development. These virtues are what makes one a gentlemen, as St. Francis de Sales states in his "Introduction to the Devout Life." Otherwise we are as uncouth as galley slaves, Josef Pieper states. Repentance and the four Moral virtues must precede Faith. But the devil had conveniently succeeded in making man unable to repent and conveniently make man forget the necessity of the four moral virtues. Even seminarians are not taught these two steps preceeding Faith. So how can we reach Faith? "Porta Fidei" could be our last chance to make an Act of Faith. This is how serious we must take this Motu Propio of Pope Benedict XVI. It could be our salvation or our damnation.

In his commentary to the Gospel of the 5th Sunday in Ordinary time, St. Thomas of Aquinas states that repentance and Faith is the door that leads to the kingdom of God. No one enters God's kingdom here on earth nor God's kingdom in the next without passing through "Porta Fidei." It was the goal to which Pope John XXIII started Vatican II. Pope Benedict is very clearly delineating the way towards the door. Are we behaving like the wise men who build their houses on rock !!! What if this is his last call before we die.

THE BATTLE LINES - Part V

2011-12-22T13:16:00.001+11:00

1. We have seen how the devil, using heresies, had been attacking the Church. Pelagianism was a very bad virus. While Arianism and other minor heresies had been weakened there are some that have overwhelmed the anti-biotics and had produced more serious strains. And the Church is having difficulty in curing them. One of them is Nominalism that attacked the Church around the year 800, was temporarily squelched by the Church with St. Anselm spearheading the battle but recovered around the year 1000. Its devastation on the Catholic Church was so great that the Council of Trent had to be convened to deal with it. But the anti-biotic taken was weak. And so the virus continued in the form of a stronger strain. The half-hearted medication from the men of the Church occasioned it to grow stronger through the 20th century up to Vatican II.

2. The devil knows where to concentrate his attacks..... at seminaries. Knowing the brilliant mind of Satan that is expected. The destruction of the seminaries would mean the destruction of the whole Catholic Church. Graduates of these seminaries, most of whom will be future Bishops and Rectors could not protect and watch over the seminaries. The damage done by heresies to the curriculum of the seminaries cannot be imagined. It was a spiritual tsunamis that washed the Church away from the New Testament and dragged it back to the Old Testament. The strategy was so brilliantly done nobody noticed it except the Popes who kept on warning the world about its horrors. Having poisoned the seminaries the natural propagator of the heresy were naturally the graduates of the seminaries who would later on be priests, bishops and Cardinals. The heresy was self propagating. No new effort was needed to spread it.

3. Harboring this cancer for 600 years, the Church finds herself with priest filled with vices rather than virtues. And now we see all the problems the Church has with her priests. It was an unavoidable explosion of a cancerous growth that was bound to happen. There was no way of stopping it. The present problem was just the secretion of a malignant cancer.

4. Priests and their parishioners that are in this state cannot go anywhere else than down. Down, down, down. This was how things were from the year 1000 up to Vatican II. Vatican I was an attempt to stop the tide. But the situation in the world did not allow Vatican I to accomplish its task. Vatican II attempted to raise the Church from the Old Testament back to the New Testament. But the force of the waves driving souls from the Old Testament to OUT of the Old Testament into pure paganism was unstoppable. NOW, the head of a new, ugly heresy rose almost immediately after Vatican II. Led by schools of theology, seminaries, Rectors and theology professors, and spread by bishops and priest contaminated by this new virus, the Church is being dragged out into paganism.

5. It is a return to the First Fall, into Original Sin, into the first sin of Satan. ....the refusal to be subject to God. The fingers of Satan is most evident. The attempts to destroy is continuously focused on seminaries, training programs of priests and seminarian, commission on seminaries, Rectors of seminaries and the dissemination of books about this new religion whose god is "Original Sin." Satan is propagating his errors with his usual means, books, as the devil did from the beginning but was used most effectively during the time of St. Pope Pius V. That spirit was exposed by Pope Pius and exemplified more recently by the spirit of the French Revolution. Today, it persist most potently with an unknown name. But its spirit is fuming with sulphur over the world and quoted by priests and bishops as the "New Catholic Church" misquoting both the aggiornamento of Pope John XXIII and the "New Evangelization" of Cardinal Ratzinger. The present post Vatican II scenario is pure confusion. The voice of the Pope is clear but they are quoted and misquoted everywhere. These heretical voices had been vocal since Vatican II both in mass media and in well published books. Can you imagine the damage they had done by now specially in seminaries which is their target?

In her early history the Church had a solution when things were getting tough. St. Thomas of Aquinas in his commentary to the epistles noted that the Church had always been described as a 'fort.' To which she retreated to defend herself effectively and from which she would go forth to attack the enemies and save other souls outside the fort. And so the first Christians who sought seriously the salvation of their souls 'left the world' and entered these forts, called monasteries, to do battle more effectively. IT IS OFTEN DESCRIBED AS STRATEGIC RETREAT. Pope Benedict mentioned something about the only way to save Europe is through the monasticism of St. Benedict. It is a way of life and not just a geographical entity. And its very essence is a preparation for the second coming of Christ. It is like drawing the battle lines where friend and foes are clearly identified. And their secret battle cry is 'ero cras.'

Around the 8th century the eschatological significance of Christmas was being replaced by a purely materialistic celebration of pure indulgence of the flesh. It was a time that the Christian communities felt that the end of the world could come. So the first Christians prepared themselves this way: they seriously concentrated their minds in knowing Christ as He revealed Himself in Divine Revelation. They made certain that this knowledge was perfect. Secondly, they studied how to love Christ as also revealed in Divine Revelation. They also made certain that their knowledge of this was perfect. Thirdly, they did these two activities with similarly minded Catholics living together in communities. And fourthly they used the community ambiance to put their knowledge into practice. These are the theological virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity. While doing all these four things they lived in the fear of the Lord knowing full well that He could come tomorrow (ero cras) and that they might not be ready on time of His coming.This fear is what makes them wise guiding them perseveringly to union with Christ. This whole process is what Pope Benedict describes as the "New Evangelization." This is truly preparing one's soul for the second coming of Christ, the eschatological significance of Christmas.

THE ENEMY within - Part IV

2011-12-07T11:03:00.020+11:00

We have seen how an ugly heresy unrecognized because it was composed of several heresies put together had lay siege to the Church almost unceasingly from the 1000 up to the present with great visible success. All the problems of priests abusing children and nuns that had to undergo visitation come from this. And as expected this cancer tend to worsen as years went on. Essentially, this heresy dragged the Church from the New Testament back to the Old Testament. And having lay siege to the Church for the last 600 years it is expected to drag the Church from the Old Testament out to a 'new paganism' characterized by a brutality never known in the history of man following the principle that 'the corruption of the best is the worst.'

John Cardinal Newman narrates in his history of the Turks that the most brutal division of the Turkish army fighting against the Christians was a group of young, handsome, white skinned unmerciful fighters. They were the Catholic children of captured Christians that had converted to the Turkish religion.

Today we have such a great army of Catholics that had been dragged out of the New Testament and out of the Old Testament into an entirely new religion made by men and worshiping man, himself . This had happened many times from the 10th century up to the present in some degree but today it is raising its ugly head with a vengeance......symbolized by the fallen broken statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary during a demonstration in Italy.

The devil, the brain behind this invasion had never changed his tactic. It had always been the same from the time of Adam up to the present. Let us see how Satan poisons the Church and let us see how God, through his popes, like Pius V battled this monster in the 1500.

In Pius V's time heresy was both in the open and concealed but its spread was continuous and devastating. The local clergy harbored these heresies consciously or unconsciously. The chief danger was from books sold everywhere where the simple and unsuspecting were often taken in by the contents that were cleverly disguised but against Catholic doctrine, faith and morals. Attempts to expose the heresies were prevented by members of the hierarchy, themselves, due to jealousies. These heretical doctrines were peddled as 'new doctrines' whose novelty attracted people widely. The vicar assigned to correct the error had to escape with his life because of attempts to his life by the bishop of the Diocese. In the wet and cold journey he was refused accommodation by the Dominicans of Santa Sabina. Here is an incident in the 15th century multiplied a thousand times today.

From the 1000, the devil infected books with his heresies, specially books in Moral theology. Today he has even used books with imprimatur. The Laity have absolutely no defense. These books are camouflaged with nice titles, decorated with holy images and impressive titles like 'The interpretation of Vatican II' which is not an interpretation but a mischievous presentation of their hidden agenda, a new church made by man, run by man and worshiping man, a 20th century version of the sin of Adam and Eve popularized by the French reign of terror. And just try to refute this heresy and you will have bishop's conferences against you.

Pius V was very well prepared for his work because of his studies in Bologna. He would not recognize his alma mater today. Michael Ghislieri was chosen by God to be Pope to stem the heresy aside from protecting the Church from the onslaught of Mohammedanism. The battle of Lepanto was during his pontificate. And he showed that treasure of Catholicism that John Cardinal Newman saw as the sign of Christ's true Church. "All sorrow, disaster, darkness or persecution are nothing when we have the certainty that among men there is, and will ever be, a man in whom the light of everlasting truth can never fail. The night of the world is dark for us, but never starless; there is the Pope."

We have Pope Benedict XVI leading the charge today when most of the clergy are pointing the opposite way. The Pope's efforts had been relentless and his voice is like a trumpet call with clear sounds. All his writings, specially the Compendium of the Catechism, the Instrumentum laboris and three encyclicals are clear clarion calls. The light is there. As St. Thomas said: if we don't see it it is because we chose to close our eyes.

The enemy is now within. And it is worst than the Nominalism of the 800. These are peddled by so called Catholic theologians who wish to change the Church by declaring that the original Church of Christ is no more (a heresy rooted in modernism.) That we, the men of the Church make up a Constitutional Convention with the right to modify the old Church as we see fit. We do not have to consult God nor the Pope. Our joint voices rule supreme (reminiscent of Democracy.) We will follow what the majority of the people want (sounds like the French reign of terror.)

This is the first revolution in paradise when Adam and Eve decided that they will decide what is right and wrong and no longer God.

Because the clergy had already been dragged out of the New Testament by countless books, to drag them further away out of the Old Testament into paganism was easy. And this new army of ex-catholics just like the army of young catholics turned muslims are viciously against the Catholic Church, not for any reason except that the corruption of the best had made them the worst.

And they are propagating their poison through books and other mass media outlets. Every priest and nun have read their interpretation of Vatican II articles and bitten by their poison. Only a few had read the Pope's "understanding Vatican II." They are turning the,whatever is left of the Catholic world into a new protestant sect but of a pagan nature. We wonder how many will join a call to arms if the Pope ever calls for a spiritual battle.

Pope Benedict spoke on Dec. 8 about Mary, not about her Immaculate Conception but about the woman of the Apocalypse. That is like talking about Our Lady of Guadalupe( Dec. 12) on the day of the Immaculate Conception (Dec. 8). But why not since the image of the Immaculate Conception depicts a slightly modified copy of Our Lady of Guadalupe. The Pope quoted the book of Revelation where it says that : the dragon will relentlessly attack Christ. But when it sees that his apparent victory during the crucifixion of Christ was in fact his greatest lost, then he switched his hatred on the Church, which is happening right now. What does God do? God gives the Church, the Woman of the Apocalypse, two giant wings and transfered her into a safe place specially prepared by God for her in the desert. The brief history of the Church from the 1000 up to Vatican II is the description of pure total chaos in the world. After Vat. II an uglier head arose. The move was to change completely the Catholic Religion. It has become impossible to seek the life of holiness in such a situation. Could this be the reason why the Apocalypse prophesied that the Church could eventually be transferred to a safer place? Does it mean that we can no longer enter the Church in the world and that we have to look for the Church in the desert to be able to enter it? It seems so. From this time onwards the Church can only be found in that special place in the dessert until her wedding day with the bridegroom. Where is the Church in the desert? The 'New Evangelization' of Pope Benedict is pointing to it.

THE DIVINE INTERVENTION - Part III

2011-11-26T04:28:00.001+11:00

1. We have seen Divine Providence providing man everything he needs for the salvation of his soul. That has been in place from the beginning of the world and will be up to the end. We have seen the damage God had allowed in His Church from the 8th century, through the 10th century and up to the present. We see today the state of the Church as if she is nowhere to be found. Let us now see how God intervened in these our days.

2. For the last 600 years most Catholic priests had both erroneous and true Catholic doctrines in their minds. This cannot foster a true act of Faith that will enable them to enter the Church and live a life of Faith, Hope and Charity. Priests should recognize error and separate it from the truth. After 600 years we just cannot imagine how this admixture of error and truth had affected the spiritual state of the Church. As Pope Benedict suspects the Church had been reduced to a 'creative minority,' words he himself use.

3. This erroneous state of mind was first isolated, analyzed and recognized by an international theological commission made up of expert theologians to advice the Fathers of Vatican II. This commission analyzed many truths being taught in the Catholic Church and had begun announcing some of their findings. The first was a clarification on the Limbo of unbaptized children. But a most significant announcement was made by then Cardinal Ratzinger in 1985 in a book entitled "Ratzinger Report" that the Church was undergoing a crisis of Faith. The implication of the statement is that few were entering the Catholic Church due to a problem in making an act of Faith. Then he described the problem of the priests (and bishops, I suppose) is that they were restless. The statement implies that most priest had the vice of restlessness.

There are eight vices and restlessness is the seventh. St. John Cassian states that if one has restlessness that means he has all the vices. He would be without the Theological virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity and, therefore, would be outside the Church. Tormented by this heresy for the last 600 years, most priests would, probably be outside the Church!

4. In 1993, Pope John Paul II with the obvious cooperation of Cardinal Ratzinger issued "Veritatis Splendor" where they laid down what could have happened from the year 1000 up to the present showing how the heresy corrupted the curriculum in seminaries and stated that the doctrines taught in seminaries and passed on to the lay faithful had been compromised. When an error enters a curriculum, the error gets worst as time goes. He who does not progress deteriorates, St. Thomas reminds us. It is unimaginable how bad an error can corrupt a church for 600 years.

5. 'Veritatis Splendor' explains how the Church had been invaded by Satan and how the Church today is trying to expel this evil spirit by the actions of the Church, herself.

6. After showing what had happened for the last 600 years in the Church in the 'Ratzinger Report', in 2000, Cardinal Ratzinger addressed a conference of Catechist and showed the defect in teaching Catechism in his 'New Evangelization.' He said, the defect was in the contents and in the method of teaching. That is like saying everything taught was wrong.

7. When Cardinal Ratzinger became Pope, like all Popes, he gave a review of the teachings of the Catholic Church in his first three encyclical on Faith, Hope and Charity. This should have given all priests the hint that they should check on their personal Faith, Hope and Charity. But this did not happen. So the Pope called for the Year of St. Paul, which was a further reminder to all to check on their Faith. The response was weak. So the Pope called on the Year of the Priest mildly suggesting to all priest to return to the seminary and review their theology, which no one seems to have done. Then from 2005 - 2011 the Holy Father issued the 'Instrumentum Laboris' where he advised all Bishops to sit down with their priest and give some pastoral suggestions based on 'Veritatis Splendor.' How many bishops responded is unknown but among my friend bishops no one responded to the 'instrumentum.' This was the Pope's way of trying to find evidences on the spiritual state of the Church. And almost as a last resort the Holy Father announced next year,2012 as the Year of Faith.

8. The Church seems to be exerting great efforts for man to make an act of Faith. Repentance comes before Faith. And we have seen in Fatima that the world seems unable even to repent.

Faith is what brings us into the Catholic Church. It is what saves us. It is the gift that enable us to know and understand the teachings of the Catholic Church. It is the gift that enables us to know the way to God and our everlasting home. Is the Church saying nobody is inside the Church? That would be the blunt insinuation.

9. And now, the words 'the New Evangelization' is in everyone's lips. But obviously nobody seems to know what is this. All we hear in conventions is the old defective evangelization already noted by the Pope.

10. To strengthen his effort in confirming his flock's faith, Pope Benedict wrote his 'compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church' because the just finished Catechism of the Catholic Church is filled with the stench of this hydra that had corrupted the Church for the last 600 years. Yes why would the Pope write his own catechism when the New Catechism of the Catholic Church had just been distributed. And now we have the YOUCAT. Does this still have the defective content and method of teaching already mentioned by the Pope? Only those who have mastered 'Veritatis Splendor' can answer that because that document contains truths in its purity and errors that had plaqued Holy Mother the Church.

11. The Holy Father had already mentioned what went wrong with the Church for the last 600 years and what are the right teachings of Christ in both 'Veritatis Splendor' and 'Instrumentum Laboris.' The Holy Father had many times reminded us that the 'New Evangelization' is a call for priest and for all of us to be perfect as the heavenly Father is perfect because that is the image of the Catholic Church as the boat of the apostles in the Sea of Tiberias approached the shore where Christ was waiting that contained only seven disciples with their catch of 153 large fishes. Reading St. Thomas' commentary on this last chapter of John' Gospel.......this is the goal of the 'New Evangelization.'

THE FAITHFUL GOD - Part I

2011-11-23T14:45:00.004+11:00

1. Everything in Catholic History can only be understood if we see things in the back drop of the great battle between good and evil within the soul of men; with God encouraging the good while the devil encouraging the evil. Man with his freedom is the factor who decides who will win. God, of course is unbeatable but having given man total freedom God had leveled the playing field.

2. The more man decides on God's favor, the more powerful he becomes in his fight against the devil until such times when he is able to enter the fort of safety, the Catholic Church, where, unless he becomes extremely careless he is very safe.

3. On the other side, the more he decides in favor of the devil, he deteriorates. But God in His goodness gave man an enormous advantage over the the wiles of the devil. He gave man faculties designed to know and love Him. He has given man Divine Revelation and Tradition; and also the protection of a fort, he Church, wherewith he becomes safe because of the graces, virtues and gifts of the Holy Spirit given him. And these advantages accompany man all his life and all through his history.

4. God gave all these advantages gradually at certain times in the history of man. He gave the natural law before the Old Testament; He gave the Ten Commandments during the Old Testament and gave graces, the virtues, the Beatitudes and the Gifts of the Holy Spirit in the New Testament.

5. After the New Testament, when the Master of the House went away for a journey, Satan entered the vineyard and corrupted the servants. Christ Himself, prophesied that He will certainly find many servants wicked.

6. Aside from the above helps, God gave mankind, after Pentecost, the guiding light of the office of the Holy Father and the saints He had raised to aid the Popes in leading mankind to the safe port of His kingdom.

7. All these helps had been present for mankind from the beginning of the world, now and up to the end of the world. God is faithful and these helps will always be there available and no effort on the part of the evil spirits can deny man of these helps. This is the safe way God had given man. The way is surrounded by countless danger but as long as man stays within the way he is safe.

8. But the evil spirits, true to their intelligent nature had devised an0ther parallel road, very similar to the True Way in all natural and physical aspects a perfect duplication. As St. John Chrysostom said, the devil waits for Christ to be born and then devised a false christ, he waits for the 12 apostles and devised 12 fake apostles, he waits for the Christian Church and devised a fake Christian community, he waits for the Pope and devised a fake pope, he waits for the Dogmatic and Moral theology of the Catholic Church and devised his own Dogmatic and Moral theology. The difference is so slight it takes supernatural light of the Theological Virtues to detect it.

9. The devil's parallel road is an exact replica of the True Way ...but it leads to hell.

10. The beginning of Christianity was like daylight for a trip. The way is clear even without sign posts. As Prophesied in Scriptures, and right on schedule, the devil only had to darken the sky with clouds and suddenly the two parallel roads are indistinguishable. How did the devil do that?
He understood the workings of human nature. He knew that man cannot think of two things at the same time specially if one thought is in the worldly level and the other is in the supernatural level. Man cannot think of worldly things and Godly things at the same time. If he thinks of worldly things he cannot think of divine things. And as he thinks of worldly things he becomes more and more incapable of Divine thoughts.

11. So if I were the devil all I have to do is to fill the minds of man with the things of the world. In no time he cannot see the road that leads to God, the parallel road that leads to hell becomes very clear, it even clearly appears as a road that leads to heaven. And the 'Viator' will confidently drive straight to hell believing he is going to heaven. What greater tragedy can happen to a soul? But God is faithful. All the aids He had given mankind is still there and will always be there. Man just have to find these helps. In part II we shall see how the devil darkened the sky. Then we shall see how God acted to save mankind in part III.

THE ACCOMPANYING EVIL - Part II

2011-11-23T12:27:00.000+11:00

1. The devil had been destroying the human race since the time of Adam and Eve. In paradise, the devil started with a heresy. It was there that the head of the hydra was first created. It consisted in the heresy of freedom wherein man thought he was free to choose between good and evil, the symbol of the tree that was forbidden. And God reminded them; 'you may not touch it.' Man was not free to choose good from evil. He was in fact forbidden to choose between good and evil and this was the spirituality of the Old Testament. The Old Testament states that we must choose good and avoid evil, it is not that we may choose whatever we want from good and evil and freely choose evil. The New Testament will perfect the spirituality of the Old Testament. We are not free to chose between good and evil. We are obliged to choose good and avoid evil. The New testament tells us it is not enough to chose good and avoid evil, our choice is between what is good and what is best. We must chose not only what is good but what is better and best.

As the history of man proceeded, the devil tried to use other heresies to see to what sin man is attracted to. The devil must have tried thousands of heresies but because he lacks imagination in devising heresies all these errors can really be grouped into 5 to 10 major heresies. Alone, these heresies were easy to overcome but joined together they become a formidable spiritual foe.

2. We are all acquainted with some of these: Arianism, Pelagianism, Nominalism,....to mention a few. Put together they become a hydra with no visible recognizable shape, neither Arianism nor Pelagianism. It becomes a little of everything, a poisonous concoction of a hundred different poison. We cannot know what particular poison it is and so we couldn't know the remedy. We cannot use the medicine used by St. Athanasius against Arianism because it also show signs of Nominalism.

3. This concoction of many heresies attacked the Church between the year 100 to 800. But it was effectively blocked by the Church. It returned around the 1000, Pope Urban with the help of St. Anselm did battle against it but like the hydra, every time a portion of the heresy was cut off, it grew new limbs. It was impossible to kill it completely. And so it continued to torment the Church after Pope Urban and St. Anselm at this era since this 10th century saw a decrease of great Catholic thinkers.

4. This hydra of a monster was so deceitful only Lucifer, himself, could have devised it. Instead of attacking the Church directly, the devil went on guerrilla warfare using germ warfare against the seminaries. These were heretical germs that had mutated into resistant Catholic medications. Essentially this heresy bogged down the Catholic Church into the Old Testament preventing her from crossing from the Old Testament into the realm of the New Testament. It camouflaged the Old Testament spirituality with beautiful New Testament words making it sound like New Testament. It encouraged the New Testament spirituality but stated that this spirituality is only for a few select chosen souls. Note that all the doctrines are right except for the statement that the New Testament, by now described as impossible for most Catholics and is only for a few chosen elite souls. The germ contaminated the whole Church, specially at the level of seminaries. The statement is more than enough to discourage souls from crossing from the Old Testament to the New Testament. This is in effect preventing souls from entering the Catholic Church, preventing souls from having the theological virtues...in short preventing souls from going to heaven. Those bitten by this bug will never know the way to heaven. Martin Luther, Zwingli and Calvin were a few among the terminal cases. The rest of the Catholic priesthood were in different stages of illness. Philosophies like Nazism, democracy, communism would come from this heresy through the philosophy of the enlightenment in France. Every evil today came from this hydra.

At this period it was impossible to find where the Catholic Church was. Seminaries were producing bishops and priest of doubtful orthodoxy. There were so few seminaries that were producing orthodox priest that you could count them, like the seminary of St. Sulpice. The rest were no where in the map of orthodoxy. The few holy priest and thinkers were directly raised by God. They were not products of seminaries.

5. From the 1000 to the 1500 and up to the present, the Church had been undergoing internal spiritual hemorrhage, she was bleeding to death. She looked healthy outside but she was dying inside. The visible Church knew there was something wrong inside so she calls the Council of Trent where all the right doctrinal medicines were prescribed. But the doctors lack the skill to heal. So the post Tridentine resolutions were not wisely implemented. The Moral theology of Trent had this hydra in its womb. So the disease continued. God, as usual raised Popes with the help of God-raised saints like Vincent de Paul and Francis de Sales immediately after Trent, precisely to cure the priesthood of this disease. It only caused a dent. The struggle of the Popes from the 15th century was Herculean. To my memory Pius IX, Pius X indefatigably condemned this heresy. It depleted the strength of Pope Pius the XII that he even thought of retiring as Pope, it disturbed the sleep of John 23 seeing the Church bleeding to death through her five wounds he hurriedly saummoned Vatican II, it opened the eyes of Paul VI that made him warn "Satan had entered the Church." It was a challenged for the present Pope, Benedict XVI who, up to the present , had very visibly combated this hydra but he sadly knows that the medicine is being administered to a dying patient. The response is not encouraging because the disease is in its terminal stage. The Church could only apply cobalt to slow down the deterioration as shown in the dwindling list of saints and great thinkers of the Church, and the dwindling number of priests and nuns. The stench of the disease has begun enveloping the world in the form of the greatest sin, scandal by priests.

6. The virtue of Faith demands that a soul must know the complete doctrine of the Catholic Church in its purity. The doctrines cannot exist with errors. If the soul knows both the error and truths, he should know that the errors are errors and that the truth is the truth. But if the soul knows both the truth and the errors but cannot distinguish the errors from the truth that soul cannot make a true act of Faith and thus suffer its consequence. This is what happened to the souls from the 1000 up to the present year 2011. Most priests and most lay person do not know the spirituality of the New Testament and therefore, cannot enter the Catholic Church, do not have the virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity, thus cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. And the Church is filled with the signs of this sad state of affairs, signs enumerated in both the Dogmatic and Moral theology of the Catholic Church.
God comes back to the rescue. Part III.

REGENSBURG

2011-11-01T09:55:00.002+11:00

1. The one and only true Church and the one and only true God.
Gilbert Chesterton once wrote that the whole world hates the Catholic Church because she claims that she is the only true Church and her God is the only true God. Yes, that's enough to make the whole world hate her. The trouble is that she can prove it. That will all the more make the whole world rage at her which in fact is now happening. But she has not done anything wrong. Pope Benedict XVI explains this with that old-time classical response: her mere existence is more than ample proof that she is the only true Church and her God is the only true God and all the rest are false. This is why Catholics had been killed just for being Catholics. The proof for this truth is within each man.

2. When God created man He wanted to made sure this man can know Him and love Him. So God implanted into his soul a dormant seed that contains a desire to know and to love Him. The seed is dormant because God wants him to know and love Him with complete freedom. Man's mind and free will must arouse this seed to life and to maturity. Man must have total freedom to make it grow. How can this happen when a man is alone in a dense forest amidst impassable mountains. Can he know that the Catholic Church is the true Church and the Blessed Trinity the true God? Yes!

3. Man has to be a little philosopher. He must use his highest faculty, the intellect, to study that seed to see what it contains. Seeing that it contains the desire to know and love God, the intellect will move and exert effort to, first, know God and afterwards to love God. He cannot love God unless he first knows Him. So he looks around for proofs on the existence of God to be able to know Him. His senses behold nature, the trees in the forest with the surrounding mountains, and his mind concludes that there must be someone who created all this. He continues to use his intellect to find out who could this be. Of course, the first conclusion his mind would make would be that this someone must be wise and good. Judging from what He had created God cannot be a killer. Man's first knowledge would be simple from the first simple proofs he gets from nature. But as he continuous to view nature from the stars to the tiniest human cell these proofs further exhibit the wisdom and goodness of this Someone. While his knowledge grows, his attraction or love for this Someone likewise increases. The free will grows according to the growth of the intellect.

4. A point comes when he begins to think that this Someone who exhibits wisdom must have written something that is easier for man to study to know Him. He tries a few books and sees that most books do not confirm what the little seed tells him. Until one day he finds Scriptures wherein God reveals Himself to man and finds that Scriptures confirms what the little seed in his soul tells him. But his intellect believes not because Scriptures said so but because the little seed of innate desire said so. And this knowledge of who God is will continue to grow as long as the intellect thinks like a man. His knowledge will begin with a knowledge of the god of nature. And if he continues to think he will attain to the knowledge of a supernatural God and even a knowledge of the Blessed Trinity.

5. Even at the beginning of his quest on who is God, hid mind will suspect that this god had instituted a church which he could enter and further learn more about Him. And he will begin to wonder what is His Church. It must be a Church that should correspond to His nature as a wise and good God. It will slowly begin to be clear that only one church reflect the wisdom and goodness of God...the Catholic Church where reason and good works reign supreme.

6. This man alone in a forest in the middle of the many mountains has not attended a seminary, never read a book and never heard a homily. This man would know the true God and the true Church because he just acted according to God's image and likeness, according to the human nature that his creator had given him. And even before he realizes it he has entered God's Church without any human aid. Isn't this what happened to Blessed John Newman. And he was not even alone in a forest amidst mountains. He was in the middle of an environment hostile to the Catholic Church. Yet he discovered the true God and the true Church.

7. Just by acting according to his created human nature using his intellect anyone can reach the knowledge of the true God and the true Church all by himself. God has enabled man to do this by creating him into His image and likeness. Man must only go inside himself to see the image and likeness and he will be beholding the god who created him. So all men can know the true Church, the Catholic Church and the true God, the God of the Catholics even if he were alone in a dense forest in the middle of mountain ranges. And this was the message of Pope Benedict at Regensburg :'If only we use our reason we would all be Catholics. And there will be peace in this world.' Reason was made by God to think of spiritual realities. It becomes dull when used to think of natural realities. Dulled by the countless worldly concerns man had ceased to think.

8. We live in a world where thinking is nearly impossible because of TV, computers, radios, iPods,computer games...........etc...etc stimuli that bombard our senses glutting our minds with useless and forbidden knowledge. Faith is an act of the intellect. Is it any wonder why many do not believe in God? Even if man does not think, his ability to know the true God and the true religion remains within him. And he will suspect that it is always there. No matter how loud he blasphemes the Catholic Church and her God, deep down he knows He is yelling at the true Church and the true God. And this tiny seeds speaks loudest when a soul beholds a monastic community. Pope Benedict reminds us that when we behold a monastic community we see in concrete form the true religion and the true God in their midst. Sadly, however, most monasteries are too lax to project the image of God and of the Church. The ancients, like the Chinese, always looked for a king philosopher. Because this is the man who thinks and whose mind governs his whole personality. Hilaire Belloc however quipped, today we live in a society of beasts in coat and tie.

9. God had given man a mind that made him an image of God. The Holy Father is calling on all of us to use that mind so that we can all remain calm and sane. But nobody is listening because man have ceased to be man.

Without the mind man had ceased to be rational, unable to make an act of faith, unable to love God and neighbor, unable to save his soul.

I DO NOT WISH THE DEATH OF A SINNER

2011-10-20T03:33:00.004+11:00

Once upon a time there were three Gods who ruled the world. They were so happy among themselves when one of them made the suggestion:
'We are so happy here in paradise. Let us create some creatures that they may share our happiness.'
'Yes', answered the second God. 'Let us make them into our own image and likeness so they can have the power to enjoy our happiness.'
'How can we make them like us?' asked the third God?
'Let us give them reason and a heart that will make them capable of loving and never desire the death of a sinner but that they should be converted and live,' said the first God. 'They will need a long life on earth because they will need much work to prepare themselves on the earth to be worthy of happiness here in our abode.'
'They should be pro-life then?'
'No, not really. Because if they have prepared themselves well they can die on the earth so they may come to our abode immediately. There is no use for them tarrying down on earth lest they die unprepared and become unworthy to come to our abode.'
'Now, that is a good rule. If we see that children are going to be so evil that they would not come here to our abode we might as well get them sooner to assure their happiness.'
'Indeed that is a good rule, let us write that down.'
'But what rule shall we give everybody to make them deserving to be with us? You mentioned LOVE. How will they show that?'
'We shall obliged them to love their souls and the souls of all their neighbors specially the souls of their enemies.'
' Hmmmm. So that means they should never desire the death of a sinner but that he should be converted and live.
' You are right. That way they will look like gods, like ourselves and, therefore, capable of living here with us. You really think like a god. Are we all set to create these creatures?'
'Ok. But you (pointing to the second god) must schedule yourself to go down to earth to teach them how to love to the point that they should never desire the death of a sinner but that he should be converted and live.'
' Pointing at the second god he continued, ' You should allow these man-creatures to be your enemies, let them persecute and crucify you. Then show that you do not desire their death but that they should be converted and live.'
'I don't really like that persecution, crucifixion and dying part? But ok. I'll do it,' the second god said resignedly.

6000 years after.

'Hey, have you seen what is going on down there among the men we created,' the first god asked the two other gods.
'Yes, the men we created are killing each other. Even at the beginning a brother desired the death of his own brother who was not even a sinner. They even killed me who was trying to bring them to paradise. This 'I do not wish the death of a sinner but that he should be converted and live,' seems not to be working. Have you seen how many men have entered our abode?'
'A trickle.The rest are all killing good guys and wishing the death of sinners.'
'And look! they are all celebrating, greeting one another and praising the death of sinners,' added the third god. 'Look at all those banners and news headlines.'
'Maybe those sinners deserve it.'
' That is immaterial. The obligation we imposed on them is to love and show their love by 'not desiring the death of a sinner but that they should be converted and live, just as we are doing.'
'Ahhh. Man has ceased to be like us, like our image and likeness. He has become like the beast we have created for them to kill and eat. They do not deserve to abide with us. Are there a few who are at least obeying our requirement?'
' Well, there is a man in white who is trying hard to do it and teach others to do the same. But he is not succeeding very much.'
' Since man whom we wished to be like our image and likeness, like gods, now looks like beasts maybe we should call off this project of inviting mere creatures here to our abode.'
'It has not shown good results since we started it 6,000 years ago. But ok, let's give this last generation one last chance.'
'Do you think they will change and improve?'
' No, I don't think so. But at least they cannot say we did give them a last chance.'
' This sight is sickening,' said the second god.' I died for all of them so that they would not desire the death of sinners but that they should be converted and live......and they would not do it to one another. All heads of states, all news media, all men.....we created them to be like gods, and look at them!'

The first god sent his messengers to collect all the materials of the experiment using earthquakes, floods, famine, wars, pestilence to face him in judgment. Those who loved and prayed not for the death of the sinner but that they should be converted and live were brought to the abode of the gods. And those who did not were hurled into everlasting fire.
And the three gods congratulated themselves : 'this is a good day for us that we have shown we are always one in mind and heart in all things.....as if we are one God.'

NEW TESTAMENT SPIRITUALITY

2011-09-03T10:51:00.001+11:00

1. As a young seminarian I used to study moral theology. And I remember a small outline I had that gave a summary of moral theology. And I found nothing wrong with it because it was based on the 10 commandments of the Old Testament. Then as a young priest I remember attending sessions called "casus conscientiae" where we discussed certain acts to find out if they are moral or immoral. The basis of the discussion is again the 10 commandments of the Old Testament.

When I gave retreats and help prepare the retreatants for confession I tell them to read the examination of conscience in the Missal. They were descriptions of sins against the 10 commandments of the Old Testament.
And when they came for confession they confess: I told lies, I committed adultery, etc. which are violations of the 10 commandments of the Old Testament. And so the impression given me is that to go to heaven we must simply obey the 10 commandments of the Old Testament.

2. But these days things had gone worst. The 10 commandments were simply thrown away. Young couples lived together without marriage and man marry man, babies are aborted and woman practice family planning. Morality became confusing. If two pagans consent to live together as man and wife, moral theology states that they are married and the Church recognizes such marriages. Why is it immoral when two Catholics agree together with out the benefit of the Sacrament. Is there a natural law that governs the pagans and another that governs Catholics? And man marrying another man, there is no such prohibition in the 10 commandments. Aborting babies might be obviously sinful because it is against the command "Thou shalt not kill." But family planning if we do not use abortifacient methods, is it immoral?

