Catholic Voice 27th August 2021 Issue 324

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Issue 324

The Immaculate Conception - Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (1696 - 1770)

St Joseph’s Cord Available now - see page 7

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GUEST EDITORIAL

Catholic Voice

27th August 2021

On the Credibility of the Catholic Church were threatening to extinguish. But does she still have the means and the will to do so today?

Cardinal Robert Sarah Throughout two millennia, the Church has already played this role of guardian and ferryman of civilisation. But does it still have the means, and the will, today?

Doubt has taken hold of Western thought. Intellectuals and politicians alike describe the same impression of collapse. Faced with the breakdown of solidarity and the disintegration of identities, some turn to the Catholic Church. They ask her to give a reason to live together to individuals who have forgotten what unites them as one people. They beg her to provide a little more soul to make the cold harshness of consumer society bearable. When a priest is murdered, everyone is touched and many feel stricken to the core.

But is the Church capable of responding to these calls? Certainly, she has already played this role of guardian and transmitter of civilisation. At the twilight of the Roman Empire, she knew how to pass on the flame that the barbarians

CatholicVoice

Editor: Anthony Murphy editor@catholicvoice.ie Telephone: 059 8627268 ROI 00353 59 8627268 Outside ROI Keep up to date with news and articles via The Lumen Fidei website www.lumenfidei.ie

At the foundation of a civilisation, there can only be one reality that surpasses it: a sacred invariant.

Malraux noted this with realism: “The nature of a civilisation is what gathers around a religion. Our civilisation is incapable of building a temple or a tomb. It will either be forced to find its fundamental value, or it will decay.”

Without a sacred foundation, protective and insuperable boundaries are abolished. An entirely profane world becomes a vast expanse of quicksand.

Everything is sadly open to the winds of arbitrariness. In the absence of the stability of a foundation that escapes man, peace and joy — the signs of a long-lasting civilisation — are constantly swallowed up by a sense of precariousness. The anguish of imminent danger is the seal of barbaric times. Without a sacred foundation, every bond becomes fragile and fickle.

Some ask the Catholic Church to play this solid foundation role.

They would like to see her assume a social function, namely to be a coherent system of values, a cultural and aesthetic matrix. But the Church has no other sacred reality to offer than her faith in Jesus, God made man. Her sole goal is to make possible the encounter of men with the person of Jesus. Moral and dogmatic teaching, as well as mystical and liturgical patrimony, are the setting and the means of this fundamental and sacred encounter.

Christian civilisation is born of this encounter. Beauty and culture are its fruits.

In order to respond to the world’s expectations, the Church must therefore find the way back to herself and take up the words of Saint Paul: “For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ, and Jesus crucified.” She

must stop thinking of herself as a substitute for humanism or ecology.

These realities, although good and just, are for her but consequences of her unique treasure: faith in Jesus Christ.

What is sacred for the Church, then, is the unbroken chain that links her with certainty to Jesus.

A chain of faith without rupture or contradiction, a chain of prayer and liturgy without breakage or disavowal. Without this radical continuity, what credibility could the Church still claim? In her, there is no turning back, but an organic and continuous development that we call the living tradition. The sacred cannot be decreed, it is received from God and passed on.

This is undoubtedly the reason for which Benedict XVI could authoritatively affirm: “In the history of the liturgy there is growth and progress, but no rupture.

What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful. It behooves all of us to preserve the riches which have developed in the Church’s faith and prayer, and to give them their proper place.”

At a time when some theologians are seeking to reopen the liturgy wars by pitting the missal revised by the Council of Trent against the one in use since 1970, it is urgent to recall this. If the Church is not capable of preserving the peaceful continuity of her link with Christ, she will be unable to offer the world “the sacred which unites souls,” according to the words of Goethe.

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GUEST EDITORIAL 3

27th August 2021 Catholic Voice Beyond the quarrel over rites, the credibility of the Church is at stake. If she affirms the continuity between what is commonly called the Mass of St. Pius V and the Mass of Paul VI, then the Church must be able to organise their peaceful cohabitation and their mutual enrichment. If one were to radically exclude one in favour of the other, if one were to declare them irreconcilable, one would implicitly recognise a rupture and a change of orientation. But then the Church could no longer offer the world that sacred continuity, which alone can give her peace. By keeping alive a liturgical war within herself, the Church loses her credibility and becomes deaf to the call of men.

Liturgical peace is the sign of the peace that the Church can bring to the world.

What is at stake is therefore much more serious than a simple question of discipline. If she were to claim a reversal of her faith or of her liturgy, in what name would the Church dare address the world? Her only legitimacy is her consistency in her continuity.

Moreover, if the bishops, who are in charge of the cohabitation and mutual enrichment of the two

liturgical forms, do not exercise their authority to this effect, they run the risk of no longer appearing as shepherds, guardians of the faith they have received and of the sheep entrusted to them, but as political leaders: commissars of the ideology of the moment rather than guardians of the perennial tradition. They risk losing the trust of men of good will.

A father cannot introduce mistrust and division among his faithful children. He cannot humiliate some by setting them against others. He cannot ostracise some of his priests. The peace and unity that the Church claims to offer to the world must first be lived within the Church.

In liturgical matters, neither pastoral violence nor partisan ideology has ever produced fruits of unity.

The suffering of the faithful and the expectations of the world are too great to engage in these dead-end paths.

Everyone has a place in the Church of God! Cardinal Robert Sarah Cardinal Robert Sarah is prefect emeritus of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments.

Catholic Voice Update Dear Reader, We still continue to be adversely affected by the inconsistent covid restrictions.

Events that would usually be advertised in Catholic Voice are not taking place and some parishes have not yet resumed the sale of Catholic newspapers.

Therefore your continued prayerful and financial support is very important to us.

We are also grateful for your ongoing prayers and the many cards and well wishes that Kim has received since her accident nine months ago. Kim’s lengthy rehabilitation continues and despite a few setbacks she is making good progress and is able to walk short distances. Currently she is experiencing some difficulties with her right leg due to the weakness of her left leg so some additional prayers to help her overcome this further challenge would be very welcome.

Yours in Christ Anthony Murphy

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4 MARY, THE NEW ARK

Catholic Voice

27th August 2021

“Mary, Ark Of The New Covenant”

Canon Altiere - Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest “Arise, O Lord, into thy resting place: thou and the ark, which thou hast sanctified.” David, the poet king of ancient Israel, composed Psalm 131, which I have just quoted, to celebrate the triumphant entry of the Ark of the Covenant into the holy city of Jerusalem. His son Solomon went on to build a magnificent temple to house it.

The last book of the Old Testament gives us this very curious detail: at the time that the Jews went into exile after the destruction of the Temple six centuries before the time of Christ, the Prophet Jeremy rescued the Ark of the Covenant and hid it in a cave, saying that it would not reappear until the time of the promised Messiah (cf.

II Machabees 2:4-8).

The Ark of the Covenant, the precious golden box which contained the holy Law of God inscribed on two stone tablets as well as a pot of the miraculous manna from heaven, was the most sacred object in the religion of the Hebrews.

In the year 63 b.c., during the first Roman conquest of Jerusalem, the general Pompey the Great committed the shocking sacrilege of striding into the Holy of Holies of the vanquished Temple. His morbid curiosity led him to enter that sacred space behind the veil which only the high priest himself had the right to enter, once a year.

Pompey was disappointed and could not understand all the fuss, for the Holy of Holies was empty. You see, in this Temple rebuilt after the Babylonian exile, the Ark of the Covenant never entered. Only a stone step marked the spot in the holy place where it should have stood.

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Back in the fifth century, the pious empress Pulcheria was building a church in honour of the Mother of God. She had heard that the Christians in Palestine venerated a tomb of Our Lady on Mount Olivet, and so, presuming that the tomb held Our Lady, she asked the holy bishop Saint Juvenal of Constantinople if he could obtain some relics for her church.

The bishop’s response is instructive: he explained that the Apostles were gathered in Jerusalem by the Holy Spirit to be witnesses to the end of Our Lady’s life of earth. Three days later, they opened her tomb and found it empty, with only her winding sheets and a lovely fragrance. According to the account, “they could only think that He whom it had pleased to take flesh from the Virgin Mary … to the same it was now pleasing that after she had departed this life, her immaculate and undefiled body should be honoured by being made incorrupt and by being translated [to heaven] before the general resurrection of the dead.”

Already 1500 years ago, St. Juvenal referred to this story as “the most ancient and credible tradition.” This has always been the faith of the Church.

Indeed, no one has ever claimed to possess a relic of the Mother of God: relics associated with her, yes, like her veil which is at Chartres or her wedding ring which is in Prato, but not of Our Lady herself.

The Palestinian Christians venerated the empty tomb of Mary like they venerated the empty tomb of Christ.

Where is that holy body, which the native Preston poet Thompson lovingly describes as that “flesh-girt paradise garnered by the Adam new”?

It is not on this earth. Who could imagine for an instant that the flesh from which was drawn the flesh of God could be left to moulder in a grave?

These details of biblical archaeology take on new meaning when we contemplate the opening antiphon for the Mass of the Assumption: “a great sign appeared in heaven: A woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars” (Apocalypse 12:1).

The preceding verse, however, tells us even more: “the temple of God was opened in heaven: and the ark of his testament was seen in his temple” (Apocalypse 11:19). The woman crowned with the sun is the Ark of the Covenant. Mary could apply to herself these words of Ecclesiasticus: “he that made me, rested in my tabernacle” (24:12).

27th August 2021 Catholic Voice

Just as the old Ark contained the Word of God written on stone and the bread from heaven, Mary the new Ark bore within herself the Word of God made flesh, him who said, “I am the living bread which came down from heaven” (St. John 6:41). The new Ark, gilded inside and out, is Mary. The joy felt by the Jews when the Ark was carried in triumph into the holy city pales in comparison to the joy of the angels when holy Mary was assumed body and soul into the celestial city.

After the Mass, what the devil hates most is Mary, because he hates purity, meekness and humility. He hates love. Satan knows that Mary is the woman promised in the Garden of Eden who would crush his head.

MARY, THE NEW ARK 5

Could you consider leaving a bequest for CatholicVoice?

As a not for profit registered organisation we rely on the generosity of our benefactors for financial and prayerful support.

But he keeps fighting. Today, almost as never before, the forces of hell are unchained: vile blasphemies outrage A bequest from you in your Last Will and God and his saints, Christians around the world are Testament would help us to continue growing dragged to the slaughter, and the very womb, the hidden the publication of Catholic Voice and the sanctuary of life, has become a new temple to Moloch dissemination of Catholic Truth the God of death.

