There is less prayer than ever before,
more sin than ever before, even worse, indifference as if sin no
longer exists, and so we have given much greater power to “the
father of lies”, Satan (Jn 8:44). In particular Satan has more
power to “disguise himself as an angel
of light” (2Cor 11:14), to offer his
very deadly beautiful lies as if they were the “truth that sets us
free” (Jn 8:32)!
Thus it is very important in
these times of great confusion, when
even Catholic bishops are no longer in agreement about the
fundamentals of our faith and morals, to not only pray much and to
study the Catechism of the Catholic Church for adults, but to
keep our eyes open so as not to fall into the beautiful lies of Satan
presented as if they were the Truth!
FOR
UPDATES on some of these fundamental, hidden, and disguised
deceptions of the ancient serpent, visit one of my index web sites to
see the more important, latest articles:
(as
well as the DOCUMENTS REGARDING ECCLESIAL APPROVAL of the TESTIMONY
OF GLORIA POLO):
Father Joseph Dwight
- - - - - - -
The Great Difficulty In Overcoming Pharisaism
The Difference Between Schismatic Traditionalism and the False
Pope Prophecies
The following was an email (May 13, 2016) that I received from a
person with whom I have been in contact for several years, in
response to my “Spiritual Food 1605”:
Is the Pope Catholic? - The Greatest Schism in Catholic Church
History!
- - -
Dear Father Joseph,
You have written a work of love for the many souls that have been
lost and to prevent more being lost. I cannot imagine the strain on
you from bishops, priests and laity for trying to pass on Our Lord's
Teachings.
I have read all you posted.
Occasionally I have written you but rarely do you reply if I
seemingly proffer any controversial explanations.
I hope you will read this and think about it.
First I would like to suggest a book from the 16th century- The
Sinner's Guide by Venerable Louis of Grenada. Even St Theresa of
Avila, a contemporary suggested the book had saved a million souls.
I probably could have brought more people to your monthly reflections
that most anyone in the last 10 years.
I never really told you our connection. I came from Australia in
1999. I had sent both my daughters to US universities on Tennis
scholarships. My second daughter Kylie did a semester in Perugia in
2002. When you first contacted me and also told me you completed a
degree in Mathematics and I was but a year older. This mirrored my
tertiary education- B.Sc. (U.N.S.W.) with a double major in Pure and
Applied Mathematics.
While now a citizen of the United States I have designed my own
computer programs to successfully trade futures markets for clients
as a Commodity Trading Advisor (CTA). The many hours spent on the
computers has also allowed me to study the Faith.
I will also tell you. I can still remember as a 3 year old being
taken to Mass by my parents and being in awe of the priest at the
Altar. This was ofcourse the Mass of All Time. I was an altar boy
for 5 years till the changes in liturgy. Eventually I became a
lukewarm Catholic after the Sacrament of Matrimony. I made sure my
daughters went to Catholic schools but little else for educating in
the Faith. I was bored with the Novus Ordo service.
Only 14 years ago I came back to Mass but Our Lord's Mass.
I know from past exchange of emails you equate one Mass with the
other.
That is part of the problem that you have had.
Our Lord told the Apostles the essentials of the Mass together with
the Words of Consecration. Through the early centuries the Mass was
embellished with efficacious prayers. Eventually codified in 1570.
The Mass was infallibly promulgated. The Council of Trent in Session
7 infallibly proclaimed there could be no new Liturgies and in
Session 22 Latin was the language of the Mass.
A future Pope can only change discipline and not doctrine. I have
heard the modernist argument that because a later Pope is the equal
of the earlier Pope, the later Pope can change what was earlier
infallibly proclaimed in doctrine. That argument can be easily
refuted. After Pius 1X infallibly proclaimed the Immaculate
Conception of Our Lady could a following Pope change that?
Another disagreement we have is that there is poison in the Vatican
2 Documents. You should read 'I Accuse the Council' by Archbishop
Marcel Lefebvre. Terms such as Ecumenism, Religion Liberty and the
description of the Catholic Church was modified which gives the
impression of being only one of many churches that can bring the
person to grace. This was all the modernists and freemasons doing.
They had their Pope in John XX111 and then Paul V1. Note he became a
Mason in the 1950s and his mother's grave has only masonic symbols. I
can relate many issues with the conciliar popes. you can research
Fr. Luigi Villa. They have all lead to Francis.
I might add out of the bishops who signed the documents of Vatican II
( they broke their Oath against Modernism) Paul V1 chose members of
a consilium as well as 6 protestant ministers who did not believe in
the Real Presence. They designed the Novus Ordo Mass that removed
the propitiatory Sacrifice of the Offertory as well as 73 Catholic
prayers. I am not going to relate you other problems. Suffice to
say it was a new rite as Paul V1 said and this is invalid under the
Council of Trent. This liturgy can only be viewed as schismatic or
protestant. By canon law there can be no Consecration outside of
Mass
Unless priests have been celebrating the Mass that comes from Our
Lord there is no Sanctifying Grace flowing to the Faithful.
You do not have amongst your information that Our Lord in 1902 and
Our Lady in 1906 warned of an odious liturgy that would be celebrated
by most of the priests in the second half of the 20th century. This
was conveyed to the stigmatist Marie Julie Jahenny who also lived for
sometime on the Eucharist alone and she is approved by the Church.
I would not be surprised at all at what is happening. There have
been few courageous clergy like Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre who
recognized early the Apostasy in Rome.
I am sure I am only rehashing what you know.
There has been a new religion alongside the much smaller Catholic
Church for the last 50 years or so. Call it the new world order
church.
The true Catholic Church is but a remnant.
You can watch videos on 40 years of Fidelity to the Church from the
SSPX. When you visit one of their churches you know Our Lord is there
and the priests that have been persecuted for many years are faithful
to Eternal Rome.
You have Confession at least 45 minutes before Mass and after if
necessary. The Rosary is also prayed. The Faithful come respectfully
dressed with men in suits and ladies wearing longer dresses and
veils. You don't have to worry about the abuses and novelties of the
novus ordo churches that have really become another protestant sect.
I see from recent survey in Sydney almost 78 % of diocesan priests
do not believe in the Real Presence
You can watch various videos with Bishop Fellay on the lies told by
the Vatican in the last 16 years as they try to get the SSPX under
their control to destroy Tradition.
Through your work you keep on quoting the CCC which has 800
references from Vatican 2 - only a pastoral council at best
So the new church needed a new mass, new code of Canon Law and new
Catechism. This was the Modernists or Freemason agenda.
The Catholic Church in the future will stand against as a beacon of
light to the world. However this will not occur till the new church
has been vanquished and people return to Our Lord's Church.
Father I am trying to show you where the problems started in our life
time or a little before.
I pray that you will celebrate the Mass of Our Lord.
I will stop now.
God Bless,
Gerard
- - - - - - - -
Dear Gerard,
Thank you for you email.
As I detected in your past recent emails and this
one, it seems you never overcame the
sectarian mentality. It seemed in your
first emails a few years ago that you had overcome this mentality;
you were communicating with the Norbertines in Orange County, etc.
Were you not happy with a few indications of the dangers of leaving
the Church on the right side in my last “Spiritual Food 1605”?
You seemed to be in agreement with my original article on this topic,
“A Common Sense Rebuttal to Schismatic Traditionalists and
Sedevacantists”
(http://schis-trad.blogspot.it/2008/03/rebuttal-to-schismatic-traditionalists.html).
Did you have a hidden motive years ago when we first communicated,
hoping to bring me around to becoming a traditional schismatic? If
so, why were you not more transparent years ago? Why did you wait
until the last few months to reveal your true colors?
I am really amazed at your attitude!
I send out in English and Italian almost 1000 emails each month for
my Spiritual Food (Cibo Spirituale); visitors to all my web sites
combined is well over a million, if not over two million. As you
indicated even before your most recent email, that since you believe
that you “have brought more people to your monthly reflections that
most anyone in the last 10 years” that I must believe and write as
you believe and would write. I am amazed at your attitude! God, who
knows how to love, respects our free will totally (“The
Declaration of Religious Liberty”), even
to the point of accepting the choice to not want to be with God in
this short life and for all eternity, even though God gave us
everything we have, and Jesus suffers immensely due to our choice to
not want to be with Him. God is the Truth. The saints encourage
people by their example, prayers and sacrifices. Those who are not
too holy push or manipulate people without respecting the free will
of the other person.
