" PAST " BOLDLY BACK FROM THE EDGE OF THE ABYSS

 

 

Venerable Pope John Paul II THE GREAT

   The high-jacking of the public perception of what the Second Vatican Council taught was accomplished by a small coterie of mostly North European prelates with the all too willing collaboration of the mainstream media, and the fundamentally subversive operations of the later Archbishop Annibale Bugnini.

The following extract from the writings of Father Hubert Jedin (1900-1980) shows how subtly such operators have worked in the past.Father Jedin was perhaps the most respected and accomplished Church historian of his time. Reflection on it, shows just how much we owe to the workings of the Holy Spirit in bringing to St.Peter's Chair Pope John Paul the Great. We see how, despite the gravity of the situation and the obstruction of those who sought not the hermeneutic of continuity, but of rupture, he began boldly to lead the Church back from the edge of the abyss of schism. In this historic struggle, his constant co-worker of the Truth was none other than Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now - as the phrase used to be - gloriously reigning as Pope Benedict XVI.

Father Hubert Jedin (1900 - 1980)

Father Jedin :

"We know to-day that the inner process of the (Lutheran) schism lasted not years but decades. Melanchthon and Calvin claimed to be "Catholic"until the end of their lives, while the adherents of the old Faith were calumniated as "papists". The faithful long clung to the Mass and to their Saints, but the church regulations introduced by Lutheran magistrates took over many Catholic customs - even processions and pilgrimages.

The bulk of the simple faithful never understood that the "Reformation"was not a reform but the construction of a new church set up on a different basis. In retrospect, one must therefore maintain: the schism of the Church succeeded by nothing so much as by the illusion that it did not exist. That illusion was widespread in Rome and in the German episcopate, among many theologians, among the majority of clergymen and among the people."

As the likes of Cardinals, Mahony (Los Angeles) and Martini (Milan) and Daneels ( Brussels) and others including numerous lesser episcopal small fry - not a few close to home - shuffle or prepare to shuffle out of the Sanctuary, we thank Our Lord and His Vicars on Earth  Venerable Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI for their patient and persistent teaching and leadership of Christ's Church back from the brink of disaster, and seeing off the leaders of rupture and revolt.These latter men were the spiritual heirs of the "modernists"who fought Pope Saint Pius X. The immediate heirs of those men lay "in the long grass" during the two World Wars and the intervening Great Depression,but continued to surreptitiously spread their poison. Then when Vatican II came along their heirs in turn saw their chance.

Pope Benedict XVI

Gentlemanly and  humble, despite his powerful intellect and decades as the Pope's right hand man, Cardinal Ratzinger seemed to the world an unlikely choice to take up the Pastoral Staff which death had  taken from Pope John Paul's hand. But vindicating the Holy Spirit's guidance, the ageing ( now 83 yrs)  Benedict XVI has proven to be the very man to understand what had been achieved and to further and consolidate the work. The enemies of  the unity desired by Christ have been thwarted and the Pope of Christian Unity is even succeeding in bringing lost sheep back to the more and more united fold.

" PAST " HOW DID YOU KNOW I'M A POLICEMAN?

 

Bishop Bossuet Chaplain to the King of France -Heroic Pose to Meet Court Conventions - Bossuet was a very holy and faithful Bishop

Clerical Attire

The way we freely choose to dress, expresses who we wish to be seen to be. But the way we are required to dress in a given situation, when it is fundamental to our calling, expresses who we are. These two truths are well demonstrated in the no-doubt apocryphal story of the “liberated” “feminist” nun who, in a disheveled state approached a police
man saying “Officer do something, I am a Catholic Nun and I have been raped”. The Policeman responded: “How did you know I was a Policeman?”

Clerical attire has traversed some wide and varied territory from the Apostles’ sandals, tunic and cloak to the glories of a Chaplain to the King of France, to a Central Queensland Bishop in recent times. Are there standards? What is the ideal?

We are of course confining ourselves to everyday attire and not considering liturgical attire.