3. Then one thing became obvious. The commands in the Old Testament are commands in the natural level so even pagans can obey them. And these commands are guides to fulfilling the natural law. But the New Testament is the era of grace and belongs to the supernatural level so those outside the Church cannot even know them and much less obey them.

And while the commands in the Old Testament are commanded, the commands of the New Testament are counselled because those with Faith do not need to be commanded. They are made to be attracted to what is good like the Beatitudes. The spirituality of the New Testament is based on the Beatitudes. We cannot begin even with the first Beatitudes unless we have finished our repentance, obeyed the 10 Commandments and have the supernatural virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity. And the way God encourages us to grow in the virtues is not by commands but by counsels like the counsels of poverty, chastity and obedience.

4. In the New Testament confession must sound like this: I was not poor in spirit. Or I am rich in spirit. Now wait a minute. In the New Testament Catholics should not confess that way because they do not commit such sins. Their sins would largely be venial sins because they have entered into the life of grace and have received the virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity. So their confession should be something like this: I was drowsy during rosary. Or I lost my attention briefly during Mass.

When Catholics are against abortion because they are pro-life that is good and right. But that is Old Testament spirituality in obedience to the command Thou shalt not kill. And this is the same when Catholics are against family planning because it is often abortifacient. If Catholics would be acting according to New Testament spirituality they would say: they are against abortion because the guilty mother does not love herself properly, does not love her husband and children, does not love her neighbor and other children and does not love God .....and this will make her unhappy in this world and eternally unhappy in the next world. The same reasoning goes why we are against family planning.

5 In the New Testament morality is seen not in the physical acts of men but from his inner spiritual activities.

6. New Testament morality comes from the interior of man's soul, from the virtues dwelling in his mind and free will and not merely from his actions. Today's morality is focused on externals and not in internals.

7. Internal morality is the way St. Paul analyzes the morality of those he was correcting. Let us take an illustration. In 1Cor. St. Paul writes: If I speak in human an angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or clashing cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge; if I have all faith so as to move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing.
If I give away everything I own, and if I hand my body over so that I may boast but do not have love, I gain nothing. Then St. Paul describes the virtue of Charity.

8. A New Testament confession should sound like this: I have been proud and pride had made all the things I did sinful. Or, I have no Charity and because of this everything I did was useless.
The basis of morality in the New Testament are the virtues and not the commandments. The virtues more specifically Faith, Hope and Charity.

9. If I am a great preacher, even if I can teach all the commandments of Christ in the New Testament and expound all the teachings of the Catholic Church, even if I have great Faith and walk over waters, even if I go home sell all I own like the young rich man and give everything away, even if I offer my body to martyrdom........St. Paul did not say I would be canonized. He said I am nothing. . . if I do not have the virtue of Charity. So what made all those activities moral and deserving of heaven is if it is done with Charity. The deeds themselves are of no consequence. What counts is how it was done.

10. It is not the preaching that is the moral act that will save me but the virtue of Charity that moves me to preach. Charity is what makes our preaching a moral act.

11. The principle of Catholic morality is this: acts that are products of supernatural virtues are moral acts. Acts that are products of vices are immoral acts. So St. Paul, that great moralist writes in Colosians: Put to death then, the parts of you that are earthly, immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire and the greed that is idolatry....put them all away, anger, fury, malice, slander. Then St. Paul shows the internal source of the vices then shows the external manifestations of the vices: stop lying.

12. Then St. Paul tells us to put on the virtues that dictates the morality of our actions: put on compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Then he gives external manifestations of these internal forces; wives, be subject to your husbands, slaves, obey your human masters, masters treat your slaves justly and fairly.

13. St. Paul in Ephesians enumerates two sources of immorality: impurity and greed, two vices that makes most of our actions immoral.

14. So what makes abortion, family planning and most economic practice immoral? The lack or complete absence of the virtue of Charity.

15. Grace, Faith, Hope and Charity are what makes a person good and what makes his acts good, St. Augustine states. With grace a person and his acts are moral. With the absence of these that makes the person and his acts good, the person and his acts are immoral or evil. Thus evil had been described as the absence of what makes it good.

The New Evangelization - AGAIN??

2011-07-25T02:04:00.001+11:00

1. Did you know? Of course not, otherwise you would have despaired. But anyway did you know that around the 14th century something horrible happened and nobody even knew it until now? That was around 600 years ago!

2. Well here it is. The Catholic Church had always known what was moral to attain happiness and beatitude that consists in union with God. It is written in the Old Testament, revealed in perfection in the New Testament, clearly explained by the Fathers of the Church and proposed to us by the Holy Father. And that was how things were from the early times in the Catholic Church up to the 14th century. And from his interior, a soul accomplished this, first; by an act of the intellect seeking the truth, secondly; by an act of the will desiring what is good, thirdly by an act of the free will in cooperation with the mind and the will that results into an act of choice. That is how a soul makes a morally good act that leads to Faith and Charity wherewith the soul believes and loves God.

From the beginning the evil one had tried many times to derail man's quest for God but he was no match against the God and the saints that God had raised to guide the Church.

The human act necessary in the process of salvation may be described as a perfect human act showing the quality of true and complete freedom. That is how God wants us to go to heaven in complete freedom. Briefly this consist in an assent of the intellect to the truths, the consent of the free will to the same truths, a choice made through the cooperation between the mind and the free will ......the result is a perfect human act done with perfect freedom. This leads to the attainment of Beatitude, which is the first degree of happiness and holiness desired by all men. When a soul does this, he will attain grace with the three theological virtues of Faith, hope and charity. These three virtues will further grow to perfection with the aid of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. And as these three virtues in with the aid of the seven gifts grow, the soul grows in the life of Beatitudes.

That was how things were from the time of Christ and up to the 14th century in spite of attempts from the devil to destroy the process. Again, the Church was guided by the writings of the Old Testament, the New Testament, the writings of the Fathers of the Church and the guidance of the Holy Father. The ark was unsinkable.

Then around the 14th century a philosophy altered the teachings of the Church that completely changed the concept of true Christian freedom. With this new heretical philosophy the intellect was left out and the free will was given free rein to control the body. This was total chaos. It is from this new concept of freedom that the reign of terror in France came from. This is where Democracy, communism, and all the evils in the world came from. This heresy has many faces but at that time it was called nominalism. Today it rules the whole world.

This heresy did not affect the Magisterium of the Church and neither did it affect the Holy Father, the Pope. It mainly affected the teaching of Moral theology in the seminaries. Suddenly what was moral and immoral became blurred. And the entire spirituality of the Catholic Church because it was based on Moral theology retreated back to the Old Testament, a spirituality of physical obligations. Remember that at this point the Church and the Pope were all right. The crisis was in the teaching of Moral theology in the seminaries.

Moral theology is based on Dogmatic theology and put into practice through Ascetical theology. Imagine how an error in Moral theology can do great damage in Ascetical Theology. The damage is unimaginable. Note how the number or saints dwindled from the 1400 to almost nothing by the 20th century. And religious houses who lived the ascetical life became spiritually stunted.

Of course, God was not remiss during all these times. He raised Popes, Holy bishops, holy priests and saints to correct this great defect. Every Pope with the help of saints corrected this error in every age. I see clearly Pope Pius IX, Pius X, Leo XIII and in my own time Pius XII up to Benedict XVI. And there are the saints, like the Cure of Ars, St. Therese of Lisieux, St. Francis de Sales, etc. But this was a very thin 'Catena Aurea' of Bishops and priests.....and 'catholics' seldom read their writings. This went on from the 14oo up to the present. Imagine the consequence of such a situation. Ignorant of the true concept of true freedom, most bishops and priests would not know the reasons why certain things were moral and immoral. If this state begun at the 1400, imagine the state of the Church by the year 2000 A.D. I will put it another way: if they did not know the spirituality of the New Testament how can they lead anyone inside the Catholic Church.

However, this is how the Holy Spirit began to act in these our days. Pope Pius XII (the Pope of my youth) saw in the world war the descend of man back to barbarism. He tried hard to raise the world to the level of the New Testament through the Liturgy (Mediator Dei) but by the end of his life he was praying to God to call him back home in dismay at the state of the world.

Pope John 23 saw the problem from a treatise written by Blessed Rosmini entitled " The 5 wounds of the Church." The Church was bleeding to death with total ignorance of the New Testament. The highest form of morality was based on the 10 commandments of the Old Testament and not on the Beatitudes of the New Testament. He called a Council. It was emergency. Pope Paul VI worked under insurmountable obstacle as he tried to propel the Church during Vatican II into the era of the New Testament. When he tried to raise the morality of family planning up to the level of the New Testament the Catholic world rebelled against it. Then an international council of theologians was put together to advise the ecumenical council. And in their deliberation they discovered that many textbooks for seminaries were bleeding with heresies. I got the impression that they examined all the books on Morals used in seminaries. Fortunately one of the theologian in the group was a priest named Joseph Ratzinger who was to head the Congregation for the Faith. He had the power to act on matters of Faith. And he saw the crisis of Faith that has gnawed on the Church. He saw that with such a crisis no one would be entering the Church and no one would be entering heaven. What a alarming thought for a churchman.

So he outlined in a book entitled the "Ratzinger Report" the disease that had gnawed in the Church for the last 600 years. Around 1980 he wrote the document "new Evangelization" where he gave instruction on evangelization and stated that the teaching of the Catholic Faith had been wrong in the way it was taught both in contents and method. It was a very general statement and the defect to be corrected was not stated in it.

Then somewhere around 1993 Pope John Paul II issued "Veritatis splendore." It was obviously a work in collaboration with Ratzinger because it was an elaboration of his "New Evangelization." Here it was very clear that majority in the Church for the last 600 years were teaching Old Testament spirituality or even something worst. And that hardly anyone today is teaching the New Testament spirituality. In other words, the men of the Church were teaching only the morality of the 10 commandments and not the morality of the Beatitudes. Or worst they were teaching neither the Old nor the the New Testament. And "Veritatis splendor" outlined what was the spirituality and morality of the New Testament. It was a lengthy encyclical. Like all encyclicals I expected it to be addressed to the entire Catholic world. To my surprise it was addressed only to the Episcopate. Understandably so because it contained a complete summary of the New Testament and how to teach it correctly in a language only Bishops can understand and so they will have to teach it to their priests and subjects. But because of its length few seems to have read it or it was read carelessly. The effects of "Veritatis Splendor" was nowhere to be felt.

This neglect was obvious to the next Pope, Benedict XVI who called on a year of St. Paul where the spirituality of the New Testament according to St. Paul was laid down... again to no effect. Then he called the year of the priest where he enjoined all bishops and priest to return to the seminary and study "Varitatis splendor." I really don't think any one did it. I did not. Though I personally studied it. Knowing full well that no one returned to the seminary the Holy Father issued the "Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church" which is a detailed explanation of "Veritatis Splendor." At least, now, we can study privately.

While the Old Testament motivated us to reach the Promised Land, the New Testament motivated us to reach the kingdom of God through Faith, Hope and Charity. Seeing that the state of affairs has not changed since the 1400, the Pope had finally directed the evangelization of the Catholic cities of the world and called a year of Faith in the year 2012. This is a call to live the New Testament spirituality. It is a call for those who are still in the dim light of the Old Testament or even the darker era of pre- Old Testament. It is a call for those who are still outside the Church. It is a call to live the New Testament. But since very few know how the New Testament spirituality looks like he called it the "New Evangelization." Pope Benedict himself clarified that this is not a new evengelization. It is the old, classical way of evangelization.

How to DESTROY the Church

2011-06-30T23:20:00.012+11:00

You cannot destroy the Church. But you can destroy those trying to enter the Church. And that is what the devil does. When a person is well inside the Church he is indestructible. But if he has just entered the Church, i.e. if he has little faith, he can still leave the Church and be destroyed. Those who are outside the Church..... you do not have to destroy because they are already destroyed. The fact that a person has entered the Church and left due to weak faith makes it easier for him, however, to re-enter the Church.

If I were the devil how would I destroy the Church? There is a principle in psychology that when the mind is engaged in one thought it cannot think of another thought. This is specially if the thoughts involved are of different levels of knowing. Man is usually engaged with thoughts of the natural. That is his competency. But to be saved we must think of things supernatural. This is beyond the capability of man. He needs grace to be able to do it. But God will not give this grace unless man gives up natural thoughts or rise up above the natural.

The second point is this: the more we engage in natural thoughts the more incapable we become in engaging in supernatural thoughts. In fact the more we think of natural thoughts the dumber we become about supernatural and even natural thoughts. On the other hand, the more we engage in supernatural thoughts with the help of grace the wiser we become about things supernatural and even natural thoughts.

A third point is that Faith is an act of the intellect. A soul engages in natural thoughts in the act of repentance thinking of all his sins. Those sins are in the natural level so man can easily recall them and repent for them. When a soul has repented God gives him grace to be able to rise up to the supernatural level and think of supernatural thoughts which is the beginning of the act of Faith that enables us to enter the Catholic Church.

Keeping the three points mentioned above, to prevent a soul from making the act of faith and entering the Church all we have to do is fill up his mind with natural thoughts. And that soul is a goner. It is that simple that many parents are precisely doing that to their children, literally send them to hell without knowing it.

How do we do that? Fill the minds with TV shows, with education, with magazines, comics, sports, discoveries, news, computers, video games, and all other things which the "following of Christ" called 'forbidden knowledge'. Increase the amount of these natural information in bombarding the mind. Increase the TV Channels, add computers programs, video games, cell phones, ipods and entertainment parks. All these would paralyze the mind in the natural level preventing it from thinking of anything beyond the natural. And the more he stays in the natural level the more he minds becomes dull even about natural things. Do this long enough and he becomes incapable even of higher natural knowledge. This is called sin against Faith. And the absence of Faith can bring us to hell.

Isn't that what the devil just did to the entire world? See how effective that is? We hardly see any faith around. The world is flooded with what pleases the senses. And this sense-pleasure stimuli is increasing daily filling up the mind and numbing the soul to things supernatural. It is daily becoming impossible to make the act of Faith. He filled the world with sense-stimuli that cluttered the mind with natural thoughts preventing it from thinking of supernatural thoughts thus making the act of faith. This is the reason the first Christians went to the desert. To deny their senses of these sense-stimuli and make it easy for the mind to rise up to things supernatural with the help of grace. And this is why at the end times, the Church, personified by the Woman of the Apocalypse will be given by God two giant wings to transport the Church into the desert. Because that is the only place where she can make her act of Faith free from all sense-stimuli.

If I were the devil, this is the easiest way for me to destroy the Catholic Church. And do it long enough until the world runs out of Catholics. That will only take one to two generations. But I and the devil don't have to do this. The parents are doing quite a good job destroying the Church by destroying their children, by cluttering their minds with tv shows, sports game, theme parks, radio, ipods, parties, secular jobs, secular education, tours, leaving absolutely no chance for the mind to know God. And wait a minute....have you tried the new HD 3 d tv monitor, the new menu in that restaurant, the new resort in this island, the new beauty contest in this city........see what I mean?

Where have all the Catholics gone?

2011-06-27T12:58:00.001+11:00

1. It was easy to find them before. In the early times of the Church just ask where the Catholics were and you get a hand and a straight finger pointing directly at a whole community of Catholics. They lived apart from the worldly people, they lived in community shared all things in common and they loved one another. They were usually found outside of towns and cities. Later on they were found in huge communities living in the desert, in cities carved out of volcanic mountains, on islands, on top of mountains....it was easy to find them and they can be pointed out apart from the rest.

2. At the beginning of the 19oo I had the impression that Catholics could specially be found in two organizations, the Catholic Action and the Legion of Mary. Of course, they were around but it was almost impossible to point them out. But the members of these two organizations looked different from the rest. Even Hitler feared them. And they were Catholics both in their behaviour and in their speech. Talking to them it is clear their doctrines are correct. These were laymen whose basic Catholic doctrines were right.

3. Today we have hundreds of so- called Catholic organizations of laymen founded by both laymen and the clergy. There are many quasi religious groups founded by nuns and priest. There are even clerical or priestly groups founded by Bishop's conference. But the foundational doctrine of their way of life does not exhibit the purity of Catholic doctrine. It is even evident in their way of life and in their speech. . . which should cause us to raise our eyebrows.

4. Many laymen groups that are even approved by the Congregation of religious and secular life are founded by laymen who have no knowledge of Divine Revelation. They have held the bible briefly for the first time in their lives and before you know it they are founding huge secular followings. This is a danger the Council of Orange warned the Church: the danger of laymen getting hold of the bible and immediately starting a new sect. As St. Paul described it "unenlightened zeal".

There are many nuns, probably discontented with their orders had left and founded new groups with themselves as superiors. Some nuns had left their orders to become hermits. St. Benedict warned us of religious who cannot live the community life and rushes into the heremitical life to avoid the burden of community living. And there are some clerical/ priestly groups organized by Bishop's conference whose way of life is Pelagian heresy resurrected in that they think they can improve the world on their own as in the case of liberation theology. What is evident among them is the lack of a solid doctrinal foundation. In short, they do not know how to go to heaven. They just presume because they belong to this established catholic organization or community approved by the Bishop and even by Rome they will surely go to heaven. Even the vast numbers of converts entering the Church today do not realize they do not immediately become Catholics. There is still a long process before they can attained orthodox Catholic Faith.

5, So where have all the Catholics gone? Where is the Catholic Church? Can anyone raise his hand and point them out with their finger showing the Catholic apart from the rest? When I hold retreat for priests, seminarians or nuns I would tell them jokingly "show me the four signs that you are Catholics." They would smile but none can show the four signs of the Church. And when the question and answer come all their complains show they have problems with the 4 visible signs of the Church. That's why they cannot show them. Isn't this sad?

6. The Church of Christ have four visible signs. If we cannot show them we must at least know what they are and explain them. This would at least show we have some inkling of the signs. But the true Church must not only have the four visible signs of One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic. She must be able to explain the dynamics on how those signs are produced. This will be the explanation of the spirituality of the life of the Church that produces these signs.

7. In short, if we put together what Pope Benedict as Cardinal mentioned that the Church is undergoing a crisis of Faith, since the four visible signs of the Church are signs of Faith, Hope and Charity, the reason why we cannot point with certainty where that Church is is because we cannot find those marks anywhere. The Church must exist up to the end times. So where is the Church? Where have all the Catholics gone. The answer is in the Apocalypse. It says that the Church used to be in the world calling all souls to embark into the ark. But at the end times, God would give the Woman, the Church, two giant wings to fly into the desert in a place specially prepared by God to protect her. Where is that? St. John Chrysostom says that this is not a physical desert. It is the symbol of a way of life lived in the privacy of one's soul. It is the way of life lived by Christ for 30 years at home and lived by John the Baptist for 30 years in the desert.
St. Grignon de Montfort tried to establish the Catholic Church with her four visible signs and with a Marian personality and Pope Benedict described it in his thesis on St. Bonaventure. Thank God we have a Pope who knows where all the Catholics have gone.

The RULE of LAWLESSNESS.

2011-06-15T19:24:00.002+11:00

1. Lawlessness is a relative term to many people. But if we base all laws on the Divine law or even just on the natural law, most laws today would be against God's laws. And this is what is happening today.

2. The world is stunned by the lawlessness of those who have appointed themselves as police of the world imposing laws against God's laws. And this with the approval of courts and by world organizations who are also making their own laws. They call it mandate. Just because the mandate was made by a few tough guys does not it make it legal?

3. Sex education is now mandated in most schools, compulsory education in place of home schooling is also mandated. Family planning and abortion are laws in many countries just like same sex marriages. Nations are interfering in the sovereignty of other nations. Head of states are summarily ordered to resign or deposed. Foreign governments are changed at the pleasure of a few. And cities of other nations are being bombed as if they were objects in a video games. These may be the law of some cowboys but they are against the law of God. From the view point of Catholic morality, the world is in anarchy, the once upon a time French Revolution had become world wide. But how come no one is raising any cry?

4. We have entered the era of the rule of lawlessness. You don't talk to lawless bandits. You just plead for mercy, pay a ransom for your life, plea for help and get killed just the same.....all without knowing why this is happening. A few, like the Pope, had chosen just to be silent. It is like when the Jews were undergoing their holocaust and hardly any one of them knowing why they were being herded into camps; it is like when the Armenians were being erased from the face of the earth and not knowing why the Turks were doing it; it is like when the Catholics of Vendees were being massacred by their fellow Catholics in France and they didn't know why.

5. It, also, happened once upon a time on Good Friday. A God was crucified in accordance to the lawless law of men. Not one of the killer knew why they were doing it. But HE knew why.

6. The same is happening everywhere. A Christian was elected president and suddenly the Christians were being massacred everywhere. A head of state is quietly leading his country and suddenly some European nations are bombing him out of existence as ordered by a mandate. And another head was deposed and hanged for a non-existent crime by some other foreign power and no one had apologize. 200 hundred christian churches were burned. Why? What crime was committed? And when cries of un-constitutionality are raised, no one minds it. An RH Bill is being passed that goes contrary to the Catholic Faith of the nation and its own Constitution. Why is it gaining ground when the head of the nation is a Catholic trained by the Jesuits?

Original sin as introduced by the devil in the garden of paradise and introduced in many nations, thereafter, specially during the reign of terror in France is being imposed world wide by its originator and avid followers. Though the originators had been dead for centuries how come they still have avid followers today? Can he be a spirit who cannot die?

7. This is exactly what happened on Good Friday. The Law was killed by lawlessness. And the world was stunned into silence. Not a peep as the devil seems to hold sway. Has the devil won? He knew the answer. A similar complain was once heard from heaven: when, O when O Lord shall our death be avenged? And God's answer was: Just a little while more. Then what? God's answer was very clear......because He knew why.

DO NOT REJOICE !!!

2011-05-03T18:22:00.006+11:00

1. The past Holy Week just reminded us of the words of Christ on the cross: "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do." Certainly the person who just past away did not know the morality of what he did. He was not blessed with the knowledge that is within Divine Revelation. We cannot say the same thing for many Catholics. They do not know what they are doing? After a course in Theology in the seminary. OK. Let's say they studied theology, it does not follow that they know what they are doing. The ones who crucified Christ knew the prophecies of the Old Testament regarding the Messiah even how he would die. They heard Christ preaching. Some of them were the priests of the Covenant. But what did Christ say? They did not know what they were doing. If Christ forgave them, how much more should we. Isn't the sign of a true Christian is what we read in the "Our Father?" The ability to forgive. Should'nt we pray instead that God forgive him as Christ did for those crucifying Him. Isn't our spontaneous celebration because this man is dead a sign of our inability to forgive and, therefore, a more severe punishment awaits us.

2. Many have reasons to celebrate just as when the pharisees caught a woman in adultery. It was an achievement. They caught a woman in the act of adultery. OK. This man was caught guilty of murder in his own words. Should we act like a police who is gloating at the fact that he has caught a criminal? We are Christians first. Christ said: "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone. " I have never seen so much stones hurled at one .......who is dead. The ones who are hurling, are they without sin? Aren't the head of states who are rejoicing guilty of more killings through abortion and their global interference. Such sins would make the dead man blush. Should'nt we just quietly leave as the accusers of the woman in the Gospel. OK we lost loved ones. Quietly leaving the dead man alone and praying quietly for the mercy of God would have been a nobler gesture than the gloating celebrations.

3. Terrorists are not our greatest enemies. The sins within us are our greatest enemies. Terrorist can only kill our bodies. Our sins can kill both body and soul. And so Christ in confronting the crowd that brought the woman caught in adultery to Him reminded them of their own sins. That is the real enemy. But as Pope Benedict mentioned, the world's defect is that its attention is focused on what is unimportant the pleasure of the world and not on our sins. And with this view the greatest enemy is what will deny us of the pleasure of the world. And this man spoilt many of their good times.

4. A man is dead. He does not need our hatred nor our misguided celebration. He needs the mercy of God. And we who know him even just by name should try to obtain this mercy. For God promised He could only show mercy on us if we ourselves show mercy to others. After all he was created to the image and likeness of God. May he rest in peace. Amen.

GRAND SILENCE - The Sixth Day

2011-04-15T15:55:00.032+11:00

1. The world seems implicated in some aboriginal calamity beyond human solution. Man seems out of joint with the purpose of his Creator. John Newman noted this during his times but he seems to be describing today's events. With the world in turmoil from earthquakes to tornadoes, from civil wars to revolutions, the Holy Father whispers: "work for the peace of Christ." Seeing who are involved in this anarchical condition he hopes those with faith would get what the events are hinting at.

2. Many described his response as ' grand silence.' It was because the world, both without and within the Church are descending to atheism led by the sons of the period of enlightenment that has authored the reign of terror in France and whose poison spread throughout Europe and the United States and imposed on the whole world. It was essentially an anti-catholic spirit.

3. The history of the Church has been divided based on the 7 days of creation. The Liturgy expresses the same eras and the daily monastic schedule in monasteries reminds the monks of these 7 stages in monastic spirituality.

4. The monastic schedule is roughly divided into schedules observing different degrees of silence.

5. After compline, St. Benedict in his rule, demands the observance of strict or absolute silence called grand silence. Compline is the last prayer of the day before one goes to sleep.

6. What is the significance of this Grand Silence between compline and sleeping time? Compline is a preparation for death. The time for sleeping, signifies death. Before the death of a monk there is a final battle between the forces of evil and God for his soul.

There is, also, a time in the history of the world where it shall have a compline, wherein God would proclaim the approaching end of the world and how we should stand at that moment. And there is a time for resting when the Church would sleep the sleep of death to resurrect in God. Compline signifies the beginning of the final battle before the death of the world.

This is referred to as the sixth day, presented in the Liturgy from Palm Sunday up to Good Friday. The seventh day is the usual Saturday when Christ remained dead in the tomb and the eight day represents Easter described as the eight day. One day was added to the 7 days- creation story.

7. The sixth day representing the time between compline and sleeping time (or Palm Sunday up to Good Friday) is a time in the history of man when all human drama is orchestrated by God alone setting the stage for His coming. The play is written down in the Apocalypse. Here all men become spectators and decide once and for all on whose side they will be, the forces of evil who introduced original sin in the world ....or God.

Man's posture should only be Grand Silence as a man who have arrived at a crossroad leading into two eternal destinies, one of happiness and the other of damnation and he does not know which road leads to where. He needs to think and decide. He needs grand silence for in silence only can he hear the invitation of God.

The events of the sixth day is orchestrated fully by God because they are meant to beautify the Bride for the wedding with Christ. The tsunamis and earthquakes, the upheavals in Africa and the Middle East are meant to spill blood and fill with sufferings the Church to purify her and complete her number. It is Good Friday in an international scale when we see the defeat of good and the success of evil, 'the helplessness of God,' St. Thomas described it. And the speed of this decline will bewilder the minds of men.

Just as God used the treason of Judas to get the good of redemption out of it, today God will use the greatest evil that ever plaque the world to purify the Church. There are those outside the Church so-called Christians and non-Christians, there are those within the Church all led by fallen dominations and seraphims leading the same personalities they used in history, the children of the period of enlightenment, sons of the French Revolution and Reign of terror who had spread their heresy throughout Europe, the US and the world returning with its most potent weapon, Original sin. And they are not tempting the world. They are imposing it on the whole world under the banner of a distorted Democracy......and the world had fallen under its control and at arms against the Church. And these princess and dominions think they are pulling all the strings as they thought at Good Friday.

John Newman noted that this was the state of a small portion of the Roman empire at the time of Christ's first coming. It is today in a grand scale. What coming of Christ is it announcing?

8. But the Pope knows. He knows that these events are God's doings and are out of man's control. The financial chaos to the change of governments, the civil wars to the martyrdom of Christians, the tsunamis to the nuclear melt down all are staged by the angels of God. So he tells us just to pray and bear the sufferings that all Christians have to undergo. St. Paul said the same thing. The Pope even told the Christians in Irag not to leave and face almost the inevitable but asked all to pray for them. We can only stand and be silent and see the God of history take complete control of history doing as He pleases. All these things just have to happen at the sixth hour, the time for Grand Silence, between Compline and the time for sleeping. And as usual He does this to show His glory and power.

It is bed time, the time to rest in the Lord. Let us recite Compline, the Church's night prayer, and observe Grand Silence for 'He is God.'

More on FAITH

2011-03-29T09:41:00.001+11:00

There are many good news for the Catholic Church, like the increase in reported Baptisms in Africa and the entrance into the Church of thousands of Anglicans. Add to this the growth of the Church in Asia. But have we subtracted the number of Catholics who have left the Church and joined other sects? Or those who have remained in the Church but whose faith may be described as uninformed by charity....or in short 'dead faith.' When Cardinal Ratzinger described the problem of the Church as a crisis of faith he meant that the Church has Faith but it is dead or uninformed by Charity and/or just the absence of faith.

Faith, a theological virtue, must be directed to its final object which is Charity by Charity itself. In fact, the sequence or order of the virtues goes thus....we first have the virtue of Charity. Charity which is an act of the free will proposes to the intellect to believe (Faith) in the God it has perceived in simple form. And so the soul begins to have Faith at the promptings of Charity. At the beginning Faith is prompted by very little Charity but Charity nevertheless. It is the theological virtue of Charity that initiates the process of believing. So Charity goes before Faith. And Charity continues to prompt Faith to develop to perfection while charity grows itself to perfection in the process.

While Faith can remain inspite of sin (except sins against faith) Charity disappears with sin. And when Charity disappears, Faith becomes 'dead.' This is the common state of most souls in the Catholic Church. They don't know that their faith is dead. The Liturgical calendar gives us more than 30 Sundays between Pentecost and Christ the King giving us more than 30 signs by which we can know if we have faith or not. How come most do not know? The inability of the clergy to explain faith clearly is the cause, a remnant of the effects of Pelagianism and Modernism.

Let us describe the way to the theological virtues in another way. This time from the viewpoint of the evangelical counsels.

Faith, Hope and Charity are theological virtues given by God with grace. There is nothing a human being can do to get those virtues and this grace. And yet they are necessary for salvation because these are the virtues that lead our souls to God, it's final goal. That is why they are called theological.

Since these are purely God's gifts we just have to wait for them from God. Though the least we can do for God to give us these virtues is to dispose ourselves. To dispose ourselves consist in removing from our souls everything that is contrary to them. This will entail four removal processes. Remove sins, remove doctrinal and moral errors, remove love of good things unnecessary for salvation( like fathers) and removal of good things close to us (like our own will and life). Each removal process will dispose us to receive the grace of repentance and each theological virtues.

The first removal process that will dispose us to receive the virtue of Penance is called life of repentance. This process consist in knowing and removing all our past sins, specially mortal sins. Ash Wednesday teaches us that this is done through a life of prayer, fasting and good works, which is the lesson we learn from the 30 years hidden life of Christ. This is commonly described as living the sacrament of Baptism or putting the sacramental grace of baptism to affect our lives.

But most Catholics lose their sacramental grace without it benefitting their souls. Since baptism cannot be received a second time how do we regain that sacramental grace which is necessary to begin our spiritual building? Through the monastic life. The monastic life is meant to regain the graces received and lost during baptism. Though this grace will now come in the form of actual grace rather sacramental grace. The monastic life is meant to remove all past sins through a life of repentance. The primitive form of the Catholic Church was in the form of monastic communities. It is living the life of repentance that we dispose ourselves for the forgiveness of mortal sins. The forgiveness of mortal sins opens our souls to know the teachings of Christ. It will be slow trial and error until all errors are removed. When all errors are removed then we are now disposed to receive the theological virtue of Faith. We do not necessarily receive it immediately. This is completely up to God when to give us.

Having removed all mortal sins the next removal process consist in removing, no longer sins, but material GOOD things which are not necessary for the salvation of our souls. This is described as the spirit of poverty. St. Peter and Andrew, as they reached Faith, were told to leave nets and boats. There is nothing wrong with nets and boats. In fact, they were allowed by Christ to return to their nets and boats after the resurrection. But before they receive Charity even the slightest love for one's nets and boats can prevent us from loving God above all things. These are part of the "world" that can be the source of temptations, St. Augustine says. After all Eve and Christ were tempted with good things.....food. But when we have charity it is safe to return to nets and boats...and food.

The third removal process consists in removing good things that are closer to us...our loved ones. So Christ told James and John to leave nets and boats (making up the material things) and also their father (making up the things closer to us)_. Christ would complete the list adding: to leave father, mother, brother, sisters, land...etc. This would make up the counsel of chastity. Christ saying if we love 'these relations more than God,' which is common, these becomes impediments to God giving us the virtue of Hope. If this obstacle is removed then we may receive the virtue of hope. Faith and Hope are not given to us unless the places alloted to them is empty of worldly love for things and relatives.

The fourth removal is the removal of the love of self. And laying one's life for one's neighbor is a sign of having removed the love of self. With that gone the heart of man is completely empty of any worldly love. This is the proper disposition to receive the virtue of Charity by which we love God and neighbor assuring our salvation. When our hearts are empty of the love for the world, relatives and self, the Holy Spirit comes into our hearts and becomes the principle of charity by which we love God and neighbor while through us doing great things for the Church.

The Samaritan woman was the personification of the Church as she traveled from a life of sin, through a life of repentance and eventually to faith, hope and Charity. Her charity was shown when speaking to her towns folks they went to Christ and in turn believed, no longer because of what she said but because they have heard Christ, Himself. That Samaritan woman shows how the Church brings souls to Christ through repentance and the three virtues.

CRISIS OF FAITH

2011-03-20T16:28:00.003+10:00

"Crisis of Faith" are words we have often heard before. We, usually, don't mind it. But sometime around 1980 I read about it again in a book, "Ratzinger Report" and read it more seriously this time. The book was authored by the present Pope when he was younger and a cardinal. And he used those words to describe the state of the Church!!! That was a serious statement if we understand what Faith is.

The above statement would mean: nobody is entering the Catholic Church, nobody is going to heaven, nobody knows God and/or Christ, nobody knows the truth.......in short many are going to hell. St. Paul mentioned something to that effect that everything outside of Faith is sin, i.e. if one has no faith he is in the state of sin and everything he does is sin because he does not have the element of goodness that comes with faith. Let us look at the elements of Faith and see what is lacking that is causing the crisis of faith.

The first element of faith is that (1) it is an act of the intellect (2)thinking of its formal goal, God, (3) and the means that lead to that goal (4) as dictated by that final goal, God.

As early as the 1800, thinkers like Belloc and Chesterton had noticed that mankind has ceased to think. He is moved not by his rationality but by his animality. 'That is an emotional moment" had been a common description of great events. In a recent earthquake they spent 2 minutes of silence for the quake victims and described that moment as a very emotional moment. But if I use my head I should ask "what good can two minutes of silence do for those who died?" Essentially nothing. So why do it. People who do emotional things will have difficulty in making an act of faith which is an act of the intellect. The No 1 element of faith is very rare today.

Number 2 is to think of its formal goal which is God. The image of God as its goal must be the true God. Otherwise the proposition on who is God will not elicit an assent of the mind. We can know the God of nature from the firmaments of heaven. This needs thinking with the intellect. And we can know enough to know the God of nature. But God is supernatural and our intellect needs grace to know things supernatural. With the aid of grace we should know the nature of God, His attributes, etc. The more we know about God the greater the intensity of our act of Faith. But the Pelagian heresy had devastated the Church before and until now. Seminarians only use their natural knowledge in studying theology and are unable to recognize the supernatural God. Many had graduated and become priest without having a personal encounter with God. This reflects in their preaching. They never met the person they preach.