Without humility there is no virtue; without
humility there is blindness. This is fundamentally the same attitude
of the liberals who view the existence of religion, the parish, etc.
as something that is meant to serve me instead of using religion to
serve God, to discover and do the will of God. It is totally
reversed. The two extremes meet!
The liberals tell me to offer a Christianity without the cross
otherwise they will go on strike or call the bishop. Both
extremes feel they are OK. The liberals say I’m OK according to
their own relativism. But the schismatic traditionalists in some ways
are worse because they feel they are OK according to God, putting
themselves in the place of God more explicitly, which is a step
further in relativism. The Pharisees were worse than the unrepentant
sinner. The poison of the Pharisees was more difficult to detect and
more dangerous than the sins of the public sinners; this was why
Jesus had many heated arguments with them. It
is easier to see sin of the prodigal’s son than his older brother
who would not even come into the feast for the return of his younger
brother. In the end, the incarnate Truth on the cross was abandoned
by almost everyone except His Mother and a few others! In this
period, the Body of Christ, the true Church, made up of the truly
humble in Mary’s army, will be crucified with Christ (“True
Devotion To Mary”;
http://www.montfort.org/content/uploads/pdf/PDF_EN_26_1.pdf).
A great number of people will abandoned the Body of Christ on the
right side and on the left side of the Body of Christ, the Church.
Even the Scribes and Pharisees complimented Christ for not being
worried about human respect! “Teacher, we know that you are true,
and care for no man; for you do not regard the position of men, but
truly teach the way of God” (Mk 12:14; Mt 22:16; Lk 20:21).
In the journey of my life, God has given me the grace to persevere
in seeking the uncomfortable and the unpopular Truth in a great
variety of situations, from being excommunicated by my parents,
to a false apparition in Necedah, Wisconsin, to a false mystic in the
religious congregation, the Oblates of the Virgin Mary, and many
other experiences. Each time that I maintained the truth, the
insecure superiors treated my very badly; at the moment of the loss
of each human support, it was very painful, undergoing even two
strong depressions when I had to take medication. But after the
divine trimming, I was very grateful to God for having been separated
from these various groups and to be going forward again. There were
times when I had to change my mind about certain conclusions when I
discovered new information from the teachings of the Church and the
Saints.
Regarding the excommunication by my parents,
I followed the advice of my parents to leave UCLA and to go with my
sister Ann to Necedah, Wisconsin, where there was a supposed Marian
apparition. Even though at Necedah I was totally surrounded by the
sectarian mentality that the outside world is all bad and we special
people at the Shrine were specially chosen by the Mother of God,
somehow God gave me the grace to begin to realize the foundation
there in the cult at Necedah was not one of humility and trust in God
but rather pride and trust in self. When I succeeded in putting this
intuition into words in the book “The Catholic Church and Private
Revelation” (http://priv-rev.blogspot.com),
my parents, in a real sense, excommunicated me from the family and it
was a relief for me to go to Italy and enter a religious
congregation, the Oblates of the Virgin Mary. For over a year in
Italy, I slept very badly due to being thrown out by my parents after
being treated up until that time as the favorite son out of six
children.
In the book that I wrote at Necedah, “The
Catholic Church and Private Revelation”
(http://priv-rev.blogspot.com),
I believe that at least one of the
paragraphs that my father and mother were not too happy with was the
following:
“9.5: The Pit of Cynical Self-Deception:
But one of the most self devastating talents of
rebellious man is the art of making rationalizations, excuses and
exceptions for himself even though he subjectively thinks he is
objective. What a deep pit of blind and proud self deception! Who can
help such a one or such a group all stampeding in the name of God or
Mary or holiness in the same perilous direction ironically away from
God and His representatives? …” /Read more at:
http://priv-rev.blogspot.it/2008/04/pr-chapter-ix.html;
See also: “The Death of My Brother”;
http://spir-food.blogspot.it/2012/12/the-death-of-my-brother.html).
Another cut in my life which also resulted in a
heavy depression, that I needed medicine to overcome, was with a
pastor here in Italy. Visit: “Let Us
Love Our Spouse”
(http://spir-food.blogspot.com/2008/05/let-us-love-our-spouse.html).
There was a false seer here in Italy, from
Rome. While I was observing the
situation and her (Barbara) behavior (2013-2015), along with her
right hand man (Stefano), at a certain point she gave me an envelope
with 50 Euros; she did the same with another priest that I know of.
After two years of observing these two, I realized there were many
negative indications regarding the validity of this supposed seer (in
Italian: “Discernimento – Veggenti Falsi”;
http://cibo-spir.blogspot.it/2015/04/discernimento-veggenti-falsi.html).
As I wrote in my book that I published in 1983, humility is the first
criteria of discernment because it is a fundamental indication that
the seer, and her followers, trust in God and not in themselves (“The
Catholic Church and Private Revelation”;
http://priv-rev.blogspot.com;
http://necedah-cult.blogspot.com
; Wikipedia: “My Personal Reasons Why I Left The Shrine At Necedah,
Wisconsin”; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necedah_Shrine).
A few months ago, about February 2016, Barbara and Stefano came to
our monthly prayer day (Cenacle) of the Marian Movement of Priests;
at the end of the day Stefano came to me and said: “We want to be
reconciled”. I replied to him: “What do you mean that you want to
be reconciled. Who decides which seers are true and which seers are
false?” Stefano was forced with this question to say “the Church”
even though he believes that the messages of Barbara come directly
from heaven and are thus infallible and above any authority of the
Catholic Church. Since then they have not returned to our monthly
Cenacles. It is interesting that in 2013 my bishop treated me rather
badly because I had contact with Barbara and Stefano (Cf.: “The
Hidden Broad Road to Perdition”;
http://spir-food.blogspot.it/2015/05/road-perdition.html).
It takes time to discern. It is easy to go to one extreme or the
other extreme, that is, all seers are true, or all seers are false,
without going through the fatigue of calm observation in order to
discern.
"In the" Life "of St. Philip
Neri one reads an episode which is entitled: "false holiness."
This is what we are dealing with: "In a convent in Rome lived a
nun who had the reputation of great sanctity. It was rumored among
the people that the religious, enriched with heavenly gifts, knew the
future and would operate wonderful miracles. When the Pope learned of
this, he sent Father Philip to that convent, so that he might see
what there was of it on the miraculous virtues of the religious. On
that day it was raining heavily and the streets were all muddy, so
Philip came to the monastery with his shoes all muddy. He immediately
asked to speak to the holy nun believed to be holy, which, as soon as
she stepped into the parlor, with a deep bow, she said: "How may
I serve you?" The saint who was sitting comfortably in his
chair, without even responding to the greeting, shows her his shoes
saying: "First of all, Reverend Mother, would you please take
off these muddy shoes and then clean them well." The nun drew
back in horror, and in words very resentful, remonstrated against a
course of action so rude, saying, "I am surprised that you would
dare to make me such a proposal"; Philip was silent and stood
quietly, and left the convent to return home. Presenting himself the
next day to the Pope, to report on the outcome of his mission, he
said: "Most Holy Father, this nun is certainly not a saint and
does not do miracles, because she lacks the fundamental virtue."
The holy man knew all too well that the best proof of sanctity is
humility” (In Italian: Oreste Cerri, S. Filippo Neri, Ed. Il
Villaggio del fanciullo, Roma, 1986, pp. 106-107).
(http://www.lamadredellachiesa.it/attenzione-ai-falsi-carismatici/;
http://cibo-spir.blogspot.it/2015/04/discernimento-veggenti-falsi.html).
You wrote: “I know from past exchange of emails
you equate one Mass with the other. That is part of the
problem that you have had.” You say I
have a “problem”. Is this a closed discussion with no possibility
of dialogue?