Had we no hope, we would drop our arms at the sight of these evils. But in the midst of these ruins, a daughter of our race rises up to give us hope. O divine Assumption, victory that brings joy to angels and tears to demons!

Lord, take up the Ark which thou hast sanctified!

If you are in a position to leave a bequest, however large or small, you are assured that it will be used to promote and strengthen Catholic teaching.

May God bless you for your generosity.

6 MY YOKE IS LIGHT

Catholic Voice

27th August 2021

By Breaking A Wooden Yoke, You Forge An Iron Yoke!

Msgr. Charles Pope

Monday of last week (18th Week of the year) there was a powerful passage from the Book of Jeremiah. It is practical, profound, and sweeping in its implications, and it comes to us from the Lord through the mouth of Jeremiah the Prophet: By breaking a wooden yoke, you forge an iron yoke!

(Jeremiah 28:13) Rather than looking at the historical meaning (i.e., that God was going to use Assyria to humble Israel), let’s consider what it means for us today.

What is the wooden yoke if it is not the cross? Indeed, the Lord says as much: Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light (Matt 11:28-30).

The Lord has a paradoxical answer for us who labor and are heavenly burdened. He tells us to take the yoke and burden that He has for us. The yoke is a symbol for the cross, and like most yokes, it connects us with another— the Lord! To be sure, God does have a yoke for us. We

do need purification and discipline. However, the yoke He has for us is “easy.” The Greek word used is χρηστός (chrestos), which also has the connotation of being wellfitting, serviceable, or adapted to its purpose. The Lord’s yoke for us is productive unto the end He has in mind: our healing and salvation.

Do not turn the yoke (cross) into something abstract or think of it only in terms of major things such as cancer.

The cross also has real, practical, daily dimensions such as exercising self-control and moderation. The cross (yoke) includes resisting sin, forgiving, and living chastely and courageously despite difficulties or persecution. These crosses are common to all true Christians.

There are also some specific crosses that each of us carries, ones that the Lord permits for our humility and purification. Perhaps it is a physical illness or infirmity; maybe it is a spiritual emotional struggle; perhaps it is the loss of a loved one, job, or home.

These things are the wooden yoke, the cross of the Lord, and He carries it with us for we are yoked with Him (praise God). Because these burdens are from Him, they are well-suited to us; they are just what we need to avoid even worse things, including Hell itself.

What if we break and cast aside the wooden yoke, as many do today by ridiculing the Christian moral vision and the wisdom of the cross given to us by Jesus?

By breaking a wooden yoke, you forge an iron yoke!

(Jeremiah 28:13) How is this? Consider the toll that indulging in the moment can take: In rejecting the wooden yoke of moderation, chastity, and the limits of God’s moral law, we forge the iron yoke of addiction, obesity, financial trouble, sexually transmitted diseases, broken families, and all the heartache that follows. Pornography, lust, alcohol, and drugs enslave with an iron yoke.

27th August 2021 Catholic Voice In refusing the grace to forgive, we fuel violence and conflict. Many wars in the world today are fought over grievances that stretch back hundreds or even thousands of years.

Our greed fuels an insatiable desire for more, and we begin to live beyond our means or to live in such a way that bring us more stress than happiness.

Even the simple neglect of our daily duties causes work to pile up and seem overwhelming.

Our culture has become ever more severe as we abandon the wooden yoke of common moral standards and simple human decency. What we end up with is a culture that is more unforgiving and severe than ever. General moral standards give way to selective moral outrage resulting in: cancel culture, growing lists of grievances, and an easily offended victim-culture, a bewildering list of words are now forbidden and an outright criminalising of views contrary to the sexual revolution. It is an iron yoke.

MY YOKE IS LIGHT 7

Pay attention, fellow Christian, Satan is a liar. He offers to lift the gentle yoke of the Lord. He expresses “outrage” that the Lord should require any suffering or discipline from us. He “takes our side” and utters a complaint on our behalf, but he is a liar and a fraud. Once we let him lift the wooden yoke he locks us in an iron yoke. Do not forsake the wooden yoke of the cross, for if you do, an iron yoke is sure to follow.

It is a simple pearl of wisdom, yet it is so often ignored: By breaking a wooden yoke, you forge an iron yoke!

(Jeremiah 28:13)

All of these iron yokes, and more come upon us because we break the wooden yoke of the cross. To be sure, fulfilling our daily duties, living moderately, chastely, and soberly are all crosses because they involve some degree of self-denial, at least in the moment. However, the wooden yoke is a lot easier than the iron yoke that results if we cast aside the more manageable, and wellfitting yoke of the cross.

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8 SAINT DOMINIC

Catholic Voice

27th August 2021

Saint Dominic’s ‘New Evangelization’ Succeeded Because Of Radical Adherence To Christ Peter Kwasniewski

We can live in this world as if we are not immersed in it, we can pass through it as if we are not wedded to it, we can order our ever-shorter days to the everlasting Day of the Lord — and in this way, what we are, what we do, what we suffer, will not rot from selfishness, but will sprout and spread in the fecundity of love.

In the old Roman calendar, August 4 is the feast of St. Dominic; in the new Roman calendar, it is August 8. Whichever calendar we are following, we should turn our minds during August to one of our greatest saints, preachers, and religious founders, not only to ask for his intercession, but also to ask what he can show us today in our own situation.

At the very founding of his Order, St. Dominic saw that it was better for his few brethren to be scattered, to keep walking, to stay in motion, provided that their interior life was not scattered, was firmly rooted, at rest in God. When he proposed splitting up the small band and sending them to the four corners of Europe, they argued that he was dividing a delicate organism.

His response is classic: Grain that is kept in a bin rots, but when it

is scattered over the ground, it sprouts and spreads. He knew that their spiritual success depended on keeping an empty purse, a full heart, and restless feet, ready to bring the Gospel everywhere.

A “new evangelisation” was put in motion in the thirteenth century by the itinerant mendicants (i.e., the wandering beggars), namely, the Dominicans and Franciscans, and it was a huge success, the effects of which are still with us today. But we seldom pause to ask why they were so successful, and why their success has waxed and waned over the centuries. It has everything to do with the radicalness of that original vision shared by Dominic and Francis — to follow in poverty the poor Christ — and the degree of fidelity to that radicalness.

When the communities were afraid of nothing and clinging to nothing, trusting in Divine Providence, focused on Christ crucified, they flourished. As soon as their priories became rich and comfortable, they lost their evangelical influence over the society and became another mouthpiece of worldly satisfaction.

It is rather like the Baroque sacred music that began as a form of rhetorical praise and then veered off into emulating opera; emotionally it conjured up more the heroic castrato and his mock love-affair with the contralto than it did the Holy Sacrifice that unites earth to heaven.

Reform in the Church has always meant a certain simplification, remembrance of purity past, repentance for self-indulgence, a firm commitment to “follow naked the naked Christ,” as St. Thomas Aquinas described his goal, citing this phrase from Jerome three times

(Contra retrahentes 15; Contra impugnantes 6; ST II-II, q. 186, a. 3, ad 3). The great religious founders help us to understand what simplification is — and what it isn’t. None of these founders tried to do religion “on the cheap.”

When it came to churches, they built well, beautifully, sturdily, even grandly. Nothing inferior could be given to God, especially in the sacred liturgy. When it came to themselves, however, they stripped their lives of possessions, dependencies, distractions, fixed locations, striving to be as simple as possible in adhering to the supreme Good. Their goal was to abide in the one who ever abides.

In his book Staying Tender: Contemplation, Pathway to Compassion (Angelico Press, 2020), Fr. Luke Bell, OSB, has written some beautiful lines on the two kinds of abiding, which on the surface seem contrary, but which point to a more profound unity.

St. Benedict perfectly illustrates and inculcates the first kind, St. Dominic and St. Francis the second kind. First, the ideal of the patriarch of Western monasticism: The contemplative tradition is about abiding in this Absolute and finding life therein, a life that is in an open-hearted communion with others in the depth of their being.

It is about abiding and it abides. Its practice is characterised by abiding.

One of the vows a Benedictine monk takes is that of stability: that he will abide in the monastic life, and normally in one place, for his whole life. It is perseverance in this, not learning or practical skills, that determines if someone can become a Benedictine…. Once he has become a monk he should normally abide in the enclosure

27th August 2021 Catholic Voice

SAINT DOMINIC 9

of the monastery and things there should be arranged so that as far as is possible all that is needed will be within that enclosure…. All of this is a practical expression of a spiritual truth: that God abides and by abiding in Him we find life and love. As the monastery is the place of worship of God and of prayer — both because of how it is ordered and because of who is there — it represents the New Jerusalem where God is all in all. Abiding there in the right spirit (which is basically not a complaining spirit) is a means of abiding in God. Then, Fr. Bell turns to the more paradoxical case of the mendicant friars, sons of Dominic and Francis, whose way of life would seem to contradict the above sublime account of religious life: The spiritual truth that has its expression in perseverance in the monastery can also be expressed by not abiding anywhere in this world. Mendicant friars are always moving to a new place, always on a pilgrimage, because nothing in this world abides as God abides.

While a monk will allow abiding in one place to point beyond itself to abiding in God, a friar will let abiding in God alone teach that “here have we no continuing city, but seek one to come.” Spiritually they are identical in their rootedness in God, the one signifying this by being in one place, the other by not being in one place. The created world both shows and conceals the divine and so can speak of it both positively and negatively. It images abiding in God in a settled place of residence; it shows, through those whose lifestyle is itinerant just as their Lord’s was, that it cannot offer the absolute abode which is God alone. (pp. 13–14) The lay faithful can learn a lot from both modes of abiding, which are lived to the fullest by those who

Saint Dominic and the Albigensians - Pedro Berruguete (c. 1450 – 1504)

have consecrated everything to Christ. On the one hand, there is an interior attitude of perseverance that corresponds to Benedictine stability. We stay rooted to our calling, our spouse and children, our family responsibilities, our work, our good works, come what may, and in spite of obstacles, which will never be absent.

On the other hand there is a placing of oneself at the disposal of God’s will that corresponds the detachment and mobility of the

mendicants. The laity, to be sure, are not supposed to be always “in flux,” always “on the move,” as this would be unhealthy for most families (to say the least). But we can live in this world as if we are not immersed in it, we can pass through it as if we are not wedded to it, we can order our ever-shorter days to the everlasting Day of the Lord — and in this way, what we are, what we do, what we suffer, will not rot from selfishness, but will sprout and spread in the fecundity of love.