Number 3. We must know the means to attain that goal. Aside from knowing His nature and attributes, to know God means knowing what He loves and what He hates which are enumerated in the commandments of Jesus Christ in the New Testament. This is the reason why Christ, in the Apostolic Commission to his apostles commanded them to teach: "ALL My commandments and HOW to observe them." These are the proposition that are the material object of Faith that make up both Moral and Dogmatic Theology. Many know SOME of the commands and most modify the HOW. This is disobedience to the command of God who said: "If you love me keep My commandments." The commandments are the means to the end. We were warned not to add or subtract from them.

Number 4. The proposition or truths divinely revealed by God must be studied with the desire to lead as to God. The propositions that leads to the object of faith must be clearly shown as coming from God and its interpretation must be convincingly from God. Sadly Theology is studied for selfish or natural reason like to pass the test, to get a degree or the more ambitions desire to be a bishop (a desire St. Thomas describes as a sin). The object of Faith which is love of God is often absent.

As we grow gradually through the four steps we must come to a point where the intellect must assent to the truths it has learned. It cannot have an effective assent if the truths are incomplete or incorrect. The intellect can only assent to convincing truths.

Another element of faith is that Faith, as an act of the intellect thinks about general, abstract concepts. And the intellect's assent to these general, abstract concepts must be with the consent of the free will because no part of the person can act without the approval or go signal of the free will. Before an act of faith is made there must be an assent of the intellect to the proposition proposed and the consent of the free will to the propositions assented to by the intellect. It can happen that the intellect may assent to the propositional truth of faith, but the free will can withhold its consent. This is an incomplete act and therefore, there is no faith yet.

The free will, on the other hand, is more attracted to the specific, particular, and emotional desires of the flesh. And presented with these 2 alternatives, the desires of the body and the desire of the intellect, the free will can refuse to consent to the general and abstract truths already assented to by the intellect and consent instead to the specific worldly desires of the flesh. Without this consent of the free will the intellect cannot make that act upon which it had already assented to needed to make an act of faith.

For the intellect to be able to assent to a proposition or statement of truth, the proposition must be clear, believable and devoid of contradiction. Though ALL propositions of the Catholic faith are clear and believable in themselves, it is not so when explained by preachers. And so the intellect cannot give its assent due to lack of believable facts in the proposition.

The assent given by the intellect to a doctrinal proposition is difficult enough to make due to the indolence of the modern generation to think. Add to this the difficulty in thinking because of the enormous amount of external stimuli that hinders thinking and the poor presentation of Catholic doctrinal truths in the form of propositions. But let us suppose that all those requirements are fulfilled, the intellect still cannot make an act of faith without the free will consenting to what the intellect have assented to.

The free will can reject whatever assent made by the intellect on any proposition for no reason at all. The free will is FREE. A very solid argument can aid the free will in giving its consent but not always. No amount of proof that smoking is hazardous to your health can convince the free will to stop smoking as has been happening now.

How come the smoker cannot believe that smoking is dangerous to his health? Most often it is because his intellect knows the medical facts but has not assented to that truth. Many people are like that; they are thinking but they are not assenting to what they know. Their knowledge is lip service not conviction. But if the smoker's intellect assents to the facts on smoking, that assent can not necessarily get the free will to give its consent.

The free will is the faculty that tells the intellect, your assent to the proposition is good. I will give my consent Go and believe in it. The free will commands the intellect to act. And when the intellect acts and believes in the proposition at the promptings of the free will THAT IS AN ACT OF FAITH!

Frankly, how many souls have gone through this process that constitutes the act of faith keeping in mind that the intellect has to go through this process in believing all the doctrines of the Catholic Church. Or let's say just the "apostles creed."

Let's take just one example of a proposition: "I believe in God the Father almighty creator of heaven and earth."

The intellect is presented with this proposition. That there is a God. He is Almighty. He created heaven and earth and, therefore, all things created belong to Him.

This truth is simple and obvious we need no further proofs to make it believable.......just to simplify the demonstration. This truth is naturally simple and obvious that it is easy for the intellect to make an assent to. And so the intellect does so. Here the free will must consent to what the intellect assented to. Being an obvious truth it should not be difficult for the free will to give its consent. Let's say the free will gives its consent and gives the intellect the 'go' signal "go ahead and believe in that proposition." So, with the approval of the free will the intellect goes into action and commands the free will (which is the driving force of the soul) to put into action the act of believing. We can only know if the whole process of believing has been accomplished if the person actually treats everything in the world as owned by God and should be used according to the will of God. He is acting with faith.

If a person uses anything as if he owns it, he is acting without faith. And without faith no one can be pleasing to God. In the 1980's Cardinal Ratzinger noted that the world was undergoing a crisis of faith. In such a crisis, the world can only go down, down, down which no one can stop, which the present Pope noted in his Dec. 20 address. This explains everything that is going on now.

The NEW GOD : Original Sin

2011-03-01T00:09:00.005+10:00

A new god has began to rule the world. He, really, is not new and he is not a god. In history man has had the bad fortune of choosing many wrong gods. Except now mankind had agreed to worship one and the same god....but it is, again, the wrong god.

This god existed at the time of the creation of angels. He has pestered the human race ever since but today he rules supreme. The world has become his domain. And mankind had bowed to his rule. This god is Original Sin. He does not really exist as St. Augustine would say. He is just the personification of all the absence of good and as such is pure evil.

At the beginning Lucifer was invited to heaven to be with God. Lucifer said 'yes' but he wanted to go there' his own way'. When he insisted 'on his own way', he became a devil. The other devils who became devils simply followed Lucifer. That was the first demonstration of angelic power that will have its imitation in 'people's power,' in sociology called mob rule wherein a group follows one person without thinking as individuals.

Lucifer probably thought it was a good idea 'doing things my own way' so when God created Adam and Eve and informed them that if they would want to know what is right from wrong, which is morality, they should first eat of the tree of life and as a reward they may eat of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. But Eve wanted the fruit badly so she 'did things her own way'; and ate it first. Adam like the mob, without thinking, followed Eve. This was essentially the same fault instigated by the first angel who fell. It was called original sin. This sin consists in doing God's will (to go to heaven for the devil while to have a knowledge of good and evil in the case of Adam and Eve) but 'doing it their own way'.

Original sin could be very bad if (1.) they went against God's will and (2.) did it their own way. And it could even be worst if (3.) they imposed it on others. St. Thomas of Aquinas mentioned a rule in the spiritual life: that he who does not progress will regress. And he who regresses will fall faster and faster as he nears the bottom. That is what happened with the first original sin. Because it was not stopped at the death of Christ, the world just kept on regressing and has now reached a speed downwards that is unstoppable.

Notice how the human race has decided on what will make them happy here on earth without consulting God and this is satisfy their every bodily desires. Mammon, greed shown in love of money which can do so, is everyone's goal and their love. Note how everything is geared to this end. And notice how governments impose it on the people and on other governments. Every sin is committed to attain the ultimate goal of original sin, the worship of one's selfish will..... like the destruction of the family, the killing of children, killing and abduction of head of states that do not conform to their will.....violations of all the commands of God. It would not be strange if they went against the Catholic Church whose aim is the salvation of mankind through the forgiveness of all sins starting with original sin, the origin of all sins.

Let us explain what is happening inside man by analyzing his act. Catholic theology has a definition for a human act. Human acts are essentially acts of the intellect informed by the senses and approved by the free will and carried into action by the free will commanding the entire person (specially the body). What makes the act human is the functioning of the faculties of the soul, namely, the mind and free will. If the body acts independently of the soul, then man, like a drunkard is not acting like a human being because his spiritual faculties had been shut down by alcohol. He is acting like an animal half of which he is.

This is what is happening within man. He has an intellect made by God to know the Truth. But he cannot know the truth due to the return of original sin. He could learn the natural truths about God but it will need great effort. So he gives in to his indolence. And the intellect made by God to think of supernatural truths are lazily focused on mere material things.

The intellect is supposed to think of Godly things (though in the natural level), called natural theology and present them as good that the free will may desire the good. But the only thing presented to the free will are material things coming from the body and sent to the intellect. The free will does not like abstract truths about God. It loves specific, concrete material and worldly things. So it simply enjoys thinking what to eat, what to drink and what to wear. And that is what is happening now. Money or economic progress offers unlimited sources of what to eat, drink and wear. And this they had deified.

How is this shown outwardly. St. Thomas says: if we attain what we think and desire this will give us the feeling of happiness. What will prevent us from attaining our desire will cause us unhappiness. What do we need to satisfy our selfish desires rooted in original sin? First, we need money, whether well earned or stolen. So the prevalence of graft and corruption in all levels. We need to satisfy our lust. So the need for divorce, pornography, destruction of the family, and family planning. Second, we need freedom. So we keep on changing the laws to suit our desires and changing all authorities and heads of states.

Christ taught that the way to eradicate original sin most effectively is through poverty, chastity and obedience. Do we see the battle lines? This is a war between God and the devil of which the devil has no chance but where the collateral damage could be vast.

In history man's sin used to be based on one or two vices, like eating your grandfather. But today, due to world communication all vicious men had agreed that eating one's grand father is not such a great idea. But obeying all the bodily urges of men would be much more fun. Everything today is teaching a philosophy which is original sin in essence. Never in the history of men could they agree to commit one and the same sin as today. It could not happen years ago.

Original sin, like all other ugly sins, had been repacked with nice labels. Today it is called 'democracy' a poor imitation of christian democracy as introduced by Suarez, the Jesuit theologian. In sociology its true name is anarchy.To make it even more attractive it is personified in 'lady liberty.' It is simply liberty from the rule of God; no different from the rebellion of the angels in heaven. It would be the worst kind of dictatorship because it will try to destroy the souls of man by dictating to the minds and hearts of man.

It's awesome evil was first noticed in 'people's power' during the reign of terror in France. It spread to Russia, Europe, England and the United States. From there it would be imposed surreptitiously to all the rest of the world.

It is so easy to tempt mankind with original sin because it is soooooo natural to the fallen nature of man. No effort is needed to make man fall into it. In fact, he is born with it. With a little help from the devil, man is totally helpless. That's why in the Catholic Church babies are baptized as soon as possible to arm him against this inborn tendency. But most Catholics do not know how to arm babies after baptism so most of them find themselves loosing their weapons against this inborn sin that makes man totally incapable of going to heaven.

Essentially, original sin is when our free will chooses the desires of bodily concupiscence instead of the promptings of the intellect making him act more like an animal than a human being.

It was the most potent weapon in the arsenal of the devil in his desire to destroy mankind. He has an ally in the very soul of man.... a free will that has a tendency to sin, rather than to know and love God.

After the Fall of Adam and Eve the devil knew this temptation to return man to his original sin will be a great success. Flash points in the history of men would show this: during the heresy of Peladius, the reform of Martin Luther, notably the French Revolution and crowned by the heresy of modernism in the 1800 . Today it is all over even within the Church.

The reign of terror in France, I think, was the devil's last dry run to recapture his domain on earth. Because it worked in France it would spread to Europe and the U.S. And both would impose it throughout the world.

In France it was pure 'original sin' personified in lady liberty. It was pure sin, anti-catholic and satanic. But it was presented as a philosophy or form of government so it escaped notice. This spread quickly in Europe and the United States through Lafayette and Benjamn Franklin because it satisfied the longing of the human soul already enslaved by original sin. It was natural to the fallen nature of men.

The movement toppled governments as it is doing now under the pretence of the 'will of the majority'. Yet no one could see the majority. It was in fact the will of a boisterous minority who imposed their will on the majority. It was the worst kind of original sin.

And so we see and hear heads of states, heirs to France's reign of terror, calling for the fall of government because 49, 100 or a little more are killed in demonstrations when their own hands are bloodied with the death of millions through family planning and abortion. What hypocrisy!

Christ came to bestow on us graces to overcome the evils that came out of original sin. But Pelagianism had made todays world ignorant on how to combat this evil. The flood of evil is inevitable and its corresponding chastisements.

St. Thomas noted that when one succumbs to evil he will continue to descend and as he descends the speed of the descend increases. And when he reaches the bottom the momentum of the descend could very well be unstoppable. Did Pope Benedict refer to this in his Dec. 20 audience? And there is nothing in sight that can stop it. No 10 good men, no 20 good men. I feel as helpless as Abraham.

Man's will have ruled supreme today. They call it rights. And most of their rights are contrary to God's right and command. And many Catholics are caught in this vortex with no hope of escaping it. In such a situation we can only ask: "Lord, who can be saved?"

the MORALITY OF Natural Family Planning

2011-01-07T12:50:00.003+10:00

INTRO: The Fathers of the Church said it. The Catechism said it. The Popes said it. At last Pope Benedict XVI said it. Now I can make up my mind. Or can I? Pope Benedict in his Dec. 20 address to the Roman Curia said it. The crisis in the world today is caused by the "collapse of the sense of morality." And no power in sight can stop this decline. Because it is a decline due to sin and God will not stop sin. God can only protect the faithful.

1. The Encyclical of Pope Paul VI on Family Planning created a ruse within the Church. The revolt was so noticeable many were surprised there were no excommunications that occurred when the rebellion was deserving of excommunications.

But the Church is always slow in reacting because the root cause of this rebellion is not mere disobedience but a more complicated lost of the sense of morality. The error was not due to ignorance in the natural level but in dragging down everything supernatural down the natural level. It is the absence of Faith!

This is a deeper problem and cannot just be handled with excommunications. We are faced with people who in their ignorance believe deeply that family planning is not evil or better still is a good to be desired. The sense of morality in the Catholic sense is completely non-existing.

2. This is a question on Catholic Ethics or morality. What is right and what is wrong in the eyes of God. Morality was not a problem at the times of the Fathers and even up to the 12th century. The question of morality beleaguered the Church at the time when William of Ockam introduced the heresy of Nominalism into the Theology course of seminarians, specially at the University of Paris. This era was the time of the 'Decline of Catholic civilization' in Europe. The Catholic church was dragged down by philosophies from her supernatural throne to the natural that William, a Franciscan, believed that the Emperor can intervene with Church matters. The Black Death that killed many priests and bishops and the ascendancy of new priests stained with Nominalism saw a generation with no sense of true Catholic morality. How can the sense of morality of the Catholic Church suddenly disappear in the 13th century?

Though the 13 hundreds boasts of great Popes, great saints and new good religious communities the tide towards the lost of the sense of catholic morality could not be stemmed. It was too great. Men were loosing the sense of the supernatural at that early age and with it the sense of morality. Suddenly, even schools of theology could not define morality or ethics correctly up to the 19th hundreds and the stench of nominalism could be traced up to Vatican II blurring the doctrines on ecclesiology and christology that Pope Paul VI had to intervene.

3. The problem of knowing what is right from wrong is the story of Eden where the question was placed before Adam and Eve. Who decides what is moral? Is it God or Adam/Eve? What is moral? Subjection to God or subjection to man? Is it doing God's Will or doing man's self will?

It was only about the 19th century after great attempts to restore the teachings of St. Thomas of Aquinas (initiated by Pope Leo XIII) that moral theology returned to the principles of St. Thomas and recaptured the once treasured principles of morality. Once more the Catholic Church could easily judge what was moral and what was immoral. But ignorance prevailed among the men of the Church and the faithful.

Family planning, abortion, gay clergy, condoms, sex education of children, and such old topics as liberation theology and women's ordination ....are these immoral? Yes, but because the reasons put forward is only in the level of moral philosophy the people are not convinced.

4. Let us redefine Catholic Ethics, the basis of Christian morality as defined by the Fathers of the Church and partially recovered these days for our guide. This is a branch of theology which studies human acts as to direct them to a loving vision of God seen as our true, complete happiness and our final end. This vision is attained by means of grace, the virtues, the gifts in the light of revelation and reason. Note that the basis for morality is in the supernatural level, not in the natural level; it is found in moral theology and not in moral philosophy.

An act is moral if it is a human act directed to the loving vision of God believed as one's true, complete source of happiness and one's final end. This act is known and accomplished with the aid of reason enlightened by Divine revelation. This enlightenment through Revelation is through the theological virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity that comes with grace. And these virtues are fortified by the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

5. Note that the elements of a moral act are supernatural elements....what makes an act moral is a supernatural reason. One gets the impression that only saints can do a moral act. Everybody else do immoral acts. But isn't that the definition of a 'good work' ...works done by a good person. It is not the work that is good but the person. And didn't St. Paul say everything outside of Faith is sin....because the person doing it is not good but evil.

6. In analyzing the morality of a "just war" and "family planning" the basis used by moral theologian is moral philosophy and not moral theology. It should be moral theology, the supernatural; whether it is 'my will' or 'God's Will'. Choosing one excludes the other, i.e. to choose 'my will' is to reject ' God's will.

Family Planning is immoral because it frustrate the natural goal of procreation...that is what we usually say. But that is only a natural reason. What is the supernatural reason why Family Planning is intrinsically evil.

Writings on 'unjust war' base its morality on whether the war was declare by the proper authorities, whether there is the possibility of righting the wrong and other norms. But all of these norms are norms of moral philosophy. There is no norm on whether it is God's will or not. Many wars in the Old Testament can be considered unjust war waged by the Israelites but because they were commanded by God to go to war they were moral wars for the Istraelites. So an act can be immoral in the natural level but moral in the supernatural level.

Let us try to analyze the morality of Family Planning in general and Natural Family Planning together with the Billings method in particular basing it on the definition given above.
Are these three (namely, Family Planning, Natural Family Planning and Billings method) human acts? If we look at the definition of human acts, they are not.

Do they direct us to the loving vision of God? If they are according to the Will of God they will direct us to the loving vision of God, if otherwise they will not. That is what happened to the angels. Those who obeyed God's will remained as good angels in heaven; and those who did their own will became devils deprived of the loving vision of God. So everything can be reduced to whether we do God's Will or our will.

Will Family Planning direct us to the loving vision of God? Is this God's will or our will? Obviously, Family planning is the decision of an individual in complete disregard of God's will. So it cannot direct us to the loving vision of God. That is what makes it intrinsically evil. It is a direct following of one's individual or subjective will completely disregarding the will of God.

Now let us look at the Natural Family Planning practiced by most Catholics. Paula wants to have a baby but not now. As a Catholic she wants to follow God's will. So she does not practice family planning as prohibited by the Church. She does nothing to harm the foetus. She takes no medication that will prevent the birth of a child. But she does not perform the marital act at times when there is the possibility of having a child. Her reasoning goes this way. My will is not to have a baby right now. Her practice of Natural family planning is to do her will for the present. She is ignoring what could be God's will. Her action is not to accomplish God's will but to accomplish her will. Her act does not comply with the definition of a moral act. Doing her will becomes an immoral act because her act was not directed to doing God's Will. It is possible that God's Will is not for her to have a child but the immorality of the act is based on the fact that she did not direct her action to accomplishing the Will of God but doing her own will.

This could work the other way around. Katrina wants to have a child. She uses the Billings method to precisely have a child. Isn't she using the Billings method to do what she wants...to have a child? What if God does not want her to have a child. If Katrina disregards this possibility and insist in doing her will of having a child would that not make her act in violation of the definition of morality? Because her action is not directed to doing God's Will but doing her own will.

7. The second part of the definition is what gets most of us in trouble. We can have a clear moral vision if we have grace, the theological virtues and 7 gifts of the Holy Spirit guided by Divine Revelation and reason. Without these man cannot perform a perfect human act directed towards a loving vision of God. When the heresy of Nominalism entered the Church, the men of the Church suddenly could not judge the morality of actions. We find everyone floating in the level of moral philosophy. Few could rise up to moral theology.

8. An act is moral if it is guided by grace, by the three theological virtues and the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. Let's boil it down. An act is moral if it is an act of Love of God. "If you love me keep my commands." So an act is moral if it is in accordance to the commands of God.....or if it is in accordance to the Will of God. Paula and Katrina were not open to God's Will in their desire to do their own will. Their desire had become immoral...not because they want a child or they do not want a child....but because they chose their will and not God' Will.

9. When Pope Paul VI declared Family Planning as immoral it is because it is an act of refusal of a creature to subject himself to his creator's Will and therefore an act that will prevent them from attaining their end of happiness in the vision of God.

10. This is the reason why it is difficult to sell the Billings and the Natural Family Planning methods to the Catholic populace. Compared to the condemnable methods there is no difference. All these methods are meant to frustrate the Will of the Creator and impose man's will on God.
There is no difference except for the fact that one uses non-evasive ways while the other uses criminal ways. But the end of both, Pope Benedict states in his Compedium of the Catechism, are intrinsically evil. "I came not to do my will but the will of My Father in heaven." It is 'my will' versus 'God's will.' It is easy to understand this if we simply go back to the sin of the Lucifer and the sin of Adam and Eve. It is 'my will' versus 'God's Will.'

THE SINS OF THE MEN OF THE CHURCH

2010-06-26T11:02:00.006+11:00

1. The men within the Church do not sin; they have no sins because they have repented and their sins had been remitted. They have an abundance of faith plus the guidance of St. Peter and his successors.
Those who are within the church are in the state of habitual grace possessing the three theological virtues and the 7 gifts of the Holy Spirit. That is a spiritual state that is impregnable to sin and errors. The Church is the Bride of Christ and God would not allow the slightest evil to stain that Bride. St Cyril wrote saying that the Church is holy with no sin, no errors and no heresies. She is the killer of heresies. And Pope Benedict repeated this teaching at the feast of St. Peter and Paul.

If ever sin or error enter the Church then the gates of hell had prevailed against her, which is contrary to the promise made by Christ to St. Peter, says St. Thomas of Aquinas. And the Holy Father in the same homily said the same thing. That the danger to the Church today is from the atheistic and secularistic society whose influence prevent souls from entering the Church.

2. So what are these much talked about sins of clerics that are haunting the Church today? These sins of abusing children and of improper sexual conducts with other males are sins of those who are outside the Church. And these are what are preventing the priests from entering the Church and becoming Catholics.

The title of this article should be: the sins of the men who think they are inside the church but who in fact are outside the church. Let us see these so-called sins of the men of the Church.

3. In Moral theology there are two kinds of sins: the sins of the soul and the sins of the flesh. This is based on the fact that man has a body and a soul. Examples of sins of the soul are Pride and heresy while the sins of the flesh are fornication, adultery and the much publicized sexual abuse of a few priests.

The sins of the soul are worst sins. The sexual abuse sins are less grievous compared to the sins of the soul. Of course sins of the flesh are more shameful and more embarrassing to the Church. But they are less grievous as an offense against God. The sin of the angels was a sin of the soul because they had no bodies. They were not given a second chance. While the sin of Adam and Eve was more a sin of the body, gluttony.

When one commits a sin of the flesh there could be a consent of the soul or none as in the case of the sins of passion. But when we analyze sin for the reform of our lives we are supposed to look for our 'predominant fault.' In the sin of sex abuse the predominant fault is Pride, injustice and sin against the virtue of religion. Sex abuse is just the symptom of the predominant fault. We must remedy both the predominant fault and the symptom but emphasis must be placed on the predominant fault.

4. It is devilish that the Church's attention, efforts and expenses are focused on these sins of the body making the Church neglect the more serious evils among her clergy. Comparing the sins of the Scribes with the sins of prostitutes and Publicans, Christ said that more prostitutes enter the kingdom of heaven than pharisees. In enumerating the sins besieging the Church the Holy Father mentioned vanity (a form of pride) but did not mention sex abuse. So why concentrate on the prostitution of the clergy that makes them like prostitutes and neglect their pride that makes them like devils. To focus on the sex abuse and neglect the sins of Pride and ignorance would be a grave error in the spiritual life.

5. The great saints, like St. Gregory and St. Thomas of Aquinas wrote strongly about overcoming Pride because that is the foundation of all evils in men. The sexual abuse sins of the clergy can only be remedied by overcoming pride with humility, just like all other sins. That's why Christ required of us simply to learn humility and meekness, "learn from Me." He did not tell us to learn how to cure sex abuse. That would make spirituality too complicated

Even Pope Benedict obviously is giving only lip service in apologizing for these sex abuse crimes probably pressured by his Curia. And his reluctance is obvious because he knows we have greater problems that need immediate attention, like the combined problem of pride and ignorance common among the priests that prompted him to call the 'Year of the Priest' which unfortunately did not seem to have attained its goal. No fault of the Holy Father. Many Bishops did not follow the schema given by the Pope in his opening address.

6. If we miss this point the problem of the priests will never be solved. Right now we are solving it like giving aspirin for all illness. The aspirin just removes the fever but not the cause of the fever. And all published remedies given by bishops for this spiritual ailment have so far consisted in covering up the symptoms or merely reducing the symptoms rather than curing the illness. Didn't the monk St. Peter Damian during his time aided the Pope in solving exactly this same problem by analyzing the problem and giving the right solution? This crime of our priests is just another vice, a consequence of original sin. And the Catholic Church has all the solution to cure vices. St. Thomas, himself, gave us all the solutions in his Summa. His treatise had been reprinted in popular form in a book entitled "The Secret enemies of the Priesthood." The Catholic Church has a treasury of knowledge on how to handle this problem which is small compared to Pride and injustice.

7. The sins of pride and injustice are worst and difficult to overcome. The very training in the seminary seems to foment these vices. Many graduates in the seminary thinks they know everything. And these are the people who become future bishops and curial officers. For the past years their pride and injustice had victimized countless priests. We cannot imagine the number of priests that had been unjustly treated by superiors, bishops, parochial, diocesan and even curial offices as high as the Roman Rota. And their victims are priests. We are not even talking of the injustices done to husbands and wives whose marriages were summarily annulled at the caprice of the matrimonial courts because a party believing their marriage is valid had not cooperated in the investigation. Let us look back at the life of Blessed Antonio Rosmini and Padre Pio. Weren't they treated badly. And this mistreatment had become common fare in the lives of saintly priests. But since the victims were precisely saintly the news never hit the newspapers. The greater evil that is preventing souls from entering the Church are pride and injustice. Pope Benedict added 'Greed' quoting the Benedictine monk St. Ambrose of Aulpert who noticed this vice devastate the Church during his time.

8. Today we see the bishops stumbling in panic in preventing their diocese going bankrupt to pay the suits while summarily dismissing priests who had served the Church for so long but doing nothing to cure the malady. Isn't ingratitude more serious than this sin of the flesh? There is no end to the list of sins more serious than the sins of the flesh.

Eschatology of PENTECOST

2010-06-19T12:22:00.002+11:00

A preacher can speak well on the topic of the Holy Spirit and the Gifts. But the New Testament is eschatological. The preacher is supposed to explain how Pentecost should prepare souls for the second coming of Christ. In the New Testament we are all supposed to be prepared, not so much for death, as for the second coming of Christ. That is Catholic spirituality. We do not await death. We await the Second Coming of Christ 'with joyful hope.'

The apostles were the first members of the Catholic Church (aside from Mary, etc..). There were three stages in the development of this apostolic church. The first stage of this Church would begin when the apostles left all things to follow Christ. The second stage is when it developed to maturity during the passion of Christ. And the third stage is when it became perfect on Pentecost day. Pentecost was the grand finale in the development of the budding 'Apostolic church.'

In the first stage the disciples received the theological virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity making them members of the Church (it is faith that brings us into the Church. The Holy Spirit perfects our membership in the Church.) The other people following Christ, like the five thousand during the multiplication of the bread, were unable to enter the Church due to their inability to repent and reach faith. They remained outside the Church.

These virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity come with the state of grace following their life of Repentance. But at this initial state their virtues were weak and could easily be lost with the slightest storm.

The second stage is when their Faith, Hope and Charity begun to grow and mature. They begun to understand the deeper messages of Christ, especially the deeper meaning of the parables that was not given to those without Faith. But at this time some were beginning to lose Faith in Christ due to His hard sayings. Judas was one such person due to avarice.

The third stage begun at the Last supper when, as St. Thomas of Aquinas mentioned, Judas was expelled from the Apostolic Church without him knowing it. It was the time for the purification of the apostolic Church. Christ described this as when the Tares were being removed from the wheat field. And the Apostolic Church proceeded to greater perfection at the Crucifixion and Easter. The theological virtues of those who made up the Apostolic Church at this time were fully perfected on Pentecost day.

Here we see the Apostolic Church with the Virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity perfected by the seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit, a perfect picture of the Apostolic Church and the way the global Catholic Church should look like TODAY. Just as every one in the room was perfect on Pentecost Day, every one in the Catholic Church should be perfect today.

As the Church after Pentecost begun to go to all nations to recruit new members she should follow the same three stages in her development. But this time in a world-wide manner.

After Pentecost the apostles begun to preach and gather members in the same way Christ did. And as the hearers repented and had their sins remitted they entered into the realm of Faith thus entering the Catholic Church. Of course, the apostles could not stop unbelievers from physically entering though spiritually they remained outside the church. The so-called 'crowd' really remained outside the Church.

There were also those who believed at the beginning but who would later on lose their faith. But as long as they had Faith they were inside the Church. This was the first stage in the world wide Church as she imitated the first pattern of the Apostolic Church.

Then the Church grew up to the second stage. This is when those with Faith begun to mature in their theological virtues, while those who lost their Faith were removed from the Church. With Arius, Pelagius and eventually Martin Luther etc.. we see the Church in her second stage made up of those with Faith together with those who had Faith but who eventually lost it. With regard to the latter the angels would remove them from the Church. So they will be outside. Like Judas most of them would not know they were expelled. The History of the Church is witness to this apostasy and heresy. This continuous mixture of tares and wheat has occurred rather too long in the Church that like the apostles we tend to ask 'when will you remove the tares?' That the Church might reach the third stage the Tares had to be removed for the Church to grow to the perfection of her theological virtues.

Though the so-called four marks of the Church are present in the Church in her three stages, these marks will appear progressively more perfect as she progresses to the third stage. More perfect in the spiritual sense and, therefore, more difficult to recognize.

The third stage in the development of the Church is difficult to visualize. Christ described them as 'doing greater things than this.' Catholic souls today will be doing things greater than what the early Church was doing!!!....even what the apostles did? Well, that was what Christ said. Though He did not mean more spectacular deeds in the natural or physical level. He meant in the spiritual level, in the level of the soul which are usually invisible in nature. This is what makes it difficult to detect. This will be in the contemplative and mystical spheres.

On Pentecost, the theological virtues of the apostles were perfected but they did not have enough time to perfect it further because having accomplished their mission they were martyred. The apostles had three years for the Holy Spirit to perfect their virtues. The Catholic Church have more than 2000 years. So we expect the Spirit to have done a better job today. So Christ's statement "they will do greater things."

Apparently after 2000 years the Church should have reached this third stage when the 4 visible signs of the Church takes a deeper and more profound character and would be more difficult to detect even to the eyes of the so-called 'Catholics.' The late Pope John Paul II had cried looking for the 'Oneness' of the Catholic Church the mark of the church in which the other three depends. Has anyone ever try looking for the 4 visible signs of the Church even in religious order? How about just her 'Oneness' from where the three proceeds.

Today the world-wide Catholic Church should look exactly like the small community in that room at Pentecost. Or as St. Augustine wrote commenting on the Gospel of John: they should have the theological virtues perfected by the 7 gifts of the Holy Spirit pictured by the 153 fishes caught after Easter in Lake Tiberias. This is truly a work of the Holy Spirit, a Pentecost occurring within the Catholic Church.

But this is not the picture we see today. Pope Benedict in his "Caritas in veritate'' bewailed that we are still in the arduous mission of evangelizing the world. What??? We still have to preach "Repent and believe" to the world! And the Holy Father adds that the reason is man's inability to enter unto himself. What??? He is commenting about the Prodigal Son. The world not only has no faith but has not repented!!!! Then he further adds that this was due to the fact that man today has not focused his mind on God...this is like saying that man is unable to make an act of faith as defined in the Catechism.

This is the problem and the analysis of the problem. The problem is that man has no faith and, therefore, outside the Church. And the reason is because he has not focused that faculty of the soul called mind on God and the things of God as St. Paul says. That the Church today should be made up of Catholics whose virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity had been perfected by the 7 gifts of the Holy Spirit just like on Pentecost day. What is the Holy Father further saying? That we must all have perfect Faith, Hope and Charity. He used the words 'perfect spirituality' or ' we must be 'contemplatives.' What he is not saying is: that the Church should look like this right now, just like the apostolic boat in lake Tiberias after Easter.... and that most Catholics do not know it but they are outside the Catholic Church. The Holy Father is left with only one question: where is that boat? Wherever it is, the Pope is vehemently urging us in most of his addresses to just get in that boat, which his thesis on St. Bonaventure is telling him is approaching the shore where Christ is waiting. When it hits the shore it will be too late for many of us.

TWO SENDINGS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

2010-05-25T00:27:00.003+11:00

We are all conscious of Christ sending the Holy Spirit on Pentecost day. What we have not noticed is that Christ sent the Holy Spirit to His apostles twice. The first time was around 50 days before Pentecost when He breathed on them and said: "Receive the Holy Spirit." The second time is on Pentecost when Christ send the Holy Spirit in the form of tongues of fire. The second is more spectacular that is why we remember it. But the first is the foundation without which the second would not occur.

Christ sent the Holy Spirit twice to His Church. So the Holy Spirit is IN the Catholic Church and will lead the Church from the beginnings of her Faith, Hope and Charity.....to the maturity of the same virtues as on Easter.....and to the perfection of those same Virtues on Pentecost Day.

We celebrated Pentecost recently with petitions asking the Holy Spirit to come down again and with requests for New Pentecosts. The Holy Spirit has already been sent twice by Christ for two different good reasons; the Spirit is already down here and dwells within the Church. One can pray to the Spirit but He won't come a third time. The celebrations asking for the Holy Spirit to come down to each individual or come down in a new Pentecost is futile. If we want to find the Holy Spirit who had been sent twice we just have to enter into the inner sanctum of the Catholic Church were the Spirit dwells as the Church's uncreated soul. When the Popes call for a 'New Pentecost' they are not wishing that the Holy Spirit descend upon the Church once again. The Spirit is in the Church already and won't keep on coming up and down. What the Popes are trying to say is: why are the Catholics not finding the Spirit within the Church where it dwells? Is it because they are outside the door of the Church? They will never find the Spirit there no matter how much they lay hands, dance, scream and shout for it to come down. To experience the abiding of the Spirit one must enter the Church through Faith and grow into the perfection of Charity within her. When we pray 'Come Holy Spirit,' we are asking the Spirit to come and guide us from the outskirts into the inner sanctum of the Church where we may receive the Holy Spirit from the laying of the hands of those within the Church. Not from outside.

To experience the Holy Spirit that is within the Church we just have to do what the apostles did to be worthy to receive the Holy Spirit. Remember Pentecost was their graduation. What did the apostles do to deserve to receive the Spirit on Pentecost?

Firstly, they repented as taught to us during Advent and Lent. Secondly, they had the beginnings of Faith, Hope and Charity when they left all things (their boats, nets and parents) which most of us haven't done. Thirdly, their theological virtues matured during the Passion of Christ. Fourthly, their virtues were nearly perfect after Easter( it was just before this that Christ breathed on them the first time to receive the Holy Spirit). Fifthly, their virtues were perfected with the Descent of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost (the second giving of the Spirit).

But why did Christ send the Holy Spirit twice? The first time was for them to receive the power to 'love their neighbor' in preparation and leading to the 'Love of God'.. The second time is to give them the power to 'love God.'

We cannot love our neighbor, like our husband, wife, parent and children in a christian way without the first breathing from Christ. We love them only 'carnally' i.e. because they are our family and we love the poor because we pity them. But with the first breathing of the Holy Spirit, we love our family and the poor because it is the command of Christ. With this love we are conscious that our neighbor has a soul and all our relationship with them is to benefit their souls even at the sacrifice of their bodies.