Your recent indications are basically the sectarian mentality
which I thought you had overcome. Considering your indications,
it seems that you are ready to throw out Pope John Paul II and Pope
Benedict, and you have basically thrown out Vatican Council II, just
as my sister and brother-in-law, sedevacantists. The sedevacantists,
as just about all the splinter groups, they feel that they are the
special group chosen by God and that if the others do not join them
there will be no salvation for those who do not join them! You are
probably in agreement with my mother who after she was coerced in
going with my sister and brother-in-law with their sedevacantist
group, she told me that I am not a priest and my Mass is not worth
anything! After leaving the Catholic Church, my mother, when she
heard my voice on the phone secretary, she no longer would answer my
phone calls from Italy. Triumphalism is very strong in these groups
as is seen in the history of the Church. There is a great lack of
humility and thus blindness and the unwilliness to dialogue or
consider another point of view or other possible explanations. Thus
they do as the Donatists of old and all of the splinter groups in the
history of the Church. The attitude is that they are above the others
and they are the salvation of the Church and the world! My
brother-in-law told me straight out that only their little group is
saved, and all the rest in the Catholic Church or in any other church
are not saved. Did the people in China, after the death of Christ, go
automatically to hell?
There is a great temptation to believe that we are able to
understand according to our human intelligence the full mystery
of the Body of Christ, the Church, to put it in our pocket as they
say in Italian. Humility seeks to see things from God’s point of
view; pride sees things from our point of view. Yes there is one true
Church, but all creatures were created by God with the possibility to
be able to get to heaven. What a great temptation to feel we are in a
special group, better than the others, and to do as even the apostles
did at the beginning of their walk with Christ: “And when his
disciples James and John saw it, they said, "Lord, do you want
us to bid fire come down from heaven and consume them?" But he
turned and rebuked them. (Lk 9:51-62). Even Joshua, “one of his
chosen men”, had the same lack of maturity and humility: “My lord
Moses, forbid them." But Moses said to him, "Are you
jealous for my sake? Would that all the LORD's people were prophets,
that the LORD would put his spirit upon them!" (Num 11:25-29)
Who decides salvation, God or man?
Who is the author of Truth, God or man? The cults do not accept any
information outside of the information within the cult. Visit: “A
Psychological Analysis of a Cult at Necedah, Wisconsin”
(http://schis-trad.blogspot.it/2008/03/analysis-of-cult.html).
As I wrote in Spiritual Food 1605, as well as in
the article that I wrote several years ago, “A Common Sense
Rebuttal to Schismatic Traditionalists and Sedevacantists”
(http://schis-trad.blogspot.it/2008/03/rebuttal-to-schismatic-traditionalists.html),
the Novus Ordo Mass is valid and licit.
It was the organized misinterpretation
that caused all the problems, as Mother Angelica and many others have
explained. Pope Benedict began the reform of the reform; this
illustrates clearly that Pope Benedict knows well that the Novus Ordo
Mass is valid and licit but that the problem was the lack of
obedience. To encourage people to appreciate the guidance of the
Church in the liturgical books and to not loose or to rediscover the
greatness of the Mass, he allowed in every diocese in the world to be
able to celebrate the Tridentine Mass without the permission of the
local bishop. Pope Benedict knows full well that most bishops no
longer obey the Magisterium of the Church, both on the left side of
the spectrum but also on the right side of the spectrum. Pope
Benedict in his first homily as pope said: “Pray for me, that I may
not flee for fear of the wolves (April 24 2005;
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/homilies/2005/documents/hf_ben-xvi_hom_20050424_inizio-pontificato_en.html).
When one wants to blame the Pope even though the great majority of
bishops today did not obey Pope Benedict nor Pope John Paul II, is
this the exercise of the fundamental virtue of humility? Do we think
that we are better than the Good Thief on the cross? If we do, we are
not capable of realizing how blind we are, and all the words in the
world will not help.
Only the essential elements of the Mass are part of doctrine. As I
wrote in my last Spiritual Food 1605:
“A Mass of the Roman Rite is NOT invalid:
1) WHEN the celebrant of the Mass is not a validly ordained priest,
2) WHEN the priest does not have the proper intention, 3) WHEN wheat
bread or grape wine is not used, 4) or WHEN the words “This is my
Body” or “This is … my Blood” are not said by the Priest
during the consecration of the Mass.
(http://www.cuf.org/faithfacts/details_view.asp?ffID=188).”
These are the only four elements of the Mass
that are part of doctrine. The Church
is the handmaid of the Truth, not the Author of the Truth. Thus a
valid Pope is the handmaid of the Truth, not the Author of the Truth.
Only these four parts of the Mass are part of the doctrine which come
from God; the rest is not part of doctrine and cannot
be made into doctrine. You stated: “A
future Pope can only change discipline and not doctrine… After Pius
IX infallibly proclaimed the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady could
a following Pope change that?” You lump everything together without
making the proper distinctions. Saint
Thomas Aquinas wrote: “Rarely affirm, seldom deny,
always distinguish.” You are proof
texting to defend at all costs what you want. Yes, the Immaculate
Conception is infallible, but only the four elements of the Mass
mentioned above are infallible doctrines, as Trent, the Catechism of
the Catholic Church for adults (CCC) and Saint Thomas Aquinas explain
clearly. You do not want to distinguish, for your own motives. The
schismatic traditionalists who throw out the Second Vatican Council
and the Novus Ordo Mass use Pope Pius V to serve their purposes,
which is very similar how the liberals now are using “Pope Francis”
to promote a fundamental change in the words of Christ explained for
2000 years by the Magisterium of the Church, that it is a mortal sin
to have sex outside of marriage. The two extremes meet, because both
extremes do not have humility; there is no trust in God but in
themselves. Saint Thomas explains, virtue lies between the two
extremes. As Saint Augustine and many saints tell us, without
humility there is no virtue except in appearance! It come to mind the
example of the difficulty of maintaining humility and childlike
confidence before God, before the Eucharist. There are the two
extremes of taking God in the Eucharist for granted, or to stay away
like the Jansenists, because there is no true humility and thus no
virtue. The saints wanted to always be before Eucharist, but as a
piece of dust, as an atom (St. Therese), as a drop of water before
the immense ocean (St. Faustina)!
Talking about the two extremes meeting, I find it rather
interesting that very recently Bishop Fellay and “Pope Francis”
seem to be coming together!?! Pope Benedict opened up dialogue
with the SSPX and even bent over backwards to receive them into the
Catholic Church, allowing them to maintain their liturgical rites.
But Pope Benedict would not receive them into the Church if they were
not willing to accept the documents of the Second Vatican Council.
Pope Benedict took this discernment process out of the Congregation
for Divine Worship and gave it to the Congregation for the Doctrine
of the Faith, because the real problem was not so much a liturgical
issue but a doctrinal issue.
In the New World Religion, as Archbishop Fulton
Sheen (and Cardinal Biffi) pointed out years ago: “The
false church will be worldly, ecumenical (false), and global. It will
be a loose federation of churches, religions forming some type of
global association, a world parliament of churches. It will be
emptied of all divine content
and will be the mystical body of the antichrist.” Thus we see now
that Bishop Fellay is coming together with “Pope Francis” because
“Pope Francis” has indicated that the
doctrinal issues are not so important!!!
Let us put aside the uncomfortable Truth, Who is Jesus Christ, so as
to be all together in a worldwide brotherly fraternity of “peace
and love”!?! But Christ came for division
(Lk 12:49-53), the division between those who accept and embrace the
Truth of God (not of the world), and those who accept and embrace the
false truth of “the father of lies” (Jn 8:44)!
(“Bergoglio, the General Who Wants to Win
without Fighting”;
http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/1350737?eng=y).
“SSPX’s Bishop Fellay: Little by Little
Rome Is Giving Us All We Need for Reconciliation”
“But the French-Swiss SSPX leader has learned how to communicate
with this Pope, by acknowledging that Francis often seems to view
doctrine as an obstacle to leading people to Jesus. For the Pope,
Bishop Fellay said, “what is important is life, it’s the person,
and so he tries to look at the person, and there, if I may say, he’s
very human”…
Certainly he doesn’t agree with us on these
points on the Council which we are attacking. Definitely he doesn’t.
But for him, as the doctrine is not so
important — it is man, the people,
who are important — there we have given enough proof that we are
Catholics.”
“The doctrine is not so important!”:
"I have never understood the expression
'nonnegotiable values,'” he said in
his latest interview. And in a book, his closest collaborator
explains why Pope Francis is carefully avoiding a head-on collision
with the dominant culture” (ROME, March 10, 2014;
http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/1350737?eng=y).
For “Pope Francis”, and so many priests and bishops today, there
are no more inherently sinful acts, intrinsic evils, contrary to the
words of Christ explained by the Catholic Church for 2000 years!