10 THE REAL JESUS

Catholic Voice

27th August 2021

The Real Jesus Challenged Me Like A Great Forceful Coach Fr. Bill Peckman

This morning I gave a homily that has stuck in my mind all day.

The gist is this: many times we want to believe in a God of our own creation. We can slap the name of Jesus on it if we wish, but it is a fiction of our desires. We don’t want the actual Jesus, like the people of Nazareth in the Gospel today. We want a more individually stylised model. We want one who turns over the tables in other people’s lives but pats on the head for our good and who ignores our bad. We want a Jesus that condemns other people’s sins but overlooks mine. We want a Jesus who socially, politically, and otherwise aligns with our predispositions. We want a Jesus who condemns the people we hate and coddles the people like us. Fire and brimstone for thee and rainbows and unicorns for me.

We want Jesus to be a shepherd who is okay with our wandering from the flock, and a scapegoat when our lives spin out of control. We want a Jesus who makes us comfortably numb.

And heaven knows there more than enough clerics or all forms who will encourage you to form your own personal Jesus. It is a lot easier and far less risky to do that than present the actual Jesus. That way we don’t have to talk about sensitive topics that might…gasp!….trigger people.

Just keep writing those checks though!

But the more our personal Jesus is a wimpy effeminate weakling the easier it is to wander away altogether. A Catholicism of love, hugs, and crunchy granola for me and blistering hellfire for my enemies (real or imagined) sooner or later seems and is ineffectual. When the voice of this world is far more demanding, people will gravitate to it. I know that was true for me as a young man. My own personal Jesus wasn’t up to the task of dealing with the truly heart wrenching things I had to deal with. Like a spent orange peel, He was easy to throw away. And with it, I was able to casually toss aside religion as well.

what He Himself didn’t do. The actual Jesus comforts and chides, draws us closer to Himself but challenges our sins.

He loved us enough to die for us. He tells us our motivations matter, that our faith has to be authentic, and our love, especially for our enemies, must be on par with His.

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If you haven’t caught on, I am dedicated to preaching the Gospel in its entirety. Both the comfort and the challenge.

The real Jesus can be Dies Irae and come to me all of you who are burdened. He is merciful AND just. I would have it no other way.

But here I am a priest! Why? Why did I come back to the Catholic Church? Because I started to look for the real Jesus.

The real Jesus challenged me like a great forceful coach to greater holiness. He wants us to share in His victory, which can only happen by our picking up our crosses and following Him. He didn’t take my whining excuses but called for my conversion. He wasn’t some weakling with soft hands, but a carpenter with rough scarred hands who didn’t ask of us

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27th August 2021 Catholic Voice

REGAINING THE FLOCK 11

Responding To The “Mass” Exodus Dr. R. Jared Staudt

The Catholic Church, along with every major Protestant denomination, has witnessed a precipitous decline in Church attendance.

This slide, set off during the 1960s, has accelerated with the rapid rise of the “nones,” those claiming no religious affiliation. We could wonder, has the bottom fallen out with this huge exodus? Or put more theologically, has Christ abandoned his Church?

Moments of crisis test us, calling us to exercise great hope and trust in the Lord’s providence. Even though Jesus told us that he will never abandon us, he also calls us to do our part. We are not simply helpless in the current free-fall.

We can assess why things have gone off track and then adjust, focusing our attention on what can help us reverse course.

In taking stock of the crisis, Stephen Bullivant traces the steps of our decline for us, drawing together the many contributing factors, in his book Mass Exodus: Catholic Disaffiliation in Britain and America since Vatican II (Oxford, 2019). Bullivant describes the major forces — both internal and external — that have combined to form a perfect exit storm. Huge cultural changes certainly set the backdrop.

One surprising example stems from the breaking up of ethnic Catholic enclaves in cities in favour of the more isolated and anonymous suburbs.

Alongside of unprecedented upheaval in society, confusion also reigned for decades in the Church following the Second Vatican Council, which stemmed from a revolution in worship, conflicts over morality, a collapse of catechesis and a flight from the priesthood and religious life — all leading to general turmoil. More recently, revelations about the cover up of the sex abuse crisis and a growing distance between doctrine and society have alienated even more Catholics.

It’s been a rough 60 years, with so many self-inflicted wounds. Since the early 1960s, when 75% of Catholics attended Mass regularly, there has been a steady, annual decline in attendance to less than 25%. Catholics went from

having clear identifiers of belief and practice within a strong community that anchored a whole way of life to a very changed landscape with few demands, incentives or cultural practices to support faith. The drift of Catholics to other churches or to no religion at all, Bullivant explains, should be seen in terms of an identity crisis, with every element of Catholic belief and practice seen as up for grabs (178).

People need God — we simply cannot be truly happy without him — and so must reach and serve our own people more effectively. Bullivant sheds light on this effort too, pointing to what worked before so many left. Catholic parishes of the past offered a “closeknit community-life,” augmented by a “richly elaborate devotional” practice (88). In fact, respondents to many recent surveys sought greater community and simply could not find it at their parish.

Keeping Catholics active in the faith involves more than just Mass attendance. In particular, people remain much more engaged when there is social integration into the parish and meaningful ties to other parishioners (95). Parishes of the past also provided opportunities to see the faith lived in meaningful ways, through something Bullivant describes as Credibility Enhancing Displays (CREDS) — actions and practices that manifest belief, often involving sacrifice (102).

CREDS, such as nocturnal adoration, the Friday penance and processions, make faith come alive by drawing it into daily life.

What can we do differently to stop the “Mass” exodus?

For one, we should focus on evangelisation first — sharing the good news of salvation in relationship with Christ. Without a living faith in God, why would anyone care to listen to information/rules from the Church or come for worship? To grow in the faith, mentorship has been found much more effective than instruction (particularly when done by parents).

If the classroom has been the model for catechesis in the past, we now

need to think much more in terms of apprenticeship. We need a more dynamic approach — banding together with a motivated mentor and peers, sharing life together, living the faith actively and serving others. It is time to move out of the classroom in favour of small group settings (preferably in the home), which are more ideal to personally engage content. Mass has become a lost treasure, and to help people rediscover it, we must build a stronger community to surround it.

Looking back reveals that Catholics have assimilated into our culture, influenced more by its ethos and priorities. To re-engage the lost faithful, we need to communicate a compelling, imaginative vision of what it means to be a Christian in the modern world and why life will be better if we accept this vision and live within it. For the faith to stick, it must be woven into the very fabric our lives and supported by community. Only if we help Catholics to accept and internalise faith and live it every day of the week can we prevent them from becoming another statistic within the legion of “nones.”

Catholics may have left in a mass exodus, but the return will happen by engaging our lost brethren one at a time.

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Catholic Voice

27th August 2021

Behold The Hour Is At Hand And The Son Of Man Shall Be Betrayed Into The Hands Of Sinners John Lacken

(Matthew 26:45)

The ten commandments can be broken down into two sections which correspond to Christ’s reply to the doctor of the Law that is related to us in chapter 22 of St Matthew’s Gospel.

“And one of them, a doctor of the law, asking him, tempting him: Master, which is the greatest commandment in the law?

Jesus said to him: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind.

This is the greatest and the first commandment.

And the second is like to this: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

On these two commandments dependeth the whole law and the prophets.” (Matthew 22: 35-40) The first three commandments teach us how we are to behave towards Almighty God. The other seven commandments teach us how we should behave towards our neighbours.

Here are the first three commandments as given in chapter 20 of the book of Exodus.

“I am the Lord thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.

Thou shalt not have strange gods before me.

Thou shalt not make to thyself a graven thing, nor the likeness of any thing that is in heaven above,

Moses Smashing the Tables of the Law (detail) - Gustave Dore (1832 - 1883)

or in the earth beneath, nor of those things that are in the waters under the earth.

Thou shalt not adore them, nor serve them: I am the Lord thy God, mighty, jealous, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me: And showing mercy unto thousands to them that love me, and keep my commandments.

Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain: for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that shall take the name of the Lord his God in vain.

Remember that thou keep holy the sabbath day.

Six days shalt thou labour, and shalt do all thy works. But on the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: thou shalt do no

work on it, thou nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy beast, nor the stranger that is within thy gates.

For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and the sea, and all things that are in them, and rested on the seventh day: therefore the Lord blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it.” (Exodus 20:2-11) These three commandments teach us the majesty and importance of Almighty God. We must not worship anyone or anything besides God or replace God with any person or created thing. We must hold the name of God as sacred and only use His Name with reverence and awe and we must keep the Sabbath day Holy and reserve it for worship and for the things that are pleasing to God. I recall one time shortly after we moved to Sligo, around the year 1993, travelling into the town on a

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Catholic Voice

Thursday and I noticed that many of the shops on the main street were closed. At first, as someone who was reared in Dublin, I didn’t realise why this was. Then I remembered that it was a Holy Day of Obligation, probably Ascension Thursday, and back in 1993, many businesses and shops in rural towns still closed when a Holy Day of obligation fell on a day apart from a Sunday. Three years later, in 1996, the Irish bishops removed the obligation from these days and moved the celebration of Ascension Thursday and Corpus Christi to the Sunday following the Thursday when they would normally be celebrated.

I heard at the time that this was to facilitate those who had to work on the Holy Days and found it difficult to get to Holy Mass. This concession to the secular world, in a very simple and demonstrable way, clearly stated for all to see, that, conducting business was more important than worshipping Almighty God. Once this concession was made, it was no surprise that an attack would be launched on keeping the Sabbath day holy. Now, most shops and shopping centres do business on the Lord’s day and there are many, including baptised Catholics, who use Sunday to do their weekly shopping rather than going to Holy Mass.

To my mind, there is a direct connection between this degradation of Sundays and Holy Days of obligation and what was permitted to happen to the Liturgy after the Second Vatican Council. I am old enough to remember the introduction of the Folk Masses in our local parish. In our parish church, a hippy looking man used to My God, I believe, I adore, I hope and I love Thee. I beg pardon of Thee for all those that do not believe, do not adore, do not hope and do not love Thee. Amen.

Angel to the Children of Fatima 1916

LET US GO TO THE ALTAR OF GOD 13

Problems! What Problems?

I don’t see any problems!

lead the folk music and, during the distribution of Holy Communion, he would go to the ambo and preach to the congregation.

Being badly formed in the Catholic Faith at the time, I didn’t see a problem with this but one day, for some reason, my father attended the evening folk mass. When he came home he was really annoyed that someone with no authority or proper training in catechesis or liturgy was allowed to freely preach to the congregation a message of bland love with little substance.