The love of neighbor is in preparation for the second sending wherein we receive the power to love God for His own sake. Without these two sending we cannot love neighbor nor God. This occurred when the apostles had mature infused virtues a rare occurrence today even among religious.

The first giving of the Spirit is the foundation of the second. The second cannot be without the first. In the Liturgy of the Mass for Pentecost the Gospel reading was when Christ breathed on them sending the Holy Spirit to His apostles when He was still on earth. The First reading was about Pentecost when Christ sent the Spirit down when He was in Heaven. Note that there was a gap of 50 days between the two sending. Christ could have sent the Spirit one day after. But no, He was teaching the apostles to learn how to wait just as they would wait for the second coming because Pentecost was a preparation and would be the sign for the end times. And the way they would wait is by prayer and living in unity.

The first sending of the Spirit enabled the Apostles to preach repentance unto the forgiveness of sins. The second sending enabled the Apostles to preach the life of Faith, Hope and Charity.....the journey the Apostles had accomplish that made them worthy to experience Pentecost. St. Thomas of Aquinas described the first sending as a brief, temporary visit of God in the soul. The second sending is the permanent abiding of God within the soul.

Novus Ordo and Traditional Latin Mass

2010-05-21T16:07:00.012+11:00

The debates are getting hotter but more between the followers of Novus Ordo and the Traditional Latin Mass. Hints are thrown around that one is a Catholic Mass while the other is not. If I recall the sign of Catholicity is One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic and not the way Mass is celebrated. If the priest and congregation are One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic then they are Catholic. If they don't show the four visible signs whatever Mass they are celebrating they are not Catholic. And these 4 visible signs are the state of the souls of the members of the Church and has nothing to do with the rubrics.

This is a tragedy because both sides seem to miss the whole point. So the arguments are getting more emotional than ascetical. One complain raised is that a priest was using a glass Lalique cross for Mass when it should be a Christ figure crucified on a wooden cross because Christ died on a wooden cross and not in a glass cross. Aren't most crosses made of metal or plastic? We can also raise the issue of the chasuble used by St. Phillip Neri (on the picture on the left) as neither being Traditional nor Novus.

The issue should be an ascetical one. The question is which will bring souls better to heaven, the Novus Ordo or the Traditional Mass. After all this is what Catholic truths and practices all about. And we raise two points here. If 'ex opere operato' both will bring us to heaven. Because the Vatican explicitly said that both are valid. The question is in the 'ex opere operantis.

Which mass will more effectively bring us to heaven: the Novus Ordo or the Traditional Mass. We have no proof for either. We cannot say that St. Therese went to heaven because she attended the Traditional Mass and mother Teresa of Calcutta is probably not in heaven because she attended the Novus Ordo. Both are in heaven being canonized saints. So which Mass mattered more?

In my puerile efforts to encourage my bishop and priest friends to celebrate the Pope's version of the Mass, I have noticed that all agree that the Latin-laden Pope Benedict Mass encouraged more piety in the celebration than the Novus Ordo. As one priest noticed he had just begun his Novus Ordo Mass and before he knew it it was over. He felt he whisked through the Mass before he was even conscious of celebrating Mass. The conclusion is: if the Mass is being celebrated by one with Faith the kind of Mass is immaterial. He will celebrate any Mass with great piety because of the state of his spiritual life and not because of the kind of Mass. But for priests and congregations whose piety and Faith need to be increased the Traditional Latin Mass is more helpful.

Has the Church decreed that the requirement to enter heaven is to attend one Mass and not the other. None that I remember. What I know is that the requisite to enter heaven is to have the infused virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity. Which makes me wonder. Which Mass would be more pleasing to God: the Novus Ordo celebrated by a priest with Faith and attended by a congregation with Faith or a Traditional Mass celebrated by a priest and attended by a congregation without Faith. Or vice versa. Obviously, the presence of Faith in the priest and congregation is more important than the Mass being Novus or Traditional.

The debate has become petty and emotional thus causing more gall than wisdom. The sainted Padre Pio used to celebrate the Traditional Mass and his mass was most edifying. When he was obliged to celebrate the Novus Ordo because of Vat. II his Mass was no less edifying. So the kind of Mass celebrated has absolutely no effect on the piety of those concern. It is the holiness of the celebrant and the piety of the congregation that count.

Earlier we mentioned the fact which everybody will agree that a priest celebrating with great Faith, no matter what kind of Mass, will edify the congregation more and is more pleasing to God. A faithful priest reciting the Angelus is more edifying than a faithless priest celebrating a Novus or Traditional Mass.

But what would be a sign of Faith? From the Catechism......If a priest celebrates according to the tradition of the Church and as interpreted by the Magisterium in the person of the Pope. That is a faithful priest. And the Pope had declared that a combination of the two Masses is all right. The man of Faith, therefore, is the one who celebrates the Mass according to the instruction or example of the Holy Father. All sides if they are children of the Church should rest their case.

OUR LADY OF FATIMA and Pope Benedict XVI

2010-05-17T15:49:00.003+11:00

Pope Benedict had always viewed Fatima and everything he sees from the context of the theology of history as influenced by St. Bonaventure. Referring to the third secret of Fatima, he commented that it is all found in Scriptures. And indeed everything that Our Blessed Mother ever said in her approved apparitions confirm what is only in Scriptures. The Marian messages are 'per se' unnecessary; but due to the forgetfulness and laziness of men in studying Scriptures it has become a necessity. Since her messages are confirmations of what is already in Divine Revelation then it is part of Divine Providence prophesied and, therefore, will be fulfilled.

Like Christ, Mary often speaks only in parables to unbelievers and gives the deeper explanation in the form of secrets to believers. It is futile to give the deeper meanings to unbelievers. Like the early Jews they will just scoff at it and become guiltier in their unbelief. All parables are found in Scriptures. And Mary's parable-messages like her call for Repentance from LaSalette to Fatima are found all over Scriptures. This is a message for sinners and unbelievers. But the deeper meaning of the parables which Christ shared only with his Disciples, because they were believers, is also found in Scriptures but impossible for unbelievers to understand. The deeper meaning of Mary's messages are found, also, in Scriptures but difficult to understand that is why Mary usually instructs seers to tell the Pope to interpret the deeper messages as Christ interpreted the deeper meaning of His messages to His apostles. Sometimes even the seers, like St. Bridget, could not understand her own visions.

The messages of Our Lady in Fatima fell under the category of parables but withheld for a time because they fell under the species of prophesies that could only be better understood when they happened. When they happened they were easily understood by unbelievers, like the wars.
But there was a little problem with the third secret. As revealed it looked like a parable in the form of a story. As usual believers tried to find out what is the deeper meaning of the story as the disciples of Christ did every time they were faced with such a situation. There seems to be a deeper meaning that is why the Blessed Mother gave instruction that the Pope should interpret it. Pope Benedict in this trip to Fatima expressed that everything has not yet been revealed. The suspicion that there is a deeper meaning explains why all the Popes who read it did not divulged it being meant only for believers.

If I were a curious unbeliever who wish to cross over the realm of believers to find out this deeper meaning what would I do short of believing?

I know that Scriptures described the beginnings of the Church in the life of repentance, her growth is described in the life of Faith, Hope and Charity, and her perfection is described in the maturity of the three infused theological virtues aided by the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. But there is a split as the history of the Church approaches perfection. One part of the Church proceeds to 'perfection' as portrayed in the Apostles' fishing trip in Lake Tiberias; while the other part loses its Faith in what St. Paul described as the 'Great Apostasy'. That is why Christ asked the rhetorical question: shall the Son of Man find faith at his Second Coming. The insinuation here is that the image of the Church sometimes around this era would be exactly the way it look at the time of Pentecost.......a few people but all were infused with the virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity and perfected by the 7 gifts of the Holy Spirit. This is the perfect picture of the Catholic Church while surrounded by unbelievers. Because Catholic spirituality is eschatological the event of Pentecost is God's way of showing how the Church should look like when she is prepared for the Second Coming of Christ for the grand wedding.

Pentecost is the beginning of the Catholic Church and at the same time the way she should look when finally she becomes perfect. After Pentecost she begun to get all kinds of souls and gradually did not look like the original Church of Pentecost. As she approaches the day of the grand wedding with Christ, she will be purified again and look exactly the way she looked at Pentecost.

There are two views of the Church. One from the outside, the other from the inside. From the outside it is like viewing the inside of the Church through a keyhole. You can see part of the altar, pews or the floor. From the inside the entire church is seen. Nothing is left to the imagination. From the outside we can see the marks of the Church, One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic. But from the inside we can see the internal functioning of the Church, how it works that makes it produce the 4 visible signs. This latter is the view of a believer.

When the Church was just a small group of apostles the command of Christ was for them to preach repentance unto the remission of sins which is necessary for others to acquire Faith that makes them members of the Catholic Church. That command was given for a world that was completely devoid of Faith as an invitation for their conversion.

After many centuries of existence when the Faith, Hope and Charity of the Church should be matured and therefore, enhanced with knowledge, understanding and wisdom.... why does the Blessed Virgin Mary appear and begin to exhort the world again to 'Repent,' the same command when the world was devoid of Faith? And most of her apparitions seem to always contain this same exhortation. Even in Fatima the message was 'repentance' mentioned in three different ways: to repent, to have a conversion of heart and to be devoted to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. If we analyze these three messages it is essentially a description of the life of repentance because repentance is a change of heart or as mystical theologians would describe it "the first conversion."

Repentance was the same topic the apostles preached at a time there was no Faith in the world. This is a topic preached to unbelievers, pagans and sinners. And Pope Benedict XVI repeats the same message for unbelievers (as he spoke to the reporters) in Fatima.

Has the prophesied great split occurred in the Church; a small part leading towards perfection while the vast majority losing their Faith? The deeper positive message of Fatima is for us to see if we are of that small part leading towards perfection or that vast majority losing their Faith.

Mary, the mother of the Church, came to Fatima to prevent the split and keep the Church one, a visible sign of the Church.

The world is sustained by God because of the Oneness of the Catholic Church. Mary was trying to gather enough souls to maintain unity beginning with the seers. Pope John XXIII tried it when proposing the example of St. Maria Gabriellla Sagghedu on his encyclical on the unity of the Church. And Pope Paul VI wrote on the Woman clothed with the Sun. Both Pontiffs were trying to convey the deeper message of Fatima to an unbelieving world....to no avail.

In Fatima Mary said that she had tried many times to prevent the arms of her Son in bringing the judgment of wrath upon the earth. But men refused to repent and appease her Son. Our Lady in Fatima, after a few more attempts to convince an unbelieving world to repent had finally declared that the split had taken place. She could no longer hold on to her Sons arms. The world, because it was unable to repent cannot believe and therefore devoid of Faith.

The absence of Faith was the description of those outside the boat. Positively all those in the boat trip in Tiberias had perfect Faith, Hope and Charity....a very rare occurrence in the Church as a Church. Fatima decried the absence of Faith in the world due to the inability to repent. But it did not describe the true Church where Faith, Hope And Charity were perfect because of the great presence of the Holy Spirit. The negative picture was for unbelievers. The positive picture was for believers.

The curiosity of my unbelieving mind further investigated the thesis of the then Father Joseph Ratzinger on the Theology of History according to St. Bonaventure. And there we find in Scriptures and the Fathers of the Church the deeper meaning of the third secret of Fatima away from the eyes of unbelievers. Confirming the fact that everything Mary said is found in Divine Revelation.

The deeper meaning of the third secret of Fatima consists in the internal image of the Catholic Church in a very particular stage in her history. One can begin by looking at the very place where Mary appeared, Fatima, and look at its physical characteristic and then interpret it mystically. Everything has to be interpreted mystically. If we put all these together we get a picture of the Church as described in the Gospels, the Apocalypse and as interpreted by the Fathers and Doctors. And it is the picture painted by St. Bonaventure as studied by Pope Benedict in his thesis as a student. The picture painted by the Seraphic Doctor taken from ancient monastic writings and interpreted by the Fathers, specially St. Augustine's commentary on the Gospel of St. John....and further confirmed by hard to find interpretations of the Apocalypse show that most Catholics do not conform to that image and, therefore are outside the Church. St. Grignon de Montfort, whom Pope John Paul loved, came close to the same idea. So if we put the two minds of Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI together, they would certainly get the deeper message of Fatima.

When Pope John Paul II and Cardinal Ratzinger spoke in Fatima disclosing the third secret, they gave the meaning meant for believers. That is why nobody understood it. But they gave it. They gave it the way Divine Revelation gave it to us but short of the way interpreted by the Fathers. It was a picture of the internal mechanism of the Catholic Church at a very specific time in her history.

That is very important because we have to look exactly like that to go to heaven. But how can this be shown to those who do not have the 4 visible signs of the Church.

On his trip to Fatima, the Holy Father, talking to reporters gave a message about repentance, faith, Hope and Charity. This is based on his thesis on St. Bonaventure. Mary spoke about repentance. Pope Benedict added Faith, Hope and Charity. Mary was speaking to an unbelieving world. The Pope was speaking to his church that has lost her faith. He is looking for the Church described by St. Bonaventure so that like Christ he can discuss with them in private the mystical meaning of the third secret of Fatima.

YEAR OF THE PRIEST - Meditation 12 - The Catholic Church

2010-05-12T14:05:00.000+11:00

Man because he has a soul and a body grow both in soul and body. And while the body grows from childhood, adolescent and young adulthood the soul should grow into the beginners , illuminative and unitive stages of the spiritual life. Similarly the Catholic Church grows into three stages : infancy, adolescents and young adulthood. This is portrayed by the three Biblical descriptions of the fishing trips of the apostles. Though there are many types of the Church in Scriptures let us concentrate on the above 3 fishing trips.

The first stage of the Church is when the apostles were in the boat, they were not yet fishing because they were infant members of the Church and had to be trained before they went fishing for other souls. This was the boat scene where the apostles were caught in a storm. Weak or infant in their faith they feared. Nevertheless these apostles were described as having finished their life of repentance (thus having their past sins forgiven) and have entered into the theological virtue of Faith (though still weak) when they left all things (an act they could only do if they had Faith.) Faith is what enables us to enter the Church. So by this time the Apostles may be described as sinless and faithful but still with the relics of sin which they had to remove by perfecting their Faith, Hope and Charity.

By the very essence of Faith, the Apostles continued their life of Repentance though sinless and with Faith because that is the way Faith is preserved. And so, 'Poor in Spirit,' they continued to keep their remitted 'sins always ever before their eyes.' Those with Faith are continuously conscious of their once being sinful. Not because they still have sins but because of their humility as Sts. Peter and Paul were continuously aware of their sins against Christ up to the end of their lives.

Their repetitious consciousness of their forgiven sins (which Psalm 50 reminds us to do) gives us the impression that they are still sinners and that the Church is sinful. This is not the case. It is only an impression but not the fact. Having finished their repentance they had obtained the remission of their sins and regained the state of grace with the accompanying virtue of Faith that makes them members of the Church.

Christ commanded the Apostles before His Ascension, that they should go and preach repentance unto the remission of sin that will enable their listeners to receive Graces together with the theological virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity that will make their souls members of the sinless Church, a sinless Church where each member has their former sins always before them. This must be clear before we can describe the Church in her second stage as portrayed in the fishing scene in Lake Genesareth.

The second image of the Church in her adolescent is portrayed by the apostles fishing in Lake Genesareth. This time they were mature enough in their faith to fish for other souls and bring them inside the Church. The catching of both good and bad fishes into the same net would give the impression that both good and bad fishes are part of the Church. In which case the danger of saying that the Church is made up of both good and evil. However, the parable of the Cockle and the Wheat should clarify the picture. Here we see Tares and Wheat together. But it was clear that the wheat was planted by the husbandman while the Tares was planted by some evil agent. We cannot say that Satan can plant souls inside the Catholic Church. He cannot do that. He does not have supernatural Faith. How can he bring anyone inside the Church? Obviously, this is only a physical presence and not a spiritual presence. The Tares were only physically inside the physical confines of the Church but not spiritually inside the Church through Faith.

Note also the fact that the apostles offered to remove the Tares. So they can be removed because they are not part of the Church. And when Christ said 'no' because of the danger of removing also the wheat Christ said that at the end times, the angels, themselves will remove the Tares which shows they can be removed because they are not part of the Church. No one can remove someone with Faith, Hope and Charity from the Church. They are the Church!

The Liturgy of the Lenten season precisely showed this. During the Last supper when Judas was still with the apostles they symbolized the Church in her second stage made up of saints and sinners. But there is a portion of the Last supper when Christ expelled Judas out of the Church without him knowing it. Suddenly we have the image of the Church in her third sinless stage.

When Pope John Paul apologized for the sins of the Church he was not apologizing for the true Church that is sinless but for those who are outside the Church but are perceived to be inside the Church. The true Church, the Mystical Body of Christ and of which Mary is a type cannot be sinful. The Pope is the head of the sinless Church. He has nothing to apologize for. But because of the confusion caused by the countless souls outside the Church who think they are Catholics, call themselves Catholics and are perceived by others as Catholics, Pope John Paul had to speak based on the false perception of others and apologize.... like a father apologizing for the mischief of his neighbor's children, which is a charitable act. Pope Benedict is faced with the same universal ignorance of Catholic theology. And the ignorant are forcing him to apologize for the sins of children that are not of the Church. He could very well say: "Those are not my children." But due to the defective ecclesiology among so-called Catholics and even worst theology of outsiders the Pope had to adjust his language to guide them slowly to the truth of even saying: " these are caused by sins within the Church." When he wants to say: the Church has no sin. These are the sins of those outside the Church. They do not know my voice and I do not know them.

This is the reason why Pope Benedict is treating those who think they are Catholics but who are not, as Gentiles and unbelievers. Note his address to the Irish Catholics. He was telling them to repent and forgive. This is an exhortation for Gentiles and unbelievers, not for Catholics.
Catholics have repented, have been forgiven and believe. They have regained the state of grace with its accompanying virtue of Faith that makes them Catholics. 'Holy' is the visible sign of the true Church. Not sin.

Since the beginning of Christianity, the Church had been trying to weed out the Tares from the wheat field of the Lord. That time Christ said 'No.' But he said one day, at the end times, He will command the angels to remove the Tares planted by the evil one. Keeping the pure wheat alone within the Church. And this is the third image of the Church as a young adult and portrayed in the last apostolic fishing trip in Lake Tiberias that occurred after the Resurrection.

The 7 apostles fishing caught 153 big and good fishes. The Fathers of the Church, specially St. Augustine, describes the ones running the Church (represented by the 7 apostles) as perfect fishers of men. And the 153 fishes representing the Catholics within the Church as perfect Catholics. What do we mean perfect? Those who have the three theological virtues, Faith, Hope and Charity which means they have repented, their sins had been remitted and now they have the infused theological virtues perfected by the 7 gifts of the Holy Spirit. There is no blemish in them because they are on the way to wed the bridegroom.

In the Year of St. Paul, Pope Benedict is encouraging the lay people to see if they correspond to the description of the 153 fishes caught in the net of the Catholic Church. In the Year of the Priest, the Pope is asking the priests and bishops if they are as perfect as what the 7 apostles represent.

YEAR OF THE PRIEST - Meditation 13 - FAITH

2010-05-08T12:14:00.001+11:00

The Liturgy of the Mass teaches us that there are four steps we must take to go to heaven. We must live a life of Repentance according to the Old Testament (Advent), perfect our life of Repentance according to the New Testament (Lent), make an act of Faith (portrayed in the lives of the Apostles when they left all things and followed Christ), increase our faith (Passion Week), perfect our Faith (Easter) and finally perfect our Charity (Pentecost).

These steps are portrayed in the life of Christ thus: He spent 30 years of hidden life (showing us how to live a life of Repentance according to both the Old and New Testament), He was baptized in the river Jordan ( showing us the need for grace together with its accompanying virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity), He spent forty days of fasting in the desert (showing us how to activated the newly acquired theological virtues by obedience to the so-called commands of Jesus in the N.T.), He had His bout with the devil (showing us that we can be victorious if our Faith, Hope and Charity has matured), then he lived His public life saving souls (showing us that we can be instrumental in saving soul if we have matured theological virtues.) Of course Christ did these for our instruction. He did not have to do these because He was God.

The above two paragraphs describe exactly the same steps towards salvation. The former using the Liturgy of the Church, the latter from the life of Christ as commented by St. Thomas of Aquinas on the Lenten Liturgy.

In Scriptures Christ emphasized only the first two steps: to repent and believe. Because from there God takes over. Pope Benedict had been doing exactly the same thing. Specially this Lenten season he had been stressing the need for conversion (another word for repentance)... AND faith that comes with grace after one's repentance. The more important word is "Faith" which Christ in instructing us received at His baptism and activated in his sojourn in the desert. This is the reason the first Christians were attracted to the desert. The desert or the monastic life was the place to repent and activate the virtues of Faith (Hope and Charity.) After Baptism most Catholics do not know how to activate the virtues they have received, therefore, easily loosing it.

Faith brings us into the Catholic Church but activating it is what makes us grow in maturity uniting us to the created soul of the Church (Jesus Christ) and to the uncreated soul of the Church (the Holy Spirit) that eventually makes us a good Catholic.

Let us see how repentance and faith can be applied to solve the current problem of the Church with her priests. When a priest commits that much publicized sin, he loses the virtue of charity which he received at Baptism ..... and his Faith and Hope becomes dead. He becomes a dead member of the Church. That's like saying he is out of the Church. Repentance washes away his past sins. As a consequence of his repentance he regains the state of grace with its accompanying virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity. These virtues aside from helping remove the last traces of sin will immediately help him by imbuing in him the opposite virtue of chastity to enable him to overcome the vice of unchastity (or bestiality, incest or child abuse.) If the virtue of Penance is attained the past vice is removed and supplanted by its opposite virtue. That is how the virtue of Penance that should accompany the Sacrament of Penance works. So the priest sins only once and never sins again.

If that priest approaches me for confessions all I have to do is teach and guide him to repent and reach Faith. And see to it that he does what he is told. There is nothing else to be done. If the priest repents and reaches Faith, he would be a saint in no time. If he refuses to repent he won't reach Faith and remains outside the Church (or remains a dead member of the Church) to the embarrassment of the Church.

There is no need to report them to the authorities or be judged by their peers or any other futile procedure that goes contrary to the nature of the virtue of Penance and of the seal of confession. The priest should be treated just like any sinner...with justice but with mercy. Everything else is vaudeville which the Pope refuses to dignify. This should bother neither the Pope nor anyone. We all know that all men have sinned. What should shock us is if priest don't sin.

The so-called 'victims' should, on the other hand, be treated in exactly the same way: teach them repentance that leads to Faith. Though victims they also have their own personal sins (for all men have sinned). Their inability to forgive their seducers (thus unable to pray the "Our Father" devoutly) is due to their lack of Faith because they are unable to repent (usually due to ignorance just like the priests.) It is Repentance leading to Faith that enables the victims to forgive those priest. Their inability to do so shows the lack of repentance and the grace with its accompanying virtue of Faith.

We seem to have the victim and the priest in the same boat. But we have the same Catholic solution....repent and believe....taught to us every year in the Liturgy and in the vast treasures of the writings of the Fathers and the saints (like the Shepherd of Hermas, and the writings of St. Ambrose and Augustine on the same topic.) The existing deplorable ignorance is difficult to explain.

Occasionally I would read the right solution in ecclesiastical notices: 'send them to a monastery.' That worked well before. St. Benedict decreed that monastic life is a perpetual Lenten observance of a life of Repentance leading to the theological virtue of Faith. St. Peter Damian, a Benedictine, in cooperation with Pope Gregory VII, also a Benedictine, collaborated in combating this same sin prevalent among the clergy and among the monks in Benedictine monasteries in the 1000 A.D. simply by imposing the monastic life to rehabilitate them. And it worked but only as long as St. Peter Damian was alive. When St. Peter died the problem remained unresolved up to the present and no one seems to know the successful solution used that era.

Today, 'sending them to a monastery' no longer works shown by the prevalence of the same vice among the monks, even among the abbots and recently even among the Abbot Generals (notably one consecrated Bishop in the US). The reason is that they had watered down the repentance element of monastic life. As a pill that should be taken 4 times a day, today's monastic repentance is only a once a day pill. It is under prescribed and it does not work. True Faith as defined in the Compendium of the Catholic Church by Pope Benedict is a rare commodity today.
If Christ came today He would not find Faith here on earth.

YEAR OF THE PRIEST - Meditation 13 - The priest in the Church

2010-05-01T20:27:00.003+11:00

The priest, the Bishop and the Pope must be within the Church; with the Pope as the captain of the boat and the bishops and the priests as his lieutenants.

We all know that there are three stages in the growth of the Church in her history leading to the Second Coming. These three images had been mystically shown in the three boat incidents in the lives of the apostles. The first is during the storm wherein the apostles themselves were still being trained and they have not gone fishing. The second is the Genesareth fishing trip where this time they lowered the net and hauled in all kinds of fishes (both good and bad) and where the net was in danger of breaking and the boat was in danger of sinking. The third is the Tiberias fishing trip where this time they lowered the net specifically on the right side, where they caught 153 fishes and there was no danger of the net breaking nor the boat sinking.

Obviously, the first fishing trip was an image of the Church at her beginnings where the apostles were still being trained. The Genesareth trip was when the apostles had entered the Church through Faith and began to get new members into the Catholic Church, getting all kinds of people and experiencing heresies and schisms as shown by the breaking net and the near-sinking of the boat.

But I would like to focus our attention on the third fishing trip in Lake Tiberias which occurred after the Resurrection of Christ. The scene was a boat with seven apostles who had lowered the net on the right side (where the predestined are) and had caught 153 large fishes (symbol of those who have perfectly learned and obeyed the 10 commandments, have attained the theological virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity and had perfected these virtues with the 7 gifts of the Holy Spirit) and was now approaching the end of the sea, the beach (the end of the world) to deliver all to Christ who was standing on the shore. This is the image of the Catholic Church when approaching the end times, prelude to the Second Coming of Christ. Christ was on the shore (in heaven) waiting to receive the whole Church. There were seven apostles. Not to discredit the absent apostles, the mystical meaning is that the bishops and priests in the Boat were with faith, hope and Charity perfected by the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, i.e. they were all 'perfect as the heavenly Father is perfect' as symbolized by the number seven. They have reached the perfection of Charity and are all contemplatives. Those ruling the Church at this time are leaders who had undergone the 8 stages mentioned by St. Thomas of Aquinas as required before one can preach. They must have contemplated the truths of the Church and, therefore, have the gift of wisdom, an almost perfect knowledge of Christ's teachings possible to man on earth. The Church have to be perfect at this time because there is no purgatory after the second coming.

Fr. Joseph Ratzinger, wrote a thesis on the 'Theology of the History according to St. Bonaventure.' This was a treatise on how the Church looks like from her beginning up to the end of the world corresponding to the 7 days of creation. The Church look different during each day of creation but is essentially the same like a child who grows up is essentially the same child but has some differences. St. Bonaventure thought that the Church was in the 6th day of Creation during his time, that is, just before the 7th day, the day of rest, which is the Second Coming. His description of the Church prior to the end times was perfect. And he thought that his times was the End times, as every good christian should think. But it was not yet.

Pope Benedict had studied this description and feels that the Church today is on the 6th day by analyzing the events of his early priesthood up to the present. He wants to be sure because he is supposed to head and guide this ship. And in announcing the 'Year of the Priest' he is in fact guiding the Church based on this assumption. The words he used in the 'Year of the Priest' is taken almost verbatim from his thesis. His actuation and movements shows him guiding the boat in Lake Tiberias, the Church, towards the shore where Christ is waiting in heaven. And he is clearly pushing the Church to be what the 153 fishes symbolized as clearly shown in his 'Year of St. Paul' but more so in his 'Year of the Priest.' In any classical treatise on Mystical theology, the 153 fishes (the members of the Church) caught by the apostles are clearly those who have reached the perfect life or the perfection of Charity, i.e. contemplation. This is the only boat that will enter heaven.

Like most of St. John's writings his Gospel is difficult to understand, specially chapter 21 where the Tiberias fishing trip was discussed. Here he hinted that he is writing this at the end of his Gospel because after this there is nothing else that follows, sort of saying that after this chapter it is the end of the world. But the same John continues to write the Book of Revelation which describes the details of the end times. And both the book of Revelation and the Gospel of John are the readings in the Masses after Easter up to before Ascension where the Church of the end times is described.

After describing the Church prior to the Second coming as portrayed in the fishing trip in lake Tiberias, John further describes it in the Book of Revelation, which St. Bonaventure picked up having studied St. Augustine's commentary of the Gospel of St. John and enriched by his knowledge of the original spirit of St. Francis. John writes about the image of the Woman of the Apocalypse who went to the desert. Now we have a confusing picture that we have to put together; a boat calmly sailing towards the shore packed with 153 sizable fishes and a Woman with two giant wings being flown to the desert to a place specially prepared by God. Bonaventure was able to integrate these two biblical figures and described how the Church and her members would look like. Fr. Ratzinger saw this, too, and noted it in his thesis. Now he wants to study further his thesis and actually put his finger on this Church where the members will have the theological virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity perfected by the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit and, therefore, would all be contemplatives in their knowledge of the Catholic religion. It is a picture of a boat of 7 sailors hauling 153 fishes being perfected in the desert (a little similar to the picture above.) In the Holy Father's search I am afraid he might by-pass many Dioceses, parishes, religious congregations, seminaries and many so-called catholic organizations.

YEAR OF THE PRIEST - Meditation 12 - Be Perfect.

2010-04-28T16:59:00.003+11:00

The Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, encouraged the priests in this 'Year of the Priest' to contemplate the truths of the Catholic Church. The first time I heard those words were during my seminary days while taking up 'Asceticism, Contemplation and Christian Perfection.' It is the normal way to salvation for all souls. This is to go through the life of Repentance, Faith, Hope and Charity. And perfecting the theological virtues with the help of the Gifts of the Holy Spirit. This means 'being perfect as the Heavenly Father is perfect.'

St. Thomas of Aquinas noted that before the apostles could go out and preach they had to undergo the following steps. First, they had to live a life of repentance as preached by the Old Testament (and specifically by St. John the Baptist.) Added to this they had to perfect their life of repentance as taught by Christ (during His 30 years of hidden life) in the New Testament. Secondly, they attained faith when they left all things (when Christ called them to follow Him.) Thirdly, their imperfect faith had to be tested during Christ's passion when they doubted. Fourthly, their faith was strengthened after the Resurrection. Fifthly, they had to undergo the final instructions of Christ on how the perfect faith of the Church should look like at the Second Coming. Sixthly, they had to undergo the dark night of the senses when their senses would no longer sense Christ with His Ascension into heaven. Seventhly, they had to be united with one mind and heart in Bethany by a life showing the obedience of the Church (Bethany means 'obedience'). And eightly, they had to be fortified by the presence of the Holy Spirit for their incoming work. This Catholic Doctrine is very much different from the many Charismatic movements that believe they can reach the 8th state without passing the seven previous stages.

To contemplate the truths of the Catholic Church one has to reach the perfection of Faith, Hope and Charity with the help of the gift of wisdom and while experiencing the peace of Christ. This is what ascetical and mystical theology taught us. And we were taught that this is the normal way of going to heaven. If our priests have not contemplated on the truths of the Church it means they do not know those truths. If they do not know the truths they cannot teach it to their parishioners. If both the parishioners and priests do not know the truths then .........who is Catholic? St. Thomas was clear in saying that no one should go out preaching and being instruments of salvation unless they had reached the eighth step, i.e. fortified by the abiding of the Holy Spirit.

The reason the Pope called the ' Year of the Priest ' is to remind all to contemplate the truths of the Church. But considering the steps one must take to reach that contemplative state, and considering that most priests have to start from step one, how promising is the possibility of accomplishing this goal during Pope Benedict's reign.

Taking the cue from the words of Pope Benedict when he observed that the cause of the problems in the priesthood today is the 'lack of conversion' or as he said more exactly during his Lenten talks, 'the inability to repent' we are now talking of a more serious problem. St. Augustine described contemplation as the highest Beatitude with fear of the Lord as the first step towards it. Pope Benedict is hinting on the fact that many have not yet reached the first Beatitude due to inability to repent or undergo the so-called first conversion.

Why are souls unable to repent or have their first conversion? Because they do not know what it is and how to go about it. This is sad because these are taught in the Liturgy of the Mass during the whole year. This is briefly summarized during the Lenten Season, our knowledge of it is perfected up to the Ascension. And the 34 Sundays between Pentecost and Christ the King tells the steps on how to perfect our Faith, Hope and Charity that makes us able to contemplate the truths of the Catholic Church.

YEAR OF THE PRIEST - Meditation 11 - Meditation vs Contemplation

2010-02-02T16:55:00.005+10:00

Meditation is an act of the intellect wherewith in a natural way the mind tosses a religious thought around, looking at it from all angles and getting the most out of it. Contemplation is an act of the free will by which it relishes the natural truth the mind had played around with. The free will is what moves the intellect to continue to seek the truth after the intellect had first perceived the truth. When the free will loves the truth which the intellect had previously perceived, the free will command the intellect to further investigate or pursue the truth which the free will had learned to begin to love. This way the intellect increases in the knowledge of the truth and the free will in loving the same truth. It is not the knowledge of truth that gives joy but the contemplation of truth. So even if there is much suffering a soul that contemplates the truth remains happy.

Since in the active life or the life of repentance a soul must give up many physical and worldly things unnecessary for salvation, he must be able to contemplate the truth to experience joy in denying himself. Without this contemplation of truth no amount of knowledge in the intellect can give joy to the soul. The giving up of many worldly things unnecessary for salvation becomes unbearable if the soul does not at the same time contemplate the truth. It is the contemplation of truth that enables the soul to possess the truth that results in joy or happiness.

Meditation and contemplation influence and interact with each other one causing the other continuously to rise up to the heights of the Beatitude.

The purpose of meditation is to discover the good. The object of the contemplation is to love and possess the good. The two together produces 'devotion' which is an act of the will by which a soul promptly gives himself to the service of God. Pope Benedict reminds us in the Year of the Priest that we priests must contemplate, not merely meditate, on the teachings of the Church. This is the only way we could be of service to the Church.

We see the insurmountable situation that impedes the diocesan priest from meditating and contemplating. The religious have less reasons for not being able to do so. But when their ignorance is the 'hypocritical' kind wherein they chose to remain ignorant so they do not have to be engaged in such seemingly useless activity that will lessen their life of indulgence, then we have a great crisis even a 'Year of the Priest' will not solve.

YEAR OF THE PRIEST - Meditation 10 - The Role of Asceticism

2010-01-29T10:06:00.019+10:00

The word 'asceticism' conjures ugly images of skinny hermits, starving monks, bald nuns and dirty saints. Asceticism is none of the just mentioned. It is an activity of the soul and, therefore, invisible to the senses. It is an invisible spiritual activity of the soul. Only the ascetic and God can know anything about its on goings.

Most, if not all, seminarians were baptized, most come from Catholic families and some had studied in prestigious Catholic schools. Why would the Holy Father as Cardinal spoke about a crisis of Faith in the Church?

It is like this. Most Catholics were baptized as babies. With baptism they received sanctifying grace that made them children of God. And Catholic education is supposed to help them maintain and develop into maturity that state of grace. That is the life of Faith, Hope and Charity that merits for us eternal life.

The reason for baptism is to give the baby (still without actual sin) who naturally knows and loves God the grace necessary to maintain and rise up to a supernatural knowledge and love of God. The sacrament with its sacramental grace helps the child to grow into the maturity of Faith, Hope and Charity. With the baby in this innocent state and filled with the grace of baptism, we have a creature that is geared for great holiness.