Fellay said: “Francis often seems to view doctrine as an obstacle
to leading people to Jesus”! This means that “Pope Francis”
seems to view Truth as an obstacle to leading people to Jesus, even
though Jesus is the Truth!?! The author of this article says, “Pope
Francis is carefully avoiding a head-on collision with the dominant
culture”, implying that those who hold to nonnegotiable values have
a problem, so “Pope Francis” must covertly bring the Church and
the world around to discarding nonnegotiable values, the absolute
Truth, Who is Jesus Christ!
The two extremes meet! As I wrote in my article,
“Letter to fellow Priests”
(http://spir-food.blogspot.it/2014/12/letter-to-fellow-priests.html):
“The false prophet, the false pope, will seek
to form a One World Religion, by way of
false ecumenism, which will result in the REDUCTION TO THE LOWEST
COMMON DENOMINATOR. Pope Francis is seeking to lead many protestant
pastors toward Rome, through some type of “ecumenism”, such as
Pastor Kenneth Copeland, Pastor Tony Palmer, and many other important
protestant pastors.” And now “Pope Francis” is seeking to lead
the SSPX toward Rome. As Our Lady of La Salette told us: “Rome
will become the seat of the Antichrist”!
The Church has always taught that a Mass is valid even when
celebrated by a priest in the state of mortal sin; the priest
commits another mortal sin, a sacrilege in celebrating the Mass in
mortal sin, but the Eucharist is truly valid and present. If this
were not the case, we would have lost the Eucharist centuries ago!
The liturgical documents since the Second Vatican
Council give the guidelines to celebrate the Holy Mass in a very
reverent way. But a great number of bishops and priests did not obey
the liturgical books which were to regulate the celebration of the
Mass, because the first priority is no longer to please God and to
live the Our Father, “THY
will be done”, but to please man in the cult of man, “MY
will be done”! Like Fr. Larry Richards says, over the gate of hell
is written the title of Frank Sinatra’s song: “I Did It My Way”!
To have a very concrete example of this, read how the three founders
of the Neocatecumenal Way did not heed the directives of Pope John
Paul II and Pope Benedict, and even wrote a signed letter expressing
their non compliance with the directives of Pope Benedict: “THE
NEOCATECUMENAL MASS”
(http://spir-food.blogspot.it/2015/02/the-neocatecumenal-mass.html).
Another example is that Pope Paul VI did not allow Holy Communion in
the Hand before or after the Second Vatican Council, but the great
majority of bishops sought only to please the people but not God.
I wrote in “An Open Letter To A Fellow Priest”
(http://testimony-polo.blogspot.com/2009/11/open-letter-to-fellow-priest.html):
“Bishops and priests who have not obeyed the
living Pope will have to answer for all of the souls under their care
at the moment of death. A subtle mistake of a jet pilot can kill all
the passengers; a passenger changing his seat to the other side of
the plane affects the flight very little. On May 29, 1969 the Sacred
Congregation for Divine Worship issued
“MEMORIALE DOMINI”,
containing the Instruction on the Manner of Distributing Holy
Communion, which is still in vigor and could be summarized as
follows: the prohibition of receiving Holy Communion in the hand
remains in vigor in the universal mode and the bishops, priests and
faithful are heartily exhorted to diligently follow this law newly
reasserted. Nonetheless, WHERE THIS USE MAY HAVE BEEN ENTRENCHED AND
INTRODUCED IN AN ILLICIT MANNER, there is provided the possibility to
concede to those sectors which are NOT DISPOSED TO OBEY THIS
EXHORTATION.
(http://www.rinascimentosacro.com/2008/11/itinerario-verso-il-fatto-compiuto.html;
http://www.ewtn.com/library/curia/cdwmemor.htm).”
You say you “came from Australia in 1999”. Heed the words of one
of the bishops of Australia regarding the need to follow the
liturgical books of the Church to maintain reverence while
celebrating the Novus Ordo Mass:
“The following was the keynote address at “TIME DRAWN INTO
ETERNITY: Sacred Time and the Liturgical Calendar”, a conference
held by the “Te Deum Institute of Sacred Liturgy”, Diocese of
Tulsa, Oklahoma.
The Titular Bishop of Manaccenser and Auxiliary
Bishop of Melbourne, Most Rev. Peter J. Elliott,
MA Oxon, MA Melb, STD, tells us:
“Our Pope (Benedict) invites us to see the glory
of Christ Priest and Victim in the liturgy. He leads us into this
glory, above all by his own example of a priest humbly entering the
divine mysteries of the altar. By word and demeanor he reminds us
that liturgy is a gift to be received in
humility, not something we construct for ourselves, not a
fabrication. Here he strongly rejects a
decadent style of liturgy that set in soon after Vatican II. That
style was contrived to be a deliberate break with the past…” Read
the rest in my article: “The Neocatecumenal Mass”
(http://spir-food.blogspot.it/2015/02/the-neocatecumenal-mass.html).
In many of my articles that you said you read, I cited several
examples of this widespread lack of obedience to the Holy Father, not
only in the liturgy (Fr. Gabriele Amorth, etc.), but also regarding
the encyclical Humanae Vitae, etc. Thus the prophecy of Saint Francis
of Assisi:
2. “The power of the demons will be greater than
usual, the immaculate purity of our religious community and of
others, will wither to the point that very
few Christians will want to obey the true Sovereign Pontiff and the
Roman Church with a sincere heart and perfect charity.
At the decisive moment of this crisis, a personage
not canonically elected, raised to the Pontificate,
will endeavor to administer shrewdly to many the mortal poison of his
error.”
I truly believe that this phrase of Saint Francis is talking about
not just the left liberal side, but also the right schismatic
traditionalist side who put themselves above the popes at least
since Pope Pius XII: “very few Christians will want to obey the
true Sovereign Pontiff and the Roman Church with a sincere heart and
perfect charity.”
You wrote: “Another disagreement we have is
that there is poison in the Vatican 2 Documents”. WHAT
IS THE FUNDAMENTAL DIFFERENCE between
the schismatic traditionalists who put themselves above the
Magisterium of the Church and the protestant reformers 400 years ago?
You write: “you can research Fr. Luigi Villa. They have all lead to
Francis.” According to you, everything that Fr. Luigi Villa writes
must be without error because it serves your desired agenda. No, I do
not have time to follow everyone who wants to interpret the words of
Christ as they want, picking and choosing from the Magisterium of the
Church as they decide. “They have all lead to Francis” is the
same mentality as the protestant reformers. Why not break off from
the Catholic Church 400 years ago instead of after Pope Pius XII,
with your logic? How would you explain to a protestant that what you
are doing is somehow fundamentally different than what Martin Luther
did and all the rest of the protestant reformers? THERE
IS AN ENORMOUS AND FUNDAMENTAL DIFFERENCE
between negating an ecumenical council (more than 2000 bishops
present) and saying that we have arrived to the prophecies of Saint
Francis of Assisi, Blessed Catherine Emmerich, Saint Hildegard
(doctor of the Church), Bruno Cornacchiola
(Book: Il Veggente, by Saverio Gaeta) and
others regarding THE (not many false popes!) false pope!
You really believe that God would allow what you espouse according to
Jesus’ words to Peter: “You are Peter, and on this rock I will
build my Church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against
it” (Mt 16:18)? You make leaps of missing logic, and proof texting,
while not making distinctions!
In all the periods of the Church there were those who put
themselves above the Magisterium of the Church. We have a very
good summary of the Magisterium of the Church in the Catechism of the
Catholic Church for adults (CCC). I truly believe we have right now a
valid pope: Pope Benedict XVI.
I wrote in my article, “Constructive
Or Destructive Criticism”
(http://god-politics.blogspot.it/2012/09/constructive-or-destructive-criticism.html):
“FIVE HUNDRED YEARS AGO THERE WERE MANY
SINNERS IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH which
caused the Protestant Reformation; today there are many sinners in
the Church which cause many to leave the Church. A good husband does
not abandon his wife when she becomes old and not pretty. If Satan
cannot get you on the extreme side of the liberals, he will try to
get you on the other extreme which is even worse. As said above, one
can jump out of the Divine Ship, the Church, either on the left side
with the liberals or on the right side with the schismatic
traditionalists. My father used to say to Protestants: “I’d
rather have an ugly box with a diamond inside than a beautiful box
that is empty inside.” He was referring to the fact that the
Catholic Church has all seven sacraments. Schismatic traditionalists
try to find a group that is “as holy” as they believe they are!?!
