Father Ray Blake and Poor People

I recently wrote a blog post in which I showed the deceitfulness of a a blog post by Father Ray Blake which was linked to by Father John Zuhlsdorf.  Both of these priests are radical traditionalists who believe the Catholic Church is basically in apostasy with the exception of the traditionalists, who are the only real Catholics left in the world.

In my post, I referenced another blog post by Father Blake in which he talks about the poor and homeless and what a pain in the a-- they are.

Ain't No Mountain High Enough

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"Jesus is God, therefore His love, His Thirst, is infinite. He the creator of the universe,

asked for the love of His creatures.

He thirst for our love… These words:

‘I Thirst’ –

Do they echo in our souls?”

Mother Teresa

The most plaintive, agonizing words ever spoken in all of human history were uttered by Jesus Christ as He hung dying on the cross to bring salvation to a condemned world.  Part of these words, the seven last words spoken by Jesus from the cross, is given little fanfare in the gospels. All we are told in John 19:28 is:

Afterwards, Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the scripture might be fulfilled, said: I thirst.

But what does this really mean?  Was Jesus just complaining that he needed something to drink?  He had been beaten to such a point that he was barely recognizable as a human being.  The blood was almost completely drained out of his body.  He had not had any food or water for many hours and was in an extreme condition of dehydration.  Is that what he was talking about?  With all of the many other things he had suffered - mockings and insults, skin ripped from his body, bones pulled out of joint, hair pulled from his head and beard, a severe whipping which brought him to the point of death, nails driven into his hands and feet, struggling for each breath as he hung on the cross - why would his one complaint, if that is what it was, be about thirst?

Our Lord was talking about something much deeper than physical thirst.  He was talking about a thirst that had driven him his entire life.  He was talking about a thirst he felt even before becoming incarnate, when he shared glory with the Father in heaven (John 17:5).  He was talking of his great love for humanity, for the people who were responsible for all of the suffering he was experiencing.   His thirst is for you and me, for every single human being who has ever lived.  Our Lord thirsts for the worst sinner as well as the greatest saint.  No one is excluded.

Credit:  resource4christians.blogspot.com

In St. Faustina's diary, "Divine Mercy in My Soul", Jesus says to St. Faustina:

I desire that you know more profoundly the love that burns in My Heart for souls, and you will understand this when you meditate upon My Passion. Call upon My mercy on behalf of sinners; I desire their salvation.  (paragraph 186)

My daughter, look into the abyss of My mercy and give praise and glory to this mercy of Mine. Do it in this way: Gather all sinners from the entire world and immerse them in the abyss of My mercy. I want to give Myself to souls; I yearn for souls, My daughter. On the day of My feast, the Feast of Mercy, you will go through the whole world and bring fainting souls to the spring of My mercy. I shall heal and strengthen them.   (paragraph 206)

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The only condition Jesus puts on His Love is that we say yes to him.   As He said to St. Faustina (paragraph 186), "Call upon My mercy on behalf of sinners; I desire their salvation."

Meditation on the Fifth Station of the Cross: Simon of Cyrene Helps Jesus Carry His Cross

We are now on the Fifth Station of the Way of the Cross. We have seen our Lord beaten literally to a bloody pulp, unjustly condemned to death and struggle to carry His Cross, the instrument chosen to be the means of man's salvation. We have seen Jesus' agony become deeper still as He met his Blessed Mother along the way and shared in her tremendous sorrow.

Jesus is now at a point where, as a result of the beating and scourgings and the great loss of blood, he no longer has the physical strength to carry His Cross. His Roman captors realized that he might even die before they can get him to Calvary and if Jesus was to have any chance of making it alive to Calvary, someone else must carry the heavy cross for Him. It would not even enter into the minds of the Roman soldiers to take the cross themselves. This was too far beneath them to help a loathsome, contemptible criminal. So they looked into the crowd and commandeered the first capable man they saw: Simone of Cyrene. The Gospels tell us very little about this account. The sum total of the narrative concerning Simon of Cyrene is given in the following verses:

Luke 23:26 - "When they led Him away, they seized a man, Simon of Cyrene, coming in from the country, and placed on him the cross to carry behind Jesus."

Mark 15:21 - "A certain man from Cyrene, Simon, the father of Alexander and Rufus, was passing by on his way in from the country, and they forced him to carry the cross."

Matthew 27:32 - "As they were going out, they met a man from Cyrene, named Simon, and they forced him to carry the cross."