But sadly, almost immediately after baptism, the baby learns evil, commits sin and losses his sanctifying grace. Unless he recovers he is in danger of going to hell.

Imagine this child struggling to recover the grace and innocence or in short 'trying to be a child again' or trying to be born again. Imagine his goal of reaching Faith and becoming a child of God again ....and the thousand other hurdles blocking his road to faith. How can you expect him to pass through that narrow road that is like going through the eye of a needle that leads to salvation?

The seminarian has to remove those obstacles and hurdles. Everybody has to do this. These obstacles are vices that prevent us from obtaining Faith, Hope and Charity. These are removed by means of asceticism or acts of repentance. Asceticism are acts by which we receive the moral virtues that will facilitate the reception of the theological virtue of Faith, the beginning of the contemplative life.

Essentially, asceticism is what Christ did while He was subject to Joseph and Mary. He did that to instruct us. His being subject were physical acts mainly consisting in acts of physical obedience. While contemplation is when Christ was spiritually subject to His Father in heaven, the message He gave us when He was lost in the temple at 12. The former subjection is called Asceticism. The latter subjection is called Faith or contemplation. When we first enter a monastery or religious house it is to live a life of physical obedience or an ascetic life.

Obedience is both physical and spiritual. The physical aspect is asceticism. The spiritual aspect makes up the virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity....or contemplation.

As Pope Benedict exhorts priest to be contemplatives he is in fact telling them to finish their life of repentance before doing anything else. Pope Benedict is well acquainted with repentance because of his exposure to the Benedictines in Bavaria. The Benedictine monastic spirituality is a life of repentance like all religious life. It is a life of asceticism where obedience to the superiors is similar to the life of Christ when He was obedient to Joseph and Mary. These way of life is a preparation for the life of Faith. People enter monasteries and convents to repent and then enter the Church through the door of Faith. And this is commonly referred to as the ascetic life which is necessary for the forgiveness of sins. It is sometimes referred to as the virtue of penance (different from the Sacrament of Penance) and is a preparation to receive the virtue of Faith (Hope and Charity).

A very common defect is to jump into Charity without passing through Faith; or jumping into Faith without passing the ascetic life or repentance. Note how common this mistake is in most lectures, retreats, spiritual talks and writings causing much frustration when a soul finds out he cannot reach Charity because he neglected the life of repentance, Faith and Hope.

YEAR OF THE PRIEST - Meditation 9 - "Curiositas" vs "Studiositas"

2010-01-25T09:36:00.013+10:00

Holy Mother the Church teaches her children the way of salvation through the Liturgy. The Liturgical calendar is the vehicle wherein the Catholic truths are spread out in the right order and in its completeness during the Sunday Masses. It is amazing to see the beauty of the arrangement of the truths and how the truths gradually developed from the first Sunday of Advent up to the feast of Christ the King. It is enough to study one cycle 'to believe.'

On the third and fourth Sundays in ordinary time (cycle C) we begun the Gospel of St. Luke. Prior to these Sundays was Advent and Christmas season where we were taught how to live the life of Repentance according to the Old Testament. On the third and fourth Sundays in ordinary time we are given a preview on how to live the life of Repentance according to the New Testament. This is in preparation for the season of Lent where the Liturgy completes the teaching on Repentance (which Our Lady complained in Fatima that the world was no doing.) From Holy Week to Easter Holy Mother the Church begins teaching us how to live the life of Faith and Hope. And on Pentecost she describes to us the virtue of Charity. Faith, Hope and Charity make up the spirituality of the New Testament

I just mentioned the third Sunday in ordinary time because it is on this Sunday that before we seriously study Repentance in the New Testament we are taught how to study the Gospel messages of the next following Sundays leading to Lent. Studying how to live a life of Faith, Hope and Charity is no easy task and is very much different from studying nuclear physics. The Gospel is on how to study.

St. Luke, in fact, begins his Gospel by teaching us how to study, showing us how the Israelites in the synagogue had wrongly studied Scriptures and so ended up rejecting Christ. While Scriptures narrate several incidences wherein after an encounter with Christ they followed Him.

There are two ways of acquiring knowledge. One is when we study with the end of merely acquiring that knowledge, like studying astronomy. We just want to know what is going up there. The other kind of knowledge is when we learn something in order to be able to do a good work like when we study medicine. We study not just to know about medicine but to be able to do good by curing others. The latter is the way we study Scriptures.

In studying Theology, going on a retreat, listening to a Homily, reading a book or attending Congresses on the Year of the Priest - we don't just want to get information but to be able to do some good like the salvation of our soul or the souls of other people which we often times think we are doing but closer examination shows we are not.

The first kind of knowledge is commonly referred to as "curiositas" and the second is called "studiositas."

"Curiositas" is listed by Tomas a Kempis as the 'forbidden knowledge' that is an obstacle to the attainment of Faith and holiness. And it falls under the category of 'vices.' And vices are such that the longer you stay with it the faster you deteriorate in the spiritual life. If the seminarian studies his theology with 'curiositas' he deteriorates spiritually everyday. How bad can he deteriorate in a six year course staggers the mind.

On the other hand "studiositas" is a virtue and the longer you resort to it, not only do you develop knowledge, understanding and wisdom of Catholic truths, but you develop great self-control over the passions, emotions and concupiscence.

In "curiositas" the seminarian studies things unnecessary for salvation; like studying how to socialize or improve the economic condition of people, how to start a new business, holding retreats in beaches, psychological techniques, learning things from television, surfing the internet, wanting to pass the final exam, to learn the arts and to become a bishop or cardinal. To make these the end of one's study is "curiositas."

"Studiositas" is everything of the above plus a great emphasis on nature and how to find the God of nature (the way Bl. Louis Martin taught St. Therese to find God in a beach or sunset) and with greater emphasis on God and the things of God. The seminarian must ponder intellectually over all earthly things with the goal of knowing God whose image is reflected in all these things. This exercise will aid him in contemplating God and the things of God thus increasing his knowledge of Divine Love and increasing his ability to Love God. And this love for God will, in turn, increase his desire to know more about God, the inexhaustible source of knowledge.

This contemplation of divine truths helps develop the moral virtues leading to the possession of the Theological virtues. Life in the seminary becomes an active life wherein the seminarian becomes active in developing the moral virtues. This way of life helps him quell his passions making it conducive for him to live a contemplative life. Only in this way can we put into practice what Pope Benedict XVI said in his document on the Year of the Priest " to contemplate the Heart of Jesus" when he declared the Year of the Priest on the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

YEAR OF THE PRIEST - Meditation 8 - The Theology of Grace

2010-01-22T14:05:00.022+10:00

In inspiring priests to be faithful to their mission the Holy Father mentions the basis for this quest: all is grace. And he mentions St. Paul, St. Augustine a saint close to his heart and he mentions St.Thomas of Aquinas a saint he was a little aloft before.

For the candidate to the priesthood to love God and neighbor, which is "Caritas" he needs grace. For him to have the virtue of Hope as explained in "Spes Salvi," he needs grace. And for the seminarian to have Faith, the virtue that brings him inside the Catholic Church he needs grace with the accompanying "Veritate" enlightened by "Caritas."

For the future candidate to the priesthood to have the Theological Virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity he must have the proper disposition in mind and free will to receive these Virtues from God. This proper disposition is also a work of grace from God. Yes, all is grace.

We live in a world that is ignorant of the theology of grace. First: our whole environment, a product of the blossoming of the philosophy of the French Revolution that is entirely Pelagian and Semi-pelagian has indoctrinated the minds of men to reject the concept of grace as unscientific and an obstacle to the progress of men. The candidates for the priesthood are children of three generations of parents who were bombarded with this spirit of secularism and materialism. We have candidates to the seminaries who have no concept whatsoever of what is Catholic Doctrine, Cardinal Baum once mentioned in a Vocation address. And this ignorance is on the theology of grace. This makes the seminarians ignorant of the role grace plays in the studying of Catholic truths. And as Cardinal Ratzinger mentioned in his "New Evengelization" this defect is found both in the content and method in teaching and studying theology.

Since the correct way of studying Theology leads the student towards happiness and the development of virtue, ignorance of the correct way of studying leads to unhappiness and vices. It is this unhappiness in the service of God (which is unthinkable) and the plunging into a life of vices, that had haunted the priesthood, is the natural consequence of this grave error.

This situation had been described by Cardinal Ratzinger in his "Ratzinger Report." He said that the problem of the priesthood is 'restlessness.' Let us sit down and analyze that statement. Ascetical Theology enumerates 7 vices. Vices prevent us from reaching Faith, Hope and Charity. In short, vices prevent us from being Catholics.

The vices are the sources of sins. From one vice can come numerous sins. When a soul has the first vice, namely gluttony, it becomes easy for him to slide down to the second vice..... lust, etc. etc...If a soul has the fifth vice it means that he has all the other four previous vices. With 5 vices we cannot imagine how many sins can come from these sources. Let's say 50 different sins could come out of those five vices.

'Restlessness' is enumerated among the last vice; 6th or 7th. That means some priest have all the vices and it is difficult to imagine how many sins he is exposed to or is committing already. This easily explains the problem of the priesthood that is even more recently exposed in Ireland. And sadly, the solution is easy. It is difficult to understand why the Church could not easily solve it. It seems the men of the Church are ignorant both of the reason for the crisis and the solution.

But when we say ignorance we simply mean that the mind or intellect does not know what it could easily learn. Everything could be learned from the Theology of Grace, the very foundation of Catholic Theology.

Ignorance of the Theology of grace and therefore the lack of these necessary graces placed the seminarian in the absurd situation where he finds himself in a graceless natural state and trying to learn divine supernatural truths which were too much over and above the capabilities of his natural mind.

But these seminarians frequent the Sacraments! Ignorance of the theology of grace would make them receive the sacraments sacrilegiously. How many times have Pope Benedict reminded us on how to receive Holy Communion worthily. That word "worthily" demands a knowledge of the workings of grace. How many times have the Holy Father mentioned the strange phenomenon of many receiving Holy Communion and few going to confession. This shows ignorance of the importance of grace.

Indeed, if we can restore the way seminarians are trained as they used to train them during the times of the Fathers of the Church we would not need a Year of the Priest.

YEAR OF THE PRIEST - Meditation 7 - The Modern Seminary

2010-01-19T01:33:00.006+10:00

The modern seminary is an awesome sight.....compared to my monastic seminary 60 years ago. One would get the impression that these seminaries are producing top of the line priests. The buildings are beautiful, surrounded by well-trimmed gardens of varied flowering plants. The refectories are veritable banquet halls. The libraries would put the library of Alexandria to shame. The classrooms are air-conditioned. The private rooms are spacious and equipped with radios and the line-up of their professors are impressive. What else can we ask? Well, we can ask where are the good priests?

Some seminaries seem to have everything except.....signs of the presence of Grace, the Theological virtues, the Gifts of the Holy Spirit and lots of humility... where every human act is motivated by the glory of God? That is if we based our musings on the chapters on Vices and Virtues according to the Summa of St. Thomas.

The Holy Father, Pope John Paul II once came to a bishop's conference in Asia and exhorted them to improve the formation program in their seminaries. (This was after the post Vatican Bishop's Synod held in Rome that framed a general outline of formation for all sectors.) The Bishop in-charge of the Commission on Seminaries (made up of three bishops) organized 'practicums' made up of seminary heads to make a program of formation for seminaries. They gave themselves 10 years to make one. A week before the dead line, there was still no proposal. So inquiries were made from other seminaries around the world and from the Congregation for Catholic Education and for the clergy. And the surprising response from a Cardinal was: 'We are still making one."

So what program was the Catholic Church using all these 2000 years? We certainly had a good program seeing the countless holy priests the Church had. St. Philip Neri, St. Vincent the Paul and the seminary of St. Sulpice (that has influenced St. John Vianney) had very good programs. What happened? We cannot blame Vatican II because this malaise had happened much earlier. Maybe around the beginnings of the 14th century and more noticeably in the 18oo. Heresy!!! Heresy entered into the curriculum of the seminaries.

Heresies are errors that has entered the mind. Since it is only an act of the mind it is easy to erase errors. So why isn't it easily removed? What else is lacking? As St. Paul would answer: 'a preacher sent by God' who will teach the truth and expose the error. But the Pope is always such a preacher. So what else could be wrong? We can pin point what is wrong with the seminarians........they do not listen to all the teachings of the Popes. And if they do, some do not obey. Orthodoxy means our beliefs must conform not only to the writings of the Old and New Testaments and the writings of the Fathers of the Church. It must conform to the Magisterium of which the Holy Father is the spokesman. In the definition of Faith in the Catholic Church the element of Papal authority is essential. Since the Apostles and Fathers of the Church are gone God will only explain the truths to those living today, year 2010, through the Pope. That is why each Pope have to explain the entire teaching of the Church during their reign for the people that exist during their reign. Pope Benedict has already explained the entire teaching of Christ for us today through his three encyclicals. He just have to go into details.

In the Year of the Priest, the Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI is hinting that we undergo our seminary training again. Maybe in a more humble manner, like studying in the secrecy of a quiet room or better still kneeling down in front of the Blessed Sacrament where we can 'contemplate' the truths rather than just study them in the classroom. He said: 'more prayer'......he did not say 'less lecture' but if you pray more shouldn't there be less lectures? I remember St. Francis of Assisi saying something like : sanctify souls and once in a while give lectures ...or something to that effect.

YEAR OF THE PRIEST - Meditation 6 - Manner of studying theology

2010-01-14T10:44:00.004+10:00

The teachings of the Catholic Church are said to be truths in the supernatural level. It cannot be studied the way Zoology or Physics are studied. Natural things can be studied by man's natural abilities. It is impossible for man's natural ability to study supernatural truths.

The way to study supernatural truths is for the natural man to rise up from the natural sphere to the supernatural sphere. And there the soul will effortless receive the truths of the Catholic Faith. These Catholic truths are given to the soul together with the graces and accompanying theological virtues.

In the seminary we must not teach the truths of the Catholic Faith. We teach seminarians how to rise up from the natural level to the supernatural level where graces with its accompanying theological virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity are received from God. These supernatural truths are taught by God by infusion and not learned from teachers in the seminary.......though God could use a holy professor as an instrument to infuse these truths. But it will be evident that it was God, and not the professor, who had given the knowledge.

The seminarians had been studying their theology in the wrong way. While remaining in the natural level they try to study a subject that is over and above their heads in the supernatural level. So they learn nothing, understand nothing and end up without wisdom which is needed to fully imbibe the truths.

Ignorance of the theology of grace is the root of this problem. To know the truths of Christ they must first live fully the life of repentance (which unfortunately many do not know how) after which they would receive graces with its accompanying theological virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity. It is in receiving Faith that they receive the infused knowledge of the teachings of Christ as proposed by the Church.

Many seminarians enter the seminary without knowing that they have lost the grace they have received at Baptism and do not have the capability to know any Catholic Truth. This is the reason Pope Benedict declared the Year of the Priest whose theme is Faithfulness of Christ. He was encouraging Priest to reach at least Faith and not even Hope and Charity. And reminded all that 'the gift of divine grace precedes every possible human response and pastoral accomplishment..' He was saying that you cannot become a priest or even begin your seminary training without knowing and putting into practice the theology of grace. And the problem is that most seminarians do not even know if they are in the state of grace or not when they begin their seminary training.

The Holy Father repeats: You must have "a clear and unmistaken judgment about the absolute primacy of divine grace, recalling what St.Thomas Aquinas wrote..." In short, we cannot learn the simplest Catholic truth without grace. And yet we have no idea if we have grace or not.
Then the Pope reminds us of his "Deus Caritas Est" actually saying if you cannot reach the theological virtue of Charity at least reach Faith. Then he encourages all to help the poor priest 'to reach spiritual perfection'.....that is Charity, i.e. being perfect as the heavenly Father is perfect.

The state of the seminaries is this: we have seminarians who were baptized when they were babies and who during their lives in the world have lost that sacramental grace, probably without realizing it. Then they enter the seminary not knowing they do not have the grace to learn the supernatural truths. Presuming they are in the state of grace they study theology without knowing and understanding anything. The result priestly souls who are total slaves of their fallen nature.

Let us see how they did it in the early times when we could find holy priest in every corner. The seminarians should be taught to use their natural abilities to learn how to rise from the natural to the supernatural level. They must, then, know that entering the supernatural level is a work of grace a completely free act of God. When God raises them up to the supernatural level, God will give them the theological virtue of Faith with a little dosage of Hope and Charity that will enable them to effortless know the teachings of the Catholic Church. They will not need the entire seminary in the process. They only need, as Christ said, to enter their room and lock the door.

YEAR OF THE PRIEST - IMMACULATE CONCEPTION

2009-12-20T00:00:00.004+10:00

The Bishop, the Priest, and the Laymen in the Church TODAY.

1. The Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, would want to know how a Pope, a bishop, a priest and a layman should function within the Church TODAY. So his former thesis, the 'Theology of History according to St. Bonaventure" is suddenly of great interest to him. There he described how the Church would look like now, that he is Head of the Church. All priests, too, must know how they must function within the Church today and not the Church 100 years ago.

2. The Church is a living being. She grows everyday. Though she looks essentially the same (one, holy, Catholic and apostolic) , there is a slight difference in her spiritual image as she grows into maturity. And depending on whether she is an adolescence or a young adult, the function of the Pope and priest would slightly differ within her. There is a slight difference in piloting a teenage from a young adult church to her eternal goal.

3. This difference in the image of the Church is clearly portrayed in the two fishing incidents in the lives of the apostles. The first fishing trip was during the public life of Christ before Easter where they caught both good and bad fishes. This image of the Church is repeated in the parable of the wheat and the cockle where both good and bad were together in the Church. Then there is the fishing trip after the resurrection of Christ where they caught only good fishes.

4. The two images of the Church are: when she was a teenager, with bad blood, therefore, filled with pimples. And when she is a lovely young adult ready to be wedded to the bridegroom Jesus Christ.

5. These two images of the Church were further described in the Apocalypse; where we see the woman clothed with the sun "in the world." Then, after a while she was given two wings by which she flew to the desert to a place specially prepared by God for her protection. And the devil who is in the world vomits water to drown her in the desert. There is a church in the world and a church that has flown to the desert. There is a difference in which the Pope and the priests minister to the Church in the world and how they would minister to the Church in the desert.

6. The implication here is that when the Church, personified by the Woman clothed with the Sun, flies to the desert the world will not find the Church in the world. They have to go to the desert to find and be able to enter the Church. Of course, this is an allegorical description and its meaning must be figured out from the writings of the Fathers specially St. John Chrysostom.

7. The season of Advent is no longer a preparation for the first coming of Christ, Christmas, because that is over. Instead it is a preparation for the second coming of Christ, at the end times. The preparation is a life of repentance, which is Old Testament spirituality. But note that the 4 Sunday Gospels of Advent, the Mass for Vigil of Christmas and Christmas Mass do not deal with Christmas but with the parousia, the end of the world. And from the feast of Mary and the Holy Family preparation for the second coming continues ending with Christ the King and resuming with Advent.

8. It is for this reason that the Immaculate Conception is within Advent and only approved as a dogma recently. Because it will only make sense today. Mary, the Immaculate Conception is the symbol of the Church that contains only good fishes, all wheat without the cockle, the Woman in the desert - Immaculate, without sin. Didn't Christ say that during these days, the angels will remove all the cockles thus leaving only the sinless within the Church? That was the Church St. Grignion de Montfort was trying to work on... a Church that was Immaculate like Mary, and which St. Bonaventure foresaw at the end times...and which Joseph Ratzinger took as topic for his thesis as a young priest.

9. Where is the Church now? How does she look like now? Is the Church today pre-Easter or post- Easter? In his thesis, Pope Benedict is hinting that we are in the post -Easter era. If so, are we inside the fish net that is made up of only good fishes....the symbol of the Immaculate Conception?

YEAR OF THE PRIEST - Meditation -5

2009-12-19T23:19:00.003+10:00

THE ACT OF FAITH
1. The act of faith is an act of the natural intellect set free by grace to roam the realm of the supernatural. Pope Benedict describes faith as a working reason elevated by grace to be free from its imprisonment by creatures.

2. Man has a body and a soul each one in constant attempt to control the mind and the free will. The body wants the mind to set itself on its desire (its concupiscence) while the soul wants the mind to focus itself on its natural desires (spiritual things). This is an interminable contest. Man, by nature, ought to have his superior nature, his soul, controlling his lower nature, the body. This is possible without grace but often very difficult without grace.

3. The intellect must be focused on its goal...that is the reason why God created us... to be united to Him by subjecting our spiritual faculties, the intellect and free will, to God.

4. The intellect must also be focused on the means to that end. The means had been laid down by God. And the means are laid down in the so-called commandments of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. The problem is that the free will is constantly confronted with choices of means that do not lead to the goal. These are the whole created universe.

5. The act of the intellect focused on its final end as commanded by God and focusing itself on the means proper to that end as commanded by God is called the act of Faith.

6. This can easily be done by two people. A child who has not lost his initial innocence and an adult who has lost his innocence but have repented. Innocence in a child and repentance in an adult dispose them to receive the grace that will enable them to focus their intellects both to the God- given final goal and to the God- dictated commands that are the means to that final goal.

7. With this act of faith a soul is now in the first Beatitude and can already experience some degree of true happiness. Now it is a matter of going up to the higher Beatitudes to attain greater virtues and greater happiness.

8. The sign that one has reached Faith is Knowledge of all the teachings of the Catholic Church. And added to this is the first fruit of the Holy Spirit, the fear of God, consisting in great fear to do, say and think of things contrary to the will of God.

9. The goal of the Year of St. Paul is to show lay people the direction that leads to Faith. The goal of the Year of the Priest is to direct the priest towards the goal of Faith.

YEAR OF THE PRIEST - Meditation 4

2009-11-23T08:00:00.002+10:00

THE LOST OF FAITH.
1. Faith is enlivened by the virtue of Charity. When one has Faith, he also has Charity. When Charity disappears due to a personal actual sin, faith is retained but it is a dead faith. This is what happened to most baptized person. During Baptism they received Sacramental grace and with it the virtue of Faith enlivened by Charity. But failure to develop this faith caused the lost of Charity with dead faith remaining. But it often happens that they also sin against Faith and loses the virtue of Faith which is the more common occurence. With dead Faith, the soul still has the hope of regaining the Charity that enlivens faith through repentance.

2. The Holy Father is worried that this is what is happening among the Catholics. Without realizing it they are living the church by losing their charity and even their dead faith. He described the situation in this way: that the Faith of the Church is like a dying flame running out of fuel. This prompted him to issue "Dominus Jesus" during the Pontificate of Pope John Paul II. Here he re-emphasized the importance in believing that Christ is God a fundamental truth of faith that was not even questioned in the recent past. If Catholics are not clear as to who Jesus is the Church is in real trouble.

3. The Holy Father must have gotten this notion from the strikes he experienced in the seminary where he saw that many of the seminarians had communist leanings. Since communist philosophy does not believe in God, then it is easy to conclude that these seminarians have lost their faith.

4. Add to this when he read the 3rd secret of Fatima where it is written that the world will lose its faith except in Portugal. Confirming the message of Our Lady of Good Success in Quito, Equador that in the 20th century the Church will experience total black out in matters of faith.
This is confirmed by Christ when describing the end times, He said "when I come shall I find faith upon the earth?"

5. This prompted the then Cardinal Ratzinger to write the Ratzinger Report around 1985 about the state of the Church. In short saying that the Church has a crisis of Faith which means in simple words, people are not reaching faith or people are unable to enter the Catholic Church or ......few are entering heaven.

6. How did this deplorable condition happened? Considering the fact that we have at present the best translation of Scriptures, we have the writings of the Fathers of the Church and numerous writings of the doctors of the Church. We have the countless encyclicals and other documents of the Popes and a vast network to learn what we need to have faith. How come there are few who have faith? St. Benedict of Nurcia, St. Pope Gregory the Great and quoting St. Ambrose of Aulpert, Pope Benedict pinpointed the culprit......greed!

7. Greed is a vice and like any vice prevents a soul from having Faith. Greed comes from Pride, the mother of vices. And pride was introduce by Lucifer himself. The pride of life is the most potent weapon of the devil in preventing souls from receiving the virtue of Faith. The desire to be like God is pride. The desire to run things the way they want; in contradiction to the teaching on Divine Providence that God is running all things. "They have become like us!" Looking around us, it is not difficult to see it. From governments to parents to the smallest child.... everyone is running their lives the way they want. It was the vice that caused the angels to fall. It was a vice that caused our first parents to fall.

8. Faith is possible. But Greed and its source, pride, is preventing intellects from knowing our final goal, which is God, and the means to that goal, both of which make up the act of faith.

YEAR OF THE PRIEST - Meditation 3

2009-09-02T13:00:00.013+11:00

The Holy Father is hinting that the problem is that many of the Faithful and the Priests are without Faith. In the same way that St. Paul was hinting to the Corinthians that they did not have the Holy Spirit. The goal of both the Year of St. Paul and the Year of the Priests is for all to attain Faith or at least recover lost Faith.

Vices are the obstacles to faith or what causes the loss of Faith. Virtues and vices cannot co-exist. Virtues presumes the presence of grace, while vices presumes a state of sin. Any vice can prevent a soul from having the virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity.

Virtues and vices are habits. Virtue is the habit of doing good while vice is the habit of doing evil. When there are vices the entrance of virtue becomes impossible. Today vices are rampant. They are the most saleable commodity and the greatest source of wealth. The biggest bulk of advertisements is about vice. Economies are based on greed, business on tourism and luxury items are for vanities, even food excites gluttons. Comforts and conveniences tempt the slothful, education fosters greed. Vice is the air that people breath today. The program for national 'recovery' consist in recovering the momentum of sliding down to the pit of vices that was temporarily slowed down by the recession. And there is sex education for all levels awaiting our children to further speed up the plunge into the depths of vices.

A mastery of the topic on virtues and vices from St. Gregory the Great and St. Thomas of Aquinas will show that practically everything man is doing today is a vice while virtues are practically non-existent. And as long as vice is present, Faith is unattainable.

Vices has also invaded the priesthood.
When the Pope as Cardinal wrote the "Ratzinger Report" whose sub-title is "Crisis in the Catholic Church" he put the blame for the crisis in the Church on the 'restlessness of the priests.' Now if we look for the place of 'restlessness' in the list of vices it is the last of the Capital sins. St. John Cassian in his "Institutes" states that if one is restless that means he has all the capital sins (i.e. all the vices). Now that is not a flattering description of our priesthood. Of course the Cardinal did not mean all priests. He said "the common problem" with our priests. A priest with seven vices cannot reach Faith in any near future. He is in fact plunging into hell, the final destination of vices. With "restlessness" that priest would have the pride of Satan.

A book became popular among young seminarians some time ago, especially at Regensburg. The title of the book was the "Secret Enemy of the Priesthood." It contains the summary of the treatise of St. Thomas of Aquinas "On Virtues and Vices."

Vices must be removed before virtues can exist. St. Gregory states in his "Moralia" that Pride is the mother of vices, the chieftain, the general. Under pride is a host of offspring or lower officers commonly called the Capital sins. And under each capital sins are a host of other vices. These are three categories of vices. Let's take an example. Under pride would be the capital sins gluttony and lust. And under gluttony and lust would be talkativeness. A talkative person is a glutton, lustful and, therefore, proud. The proud talks much about food and sex. Any vice shows the presence of pride.

At the beginning of the year of the priest the Holy Father mentioned 'vices' again as the obstacle to reaching Faith.He mentioned some vices that were known to be in those "outside the Church.' Because the early Christians who entered the Church were purified of their vices by the spirit of poverty while priests and religious were purified by their observance of the vow of poverty. Poverty prevented the entrance of certain vices, particularly Greed, into the Church. But now it has entered the Church due to lack of the spirit of poverty.

Quoting St. Ambrose of Aulpert, the Holy Father mentions the entry of "Greed" into the Church. The vice of "Greed" is the root of all evil. Before the 7th century Greed was mostly among those outside the Church. But in the 7th century St. Ambrose noticed that Greed had entered the Church. The root of all evil had entered the Church. He noticed this when greed had entered monasteries (he was a Benedictine Abbot.) Since what happens inside monasteries is reflective of what is happening inside the Church and vice versa, that is what made Ambrose think that it, too, had entered the Church.

If so greed would gradually erode the weak Faith of most Catholics. Quoting Ambrose, Pope Benedict believes the same thing is happening today, confirming what Pope Paul VI said that "Satan had entered the Church"....through greed and its mother, Pride.

With the faithful and priests infected with vices whose mother is pride, which is the very sin of Lucifer, the Pope fears that the institutional Church would look more like Satan than its founder Jesus Christ.

And so the Holy Father's call for the Year of St. Paul (or year of Faith) and the Year of the Priests. The first step is to know what are vices and remove them. This effort will be rewarded by God with the gift of the first basic elemental virtue of Humility. This is the beginning of the Life of Repentance that leads to Faith. This was Pope Benedict's message at Monte Cassino as he encouraged the priests after declaring the Year of the Priest. First, "Ora"- to pray for the grace for what you are about to do. Next "Labora"-to work for the salvation of your soul. "Lege"-to read or study the commands of Christ from the New Testament that you may know your vices. Having known your vices now you can repent; then grace will fill your soul. And with this grace are the virtues, especially of Faith.

YEAR OF THE PRIEST - Meditation 2

2009-07-22T00:22:00.009+11:00

Pope Benedict XVI knows that his main job is to confirm 'the brothers in their faith.' Faith is needed to enter the Church. And the Pope must help the Church maintain that Faith which in its initial stages can be lost (as had often happened to the Apostles.) As early as Pope Benedict's pontificate, he had expressed his general plan to re-evangelize Europe in exactly the same way that it was first evangelized by Peter and Paul and later on in the 5th century by St. Benedict of Nurcia.

Last year during the Year of St. Paul (otherwise known as the year of Faith) Pope Benedict encouraged the laymen to repent and believe. Now, the Year of the Priests, he is encouraging the Priests to go all the way, i.e. to repent, to believe, to hope and to love. He made this call during Vespers saying that the priest must tend constantly towards sanctity. Keeping in mind that the contemplative and mystical lives are within the ordinary way towards sanctity, that is a tall order. It means re-learning a whole theological course akin to the "Three stages of the interior life" by Garrigou Lagrange.

Let us look at the game plan of the Holy Father. He first gave us the encyclicals"Deus Caritas est" and now "Caritas in veritate." Then, in between, he declared the "Year of St. Paul" (which was a call to Faith) and the "Year of the Priests" (which is a call to Charity.) And he hinted clearly that both the laity and the priest should first check if they have Faith (or if they have entered the Catholic Church.) How do we find that out? If we put together the two above encyclicals and the two years he declared (the Years of St. Paul and of the Priests) we would see what an act of Faith is.

Faith is primarily an act of the intellect prompted by the will under the influence of grace. Let us first look at faith as an act of the intellect. Then we shall see how the free will prompts the intellect. To make an act of faith the intellect must be focused on two things: first, on its final goal Charity (which is expressed in "Deus Caritas Est;" and secondly, on its immediate or proximate goal Truth (which is the 'veritate' in "Caritas in Veritate.") The mind, made by God to reflect on Himself, must be sure that it has a right concept of God ("Deus Caritas Est".) And the mind must also be sure that its immediate or proximate goal lead to that ultimate goal ("Caritas in Veritate"). Both these are unattainable without the grace of God; we cannot understand the two encyclicals without the grace of God.

Grace is given to us when we are free from all mortal sins. And so before anything else we must repent, putting into practice in our lives the three elements of repentance, namely, Prayer, Fasting and Good Works. This is why the "Year of St. Paul" addressed to lay people puts emphasis on the "pure life" that must be attained through a life of repentance.

After living a life of repentance, we receive the grace that we need to be able to focus our intellect on both our final goal and the means towards that goal. It is like thinking of "Deus Caritas Est" as our final goal and thinking of "Caritas in Veritate" as the numerous proximate goals that lead to our final goal.

When we are able to constantly focus our minds on these two goals (as expressed in the two encyclicals) we have not yet reached Faith. The next step is needed.

The faculty of the soul that moves man to perform a human act is the Free Will (symbolized by the Heart.) The intellect has to convinced the free will to approve its final goal ('Caritas) and the means to that goal (the 'Veritate') that it knows. The free will will then instruct the intellect to make an intellectual assent to both the means (Veritate) and the final goal (Caritas) When the intellect prompted by the free will obeys and makes its assent to the first truth (Veritate) that leads to Charity..... that is an act of Faith....little faith, at first.

But that is only the first truth. There are still many other truths which the intellect must learn. It must follow again the same process of the intellect informing the free will of these truths and wait for it to be prompted by the will to assent to these next truths. This is a long process and must constantly be aided by grace.

When the intellect has learned all the truths (veritate) mainly expressed in the Commandments of Christ now he is ready to summarize all these truths in the one commandment of Christ "To love God above all things" and put it into practice. When he learns and obeys all the commandment of Christ...... this is Charity ("If you love Me keep my commandments.")

YEAR OF THE PRIEST - Meditation 1

2009-07-20T18:14:00.001+11:00

1. The Holy Father has just called for a 'Year of Faith,' under the auspices of St. Paul who was the apostle who wrote most eloquently and extensively on Faith. The papal instruction was sent to Bishops to be shared with parish priests and their parishioners. The goal was to ask each Catholic to find out if they have Faith. With the culmination of the Year of Faith many Catholics have not answered this question.

2. The steps towards eternal life may be summarized into four steps; first, to live a life of repentance, secondly, to live a life of Faith. Thirdly, to live a life of Hope and fourthly to live a life of Charity. Faith brings us into the Church, into the Mystical Body of Christ and in some way gives us Hope for our salvation, "he who believes is already saved."

3. During the Year of Faith the Pope is asking us to find out if we have reached the second step, Faith. The Catechism gives a concise definition of Faith and St. Thomas gives a clear and elaborate description of it. But most of us do not have the time to study this.

4. So why don't we just read the 'prayer' of Faith at the end of the Compendium of the Catholic Catechism by Pope Benedict XVI. His prayer goes this way: "Domine Deus, firma fide credo et confiteor omnia et singula quae sancta Ecclesia Catholica proponit, quia tu Deus, ea omnia revelasti, qui es aeterna veritas et sapientia quae nec fallere nec falli potest. In hac fide vivere et mori statuo. Amen."

5. The prayer says :' I believe all and every truth that you (Christ) have revealed because You are the eternal truth.' Do we really know 'all and every truth' Christ has revealed in Scriptures? How many truths are there in Divine Revelation? Putting aside the Doctrinal truths, let us just look at the so-called 'Commandments of Christ.' In Chapters 4, 5 and 6 of Matthew in the so-called 'Sermon on the Mount', aside from the Beatitudes, Christ enumerates around 35 commands. In the entire Gospel of St. Matthew there are more than 80 commands. If we add to this the commands in the Gospels of Mark, Luke and John plus the commands of Christ as described in the Epistles, Acts and Apocaplypse guess how many commands there could be? And we are not supposed to study these commands directly from Scriptures. We must learn and believe these commands as proposed by the Magisterium of the Church. That is practically hinting that we must know how the Fathers of the Church or Tradition interpreted these commands. Does that sound like having a degree on Exegesis and Patrology? Not really. There is a way of learning these in a faster and shorter way which the Holy Father had been hinting since the beginning of his pontificate.

6. Faith is an act of the intellect. It is knowing, with the help of grace all the commands of Christ and how to obey them. But it is chaos if every priest interprets these commands. So Christ gave the role of interpreting these commands to His Church with the Holy Father as its official spokesman. And so Faith is believing with our intellect the teachings of Christ 'as proposed by the Church' through her spokesman, the Pope. And the reason for believing the Pope is because Christ who revealed the truths 'cannot deceive nor be deceived.'