It is Jesus, the Son of God, Who decided to found His Church on 12
sinners instead of 12 perfect angels from heaven! Who is more
intelligent and full of wisdom, God or us? Many follow the mass media
today in criticizing the Church and the priests and the bishops. I
asked one of these puppets of the propaganda of the mass media who
continually criticizes Catholic clergy instead of praying for them:
“Would it have been better if Jesus Christ had founded the Church
on 12 perfect men as yourself, Sir?”
I do believe that before the centenary of the
great miracle of the Sun at Fatima, Portugal, October 13, 1917, we
will loose the Mass in all the public churches under the jurisdiction
of the false prophet. With great astuteness and shrewdness the false
prophet will bring about a truly invalid mass. As I told my
brother-in-law, Russ, I truly believe you have jumped the gun,
similar to all those who have left Christ 2000 years ago and the
Church during the centuries due to the scandal of Christ crucified
and due to the many scandals in the Church. It is such a great human
tendency to find a scapegoat to blame the major problems in the
Church on an ecumenical council, etc., instead of reacting like the
Good Thief on the cross and all the true saints who had true
humility. The Mother (at the foot of the
cross) does not abandon her son (the Body of Christ, the Church) even
when he is covered with blood (scandals of all kinds) and dying on
the cross!
THE CHURCH ON EARTH, THE “CHURCH MILITANT”, IS
MADE UP OF SAINTS AND SINNERS AND EVERYTHING ELSE IN BETWEEN (Mt
13:36-40, 47-50). In the early Church the heretical cult, the
DONATISTS,
explained these two parables of the fish and of the weeds in a rather
simplistic way: the Church was made up of only the good people and
the world was made up of all the evil people without hope of
salvation. The Church would be in the world as a “closed garden”
or better, the Ark of Noah in which only for the very few there is
salvation from the general flood. St. Augustine’s thought won out
which was that of the universal Church. The Church herself is a
field in which grow weeds and good seed, bad and good together . St.
Augustine even exclaimed: “How many sheep there are outside the
Church and how many wolves are inside!” The world is not divided
into children of darkness and children of light; but rather we are
all children of darkness, we are all weeds, but destined, if we
desire it, to become children of the light and good grain, receiving
the Kingdom and converting ourselves. Nothing is fixed or fatal, no
castes of the elect or of the damned. The field is, yes, the world,
but it is also the Church: the place in which there is room to grow,
to convert oneself and above all to imitate the patience of God.
“The bad exist in this world either so that they might convert
themselves, or that by way of them the good exercise patience” (St.
Augustine).” At the end of the world will be the separation between
the saved and the damned, not now as many in the SSPX believe, or as
Calvin believed!
Pride destroys on both sides of the spectrum; God is only with the
truly humble.
St. Augustine tells us:
“It was pride that changes angels into
devils; it is humility that makes men as angels.
Humility is the foundation of all the other virtues. The soul in
which this virtue does not exist, there cannot be any other virtue
except in mere appearance. There is something in humility that
strangely exalts the heart. This is the very perfection of man, to
find out about his own imperfections. You must be emptied of that
which you are full that you may be filled with that which you are
empty. How can we do great things for God? Begin with the least.
First think of the foundation of humility. The greater the building
is to be, the deeper you dig the foundation. For once your foundation
is set, the height to which you can build has been determined. You
want a tower that will pierce the clouds, lay first the foundation of
humility. Humility must accompany all of our actions. For as soon as
we glory in our good works, they are of no further value for our
advancement in virtue.”
I am not seeking followers
and I hope to follow Christ all to way to the cross abandoned and
accused of every crime and heresy by the religious leaders. If I do
not overcome the spirit of “Triumphalism,
Clericalism and Juridicalism” (“Evangelization
VS the Trilogy of Devils”; http://trueevangelization.blogspot.com),
how can I possibly follow Christ in this period when the Body of
Christ will be crucified?!?
This is exactly what St. Francis has prophesied for the true
followers of Christ in this period of the “great tribulation” (Mt
24:21):
6. “Those who in spiritual fervor will embrace
piety with charity and zeal for the truth, will
suffer persecutions and insults as if they were schismatics and
disobedient. Because their persecutors,
urged on by the evil spirits, will say that in this way they render a
great honor to God in killing and removing from the face of the earth
such pestilent men. But the Lord will be the refuge of the afflicted
and He will save them, because they hoped in Him. And then in order
to respect their Head, they will act according to the Faith and they
will chose to obey God rather than men, gaining for themselves
eternal life; they will fear nothing, and they will prefer to die
rather than consent to error and perfidy.”
(http://spir-food.blogspot.it/2013/11/prophecy-st-francis.html).
When Saint Francis of Assisi saw one of the
greatest sinners of Assisi, he said: “If
it were not for the grace of God, there goes Francis!”
Even though Christ did not offer compromises the Pharisees greatly
criticized Him because He ate with sinners. “Christ Jesus, who,
though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a
thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a
servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human
form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on
a cross” (Phil 2:5-8).
You wrote: “You
should read 'I Accuse the Council' by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre.
Terms such as Ecumenism, Religion Liberty and the description of the
Catholic Church was modified which gives the impression of being only
one of many churches that can bring the person to grace. This was all
the modernists and freemasons doing. They had their Pope in John
XX111 and then Paul V1. Note he became a Mason in the 1950s and his
mother's grave has only masonic symbols. I can relate many issues
with the conciliar popes. you can research Fr. Luigi Villa. They
have all lead to Francis.”
As I have quoted in some of my blogs, the
Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us
(CCC 675) that there will be ONE
Antichrist in particular, as well as 1Jn 2:18,22. By now there are a
great number of indications that Bergoglio is the false prophet, the
second beast, who will head the One World Religion so as to lead as
many as possible to adore the first beast, the Antichrist (Rev.
chapter 13, etc.).
In my blog (http://schis-trad.blogspot.com),
I have already explained “Ecumenism,
Religion Liberty and the description of the Catholic Church”:
“A Common Sense Rebuttal to Schismatic
Traditionalists and Sedevacantists”
(http://schis-trad.blogspot.it/2008/03/rebuttal-to-schismatic-traditionalists.html),
“Ecclesiology of the Catholic Church”
(http://schis-trad.blogspot.it/2008/03/ecclesiology-of-vcii.html),
“The Declaration of Religious Liberty”
(http://schis-trad.blogspot.it/2008/03/religious-liberty-of-vcii.html),
“The Impact and Interpretation of 'Subsists In'
(Vatican II)”
(http://schis-trad.blogspot.it/2008/03/subsists-in.html).
Forgive me if I cannot respond to every email
you send, but there are many people that I must serve.
My priority is for those who have the humility to seek to discover
the Truth in dialogue with the Catechism of
the Catholic Church for adults (published 1992) on the table as the
bases of discussion, those who do not presume to PUT THEMSELVES ABOVE
AN ECUMENICAL COUNCIL WITH OVER 2000 BISHOPS PRESENT! I do not have
time, and it would not be prudent, to seek to put straight all the
divergent beliefs, which are not based on the Catechism of the
Catholic Church for adults (CCC), especially when there is no
indication that the person is willing to learn from the CCC, and puts
himself above the Magisterium of the Church.
I repeat, I am not seeking followers for myself
or for some group of mine! Are you
seeking followers? I am seeking to follow Jesus Christ! Those who
truly are seeking to follow Christ, put Christ before them as their
model, and seek to follow Him; they realize how much there is to do
in their lives to imitate Christ. These people take their eyes off of
self and look at Christ and do not compare themselves with others.
They offer the truth freely without making the others feel forced or
manipulated to accept the truths that they have discovered because
they realize they are not the owners or authors of the Truth and thus
they imitate the Author of the Truth, that is, they offer the truth
freely as a free gift, respecting the gift of free will that God has
given to each human creature. This lack of respecting the dignity and
the free will of others is at the base of the rejection of the
documents of the Second Vatican Council on Religious Liberty and
Lumen Gentium in that the council Fathers,
opted for "the Church of Christ ... subsists in the Catholic
Church" rather than "is the Catholic Church”. So many who
did not want to loose this sense of being better than others, of
being above the others, rebelled against this guidance of the Holy
Spirit to return to the example of Christ Who “came not to be
served but to serve” (Mt 20:28). Visit “Evangelization VS the
Trilogy of Devils” (http://trueevangelization.blogspot.com).
