Why I Don't Support or Attend the March for Life

I am staunchly pro life. My political and religious beliefs have changed many times throughout the decades of my life, but I have always been against abortion. I am old enough to remember when the Supreme Court legalized abortion. I cried when I saw the headline in my local paper. I could not believe we were now going to kill our babies.

For the past nine years, I have been praying almost every week in front of an abortion clinic. I stand in front of the abortion clinic because, out of all the great evils in our world, I don't believe there is a greater evil than than killing innocent, defenseless life. Abortion kills not only the babies, but is spiritually, emotionally and mentally lethal to all of those involved: the parents, grandparents, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, potential friends and spouses of the aborted babies, and harms society and the world in general. We will never know how much we have lost in the deaths of all the hundreds of millions and maybe billions of aborted babies throughout the world.

St. Alphonsus Liguori and Immorality in the 21st Century

Miley (ugh!) Cyrus

I have to say that I was actually somewhat heartened by the response to the vulgar, obscene display by Miley Cyrus at the Video Music Awards a couple of weeks ago. Most people were revolted by it. But that doesn't change the fact that promiscuity and immorality are accepted and even encouraged in our modern world.

Sexual immorality has become so rampant and such an integral part of our culture and of our entire world that we hardly give it a second thought anymore.  We are now so deadened to immorality that the word "scandal" is on its way to becoming archaic.  If someone gets out of high school without having lost their virginity, they are considered "weird."  A man and woman living together without benefit of marriage and even having children together hardly gets a raised eyebrow.  Having sex on a first or second date without even a hint of commitment is considered normal.  Some relationships consist totally of sex without even friendship being a part of it, which is known as "hooking up".  A few weeks ago there was an article in the New York Times entitled, "She Can Play That Game, Too".  As the article says, "The guys on college campuses want to have casual sex, and the girls want romance, right?  Increasingly, however, women are the ones looking to hook up."   If you want, you can read this article here.  Following are the opening paragraphs to the article:

At 11 on a weeknight earlier this year, her work finished, a slim, pretty junior at the University of Pennsylvania did what she often does when she has a little free time. She texted her regular hookup — the guy she is sleeping with but not dating. What was he up to? He texted back: Come over. So she did. They watched a little TV, had sex and went to sleep.

Their relationship, she noted, is not about the meeting of two souls.

“We don’t really like each other in person, sober,” she said, adding that “we literally can’t sit down and have coffee.”

Homosexual couple featured in the New York Times

And, of course, homosexuality, once described by Oscar Wilde as "the love that dares not speak its name", is now considered, in some circles, more normal than heterosexuality. Any who speak against it are considered bigots and intolerant. Again, the New York Times had an article just this past weekend about two homosexual lovers who have been together for 58 years. This one was entitled, "Two Men, 58 Years and Counting. A Love Story." The article starts out with their "fond remembrances":

In the last apartment they are likely ever to live in together, Kenneth Leedom and Peter Cott were talking about eros and the public life of New York — which is to say, sex on a moving subway train. Mr. Leedom is 88; Mr. Cott is 89.

Mr. Cott, seated beside an upright piano in the couple’s sunny yellow living room, listened intently, then spoke as if delivering his lines from a stage.

“We all gravitated to the connection between the two trains,” he said, recalling a time from half a century ago. “And that was sexville.”

Mr. Leedom shook his head at the memories.

“Unbelievable,” he said. “And the toilets in the subways — in those days if you traveled, say, 14th Street to 59th Street, you had to make at least three stops on the way, to check out every toilet.

“And there was always gay activity going on in the toilets. And I think it cost a nickel to get in in those days.”

The Catholic Church condemns sexual immorality and declares it a mortal sin. One mortal sin, unrepented of and unconfessed, is enough to shut us out of heaven for eternity. Yet, our world seems to be awash in mortal sin and even, as seen in these two articles from the New York Times, revels in it.