7. The crisis of Faith is caused by ignorance of those commands the knowledge of which is the object of Faith. Some wh0 know 'what' are the commands do not know the 'how'. Knowledge of both is necessary for the act of Faith.

8. The act of Faith is not possible until all the commands of Christ are known by the intellect. That is the only time when the soul can see that put together all the commands make up the command 'To love God and neighbor'. Knowing this the soul can now motivate his Faith with the virtue of Charity. Thus the Pope's 3rd encyclical Caritas in veritate simply states that Charity can only be attained by knowing the truths that lead to Faith.

9. If at the end of the Year of Faith we have not yet known if we have the true faith or not that would be a sign that we do not have Faith. Because with the virtue comes the certainty that we have it.

8. During the year of Faith few were able to find out if they had Faith. Most do not know how to check on it though they could have checked it basing it on the Year of the Liturgy (during the 24 Sundays between Pentecost and Christ the King.) If the people are doubtful if they had Faith who is to blame? The Bishops and priest who were commanded by Christ to instill the knowledge that brings about Faith. So a Year of the priest should be in place....for the priest to find out if they have Faith.

9. So now in the 'Year of the Priest' the Holy Father is calling on all priests, religious, nuns and laymen to go once more through the steps that enable us to enter the Church and find out once and for all if we are inside or still outside the Catholic Church.

THE HIDDEN LIFE - Repentance

2009-06-08T08:22:00.003+11:00

The way to Heaven may be described simply in four steps: repentance, Faith, Hope and Charity. These steps are taught to us by Holy Mother the Church throughout the Liturgical year.

We begin with Advent when we are taught the repentance of the Old Testament and as taught by St. John the Baptist. In Lent we are again taught repentance, as perfected by Christ. It is by this New Testament repentance that Faith is given us, by which we become true Catholics, or members of the Catholic Church.

Having reached Faith (by God's grace), God leads us to Hope and Charity.

The reason few souls reach faith (or enter the Church) is because of a wrong concept of Repentance. We think repentance is that brief moment we spent before confession; examining our conscience, saying our sins to the priest, receiving absolution and saying our penance. That is called the Sacrament of Penance. The life of repentance is to develop the Virtue of Penance which is necessary for the forgiveness of sins in the Sacrament of Penance.

The life of repentance was taught to us in the Old Testament. In the New Testament, Christ taught us the perfection of repentance. He taught us by word and example, in the hidden Life He lived for thirty years, showing us how to repent, develop the virtue of Penance and receive the virtue of Faith. All we had to do was to imitate Him.

Christ lived thirty years of hidden life, so must we. But what does "thirty" years mean? Depending on how we respond to grace, our "thirty years" of hidden life could be anywhere from three hours to 90 years. But what is important is what we do within that 'hidden life.'

This is summarized in the Gospel incident after Joseph and Mary found Jesus in the temple: 'He was subject to them and grew in maturity and in grace.' What did He do at home during those thirty years of hidden life? He subjected Himself to His parents. This is the model of monasticism. The Rule of St. Benedict begins stating that one enters the monastic life to "subject himself."

Christ was teaching us the life of Repentance during His hidden life at home; while St. John was showing us the life of repentance in the desert. It is ideal to repent at home but if this is difficult we have to go to the desert. This explains the exodus of the first Christians from homes and cities to go to the desert.

We have seen that original sin is man's refusal to subject himself to God. Christ in His Hidden Life teaches us how we can subject ourselves, and therefore go back, to God.

The Fathers of the Church, like St. Augustine, described the life of repentance as consisting in three activities: fasting, prayer and good works, perfectly blended into a way of life where we are constantly performing these activities one after another. St. Benedict in his Rule devised a way of life that perfectly blended these three. During this life of repentance we may not do anything outside these three activities, or there is great danger of committing sin by doing our will.

Repentance, however, is a grace from God. Without that grace we cannot repent. Though He gives this grace generously to everybody it is easy to reject it. That's why it is rare to find someone repenting, i.e. living "the hidden life". But when this grace is given and the person responds favorably to it, living 'thirty years' of hidden life becomes evident by its fruits (the fruits of repentance.)

UNBAPTISED VERY YOUNG CHILDREN GO TO HEAVEN

2009-02-19T02:15:00.012+10:00

All unbaptized children go to Heaven when they die, Pope Benedict had finally declared. Earlier saints believed otherwise; but they were not writing "de Fide," -- from faith. In early Christianity, that doctrine was not yet well defined. This contradiction was understandable as explained by St. John Newman in his "Development of Christian Doctrine." Just as the complete man is not recognized while still in the womb, it is the same with Catholic Doctrine: the early saints did not comprehend the full form of certain doctrines at first. Then because of need to defend doctrine (as in defending life) when heresies arise, it becomes a common occurrence in the Catholic Church that knowledge or explanation of doctrines increases as a response to those heresies. In the case of the doctrine about unbaptized children, there were little errors to clarify in the past; it was just a lack of understanding of the most difficult doctrine of the Catholic Church: the theology of grace.

What Pope Benedict announced about this doctrine should not encourage abortion. Someone could say, 'since anyway the child would go to heaven, let's kill it.' Well, true, the child would indeed go to heaven, but you will surely go to hell. All efforts to stop abortion consist in refuting the stupidity of this reasoning. Efforts are not meant to save the soul of the child but to save the soul of the parents, the abortionist doctors, the cooperating nurses, the owners of drug companies and the advertisers. The announcement of the Holy Father is meant to console all who are stricken by the great tragedy of children being aborted, children dying in wars and children starving in famine-stricken areas. And it is meant to stop those who would ask: why would a good God allow this? Obviously, it is a better arrangement to bring those souls sooner to Heaven, if we consider that they would be growing up in an evil modern culture or a pagan country or heretical family.

St. Augustine was one of those who thought that unbaptized children were condemned to hell if they die in that state. Of course, his reasoning was logical: If grace was needed to go to heaven and that this grace can only come earliest to us through baptism, therefore without baptism we would be without grace and death would mean condemnation. But St. Augustine himself began to have some reservations. And if we follow his trend of thoughts regarding those reservations, we would see that it leads to the same conclusion as Pope Benedict's.

St. Augustine's thoughts went this way: God gives graces to all men because His will is the salvation of men. These graces are given without man meriting it. So it is given 'gratis.' However, man has to co-operate with this grace. God gives these graces to a child who can not yet co-operate at baptism that's why the child has god-parents standing by to answer for him. The unfortunate pagan child, on the other hand, has no god-parents . Will not both deserve the same graces since both cannot cooperate with God's grace? St. Augustine believes both children deserve the same graces. And in his treatise on anti-Pelagianism, the presence or absence of a god-parent (or parents) cannot influence God's will of giving that needed grace; and to believe otherwise would be heresy.

To be able to respond favorably to that grace that will enable the child to benefit from Baptism, he has to consent to the grace WITH HIS WILL. But the baptized child has no will just like the unbaptized pagan child. The accompanying parent or god-parent cannot be a variable to dictate the worthiness or unworthiness of the child to receive the needed grace which God is so desirous to give all men.

But wait, weren't the heroes of the Old Testament unbaptized adults? They not only had original sin but actual sin. Yet, after a short stint in Limbo they all went to heaven at the Resurrection of Christ! St. Augustine repeatedly stated 'how deep are the ways of God," as an excuse why he could not explain it fully.

Scriptures often repeated the three main things we must do to have eternal life. First, to be born again through Baptism, secondly, to eat the Body and Blood of Christ and, thirdly, to believe. These are the three common ways to get God's graces. Shall we limit God's greatness to these three ways of giving graces? God could have a thousand other ways to give graces that we do not know of. Maybe Pope Benedict has found one.

That unbaptized children go to heaven, as taught by Pope Benedict, is a very consoling teaching. We see the children of the world dying because of man's inhumanity to man; dying within a pagan or heretical religion and even without religion. But we also see that, as God always does, He produces great good from what seems to be a great evil. But that would be another blog.

POPE BENEDICT and his Social Encyclical

2009-01-31T07:23:00.001+10:00

Everybody is talking about Pope Benedict's next encyclical. It seems to be a social encyclical. And the suspicion is that it has been signed and waiting to be promulgated. Meanwhile the entire world is going into recession and the people's question is how long will this recession last; and will there be a rebound as in past recessions?
What could the Pope be saying or hinting recently with regards to the present world economy?

Popes are well known to predict many human events way ahead. The rise of communism and its spread around the world has been seen by the Popes of the last two centuries. We wonder, will there be a recovery in the present recession?

Pope Benedict has given us a syllogism in the tradition of St. Thomas Aquinas. Simply stated, if we agree on the major and the minor, we can come to a conclusion.

The Holy Father gave the major saying that true progress is commensurate to spiritual progress. If we progress in the spiritual sphere, everything else in the physical and natural will progress. If we are progressing spiritually, we will progress in the natural sphere: nobody will go hungry. As the Gospel has it: If we seek first the kingdom of God, everything else will be given us. Here, the Holy Father is enunciating a general Evangelical principle.

Now let us come to the minor proposition. The Holy Father mentioned in one of his Christmas messages that greed has ruled world economy. He added that while there is progress in everything material, there has been no commensurate progress in the spiritual sphere.

In the minor proposition the Holy Father is hinting that the recession is due to this dichotomy and divorce between human and spiritual progress. He is not insinuating that he is attributing the recession to economic factors existing in the world today. He is saying that there is a higher and greater factor involved in the recession....a Divine Factor which, every time man forgets the end for which he was created, chastises them with war, famine, plagues, earthquakes and .... recessions. And it is this factor that we must consider as to whether we will rebound from the recession or not.

The Holy Father declared this year a year of faith in honor of St. Paul. Why did he do that when the faith has been preached in every corner of the world? Because as seen by St. John the Baptist in the Old Testament and mentioned many times by the Blessed Virgin in her apparitions, man has no faith. Even Christ mentioned it: "When the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on earth? "

If we consider the Divine Factor in this syllogism we are forced to conclude that this recession, just like natural calamities and wars, is a chastisement as St. Alphonsus Liguori would have said, and because of the impossibility for men to obey the reason for which he was created, the recession will be here to stay .... and worsen. This conclusion is what follows if we consider the major and minor of the syllogism.

When he went to Assisi in 2007, Pope Benedict XVI said that the solution to all the problems of the world, since they are all interrelated, is to return to the spirit of poverty of St. Francis of Assisi. But for a world wallowing in greed as the Holy Father mentioned last Christmas 2008, there is no way to do that. ("St. Francis honored by a simple man" by Giotto)

Forgetfulness of ORIGINAL SIN.

2009-01-23T07:00:00.003+10:00

Pope Pius IX noticed the sinfulness of the world during his time. He had to escape with his life to Gaeta pursued by the Romans! During one of his meditation he saw what was wrong with the world: it forgot the existence of original sin. Jesus came to save us from original sin and its consequences, actual sins. This was the whole story of salvation and we forgot it.

Pope Benedict XVI also had been reminding us to review the doctrine of original sin because many Catholics neither know nor understand it.

As Mary had always been Jesus' co-worker in the salvation of souls, what better help can the Church get than to call on her, the mother of the Church and the type of the Church to help out? And what wiser move than to declare her Immaculate Conception? Thus the Pope declared to the world the cause of its problem: original sin ... and the solution? The imitation of Mary, who was spared from it.

From the beginning and up to the end of time original sin will be the cause of every evil in the world. It is because of it that death entered into the world.

What is original sin? God created us and willed to save us after the Fall. So He made a plan of salvation by which we could be saved. On our part all we had to do was to subject ourselves (our free will) to His Will. Adam and Eve went against His Will. The refusal to subject one's will to God's Will is original sin. And ever since the Fall, man could not subject himself to God's Will: "I will do what I want."

Christ had to die to restore man to his original state. With this restoration, greater graces would enable man to know God's Will so he could once again subject himself to God and be saved. Without this grace, he would remain outside the sphere or influence of God's Divine Providence.

The natural state of man in his fallen nature is that he goes against his supernatural end, he goes against his natural end and he goes against the nature around him. The consequence is that he destroys his soul by immorality, he destroys his body with illnesses and he destroys his environment. It is natural to fallen nature to abort babies, and wipe out the whales.

To be truly Catholic, to be truly restored to our original state, we must be like Mary, not an Immaculate Conception, but, through repentance, be without sin. This is what Pope Pius IX was trying to say when he proclaimed a doctrine that was believed from the beginning of the Church but whose application in one's personal life many were ignorant of.

That we have forgotten the teachings on "Original Sin" is putting it mildly. We have not at all learned the doctrine on original sin: what really happened in paradise, how Adam and Eve were in paradise and after the fall, what is the true spiritual state of each person today and finally how the Catholic Religion is the only way that can reinstate man to his former place. (Portion of " The Creation" late 12th century, Miniature from the Bible de Souvigny.)

THE NEED FOR UNCEASING PRAYER

2009-01-20T09:47:00.002+10:00

Grace works on this principle: he who does not progress, retrogresses. God gives us grace every second. This grace contains three elements: the will of God, how to do the will of God and the strength to do God's will. God does this every second so we move towards Him every second by responding favorably to these graces.

It also works on a negative way in that Grace tells us what is contrary to the Will of God, how to avoid it and the strength to avoid it. Every second God, through His grace, tells us what good we must do and what evil we must avoid, how to go about doing each and the strength to obey His graces.

But these graces does not come every second...unless we respond favorably to it. When we reject His promptings He withholds it to encourage us to ask for it in prayer thus the necessity for unceasing prayer in asking God to respond favorably to it.

Every second God presents to us the good we must do and the evil we must avoid. Sometimes He presents to us consecutive goods to do or consecutive evils we must avoid. So we need graces to do the consecutive goods God presents to us and graces to avoid the consecutive evils we have to avoid. Since these goods and evil comes in floods and graces (to do good and avoid evil) can only from God, if you are following my reasoning we would need to pray unceasingly.

The choice between the good we must do and the evil we must avoid does not cease. It is continuous. God constantly presenting the good and the devil presenting the evil. Now comes the problem, one cannot pray unceasingly in the world with all its destruction. More often than not, man misses the good he must do (if he is without God's grace) and does the evil he must avoid (which is natural without grace.)

In fact, in the example of Christ, he demonstrated to us how to develop the habit of unceasing prayer during His 30 years of hidden life, before he went into the world (though He had the unceasing presence of God all the time.) That is why He overcame Satan in the desert. Without this habit of prayer it is impossible to walk through the world safely. What most people have is sporadic prayer. That won't work.

The first monks, inspired by angels, tried developing this by reciting 150 psalms a day and keeping that attitude of prayer in between the divine office. That is impossible for most people, even for most monks today. That's why Pope Benedict keeps on repeating the importance of prayer in his addresses to the Bishop. If they don't do it, they won't receive the grace to know God's will, one of which is to pray. Without knowing how to pray, how can they teach people how to get those graces. Without those graces men will find it impossible to do good and avoid evil.

WHY THE POPE TAKES RISKS.

2009-01-08T20:00:00.003+10:00

When we heard that the Pope would be going to Turkey, our panic button went wild. Why take such an unnecessry risk?! Now we hear him planning to go to Jerusalem and visit Gaza, there goes our panic button again! Why? Is this really needed?

Because He is the Pope, he must go about doing his act of love for Christ by feeding Christ's lamb and sheep. And he knows his theology of grace which he has summarized in the first five items of his Compendium of the Catechism.

The Holy Father is always an external source of grace. This grace is given to those he gets in contact with in any way and has three effects on the recipients. First, it reveals to the soul what is the will of God. Secondly it makes the soul love the will of God. And thirdly, it gives the soul the strength to do the will of God. But, of course, the free will of the soul must give its stamp of approval to the grace of God. Just by going to those places mentioned above the Pope knows he is a Mediator of graces.....even without speaking. So much more when he speaks!

He also knows that if there is any one who has any evil design towards His holiness, the free will of that evil doer is under the control of God. For a person to sin he needs the permissive will of God. Without that permission, no one can do evil to anyone. God can even give such a person efficient graces to make him do good instead of evil, as what happened to St. Paul. So why worry since everything is in God's hands?

It is for the same reason that the late Pope John Paul II was holding those much maligned ecumenical prayers at St. Francis church. He was not giving approval to the other religions or sects. He was allowing himself to be an instrument of God's grace for the participants and for the whole non-catholic world. We can only understand such acts if we understand the theology of grace.

The documentary "Into the Great Silence" has caused waves around the world. But sadly, one comment was : "I just want to to go to heaven the ordinary way. That life is not for me." If one truly understood the theology of grace, one would see that all the things the monks did had to be done in order to enter Heaven. And if any monk there left the monastery, the reason would simply be that 'he did not learn the theology of grace;' which shows the necessity of what the monks were doing: they were just responding to the movement of grace.

Pope Benedict is not worried that the Church is disappearing from Europe and other parts of the world because he knows that God is not remiss in sending the needed graces for those meant to be saved. And with all the problems besetting the world today the Holy Father knows that those who respond favorably to the graces that God gives will know exactly what to do, will love to do His Will and will have the strength to do the right thing, while the rest of the world will continue to go on panic mode!

MONASTICISM and the HOLY FAMILY

2009-01-08T09:33:00.001+10:00

The Jesuits are commonly believed to have been established by St. Ignatius and the Franciscans by St. Francis of Assisi; the Dominicans by St. Dominic and the Redemptorists by St. Alphonsus of Liguori. But Monasticism is the replication of the Holy Family and a direct product of Pentecost.

In the beginning, God devised a plan by which He would save mankind after the Fall. It would consist in 1.) establishing a Church and 2.) He would teach us how to enter that Church. It is the Church who would bring us back to God.

Immediately after the Fall, the mechanism for God's plan went into effect. In the Old Testament God gave us types by which we can understand the fulfillment of His plans. He chose a people, the Chosen People, and this would be the type of the Church. And He showed how one may join the Chosen People. He would choose each one personally.

God the Son would be the one to establish the Church and by His life He would teach mankind how to enter the Church. To accomplish both He had to become man. So he was born on Christmas day. There we have the image of the Catholic Church, the Holy Family, and we were also taught how to enter the Church, "by contact" (as Ecclesiologist would put it) as exemplified by the shepherds and by "long distance" as exemplified by the Magi.

Well, Monasticism is imitating the Holy Family.

After Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit descended upon the Apostles to formally establish the Church on earth, the Apostles went about 'Baptizing.....teaching all the commands....and how to do it.' What were they, in effect, doing? They were beginning to establish communities of unbelievers in imitation of the Holy Family. And history would describe these attempts as establishing monastic communities.

Most of the apostles were martyred too soon to be able to establish monastic communities but all of them had started the seed of the movement. St. John the Evangelist, because his life was prolonged by a tyrant boiling him in oil and he coming out younger rather than dying, was known to have established a fully monastic community.

So Pope Benedict, in addressing the Congregation of Religious and Consecrated Life reminded them that monasticism is the only life that came out directly from Pentecost, of course, with its origin from the Holy Family. And this is shown in the lives of Jesus and John the Baptist. Jesus lived with the Holy Family, St. John grew up in the dessert (thus starting the monastic tendency).

Monastic life is in imitation of the 30 years of hidden life of Christ, with Mary and Joseph. It is essentially the life of Repentance that begun in the Old Testament and perfected by Christ in the New Testament.

And the Holy Father reminded all the orders that monastic life is the basis of all orders. Is it any wonder that St. Ignatius was living a monastic life in Manresa under the direction of Cisneros, a Benedictine monk; and St. Francis was a monk in the forests of Assisi; and St. Dominic lived by St. Augustine's rule for monasteries and St. Alphonsus' spirituality is essentially monastic?

At the beginning of his pontificate, didn't Pope Benedict XVI remind us that the world today can be saved only by the Rule of St. Benedict as it did before? That is like saying that the world can only be saved today by the Catholic Church, the type of which is the Holy Family, (so the importance of the family) and of which monasticism is its practical application.

The "GAY" problem - part 1

2008-08-15T06:02:00.000+11:00

In this short treatise, let me attempt to describe how, lately in our times, many priests have deteriorated into becoming "gays" or "pedophiles;" and how they can eventually be restored to be competent priests at the service of Holy Mother the Church.

First, let us recall one general principle of the Spiritual life, the violation of which leads to perversion, while obedience to it will cure all perversions and lead one to holiness of life.

This general principle often mentioned by St. Thomas of Aquinas is this: "He who does not progress in the spiritual life will regress." The need to progress every second and every minute in the spiritual life is often referred to by great spiritual writers as "the sacrament of the present moment," and was the "Little Way" of St. Therese of Lisieux, Doctor of the Church.

Now let us look at the different levels of human existence. There is the SUPERNATURAL level, which is when a person is in the state of sanctifying grace. Then there is the NATURAL level, which is the state of Adam and Eve after the fall and the state of souls without sanctifying grace. And lastly, there is the unnatural level which includes all perversions mentioned in Scriptures like the sins of Sodom and Gomorrha. (Let us skip the finer nuances of each level for the sake of brevity and deal with them in future.)

Applying the above principle of the spiritual life, he who progresses in the spiritual life within the SUPERNATURAL level will never regress down to the NATURAL AND UNNATURAL level. But he who does not progress towards the SUPERNATURAL level will regress down to the NATURAL level and even faster yet down to the UNNATURAL level.

Original sin is the inherited state in which, deprived of sanctifying grace, all men are born with the tendency to go down to the unnatural level.

Take a typical seminarian. Having been being baptized at infancy, he received sanctifying grace which raised him to the SUPERNATURAL level. This grace was what made him desire to serve God in the priesthood. But then because of a worldly way of life, he unawarely regresses down to the NATURAL level. But because he is still attracted to the priesthood, he still manages to enter the seminary in this NATURAL state. If, while in the seminary, any desire he has to love God is increased through sound teachings and deep spiritual life, he will progress from the natural level, and climb up the SUPERNATURAL LEVEL. And if this progress continues because the seminary continues to teach sound doctrine on the spiritual life, he will have no problem in becoming holy and an asset to the Church.

Another hypothetical case. If this baptized seminarian has lost sanctifying grace because of his worldly life, he enters the seminary in the NATURAL level. If there is a good theological curriculum in the seminary, but have a poor, or worse, no program in spirituality, he will NOT progress to the Supernatural level. So he remains as a seminarian in the NATURAL level. Though he could still desire to be a priest, he will have a strong tendency to regress. And the first sign of this regression is his desire to marry, though he may or may not retain a desire to remain a priest. This desire to marry shows that he is in the natural level.

If the seminary cannot raise him to the SUPERNATURAL level, they should encourage him to leave and marry because the Sacrament of Matrimony is precisely for that purpose: to keep him in the NATURAL level and prevent him from deteriorating down to the UNNATURAL level, with the hope that in the future he can progress again up to the SUPERNATURAL level, even as a married man.

But if the seminary does not have a good program of spirituality, thus preventing his spiritual progress that will cause his eventual spiritual regression, and they do not encourage him to marry, even when he has shown signs that he desires marriage, he will soon regress and descend to the UNNATURAL level.

Then the environment in the seminary will dictate the kind of perversion he will fall into. If his environment is with the presence of young children, he could turn out to be a pedophile. If his environment is just a seminary of men who would be priests, but does not offer the right curriculum as stated above; and because he is surrounded by men only (often not observing modesty) then he could regress to becoming gay. The culprit? A non-existent program of spirituality, thereby creating an environment conducive to homosexuality, i.e. the very ambience of present seminaries. Because the seminarian was not progressing in spirituality he regressed towards perversion.

The "reverse" of this sad plight of most seminaries, which is to progress every second and every minute in the love of God, is both the cure and the way to holiness. St. Therese showed this to us in her "Little Way," wherein she could make every tiny, insignificant acts into acts of love for God because her monastery had the right environment that could encourage progress in the spiritual life : a life of prayer, fasting, and good works.(Painting of "Sodom and Gomorrah" by Alte Pinakothek.)

POST PENTECOST Sundays.

2008-07-23T16:12:00.001+11:00

The Liturgy of the Church is a chronological lesson on the Plan of Salvation made by God. It consists in the major mysteries in the Life of Christ which contain lessons for our imitation. The surrounding liturgies of these major mysteries explain the same mysteries in detail and how we can put them into practice.

So we have a major feast of the Liturgy, Pentecost, which shows us how the Church looks like and how we can enter it. For most of us who have some fear for the salvation of our souls, our interest would be on "how to enter the Church," because our salvation would depend on it.

The answer make up the three steps celebrated in the three liturgical feasts that follow Pentecost; namely, the feast of the Blessed Trinity, Corpus Christi and Sacred Heart.

The first principle that we should know is, that souls that go to Heaven are those who love God (and neighbor.) But then, we cannot love God unless God love us first. When God loves us He creates in us the theological virtue of Charity by which we are able to love Him. So what should we do to make God love us?

Scriptures is replete with examples of those whom God loves and those whom God hates. This should expel the wrong notion that God simply loves everybody unconditionally. The Psalms state that God loves the righteous and hates the evildoers. Again God loves the humble and hates the proud; more specifically God loves Jacob and hates Esau. Of course, God does not hate in the way man hates.

Notice two words above: humble and righteous. At the beginning of the Gospels we hear Christ telling us to learn from Him for He is " ... meek and humble of heart." It is the humble person whom God draws towards Christ. The pride of a person becomes the obstacle preventing his being drawn to Christ.

When the humble person is drawn to Christ, he learns and loves the commandments of Christ, thus obeying those commands, enabling him to confess Christ, not only with his lips but with his life. This is a person with the righteousness of God, not of man, like the pharisees. That is the message of the Gospel on the feast of the Holy Trinity.

Now let us go to the Feast of Corpus Christi. The humbler a person is, the more he learns the commands of Christ or the righteousness of God. When he partakes of the Body and Blood of Christ, he does so worthily, unto Life. (The unrighteous who eats and drinks the Body and Blood of Christ, does so unto his condemnation.) And the more the righteous eats and drinks of the Body and Blood of Christ, the more is he united with Christ as a branch is united to the vine. Being then so united to the Vine, the sap, which is the Holy Spirit of Love, will more easily flow from the Vine to the branches.

With the Feast of the Sacred Heart, we should then have a final image of a true Catholic...one whose human heart (like the human heart of Christ) is hypostatically united to the Divinity of Christ, united to God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. The Beatitudes describe him as "pure in heart."

Liturgy of PENTECOST SUNDAY.

2008-06-20T07:53:00.000+11:00

God made Adam and Eve, a wife subject to the husband, as the first type of the Church. However, after the fall, the way to enter that elementary church was for the woman to bear children and for the man to till the soil.

As the Old Testament progressed, we saw how the Ark of Noah was a type of the Church. And just as at the time of Noah, we see that though everyone is invited to enter the Church (the Ark), not everyone is able to enter it. Noah and his family were able to enter the Ark, but not the rest of the populace outside. The gesture of God closing the door of the ark Himself, is declarative of His prerogative to choose whom He is to invite and enable to enter into the ark.

The Church was like an infant at the time of Adam and Eve, an adolescent at the time of Noah, and a young maiden at Pentecost. The Church is a live being. It grows. God is preparing her for her wedding with His Son at the height of her beauty and comeliness. She is destined not to grow old. And how she looks like at this wedding is described in the Apocalypse.

Let us take a look at the Liturgy of Pentecost. Liturgy tells us of the spiritual significance of each feast or part of the Gospel. It answers, too, two questions: how does the Church look like and how do we enter the Church. The answer to both questions is the plan of salvation.

On Pentecost day, how did the Church look like and, like the apostles, how do we enter the Church?

The Church is like a live human body with a soul. Her body is made up of the Saints in Heaven, the holy souls in purgatory and the living saints on earth (those who are still alive and have reached faith that is enlivened by Charity.)

The Church has a created soul, that is Jesus Christ, in His humanity. In the Old Testament, the Church in her infancy, only had a body, the patriarchs. It acquired its created soul with the coming of Christ. So the Church is now alive because she has a body and a soul.

Then at Pentecost, the Church received an uncreated soul, the Holy Spirit, which enabled its members to love God and neighbor in a supernatural way. "Love one another as I have loved you..." was impossible to the apostles until they received the Holy Spirit; the first instance of which is when Christ breathed on them before His Ascension and later on at Pentecost.

Seeing, therefore, the three parts of the Church, a body, a created soul and an uncreated soul, how do we become Catholic? By integrating ourselves into the Body, in which case the created soul of the Church becomes our soul and the uncreated soul of the Church becomes also our uncreated soul. How then do we integrate ourselves to the body?

First, by drawing near to Christ, as a broken branch is drawn near to the main Vine (as in the case of the parable of the Vine and branches.) And as this broken branch is drawn and attached to the main vine, so , too, by obeying the commands of Jesus Christ, are attached to the body, the Church.

Then, now that the branch is well attached to the Vine, the sap from the main Vine, which is the Holy Spirit, flows into the branch.

Now we see the the action of the Blessed Trinity : God the Father draws us, the broken branch, towards the Vine. "Unless the Father draws him ..." Jesus Christ attaches us to the main Vine. "I am the Vine ..." the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Love, who flows from the Vine into the branches enables us to love God and neighbor.

Is it any wonder then that the feast of the Blessed Trinity follows immediately after Pentecost? What, then, is our role? Three things we must do: the first is hinted at in the Feast of the Trinity, the second is expressed at the next Sunday feast of Corpus Christi and the third step is described in the following feast of the Sacred Heart.

REASON AND FAITH

2008-05-22T13:24:00.000+11:00

1. There is so much talk about reason and faith among Catholic intellectuals. But much of them are easily misunderstood or misinterpreted precisely because there is no right reasoning; and the sad consequence? There is no faith.

2. The Catholic Church is the only institution that loves to use right (or sound)reasoning, and preserves it. Other philosophies or pseudo-religions either hate it or forbids the use of it. If a philosophy or religion is suspected of error, its promoters will forbid the use of reason lest their errors be discovered. Sometimes this prohibition comes in the form of forbidding their followers to analyze their beliefs. Or sometimes they forbid them to study other beliefs. Or some resort to downright threat of capital punishment for wanting to discover the truth or analyze one's error. Now that is terribly unreasonable!

3. Fortunately, (though unfortunately for many), Truth is supernatural, i.e. it is over and above natural human reason. Commonly referred to as Divine Revelation, we would need divine grace to know and obey it. But we need a functioning reason to receive this grace. Considering that man has a fallen nature due to original sin; he is ruled by concupiscence which constantly tries to over-rule reason. In fact, it is the rule of rational psychology that concupiscence and reasoning cannot function at the same given time.

4. As long as man is ruled by fallen human nature, concupiscence dominates him . He will begin to reason rightly only after he has overcome concupiscence through repentance. Repentance is the main message of the Old Testament which was perfected by Christ in the New Testament. After repentance, man becomes poor in spirit and receives the gift of the Holy Spirit called the Fear of God; and only then does he receive the grace to reason reasonably or think rightly.

5.Thus, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, because that is the only time man begins to use reason: this is the beginning of faith. Thus faith is built on reason. Man cannot think of Divine revelation unless he frees himself from his fallen human nature. Man cannot make an act of faith unless he uses his reason, because faith is an assent of his reason to the truths of faith. And he needs grace to be able to go deeper into the knowledge of God. In fact the first act of reason is to know God, commonly called the preamble of faith.

6. Man, as long as he is ruled by his fallen nature (which for many would be their entire life) cannot think rightly. (This is why it is impossible to talk about the true God except between thinking individuals.) That's why no one can talk about the true God with just anyone. Discussion must be among thinking individuals. The very act of belief is an act of syllogism.

7. Pope Benedict is right when he says that there is no hope in any discussion unless we begin with the premise that reason must be the basis of discussion and reason must prevail. Otherwise, concupiscence, that dark inner self in man which St. Paul describes as the source of all evil, will prevail. (Picture is fragment of painting of St. Thomas of Aquinas.)

ST. JOSEPH, Protector of the Church.

2008-03-29T11:15:00.002+10:00

Whenever the Church has a problem, She only has to look at how God solved Her problems in the past and then solve it in exactly the same way. After all it was God who established Her.

When Joseph, Mary and Jesus were Her only members, She had a problem: Herod was after the Child. And who was instructed to do something about it? St. Joseph. An angel told him to take the Mother and Child and escape to Egypt. The Holy Family, the Church, fled to Egypt. When it was safe for the Child and Its Mother to return, whom did the angel instruct? St. Joseph. The Church returned but since it was not safe to return to Judea because of Archelaus, Joseph was instructed to return to Nazareth instead. There St. Joseph continued as protector of the early Church in Jesus and Mary.

Pope Pius IX had problems during his Pontificate. The Catholic laymen were up in arms against the Papacy. Austrian and Italian Bishops and Cardinals were both trying to influence the Pope. They were taking sides in the ongoing political struggle. The Pope was caught in between. He sees the Church being hurt in the contentions and he sees the Church needing help. He made a wise move as Popes always do. He called on St. Joseph to protect the Church, eventually declaring him as Patron and Protector of the Church. As if moved by grace he summoned Vatican I. Ecumenical councils do not really cure the defects of the Church; it merely makes the heretics and schismatics stand out so to be easily identified and corrected. It segregates those who are outside the Church.

Whether Pope Pius IX singled out the traitors within the Church wasn't clear. Antonio Rosmini seemed to have pointed out a few to him. But then, the men of the Church pounced on him in order to silence him. But St. Joseph was protecting the Church as he still does. Rosmini continued to write. And his writings fell into the hands of Pope John XXIII. Moved by efficient grace, he in turn summoned Vatican II. Pope Paul VI began to pinpoint the enemies from within. He died knowing that, though he tried to cleanse the men within the Church, he wasn't able to complete his task. He worried for the next pope.

Pope John Paul II's main concern was gathering and leading other sheep into the fold and encouraging those within. (The job of checking the ones within the fold if they were sheep or goats fell onto the lap of Pope Benedict XVI.) From the very beginning of Vatican II, the colors began to show: those who were for Christ and those who were against Christ. And this has been continuing up to the present. And apparently, a polarization was taking place, or shall we say, a great apostasy was on the rise? The sheep were standing on one side; the goats on the other.

St. Joseph did not convert Herod just as Christ did not cure Judas. Ecumenical Councils do not cure deviates. It can only make them stand out for what they are. That is how St. Joseph protected the early Church in (the person of) the Holy Family. The danger was pointed out to him and he merely shielded or protected the Holy Family from its enemies.

Sheep, like Christ, show the singular quality of obedience, "He was obedient unto death". Joseph, who was obedient to the Mosaic law, first wanted to divorce Mary; but he obeyed the angel and instead took her as his wife. Mary was obedient with her "fiat." Though she wanted to remain a virgin, she consented to be the wife of Joseph in obedience to the angel. Obedience is a sign of the presence of the theological virtues of Faith and Charity in the true follower of Christ.

On the other hand, disobedience is the sign of satan. Lucifer and Adam and Eve were disobedient. Disobedience to the declarations of the Holy Father is rampant. Some have even considered it as a new right akin to the right of choice.

Christ did not solve the problem of Judas. Neither did Joseph the problem of Herod. Neither will Pope Benedict who knows that the enemies of the Church are within her, even in the Curia, as Judas was in the Apostolic college. Like Christ, Pope Benedict would simply say: what you intend to do, do quickly, if you are thinking of disobeying, do so now so that the Church, the Mystical Body of Christ, may know where you stand and correct you charitably. Fraternal correction is a duty of the Church. These evils are part of God's providence because He can get a greater good out of it. Thus Christ's action must be ours. God has allowed the evils in the Church for a greater good that is not evident to us right now. So let it be, that the greater good may be accomplished.