“Am I now seeking the favor of men, or of God?
Or am I trying to please men? IF I WERE
STILL PLEASING MEN, I SHOULD NOT BE A SERVANT OF CHRIST”
(Gal 1:7-10; 1Cor 15:1-2)!
The Second Vatican Council exposed many of the
hidden motives of pride in the Church.
After the council many of those who were attached to this hidden
motive lost their zeal for what they were doing in the Church. This
led to the other swing of the pendulum to not evangelize others,
especially when the Council explained that one could be saved outside
the visible confines of the Church (“Ecclesiology
of the Catholic Church”;
http://schis-trad.blogspot.it/2008/03/ecclesiology-of-vcii.html).
But where is the genuine pure motive of love of God and neighbor?!?
If one realizes the great dangers in the world and at the same time
if one realizes the infallible guidance of the Magisterium of the
Church to identify the beautiful lies of “the father of lies” and
that there are very powerful means of sanctification within the one
true Church, especially “the source and
summit of the Christian life” (Vat.
II: LG 11; CCC 1324), the Eucharist, and
one truly loves God and neighbor, and not for other personal
self-gratifying motives, then there will be real zeal to offer
freely, especially by our example, these treasures to others!
Before the Second Vatican Council, people
stayed away from topics that could lead to the slippery slope.
When children are young, parents say, “Do as I tell you!” But
when their children are older the parents explain more and more fully
the motives of their rules for their children, which opens up the
opportunity for the children to accept or reject the motives of the
rules of their parents. Many children, who trust more in themselves
instead of in their parents, are looking for an excuse to take the
easier way. In a certain sense, God further explained the rules of
the Church at the Second Vatican Council; the Holy Spirit brought the
Church to a higher level of maturity, But many Catholics did as do
irresponsible children who were LOOKING
FOR THE EASIEST WAY INSTEAD OF LOOKING TO PLEASE GOD IN CHILDLIKE
TRUST. So many immature Catholics were
seeking to use religion for their own benefit on this earth, to find
approval for their egotistical desires and their definition of truth
as did Adam and Eve (Gen 3:4-5), instead of using religion to
discover and do the holy will of God. Thus God has now given these
spoiled arrogant children in the Church, and in the world, what they
wanted as St. Francis prophesied:
2. The power of the demons will be greater than
usual, the immaculate purity of our religious community and of
others, will wither to the point that very
few Christians will want to obey the true Sovereign Pontiff and the
Roman Church with a sincere heart and perfect charity.
At the decisive moment of this crisis, a
personage not canonically elected,
raised to the Pontificate, will
endeavor to administer shrewdly to many the mortal poison of his
error.
Professor Ralph Martin,
in the Seminary of the Sacred Heart (Detroit, MI, USA), clarified
this very important teaching of the Second Vatican Council in his
book “Will Many Be Saved?”,
with the subtitle “What Vatican II
actually teaches and Its Implications for the New Evangelization”.
(“Letter to fellow Priests”;
http://spir-food.blogspot.it/2014/12/letter-to-fellow-priests.html).
I tried to identify some of this FALSE HOLINESS
among religious leaders, in particular
in the period after the Second Vatican Council, in my article: “The
Great Responsibility of Religious Leaders”
(http://josephdwight.wordpress.com/2014/08/07/great-responsibility/).
Those who are not really following Christ end up putting
themselves up as the model and seek to put straight everyone else
according to themselves as models, and thus do not offer the
truth freely to others. Certainly holy people are “thorns in the
side” to others, as Mother Angelica (of EWTN) put it; but Mother
Angelica always respected the dignity and the free will of others
without manipulating or commanding or giving ultimatums to others.
Those who follow Christ freely offer Christ to others by planting the
seed, as a free gift, and then they respect the free will of the
person and the workings of the Holy Spirit. Christ offered Himself as
a model of the Truth, and then explained His life to others in words.
Unfortunately there have always been plenty of people in the Church
who offer the truths of the Church without offering an example to
follow, as if the truth is their personal possession. This way of
doing things turns off many people from pursuing the Truth Who is
Christ. St. Francis told his followers to always evangelize, and when
necessary use words!
I have an aunt, who founded a Carmelite monastery. There lived
also in this city her sister and brother-in-law, who was a renowned
doctor with even a High School named after him; he invented the first
heart valve. While often talking with my father, the brother of my
aunt, the Carmelite Sister, when I was younger, I realized that all
three of these aunts and uncles, even though they were “very
Catholic”, had a very strong attachment to being recognized before
men in the Church. When I went to visit this Carmelite monastery
after my ordination to the priesthood, one of my cousins who lived in
the region explained to me how much my aunt was very attached to
remaining superior of the religious community. After my aunt, the
Carmelite Sister, died, I maintained contact with the superior of the
convent, who obviously was influenced by the foundress of the
convent, my aunt, and the other aunt and uncle. Recently, my
“Spiritual Food 1605” returned “failed”, that is it was
blocked, by both the superior and the other aunt in the same city.
The mother of my aunts, MY
GRANDMOTHER, was very active in
politics, and had president Lyndon Johnson at least one time in her
house. She pushed everyone to be the best in something. When she was
older and came out to California and stayed a week at our house, my
Dad had to even gently tell her to get off my back in pushing me to
do what she felt would be important before people. My grandmother
also visited very often my aunt, the Carmelite nun. One of my uncles
told my Dad that while my grandmother was in her last dying years,
she found peace several months before dying; apparently she finally
put her trust in God and not in her ability to push people. Her
husband, my grandfather, showed many signs of holiness (died 1960);
he was a dentist and offered his skills freely to many during the
great depression. My father was the youngest of nine children; the
nine children of my grandparents on my father’s side gave birth to
about 60 grandchildren. (To see the list of uncles and cousins,
visit:
http://picasaweb.google.it/josephdwight57/TheLifeOfJosephDwight).
“Woe to you, when all men speak well of you,
for so their fathers did to the false prophets”
(Lk 6:26). “For they loved the praise of men more than the praise
of God” (Jn 12:43). “How can you believe, who receive glory from
one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?”
(Jn 5:44; Gal 1:10).
I do not like it when people want to use me, as the pastor in a
parish, to feel important in the Church. When there is no more
human glory to be had around me, they abandon me, since their motive
was not for the glory of God in humility. It is no secret that the
main motive of people in youth gangs, in the mafia, under
dictatorships such as that of Hitler, is human recognition and power.
Sister Mary Gabriel (in purgatory) communicated to Sister Mary of the
Cross:
“December 8th - 2:00 o'clock - The Immaculate
Conception - Alas, how many lives seem
to be filled with good works and at the death are found empty.
This is because all those actions that appeared to be good, all those
showy works, all that conduct that seemed irreproachable - all these
were not done for Jesus alone. Some will have their eyes opened when
they come here to this life (in Purgatory). On earth they wanted to
be made much of, to shine, to be thought very exact in religious
observances, to be esteemed as perfect religious. This is the
mainspring of so many lives. If you only knew how few people work for
God and act for Him alone. Alas, at death, when they are no longer
blinded, what regrets they will have. If only sometimes they would
think of eternity. What is life compared to that day which will have
no evening for the elect, or to that night which will have no dawning
for the damned? On earth, people attach themselves to everything and
everyone except to Him, who alone ought to have our love and to whom
we refuse it. Jesus in the Tabernacle waits for souls to love Him and
He finds none. Hardly one soul in a thousand loves Him as it should.
You love Him and make up to Him for this guilty indifference which
exists all over this world.”
In the Diary of Saint Faustina, one finds numerous admonitions
regarding seeking glory before people and the absolute need of true
humility:
“On several occasions, I have learned how some
religious defend their own glory under the pretext of being concerned
for the glory of God, whereas it is not
a question of the glory of God, but of glory of self. O Jesus, how
painful this has been for me! What secrets the day of Your judgment
will bring to light! How can one steal God's gifts?” (Diary, 1149).
“More favor is granted to a humble soul…” (Diary, 1361).