Many people complain that our priests generally don't address these issues from the pulpit. When was the last time that you heard a good sermon about mortal sin and the consequences thereof? Well, our Lord never leaves us without an excuse. We may not hear of these things from the pulpit, but such sermons and talks can easily be found. I downloaded a book from Amazon entitled, "Sermons For All the Sundays In the Year."  This book is completely filled with hard hitting, to-the-point sermons that pull no punches.  This is a collection of sermons by St. Alphonsus of Liguori, who lived from 1696 to 1787.  As Wikipedia tells us, St. Alphonsus of Liguori "was an Italian Catholic bishop, spiritual writer, scholastic philosopher and theologian, and founder of the Redemptorists, an influential religious congregation. He was canonized in 1839 by Pope Gregory XVI. Pope Pius IX proclaimed him a Doctor of the Church in 1871." This book of his sermons was put together in 1882, so obviously it is following what we now call the calendar of the Extraordinary Form of the Mass. Back then, of course, it was the only calendar. The book from Amazon cost 99 cents, and if you're interested (I highly recommend it), it can be found here.  It could be the best 99 cents you'll spend.

Below is a sermon from this past Sunday, which was the 16th Sunday After Pentecost.  It's amazing how some things never change.  This sermon, written over 200 years ago, gives penetrating insight into what is happening to our world today in the 21st Century.

Sixteenth Sunday After Pentecost: Impurity
by St. Alphonsus De Liguori

"Homo quidam hydropicus erat ante illum."
"And behold, there was a certain man before him, who had the dropsy."--Luke, xiv. 2

The man who indulges in impurity is like a person laboring under the dropsy. [Today "dropsy" is better known as "edema" or "congestive heart failure", when there is an excessive accumulation of fluid in the body.] The latter is so much tormented by thirst, that the more he drinks the more thirsty he becomes. Such, too, is the nature of the accursed vice of impurity; it is never satiated. "As," says St. Thomas of Villanova, "the more the dropsical man abounds in moisture, the more he thirsts; so, too, is it with the waves of carnal pleasures." I will speak today of the vice of impurity, and will show, in the first point, the delusion of those who say that this vice is but a small evil: and, in the second, the delusion of those who say that God takes pity on this sin, and that he does not punish it. 

1. Delusion of those who say that sins against purity are not a great evil.

The unchaste, then, say that sins contrary to purity are but a small evil. Like the sow wallowing in the mire, they are immersed in their own filth, so that they do not see the malice of their actions; and therefore they neither feel nor abhor the stench of their impurities, which excite disgust and horror in all others. Can you, who say that the vice of impurity is but a small evil--can you, I ask, deny that it is a mortal sin? If you deny it, you are a heretic; for as St. Paul says: Do not err. Neither fornicators, nor adulterers, nor the effeminate, etc., shall possess the kingdom of God. It is a mortal sin; it cannot be a small evil. It is more sinful than theft, or detraction, or the violation of the fast. How then can you say that it is not a great evil? Perhaps mortal sin appears to you to be a small evil? Is it a small evil to despise the grace of God, to turn your back upon Him, and to lose His friendship, for a transitory, beastly pleasure? 

Credit:  www.evangelicaloutreach.org

St. Thomas teaches, that mortal sin, because it is an insult offered to an infinite God, contains a certain infinitude of malice. "A sin committed against God has a certain infinitude, on account of the infinitude of the Divine Majesty." Is mortal sin a small evil? It is so great an evil, that if all the angels and all the saints, the apostles, martyrs, and even the Mother of God, offered all their merits to atone for a single mortal sin, the oblation would not be sufficient. No; for that atonement or satisfaction would be finite; but the debt contracted by mortal sin is infinite, on account of the infinite Majesty of God which has been offended. The hatred which God bears to sins against purity is great beyond measure. If a lady find her plate soiled she is disgusted, and cannot eat. [Would you eat from a plate that had just a "little" sewage on it?]  Now, with what disgust and indignation must God, who is purity itself, behold the filthy impurities by which his law is violated: He loves purity with an infinite love; and consequently he has an infinite hatred for the sensuality which the lewd, voluptuous man calls a small evil. Even the devils who held a high rank in heaven before their fall disdain to tempt men to sins of the flesh.  

St. Thomas says that Lucifer, who is supposed to have been the devil that tempted Jesus Christ in the desert, tempted him to commit other sins, but scorned to tempt Him to offend against chastity. Is this sin a small evil? Is it, then, a small evil to see a man endowed with a rational soul, and enriched with so many divine graces, bring himself by the sin of impurity to the level of a brute?" "Fornication and pleasure," says St. Jerome, "pervert the understanding, and change men into beasts." In the voluptuous and unchaste are literally verified the words of David: And man, when he was in honor, did not understand: he is compared to senseless beasts, and is become like to them. St. Jerome says, that there is nothing more vile or degrading than to allow one's self to be conquered by the flesh. Is it a small evil to forget God, and to banish him from the soul, for the sake of giving the body a vile satisfaction, of which, when it is over, you feel ashamed? Of this the Lord complains by the Prophet Ezechiel: Thus saith the Lord God: Because thou hast forgotten Me, and hast cast Me off behind thy back (Ezech. xxiii. 35). St. Thomas says, that by every vice, but particularly by the vice of impurity, men are removed far from God. 