This is the way St. Joseph protects the Church. And we see his hands even now. (Isn't the Pope's name Joseph?)(Painting is "Mary wedded to Joseph" by Michael Pacher, Vienna, 1495)

EVANGELIZATION

2008-03-06T15:16:00.000+10:00

The late Pope John Paul II, being a pastoral pope, made Evangelization the core of his pontificate. And understandably so because that is the primary role of a Pope and of the Church according to the words of Christ in His Apostolic Commission: first, to teach all His commandments and how to observe them; and secondly, to administer the Sacraments. 'Evangelization', 'Conversion', 'Reform' and 'Renewal' all mean the same thing, bestowing truth and grace, as the Gospel of John states.

Pope Benedict, even before his election to the papacy, wrote many articles on evangelization. As Pope, his addresses to bishops in their "ad limina" visits are almost all on evangelization. His talks in Brazil and to his own Curia were on evangelization.

The entire world has heard of the Christian truths from both Catholics and other christian sects and, in general, through mass media. The New Testament and religious books are available to everyone for the asking. Why the need for evangelization? There is a difference between informing and evangelizing. Information can be given by anyone. But true Evangelization can only be done by the Church.

The need for continuous Evangelization is based on Ecclesiology's observation that the Faith can disappear in a locality within three generations. This observation is based on the story of St. Francis de Sales, a doctor of the Church, who arrived at Chablais, a locality that was Catholic three generations ago but at his time only 27 remained Catholic out of 72,000 former Catholics.

The proposition that the Catholic Faith could disappear in a locality within three generation is expected even more so today. Before, persecution and fines caused the loss of Catholics from the Church. Today materialism, skepticism and hedonism are more potent factors in making Catholics lose their faith. A father is helpless in keeping his children Catholic because of school atmosphere. These children, becoming fathers themselves, would eventually lose their children from the faith. It is easy to see how in three generations the Catholic Church can disappear in a locality if not from an entire diocese. We are not speaking of persecution or fines. Only of default, the inability of the older generation to instill the Faith in their children. Sadly this situation is made worst by our pagan environment.

A great consolation, however, is that St. Francis de Sales (in his book the "Great Controversies") showed that faith could be re-established in four years with 72,000 becoming Catholics in Chablais and only 27 remaining Calvinists.

The apostles, the foundation in which Christ built His Church, would one day die. And the Church would need continuous Evangelization. The internal mechanism of the Church, the presence of Christic Charity (the soul of the Church) among her members will accomplish this.

Evangelization consists in the Church using her two Christ-given powers, namely that of Jurisdiction and of Orders: powers to bring souls to be completely Catholic through the four stages of Repentance, Faith, Hope and Charity. St. Francis enumerates these stages in his strategy in the re-conquests of Chablais and the Calvinist stronghold Geneva. He said, we must first live a life of repentance to reach Faith, thus entering the Catholic Church. Then we must grow in our faith and reach Charity before we can storm Geneva with Love.

The commands of Christ is the way to these four stages of Repentance, Faith, Hope and Love of God and neighbor. Evangelization, therefore, is teaching all the commands of Christ and how to observe them, thus giving us the proper disposition to be able to worthily receive the graces from the Sacraments.

Pope Benedict XVI had been hinting that the Catholic world today is similar to Chablais. The cause, he states in his "New Evangelization," being that there is error in the contents and method in teaching Catechism recently. ( This is not so in the Catechisms of Cyprian, Augustine, Thomas of Aquinas up to Trent and John Vianney.) He does not say 'how recent.' If it has been for more than three generations then the Church would have disappeared in most localities, if not in many nations.

The Pope's actions attest to this fact. He rewrites the Catechism of the Catholic Church with his 'Compendium' and writes 'Deus Caritas Est' followed with 'Spe Salvi.' This is what St. Francis de Sales did in Chablais and Geneva. 'The stronghold of Geneva can only be conquered with Love.' The stronghold of the world, the devil's dominion, can only be Evangelized with Love.
And those who must conquer must know the science of Divine Love, like St. Therese.

St. Francis de Sales conquered Geneva becoming its bishop. How many generations was that ago. More than three generations. And Geneva is again gone from the Church.

Charity is the soul of the Church. She does not have to be told to Evangelize. She Evangelizes everywhere she is through her members and does it very well. Where is our Francis de Sales or better still where is the Church?

VICTORY IN A Losing Battle

2008-02-26T08:26:00.003+10:00

It is said that in the last war, England lost all the battles but won the war. The same may be said with the war against abortion. With the way things are going, we are likely to lose all battles; but in the end we will see that we were the winners.

Everything in the world is the result of the on-going warfare between good and evil. The good is fighting to regain the true freedom of the children of God lost by Adam and Eve in Paradise. Today, the Catholic Church is at the helm of a battle in which the intellect tries to regain control of man.

Evil is fighting on the side of the serpent who tempted Eve in the garden. And evil is seated in man's concupiscence whose end is to enslave man and make him rebel against the intellect, which is God's last thread of influence in man. Man's natural tendency to be a slave of his animal concupiscence, being common to all men, seems to have taken the upper hand today.

The Church seems to be losing its battle to give men true freedom (that freedom which is to be had since only truly-free souls can merit the kingdom of heaven), amidst the crowd of robot slaves that has engulfed society. True freedom is being overwhelmed by slavery. Hilaire Belloc had once surmised on the probability of the return of slavery and paganism with a vengeance. We are indeed back to the times of human sacrifices in Mexico, and the Carthaginians' worship of Moloch in Africa. We are losing the battle to regain our true freedom as children of God; instead we are gaining the freedom of --- animals.

In such an atmosphere, it's almost impossible to raise children up to be good Catholics. The light of the Catholic Church could dim due to lack of infusion of new souls.

But victory of good will be accomplished by the Woman crushing the head of the serpent. The serpent might seemingly be winning all the battles, but the Church, signified by the woman in Genesis and the Apocalypse, will eventually crush the serpent's head.

The war on abortion is waged in three levels; the supernatural, the natural and the unnatural. It is now being waged in the unnatural level into which the human race have descended.

To stop abortion we must raise people to the supernatural level or at least to the natural level. But to attain to either, we need graces. Supernaturally we must say "Children are given to us by God to raise them up for the kingdom of heaven." If everybody is in this level, we would have no problems, and this would be a wonderful world to live in and raise children. But we need supernatural grace for this, the kind that God does not ordinarily give to everybody. This grace is what impels the soul to think, to will and to act toward our supernatural end.

If man hasn't yet been raised to the supernatural level, he should aim at least at the natural good of the children, which is to take good care of their physical well being. But even this would need some kind of grace, often referred to as the concurrence of God. This is given to all but is temporary, and easily lost or most often rejected by many.

All men are in the level of the unnatural due to original sin. He cannot think, nor will, nor do any good. It is for this reason that abortion has become very common.

Grace is needed to treat every child as a child of God. Grace is needed to treat every child as a human being. Grace is the only solution to the abortion crisis. We need grace to know the reason why a child is given to us by God; and grace to love that child.
Then we need grace to see how evil abortion is. We need grace to see how inhuman abortion is. We cannot avoid the evil of abortion without grace.

But then we live in an age where grace is rejected, where man is ignorant of the necessity of grace; in which case, there is no way we can stop abortion.

But wait... there is something yet that we can do. Grace can be asked of God through prayer. We can pray to God to grant the world the grace to see the supernatural reasons why we are pro-life. But that will need lots of prayer, almost unceasing prayer. But who has the time for unceasing prayer amidst a life of unceasing activity? Looks like the babies have no chance.

When God threatened to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham begged God to spare the city. God agreed if a certain number of people could plead with prayers for His mercy. Abraham could not even find a handful. Today, our problem is that there are few people praying.

What can a Catholic do? Part IV of the Compedium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church by Pope Benedict XVI teaches us. Then go to your room, lock the door and pray in secret to your Father in heaven, to have mercy on those children, to whom He is also a Father, to whom He will certainly show mercy because they were deprived of mercy on earth. Also pray for the abortionist to whom God will show His justice. Our victory will be when we see those children, whom the abortionists killed, in Heaven.

Though this is a losing battle, we must go on and fight .... to save souls, the abortionists' souls. How can they repent? Many of them do not believe in repentance, in the sacrament of confession, in the virtue of penance and absolution. They do not believe in the Pope who has reserved this sin. It is for these souls that we are fighting for. Because many of them are Catholics. And the Catholic Church always prays for her own .......and we are Catholics. ('The murder of the Innocents' by Giotto)

SIGNUM MAGNUM-The Church

2008-01-22T16:26:00.000+10:00

"Behold a Great Sign appeared in heaven: a Woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet....and being with child....And behold a great red dragon...And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven... he stood before the woman."

This is the Introit for the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe where it showed that Mary was the woman of the Apocalypse. The feast is describing both an eschatological and ecclesiological phenomenon : the Apocalyptic Woman.

The Catholic Church has many regimes - - different stages in her development from the garden of Paradise until the end of the world. She looks different at every stage. These are often called "types". We saw her in the Old Testament (in the Chosen People); and in the time of Christ (in the first disciples). But few know her after Pentecost, the beginning of the Church of the Apocalypse.

From Adam and Eve, through the old testament, through the New Testament and Pentecost, this Bride was conceived, established, grows and becomes more beautiful as she matures.

A child growing up with his parents to maturity will always know his parents. But if he hasn't lived with his parents for many years, he will hardly recognize them. He who is not in the Church will not recognize her in her different regimes.

The Catholic Church has been prepared for the coming of Christ. She received the fullness of Christ during his lifetime; and the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, receiving the power to extend that fullness of Christ throughout the world. Today, the Church looks quite different.

The problem of Evangelization, (already noted by Pope Benedict XVI, first in his circular " The New Evangelization," and in his address to the Brazilian Bishops, and repeated in his address to the Curia, and then completed by a memo of the Congregation on the Doctrine of the Faith on Evangelization), is clear. But many are still unable to point to the true Church. Many parishes, dioceses, and even religious orders are unable to prove their Catholicity.

The Fathers of the Church never hesitated to describe the Woman of the Apocalypse as the Blessed Virgin Mary. But it wasn't a popular idea. The Woman was always described as the Church, which she was. But Mary wanted to point out in Guadalupe that She was the woman of the Apocalyse, as if saying: "That's really me and don't ever doubt that." In 1531 we have entered into the era of the Apocalypse, "novissimis."

The steps toward Christian perfection are : repentance, faith, hope then charity. The story of Fatima showed the inability of Christians to repent. Without repentance souls cannot have faith and enter the Church. No repentance, no faith, no Catholics. Both Vatican I and II were working on ecclesiology: what is the Church and how does one enter the Church? Both questions were anwered by "Lumen Gentium" and Chapter 12 of the Apocalypse. The feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe where she appeared as "Signum Magnum" is important because it teaches us that in the final regime of the Church on earth, she will have the added characteristic of being Marian. St. Robert Bellarmine mentioned so even before Vatican II. But we need faith to see it. The Church of the Apocalypse is a sight only for true Catholics.

2008-01-12T11:14:00.001+10:00

IT IS NATURAL TO BE CATHOLIC.

2008-01-04T10:57:00.000+10:00

G. K. Chesterton once said something to the effect that if everybody would just sit down, be quiet and think, the whole world would become Catholic. But the world won't sit down, won't be quiet and won't think. No wonder the world is in a mess; it has not turned Catholic; and the Catholics are, instead, becoming worldly.

Pope Benedict has repeatedly echoed the same thing, especially at Regensburg. Even Pope John Paul II's "Fides et Ratio" said the same thing.

God created man with a mind, an intellect. And He filled this intellect with ideas (an entity separate from the intellect) containing His truths. God wanted to make sure that we get the right idea about God and His truths. But our intellect has to read these truths, by an act of thinking, in order to know them. In fact the first act of thought is for the intellect to acknowledge these truths. These God-given innate ideas, accessible to the intellect by thinking, are the margins within which the natural truths of the Catholic Religion are enclosed. Therefore it should be natural for all to be Catholic.

Think of these innate God- given ideas as in the form of a pyramid. At the top of the pyramid are the preambles of faith. The base could be the whole summa theologica of St. Thomas. It is a matter of reflecting on the preambles to know the Summa. After all, where else could St. Thomas have gotten his Summa if not by reflection on the preambles of faith. God gives the preambles; but we have to extract the entire Summa from them through reflection.

The Catholic faith is founded on the natural. Faith begins with the assent of the natural mind on natural truths before it rises to the supernatural theological virtue of Faith, making man a Catholic. All men are born with the natural truths of the Catholic Church (called natural theology); so why did they fail to reflect on them?

Man is a rational animal. He is part spiritual and part animal. The pagans knew this. So they portrayed men as centaurs and women as mermaids. He thinks and wills. Call this the faculties of the soul. His animal side is the seat of his instincts or concupiscence. This latter is what prevents man from thinking!

We cannot serve two master, since we will love one and hate the other. If we hate our selfish selves (concupiscence) we would love to think and love what we are thinking. If we love ourselves (our concupiscence) we would hate to think, thus preventing us from becoming naturally Catholics.

When man acknowledges the God-given innate ideas in him, he knows the truth. When his free will accepts the truth, he knows he loves the truth. God is both truth and good. So man, by nature, even from his conception, possesses what it takes to be a Catholic who knows and loves God, thus becoming a saint, as Chesteron has observed: "If all man would just sit down, be quiet and think, they would all become Catholics" and we may add "become saints."

This is the goal of Fides et Ratio and all the declarations of the Church on the importance of reason for the act of faith. It is what Pope Benedict XVI was hoping to accomplish in his Regensburg address and which he reminded the Diplomatic corps in his "State of the World" address of 2006. THINK, and we will solve all the problems of the world (without saying why...."because we will all become Catholic.")

THE CHURCH SAVES by CONTACT and by LONG DISTANCE.

2007-12-01T09:42:00.000+10:00

If you plan to enter a religious order or a seminary, first find out if it has the four visible signs of the Church. Otherwise, you could turn out to be a bad priest or religious. The fact that they have the word "Catholic" at their front door or letterhead, or they are approved by the Diocese, or they have a nice religious garb, is no guarantee. The four visible signs we recite in the Apostle's Creed are the credible signs. One must be "in contact" with the Church with those four signs if he wishes to be within the Mystical Body of Christ. He must be within the Church before he enters the seminary or religious order; if not, then he should use his priesthood, or his being a Religious, to enter and truly be within the Mystical Body.

Christ heals, first, by contact (as with the blind man); He also heals by long distance (as with the servant of the Centurion). And so the Church, too, saves by contact and by long distance.

The four visible signs of the Church are described briefly in the Compendium of the Catechism of Pope Benedict XVI. It should be easy to apply these four visible signs and the intrinsic mechanism of the Church (known only by those inside the Church) on a religious house or seminary before one joins it.

Salvation by Contact.

The ordinary way by which the Catholic Church brings souls into the Mystical Body is "by contact," using her two powers, commonly referred to as the power of Jurisdiction and power of Orders. This is based on the Apostolic Commission given by Christ to the Apostles: to baptize (power of Orders) and to teach all nations ALL My commandments and HOW to observe them (power of Jurisdiction).

These powers come from God and given by Christ to the Apostles and handed down within the Mystical Body ordinarily through the Hierarchy.

Let us see how three different souls can be saved by the Church today in our century. Let's call the first Timothy. The second, John Newman and the third Akbar. All of them are not members of the Mystical Body. Timothy will be saved through "contact;" John Newman by long distance and "contact;" and Akbar by long distance.

Timothy is one living in a place where the Catholic Church is like, let's say, Cappadoccia. John Newman is in a place where the Catholic Church is geographically far, as Anglican Ellesworth in England is far from Rome. And Akbar is in a place where the Catholic Church is non-existent or very distant like Erehwon. Let's see how God will save these souls through the Catholic Church.

In the case of Timothy, the Bishop of the place where he lives, first, by his power of Jurisdiction, will teach him all the commandments of Christ and how to observe them. The bishop will not miss any command. Secondly, the Bishop, by his power of Orders, will make available the Sacraments to him. As mentioned, the power of Jurisdiction will dispose Timothy to receive worthily both the Sacramental character and Sacramental graces that come from the Sacraments. The power of Orders will channel the graces to his soul. The powers of Jurisdiction and Orders are the vehicles through which Timothy will receive all the countless graces God gives for the salvation of man. If Timothy learns the commands of Christ and obeys them, he will worthily receive the graces that come from the Sacraments. He will be assimilated into the Mystical Body of Christ. He is a true Catholic.

Let's see how the above works in detail. Initial graces will "attract" Timothy to the Catholic Church. Then, the power of jurisdiction will teach him, first, to repent. In turn, repentance will bring him to the doorsteps of the Church. The power of Orders will give him the grace of repentance that will lead him to Faith. With Faith, Timothy is within the Church, the Mystical Body of Christ. Now, he will just have to grow in Hope and Charity to fully mature in his spiritual life (i.e. to be more united with Christ and enable him to offer the Mass with Christ.

Now let's see how John Newman will be led to enter the Church. In John's case there is no possibility for him to benefit from the powers of jurisdiction and orders because he is shielded by his Anglican beliefs. But God's mercy is such that graces are poured out to many outside the Church without the instrumentality of the two powers of the Church. Keep in mind it is grace that saves. The two powers of the Church are the ordinary means by which graces are distributed, but God can make exemptions as He often does, as in the case of John Newman, with those who have no "contact" with the Catholic Church.

So John receives the grace of conversion (by long distance) without the instrumentality of the powers of the Church. This grace, not the hierarchy nor the sacraments, moves him to approach the Catholic Church. It further moves John to study the Fathers of the Church. Then it enlightens him, and he sees that it is not the Anglican church but the Catholic Church that is the Church of Christ. By studying the Fathers, he also sees the necessity of repentance, and receives the grace of Repentance. Consequently, he receives other graces that accompany the virtue of Penance. He then gets in "contact" with the Catholic Church, disposing. him to receive the Theological virtue of Faith. He is now inside the Catholic Church. Note that here, John was first attracted to the Church by "long distance" and eventually "by contact" as in the case of Timothy.

Now, let's take a look at Akbar. Unlike Timothy, Akbar has no contact and will have no contact with the Catholic Church. Unlike John Newman, he has no contact with the Fathers of the Church. But God in his mercy, as in the case of John Newman, grants him graces without following the ordinary route (namely through the powers of Jurisdiction and Orders). Without realizing it, Akbar is drawn to the inner workings of the Catholic Church (i.e. the practice of the virtues); he does not know this, but humbly responds to this grace. His humble response disposes him to receive more graces. Akbar may never find the Catholic Church. He might die in that state. But because he has received the grace (which prompts him to practise the virtues) he is a member of the Church. No one may ever know this, but only God knows. Akbar may not be fully (or legally) Catholic, but he is 'catholic' enough to be saved ("Other sheeps I have that do not belong to My flock...") This is how non-Catholics are saved. They are, in fact, the unknown members of the Church, but they are saved. It is upon this same doctrine that Pope Benedict corrected our concept, and finally declared the 'closure,' of Limbo.

Now let's say we believe we are Catholics living in a Catholic Parish within a Catholic Diocese. First question we must ask and answer is: Did the hierarchy, by the power of Jurisdiction, teach us all the commands of Christ and how to obey them? If yes, well and good. We are Catholics if we know and have obeyed all the commands of Christ and have received the Sacraments worthily.

If, however, we do not know all the commands and how to obey them, even if we have received most of the Sacraments there is something wrong. Either we were not listening when the hierarchy was teaching us or the hierarchy did not teach us. In the former, the Church was trying to convert us but we were not listening; in the latter, the hierarchy proved itself to be not the Church because it was remiss in its first and foremost obligation to teach.

The Church will always exist. She will always bring in the Timothies and attract the John Newmans. She will also try, by long distance, to bring in the Akbars all the way home. Pope Benedict XVI with "Deus Caritas Est" and the "Compedium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church", is using his power of Jurisdiction to bring in the Timothies. He is using his power of Orders in his liturgical reforms and "Motu Propio." He prays that the John Newmans, the Christian sects, would eventually get in "contact" with the Church. And he prays that the Akbars, (described in Ecclesiology as "other faithful who belong unconciously, secretly, and invisibly") hopefully reach home also, though he knows most would not.

PREPARATION AND THE BUILDING OF THE CHURCH

2007-11-14T10:27:00.000+10:00

When we go to Mass and recite the Apostles Creed and come to that part, "I believe in One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church," have we ever wondered if we were indeed inside her? The priest saying Mass at the Altar and we, the congregation surrounding the priest, are we the Catholic Church? Those four signs mentioned are visible signs, the Catechism says, so we should know the answer.

The visible signs are outward manifestations of the internal mechanism of the Church. Let us go into her interior mechanism and see what is it in her that produces the so-called four visible signs. This interior mechanism is a more reliable way of knowing if we are the Catholic Church, as "Lumen Gentium" confirms.

God the Father created the angels and man to share with Him His happiness in Heaven, but some angels fell and man also fell.

God foreknew that man would fall. So He devised a plan for his salvation. The scenario in Paradise was one which showed that that plan was in place: God created a man and a woman. The woman was the type of the Church, and the man would be the type of Jesus Christ. There we see how the Church will be: like a woman united to her husband.

The Preparation. God set a race aside, completely apart from all other races - - the Chosen people. First, He would teach them His commands so that they can worthily offer a sacrifice pleasing to God. But this was not yet the Church. She was still undergoing preparation for birth.

Building the Church. At the fullness of time, Christ was born of the Virgin Mary. Christ, Himself, was a type of the Church in that He had a human nature (a type of the Church) united hypostatically to His Divine Nature (the Son of God). The union between the two natures is so intense it cannot be duplicated but merely imitated. The Blessed Virgin Mary would come close to it. So she becomes a type of the Church : a human being, in a manner hypostatically united to her Son. Her union with Christ would be an exemplar for other humans. But since this was only possible because she was full of grace, other humans, too, must have grace. Mary becomes the perfect type of the Church.

Herein we begin to see the two elements intertwined describing the internal mechanism of the Church. First, it is evident that GRACE is the most important element in the interior mechanism and secondly, the INSTRUCTIONS which the Chosen people had in the desert from Moses (which in Mary's case was infused).

Now that we have the models, namely Adam and Eve, the Chosen People, Jesus Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary, we are ready to see the Church (the Mystical Body of Christ) established.

We begin with the setting aside of a people similar to what Joshua did when he asked for volunteers to fight in a battle, and from them chose a few based on a test he had given them by the river. (Then we understand the words of Christ "Many are called but few are chosen." ) We see also in the Israelites that many were called by John the Baptist, and Christ sets aside a few from among many who were to be his first disciples. These had to undergo training for three years, by instruction (like Moses teaching the Israelites); and by infused knowledge. Sacramental graces and character were then given to them as they progressed. These then are the two elements of the interior mechanism of the Church: the power of jurisdiction, which is referred to during the time of instruction; and the power of orders, from which will come the graces. These are called "powers" because by them the Church is empowered to call souls into the Mystical Body.

After the Resurrection and before the Ascension the instructions would be complete and by Pentecost the graces would be complete. The Church then exists, made up of that small community in Jerusalem with Mary in their midst. Endowed with the two powers, they are ready to bring other souls into the Mystical Body of Christ.

The Church now exists. But its members eventually die. So how does the Church continue to exist? Christ, before the Ascension, instructed His apostles to do to others exactly what He did to them. This is found in the Apostolic Commission (Matt. 28:19) The same instruction must be carried out by all the successors of the apostles. Here we see again the two elements of the internal mechanism of the Church: the instruction; and the succession of orders to be vested in the Hierarchy.

Picture the Vatican. There is the Basilica in front with two arms (Pillars of Bernini) extending like an embrace towards the world. Imagine St. Peter's Basilica as the Mystical Body of Christ (the Church), and the two embracing arms of Bernini's pillars: one, as the power of jurisdiction; and the other as the power of orders. That is how the Church invites and embraces souls and brings them into the Mystical Body of Christ.

The apostolic commission reads "Go therefore and teach all nations ..." how to enter the Catholic Church. First (by the power of jurisdiction) teach them "all My commands" and teach them "how to observe these commands". And secondly, "baptize them" so they can receive the Sacramental grace that will unite them to Me; and the Sacramental character that will unite them to My priesthood enabling them to offer the Mass with Me.

The apostles, with these two powers, went to all nations and invited those who would continue the Church through the centuries. They used their power of jurisdiction by going about teaching all the commands of Christ and how to observe them (this is the same as saying to teach Scriptures and the Fathers of the Church). They used their power of orders by administering the Sacraments with emphasis on Baptism, Confirmation and Holy orders because of the Sacramental character.

So more souls entered the Church. After the Apostles, their successors were to do exactly what Christ did to His apostles and what the apostles did to their successors. They would go on, this time not around the world, but to their more limited jurisdiction. Clothed with this dual powers they can teach all of Christ's commands and how to observe them (the power of jurisdiction) and administer the sacraments (the power of order).

Ecclesiology has been the concern of both Vatican I and II. Vatican I and Vatican II Council Fathers were asking two questions. First, how does the Church look interiorly and exteriorly? Secondly, where is she? The Church being two thousand years old and replete with Saints, the answer should have been easy. But almost all the documents of both Vat. I and II were trying to find answers. Documents are still coming out for clarification. Today each Catholic layman, each Parish and Diocese should ask these same two questions. Are both the interior and exterior workings of the Church present in our parish or diocese. If not, where is the Church?

The Saints, especially some Fathers and Doctors of the Church, (like St. Cyprian, St. Ignatius of Antioch, St. Thomas of Aquinas and St. Robert Bellarmine) have written a lot on both the interior and exterior workings of the Church. Being members of the Mystical Body of Christ, they should know. But the Council Fathers, too. were supposedly members of the Mystical Body. So how come the workings of that Body were not familiar to some? Was this perhaps the problem Pope John XXIII saw already existing then that made him hastily, but wisely, call for Vatican Council II?

BUILDING THE CHURCH

2007-10-20T12:33:00.000+11:00

Outside the Church there is no salvation.
But who is inside the Church? Who is outside? Are all baptized Catholics inside the Church, the Mystical Body of Christ?

When the Saints, like Francis, Ignatius, Vincent de Paul established their orders they were aiming at holiness with their first few companions. Knowing that the Church was supposed to be holy --aside from being one, catholic, and apostolic, they knew the Catholic Church existed, but somehow, they could not pinpoint where she was. One thing they knew -- they could not find it in their surroundings. So they were moved by God to establish it where they were. They did not mean to establish orders or congregations within the Church. They were, in fact, building the Church in their locality.

Most founders did not know the exact theological description of their efforts. They were concerned with establishing a group whose members were of one heart and one mind in becoming holy....which is the description of the Church. They did not say: "There is no Catholic Church here; therefore we shall build the Church here," yet that was exactly what they were doing.

If we analyze the environs of Francis, Ignatius and Louis de Montfort, they were surrounded by "catholics" who were not part of the Mystical Body of Christ, dead branches attached to the Vine. The Church was hardly visible. And so they had to do something under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit to build the Church in Assisi, Manresa and France. This is also what St. Boniface did in Germany and Augustine in England. Their efforts can be described,using the text of "Lumen Gentium," or any treatise on Ecclesiology (like the one of Pope Benedict XVI.), as building up the Catholic Church in places where she does not exist. And they knew that the Church, existing somewhere would, with Her prayer, aid them.

If these founders of orders and congregations knew where the Church was by Her visible signs of being One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic, they would have simply entered the Church, finding no need to separate themselves from the rest of society in order to seek holiness on their own. And since they could not find those visible signs, so God taught them the dynamics on how Christ builds His Mystical Body on earth, thus building their respective congregations. Their Holy Rules would show how a soul can " connect" with the Mystical Body of Christ, the Catholic Church. St. Boniface built up the Church in Germany at that time. Germany was then pagan. But why did St. Francis and St. Ignatius do the same when Italy and Spain were already Catholic? Is it because the Catholic Church in their respective countries have ceased to show the signs of being Catholic? There seems to be no other reason.

To found a religious community is to found the Church. When God raises Saints to establish communities, it is His way of directly intervening in the ordinary way of the church (hierarchy) in order to add faithful members to His Mystical Body. The church hierarchy is empowered to do this, but their seeming failure to do so makes God intervene directly by raising up saints who would found communities after His heart, according to the one and the same spirituality -- the Evangelical Spirituality. (Isn't it quite strange when spiritual writers talk of Carmelite spirituality or Rosminian spirituality when they really have the same Evangelical spirituality?)

This is why promises made during religious professions are made to the Church, so that by profession, a person of any congregation is added to the Mystical Body of Christ, not so much to the Order that he or she has chosen to enter.

Today, there are many emerging communities. But many of them do not correspond to the dynamics on how the Church is built according to St. Augustine, Thomas of Aquinas, Bellarmine and "Lumen Gentium." But worthy of note is the community of Antonio Rosmini who was recently declared venerable by Pope Benedict XVI and scheduled for Beatification this year. His writings show the right way of building the Church. Buffeted by the period of "enlightenment" members of other congregations watered down the Holy Rules of their founders which is equivalent to watering down the teachings on the Catholic Church, thus preventing them from entering the Mystical Body of Christ through faith, hope and charity.

All Orders founded by their Holy Founders were built following the dynamics of building the Church. But somewhere along the way many of their followers fell short. They could have continued building the Church if they were faithful to their Holy Rules. But many were not, so they ceased becoming members of the Church or the Mystical Body of Christ.

It is indeed necessary to find out how God through Christ built the Church; how it was meant to function in the salvation of souls, and how we are moved to enter the Church.

The Mass at CARYANA

2007-09-16T21:35:00.000+11:00

At the Caryana Lay Monastic Comunity, a community that follows the Rule of St. Benedict, the "Work of God," the Liturgy, is of the utmost importance. St. Benedict stressed, quoting St. Augustine, that in any spiritual renewal there must be order. And that order must begin with the Liturgy or with prayer in general. It is in this spirit that years before the Motu Proprio of Pope Benedict XVI, the Mass in this community has been celebrated in the manner which His Holiness desires the whole Catholic world to go back to observing.

The Mass Proper, i.e. the Introit, Gradual, Alleluia, Offertory and Post Communion are all sung in Gregorian chant; also the Common of the Mass, i.e. the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, and the Agnus Dei.

While the Proper of the Mass is sung by the monastic choir, the Common of the Mass is sung alternately with the congregation who by this time had already memorized the melodies.

While all the Gregorian Chant, versicles and responses by the congregation are in Latin, the Collect and the three readings are in English. The Gospel is followed by a homily based on the writings of the Fathers of the Church.

Whereas before, the Canon was recited in English, now with the Motu Proprio of Pope Benedict, the congregation participate in singing all those parts that His Holiness wants recited or sung, in Latin.

During the Communion of the faithful, the Sacred Host is received kneeling down on the Communion rail, and on the tongue, while the monastic choir sings sacred Renaissance songs of Palestrina, Vittoria, Gabrielli, DiLassus, Tallis, Dufay, etc.

The Post Communion prayer is in English, but the rest, up to the Dismissal, is sung in Latin with the congregation responding. After Mass, the prayer to St. Michael is recited, followed by a seasonal hymn to the Blessed Virgin sung by all as the exit hymn. Then the Thanksgiving Prayer after Mass is entoned and joined in by the congregation, followed by the Our Father, Hail Mary and Glory Be, all recited in Latin so to enable the congregation to memorize them as the Holy Father has encouraged the faithful to do so from the first year of His Pontificate.

Just as the congregation has been instructed to wear proper clothes during Mass, including the wearing of veils, at the end of the Mass the congregation is encouraged to proceed home quietly avoiding all forms of socializing.

With the Motu Propio, the entire Canon of the 1962 Mass shall be recited and sung in Latin starting Sept 14. (Photo is a bishop celebrating Mass on the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe.)

GREED

2007-08-25T15:07:00.000+11:00

There are several degrees of greed, from the harmless to the most serious. The first degree is when we want to be united with God, but find the need to seek food, shelter and clothing in order to pursue our quest. The desire for food, shelter and clothing may be described as a harmless form of greed, and may be no greed at all.

The second degree, however, may then be aptly called the beginning of greed : this is when we remove our focus from God and turn our gaze down towards food, shelter and clothing. This can go on to the next (third) degree of greed which is now becoming more grievous because we begin to desire nice food, nice shelter and nice clothings; in which case the desire for more money is cultivated. From here it can go to the desire for even nicer food, nicer shelter and nicer clothing; in which case a greater fortune is needed. Such was the vice of the man who tore down his barn to build a bigger one; and that of the young rich man who rejected Christ's invitation to follow Him. The former wanted more, the latter wanted to keep what he already had.

At first sight it is difficult to see what is wrong with these two men. But the root of their problem is pride, and its fruit? Apostasy.

The beginning of greed , or avarice, as we mentioned above, is when a soul forgets his supernatural goal and focuses his faculties on food, shelter and clothing. And since avarice is the root of all evil (which is the more accurate translation according to St. Jerome), then we have the root of the dictatorship of relativism, of liberalism and all other modern evils.

When a person wants more food, more shelter and more clothing, and he is incapable of raising the money for them, he is open to all forms of graft and corruption (all evil) which essentially are acts of stealing; thus the saying, avarice is the root of all evil.

Why are the greedy insatiable? Because they cannot see what they already have, both from God and from those around them, in their greed to acquire what they still do not have. So, naturally, they are ungrateful, the sign of pride.

Our civilization is one that enthrones Avarice; s0 that like original sin, the vice is interred into the bones of every child. Greed is the immoderate desire for temporal things. It is the handmaid of apostasy. Is it any wonder, then, that we are experiencing a great apostasy in the Church today, of which St. Paul warns us is a prelude to the end times? ("The Return of the Prodigal Son" by Murillo, 1670.)

The CONVERSION and PEACE promised at Fatima.

2007-07-11T17:15:00.000+11:00

In the Old Testament, the Jewish people were waiting for an earthly kingdom. They were wrong. The kingdom Christ promised was a spiritual kingdom. The same at Fatima. Our Lady promised the conversion of Russia and peace in the world if the necessary consecration of Russia was made to her Immaculate Heart. These conversion and peace are both spiritual. Conversion is an act of grace which God alone can accomplish; and the peace which Christ mentioned was one which the world cannot give but He alone. Both conversion and peace are spiritual realities humanly unattainable.

The Benedictines made "Peace" their motto. It is written all over their monasteries. And I believe this peace, promised at Fatima, has been given to many faithful who have obtained it through a long process as described below. But many are waiting for a political, worldly peace as propagated by the United Nations. That is not the peace Mary promised.

Of the promise of the conversion of Russia, we should not expect to see a grand ceremony of mass baptism into the Catholic Faith. It is a conversion of the heart which is not visible, not even to the persons who will attain it.

Conversion is a long process. When Mary called the Church to repentance at Fatima, most Catholics could not do it. So the threatened chastisement befell men. If Catholics find it difficult to repent, the step prior to conversion, how can we expect Russia to be converted without passing through the long and difficult process of repentance?

Peace, according to St. Augustine, is the fifth stage through which the soul normally passes as it advances to the perfection of Charity. To reach that stage the soul must have virtues, the fourth stage. 'Avoid evil, do good and pursue peace' ... is an evangelical axiom that shows peace is practically the last step in the development of the spiritual life, the peace that "surpasses all understanding."

Perhaps the promise of Mary at Fatima is that when Russia is consecrated, she will help her to go through the slow process of repentance that will lead her to what spiritual writers call "the first conversion" and consequently peace. Then perhaps Russia will suddenly realize the beauty of its Christian roots and return to her communion with Rome. Thus the process towards repentance leading to conversion would then begin. A slow process that could take years, and we cannot rush it because of man's free will, but Mary will help.

As for peace, it is also a long process to attain. Peace is a gift of the Holy Spirit that is given in aid of the Theological virtues for the perfection of Charity. With Repentance too difficult for most Catholics, thus preventing them from entering into the Theological virtue of Faith that leads to the "peace that no one can give but God alone," how can the world expect to easily attain the gift of peace?