When I look back at that time, it is as if our bishops decided that the Catholic Church, for almost two thousand years, didn’t really know what it was about and, with modern ideologies and knowledge, the liturgy of the Catholic Church could be restructured so as to have a broader appeal and be less offensive to protestants. The thought of worshipping Almighty God seems to have been almost absent from these ‘experimental’ liturgies, the main focus being to attract people by making them feel good at Holy Mass.

The soul destroying fruits of these experiments are in plain view for those with eyes to see but so many in the hierarchy, like the proverbial

ostrich, refuse to see what is causing the damage. The collapse of the practice of the Catholic Faith in Ireland is nothing short of astonishing. Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, former Archbishop of Dublin, at an address he gave in 2017 in the Diocese of Wurzburg, Germany, noted that: “Many outside of Ireland are surprised to discover that there are parishes in Dublin where the presence at Sunday Mass is some 5 per cent of the Catholic population and, in some cases, even below 2 per cent.”

I have often mentioned my time working as a first-line troubleshooter for computer problems and one of the basic steps for diagnosing those problems. One seeks to find out if anything was changed before the onset of the problems and more often than not, this will lead to the root of the problem.

However, when it comes to the Catholic Church, one is almost forbidden from questioning the aftermath of the Second Vatican Council which witnessed probably the most spectacular collapse of the practice of the Catholic Faith in the history of the Catholic Church.

Faithful Catholics who love the Catholic Church founded by Jesus

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Catholic Voice

27th August 2021

Christ, are charged with trying to drag everyone back to the dark and dreary past by those who prefer ‘ad hominem’ attacks to genuine discussions on how to regain the world for Christ.

Catholic parents, who dearly love their children and want to raise them as faithful Catholics and who therefore question what is going on in our supposed Catholic Schools, especially with regard to human sexuality, are either ignored or dismissed as backward puritans.

Those who question the changes made to the Liturgy, and who simply wonder if there could be a connection between these changes and the plummeting attendance at Holy Mass which is evidence of the widespread apostasy amongst baptised Catholics, are suspected of being schismatic despite their loyalty to all of the Catholic Church’s teachings.

So many Catholics do not seem to realise that it is through the Liturgy, especially through the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, that we best keep the first three commandments of God. Gerald B, Lyons, in his 1991 book ‘Introibo ad altare Dei’ emphasises this point when he says, “If one were to ask the proverbial man in the street ‘what is the Mass’ the chances are that he would say that it was a piece of classical music or vaguely that it had somethig to do with the roman Catholic Church. In both cases he would be partly right but through ignorance he would be unaware that without the Mass the existence of the human race would have little point and there would be no real relationship between the individual soul and Almighty God its creator.”

One of the great secular crimes of our day is to cause offence to specific groups of ‘special’ people, but little or no consideration is given by modern man to causing

offence against Almighty God. The first three commandments have no relevance in modern society and there is even a case currently going through the European Court of Human Rights which claims that the Irish presidential and other constitutional oaths, which refer to Almighty God, are contrary to the human rights of those who were created in the image and likeness of Almighty God. Given the decline in attendance at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass witnessed after the introduction of the Novus Ordo Mass, one can only wonder why many of those in authority in the Church refuse to examine this particular issue given the growth in attendance at the Traditional Catholic Mass, especially amongst young families, since Pope Benedict XVI issued his ‘motu propio’ ‘Summarum Pontificum’.

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the future Pope Benedict XVI, was well aware of the problems caused by what happened to the liturgy after the Second Vatican Council. He wrote the following in the preface to a book by Monsignor Klaus Gamber, titled ‘The Reform of the Roman Liturgy’.

“What happened after the Council was something else entirely: in the place of liturgy as the fruit

of development came fabricated liturgy. We abandoned the organic, living process of growth and development over centuries, and replaced it – as in a manufacturing process – with a fabrication, a banal on-the-spot product.

Mons Gamber, with the vigilance of a true prophet and the courage of a true witness, opposed this falsification, and, indefatigably taught us about the living fullness of a true liturgy”. What, then, does this true prophet have to say about a reform which is, in reality, a continued revolution?

“The pastoral benefits that so many idealists had hoped the new liturgy would bring did not materialize.

Our churches emptied in spite of the new liturgy (or because of it?), and the faithful continued to fall away from the Church in droves.” And again: “In the end, we will all have to recognize that the new liturgical forms, well intentioned as they may have been at the beginning, did not provide the people with bread, but with stones.””

It seems almost contrary to the Catholic Faith to ascribe the decline in Catholic Mass attendance to the unstoppable influence of the sexual revolution and to modern trends in western society. The Catholic Church is a Divine institution with a Divine power that transcends and

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Catholic Voice

is capable of stopping any human artifices. But our bishops need first of all to have faith in this Divine power that has been given to them

by God. “Amen I say to you, whatsoever you shall bind upon earth, shall be bound also in heaven; and whatsoever you shall loose upon earth, shall be loosed also in heaven.

Again I say to you, that if two of you shall consent upon earth, concerning any thing whatsoever they shall ask, it shall be done to them by my Father who is in heaven.

For where there are two or three gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”

(Matthew 18:18-20) The Traditional Catholic Mass, which developed organically over many centuries, and which is now

LET US GO TO THE ALTAR OF GOD 15

under severe attack from elements within the Catholic Church, is actually the solution to all of the world’s problems.

As a popular Catholic blog author and promoter of the Traditional Catholic Mass puts it, “Save the Liturgy, Save the World”.

Faithful Catholics are well aware that we are in the midst of a tremendous spiritual warfare whose primary purpose is to lead countless souls to eternal damnation. The so called Covid-19 pandemic is as nothing compared to the attacks on the Catholic Church and on the Liturgy through which we raise our hearts and minds to worship Almighty God. Indeed, the socalled pandemic and the dangerous vaccine mania which it has spawned, is being used as a tool to suppress the worship that is due to Almighty God.

Jesus Christ tells us in chapter six of St Matthew’s Gospel that we should not be solicitous for our lives worrying about what we shall eat and what we shall wear. He tells us to look at the beauty of the lillies of the fields whose glory is greater that Solomon’s with all his wealth. If God looks after the birds of the air will He not look after our needs too? These are the things that the pagans worry about and we are called to have greater faith in God that the pagans.

Let us seek first the Kingdom of God knowing that God will look after all of our needs. Let us continue to worship Almighty God and to seek to glorify Him in all that we say and do. When we fall, as we undoubtedly will, let us return with humble and contrite hearts to our loving Father in the sacrament of confession. Then let us put on the armour of God and continue to fight for His Catholic Church and for the Traditional Catholic Mass.

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16 THE GREAT APOSTASY

Catholic Voice

27th August 2021

In The End My Immaculate Heart Will Triumph Christy Bracken

The Triumph.

Fatima, Portugal, 1917, At the Cova Da Iria, Our Lady was seen By three little Shepherd children, Aged 10, 9, and 7.

The beautiful lady, Brought a Peace Plan from heaven.

Sixteen months and counting into the nightmare that has overtaken the whole world, and incredible as it seems, if one was to predict in the Autumn of 2019 that such a scenario would be a reality in a year or so, such a far fetched conspiracy would see whispering sniggers, and shaking heads lamenting the poor fellow with the screw gone loose.

Yet, one has the sense that we are only at the beginning of sorrows, and for so many the penny doesn’t seem to have dropped yet.

Sadly it seems, the State and NPHET have become the new gods, and they have artfully turned our gaze away from the horizon and beyond, to focus us exclusively on the jab, with the carrot of more freedom for us, which was never theirs to give or take away in the first place.

Early on we had hope that religious fervour would revive, and that the Shepherds would corral in the sheep from the wolves, and that the good lord would see us in sackcloth and ashes, and bring to heel the wolves, but alas the Shepherds themselves became wolves, abandoned the sheep, and left them to fend for themselves, and wander the wasteland without Manna from heaven to nourish their withered souls, all the while, ample food and drink was available to stem the pangs of bodily hunger with the blessings of the state.

Listen, listen to our Queen, Her Plan for peace, Her triumph supreme.

Darkness envelops, The hour is late, Peter, Peter, why do you wait?.

Yes indeed, the hour is late, and now is the time for our Shepherds to shake off their torpor, realise that they are in the eye of the storm, the fight of their lives, and act

accordingly. They must light the flame again on the hill of Slane, and let it illuminate the whole Island, from mountain to sea and beyond, so that all will know that the voice of Patrick, echoing through the centuries will once more banish the snakes from our shore.

Then, in this supreme moment of history, they must commence the task of persuading the Pope and

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Catholic Voice

their brother bishops, to finally answer the call of heaven.

At all six apparitions of Our Lady at Fatima, from the 13th May to the 13th October 1917, she asked that the rosary be recited every day. She also requested ‘The Five First Saturdays’ of reparation, to include Mass, confession, and Holy Communion, and to keep her company for fifteen minutes, while meditating on the mysteries of the rosary, with the intention of making reparation for the insults and blasphemies committed against Her Immaculate Heart, promising to assist at the hour of death all who undertake this devotion.

They came, they saw, seven times ten thousand, The sick, the lame, the pious, the scoundrel, “Miracle, Miracle”, on bended knee fall, Peter, Peter, why do you stall?.

Those who govern us have the scent of the fox now, and while they’re letting us roam the hills and valleys at the moment, come September, October, the baying of the hounds will reach a crescendo, and the poor frightened sheep will once again be left to the mercy of the wolves, unless.....

O Jesus, forgive us our sins, The prayer she taught, That’s how it begins, To save us from hell, From going astray, Peter, Peter, why do you delay?, Unless that is, the Pope in union with all the bishops of the world, do as Our Lady requested and consecrate Russia to Her Immaculate Heart.

On Thursday June 13th 1929 at Tuy Spain, Our Lady said, “The moment has come in which

God asks the Holy Father, in union with all the bishops of the world, to make the Consecration of Russia to My Immaculate Heart, promising to save it by this means. There are so many souls whom the Justice of God condemns for sins committed against me, that I have come to ask for reparation. Sacrifice yourself for this intention and pray”.

She said if Her request was granted, Russia would convert and a period of peace would be granted to the world. If not, “ Russia would spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecution of the church. The good will be martyred, the Holy Father will have much to suffer, various nations will be annihilated, but in the end the Holy Father will do it”.

To Shepherds three, 10, 9, and 7, Mother mapped the road to heaven, Conditional promise, Ere nations fall, Peter, Peter, answer Her call.

So the solution to the quagmire we’re now in doesn’t rest with Joe Biden, Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, or puppets Micheál, or Leo. The solution lies with the Pope and the bishops, obeying Our Lady. The time for doubting Fatima is long past. The prophecies of Fatima are unfolding before our eyes.