“I desire, My dearly beloved daughter, that you
practice the three virtues that are dearest to Me-and most pleasing
to God. The first is humility, humility,
and once again humility; the second
virtue, purity; the third virtue, love of God. As My daughter, you
must especially radiate with these virtues. When the conversation
ended, She pressed me to Her Heart and disappeared. When I regained
the use of my senses, my heart became so wonderfully attracted to
these virtues; and I practice them faithfully. They are as though
engraved in my heart” (Diary, 1415).
“If their trust is great, there is no limit to
My generosity. The torrents of grace
inundate humble souls. The proud remain always in poverty and misery,
because My grace turns away from them to humble souls”
(Diary, 1602).
“My bride, you always please Me by your
humility. The greatest misery does not
stop Me from uniting Myself to a soul, but where there is pride, I am
not there” (Diary, 1563).
“At that moment I saw Jesus, and from His Heart
there issued those same two rays, which enveloped me, whole and
entire. At the same moment, all my torments vanished. My
daughter, the Lord said, know
that of yourself you are just what you have gone through, and it is
only by My grace that you are a participant of eternal life and all
the gifts I lavish on you. And with
these words of the Lord, there came to me a true knowledge of myself.
Jesus is giving me a lesson in deep humility and, at the same time,
one of total trust in Him. My heart is reduced to dust and ashes, and
even if all people were to trample me under their feet, I would still
consider that a favor. I feel and am, in fact, very deeply permeated
with the knowledge that I am nothing, so that real humiliations will
be a refreshment for me” (Diary, 1559).
“I will thank the Lord Jesus for every
humiliation and will pray specially for
the person who has given me the chance to be humiliated. I will
immolate myself for the benefit of souls. I will not count the cost
of any sacrifice. I will cast myself beneath the feet of the sisters,
like a carpet on which they can not only tread, but also wipe their
feet. My place is under the feet of the sisters. I will make every
effort to obtain that place unnoticed by others. It is enough that
God sees this” (Diary, 243).
“Satan defeats only the proud and the
cowardly, because the humble are strong.
Nothing will confuse or frighten a humble soul. I have directed my
flight at the very center of the sun's heat, and nothing can lower
its course. Love will not allow itself to be taken prisoner; it is
free like a queen. Love attains God” (Diary, 450).
I wrote in an article, “The Infinite God Among
Us” (“Il Dio Infinito Fra Noi”;
http://cibo-spir.blogspot.it/2014/01/il-dio-infinito-fra-noi.html),
regarding in part the lack of humility among many members of the
Neocatecumenal Way:
“When one reads the diary of Saint Faustina, one
sees that while she progressed in union with Jesus, she was more
and more conscious of her misery, and
at the same time more trustful in the mercy of God with much
gratitude toward God for this inestimable gift of His mercy! Instead
so often, the more we go forward in an ecclesial movement or in or
priestly ministry, we believe to be less in misery and more worthy to
stand before God and before men…” Saint Faustina, as all of the
saints, trusted and looked more and more toward God and less and less
toward herself for guidance and help.
We human beings are very good at deceiving
ourselves for seemingly good reason and causes.
To be able to confront martyrdom, one has to form the habit of
looking only at Jesus, not at self or any other seemingly good motive
or virtue that we think we have. Saint Faustina and all the saints
had no pretentions of being worthy before God and to be saved on
their own merits but they had a great hope in the mercy of God. The
saints learned to see all from the point of view of God, not from
their own point of view so clouded by the blindness of hidden
egoisms. We want so badly to have the satisfaction to be OK and saved
and better than other according to our own criteria. When we learn to
see all from the point of view of God, we do as the saints and
consider ourselves the first sinner before all others, as I wrote in
my last Spiritual Food 1605 from the diary of Saint Veronica
Giuliani. In life we go toward seeing things from our point of view,
toward relativism, or from God’s point of view, humility and true
holiness. For many this may seem incomprehensible and even a
contradiction to our unenlightened human mind. We must loose all, our
hidden agendas, even our own self assessment of holiness or merits as
did all the saints, otherwise we will spend much time in purgatory or
in hell. God is infinite; we are dust! What can we claim to be before
God? “But by the grace of god I am what I
am” (1Cor 15:10). “For who sees anything different in you? What
have you that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do
you boast as if it were not a gift?” (1Cor 4:7). The saints came to
realize that the only thing that really belongs to us is our free
will and our sins! Not the virtues that we think we have or our
titles or the special groups that we are a part of! Both the right
extreme and the left extreme use religion for their own agendas and
hidden motives, so that religion and even God exist to serve
themselves instead of serving God and to be ready to loose everything
for the hidden pearl (Mt 13:44-46), God and His kingdom!
St. Therese of Lisieux writes: “I am just a speck of dust,
but I want to make my dwelling in the shadow of the sanctuary with
the prisoner of love. My soul longs for the host; I love Him and want
nothing more. It is a hidden God who attracts me. I am the atom of
Jesus Christ.”
After Holy Communion, Saint
Faustina writes: “I know that I am
united with Him as closely as a drop of water is united with the
bottomless ocean” (Diary, no. 411).
“I, this chasm of misery, this abyss of
misery; and You, O God, who are the
incomprehensible abyss of mercy, swallow me up as the heat of the sun
swallows up a drop of dew!” (Diary, 334).
There is a fundamental difference, even if well
hidden, between a person who is seeking reality and the Truth outside
of his own head and a person who invents reality and the truth inside
his own head. The one is willing to
dialogue with another while being willing to make reference to Divine
Revelation and to information outside of his head, while the other is
not. About seven years ago, right after I had written my article, “A
Common Sense Rebuttal to Schismatic Traditionalists and
Sedevacantists”, my brother-in-law, Russ, who
lead his whole family into a Sedevacantists group in southern
California, communicated to me, by way of another person in his
sedevacantist group, that my article offended my mother!?! My mother
is too old to have a computer. A few months afterwards, I came into
contact with two seminarians (CMRI, Omaha, Nebraska) in the same
seminary where Russ had sent his oldest son to become a priest in
this sedevacantist group. Both of these two seminarians left this
seminary and explained in some detail to me by email that several of
the priests and professors at that seminary were homosexuals. When I
communicated this to Russ, he did not want to hear about it, although
he called, by phone to this seminary, to ask questions. Russ has
given much money to this group. Russ told me that the SSPX did not go
far enough in totally rejecting the Catholic Church after Pius XII.
His wife, my sister Ann, years ago told me that when Russ left the
Catholic Church and went with the CMRI, she did not go with Russ 200
miles to a Mass in LA, California, for several months; she said she
thought about it, according to how she felt about it, and finally
left the Catholic Church to go with her husband. Ann had already
habituated herself in seeking the truth inside her own head,
according to her feelings and sentiments and subjectivism, without
seeking the objective Truth outside of her head in Divine Revelation
and other documents.
When we have deceived ourselves and formed hidden personal motives
over the years, that are not truly for the glory of God, and thus
we do not want to hear other information that indicates that we might
have slid into a big mistake, we cut off this information to maintain
that which we have become very attached to; unless there is a spark
of humility and good will to take the rather great risk of
considering the possibility that we have made a mistake with the
possible consequences of loosing esteem of others and radically
changing our lives, we do not even consider this information. When I
went to California in April 2007 to see my Dad just before he died, I
went to visit Russ with my mother, without calling beforehand; Russ
was really upset because Russ holds a very tight control on all input
into his family, just as a strong cult. Years ago, Russ stopped
answering my phone calls to his house when he heard my voice on his
phone secretary. What is Russ really afraid to loose?!?
I realize more and more how much God loves me. If
I were the only human being on earth,
Christ would have come down and suffered His whole passion just for
me; my sins are that great and God’s love and mercy for me are even
greater!
“If I sought to please men I should not be the
servant of Christ” (St. Augustine;
Week 13, OT, Tuesday).
As I have written before, when people in my
parishes tell me to preach the way they want, that is a Christianity
without the cross, to help them confront their lives with the
Catechism of the Catholic Church and not the TV, I tell them: “If
I do not preach according to the CCC, Father Joseph will go to hell
and I will not go to hell for anyone!”
When they continue to bagger me, I tell them to tell these things to
God after their death, and best wishes for all eternity ladies and
gentlemen! The other day when a woman continued to try to manipulate
me to offer a Christianity without the cross, a Christianity that
pleases the people, I interrupted her and said: “I follow God not
men”. It seems she finally understood a little and even asked me
where she could get a copy of the CCC, since I had so often
encouraged this.