If Rome seems not to have acted upon the wishes of the Virgin at Fatima, it is probably because many would expect a worldly peace to ensue wherein wars and crimes will stop, thus making Rome liable of giving a wrong notion of the peace of Christ which really is the exact opposite of worldly peace, as He has said, " I came not to bring peace . . ."

Our hope is that mankind obeys Mary's plea to Repent. If we do this, we will all be well on the way to Conversion and Peace.

THAT Small COMMUNITY

2007-05-14T11:36:00.000+11:00

Pope Pius XII was once upon a time overwhelmed by the problems besetting the Church that he became withdrawn, which led him to live an heremitical life. He then promulgated "Provida Mater Ecclesia," encouraging lay secular institutes or third orders. This was how the Catholic Church begun: small groups, living the fulness of the Gospel in their homes, and eventually in the desert. They were all laymen. His enthusiasm blazed a trail that carried up to the time of the late Pope John Paul II and the present Pope Benedict.

Pope Benedict showed special interest in these small communities in his "Ratzinger Report," and even in his earliest writing "The Theology of History according to St. Bonaventure," his thesis when he was just a young priest. As newly-elected Pope, he mentioned about "a small Church" and after doing so, caricatures portraying him carrying a small "St. Peter"s Basilica, stressed his point. He expects a very small Catholic Church! How did he get that notion when news abound that the Church, especially in Africa, is growing?

Why should a Pope be interested in these small, new communities when Rome has already discouraged the establishing of new orders, presuming that the present, existing, approved Religious Orders were doing their jobs of fulfilling the needs of the Church? Perhaps because of one special characteristic common to them: these small lay communities usually acquire a deep and complete knowledge of the teachings of Christ through infused knowledge, without books or teachers, but simply by their way of life.

In the apocalypse, it is implied that the Church was once in the world and then, personified by the Woman, was transferred to the desert. Suddenly the Church had a new ambience: the members of the Church would learn the totality of the teachings of Christ in all its depths without human teachers. They would see the face of God without the need for books, lecturers, theological and catechetical centers. They would attain knowledge of God comparable to St. Thomas of Aquinas or St. Therese of Lisieux ...simply by their way of life.

St. Therese, in fact, is a typical example. Considering the few books she has read, she could not have described Charity as well as Pope Benedict did in "Deus Caritas Est" unless her knowledge was infused, attained through her way of life at home and perfected at Carmel. In her younger years, in a Benedictine school, she amazed the Abbe who called her "my little doctor of the Church." The recent publication of the writings of St. Bernadette Soubirous shows the same infused knowledge. So did Alphonse Ratisbonne, a Jewish convert, and Claude Newman, an illiterate Black slave who was converted and executed in prison. This is exactly like what happened at Pentecost, with the small community of apostles and disciples with Mary; and like the Apocalyptic woman with her children in the desert. Mary and the apostles were imbued with infused knowledge.

The first Christians knew this secret, and this is what drove them to the desert, like St. Antony the Hermit: to learn and worship God with full knowledge and love, foreshadowed by Israel's sojourn in the desert. It seems that Monasticism was that "small community."

Today, true monasticism, as envisioned by the Theology of Grace according to St. Paul, seem to have disappeared from the face of the earth, and attempts to renew it have been frustrating, just as De Rance's recent efforts to renew the Benedictines.

The first Christians knew this image from the Apocalypse. They lived according to that image of the Catholic Church in the desert. But through the centuries, the Christian world has forgotten how to live that life, and left the "Desert" for the busy cities -- the world, just as the Israelites desired to return to Egypt.

Today, a big portion of the Church have returned to Egypt. But Pope Benedict is looking for those still left in the Desert, aware perhaps that the invitation of the Woman of the Apocalypse for her children to join her there, has not ceased since Pentecost. And if this is so, then seminaries, theological and Catholic schools would be irrelevant. Only Scriptures and the writings of the Fathers of the Church would be needed for the members of that community to confirm what they already know. Because their knowledge would be infused, and there would be no danger of heresy, schism or apostasy. This would solve the present problem of learning our religion as if it were just another subject like Science.

Pope Benedict, because of his research on St. Bonaventure, knows that this "small community" is made up of unschooled children (to emphasize the supernaturalness of their infused knowledge and wisdom) who are imbued with profound knowledge of God and exceptional holiness. The existence of such communities is a thin golden chain in the history of the Church. They have always existed; and especially today, to prepare the world for the Parousia, according to the Benedictine Tradition, as noted by St. Louis de Montfort. They bear the stamp of the true Church: they are One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic; and beside this, they are Contemplative and Mystical. The Apocalypse mentions that there will be members of the Church out in the world, children of the Woman, especially chosen by God to stay on and work there in order to point to all where the Church is, in the Desert.

Perhaps aware that St. Benedict had succeeded in establishing such a community, (which explains our present Holy Father's predilection for the Benedictines), could it be that Pope Benedict has an inkling where to find that small community? There, wherein is found the fullness of Benedictine Life. This should narrow down his search. ("Pentecost" by Henri and Antoine Cibille, XVII centuy.)

LIMBO - Pope Benedict's INSIGHT

2007-05-08T23:06:00.000+11:00

1. We can never fully understand the teachings of Christ. We understand them gradually, thus the concept of the "Development of Doctrines." Our understanding depends on our Faith, Hope and Charity, but ultimately on the will of God who reveals or withholds truths from us. Many doctrines are implicit in Scriptures. But they are there.

2. Limbo is one concept God withheld for a while, since Repentance, Faith, Hope and Charity were more important. It does not matter how Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory look like. Christians are exhorted to focus and aim for heaven.

3. As with Heaven and Hell, we need Faith to believe in what we cannot see. Attempts to explain matters of Faith are fruitless. But we can only show their reasonableness when based on known truths.

4. The Fathers of the Church did not attempt to explain the mystery of the Blessed Trinity, but they wrote showing its reasonableness. And where ever the Fathers could not fully explain matters of Faith they depended on theological constructs, that is, attempts to make concepts rational.

5. But sometimes constructs can be unclear, and so sometimes seem unreasonable, as what happened with the construct on Limbo. But there is a way of clarifying unclear Evangelical concepts: consult directly the Author, God. We have heard of Saints, like St. Thomas of Aquinas, whose queries were answered by St. John the Evangelist and the Blessed Virgin.

6. Pope Benedict XVI must have 'consulted' St. Augustine who, now in Heaven, would know the truth about Limbo. Can you imagine a simpler way? Could this be what the Holy Father did in Pavia when he visited St. Augustine's tomb?

7.From the time of the early Church, Limbo has been described as a place where the Patriarchs, martyrs, heroes and saints of the Old Testament had to wait, before they could finally enter Heaven and receive their reward, till Christ has fulfilled the Father's Will to redeem man through His suffering and death. It wasn't Heaven. But considering that Christ "descended to the dead" before He resurrected, in order to open the gates and free those who were waiting for Him to accomplish His mission, it is welcome news that Pope Benedict has finally cleared up the matter which has been long overdue : Limbo no longer exists.

8.Why should it still exist? To continue believing that it still does would nullify the effect of Christ's death, which was to open to us the gates of Heaven. This is the reason also why Limbo had also been called the netherworld, for the righteous men of the Old Testament were kept apart from, and could not enter, Heaven till Christ has suffered and died. If the O.T. Fathers who had original sin and committed actual sins, venial or mortal sin, and repented of them, could go to Heaven, why could not unbaptized babies who had no actual sin? Among those whom Christ freed from Limbo when He "descended to the dead" was King David who committed adultery and repented of it. There is Mary Magdalene, also Demas the Good Thief. Would Christ have freed those Old Testament repentant grown- ups and bring them to Heaven and left behind innocent babies?

9.The Holy Innocents were so-called (Holy) because they were martyred for Christ. But they were naturally innocent before this, bearing the image and likeness of God, though tarnished by original sin, before they were slaughtered. If sinners could atone for so many sins and attain an immediate crown of glory with one blow for the sake of Christ, why should innocent babies, still in their pristine innocence, who had no chance to be baptized when they were slaughtered by their own parents who refuse to obey God rather than accept His Will, why should they be forever separated from the lot of repentant sinners who enjoy the beatific vision despite the sins they have committed, if indeed Limbo still exists?

10.When Christ said : "unless you become like children ..." "whatever you do to these little ones..." "he who welcomes them welcomes me ..." He was pointing at unbaptized children, setting them up as models for those who want to be His disciples. Did He say these to us only to encourage us go to Limbo? He would not have set them up as models for discipleship unless they were meant for Heaven. He also said "Do not prevent them from coming to Me ..." If God still holds Limbo in existence, where then is the truth about Him" .... Quae nec fallere, nec falli potest...?"

11.There is a purgatory wherein the "sins of the just" may be expiated before they eventually go to Heaven. If Limbo still exists, children who have never committed any sin will forever be denied Heaven. Such thought militates against both the mercy and justice of God. Would it not be more according to God's love if He were to rather send unbaptized innocents to purgatory and purge them of their original sin rather than forever cut them off from the vision of God by languishing in Limbo?

12.Come Judgment Day, there will only be Heaven and Hell as final rewards; even purgatory will be obsolete and would no longer exist. But think about those poor, unbaptized babies in Limbo, if God has not forever closed it!

13. The Beatific Vision is a gift of God. If He could freely give this to the patriarchs who have sinned, wouldn't he to unbaptized, innocent children, for whom He had always shown special tenderness?

14. All Christian doctrines must support each other like a jigsaw puzzle. Maintaining the present existence of Limbo does not fit into the doctrine of Divine Providence which states that God has made provisions to give all a chance to be saved. From this doctrine it is certain He made provisions for unbaptized children. His eternal imaginativeness will certainly find means to save them. ("Origin of the World," by Wiliam Blake, 1824.)

REPENTANCE: IS IT DIFFICULT ?

2007-03-24T11:51:00.000+10:00

The teachings of the Catholic Church may be summarized into four general headings: Repentance, Faith, Hope and Charity. The last three are infused theological virtues, gifts from God and humanly unattainable. In effect, Repentance is man's only human effort in the work of salvation, though still with the help of grace.

The Old Testament taught Repentance, John the Baptist being its last preacher. In the New Testament, Christ perfected the doctrine; and the Apostles preached this perfected version of Repentance. So did the Fathers of the Church, those who followed the Apostles. Later on the other great preachers also preached repentance. Among them were St. Wilfrid, Savonarola, and St. Louis de Montfort. The Popes, in different ways, reminded us of the need to repent. In these last days Mary herself has urged us to repent, from La Sallete to Fatima.

Christ emphasized the importance of repentance by living his 30 years of hidden life "repenting" but for our instruction. This hidden life was picked up by the early Christians in the form of the monastic life. Thus St. Benedict wrote in his Holy Rule that the life of a monk is a life-long Lenten observance of repentance. In fact, St. John Climacus divided his work "The Ladder" into 30 chapters, representing the 30 years of hidden life of Christ and the spiritual activities that make up the life of Repentance.

Is repentance truly so difficult as to give the prophets a difficult time preaching it in the Old Testament? Neither did Christ have an easy time teaching it in the New Testament. Neither did the Fathers of the Church and the Saints find it easy. The Blessed Virgin at Fatima included a threat to her invitation to repent. But the fulfilment of the threats made at Fatima showed that mankind failed to repent. Perhaps some did but, like in Sodom and Gomorrah, the number was not good enough for God to hold back His threat.

God wills to give us the three theological, infused virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity if we have the proper disposition. Repentance disposes us to be worthy. The way towards these three virtues are easy, especially if we are like children. But when we become adults we pile up obstacles to these virtues. Repentance removes the obstacles, aside from preserving the initial innocence of childhood.

But then again, why does repentance seem so difficult? Well, it really isn't, because it is an act of grace, and therefore, easy. First, we must remove the wrong concept from our minds that repentance is merely that brief moment we spend examining our conscience, then confessing our sins to the priest, then receiving absolution, and finally saying a number of Hail Marys given us as penance, and then . . . that's it! No, that is merely external repentance. But internal repentance, as Sts. Benedict, Ambrose and Augustine described it, is a way of life that lasts for life. The first monasteries and convents were for life-time internal repentance. A sin is an offence against an infinite God and restitution has to be made for a lifetime.

The beginnings of the life of repentance must include an act of supernatural Faith, motivated by Hope of receiving forgiveness, and the fear of God which is enlivened by Charity and aided by the gift of the Holy Spirit. Note that the junction where Repentance, Faith, Hope, Charity and the Fear of the God meet are all works of God. What takes effort and time is approaching the junction to dispose ourselves to receive those graces.

True repentance can only be had by living a monastic life, as St. Benedict mentions in his Rule.

And the steps for repentance are clearly and specifically enumerated in the Parable of the Prodigal Son. The 30 chapters of "The Ladder" of St. John Climacus can be summarized into the 5 steps of the same Parable.

The parable has splendidly enumerated the 5 steps of repentance that can lead us back to God. If we do the first step well, the next steps would follow easily. (The parable also enumerates the 5 steps we take to depart from God.)

The first step towards repentance is coming to oneself: "he (the Prodigal Son) came into himself." This is similar to the exhortation to "take heed," which St. John Chrysostom commented on. Everything in the world today prevents us from going into oneself. Everything is luring our intellect and free will to focus on things outside ourselves. The external stimuli is so overwhelming we almost have no choice but to be lured to them. The lusts of the flesh and of the eyes make us commit sin and keep us in our sins. And the devil sees to it that new inventions, new foods, new tourist spots fill the earth that will attract our attention. And our priests are not spared by this siren call.

Thus the first rule of Christ's hidden life and adopted by the monastic movement is "fuga mundo." It is easier to flee the world now than undergo the misfortunes of the Prodigal Son to learn our lesson. And both St. Augustine and St. Benedict emphasized the importance of being free from this overwhelming stimuli that prevent us from beginning our repentance by coming into ourselves. We must come into ourselves so that we may see the 5 (opposite) steps that brought us away from God. Only then can we say like the prodigal son "I will arise."

Since there are very few who are preaching true repentance nowadays, an option would be to take recourse from Scriptures, the Fathers, and the writings of the saints and Papal documents. But we can also pray that the Lord send labourers to His field in order to sow seeds of repentance.

(Painting is "Mary Magdalene" by Simon Vouet, 1700.)

Grace builds on nature.

2007-03-16T09:26:00.000+10:00

The monks invented the first schools. They were called "the school of the Lord's service." The subjects they taught were Reading, Writing, a little Arithmetic. . . . and Philosophy. Philosophy for young children? Yes, because it is when they were young that parents sent their children to monasteries. And having the natural God-given aptitude to reason rightly they were trained before they were ruined by worldly education. Those first subjects were very helpful in preparing for the study of Divine Revelation or Scriptures, because grace builds on nature.

Man is a rational animal. First an animal, second rational. Today he seems to be more animal than rational. Thanks to the information highway that has trapped men's mind on things earthly, preventing him from being rational and from rising up to the supernatural.

Today, the world is filled with evil and, as a consequence, sufferings. Religion must be able to explain why this is so because human knowledge cannot. For us Christians, we have to examine what happened in heaven and paradise once upon a time.

In paradise, man was meant to subdue his animal nature by what was rational in him, namely his intellect and free will. This was frustrated because of the Fall. So now, before he can do this, he must develop his intellect in the natural level through right and sound reasoning. Doing this will enable him to rise to the concept of a prime - mover or creator. Even in the natural sphere he could intellectually suspect that there is a supernatural sphere. His natural quest for this sphere will make him responsive to the grace of God and enable him to rise up to the supernatural. In this level he will discover that God spoke; and that what he said is found in Divine Revelation. With sound reasoning and Divine Revelation he can now dictate to his own free will the good he must pursue. Every decision he makes must now conform to this objective norm to do good.

St. Thomas of Aquinas gives the example of a carpenter who has a ruler. If he uses this tool, he will draw a straight line, his act would be considered right. Comparatively, if we love God more than anything else, then we are acting morally, according to the Divine rule of conduct which states that we should love God above all things. If we disregard this objective norm of judgment, Divine Law and sound reasoning, then it is our concupiscence that would be making the rules on what is straight or moral.

The Holy Father has often described the above scenario and called it the dictatorship of relativism. It is a cruel dictatorship because it is the rule of what is animal within us, as pictured imaginatively in the Planet of the Apes, except that the apes are within us.

A solution has been given by Pope Benedict XVI. We have to use sound reasoning, with a little help, perhaps, from the rules of logic formulated by the Greeks; and with the help of the virtue of Faith, find out who is this God who moves all things. Then we shall find out if that God has spoken, and find out what He has said. Our sound reasoning and what He has said should be our basis for judgment.

Unfortunately, Ronald Knox has observed that man, in his pride, has always been unlucky in guessing who that God is, an unconscious way of denying God in order to substitute himself in His place, as the first angels tried to do and became devils.

In the dictatorship of relativism, we make up the norms, thus making ourselves "like unto God." Wasn't this the temptation of Adam and Eve? And we have fallen.

St. Thomas of Aquinas, following St. Augustine, described an act as evil, when it does not follow the external norms put forward by Divine Revelation and sound reasoning. This would mean that the world, especially now, is filled with evil. To be good or holy today would be most difficult. Perhaps this is why it has been prophesied that the saints of the last age would be greater, because inspite of the great evil of our present age, evils that have not been seen in ages past, they will be able to reach holiness. What about those who find evil insurmountable? Well, we should believe that where there is an abundance of evil, there will always be a superabundance of grace.

This present moral state was already described by William Shakespeare with words uttered by Marc Anthony at the funeral of Julius Caesar who was assassinated by Brutus and his friends. "O judicium, ad belvas fugisti brutas. Atque homines rationem perdiderunt." (O judgment, thou art fled to brutish beasts, and men have lost their reason.) (Painting by Master Francke, "The assassination of St. Thomas Becket," fifteenth century.)

NEW EMERGING LAY COMMUNITIES

2007-03-06T14:45:00.000+10:00

Pope John Paul II, of holy memory, and our present beloved Pope Benedict XVI, both have shown great interest in the new movements among the laymen. They used to attend the meetings of these lay movements in Rome. Thus, a Congregation has been set up to regulate and monitor their activities. The Cursillo in Christianidad, in which I had been very active in the early years of my priesthood, has just received Vatican recognition. Pope Pius XII was the first to notice this movement in the Catholic Church, and inspired by it, encouraged its development and instructed Bishops to cooperate in what he thought was a clear movement of the Holy Spirit within a troubled Church.

This is not new. In the history of the Catholic Church, whenever the Church needed renewal, God raises laymen to renew her. St. Francis of Assisi would be a classic case. And while there were great figures who dominated the renewal scene, a strong undercurrent of lay movements was present everywhere. It was this fact that made Pope Pius XII notice the emergence of lay movements in these times, like the Opus Dei, Cursillos, Focolare, etc.

Let us look at a brief moment in history and make an important observation. Circa 900 A.D. was described as the Dark Ages for civilization and calamitous for the Papacy with Rome in turmoil. Immediately evident was the reform in the Ecclesiastical level with St. Peter Damian, a Benedictine, beginning his reform around the year 1000 A.D. which begun the Ascent and Descent Chapter of the history of the Church. St. Peter Damian's reform was carried on by the Gregorian Popes initiated by Pope Gregory VII, a Benedictine. The reform was further enhanced by a movement from Cluny, a Benedictine Abbey that was ruled by four consecutive saintly Abbots. Further on we see St. Dominic de Guzman in the middle of the frey. The Church never lacked holy Popes and Saints to sustain the Church.

But note that from the time of St. Peter Damian to St. Dominic, for instance, there was a very strong lay movement where these groups lived in imitation of the first Christians as described in Acts of the Apostles. These laymen were living lives that put the clergy to shame. These lay movements may be divided into two groups. First, those who lived as the first Christians did using Scriptures as their only guide, especially the Acts where the first Christian communities were described by Luke. And secondly those who did exactly the same thing but placed themselves under a Rule. Though the Rule of Saint Benedict was the favorite, around the time of St. Dominic the Rule of St. Augustine became popular. The observation is this: those whose only guide was Scriptures easily strayed into heresy. While those who were guided by a Holy Rule as well continued in their orthodoxy.

Today, we have many similar lay movements, but most of them are depending completely on Scriptures alone for guidance and the private interpretation of Scriptures of their founders. They are in danger because the sources of Catholic teaching is both Scriptures and Tradition plus the Magisterium of the Church. The Holy Rules specify how the Gospel is to be lived. To depend on Sola Scriptura, even if it is the Bible, is definitely dangerous; "Beware of the man with one book," warns St. Thomas of Aquinas. Pope Benedict XVI has often hinted on the use of the Rule of St. Benedict as an added guide. He could also suggest the Rule of St. Augustine, being a lover of the saint, or other Rules as well. But St. Benedict's Rule, having been the main force in the conversion of pagan Europe, is what we probably need in our present time since we have returned to paganism. (Painting by Sodoma "Stories of St. Benedict," 1503.)

The SECRET of Fatima

2007-02-23T15:46:00.000+10:00

There is much controversy regarding the secret of Fatima. Of course we must be interested in it.... the Blessed Mother has spoken! The Church has decreed that she has spoken indeed. We must find out what she said. It was addressed to mankind. How come few know about it? Even many priests and bishops are ignorant of it.

Pope Benedict XVI, as Cardinal, described it as nothing else than what is found in Scriptures. And he was right. Except few really understand Scriptures because its meaning is supernatural, unknown by the natural man but understood only by the spiritual man.

The Secret of Fatima was explained by Pope John Paul ll at Fatima, during the canonization of Jacinta and Francisco. But nobody understood it. And so it is not that the Church has not explained it publicly, but rather that nobody understood it.

There is nothing in private revelations that should not be already found in public or Divine revelation. And the secret of Fatima is found there.

It is found in the Apocalypse, the similitude used by Pope John Paul II in Fatima. But then the Apocalypse is the most difficult book to interpret. No wonder no one understands it. This same message is taught in the tradition of Benedictine monasticism. It was popularized by Joachim of Fiore and became part of the Franciscan tradition, too. St. Bonaventure was interested in it as noted by then Cardinal Ratzinger in his thesis the "Theology of History according to St. Bonaventure."

Countless saints have written on it, like St. Louis de Montfort. In fact it was on this Benedictine Tradition that he built his writings and founded his Congregations.

And so when Pope John Paul II and Cardinal Ratzinger announced the message at Fatima they put their heads together. Cardinal Ratzinger was knowledgeable of Scriptures, the Benedictine Tradition as written in the Dialogues of St. Gregory describing the life of St. Benedict, and the Franciscan Tradition as compiled by St. Bonaventure. Pope John Paul II knew the writings of St. Louis de Montfort since he was a young priest, from where he got the motto of his coat of arms "Totus Tuus."

And what is the message of Fatima? "It has begun." As St. Thomas of Aquinas has said, for those with Faith no explanation is necessary. But for those without faith, any explanation is futile. (Painting is "The Immaculate Conception" by Giovanni Battista, 1714)

The DE-CHRISTIANIZATION of the CATHOLIC CHURCH

2007-01-25T14:12:00.000+10:00

By default, the Catholic Church is undergoing a de-Christianization. Catholics and their descendants are no longer making their acts of faith.

The cause is the fact that an act of Faith is a purely supernatural act. And man today is so natural (and unnatural) that they are unable to climb up to the supernatural. Or, even though the act of Faith is purely an act of God, man is unable to dispose himself to deserve it. Unfortunately, our culture and our times, our system of Catholic education and our defective catechesis, and our parents all contribute to our present indisposition.

So what is happening is that Catholics with faith are losing their faith because of sins against faith and our young ones are unable to make their act of faith because of the bad examples around them. Blessed Alberione, in fact, put the blame on parents, particularly the mother. Our mothers are more like Eve than the Blessed Virgin Mary. Unlike Mary who brought Christ to the temple, mothers are bringing their children to the forbidden tree. Should we still wonder why we are killing one another as Cain killed his brother Abel?

And it is the children of Eve who are becoming priests and bishops, nuns and future mothers. Where are the true children of Mary? The book of the Apocalypse points at the desert where the woman fled to a special place prepared by God Himself. There, in that special place, is where the true children of Mary are to be found.

St. Louis de Montfort knew this and tried to establish a community that would truly become children of Mary, truly a community of Faith. St. Bonaventure knew about this, too, and was hoping that that community was that of St. Francis of Assisi. Pope Benedict knows about this "small Church" shining with true Catholic Faith, which, perhaps, explains his interest in new emerging small communities.

Christ has prophesied that "when the Son of man comes, will He find Faith on this earth?" Of course there will always be, for the Church will always exist. But He emphasizes its smallness.

Sion, and especially the temple of Jerusalem, pre-figured the Catholic Church. Because of the unbelief of the Jewish people the temple was destroyed, wherein "not one stone was left on top of another." Could this be the same vision at Fatima: the ruined Church wherein not one stone is left on top of another .... because of her de-Christianization, because of her absence of Faith?

Only those with Faith can transmit the faith, says Leo XIII addressing exegetes. We have had a crisis of faith since the middle ages. With faith practically dying with the Saints raised by God, the world would be devoid of it by now. Of course, God always raises up Saints and Popes to confirm us in the faith, but who gives their intellectual assent to their teachings as words of God? (Painting is "The Dream of Innocent III" from the Basilica of St. Francis.)

WIELGUS AFFAIR - a bishop treated unCHARITABLY

2007-01-11T10:37:00.000+10:00

I am still struggling with two articles in my draft. One on the absence of faith and the second on the de-Christianization of the Catholic Church. Both articles show the absence of the theological virtue of Faith among many Catholics.

Living Faith, however, must be enlivened with Charity; otherwise it is dead. Then comes the sad Wielgus affair that fortifies the above thesis. His treatment by the people shows a great lack of Charity in them.

Our analysis has two parts. The first part, what Bishop Wielgus did and the second part, the reaction of people who urged the good bishop to resign before his installation. I am unqualified to handle the first part for the same reason that those who rejected him were not qualified to judge the Bishop.

The first part is between the Bishop and God. A moral analysis of the second part shows that the people who urged him to resign were unjust if not uncharitable and guilty of mortal sin commonly called rash judgment "Judge not that you may not be judged." The words of Christ were threatening, showing the seriousness of the sin. Our concern is not whether the bishop is guilty or not. But whether the unfavorable reaction was Christian or not.

Let us go to the second part. Judgment is an act of Justice, a decision of what is just and right. To judge rightly proceeds from a virtuous habit. A chaste person decides matters relating to chastity; to what is just belongs properly to Justice. We may judge but not rashly. We may judge as long as it is an act of Justice.

But Justice is a moral virtue that accompanies the theological virtue of Faith enlivened with Charity. Only one in the state of Sanctifying grace, practically a saint, can judge with wisdom and with prudence (both a supernatural state) comforming with the ruling of the Gospel.

St. Thomas of Aquinas gives 3 requirements for an Act of Justice. Firstly, it must come from the inclination of the moral virtue of Justice in assistance to the theological virtue of Faith. Secondly, the judgment must come from a person in authority. And thirdly, the judgment is pronounced according to the right ruling of prudence. In the absence of any one element, the judgment is unlawful.

The violation of the three requirements would go thus: firstly, if the judgment is made by one in (the state of) mortal sin and therefore devoid of Justice, the judgment would be perverted or unjust. Secondly, if the judgment does not come from his superior, it is judgment by usurpation. And thirdly, if the judgment is not guided by the moral virtue of prudence (a supernatural moral virtue) then it is a rash judgment.

The first requirement was stated by Christ, "He who has no sin may cast the first stone." No sin... refers to being in the state of grace. Where those who objected to the bishop's elevation without sin? The fact that they rash judged him shows they were in the state of mortal sin since he is a Bishop. Because the bishop's dealing with the communist is not clear and labeled 'under suspicion', St.Thomas of Aquinas would have stated that to judge him is a mortal sin.

The second requirement: those who judged him were not his superiors. The immediate superior of Bishop Wielgus is the Pope. So when inferiors judged the bishop, it was perverse and by usurpation.

Besides, his promotion is of a spiritul matter and should not be ruled by human consideration. The spiritual is superior to the natural. The spiritual can judge the natural in its spiritual aspect but not vice versa.

The third requirement is that the judgment must be inspired by the moral virtue of prudence which exist only in those with living Faith, i.e. in the state of grace (which unfortunately everybody thinks he is). But the fact that they have disobeyed the commands of Christ "Not to judge," "Not to look at the speck," "To love," shows that they were not in the state of grace, they were in the state of sin and had no right to cast the first stone.

The Pope and the Congregation for the Bishops acted rightly and charitably. They knew the bishop, his background and acted according to the 3 requirements of St. Thomas and recommended his elevation to the see of Warsaw. The Pope is guided by Christ's promise of a strong faith; he is the superior of the bishop; and because Christ prays that his faith may not waver, he has prudence. The Pope's choice was in accordance to the teachings of Christ and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, thus completely a supernatural act that surpasses all natural, judicial, political or experimental knowledge. Our shepherd has shown the way. If we have the Catholic Faith, we must be one heart and one mind with him and do likewise and agree to the installation of Bishop Wielgus to the See of Warsaw. (Painting by Tintoretto, 1519-94, "The Banquet in the House of Simeon.")

The Priest - Problem

2006-12-26T16:50:00.000+10:00

I was amazed at the extent of the problem of many priests in the US: Sex. It is bad enough that seminary training since the past century is far from what the Holy Father would want it; they have been turning out priests who are not faithful to their vow of celibacy. But the problem has degraded even to unnatural sins: sex between two men or with minors.

Spiritual writers, like St. Thomas of Aquinas, have stated that in the spiritual life, one must progress every minute. St. Benedict described this as conversion of life. We must be converted continuously towards the perfection of Charity. They describe this as the three stages of conversions which we must undergo in the spiritual life. He who does not progress, deteriorates, St. Thomas of Aquinas states.

Let us look at the normal pace and direction of the Spiritual life towards the perfection of Charity. Let us start with children. They are born with a tendency to choose evil, the original sin we inherited from our first parents. But this tendency matures only at the age of reason. So before they lose their initial innocence, parents, god-parents and the Church should raise them to the supernatural level through Baptism and an act of faith, just as the parents of St. Therese did. From then on, the child grows in nature. But he should also grow in grace; this way he will not have much problem with regard to the devil, the world and the flesh. But if he does not grow in grace, these three enemies of the soul will bother him and cause him to sin. In which case he would need the sacraments of Penance, and perhaps of Matrimony. If he continues to grow in grace after Matrimony his journey will be smooth. If he does not grow in grace, he could commit adultery. Many remain in that sinful state. If they get worse, they could easily enter into other vices like avarice, gluttony, etc.

Now, let us go back to the seminarians. Like all children, after baptism, they had within themselves the spiritual tools to progress in the life of grace up to the perfection of Charity. But if their parents had neglected their growth in grace they could be unprepared for seminary life. If within the seminary, their life in grace is neglected, their concupiscence could start to act up. They would be attracted to girls. But since there are no girls in the seminary they could begin with self-inflicted impure acts. If they do not overcome this by ascetical exercises, they could tend to desire these impure pleasures from others. And since they are surrounded only by men, they could be attracted to each other. But because of "whistle - blowers" they could prey on children, instead. This is just the application of the above principle of spiritual life, "He who does not progress will regress." While great efforts are needed to progress, no effort is needed to regress.

Ignorance of the workings of grace and the spiritual life while living in the purely human level (in short, the absence of growing up in true Faith) is the cause such a problem.

Catholicism is the answer and solution to all problems from drug addiction to adultery; more precisely, monasticism. Didn't monasticism solve all the problems of Europe, transforming that pagan continent into a Christian one? And wasn't the neglect of monasticism that caused the return to paganism? Didn't Pope Benedict hint a return to St. Benedict's monasticism?

The "gay" problem had been tackled even as early as the time of St. Basil. He had such problems with his first followers who were new converts from paganism and who could still easily regress. St. Peter Damian discussed this problem lengthily and his solution was the monastic life.The Gregorian reform initiated by Pope Gregory VII was an attempt to stem this scourge among others. It is a problem that cannot be solved unless the individuals concerned take the initiative to grow in the spiritual life. Peter Damian, also a Benedictine monk, imposed both the rule of St. Benedict and St.Romuald in order to show the greater need to lead a stricter than the ordinary monastic life. (Painting is "Basil and Emperor Valens" 1st half of the 18th century by Pierre Hubert Subleyras.)

OUR LADY OF GUADALUPE

2006-12-13T15:33:00.000+10:00

Here in our monastic community we had been busy preparing for the celebration of the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the principal Patroness of the Philippines. A Solemn Pontifical Mass was concelebrated by two bishops and five priests, the choir singing the Gregorian Chant and Renaissance acapellas. After, the faithful partook a repast in the Oratory grounds.

The Church was to be described in three stages: first, in the old Testament Church, wherewith the people of God were set aside away from the rest of the people. The second, during the public life of Christ wherewith they were for a while in the world to listen to the Word of God. And thirdly, after Pentecost, when the Church returned to the desert.

These three stages are represented by the feasts during the Advent season. The first Sunday of Advent showed who were to receive God's favorable judgment; this is followed by the feast of the Immaculate Conception; and in preparation for the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the feast of Juan Diego.

These stages describes the three degrees of Humility which is the breeding ground of the theological virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity. So we see the humility of Christ who was God but humbled himself to be a servant "I came to serve and not to be served." Then we see the humility of the Blessed Virgin Mary who was, though not a god, was somebody; but she humbled herself to be a handmaid of the Lord. And then, Juan Diego who was a "nobody" and called himself a nobody.

Evidently it would be difficult to copy the humility of a God who became man. It is easier to copy the humility of a human, though chosen to be the mother of God, who remained a human. But it is easier to copy the humility of a "nobody" Aztec who remained a nobody.

To be humble like Juan Diego consist in living the life of Repentance preached by John the Baptist and perfected by Christ. To be humble like Mary is slightly more difficult and consist in living the life of Repentance and having devotion to Mary. But to imitate the humility of Christ we must live the life of Repentance, be devoted to Mary and have her mediation to raise us up to be Christ-like.

In Scriptures, the first state is described in the old Testament and the beginnings of the New Testament. The second state is described in the public life of Christ. And the third state is taught to us after Pentecost. Thus in the second state Mary was Mother of Christ. And in the third she was the personification of the Church.

Thus Scriptures describe the Church of the Old Testament as Sion. In the New Testament the Church was described as the daughter of Sion or the New Jerusalem or the woman in the world. And the third was described in the Apocalypse as the Woman in the Desert...which resembles the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Since the first and second stages are over, the Church has been focusing on the third stage wherein the Church, though primarily Christocentric, will take a Marian character. So the first Christians returned to the desert to learn the Christocentric aspect of the spiritual life. Attaining this, the fathers of the Church began adding devotion to Mary by honouring her with the title of the second Eve.

This Marianization of the Catholic Church gained ground in the times of St. Dominic and Bernard of Clairvaux. It disappeared for a while under the onslaught of the serpent but continued in the era of the renewal in France with Berulle, Olier and Louis de Montfort, who was so convinced of the Marian character of the Church (the Woman of the Apocalypse) that he established an order that would correspond to its description.

The 1400s and 1500s were years when Mary seemed to fortify this tendency by her numerous apparitions, with Our Lady of Guadalupe, being the most impressive of them all.

The three important truths that are the objects of Faith are: that there is a God; the second person became man; and that He redeemed mankind. In the act of Redemption, begun in the Old Testament, Mary plays an important part in the Incarnation (in which the description on how the Spirit overshadowed her and came upon her is replica of Pentecost) and in the end of our journey which is to be with God the Father in Heaven.