Moreover, sins of impurity on account of their great number, are an immense evil. A blasphemer does not always blaspheme, but only when he is drunk or provoked to anger. The assassin, whose trade is to murder others, does not, at the most, commit more than eight or ten homicides. But the unchaste are guilty of an unceasing torrent of sins, by thoughts, by words, by looks, by complacencies, and by touches; so that when they go to confession they find it impossible to tell the number of the sins they have committed against purity. Even in their sleep the devil represents to them obscene objects, that, on awakening, they may take delight in them; and because they are made the slaves of the enemy, they obey and consent to his suggestions; for it is easy to contract a habit of this sin. To other sins, such as blasphemy, detraction, and murder, men are not prone; but to this vice nature inclines them. Hence St. Thomas says, that there is no sinner so ready to offend God as the votary of lust is, on every occasion that occurs to him. The sin of impurity brings in its train the sins of defamation, of theft, hatred, and of boasting of its own filthy abominations. Besides, it ordinarily involves the malice of scandal. Other sins, such as blasphemy, perjury, and murder, excite horror in those who witness them; but this sin excites and draws others, who are flesh, to commit, it, or, at least, to commit it with less horror. 

St. Cyprian says that the devil through impurity triumphs over the whole of man. By lust the evil triumphs over the entire man, over his body and over his soul; over his memory, filling it with the remembrance of unchaste delights, in order to make him take complacency in them; over his intellect, to make him desire occasions of committing sin; over the will, by making it love its impurities as his last end, and as if there were no God. I made, said Job, a covenant with my eyes, that I would not so much as think upon a virgin. For what part should God from above have in me (Job, xxxi.)? Job was afraid to look at a virgin, because he knew that if he consented to a bad thought God should have no part in him. According to St. Gregory, from impurity arises blindness of understanding, destruction, hatred of God, and despair of eternal life." St. Augustine says, though the unchaste may grow old, the vice of impurity does not grow old in them. Hence St. Thomas says, that there is no sin in which the devil delights so much as in this sin; because there is no other sin to which nature clings with so much tenacity. To the vice of impurity it adheres so firmly, that the appetite for carnal pleasures becomes insatiable. Go now, and say that the sin of impurity is but a small evil. At the hour of death you shall not say so; every sin of that kind shall then appear to you a monster of hell. Much less shall you say so before the judgment-seat of Jesus Christ, who will tell you what the Apostle has already told you: No fornicator, or unclean, hath inheritance in the kingdom of Christ, and God? The man who has lived like a brute does not deserve to sit with the angels. 

Most beloved brethren, let us continue to pray to God to deliver us from this vice; if we do not, we shall lose our souls. The sin of impurity brings with it blindness and obstinacy. Every vice produces darkness of understanding; but impurity produces it in a greater decree than all other sins. Fornication, and wine, and drunkenness take away the understanding (Os iv. II). Wine deprives us of understanding and reason; so does impurity. Hence St. Thomas says, that the man who indulges in unchaste pleasures, does not live according to reason. Now, if the unchaste are deprived of light, and no longer see the evil which they do, how can they abhor it and amend their lives? The Prophet Osee says, that blinded by their own mire, they do not even think of returning to God; because their impurities take away from them all knowledge of God. They will not set their thought to return to their God: for the spirit of fornication is in the midst of them, and they have not known the Lord (Os. v. 4)." Hence St. Laurence Justinian writes, that this sin makes men forget God. "Delights of the flesh induced forgetfulness of God." And St. John Damascene teaches that "the carnal man cannot look at the light of truth." Thus, the lewd and voluptuous no longer understand what is meant by the grace of God, by judgment, hell, and eternity. Fire hath fallen upon them, and they shall not see the sun! Some of these blind miscreants go so far as to say, that fornication is not in itself sinful. They say, that it was not forbidden in the Old Law; and in support of this execrable doctrine they adduce the words of the Lord to Osee: "Go, take thee a wife of fornication, and have of her children of fornication (Os. i. 2)." In answer I say, that God did not permit Osee to commit fornication; but wished him to take for his wife a woman who had been guilty of fornication: and the children of this marriage were called children of fornication, because the mother had been guilty of that crime. This is, according to St. Jerome, the meaning of the words of the Lord to Osee. "Therefore," says the holy Doctor, "they are to be called children of fornication, because born of a harlot." But fornication was always forbidden, under pain of mortal sin, in the Old, as well as in the New Law. St. Paul says: No fornicator or unclean hath inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God (Ephes. v. 5). Behold the impiety to which the blindness of such sinners carry them! From this blindness it arises, that though they go to the sacraments, their confessions are null for want of true contrition; for how is it possible for them to have true sorrow, when they neither know nor abhor their sins? 