In the feverish period in the wake of the Second Vatican Council – a wake made tumultuous, not by the Council itself, so much, as by a clutch of North European clerics who daily, and on an organized basis, fed the gleeful world media their version of what the Council was about (never mind what the Council actually said or did, or what its documents proclaimed). There, bubbling in their tortured wake was “the false spirit of the Council”. This they said meant out with the old and in with anything new, across the board – and they began to speak of “the pre-Conciliar Church” and “the post-Conciliar Church” as if they should be two different creations on either side of a fundamental rupture.

Clerical attire? Why, the very idea was offensive! It divided priests from their people, alienating them. Out with the black suit and especially out with the cassock/soutane and the Roman Collar - the open neck white shirt would suffice, or…..whatever! Heady Stuff! (Speaking of the head – ditch the Biretta too!)

So, in the free for all that followed ,many Priests having thus “laicized themselves” as the Pope put it, they found a variety of ways to occupy their time, and in due course some found no time for their Priestly duties. Thousands abandoned their sacred ministry altogether. The rate of paedophilia and homosexuality among the clergy rose to the level of that in the general population for a time, as we have later found Pope Paul VI publicly proclaimed in anguish that it was “as if the smoke of Satan had entered the sanctuary through some crack “. At best,  madness was abroad – at worst, in the words of St. Peter: “The Devil goeth about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he might devour.”

Poor Pope Paul VI went to his grave and very shortly so too did his Successor the smiling Pope John Paul I. Enter Pope John Paul II (the Great) - he took the helm of the Barque of Saint Peter while the storm raged. He set about stabilizing the vessel and re-invigorating and instructing the remaining crew with the help of God’s Grace. At the end of his very long and heroic Pontificate (which was not without the occasional errors of judgment our frail human nature suffers), she had weathered the storm and was back on her true course with damage being repaired. The work has continued and accelerated under his Successor Pope Benedict XVI.

POPE BENEDICT XVI

But what of clerical attire? The Venerable Pope John Paul II looked at the issue as a fundamental theological one – not simply a disciplinary one. He demonstrated that Priesthood is essentially the definition of what the Priest IS – it is not just a function that the Priest performs. Accordingly,  he ought to want to be seen as a Priest if he is not to deny within himself to some extent, the reality of his position. Further, the people have the right to the services of the Priest at all times – not just when he chooses to “do the Priest thing”- they have the right to be able to identify the Priest as such wherever he is.

Spiritually he demonstrated, as the long history of the Church has shown, clerical attire works to protect the Priest from much temptation by precluding impropriety or the occasion of it.

                                Father Peruschitz OSB who died in the sinking of 

                             RMS TITANIC ministering to his fellow passengers.

 

 

 

He wrote that “Our pastoral activity demands that we should be close to the people and all their problems ……. but it also demands that we should be close “in a priestly way”. “After all, what would be the use of a Priest so assimilated” to the world as to become a camouflaged part of it and no longer a “transforming leaven.?”

The Code of Canon Law, the Popes and the Congregations of the Curia, have all set out the Church’s requirements and her theological and spiritual rationale in these matters. But the production of appropriate results is the responsibility of the individual Bishops, and here in all too many cases is where things break down – as in other matters. Whether from ignorance, pusillanimity, arrogance or whatever, many Bishops have long since adopted a “laissez faire” approach to their role. Ignoring the reality of their Sacred Anointing, they consider themselves no more than a type of constitutional ruler, acting only on advice” from lay hirelings or lesser clerics whom  in reality, as “Successors of the Apostles” ,these same Bishops are duty-bound to “teach to sanctify and to govern”.

Like the detritus of Queensland’s floods, the leavings of the post-Conciliar shambles will be with us for some time yet…..sometimes months, sometimes, regrettably, years.

TONY DIXON

" PAST " CONDOM KERFUFFLE : ARCHBISHOP ANTHONY FISHER O.P. SETS THE RECORD STRAIGHT

  

No change to Church teaching on condom use
Most Rev Anthony Fisher OP.

Statement by Bishop Anthony Fisher OP, Bishop of Parramatta, 22 November 2010



In his forthcoming book-length interview Pope Benedict XVI re-emphasises Catholic teaching that fidelity within marriage and abstinence from sexual activity outside of marriage is the only morally permissible approach to chaste living. It is also the only practicable solution to the HIV-AIDs epidemic.



