Christianity

Holy Poverty

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My daughters must believe that it is for their own good that the Lord has enabled me to realize in some small degree what blessings are to be found in holy poverty. Those of them who practice it will also realize this, though perhaps not as clearly as I do; for, although I had professed poverty, I was not only without poverty of spirit, but my spirit was devoid of all restraint. Poverty is good and contains within itself all the good things in the world. It is a great domain – I mean that he who cares nothing for the good things of the world has dominion over them all. What do kings and Lord’s matter to me if I have no desire to possess their money, or to please them, if by doing so I should cause the least displeasure to God? And what do their honors mean to me if I have realized that the chief of a poor man consists in his being truly poor?

From the book: The Way Of Perfection Saint Teresa Of Avila

God, Who Made Us Without Us, Will Not Save Us Without Us

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We must trust the Virgin most powerful

“Oh yes, if we trust as we should in Mary … we shall recognize in Her that Virgin most powerful ‘who with virginal foot did crush the head of the serpent.’ (Off. Immac. Conc.) However, as Saint Augustine says, “God, who made us without us, will not save us without us” -so if we are going to be saved from the evils that engulf the world and threaten to bring the world to ruin and perdition, we must cooperate with God’s grace according to the design of His wisdom which has ordained that the saving grace be granted through Mary in the manner that She has requested. It behooves us urgently therefore to examine the precise nature of the requests Our Lady made at Fatima.

Fatima Crusader Summer 2011

Issue 99

Mortalium Animos

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This is one of the many reasons why the Church always forbade the type of ecumenical practice propagated since Vatican II, because it places the One True Religion established by Our Lord on the same base level as man-made creeds.

In fact, 2000 years of Catholic Teaching condemning ecumenism is summarized in Pope Pius XI’s 1928 encyclical, Mortalium Animos, which was a prophetic, wholesale condemnation of Vatican II‘s ecumenism. It was here that Pope Pius warned:

“… it is clear that the Apostolic See can by no means take part in these assemblies, or it is in any way lawful for Catholics to give such [ecumenical] enterprise their encouragement and support. For if they did so, they would be giving countenance to a false Christianity, quite alien to the one Church of Christ. “

Likewise, the Scriptural condemnation of religious affiliation with non-Catholics is masterfully demonstrated by Bishop George Hay, especially in his book The Sincere Christian, under the heading, “On Communicating In Religion with Those who are Separated from the Church of Christ. “

From the book: The Revelations of the Holy Face of Jesus by John Vennari

She believed that He was Her Father; that He loved Her, that She was His child, and that She would accept whatever He arranged.

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She is the Mother of the Christ who is to be formed in you and me. And when we need Our Mother to help us to do the great work that is our challenge in life. And She’s our model in Faith. Saint Augustine reminds us that Our Lady was the first disciple, and that She brought Chris alive by Faith in Her soul long before She brought Him alive in Her Body.

When Our Lady said to the Angel, “ Be it done unto me according to Thy Word, “She set out on the greatest adventure possible for a human being. She gave God a blank check on Her life. No more questions would be asked. She believed that He was Her Father; that He loved Her, that She was His child, and that She would accept whatever He arranged.

From the book: Reflections With Father Leo Clifford O.F.M.

Where There Is No Hatred of Heresy, There Is No Holiness.

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This new orientation, that claims that non-Catholics need not convert because they are “in some mysterious way “part of the Church of Christ, defies the Churches perennial teaching on the necessity of non-Catholics to abandon their errors and return to the one true Church of Jesus Christ, as was summed up in Pius XII’s 1949 Instruction on the Ecumenical Movement:

“True reunion can only come about by the return of dissidents to the the one true Church of Christ the Catholic Church.”

Further, this refusal to combat heresy particularly the heresy of Protestantism, brings to mind the words of the renowned 19th Century writer, Father Frederick Faber, who said, “Where there is no hatred of heresy, there is no holiness. “

From the book: The Revelations of the Holy Face of Jesus by John Vennari

Valley Of Tears

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Ralph Waldo Emerson tells the story of a journey through the states in a coach. It was a day in which the clouds were low and heavily charged, and the people in that coach were silent, preoccupied inside, as they went on their journey. Here and there the coach stopped. At one place, a young woman got in carrying her baby in her arms. She was tall and radiant and beautiful. And they continued on their journey. But somehow, something happened. It seemed as if the atmosphere was completely changed. The people were chatting animatedly, one with another, now, all because of the advent of this unknown woman and her child into their lives. We, too, are on a journey, down here in this valley of tears; and there is a woman and her child in our lives, too. But we know who She is – Mary, our life, our sweetness, and our hope. The Vatican Council reminds us that Our Lady must be in our lives under two headings – as our Mother and as our model. She’s your Mother and mine, far more truly than that being on earth whom we call “Mother. “ For if, at this moment, you are alive with God’s own Life, if there is now coursing through your veins and beating next your heart something of the ending life of the Blessed Trinity, if Christ is being formed in you, if there is in you that grace that will one day blossom into glory, it is all because Our Lady said, “Yes “to God when He asked Her if She would be the channel through which she would come and live in you.

From the book: Reflections with Father Leo Clifford O.F.M.

What Then

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It is certain, my Lord, that in these days withdrawl from the world means no sacrifice at all. Since worldly people have so little respect for Thee, what can we expect them to have for us? Can it be that we deserve that they should treat us any better than they have treated Thee? Have we done more for them than Thou hast done that they should be friendly to us? What then? What can we expect- we who, through the goodness of the Lord, are free from that pestilential infection, and do not, like those others, belong to the devil? They have won severe punishment at his hand and their pleasures have richly earned them eternal fire. So to eternal fire they will have to go, though none the less it breaks my heart to see so many souls traveling to perdition. I would the evil were not so great and I did not see more being lost every day.

From the book: The Way of Perfection Saint Teresa of Avila