The vice of impurity also brings with it obstinacy. To conquer temptations, particularly against chastity, continual prayer is necessary. Watch ye, and pray, that ye enter not into temptation (Mark, xiv. 38). But how will the unchaste, who are always seeking to be tempted, pray to God to deliver them from temptation? They sometimes, as St. Augustine confessed of himself, even abstain from prayer, through fear of being heard and cured of the disease, which they wish to continue. "I feared," said the saint, "that Thou wouldst soon hear and heal the disease of concupiscence, which I wished to be satiated, rather than extinguished." St. Peter calls this vice an unceasing sin. Having eyes full of adultery and sin that ceasest not. Impurity is called an unceasing sin on account of the obstinacy which it induces. 

Some person addicted to this vice says: I always confess the sin. So much the worse; for since you always relapse into sin, these confessions serve to make you persevere in the sin. The fear of punishment is diminished by saying: I always confess the sin. If you felt that this sin certainly merits hell, you would scarcely say: I will not give it up; I do not care if I am damned. But the devil deceives you. Commit this sin, he says: for you afterwards confess it. But, to make a good confession of your sins, you must have true sorrow of the heart, and a firm purpose to sin no more. Where are this sorrow and this firm purpose of amendment, when you always return to the vomit? If you had had these dispositions, and had received sanctifying grace at your confessions, you should not have relapsed, or at least you should have abstained for a considerable time from relapsing. You have always fallen back into sin in eight or ten days, and perhaps in a shorter time, after confession. What sign is this? It is a sign that you were always at enmity with God. If a sick man instantly vomits the medicine which he takes, it is a sign that his disease is incurable. 

St. Jerome says that the vice of impurity, when habitual, will cease when the unhappy man who indulges in it is cast into the lire of hell. "O infernal fire, lust, whose fuel is gluttony, whose sparks are brief conversations, whose end is hell." The unchaste become like the vulture that waits to be killed by the fowler, rather than abandon the rottenness of the dead bodies on which it feeds. This is what happened to a young woman, who, after having lived in the habit of sin with a young man, fell sick, and appeared to be converted. At the hour of death she asked leave of her confessor to send for the young man, in order to exhort him to change his life at the sight of her death. The confessor very imprudently gave the permission, and taught her what she should say to her accomplice in sin. But listen to what happened. As soon as she saw him, she forgot her promise to the confessor and the exhortation she was to give to the young man. And what did she do? She raised herself up, sat in bed, stretched her arms to him, and said: Friend, I have always loved you, and even now, at the end of my life, I love you: I see that, on your account, I shall go to hell: but I do not care: I am willing, for the love of you, to be damned. After these words she fell back on the bed and expired. These facts are related by Father Segneri. Oh! how difficult is it for a person who has contracted a habit of this vice, to amend his life and return sincerely to God! how difficult is it for him not to terminate this habit in hell, like the unfortunate young woman of whom I have just spoken. 

2. Illusion of those who say that God takes pity on this sin.

The votaries of lust [this is a play on words, a votary being a person bound by vows to live a life of religious worship or service] say that God takes pity on this sin; but such is not the language of St. Thomas of Villanova. He says, that in the sacred Scriptures we do not read of any sin so severely chastised as the sin of impurity. We find in the Scriptures, that in punishment of this sin a deluge of fire descended from heaven on four cities, and in an instant, consumed not only the inhabitants, but even the very stones. "And the Lord rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven. And He destroyed these cities, and all things that spring from the earth (Gen. xix. 24)." St. Peter Damian relates, that a man and a woman who had sinned against purity were found burnt and black as a cinder.