CONSECRATE RUSSIA 17 see an end to the nightmare, they must step up to the plate and set the whole thing in motion. There is no other option, there’s no human solution, again, Our Lady said only she can help us.

September 8th, 15th, October 7th, December 8th, all feasts days of Our Lady, an ideal opportunity to answer heaven’s call. Picture the scene, the Pope, in union with all the bishops, say on December 8th, consecrate Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and the ghoulish nightmare of nearly two years evaporates like a puff of smoke.

It’s a no brainer at this stage, a five minute prayer for world peace, or keep staring into the abyss, and await the annihilation of nations. A final question to our Shepherds, do you want that on your conscience?.

Russia, Russia, Thine hour will come, Glorious return, errors undone, Infused with light, Nourished with Grace, When Peter, Peter, Mother obeys.

The Irish bishops must immediately start the ball rolling by contacting their brother bishops across the world, to petition the Pope to do the Consecration. Our Lady said only she can help us. It’s in the gift of the bishops to do it. If they want to “Offer up everything within your power as a sacrifice to the Lord in an act of reparation for the sins by which He is offended; and of supplication for the conversion of sinners. Thus invoke peace upon your country. I am her Guardian Angel; the Angel of Portugal. Above all, accept and bear with submission the sufferings that the Lord may send you.”

(The Angel of Portugal to Fatima children 1915)

18 THE POWER OF LOVE

Catholic Voice

27th August 2021

The Church Militant Is Not Militant Enough Christopher Monckton of Brenchley

Yet again, the sullenly anti-Catholic Netflix is about to circulate a movie in the profoundest of bad taste, broadcast not for entertainment but solely for the sake of doing the greatest possible harm to Holy Mother Church.

And Jesus said to him: “Judas, dost thou betray The Son of man With a kiss?”

(Luke 22:48)

I say “not for entertainment” because I have seen some of the rushes for the movie, and they are dismal. Just about the whole movie is filmed in the dark, with calculatedly inadequate lighting.

The script, in French with bad English subtitles, is leaden. And there is no discernible plot.

Why, then, was the film – which I shall not publicise by naming it – feted at the Cannes film festival?

The reason is that these days it is compulsory among the lowest sort of film-makers to ensure that the movie has plenty of sexual deviance in it.

This particular movie, a repellent instance of the genre, is about two lesbian nuns in the 17th century who spice up their “love”-life with a statuette of the Blessed Virgin Mary. I am disinclined to give any more detail than that, for this is a column intended for family reading. The director of this pile of garbage, whom I shall not publicise by naming him, claims, falsely, that the movie is “based on a true story”.

Yeah, right.

He has predicted that the movie will cause “outrage”. And that, of course, is the whole point. The movie is not intended to illuminate some dark corner of human misbehaviour. It is purely intended to annoy people, in the hope that there will be enough huffing and puffing to guarantee

that many watch it, on the well-tried but shoddy principle that there’s no such thing as bad publicity.

But the real tragedy of this and far too many similar films commissioned or broadcast by Netflix is that the Church has, as far as I can discover, been entirely silent about it. No bishop or even priest has spoken up. No publiclyadvertised approach has been made by or on behalf of the French or any other hierarchy to whoever owns or controls Netflix.

There has been no pastoral letter condemning the damage to the population caused by yet another calculated outrage against decency and against family life on the part of those who seem to define their existence by their hatred of the Church, of the traditional family and of the ancient morality which, as modern statistical methods amply and repeatedly demonstrate, is most likely to guarantee that children will be brought up happily and successfully by two loving

parents devoted to each other and to them for life.

Catholic legislators, too, are conspicuous by their total silence when faced with a deliberate assault on Biblical values which, in the old days, would have been prevented by the blasphemy laws.

In Britain, for instance, one is free to stand on the street and promote every species of sexual deviancy, even though statistical research from many nations shows that such deviancy causes particular harm to children – those, that is, that have not been tortured in the womb and dismembered by abortion. But one must not, on pain of arrest and imprisonment, read out loud the words “male and female created He them” from the Book of Genesis.

Any deviation from the traditional family, of which the Holy Family is the shining exemplar, will ensure that children do less well at school, suffer poorer mental as well as physical health, are more likely to turn to crime and less likely to

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Catholic Voice

turn to gainful employment, less likely to bring up loving families themselves, and more likely to die well before their time.

When the Church talks of sexual deviancy, she bears constantly in mind the standard of mutual devotion in the traditional family set by Mary, Joseph and their Son. The traditional or nuclear family is not an unattainable and outmoded ideal: it is the foundation and the hope of civilisation.

Those of us who were fortunate enough to have been brought up in loving families can attest to the priceless value of the family. As the late Monsignor Alfred Gilbey used to say, it is not the duty of the individual to support the State: it is the duty of the State to support the family, and the duty of the family to support its individual members, and particularly the children, The Communists, whose doctrine of hatred has now become the norm in the West as the long march through the institutions of which Antonio Gramsci spoke nears its completion, have long known that if they are to inflict the maximum possible damage upon the human race that they so viscerally hate they must, at any cost, destroy the traditional family.

One of the first actions taken

by Lenin following the Russian Revolution was to send an envoy to the Third Extraordinary Congress of the Communist Party of the United States in 1921, to instruct the cravenly obedient delegates that they should, as their very first priority, work for the utter destruction of the traditional family, first by the promotion of two-boxtops divorce, then by the legalization of the abomination of torture and slaughter of the innocents that is abortion, then by

the advancement of homosexuality and of all forms of deviancy from true, loving family life.

Even Lenin could not have imagined that his crazed zealots throughout the West would dream up the compulsory “education” in all forms of sexual deviancy now insisted upon by Her Majesty’s Government even for five-yearolds, to say nothing of the “right” of underage children to decide – regardless of their parents’ wishes, even where they are lucky enough to have parents – to have sex-change surgery that will permanently damage their health and well-being.

What, then, should the Church do?

First, she should gather, analyse and promote the overwhelming statistical evidence that far and away the best way to give children a good start in life is to rear them in a traditional family. The capture of the media by the totalitarian faction means that such truths are no longer spoken. Well, that should not stop the Church from at least trying to speak out for the little ones.

Secondly, she should explain why it is that all forms of deviancy from the benchmark of love that is

THE POWER OF LOVE 19 the traditional family are harmful, and especially harmful to children.

The statistical evidence of that harm should be repeatedly set out and explained, until everyone understands that deviancy, however transiently fashionable among the totalitarians who so sedulously insist upon it, is in reality a dagger tipped with hatred and aimed directly at the most vulnerable among us – our children.

Thirdly, she should demand – not request, but demand – that the law be changed to ensure that the traditional family is regarded as the norm and as the ideal, and that all other arrangements are to be discouraged, just as smoking is discouraged, and for the same reason: that those “alternative lifestyles” are cruel to children, Let that be the outcome of this depressingly bad movie. That would be the best way to put its silly, misguided, juvenile director firmly back in his box, and to warn others not to follow down the dark and dangerous road that he has wickedly chosen to follow. It was hatred that led him to make his ghastly horror movie: let us defeat him with love.

20 OVERCOMING DISCOURAGEMENT

Catholic Voice

27th August 2021

Light At The End Of The Tunnel Mary Kearns

Some of the saints who grappled with God’s enemy tell us that Satan’s favourite weapon when all else fails, is discouragement.

While sins against the virtue of Hope are presumption and despair, at first sight it doesn’t seem that discouragement could be grievously wrong. However it actually is a sin when we take up an attitude against what Jesus himself had promised.

This is what we must hold on to.

“In me you may have peace. In the world you shall have distress: but have confidence, I have overcome the world.”

Jesus was well aware that the world would cause us distress but that is not the same as discouragement. To what extent have we given in?

One way we feel discouraged is in our concern that the Faith we have cherished is generally not being handed on and the great Catholic heritage of the Irish people is in jeopardy.

Young people nonetheless, do respond to the Faith when it is encountered with conviction and authenticity. We have seen their exuberance and joy, for example at World Youth Day events throughout the world. Saint Pope John Paul II left a legacy for youth in instituting World Youth Day, and this has been faithfully continued by Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis.

At World Youth Day in 1989, Pope John Paul II said to the 400,000 young people who had gathered from around the world “It is up to you young people that the task first falls of bearing witness to the faith and bringing into the Third Millennium the Gospel of Christ,

who is the Way, the Truth and the Life.”

We are reminded of the parable of the seed that fell on different kinds of soil. Although overall, the young men and women responded well to the Pope at the time, sadly for many, the cares and concerns of their own lives choked the good seed and they forgot about it. But not all of them.

There were other young people who were prepared to bring light to the darkness and spiritual desert of those living without faith.

One response was made by Ernest Williams, a young Englishman.

He began by making a pilgrimage to Fatima in 1989 and it was here during his time of prayer and reflection in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament, that the idea for a youth movement took on structure and format. This was the beginning of what became known as Youth 2000, a reaching out to a generation of young men and women who across the western world, were living their lives in spiritual poverty. The mission of

Youth 2000 was to open for them a way to discover the truth about Holy Mass and the reality of adoring the Lord in the Blessed Sacrament.

Young people were introduced to the scriptures and most importantly to the Sacrament of Reconciliation and devotion to Our Blessed Lady, the Mother of God. Before long the initiative of Ernest Williams had spread to over 25 countries bringing thousands of young people to Jesus Christ and in 1993, Youth 2000 began its life in Ireland. Regarding this movement, primary school teacher Francis McLoughlin has this to say: “Youth 2000 are doing brilliant work. Their motto is ‘Youth leading youth to the heart of the Church’.

They do this by bringing young people to our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. I always loved the way they focused everything on Holy Mass, adoration and our Lady.

They have prayer groups across the country and organise retreats throughout the year.”

27th August 2021 Catholic Voice

OVERCOMING DISCOURAGEMENT 21

Youth 2000 is one outstanding movement but there are others.

“Pure in Heart” and the “Emmanuel Community (Ireland)” provide faith formation based on friendship and the doctrine of the Church. Another good example is the movement known as “Nightfever” which was launched following the World Youth Day in Cologne in 2005.

Some young men and women who attended this had the inspiration to keep alive its spirit and this initiative has now spread throughout the world.

each student if he or she would like the NET missionary to pray with them. The students are completely free to say ‘yes’ or ‘no thanks’. For many students who say ‘yes’, this is the first time they have ever prayed before, either with someone else or on their own.”