The Holy Father calls on the faithful to “fight against the banalisation of sexuality” which treats sex as a mere recreational drug, and to seek instead “the humanisation of sexuality” as the expression of marital love.



Despite some misinterpretation in the international media, the Pope has not deviated from or altered in any way Catholic teaching on the intrinsic wrongness of contraception or on reserving sexual intercourse (‘the marital act’) to marriage, that is of a man and a woman.



Pastors have long recognised that in cases such as homosexual intercourse, conception and marital acts are not at issue. Using a condom in this situation is clearly not contraception. It is clear that even here the goal must be to move the individual to living a truly ‘humane’, that is a chaste and loving, sexual life.



The Pope suggests that sometimes “as perhaps when a male prostitute uses a condom” to protect his client from disease, this might be a sign of an awakening moral responsibility. But using condoms, the Pope insists, is still not “a real or moral solution”.

 

 

" PAST " THE TIBER BECKONS

  

The Tiber looking toward S. Pietro

  The Tiber Beckons
 

 

It has been a  little over a year since the Holy Father's surprisingly generous establishment by means of the Motu Proprio "Anglicanorum Coetibus", of special arrangements to facilitate the reception into the Catholic Church of those Anglicans who had petitioned the Holy See in large groups for admission.
 

 

The Holy Father's special arrangements- namely the provision of Ordinariates to receive them- were never going to be a "quick fix". There are in each case many and varied details to be attended to and special cases to be reviewed. But now, contrary to the expectations of the great ecumenist Bishop Michael Putney of Townsville and his Metropolitan, Archbishop John Bathersby of Brisbane, numerous cases around the globe are near to realisation.
 

 

No sooner had the Putney/Bathersby "spin"been put on the issue, than the Anglican Bishop of Chichester in England , Bishop John Hind, announced his intention of becoming a Catholic via the Ordinariate route. Within days Bishop Broadhurst of Fulham made a similar announcement commenting "the Anglican experiment is over".
 

In February, 2010 a meeting of Australian Traditional Anglicans voted to proceed formally to participate in the formation of the Australian Ordinariate. At about the same time the former assistant Anglican Bishop of Newcastle announced he had become a Catholic and is now living in London - "I'm very happy just being an ordinary Catholic" he said.
 

The lead-up to the Holy Father's visit to Scotland and England somewhat obscured news of further developments. However in the wake of the spectacularly successful visit, signs of movement are again appearing.Two Anglican ministers, Rev Giles Pinnock of St.Mary-the-Virgin in Kenton north of London and Rev Robin Farrow of St.Peter's West Blatchington in East Sussex have both announced that they are entering the Catholic Church ahead of the Ordinariate's formation.
 

Meanwhile, across the Atlantic in Canada, the Anglican Catholic Church of Canada has voted to formally request of the Catholic Church admission to an Ordinariate for Canada.
 

Back in the U.K. , the number of Anglican Bishops joining the Catholic Church has risen  and the entire Parish of St.Peter's at Folkestone ,which is in the Archbishop of Canterbury's own diocese,  has voted to become Catholic.The additional Bishops becoming Catholic are : Bishop Keith Newton of Richborough, Bishop Andrew Burnham of Ebbsfleet and retired Bishops Edwin Barnes of Winchester and David Silk of Exeter.Similar meetings to that which brought about the Folkestone vote are known to be arranged for St.John the Baptist Parish , Sevenoaks, Kent and Holy Trinity Parish, Winchmore Hill north of London
 

Across the Atlantic 10 out of 12 Episcopalian Nuns in Baltimore have decided to become Catholics.And elsewhere in Maryland the vast majority of Mount Calvary Episcopal Parish has voted to become Catholic under Ordinariate provisions.
Meanwhile, back in the old Country the London Telegraph reports that a group of 50 Anglican clergy has requested admission to the Catholic Church through the Ordinariate provisions.
 

Whew! Let us hope and pray that all of these conversions are handled very carefully and efficiently and above all with great pastoral care and continual charitable formation and guidance .

" PAST " BARBARIANS AT THE GATE..........OR INSIDE THE KEEP????