Salvian writes that it was in punishment of the sin of impurity that God sent on the earth the universal deluge, which was caused by continued rain for forty days and forty nights. In this deluge the waters rose fifteen cubits above the tops of the highest mountains; and only eight persons along with Noah were saved in the ark. The rest of the inhabitants of the earth, who were more numerous then that at present, were punished with death in chastisement of the vice of impurity. Mark the words of the Lord in speaking of this chastisement which he inflicted on that sin: My spirit shall not remain in man forever: because he is flesh (Gen. vi. 3). "That is," says Liranus, "too deeply involved in carnal sins." The Lord added: For it repenteth Me that I made man" The indignation of God is not like ours, which clouds the mind, and drives us into excesses: his wrath is a judgment perfectly just and tranquil, by which God punishes and repairs the disorder of sin. But to make us understand the intensity of his hatred for the sin of impurity, he represents himself as if sorry for having created man, who offended him so grievously by this vice. We, at the present day, see more severe temporal punishment inflicted on this than on any other sin. 

Go into the hospitals, and listen to the shrieks of so many young men, who, in punishment of their impurities, are obliged to submit to the severest treatment and to the most painful operations, and who, if they escape death, are, according to the divine threat, feeble, and subject to the most excruciating pain for the remainder of their lives. [This is long before AIDS.]  Thou hast cast Me off behind thy back; bear thou also thy wickedness and thy fornications (Ezech. xxiii. 35).

St. Remigius writes that, if children be excepted, the number of adults that are saved is few on account of the sins of the flesh. In conformity with this doctrine, it was revealed to a holy soul that as pride has filled hell with devils, so impurity fills it with men. St. Isidore assigns the reason. He says that there is no vice which so much enslaves men to the devil as impurity. Hence St. Augustine says that with regard to this sin, "the combat is common and the victory rare." Hence it is that on account of this sin hell is filled with souls. 

All that I have said on this subject has been said, not that any one present, who has been addicted to the vice of impurity, may be driven to despair, but that such persons may be cured. Let us, then, come to the remedies. These are two great remedies-- prayer, and the flight of dangerous occasions. 

1. Prayer, says St. Gregory of Nyssa, is the safeguard of chastity. And before him, Solomon, speaking of himself, said the same. And as I knew that I could not otherwise be continent, except God gave, it . . . I went to the Lord, and besought Him (Wisd. viii. 21). Thus it is impossible for us to conquer this vice without God's assistance. Hence as soon as temptation against chastity presents itself, the remedy is to turn instantly to God for help, and to repeat several times the most holy names of Jesus and Mary, which have a special virtue to banish bad thoughts of that kind. I have said immediately, without listening to, or beginning to argue with, the temptation. When a bad thought occurs to the mind, it is necessary to shake it off instantly, as you would a spark that flies from the fire, and instantly to invoke aid from Jesus and Mary. 

2. As to the flight of dangerous occasions, St. Philip Neri used to say that cowards that is, they who fly from the occasions gain the victory. Hence you must, in the first place, keep a restraint on the eyes, and must abstain from looking at young women. Otherwise, says St. Thomas, you can scarcely avoid the sin. Hence Job said: I made a covenant with my eves that I would not so much as think upon a virgin (Job, xxxi. I). He was afraid to look at a virgin; because from looks it is easy to pass to desires, and from desires to acts. St. Francis de Sales used to say that to look at a woman does not do so much evil as to repeatedly look at her a second time. If the devil has not gained a victory the first, he will gain the second time. And if it be necessary to abstain from looking at women, it is much more necessary to avoid conversation with them. Tarry not among women. We should be persuaded that, in avoiding occasions of this sin, no caution can be too great. Hence we must be always fearful, and fly from them. A wise man feareth and declineth from, evil; a fool is confident? A wise man is timid, and flies away: a fool is confident, and falls. 

Sexual sin and immorality are nothing new.  We have taken it to extremes never before seen, such as "marriage" between homosexuals, and with technology, the ability to engage in pornography anywhere at any time.  Just as our military weapons are more deadly than the world has ever seen, so are the weapons of immorality.  But the result is the same: lost souls.  We, as Christians, are obligated to pray continually for those who have been trapped by this evil.  We need to pray and offer up reparations.  It is not up to us to judge people (thank God!).  But we do need to judge actions and consequences and realize that it is truly only through the Grace of God that any of us can escape the immorality which has engulfed our world.