The Nightfever evening is a night of prayer centred around the Blessed Sacrament exposed in city centre churches. It is primarily organised by young people who themselves have experienced the love of God and want others to also experience it.

There is some truth in that but let us not forget what we learn from the missionary journeys of St. Paul.

In preaching the message of Jesus, although he spread the Good News over most of the known world, he more often failed than succeeded in converting the people he spoke to and was many times opposed, not just by the pagans but by his own Jewish contemporaries.

“NET Ministries” (National Evangelisation Teams) is an organization whose mission it is to share the Good News of the Gospel with young people. Each year young adults are recruited and trained and through NET Ministries, over 20,000 young people are evangelised in churches, schools and parishes throughout Ireland.

Retreats are often given to students as young as 11 or 12 before they begin secondary school. During the activities provided, students on retreat learn about faith in ways they find interesting and absorbing.

A young NET missionary describes what happens: “As the day progresses, the discussions and activities dive deeper and become more serious.

Near the end of the retreat, students take time to sit, pray, and silently reflect on the day and what they have experienced. Beautiful music plays in the background and we ask

We can easily be cynical and say that although these youth movements may be very good, they are only a drop in the ocean and most young people do not know or even want to know the faith.

Did St. Paul suffer discouragement?

While we can deduce from his letters that he certainly came close to it, he always got on with the job and near the end of his life we read in his Letter to Timothy: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished

the race, I have kept the faith.” This is how the Kingdom grows - little by little. It is the mustard seed that although the smallest of seeds, grows into a tree so large that the birds of the air can rest in it.

While we are considering the youth movements, it might be even more apt to think of them like the yeast a woman mixed with a large amount of flour until all the dough was leavened. This parable is worth some pondering. Instead of suffering discouragement, we can be encouraged by the youth movements that are spreading throughout the world, like light at the end of a dark tunnel. This regeneration was foretold by Saint Pope John Paul II in his encyclical Christi Fideles Laici.

“In looking over the years following the Council, the Synod Fathers have been able to verify how the Holy Spirit continues to renew the youth of the Church and how he has inspired new aspirations towards holiness and the participation of so many lay faithful.”

For catechesis and liturgical formation: marykeenankearns@gmail.com 087 7794687

22 CONFESSION

Catholic Voice

27th August 2021

Making Confession More Available Fr Richard Heilman Here is an idea I’d like to propose to my brother priests. Make the Sacrament of Confession as accessible as possible. For me, I knew it was difficult (if not impossible), to sit over in Church in the Confessional all day. Parish life is quite a bit more demanding than the days of St. John Vianney. So, I asked myself, what could I do to make the “St. John Vianney thing” happen, while still attending to many of my parish responsibilities? Then it occurred to me … if you can’t bring the priest to the Confessional, bring the Confessional to the priest.

I still keep my regular Confession times in Church. And, like most priests, I still let folks know, through the parish bulletin, that they can call for an appointment at any time. But, I also knew that folks either feel squeamish “imposing” themselves on busy priests (so few would rarely, if ever, call), or they are not comfortable with face-to-face Confessions. This is when I looked at my rectory layout, and saw that I could make a Confessional right smack dab in the entryway of my rectory.

I began by setting up a separate intercom for Confessions and I simply call them in, they kneel at my office door (I put a screen in my office door), and they are going to Confession!! Also, I posted, on the door, the “Manner of Making Confessions” and the “Act of Contrition,” especially for those who have not been to Confession for a while. I know all rectories are designed differently, but maybe this will encourage some of my brother priests to see how something like this may work in their rectory.

With only an occasional Facebook post of my availability for

Confession, I am averaging 3-4 penitents everyday. That number usually increases on the days I post on Facebook. And, the numbers continue to rise as more and more people are aware of this easy way to go to Confession, without feeling like they are “bothering” the priest. Many still call ahead to see if I am home, but by building this rectory Confessional, they get the message that I am encouraging frequent Confession (I call it my 24/7 Confessional), and they do not feel like they are bothering me.

Put On the Armour of God!!

But, the greatest endorsement for doing this has been seeing so many return to the Sacrament, and so many more now understanding how important it is to be in a “state of grace” … the armour of God!!

“Draw your strength from the Lord and His mighty power. Put on the armour of God so that you may be able to stand firm against the

tactics of the devil. Our battle is not against human forces but against the principalities and powers, the rulers of this world of darkness, the evil spirits in regions above. You must put on the armour of God if you are to resist on the evil day; do all that your duty requires, and hold your ground” (Eph 6:10-12).

The first major strategy from the father of lies is actually as old as the Garden of Eden itself. It is simply to convince us we do not need God (Gen. 3:5-6), nor do we need His strength and His power (Eph. 6:10).

In modern times, we have witnessed this in the effective campaign of militant secularists who have sought to de-mythologize our faith, a flat out rejection of the supernatural power of God. Once the devil has us convinced that we can challenge him under our own natural power, or simply deny that he even exists, he’s cut us off from the only real power capable of defeating him: God’s supernatural grace.

27th August 2021 Catholic Voice More and more common is the modern “secularised” version of religion that sees it reduced to a kind of psychotherapy for selfactualisation. Sadly, this secular version of religion has become so prevalent that most people’s eyes begin to glaze over at the mere mention of God’s supernatural grace as a necessary source of power in our lives. St. Peter warns us to be fortes in fide, strong in faith, because the devil prowls around like a lion, looking for someone to devour (1 Pt 5:8-9). Lions size up a herd to find the weakest and easiest target. Once we are detached from God and His supernatural grace, we are powerless to defend ourselves from the tactics of the devil.

of God that was to be treasured and protected at all cost. Sacred scripture sees this Divine Life in God (state of grace) as the “hidden treasure” and the “pearl of great price” (Mt 13:44-46).

Our ancestors and all of the saints knew all about this supernatural power and strength and that being in a state of grace was the armour

I believe our first priority, as priests, is to help people to put on the armour of God … to be in a “state of grace.”

In his Prayer of Surrender, St. Ignatius of Loyola identifies this as the only meaningful treasure: “Take, O Lord, and receive my entire liberty, my memory, my understanding and my whole will.

All that I am and all that I possess You have given me: I surrender it all to You to be disposed of according to Your will. Give me only Your love and Your grace; with these I will be rich enough, and will desire nothing more.”

CONFESSION 23

If your sins be as scarlet, they shall be made as white as snow: And if they be red as crimson, they shall be white as wool.

Isaiah 1:18

24 RENEWING THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

Catholic Voice

27th August 2021

Renovating A Wasteland Anthony Hofler Our Lord often conveyed his teaching in parables. If imagery is understood, it can be very effective; otherwise, the point tends to be missed. Our Lord’s disciples had occasion to ask Him to explain in plain language; only He knows how many people ‘got the message’ without clarification.

Subtlety and symbolism often fail to ‘register’ with me, so I was surprised that when thinking recently about the dire spiritual and moral situation I ‘saw’ it as analogous to a ruined garden.

I hope that the difficulty which imagery tends to cause for me will not hinder readers in understanding the following uncharacteristic style of expression.

Whether a garden is ruined depends, of course, on one’s interpretation of ruination. Judgment of a situation depends on possession of standards with which reality is compared.

So if there is some ground which is called, however debatably, ‘a garden,’ judges need to know how

they want it to look. Their judgment will express the extent of its compliance with or deviation from their desire.

The ‘garden’ of which I am thinking is not completely devoid of pleasing elements, but judging by their effect on the whole area they are outnumbered or outweighed by displeasing ones. The ground has deteriorated. It is not only “unweeded,” but some unsightly features have been brought in deliberately; “things rank and gross in nature possess it” (“Hamlet,” Act 1, scene 2), to the extent that the ‘garden’ has become a wasteland – certainly by comparison with how it used to appear.

When that has happened, there are two fundamental choices available.

One is to judge that the situation cannot be remedied, and therefore to make no remedial effort; the other is to attack both the symptoms and the causes of the ruination, despite the daunting scale of the task.

Surrender is easy, and requires no further thought.

Renovation requires us to ask, ‘Who owns the garden?’. The ‘garden’ which I have in mind is owned (in a temporal sense) by nearly all of us, so we are entitled to have a say in how it looks and to take part in restoring it. Then, however, there is another question: who is in practical control of the ‘garden’?

If the people in practical control are responsible for the ruination, they should be removed from their positions if there are procedures for doing that, but if there are no such procedures, restoration may be impossible.

The need to organise and sustain activity to remove the culprits should not be under-estimated or neglected. Such activity depends, of course, on developing and broadening recognition that the ‘garden’ has been ruined, and on arousing a strong desire to restore it. Focusing attention on pictures of ‘lovely flowers’ does not result automatically in strong desire to remove what is spoiling our ‘garden’.

For the benefit of any readers who, despite incomprehension, have persevered this far, I now adopt a clearer style of English.

In 1997, Human Life International published the autobiography of Father Paul Marx, O.S.B., in which he recorded his “apostolic travels and experiences over some thirtyfive years of pro-life/pro-family work in ninety-one countries” (ibid., p. ix). One of those was Ireland, in which he did seven lecture-tours. He wrote, “In no other country of the world that I have visited have I seen such

27th August 2021 Catholic Voice RENEWING THE CATHOLIC CHURCH 25 vicious attacks on the Church by a public press and electronic media intent on exploiting every chance to downgrade Catholicism. In four national symposia, I learned from multiple participants that many Catholics are discouraged, feeling utterly helpless as bishops and priests fail to lead, the media have turned against Catholics, Catholic schools are losing their character, and now parents are faced with offensive sex education for their children” (ibid., p.221-222). He would not have been surprised by events in subsequent years.

A natural question for people who are “discouraged” and “utterly helpless” is how a Catholic counter-revolution could happen.

That question could well be asked in a sceptical way, because the ‘new orthodoxy’ is so entrenched and unwilling to give counterrevolutionary voices a hearing.

Father Marx wrote of a very widespread experience-based opinion among pro-lifers that the greatest opposition came from within the Church (ibid., p.334). An analysis of reasons for that opposition is a subject in itself, but would not alter the facts. One of the important facts is that lack of support from bishops and priests handicaps attempts to arouse counter-revolutionary feeling and activity. That handicap preserves the power of the faith’s enemies.

A policy which seems to be ‘popular all round’ is promotion of piety by participation in prayer and sacraments. This is, of course, an essential basis of apostolic action, because (as Pope St. John Paul wrote somewhere) we can be so busy with the work of the Lord that we forget the Lord of the work, and severed from “the vine” we can “do nothing” (John 15:5).

Our Lord made explicit the practical power of faith-filled prayer (e.g.