 Serving with the Angels

“Barbarians at the Gate”- images of Attila the Hun advancing on Rome at the head of his barbarian hordes in A.D. 452 and being dissuaded by Pope Saint Leo the Great (A.D. 440-461) are conjured up by these words. They are powerful and eloquent.

1,600 Years ago, and 42 years before Attila, Rome HAD been sacked by Alaric and the Visigoth hordes he led – something that had not happened in the preceding 800 years. The overrunning and sacking of cities was not uncommon in the ancient world. But not Rome – this was the great trauma of Civilisation! “The city that had conquered the world, was itself conquered….”says Roman citizen St.Jerome As the shock waves and consequences spread around the civilized world, St. Augustine recalled seeing the weekly pay parade of the Roman soldiers from his residence. With casual interest at first, his attention became more compelled as he noticed they became restless in their ranks and in time broke up in a disorderly fashion when their pay did not arrive.

Rome was no longer the Capital of the Empire. The seat of the Imperial Government had been moved to Ravenna. But make no mistake, Alaric had shocked and sickened the civilized world. The long, slow descent into the so called "Dark Ages" was underway

How different is our situation to-day! There is no modern equivalent of the Rome of those days. No, not Washington, not London, Paris, Berlin, Moscow, Tokyo, let alone Beijing has the status Rome then held. But , just as the military onslaughts of the barbarians and even more so , their assimilation as citizens undermined and finally toppled the Empire , first in the West and 1,000 years later in the East when Constantinople fell to the pagan Mohammedans, so our Western civilization, is suffering not only “Barbarians at the Gate” but its own peculiar enemies within. But who are they, that they could undermine and topple our civilization?

Even secularists now recognize that the end of Christendom began with the protestant Deformation of the Church founded by Christ. In the wake of that process came the now faltering idea of human Progress and the spread of Doubt. The perverse working out of the psychological and practical effects of the Terror in the French Revolution, the horrors of the Buonaparte military madness, the Franco-Prussian War, the American Civil War, the Great War, the Great Depression and World War II, have brutalized the sensitivities and consciences of hundreds of millions of people and taken the lives of tens of millions of people. All of these factors have worked to horribly distort and deform the moral sense of many nations and peoples. And the social fabric of so many countries, including our own, has been forever scarred. The search for escape in hedonistic materialism has been abetted by and has given purpose to modern media and technology.”The phenomenon of estrangement from the Faith, which has manifested itself progressively in societies and cultures that for centuries, seemed permeated by the Gospel” (“Ubicumque et Semper” Pope Benedict XVI) is the appalling result.

By relentless and subtle subversion, very many hearts and minds have absorbed the ideas and unspoken beliefs which constitute Relativism. They have come to accept in fact the denial of Absolute Truth. This is convenient for the avoidance of moral absolutes – right and wrong – enabling them to break free from any constraint and indulge their inclinations however perverse they might be, Before they know it, they find themselves effectively echoing the words of the one who formerly shone in Paradise, the Bearer of Light, and cry : “Non Serviam “- I will not serve.

But most folk do not want to even acknowledge what is going on about them. Like the later Romans after the Sack of Rome, they just want to keep on keeping on. We all know good people who” do not want to get involved” who do not want to hear the readily demonstrable truth in case they might have to act.

To-day’s barbarians are those busy and ever more boldly so, tearing down the remains of Christian society : abortion and euthanasia advocates, homosexual advocates, same sex marriage and adoption advocates, drug culture advocates, devotees of “Green” pan –theism, politically-correct holders and pursuers of Government Grants and pagan fundamentalists.

They are not only “at the gate” but have subverted our Governments, institutions and media. Like Pontius Pilate they ask with bitter irony: “What is Truth?”

 

 

Like his predecessor Pope Saint Leo the Great, heroically confronting Attila and his barbarian hordes, Pope Benedict XVI goes out to meet the latter day barbarians. Bravely he announces the answer: Jesus Christ – the Way, the Truth and the Life – the Light of the world. Pope Benedict has identified the heart of the problem – Relativism. He sounds the Alarm Bell, and urges the universal Church to stop just “keep on keeping on", but to see the problem clearly and confront it with the Truth – God made man – Jesus Christ and to defend Truth, Love and Beauty. He calls the Church to urgent action.