A Plea to All Catholics

Our Lady of Victory, Manhattan

I work on Wall Street in Manhattan.  Yes, it's that Wall Street.  I'm about a block away from the Stock Exchange and a couple of blocks from the Federal Reserve.  This area is not exactly a bastion of spirituality and Christian belief and practice.  But our Lord never leaves us desolate and abandoned, and Wall Street is no exception.  He has put a wonderful Catholic church, Our Lady of Victory, around the corner from my office.  This is a fairly new church by New York standards, having been built during World War II, thus the name "Our Lady of Victory."  The Church was founded by the great Francis Cardinal Spellman.  To this day, there is still a tradition in the church of praying for our military.

The main altar in our Lady of Victory

Our Lady of Victory is a very active church, with six daily Masses starting at 7:15 a.m. and the last one is offered at 5:15 p.m. (they have the main upper Church and also a chapel in the basement).  The Rosary is recited every day after the 8:20 a.m. Mass.  There are daily novenas after the noon Mass.  On Holy Days of Obligation they offer 21 Masses.  The Sacrament of Confession is offered three times every day (at 8:00 a.m., noon and 5:00 p.m.)   There is Eucharistic Adoration every day from 1:00 to 5:15.  They estimate that 22,000 people receive ashes there on Ash Wednesday.  I am very much looking forward to Lent because they are going to be offering talks on Vatican II every Thursday during lunch hour.

I try to go there as often as I can for Adoration.  And there is usually a fair amount of people there.  It really is inspiring to see high power businessmen kneeling in the pews and praying the Rosary.

But there is one thing that I find very upsetting at Our Lady of Victory and which, unfortunately, I find at far too many Catholic Churches.  It is the lack of reverence shown to our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament.  I was always taught that we must genuflect before the Tabernacle as a sign of reverence because the Lord and Creator of the Universe resides there.  And when the Blessed Sacrament is actually exposed, if you are physically able you should get down on both knees when getting in and out of the pews and whenever passing in front of the exposed Blessed Sacrament.

The Exposed Blessed Sacrament
Credit:  St. Hugh of Cluny Society

I would estimate that at least 95% of the people I see in Church never show any sign of reverence to the Blessed Sacrament.  They walk in and out of the Church as if it was any other building.  Some will give a slight bow of the head, but rarely more than that and sadly, that includes the priests.

This past week I found myself becoming very agitated when a man, after helping out at Benediction, held an animated conversation with a woman in the front pew.  He stood with his back to the Blessed Sacrament, touching and hugging the woman with whom he was talking, disturbing the rest of us who were trying to pray and worst of all, completely ignoring and disrespecting his Creator and Savior who was right in back of him.   When he finally finished his conversation, he passed in front of the Blessed Sacrament and gave a barely perceptible nod of his head.

Often I will see people walk into the Church during Adoration, completely ignore our Lord and walk up to the statue of our Blessed Mother.  I have no problem at all with giving reverence to our Blessed Mother, but to ignore Her Son for any reason, even if it is to give reverence to her, is the greatest insult you can give Our Lady.

Almost no one genuflects or kneels on entering or leaving the pews.

I would implore all Catholics to think about what they are doing.  Remember that the Blessed Sacrament is not just a piece of bread on the altar, but the One who gives us every breath we breathe, the one who formed us in the womb and causes our heart to beat, the one who created the universe and everything in it.  This is the same One who allowed Himself to be whipped and beaten on our behalf, who took up His Cross and carried it on Calvary, who allowed men to pound nails into His Sacred Body and who poured out His Precious Blood so that our sins could be forgiven and we could spend all eternity with Him.