You wrote:
“The Catholic Church in the future will stand against as a beacon
of light to the world. However this will not occur till the new
church has been vanquished and people return to Our Lord's Church.”
A friend of mine, Kelly, after he read this email to Gerard, wrote:
“Does he (Gerard) realize that "until the new church has been
vanquished" refers to all those churches who have left the One,
Holy, Catholic, Apostolic Church? Those are the ones that are the
"new" churches (& must return to Our Lords Church they
divided). The one Christ founded & whose linage goes right back
to the first Pope Peter is the "old original." It's not the
new Church. Those pop up daily.”
How many groups in the last 2000 years have rejected the Catholic
Church and formed their own group? Christ was covered with blood,
He took on our sins, and seeing the suffering and humiliation of
Christ, many people left Christ. Today the Body of Christ, the
Church, is undergoing a very similar suffering and humiliation as her
head, Christ, 2000 years ago on the cross, covered with the blood of
the sins of those within the Church and without, and many are leaving
the Body of Christ on the left side as liberals in that they do not
obey the Magisterium of the Church, and on the right side, the
schismatic traditionalists, forming their “holy” group, claiming
to be the only true Church in this period of world crisis. But just
as Christ remained Christ, crucified or risen, with the same soul,
the Holy Spirit, so too the Body of Christ, the Church, remains the
Church during her passion and after her passion when she will be
purified, always having the same soul, the Holy Spirit. The real
Christ was not outside of Christ during the crucifixion, so to the
real Church is not outside the Church in this period of the passion
and crucifixion of the Church. The Church exists even when she seems
dead and buried. In the history of the Church, there were many groups
who claimed to be the only remnant church especially in periods of
great trial for the Church, both externally and internally, such as
the Donatists, etc.
As Saint Augustine explained to the Donatists,
the Church herself is a field in which grow weeds and good seed, bad
and good together . The world is not divided into children of
darkness and children of light; but rather we are all children of
darkness, we are all weeds, but destined, if we desire it, to become
children of the light and good grain, receiving the Kingdom and
converting ourselves. Nothing is fixed or fatal, no castes of the
elect or of the damned. The field is, yes, the world, but it is also
the Church: the place in which there is room to grow, to convert
oneself and above all to imitate the patience of God. “The bad
exist in this world either so that they might convert themselves, or
that by way of them the good exercise patience” (St. Augustine).
Christ told us that this separation of the “new church” and the
true followers of Christ, this “harvest is the close of the age,
and the reapers are angels” (Mt 13:39,49). In the mean time the
good and bad fish, the weeds and the good grain, are all together
until judgment day. What a great
temptation it is to want to be in a special group, to feel better
than the others, to not want to put up
with these great sufferings in this period of anxiety and confusion
and scandal. Christ allowed Himself to be put under trial of the
Sanhedrin and of Pontius Pilot, the Creator subject to the creatures!
The people in special groups above the others will not imitate the
humility of “Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God,
did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied
himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of
men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became
obedient unto death, even death on a cross” (Phil 2:5-8)!
Yes, the Church will be vanquished but in the sense of being
crucified, but not destroyed, just as Christ was crucified and buried
but not destroyed 2000 years ago. The Church is not outside the
Church, in such groups as the Christians who believe in the Rapture
or the Donatists, or the SSPX or the CMRI, etc., so as to save all in
triumphalism after the “great tribulation”, to be able to tell
everyone afterwards: “See, I told you so”!
“The Church will enter the glory of the kingdom only through this
final Passover, when she will follow her Lord in his death and
Resurrection. The kingdom will be fulfilled, then, not by a historic
trimph of the Chruch through a progressive ascendancy, but only by
God’s victory over the final unleashing of evil, which will cause
his Bride to come down from heaven. God’s trimph over the revolt of
evil will take the form of the Last Judgment after the final cosmic
upheaval of this passing world” (CCC 677).
You (Gerard) wrote: “The Catholic Church in the future will stand
against as a beacon of light to the world. However this will not
occur till the new church has been vanquished and people return to
Our Lord's Church.”
But this “new church” is the true Church in her passion, with the
Pharisees and unrepentant sinners in control as during the
crucifixion of Christ.
Yes “the Catholic Church in the future will stand against as a
beacon of light to the world”, but after her purification, after
her crucifixion, remaining always the same Body of Christ. Many
protestants have a similar idea as the idea of the SSPX in that the
true Church will be raptured during the tribulation period and then
come back again for a 1000 years with Christ.
As I wrote as a conclusion in, “PART
I: Catholic Parameters For Biblical Prophecy”, of my
article, “Catholic Prophecy Today”
(http://markbeast.blogspot.com):
“16. Parameters of the Catholic Church
The Catholic Church says relatively little about future events
leading up to Christ's Second Coming. Many of her teachings are
rejections (either implicit or explicit), not affirmations, of
particular beliefs such as the dispensational dichotomy between the
Church and Israel, the "secret" Rapture, and the earthly
millennial kingdom. What she does teach is quite clear, as well as
succinct: there will be a Second Coming, a time of trial which the
Church must endure, an Antichrist, a conversion of Israel to Christ,
a definitive judgment of all people, and the fulfillment of the
Kingdom that has already begun in the Church. WITHIN THOSE
PARAMETERS, Catholics may freely roam, search the Scriptures, and
seek to better understand the Word of God.”
Our Lady revealed to Don Stefano Gobbi:
“The black beast like a leopard indicates
Freemasonry; the beast with the two horns like a lamb indicates
Freemasonry infiltrated into the interior of the Church, that is to
say, ecclesiastical Masonry, which has spread especially among the
members of the hierarchy. This Masonic infiltration, in the interior
of the Church, was already foretold to you by me at Fatima, when I
announced to you that Satan would enter
in even to the summit of the Church. If
the task of Masonry is to lead souls to perdition, bringing them to
the worship of false divinities, the task of ecclesiastical Masonry
on the other hand is that of destroying Christ and his Church,
building a new idol, namely a false christ and a false church.”
(June 13, 1989; see also: January 1, 1979; September 6, 1986; August
15, 1988).
“In fact at the very moment when Satan will be
enthroned as lord of the world and will think himself now the sure
victor, I myself will snatch the prey from his hands. In
a trice he will find himself empty-handed, and in the end the victory
will be exclusively my Son’s and mine.
This will be THE TRIUMPH OF MY IMMACULATE HEART IN THE WORLD… I
have need of you (priests) and of your prayer to realize the great
plan of the triumph of my Immaculate Heart” (December 19, 1973).
“Behold: when everything will have come tumbling
down, all that will remain will be the strength of their tears that
will compel me to intervene in an amazing and terrible way. AND
MY TRIUMPH WILL BEGIN WITH THESE BELOVED SONS, MY PRIESTS”
(February 23, 1974).
It is true that we are living in the most
confusing times in the history of the Church and of the world. But
if we have true humility, explained well by St. Louis de Montfort,
Mary will not let us slide away into false humility and blindness in
this climatic period of the world and of the Church.
Dear Gerard,
If you can so easily disregard and not read the
wisdom of the encyclicals of Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI,
who am I to offer greater wisdom? Like Mother Angelica said: “As
Catholics we have been terribly quiet all these years.
After Vatican Council, those beautiful documents, inspired by the
Holy Spirit, they’re so beautiful when you read those documents,
it’s like reading Scripture. But they were misrepresented and
mis-portrayed and misinterpreted all these years…”
(http://spir-food.blogspot.it/2016/05/is-pope-catholic.html).
What we choose to read will greatly influence
us. The choice is ours and God will
respect that choice for all eternity. It is
not a matter of words, but words can help only if the person is
sincere with purity of intention before God, ready to loose
everything for the glory of God, and not hidden self glory or any
other hidden motives. We cannot hide anything from God. If we are
truly sincere, we will find God Who is the Truth, even in a very
confusing world and Church! I sincerely hope we spend eternity
together in heaven. But we must be ready to loose everything, to be
ready to be humiliated, persecuted and considered as the worst
enemies of the human fraternity, with Christ crucified, in this, the
period of the “great tribulation” (Mt 24:21)!
Father Joseph Dwight