ACOLYTE

Copyright Tony Dixon - This item first appeared in the October, 2010 Issue of FOUNDATION.

" PAST " THE BOGEYMAN CAME THANK GOD!

 

POPE BENEDICT XVI IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY    

*

 Serving With the Angels

How fortunate we are to be alive when such a great demonstration of the action of God’s Grace occurs! For that is what Pope Benedict’s marvelous visit to England and Scotland has been - a great demonstration of the action of God’s Grace. Who could fail to notice the difference between the visit itself and the chorus of its deriders and opponents, particularly in the immediate lead-up to the Holy Father’s arrival? Now the Humanists Society and its eminent signatories, Prof. Dawkins, the ABC, the BBC, the homosexuals and abortionists are shown to be empty vessels – they make the most noise but they deliver nothing!

All but 500 years have passed since King Henry VIII began the Deformation of Christ’s Church in England. For most of that time, the propaganda machinery of the English Government has worked upon the minds of its subjects to wipe out the memory of the previous 1,200 years of Catholic Faith and history which is their heritage. Generation after generation the Government and its apparatus including its own creation -  the Church of England (for God had no part in its founding), labored away at the task. To such an effect that  Catholics and Catholicism were "not quite the thing" even after they became legal in most regards in 1829. More known in myth than in reality – a national bogeyman apparently feared and much abused. But this was only a guilty conscience at work.

By the 1800s the anti-Catholic fever was reaching its crisis point – the fever peaked and has ever since, slowly subsided, leaving behind a half-remembered prejudice scarcely understood and ever more irrelevant. By the early 2000s the British Government was publicly speaking about the scandal of the civil rights of Catholics being denied by the legal provisions that prevent a Catholic becoming or marrying the Monarch. It was openly acknowledged that if that were to change, the Headship of the Church of England – which belongs to the Monarch, would have to go and that would involve dis-establishing the Church of England. The recently-elected Coalition Government of the U.K., preoccupied with other matters has yet to speak on the subject.

The time had come, and Divine Providence sent the man – Pope Benedict XVI. The remarkable success of the Holy Father’s visit, has been achieved despite, or perhaps because, of his direct, but unfailingly courteous confronting of the fundamental issues. His words did not generate hostility but rather, public praise and gratitude even from the Prime Minister. For some years now, major TV documentaries have been scathing about the foundation of the protestant myth – from Simon Schama to David Dimbleby. Now, the Church of England is rasping in its death rattles – utterly devoid of moral or theological integrity, and the presence of the Successor of Saint Peter has shone the Light of Christ anew upon the U.K. scene to widespread appreciation. The Bogeyman himself has appeared and has been seen to be a gentle but firm and loving Father.

A new age has begun for the Catholic Church in England and also for the whole of Christian England – and just in time, as its old “certainties “are seen to be exhausted shams.

ACOLYTE    * N.B. The Holy Father is wearing the Stole of Pope Leo XIII who declared Anglican "Orders" to be "Absolutely null and utterly void" in his Encyclical "Quanta Cura" of 1896. The point being gently but firmly made.


Copyright This item First appeared in the September 2010 issue of FOUNDATION.

" PAST " SUMMORUM PONTIFICUM HAPPY ANNIVERSARY

 

POPE BENEDICT XVI

070707 The memorable date - in more ways than one - on which our beloved Holy Father signed the Motu Proprio  "SUMMORUM PONTIFICUM "  freeing the celebration of the Mass according to the 1962 Missal of Pope John XXIII, that is the traditional Latin Mass.

The Holy Father's intentions were several:
-to aid in the reintegration of Lefebvrists into the life of the Church
-to offer comfort to those already devoted to the Latin Mass, and
-to institute a gradual process whereby greater exposure to the ancient ritual would inspire greater reverence in the celebration of the Novus Ordo.

Three years on,  progress has been solid on all fronts. Though some Episcopal Conferences have, to put it mildly, dragged their feet, the progress has grown up around them. Perhaps the most unco-operative have been the French Bishops. Yet their own Mass attendance figures suggest that the number of people attending Sunday Masses in France is almost identical with the known numbers of people attending the Latin Mass. There are none so blind.....

