Benedict XVI: Still With Us

Recently in an interview with Fr. Jacques Servais, SJ, Pope emeritus Benedict XVI showed why he is one of the most perceptive minds on the planet. The Pope emphasized that both faith and the Church come from God, and are neither self-generating nor man-made: “The Church must introduce the individual Christian into an encounter with Jesus Christ and bring Christians into His presence in the sacrament.”

He then focused on modern man's tendency to ignore any personal sin and need for justification, and to focus instead on the suffering in the world, believing that God has to justify himself for this suffering. The emeritus Pope reflected that God “simply cannot leave 'as is' the mass of evil that comes from the freedom that he himself has granted. Only He, coming to share in the world's suffering, can redeem the world.”

He concluded by again emphasizing that the true solution to evil is the love of Christ: “The counterweight to the dominion of evil can consist in the first place only in the divine-human love of Jesus Christ that is always greater than any possible power of evil. But it is necessary that we place ourselves inside this answer that God gives us through Jesus Christ,” he added, saying that receiving the sacrament of confession “certainly has an important role in this field.”

Receiving confession, he said, “means that we always allow ourselves to be molded and transformed by Christ and that we pass continuously from the side of him who destroys to the side of Him who saves.”

Comments

Tolkein, Paul VI, and the Devil

In 1941, Tolkien wrote a masterful letter to his son Michael, dealing with marriage and the realities of human sexuality. The letter reflects Tolkien's Christian worldview and his deep love for his sons, and at the same time, also acknowledges the powerful dangers inherent in unbridled sexuality. From the letter: This is a fallen world…. the dislocation of sex-instinct is one of the chief symptoms of the Fall. The world has been 'going to the bad' all down the ages. The various social forms shift, and each new mode has its special dangers: but the 'hard spirit of concupiscence' has walked down every street, and sat leering in every house, since Adam fell….The devil is endlessly ingenious, and sex is his favorite subject. He is as good every bit at catching you through generous romantic or tender motives, as through baser or more animal ones. Tolkien advised his young son that the sexual fantasies of the 20th century were demonic lies, intended to ensnare u...

Are We in a War?

Power Line POSTED ON NOVEMBER 22, 2020 BY JOHN HINDERAKER IN DEMOCRATS , LIBERALS , SOCIALISM FIGHTING WORDS, BY DAVID HOROWITZ Our friend David Horowitz wrote this essay, which he titled “Fighting Words.” It is a call for freedom-loving Americans to fight back against the totalitarian Left. By now it should be obvious – even to conservatives – that we are in a war. It is a conflict that began nearly fifty years ago when the street revolutionaries of the Sixties joined the Democrat Party. Their immediate goal was to help the Communist enemy win the war in Vietnam, but they stayed to expand their influence in the Democrat Party and create the radical force that confronts us today. The war that today’s Democrats are engaged in reflects the values and methods of those radicals. It is a war against us – against individual freedom, against America’s constitutional order, and against the capitalist engine of our prosperity. Democrat radi...

Message to The Stressed from Covid-19

I cannot recommend more the following letter I received from our Chaplain where I am employed. It reminds me of Pope St. JPII! April 19, 2020 Divine Mercy Sunday Dear Marian Sisters and Brothers, Happy Easter! I write this letter to you from our Chapel in the Rectory and am entrusting each one of you to Jesus through the intercession of His Blessed Mother. He is Risen! Today, He brings to us the fruit of His passion, death and Resurrection … Mercy. Blood and water poured forth from the heart of Jesus as a fount of mercy for us, soak it in on this beautiful feast day. I chose to write a letter, and not record a video because the exercise of putting thoughts to paper allows a person to really pour himself into the message. And writing a letter before Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament creates an intimate space for both you and me. As I write each sentence to you, the Lord is able to interact with me and what you read reflect...