Matthew 7:7-8, 17:20-21, & 21:2122; Mark 11:22-24; Luke 11:5-10, 17:6, & 18:1-8), and many miracles and historical events testify to it, but events do not always fulfil the hope of the people praying. Notifications sent to a Catholic group focusing strongly on the comparatively-easy and -convenient option of religious devotions to console God showed that in 2018 more than 36,000 Rosaries had been said for the pro-life, Catholic cause in Ireland, but in that year a large majority of voters in Ireland voted to repeal the Constitutional obstacle to abortion.

In each of 2019 and 2020 the Rosaries of reparation notified to the group reached 60,000, but the “turning away from God and His laws” seems undiminished. No doubt He appreciates the offered consolation, and of course nobody should set a time-limit within which intercession is to bear fruit.

Nevertheless, when hopes seem unfulfilled, it is natural to wonder why. Our Lord’s promise of efficacy for faith-filled prayer must not be doubted. In any case, pious practices must be maintained and increased.

The Battle of Lepanto is of particular note, and is (understandably) cited as a greatly-needed encouragement, but there are significant differences between then and now. Before the Battle, the Pope aroused Christendom to prayer. Christendom (depending on how one defines it) no longer exists in Europe. The battles now are intellectual, not military; intellectual confusion (known benignly as ‘diversity’ or ‘pluralism’) is the norm; Pope Francis has made it clear that he neither sees nor approves of others seeing the world in denominational, ‘black-and-white’ terms; and therefore a mind-set of ‘defending the faith’ against its ‘enemies’ is ‘ecclesiastically-incorrect’.

Thanks to these well-established circumstances, most of the remaining loyalists who constitute the confused and sedated remnants of Christendom are beyond ‘arousal’. During the fascinating story of her conversion “From Islam to Christ” (Ignatius Press, 2017; at p.196), Derya Little wrote that at the time of Lepanto Christians sensed that “their own identity and culture were in peril” and “stood not only against the enemy that battered the gates in the East but

26 RENEWING THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

Catholic Voice

27th August 2021

for their cherished faith. They will need to do so again.” Youthful idealism seems unlikely to come to the rescue. Father Marx wrote (op. cit.; at p.221) of having been assured by good Irish parents that Catholic education had more or less collapsed, as pupils in “Catholic” schools no longer learn the faith.

He quoted an Irish father who said that “In primary schools they learn nothing; in secondary schools they discuss it.” This, added Father Marx, “is a Western world problem.”

We do indeed need the extent and intensity of prayer which preceded the victory at Lepanto, but we should remember that the greatlyoutnumbered Catholic forces still had to take part physically in the Battle; they did not simply pray confidently and wait for God to deal with the enemy.

Similarly, Exodus 17:8-13 reports a battle between the Israelites and the Amalekites. Moses was on top of a nearby hill, with a hand raised up to God in supplication. While he did that, the Israelites had the upper hand (as we could put it), but when he lowered his hand the battle turned against them. His arms became tired, so two people who were with him supported them until sunset, and the Israelites won the battle. Evidently they won it because of Moses praying for them constantly, but they still had to fight; they did not leave everything to Moses and God. It is true that intensified piety is, in its nature, a form of ‘opposition’ O Jesus, it is for the love of Thee, in reparation for the offenses committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and for the conversion of poor sinners [that I do this]. Amen.

Our Lady of Fatima - June 13th, 1917.

to irreligion, but true also that it is not a form of opposition which the irreligious need to worry about or suppress unless it ‘throws a spanner in their works’. This distinction seems relevant when pious practices are encouraged simply for their intrinsic worth, as distinct from having an overt, appropriatelystrong link to real circumstances.

As such, they do not present a practical problem to anyone whose nefarious works they are privately intended to contradict or to thwart.

In such cases, all sides are ‘happy’.

For example, if the Church’s primary function is regarded as caring for its members’ spiritual needs by means of teaching theology and administering the sacraments, it can (and, perhaps, should) neither show interest in nor attempt to influence what happens in ‘wider society,’ and secular powers need not be interested in or attempt to influence what happens in the Church. That was, ostensibly, the basis of Church-State relations in Nazi Germany.

According to Professor Robert Krieg, attendance at Mass remained high and there was increased

participation in religious devotions, processions, and pilgrimages (“Catholic Theologians in Nazi Germany,” Continuum International Publishing Group, 2004, at p.169).

Apparently in the late 1930s, 800,000 people participated in a pilgrimage (ibid., p.155).

Professor Krieg wrote that beneath the primarily-spiritual incentive, people found that such occasions could demonstrate opposition to Nazism (ibid., p.169-170), and that this “passive resistance” element was recognised by the Gestapo (ibid., p.159).

Interestingly, despite that recognition, the Nazis did not ban attendance at Mass or processions or pilgrimages (although they did monitor sermons and publications in case of comments challenging Government policy and practice).

Apparently, therefore, they did not regard piety as a practical problem. Nor was it. Largescale religious devotion had not prevented power passing (by legal process) into the wrong hands, and that power remained in those hands until practical action (of a military nature) broke it. God’s

27th August 2021 Catholic Voice RENEWING THE CATHOLIC CHURCH 27 power exceeds all (“Catechism of the Catholic Church,” paragraph 268 et seq.), but He acts through people (ibid, paragraphs 308 and 1884).

those disasters; even if it increases it will need practical action to reverse them; and that action will not be taken if practical power remains in the wrong hands.

Similarly today, I am sure that secularists are completely relaxed about efforts to encourage a particular form of religious devotion, and are probably actually happy about it when it is disconnected from ‘concrete’ opposition to what they are doing. I can imagine their saying/ thinking, ‘Fine. By all means devote yourselves to piety. We don’t mind at all. We don’t want to stop your free choice. Everyone should be free to choose – that’s all we want.’

So, although intensified piety is intrinsically virtuous and should always be encouraged, it does not necessarily affect events.

Does that matter? Surely yes, but Father Marx seemed to think no.

He wrote that he did not look for results: “I leave the results to God, [who] will not ask me whether I succeeded, only whether I truly tried” (op. cit., p.335).

That seems to have helped to legalise contraception, divorce, same-gender ‘marriage,’ and abortion. Piety did not prevent

Yet he tried because results do matter, and because he wanted the right ones. It is bizarre to think that the results of other people’s efforts are terrible but that those of ours are unimportant. Piety is good, but generally not to be used as a substitute for practical action.

LIBERALISM IS A SIN

Don Félix Sardà y Salvany: – was

Thou shalt love the Lord thy God With thy whole heart, And with thy whole soul, And with thy whole mind.

This is the greatest And the first commandment.

CATECHISM ON MODERNISM

Holiness Pope Pius X, issued the Encyclical ‘Pascendi Dominici Gregis’ which translates as “Feeding the Lord’s Flock”. Pope Pius X was aware that the Catholic Church had been infiltrated by modernists who were seeking to undermine her doctrines from within.

born on May 21, 1844 in Sabadell, Catalonia, Spain. He was a Catholic priest and writer who wrote against Liberalism which he considered a grave sin. He was the editor of the weekly Spanish Catholic magazine

Father J. B. Lemius, produced this ‘Catechism on years. He died on January 2, 1916 at Modernism’ in the familiar the age of 71. This book, Liberalism question and answer format is a Sin, is particularly relevant to of the time, in order to make the teachings of the the times we live in today where Liberalism permeates every Encyclical more accessible to ordinary Catholics and aspect of our society and has deeply infiltrated the thinking of by way of explaining in a clear and concise manner the many of the Catholic hierarchy. reasons why the Encyclical was published.

‘La Revista Popular’ for over forty

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28 PRAY FOR PRIESTS

Catholic Voice

27th August 2021

Our Priests Need Our Prayers Kathryn Jean Lopez After reading that Msgr. Jeffrey Burrill, general secretary of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, resigned because it was reported that he was using an app for sex hookups with men, one of my first reactions was to realise that I haven’t been praying enough for the purity of priests.

Would you join me in doing so?

I know I wasn’t alone in being crippled during some of the COVID shutdown because of the inaccessibility of the sacraments. I longed for an angel to come and bring me the Eucharist. We need our priests. We need holy priests.

There is reliable reason to believe that we are going to see so much more of this kind of scandal.

We don’t just have a history of abuse of children in the Church; we may have a subculture of sexually active priests in our Church. Some will be seen as addicts, like the case of the former general secretary. Some, I suspect, will be found to essentially have committed partners, of the same or opposite sex. That’s infidelity to the Bride, the Church.

Some will say that if this is the reality, it is an argument against priestly celibacy. If you have or hear that thought,

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pick up Father Carter Griffin’s book “Why Celibacy?

Reclaiming the Fatherhood of the Priest” (Emmaus Road Publishing). Priestly celibacy is about more than sex. “[T]he celibate commitment is positive and generates life.” Only when we realise this can the priesthood “be freed from its burden of functionalism and reaffirmed as a vocation that embraces the whole man in a paternal identity directed to the generation of new children in grace,” Father Griffin writes.

It’s an impoverished view of celibacy and war on chastity in our culture and even in the life of the Church — think of all the resistance to Paul VI’s encyclical, Humanae Vitae — that has led us to this place where we can have priests on a hook-up app. (I can’t tell you who or how many, but I can tell you that people are talking about it, and I want hearts and souls to be prepared.) Addicts are one problem, and in our pornified culture it is too easy to become one. But how much overlooking is there in the Church, when a priest chooses to disobey his vows serially, maybe even somewhat openly? When this is happening — if this is happening — however widespread this is happening, it certainly has something to do with the fact that priests aren’t always encouraged to be healthy men, true spiritual fathers. Celibacy is a sacrifice — that is meant to bear fruit. “For true renewal within the Church to take place, fatherhood must be liberated from a materialistic, ‘biologistic’ oversimplification and once against upheld as the highest fulfilment of masculinity, ordered both to the procreation of life and its fruition — both naturally and supernaturally.”

Our priesthood is ailing because our culture is and because the Church hasn’t always been the light of truth, especially since the sexual revolution.

Father Griffin tells the story of a former parishioner (now a religious sister) who wrote to him about the impact of celibate priests in her life. “My life is different because of priests who have given themselves over body and soul to the Lord and to the Church — or at least constantly strive to.”

I have no doubt that there are going to be more scandals and headlines. Bearing in mind that we all are sinners in need of God’s mercy, remember the Saviour. Remember it is his Church. And pray for conversion of those in the headlines, and for the deeper conversion of priests who do see the beauty of their commitment to celibacy not as a mere prohibition but as a gift to the Church they’ve been set aside to live. It’s an honour, but these days, it’s seen as a disorder.