These verses make it very clear that Simon of Cyrene most definitely did not volunteer to help our Lord carry his cross. He was "forced" to help Jesus, which tells us plainly that Simon resisted taking up Jesus' cross. Simon saw a man who had been beaten so badly he barely looked human. He was covered in his own blood with skin hanging from parts of his body and even bone showing in places, and the crowd was taunting and ridiculing him and crying out for his death. Simon did not want to be associated with this man in any way. As far as Simon knew, this criminal was only getting what he deserved, just like the other two who had been sentenced with him. After all, the Romans crucified only the worst criminals and the lowest of society such as rebellious foreigners, military enemies, violent criminals, robbers, and slaves. Why should he care what happened to this man and why should he be forced to help him and thus be associated with him in any way?

From St. Francis' Way of the Cross:

Simon of Cyrene was compelled to help Jesus carry His cross, and Jesus accepted his assistance. How willingly would He also permit you to carry the cross: He calls, but you hear Him not; He invites you, but you decline. What a reproach, to bear the cross reluctantly!

How often have we been guilty of the same thinking as Simon of Cyrene? How often have we looked down on the poor and disadvantaged of society, considering them loathsome creatures who have only gotten what they deserved? Here in New York City we have tens of thousands of homeless, and many of them are alcoholics, drug addicts, etc. who did more or less bring on their situation in life. And many of the homeless are also people just down on their luck, including families with children. I must admit I have far too often walked past the homeless without a second thought except maybe to think that they probably brought their misery upon themselves, so why should I feel sorry for them.

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In the 20th Century, there was no one who gave more to the poor and rejected of this world than Blessed Mother Teresa. She would literally go into the garbage dumps of India where they lived (and died) and drag them out, clean them up and give them a clean place to stay. Often she would take the sick and dying out of the gutters just so they could have a dignified death. Venerable Fulton Sheen once said she ministered to 25,000 people and converted 15,000 of them. This, of course was before Bishop Sheen's death in 1979. Mother Teresa lived almost 20 years beyond that, to 1997, so we can be sure she helped many thousands of others beyond this.

Mother Teresa gave an interview to Don Gillespie of Keystone Magazine two years before her death. Don Gillespie asked her how she was able to do her work with the poor:

DG: Mother Teresa, thank you for meeting us today. You have an amazing ministry. Everyone has heard your story and about the work you do. The poverty and needs around you are so horrendous, how do you keep it up?

MT: It would not be easy without a life of prayer and a spirit of sacrifice. I see Jesus in each and everyone that we meet, no matter how repugnant they seem to us. Jesus presents himself to us under every disguise: the dying, the leper, the invalid, the orphan. It is our faith that makes our work easy, or at least more bearable. Without Jesus we could not do this work.

Simon of Cyrene was quite literally helping Jesus carry his cross, but each time we minister to one in need who cannot give back to us, Jesus sees it as ministering as directly to him as Simon of Cyrene did. Did Jesus really need Simon's help? Jesus was God, the great Creator of the Universe, more powerful than all of creation put together. But at this point Jesus was relying only on his humanity and feeling all of the weakness of that humanity. He was also surrounded by legions of angels who desperately wanted to minister to him and relieve him of his load. He rejected all of them and gave that special honor to Simon of Cyrene.

And truly it was an honor given to Simon of Cyrene to partake of the Lord's suffering, an honor that is given to us each time we suffer and join it with our Lord's suffering. And each and every time we help lift the load of someone else, we are doing it for our Lord, as Jesus told us in Matthew 25, the famous parable of the sheep and goats, picturing the time we will stand before the King and be judged based on how we treat others. In verse 40, Jesus said, "The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.' " and in verse 45, "whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me."

One of the fascinating results of giving of ourselves to others, especially those who cannot give back, is that it transforms the giver even more than the recipient. Simon of Cyrene, forced against his will to assist Jesus, was profoundly changed by the experience. In Mark 15:21, we are told that Simon is the father of "Alexander and Rufus." Mark writes this with the assumption that the reader would be aware of whom he was writing. In Romans 16:13, St. Paul wrote: "Greet Rufus, a choice man in the Lord, also his mother and mine." We can't be 100% sure this was the same Rufus, son of Simon of Cyrene, but it is only logical that the Rufus mentioned in the Gospel of Mark would be the same Rufus mentioned in St. Paul's letter. It would seem that not only was Simon of Cyrene transformed by his contact with Jesus, this transformation extended to his family.