"The Spirit of Vatican II"

My advice to one confronted with doubt sown by those who make reference to “correct interpretations of Vatican II” is to reflect closely upon the words of John Paul II: With the Council, the Church first had an experience of faith, as she abandoned herself to God without reserve, as one who trusts and is certain of being loved. It is precisely this act of abandonment to God which stands out from an objective examination of the Acts. Anyone who wished to approach the Council without considering this interpretive key would be unable to penetrate its depths. Only from a faith perspective can we see the Council event as a gift whose still hidden wealth we must know how to mine . In short, it is this abandonment, this interpretive faith perspective that is woefully lacking in many who would offer to explain what the Council taught in “the spirit of Vatican II.” Watch here to see what abandonment looks like!

This video of a young boy twerking at Pride has homophobes outraged | Gay Star News

DANCING WITH MR. D: This video of a young boy twerking at Pride has homophobes outraged | Gay Star News : 'via Blog this'

On the Spirit of the Liturgy

Defending the papacy of Benedict XVI vs . the New York Times (!), Randall B. Smith has written : Like his predecessor before him, Benedict effectively carried on the authentic reforms of the Second Vatican Council, as opposed to the false “reforms” that so often led the Church astray in the post-conciliar period. A cardinal archbishop told an audience recently that the liturgy was so abused in the early seventies when he was in seminary that the faithful seminarians would say about the ersatz masses being done by their elders: “Everything in them changes but the bread and wine.” Benedict, by contrast, did a great deal to help realize the original intentions of the liturgical reformers. Given that the lex orandi (the law of praying) is intimately intertwined with the lex credendi (the law of believing)—which is another way of saying that what we pray is what we believe—reforming the liturgy has always been an absolutely essential way of helping...

Setting the Record Straight

Off-topic , but a here is a warranted look at the disinformation in the MSM on President Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. In early March, the WHO said that 3.4 percent of coronavirus patients had died from the disease. Trump said this number was false, as the mortality rate was actually much less because their number didn’t take into account unreported cases. Trump challenged WHO’s number. He was right . It has been said that Trump ignored early intel briefings on possible pandemic. The Washington Post reported t hat intelligence agencies warned about a possible pandemic back in January and February and that Trump “failed to take action that might have slowed the spread of the pathogen.” Again, i t was fake news. The Trump administration had begun aggressively addressing the coronavirus threat immediately after China reported the discovery of the coronavirus to the World Health Organization. In addition to implementing vario...

Hello Again! (It's Not Over 'till Epiphany!)

Well I have not writtenf or some time, as I have been gettting reacquainted with the throes of ending the semester before the Christmas break, which I am now enjoying.... Lotsa stuff happening, but I found this piece capable of bringing the joy of CHRISTmas to souls.

On the Universalist Heresy

Universalism is the speculation that we can know with certainty that every single human being or possibly every creature, including the devil himself, will be saved, and was condemned in 543 by the Church. It dates from the time of Origen in the third century, with his defense of what he called “Apocatastasis,” the notion that all things will be all in God—everyone shall be saved. I dare say it is a belief well-established among Catholics today, supported by some Catholic theologians predisposed to this view. Universalism stems from doctrine of hell, the idea that people might be separated from God for all eternity and endure eternal conscious torment because of this alienation. Universalist theologians, following Karl Rahner and Hans Urs von Balthasar say that Universalism represents the triumph of hope over biblical evidence. Yet t he Church has taught from the beginning that both heaven and hell exist, and there are two possibilities for each of us: eternit...

The Devil's favorite color? Gray.

The Gates of Hell Temporarily Prevail Lisa Correnti and Wendy Wright Editor’s Note: The Bill and Melinda Gates’ Family Planning Summit in the UK concluded yesterday, with staggering high-dollar commitments from nations and agencies all over the globe. C-FAM Director of Operations Lisa Correnti and activist Wendy Wright, working with pro-life watchdog Turtle Bay and Beyond , were present, keeping a sort of mini-journal of events. Here are some of their chilling reports: Today on World Population Day, government officials and charitable foundations have convened at the UK Family Planning summit co-sponsored by the Gates Foundation and DFID - the UK’s development aid program, to seek financial commitments to further implement population control efforts in developing countries. Government official after government official and spokespersons for billionaires foundations are all reading from the same script; family planning programs are necessary to save lives of poor wome...

Search This Blog