The disorder, however, is sin. And so, we pray, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” And we pray the same for our priests. And we don’t despair, because it’s Christ’s Church, so we ask him for the grace to not fear the purification, as Jesus faced the Passion.

27th August 2021

DIVINE OBEDIENCE 29

Catholic Voice

The Eucharist As The Consumption Of Divine-Obedience Fr. Christopher Pietraszko St. Thomas has an interesting statement about the Eucharist that I’ve been thinking about for sometime, and feel as though has been validated by my reading of his commentary on the Gospel of John. For a while I’ve been thinking about the consumption of the Eucharist as the consumption of Divine-Obedience. The substance of what we consume is obedience itself. Jesus in John 4 says, “My bread is doing the will of Him who sent me.”

Uniting this notion of hunger for God’s will with the image of bread.

He is clearly speaking not of a temporal food, but rather that of a spiritual food, nonetheless using the sign of bread itself.

In his commentary Aquinas writes: “This food is the obedience to the divine commands: my food is to do the will of him who sent me. Also, it is Christ himself: I am the bread of life; for my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.”

In the first part of this quote, Jesus does not simply mean that by the

act itself (ipso facto) we are being obedient in receiving the Eucharist, although I’m sure there is truth in the external practice of reception.

But he is saying something deeper here, which is the “internal disposition” of obedience to the will of the Father is the attitude we must ensure as we receive the Eucharist.

Think of it this way: when you hug a person, the external act is meant to be accompanied by an internal disposition to make it meaningful.

People can usually tell when a hug is cold or an empty gesture.

Likewise, by “drinking the cup” that He gives to us (obedience), we are actively giving our entire will in an act of entrustment to the Father in the very Spirit that Christ obeyed Him at the moment of his death and throughout His whole life.

If, therefore, we have a spirit of rebellion subsisting within us that is conscious, known, and obstinate, it means that the spiritual stomach is of itself closed or allergic to the very substance of this “Bread

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from Heaven.” So while the body consumes the True Presence, the Soul itself does not receive it in a Spirit of Hospitality.

We spend a great deal of time reflecting on the validity or licit nature of the Eucharist, but we fail to remember the third category of “fruitful” reception. Here the Church offers us wisdom, especially through Aquinas, that at the heart of reception of the Eucharist is to give our will the opportunity to fling our will passionately, and in trust to the providence and will of God with joy. We are surrendering our entire lives to His good judgment, and in docility, letting go of any type of inordinate control that exists in our own will.

When you receive the Eucharist this Sunday, imagine yourself in this movement of the heart towards obedience, not as a mere moral-precept, but as a relational entrustment of the mind, the heart, the body and the whole self to the care, instruction, will, of God. He is your captain.

Fatima Prayer

Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, I adore Thee profoundly. I offer Thee the most precious Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ present in all the tabernacles of the world, in reparation for the outrages, sacrileges and indifferences by which He Himself is offended, and through the infinite merits of His most Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Heart of Mary I beg of Thee the conversion of poor sinners. Amen.

“To forestall this [the second world war], I shall come to ask for the Consecration of Russia to My Immaculate Heart and the Communion of Reparation on the First Saturdays.

“If they heed My requests, Russia will be converted, and there will be peace. If not, she shall spread her errors throughout the world, promoting wars and persecutions of the Church; the good will be martyred, the Holy Father will have much to suffer, various nations will be annihilated; in the end, My Immaculate Heart shall triumph.

(Our Lady - Fatima July 13th 1917)

30 BOOKS

Catholic Voice

27th August 2021

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This book contains three essays, one in question & answer format, from a time when pastors were more direct and ‘plain speaking’ in presenting the Truth of Catholic doctrine to their flocks.

They were primarily concerned with the salvation of the souls entrusted to their care rather than being overly concerned about whether or not their flocks would find these Truths offensive or difficult.

They sought the Praise and Glory of God, and not the praise of men.

is a series of reflections on topical issues concerning the Catholic Church and the practice of the faith ranging from ‘Faith and Culture’, to ‘GLBT – New thinking’, to ‘Purgatory and Remembrance’. Fr Hahesy’s style is conversational and he weaves through the various topics all the while pointing to the soul’s need for God. “The daily prayers at the end of this book, will ensure the salvation of our soul and a happier life here. Please believe me. It does not seem much to ask for such a great reward. To know and love God is the ultimate good whether people know this or not, accept it or not.”

€/£7 inc p&p Ireland €/£8.50 inc p&p outside Ireland

€/£10 inc p&p Ireland €/£12 inc p&p outside Ireland

EGO EIMI - IT IS I

“May the present book of Rev. Fr. de Malleray FSSP, a beautiful and impressive “paper shrine to the Most Holy Eucharist”, have a wide diffusion and be a practical spiritual aid in order to renew the Catholic Faith, the Catholic Love and the Catholic Worship of the Sacrament of the Most Holy Eucharist.” + Athanasius Schneider.

“This highly readable, informative, and edifying treatise on the Holy Eucharist will enrich the understanding and devotion of Catholics regardless of their prior knowledge of the subject: I recommend it wholeheartedly.” Dr Joseph Shaw PhD,

SCIENCE SAYS NO

In this book, Dr. van den Aardweg debunks many of the myths created by the global homosexualist movement. The argument for gay “marriage” is exposed as a deception in this ground breaking book. For many years the public has been indoctrinated with unfounded assertions which in fact are no more than modern fairy tales sold as science. In other words, as regards homosexuality, people hear and read mostly lies. The book explains why the deception is possible and shows why no assertion of the gay ideology has been scientifically validated. €/£9 inc p&p Ireland €/£10.50 inc p&p outside Ireland

SIN AND ITS CONSEQUENCES

This really is a fantastic book which presents Catholic teaching on sin in a simple, clear and precise way. You will learn about the nature of sin, about the different kinds of sin, mortal and venial, formal and material sins.

Reflections on the Abortion Issue in Ireland.

Oxf, Chairman of The Latin Mass Society.

The book also teaches us about sins of omission. After discussing sin, the book then speaks of the great graces offered to us in the sacrament of confession, it teaches us about temptations, about Christ’s suffering and death on the cross, and then it finishes with a very hope filled chapter on the joys of the resurrection.

Many countries, including Ireland, have removed the right to life from the Constitution and given the legislature the power to legalise abortion, which by definition is the intentional killing of the unborn child.

The assumption is that unborn babies have no human rights. The essays in this monograph expose the fallacy that unborn babies do not have the right to life and may be ‘terminated’ if that is the ‘choice’ of the mother. In the New Ireland, human killing is now legal. It is estimated that 800 – 900 unwanted unborn babies are ‘terminated’ every month. Abortion has become the murder machine of our time.”

€/£19 inc p&p Ireland €/£22 inc p&p outside Ireland

€/£10 inc p&p Ireland €/£12 inc p&p outside Ireland

€/£13.50 inc p&p Ireland €/£15 inc p&p outside Ireland

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27th August 2021 Catholic Voice

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(LISTED BY DIOCESE) DAILY & WEEKLY Meath: Silverstream Priory (Benedictine monks) Armagh: New Mellifont Abbey, Collon, Co. Louth Stamullen: Sunday 10.00 preceded by Terce, other days 11.00.

Every Sunday 3pm.

Meath: Church of the Nativity, Johnstown, Navan, Co. Meath Cork & Ross: Ss Peter’s & Paul’s, Cork: Sundays 12.00 noon, Sundays 1pm; First Fridays 11am; Holydays as announced.

Mon - Sat 10.00.

Ossory: St. Patrick’s, College Rd, Kilkenny; Sun 17.00.

Cork & Ross: St Mary’s, Pope’s Quay, Cork. Sundays 8:00am Raphoe: St. Patrick’s, Drumkeen, Donegal Sun 11.00. in the Dominican Rite; Down & Connor: Church of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Waterford: (FSSP) St. John’s Church, Parnell Street, Waterford Sunday: 8 and 11am, Mon-Fri (ex Thurs), 19:00. Thurs: 8am, City – Every Sunday 1:30pm, Mon 1:00pm, Tues – Friday Sat: 8am, 11am.

Dromore: St.Mary’s, Newry: Sundays and Holydays 9.00am.

Dublin: St. Kevin’s, Harrington Street: Sundays & non working Holy Days: 9:00, 10:00 and 11:00; (Vespers Sun 3:30pm.) Mon - Fri 08.00; Sat 09.00.

Working Holidays & 1st Fridays; 08.00 and 19.00.

Dublin: St. Joseph’s, Newtownmountkennedy Co Wicklow Sat 11:00 Elphin: Church of the Sacred Heart and St Barry, Whitehall, Tarmonbarry, Co Roscommon. Every Sunday 5pm Ferns: (FSSP) St. Alphonsus, Barntown, Co Wexford: Every Sunday 17.00 (Sung Mass 1st and 3rd Sundays), Holy days as announced.

Galway: Chapel of St. Mary’s College, St. Mary’s Road (ICKSP) Sun 15:00 Limerick: Sacred Heart, The Crescent (ICKSP) Sun 8am, 10.30am, 6pm; Mon-Weds 08.00 and 18.00; Thurs 8:00, Friday 18.00; Saturday 08.00 & 10:30 (followed by 1st Saturday devotions)

19:30 (19:00 1st Fridays) Sat 11:00am, Holydays as announced.

TWICE MONTHLY Derry: St. Columba’s , Longtower: First and Third Sunday 14:00 MONTHLY Armagh: St. Patrick’s, Dungannon, Co Tyrone: First Saturday 14.00.

Cork & Ross: St. Francis, Liberty St. Cork : First Saturday 13.00.

Derry: St. Marys, Aughabrack, Co Tyrone: Fourth Sunday 12.45 Elphin: St. John’s, Carraoe, Co Sligo ; Last Sunday Killaloe: St. Joseph ‘s, Ennis, Co Clare: First Sunday 17:30 Tuam: St. John the Baptist, (Old Parish Knock, Co Mayo; Second Sunday 17.30.

Every effort has been made to ensure this list is up to date.

Please contact The Latin Mass Society of Ireland in the event of any changes or errors.

Email: adminmass@latinmassireland.com

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Catholic Voice

27th August 2021

And the Lord said: Simon, Simon, behold Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat: But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and thou, being once converted, confirm thy brethren. (Luke 22: 31-33) Published by: Catholic Voice Newspapers, St Michael’s House, Castlemitchell South, Athy, County Kildare. Tel 059-8627268 ROI / 00353 - 59 8627268 Publisher: Anthony Murphy.

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