We see only a white piece of bread with our eyes, but the reality is that in the Blessed Sacrament our Lord is with us in all of his great glory and majesty.  He who is more powerful than all of creation, more brilliant than the brightest star, who is perfect goodness and love, has come down to us under the appearance of bread so that we can spend intimate time in His Presence.  And He is not alone on the altar.  The angels and saints bow continuously before Him, crying out "Holy, Holy, Holy,"

St. John the Apostle was transported to the Heavenly Throne of Christ in a vision, and this is how he describes it (Revelation 1:12-17):

12 When I turned to see who was speaking to me, I saw seven gold lampstands. 13 There with the lampstands was someone who seemed to be the Son of Man. He was wearing a robe that reached down to his feet, and a gold cloth was wrapped around his chest. 14 His head and his hair were white as wool or snow, and his eyes looked like flames of fire.15 His feet were glowing like bronze being heated in a furnace, and his voice sounded like the roar of a waterfall. 16 He held seven stars in his right hand, and a sharp double-edged sword was coming from his mouth. His face was shining as bright as the sun at noon.  17 When I saw him, I fell at his feet like a dead person.

Credit:  mudpreacher.org

Notice the last verse:  "When I saw him, I fell at his feet like a dead person."  To be in the glorified presence of our Lord and Savior was so overwhelming that St. John passed out as if dead.  If we could see past the veil of the appearance of bread in the Blessed Sacrament, we too would be as overwhelmed as St. John was.

Because Our Lord has such a great desire to be intimately with us, He humbles and veils himself under the appearance of a small piece of white bread.  We enter into the Presence of the Blessed Sacrament with our faith, seeing Him not with our physical eyes but in a spiritual sense.  Our physical demeanor in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament has a direct effect on our belief and obedience to our Lord.  "Lex orendi, lex credendi" means how we pray is how we believe.  Prayer is not just the words we use but involves our whole being, and part of prayer is our bodily expression.  If we want to cultivate a true reverence for our Lord and Savior, we must manifest this in our outward appearance.

Physically genuflecting and kneeling in front of the Blessed Sacrament will actually help you grow in holiness and in love of Jesus Christ.  And don't we owe Him at least this much for the very fact that He, as Creator, has given us our physical existence and then poured out His Precious Blood on the Cross so that we may inherit eternal life with Him as well?

Please show the proper respect when entering into the presence of the Lord.  He has humbled Himself to come to us under the appearance of bread.  The least we can do is bend our knees in reverence and respect to Our Creator and Savior.

Credit:  www.hrsl.org

The Message of Fatima and the Year of Faith: I Am My Brother's Keeper

Our Lady of Fatima

We would be mistaken to think that Fatima’s prophetic mission is complete. Here there takes on new life the plan of God which asks humanity from the beginning: “Where is your brother Abel […] Your brother’s blood is crying out to me from the ground!” (Gen 4:9). Mankind has succeeded in unleashing a cycle of death and terror, but failed in bringing it to an end… In sacred Scripture we often find that God seeks righteous men and women in order to save the city of man and he does the same here, in Fatima, when Our Lady asks: “Do you want to offer yourselves to God, to endure all the sufferings which he will send you, in an act of reparation for the sins by which he is offended and of supplication for the conversion of sinners?”
Pope Benedict XVI  
May 13, 2010

Today is the 95th Anniversary of the Miracle of the Sun at Fatima, Portugal.  It was on October 13, 1917, when Mary, the Mother of God, appeared for the last time at Fatima, Portugal to three small shepherd children, Francisco, Jacinta and Lucia.  Our Lady first began to appear to the children in May of 1917, giving them messages that resonate to our day and, in fact, are more relevant to our time than when she first appeared at Fatima.  Many at that time began to believe in the apparitions, but there were still many skeptics.  Our Lady promised the children that there were would be a great miracle to prove that she was appearing to them.  True to her promise, the Sun "danced in the sky" on October 13, 1917 at noon time, the day and time she predicted, in front of 70,000 people who had gathered at the apparition site.  From Mystics of the Church:

On October 13th a crowd of 70,000 gathered at the Cova da Iria in response to the children’s claim that a miracle would occur on that day “so that all may believe.” At the appointed time, in the middle of a rainstorm the clouds broke up and the sun was seen as a disk spinning in the sky, throwing off great rays of fantastic colours. As one columnist reported, “Before the astonished eyes of the crowd the sun trembled and danced.” Suddenly it seemed to fall until it almost reached the earth, but then it stopped, slowly making its way back into the sky. Many of those present “wept and prayed” in recognition of the miracle they had awaited. The phenomenon was witnessed by people 40 kilometres away, proving that mass hysteria could not be held responsible.