Another major lesson from this sixth station of the cross that has always stood out for me is that our enemies are often the ones who help us achieve eternal salvation. Jesus needed to get to Calvary in order to present himself as our Sacrifice on the Cross to the Father. But because of the savage beatings he had received, he was unable to carry his Cross. It was his executioners, the Romans, the same ones who had so brutally beaten him, who made it possible for Christ to continue on the journey to Calvary. The Romans certainly didn't force Simon of Cyrene to carry the cross out of compassion or empathy for the suffering of Jesus, but their cruelty was turned into the very means by which Jesus accomplished his goal. Often those who persecute us or cause trial and suffering in our lives are the very ones who are paving the way to heaven for us. As St. James wrote: "My brethren, count it all joy, when you shall fall into divers temptations; Knowing that the trying of your faith worketh patience. And patience hath a perfect work; that you may be perfect and entire, failing in nothing."  (James 1:2-4).

We will never find Christ in those who are acclaimed and applauded by this world. He will only be found in the lowly and humble. As Blessed Mother Teresa said, she saw Christ in the poor:

"In the Eucharist, I see Christ in the appearance of the bread. In the slums, I see Christ in the ... poor. Sometimes we meet Jesus rejected and covered in filth in the gutter. Sometimes we find Jesus stuffed into a drain, or moaning with pain from sores or rotting with gangrene, or even screaming from the agony of a broken back. The most distressing disguise calls for even more love from us."

"We can find Calcutta all over the world, if you have eyes to see. Everywhere, wherever you go, you find people who are unwanted, unloved, uncared for, just rejected by the society -- completely forgotten, completely left alone. That is the greatest poverty of the rich countries."

We have all been guilty of rejecting Christ and his Cross at some time in our lives. Let us learn the lesson of Simon of Cyrene and never reject Our Lord and the Cross again.

O Jesus! Whosoever does not take up his cross and follow Thee, is not worthy of Thee. Behold, I join Thee in the Way of Thy Cross; I will be Thy assistant, following Thy bloody footsteps, that I may come to Thee in eternal life. ------ Lord Jesus, crucified, have mercy on us!

The Most Powerful Weapon in the World

G.K. Chesterton, an English writer who lived from 1874 to 1936, was one of the greatest minds of the 20th Century.  He was a late convert in life to Catholicism, although he wrote about and defended Catholicism long before he converted.  He had an amazing way of stating the truth in seemingly contradictory terms that gave us the most simple and yet profound insights.   An example is this quote from him about humility:

"What we suffer from today is humility in the wrong place. Modesty has moved from the organ of ambition. Modesty has settled upon the organ of conviction; where it was never meant to be. A man was meant to be doubtful about himself, but undoubting about the truth; this has been exactly reversed. Nowadays the part of a man that a man does assert is exactly the part he ought not to assert--himself. The part he doubts is exactly the part he ought not to doubt - the Divine Reason. . . . The new skeptic is so humble that he doubts if he can even learn. . . . There is a real humility typical of our time; but it so happens that it's practically a more poisonous humility than the wildest prostrations of the ascetic. . . . The old humility made a man doubtful about his efforts, which might make him work harder. But the new humility makes a man doubtful about his aims, which makes him stop working altogether. . . . We are on the road to producing a race of man too mentally modest to believe in the multiplication table." G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy [Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Co., 1957], pp. 31-32

It seems that every thing in our world today has been turned upside down and inside out.  Nothing is as it seems, and it all seems to lead us to despair and destruction.  Every time we try to fix a problem, it only gets worse.  This is especially true when it comes to government.  An example is the war on poverty, which started during the LBJ Administration in 1964.  19% of the population lived below the poverty line at that time.  Almost 50 years and over $13 trillion later, the poverty level is over 15% and increasing.  One must take into consideration as well that there were 191 million people in the US in 1964, and there are now over 311 million people in our country, so even though the percentage might be slightly lower, there are in actual fact many more millions of people living in poverty.  The lowest the poverty level has ever gotten was in 1973 when it was about 11%.

So what's my point?  It is that the answers we all seek are not to be found even in the greatest minds of men.  Human power and ingenuity, apart from God, lead nowhere.  If we are apart from God, that means we are being guided by the one who wishes to destroy us, our adversary the devil.   There is no other choice.  We are either following God or we are following the devil.  Is there any doubt which camp our government is in, this government which has legalized the killing of unborn children, has engaged in wars around the globe, has legalized euthanasia in certain states, has legalized same sex marriage in other states and is slowly moving to legalize it nationally? 