Here in Australia, progress has been slow due to our preponderance of       "liberal "Bishops. However, even in their leading liberal See of Brisbane the one suburban church made available to the Latin Mass community, is jam - packed every Sunday whereas three years ago it was only two thirds full. In the orthodox Archdioceses of Sydney and Melbourne and Canberra-Goulburn the churches dedicated to the Latin Mass are very well attended.

An interesting characteristic of each of these congregations is the majority of young people regularly attending. The future looks brighter and brighter, and should only be enhanced by the retirement of several Bishops in the next twelve months. Interestingly, a majority of young priests ordained in Australia this year, celebrate Holy Mass according to both the older Extraordinary Form and the vernacular Novus Ordo.

" PAST " STRIKE THE SHEPHERD

 

"Strike the Shepherd…


that the sheep may be scattered." Zech. 13:7



The annual ante Easter anti Easter campaign in the Media has been going on for over 20 years now. This year’s effort started off with deceptive simplicity. The New York Times rehashed the story of a paedophile priest in Milwaukee Diocese about 20 years ago. It was taken up by the BBC and the London Times who also lent on the Irish abuse scandals (FOUNDATION March 2009). The ABC was quick to latch on. Later a German paper tried to get a run out of a case in Munich of a similar vintage.

Because of the way in which the stories were written (very badly, without checking sources and lacking consistent logic) it was difficult at first to see what was going on. But after a little while it became clear: the purpose of the exercises was an endeavour to attack Pope Benedict XVI by trying to show him to have been derelict in his duty when a Cardinal and even to portray him as an evil criminal conspirator. The ultimate goal then was to attack the credibility of the Church, using the victims of abuse as a “human Shield” for this scurrilous attack. .

After a couple of weeks, the claims were widely exposed on the Internet as having no adverse connection to the former Cardinal Ratzinger at all, whether American, Irish or German cases were considered. This did not stop the main activators – the NYT, the London Times, the BBC and even the ABC tried harder. In the case of the NYT, its story had been torn to shreds by the Philadelphia Bulletin and by Newsweek Online, as well as on the Internet. But it continued re-hashing the piece using increasingly hysterical language, which got to the point of being laughter provoking. The BBC, especially BBC Online, was something else. Its approach was one of coldly malicious propaganda – facts were abandoned – they were inconvenient – and hyped up questions replaced statements – “Will the Pope Resign?” .And stories were illustrated with photos of the Pope taken from behind ( suggesting he had turned his back on….whoever you wish to choose) . This is all too reminiscent of Goebbels era WWII NAZI propaganda sheets. How strange the BBC should thus reveal its models for emulation. The German story has faded for lack of substance. And the ABC, having acquired a taste for expressing its long held anti Catholicism, has latched onto a press release by arch dissident Hans Kung - deludedly styled "a letter to the Bishops of the world" - which is simply a bucket of bile hoisted at the Holy See, and was doing its best to promote it on Radio National

A stunt by the would – be “atheist “(who can believe in atheists?) Dawkins seeking to have the Holy Father arrested and charged with “crimes against humanity” when he visits the U.K.in September, has been conclusively shown to be nothing but a stunt. But the same Media collaborators ran it for a week or so as if it were a substantive issue, simply because it helped hype the propaganda by creating an atmosphere of crisis.

So the principal players, in the midst of this campaign, dropped their camouflage of “professional journalism” and have openly espoused what we had long believed to be the truth about them. They stand revealed as propaganda machines for anti Catholic Church operations, largely due to the fact that their staff have long since espoused abortion, contraception, homosexuality, same sex “marriage”, radical feminism and thus female ordination.

The dust WILL settle in time, at least until Lent 2011. But the question is - how is the Church to respond to similar attacks in future?



She is not like other organisations; she cannot and will not be able to approach Public Relations with the same cynical attitude as the mass media. Nevertheless she will need to become more highly professional in handling and in anticipating media issues. A great deal more can be done to present and represent the Truth effectively and in a timely fashion.
TONY DIXON


(This item appears as the Title piece in a Supplement to the APRIL 2010 Issue of "FOUNDATION")

" PAST " GUARDIAN OF THE SAVIOR CHILD

 

THE FEAST OF SAINT JOSEPH  19TH MARCH

From the Preface of St. Joseph

".......who, being a just man,was given by Thee as Spouse to the Virgin Mother of God, and,as a faithful and prudent servant, was set over Thy Family, that with fatherly care he might guard Thine only - begotten Son, conceived by the overshadowing of the Holy Ghost, even Jesus Christ our Lord."

Dear St. Joseph, Patron of so many of God's faithful and of so many of the Church's institutions, and especially Patron of Joseph Ratzinger our beloved  Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI Pray for us!

RARE BEAUTY AND GREAT SIGNIFICANCE

Jesus calls "us to conversion through the forgiveness of sins."

Quoting from the Council's Dogmatic Constitution "LUMEN GENTIUM" ("LIGHT OF THE PEOPLES"), the Holy Father presents a passage of rare beauty and great significance- "While "Christ, "holy, innocent and undefiled"(Heb.7:26)knew nothing of sin(Cf. 2Cor.5:21), but came only to expiate the sins of the people(Cf. Heb. 2:17).........the Church........clasping sinners to its bosom, at once holy and always in need of purification, follows constantly the path of penance and renewal". The Church, "like a stranger in a foreign land, presses forward amid the persecutions of the world and the consolations of God "announcing the cross and death of the risen Lord until He comes."

What a brilliant image! Truly lyrical language, deep with significance for the salvation of us all. It called to my mind the statuary once common around insurance companies depicting a hastily clad woman in classical attire clutching her children , and herself shielded and protected by the strong arms of her husband as they both look back anxiously at some dreadful threat.

Here we are given a similar image of Christ the Saviour protecting His Bride the Church and His children her faithful, as she struggles on protecting them against the agents of the Evil One.

The passage concludes: "But by the power of the Risen Lord it is given strength to overcome, in patience and in love, it's sorrow and it's difficulties, both those that are from within, and those that are from without,so that it may reveal in the world, faithfully, although with shadows, the mystery of its Lord until, in the end, it shall be manifested in full light."

From this inspiring consideration, the Holy Father proceeds to unfold the rationale for the Year of Faith - "a summons to an authentic and renewed conversion to the Lord, the one Saviour of the world." The revelation of God's Love for us through the Life, Death and Resurrection of Jesus for our salvation, calls us to conversion through the forgiveness of sins (Acts 5:31). He shows how Saint Paul demonstrates that this Love " ushers us into new life" (Rom. 6:4) . Through Faith this new life transforms human existence " according to the radical new reality of the Resurrection." The journey of Faith, is never completely finished in this life, he tells us,as "to the extent that he freely cooperates, man's thoughts and affections, mentality and conduct are slowly purified and transformed." Faith working through love" (Gal. 5:6) becomes a new criterion of understanding and action that changes the whole of man's life.( Cf. Rom. 12:2, Col. 3- 9:10, Eph. 4: 20-29, 2Cor. 

"SALT" AND "LIGHT"

Now that we have completed our overview of PORTA FIDEI, we return to the text for careful reflection.

Vicar of Christ on Earth, Pope Benedict recalls Our Lord’s expectation of His disciples and calls us to reflect on how dire the situation might be if we do not meet the Saviour’s expectations.

On the Mount of the Beatitudes

But what were they? 

Let us recall the times and the scene: Jesus had been preaching and teaching in Galilee with great effect. So great indeed, that people were flocking to hear Him from all over Galilee and the Decapolis, from Judea and Jerusalem itself, from Syria and even from across the Jordan. So great were the numbers, that Jesus ascended a low mountain which, even to-day, commands a wide plain. From here he delivered the Sermon on the Mount and gave the world the Beatitudes.

 But after the Divine revelation of the Beatitudes, He had still more to say to the disciples, listen to the Lord of the World as He speaks:

“You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltness be restored? It is no good for anything except to be thrown out and trodden under foot by men.”(Matt. 5:13) 

He goes on: “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hid. Nor do men light a lamp and put it under a bushel, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father Who is in Heaven. ( Matt.  5: 14-16)

Jesus‘ expectations of those disciples in far off Galilee some 2,000 years ago are the very same for us to-day, it is as if we were sitting at His feet on that slope and , eyeball to eyeball with God made man. An electrifying thought!