How do we know if we are following our Creator or the one who wishes to destroy us?  One unmistakable feature of a truly spiritual mind is humility, the definition of which we received from GK Chesterton.  Humility is the mind that always doubts itself but never doubts Divine Truth.  One of the very greatest examples of humility and love in our modern world was Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta.  Everything in her life was about giving to others, and always she gave the credit to our Lord, never pointing to herself.  She would literally go into the garbage dumps of India and drag out the people who were living there, wash off  the dirt and vermin, and give them a clean bed and a clean place in which to live, and for many, in which to die. 

Mother Teresa was 4'10" tall and weighed around 100 pounds.  She was not a great intellect, she held no positions of power, she had no money of her own.  Her education consisted of little more than some home schooling.  She certainly was no physical beauty.  Yet, she is one of the most powerful figures of the last century and is revered and admired by hundreds of millions of people.  You will be hard pressed to find anyone who does not know of Mother Teresa.  Her name has become almost the definition of what it means to truly love our fellow man.

It seems to me that if the US Government was sincere about wanting to help the poor and eradicate poverty, they would do well to look to the little, uneducated sister from Calcutta. 

This is all leading up to a reading from last week's Magnificat, which was taken from the writings of Jean Pierre de Caussade, S.J., who lived from 1675 to 1751.  According to Wikipedia, he was a Jesuit priest and writer known for his work Abandonment to Divine Providence (also translated as The Sacrament of the Present Moment) and his work with Nuns of the Visitation in Nancy, France.  Father de Caussade tells us in this short meditation that the most effective weapons we have in fighting our opponents are "fidelity, gentleness and humility." 

A simple soul is more fully enlightened by a grain of pure faith than Lucifer by all his intelligence. The knowledge possessed by a soul faithful to its obligations, quietly submissive to the intimate orders of grace, gentle and humble towards all, is worth more than the most profound penetration of mysteries . . .

What is there among creatures that can resist the force of a faithful, gentle and humble soul? If we would infallibly conquer our enemies we must oppose them with no other arms than fidelity, gentleness and humility. Jesus Christ has put these in our hands for our defense; there is nothing to fear when we know how to use them. We should not be cowardly but generous, for this is the only disposition in which we can use these divine instruments. All that God does is sublime and marvelous and never can individual action at war with God resist one who is united to the divine action by gentleness and humility.

What is Lucifer? He is a brilliant intelligence, the most enlightened of all, but an intelligence discontented with God and his order. The mystery of iniquity is nothing but the result of his discontent manifested in as many ways as possible. Lucifer, as far as lies in his power, wishes to leave nothing in the state in which God has ordained and placed it. Wherever he penetrates, you will always find the work of God disfigured. The more lights, knowledge and general capacity a person has the more he is to be feared, if he has not the foundation of piety which consists in contentment with God and his will. It is the regulation of the heart that places us in union with the divine will; without that union, everything is but pure nature, and, usually, pure opposition to the divine order; God has not, properly speaking any instruments but humble souls.

* * *

Of course there is no greater symbol for humility than our Blessed Mother.  Our Lady recited what is now called the "Magnificat" at the Annunciation of the Angel Gabriel, in which Mary was told that she was chosen to be the Mother of God.  Her immediate reaction was to give glory to God, referring to herself as a lowly handmaiden of the Lord.  It is recited every day in the Breviary:

My soul magnifies the Lord
And my spirit rejoices in God my Savior;
Because he has regarded the lowliness of his handmaid;
For behold, henceforth all generations shall call me blessed;
Because he who is mighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his name;
And his mercy is from generation to generation
on those who fear him.
He has shown might with his arm,
He has scattered the proud in the conceit of their heart.
He has put down the mighty from their thrones,
and has exalted the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty.
He has given help to Israel, his servant, mindful of his mercy
Even as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his posterity forever.

Dirty Harry told us the most powerful handgun in the world is a .357 Magnum.  That may be true, but if you wish to defeat the enemies in your life, use the same weapon used by Our Blessed Mother and Mother Teresa and all of the great saints:  humility - recognizing your weakness and total dependence upon God.  Give God the glory, not yourself or any other human being.  Our Blessed Mother is the one who crushed all heresies, and she accomplished this great feat through humility and love of God.   There is no other way.