The Holy Father moves our thoughts along. He recalls the Samaritan woman at the well and says that we must, like her, get close to Jesus and draw from Him, the water of salvation. In Jesus we must renew our knowledge and realization of the Word of Life and the Bread of Salvation. In this call by the Holy Father, and reflecting on his remarks shortly before, we see a great reality. We can never assume that “we have arrived” at the fullness of Christian life, rather, we must always be striving to grow in our knowledge and closeness to Christ. 

This is true not only for the individual but for the Church as a whole. For the society in which we live is continually evolving, often in ways that are not immediately apparent, but over time, come to confront us with unpalatable situations. In very recent years, in many places, the social order was well founded on Christian principles. Over time these have been subverted to the point where they are now openly challenged. So there can be no standing still in the Christian life .We must live in reality as “the salt of the earth” instilling and defending what is right and be the “light of world” leading men to Christ.

VICAR OF CHRIST POPE BENEDICT XVI

For this reason the Vicar of Christ, Pope Benedict has announced the YEAR OF FAITH:

The YEAR OF FAITH will commence on 11th October, 2012.  But why this date?

It is the 50th Anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council.

From the very beginning of his Pontificate, The Holy Father has been deliberate in his efforts to correct and root out the false “spirit of the Council” concept which relies upon a Hermeneutic of Rupture – spreading the false idea that the Council radically broke with the Church’s Tradition and brought into being a New Church – thus its servants speak of “the pre- Vatican II Church” and “the Post-Conciliar Church”. His Holiness has definitively refuted this proposition. By careful argument he has shown that in fact the only true view of the Council’s reality is provided by the adoption of a Hermeneutic of Continuity.

 For the Church is in fact the same throughout all time .Christ established one Church to last until He come again. No Council has the power to alter her Divine constitution or her infallibly taught Doctrine. Vatican II certainly did not. Nor did it do, or require many of the aberrations attributed to “the spirit of the Council”. Pope Benedict sees rightly that the Council was the work of the Holy Spirit and therefore he is keen to recover its authentic teachings, which have often been obscured by the fabrications of the false “spirit of the Council” activists. So by commencing the YEAR OF FAITH on the 50th Anniversary of the day the Council opened, he is drawing attention to the importance of the authentic teaching of the Council in the life of Faith.

For the same reason Blessed Pope John Paul II launched the Catechism of the Catholic Church on that same day and 2012 will see the 20th Anniversary of that great achievement – an authentic fruit of the Council as Pope Benedict reminds us.

The YEAR OF FAITH will end on 24th November, 2013 the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ Universal King. It will provide a year of particular reflection upon, and re-discovery of the Catholic Faith. A proper relationship with Christ in the Church which He founded- the one true Church – will always recognize this Universal Kingship of Christ. ( In fact it is emphasised in the Title of our sister Blog VEXILLA REGIS and in its sub-title : VEXILLA REGIS – “The BANNERS OF THE KING” and, CHRISTUS VINCIT, CHRISTUS REGNAT, CHRISTUS IMPERAT, CHRISTUS AB OMNI MALO PLEBEM SUAM DEFENDAT  - “CHRIST CONQUERS, CHRIST REIGNS, CHRIST RULES , CHRIST FROM ALL EVIL DEFENDS HIS PEOPLE”) http://vexilla-regis.blogspot.com/

Pope Benedict also recalls that in October, 2012 the General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops he has convened will have as its theme “THE NEW EVANGELISATION FOR THE TRANSMISSION OF THE CATHOLIC FAITH”

He also asks us to note that in 1967 his Predecessor Pope Paul VI also announced a YEAR OF FAITH to commemorate the 19th centenary of the martyrdom of Saints Peter and Paul. Pope Paul saw it as a “consequence of the Council and a necessity of the post Conciliar period”. Pope Paul recognised the particular problems of that time, of universal political and societal upheaval and of difficulties in the profession of the true Faith and its correct interpretation. To-day, in very different times, the crises though different are no less acute and Faith is in need of renewal and re-invigoration as always.

In succeeding posts we will continue to follow the development of the Holy Father’s thought in PORTA FIDEI.