Fatima, Portugal on October 13, 1917

Our Lady of Fatima said the following to the shepherd children at this final apparition:  "I am the Lady of the Rosary. Continue always to pray the Rosary every day."  She also warned us, "Do not offend the Lord our God any more, because He is already so much offended."  If our Lord was much offended in 1917 when much of the world still believed in God and at the very least recognized His laws and authority in their lives, how much more offended must our Lord be now when we condone homosexuality, promote same sex "marriage", legalize the killing of our unborn children and sick and elderly, promote artificial birth control and fill our entertainment with lewd and immoral images?  And that's just for starters on how evil and godless our world has become.

The World's Answer to God

The message of our Lady of Fatima was all about bringing people back to God through penance and reparations.  At one point Our Lady showed the children a vision of hell and said many poor sinners go there because they have no one to pray for them.  She told us that our prayers are not just for ourselves but for others as well.  Our Blessed Lady told us that we are our brother's keeper.  Part of the blame for the evil in the world must be laid at the feet of those of us who were given the great gift of faith at our baptism, but like the worthless servant spoken of by Christ, we buried this gift instead of using it to help others.  The result is the evil world we see around us.

Below is a clip from the movie, "The 13th Day" which explains the prophecies given by our Lady of Fatima and the consequences of rejecting our Lord:


Here in the United States, our own government feels free to tell the Catholic Church how to practice their religion. The government is forcing Catholics to promote the use of artificial contraception, and the Church rightly rejects this and fights against it. But at the same time most Catholics, in direct disobedience to the Church, use this same contraception.  We were told back in 1968 by Pope Paul VI in Humanae Vitae:

Finally, careful consideration should be given to the danger of this power passing into the hands of those public authorities who care little for the precepts of the moral law. Who will blame a government which in its attempt to resolve the problems affecting an entire country resorts to the same measures as are regarded as lawful by married people in the solution of a particular family difficulty? Who will prevent public authorities from favoring those contraceptive methods which they consider more effective? Should they regard this as necessary, they may even impose their use on everyone. It could well happen, therefore, that when people, either individually or in family or social life, experience the inherent difficulties of the divine law and are determined to avoid them, they may give into the hands of public authorities the power to intervene in the most personal and intimate responsibility of husband and wife.

If we had listened to the message of our Lady of Fatima and had been praying the Rosary daily and making reparations, our government would have never felt empowered to move against the Church as it has done.  But in the last 50 years, Marian devotion in general and the practice of regularly praying the Rosary in particular have fallen significantly in the Church. The Rosary has been forgotten by the vast majority of Catholics, as shown in the poll taken by Georgetown in 2008:

Eight percent of Catholics report that they pray the rosary at least once a week.

Another 8 percent of Catholics pray the rosary at least once a month, but less than weekly. One in five do so a few times a year and about one in six (16 percent) do so less than once a year.

Nearly half of Catholics (48 percent) report that they rarely or never pray the rosary. In a 2001 CARA poll, more than four-tenths of Catholics (44 percent) reported that they pray the rosary at least a few times a year. This compares to 36 percent in the present survey.

Our Lady asked us to pray the Rosary daily, and only 8 percent of Catholics pray it even weekly.  Is it just coincidence that at the same time as devotion to our Blessed Mother has faded, the faith of many Catholics has grown either lukewarm or completely died?   It is through her that Christ first came to earth, and it is through her that we must go to Christ. There can be no renewal of faith without the Blessed Mother, and now our Holy Father seeks to remind us of that.

Pope Benedict has declared October 2012 through November 2013 to be the Year of Faith.  The Holy Father is encouraging all Catholics to use this year to rediscover and deepen our faith and to share our faith with others.  This is desperately needed as only 20% of Catholics in the United States attend weekly Mass, and the numbers are dismally lower in Europe and Britain.  Far too many Catholics are woefully ignorant of the teachings of their own Church.  Pope Benedict XVI seems to be trying to remedy this tragic development with the The Year of Faith, which is all about renewing and revitalizing the faith of Catholics, and I find it highly significant that he is putting our Blessed Mother at the center of this.

This past Sunday, on the Feast of our Lady of Victory, Pope Benedict XVI, in his Angelus address after Mass, urged us, in connection with the Year of Faith, to dedicate ourselves to "renew the prayer of the Rosary".

Vatican News gives us the transcript of the Pope's remarks:

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

We now turn in prayer to Mary, whom we venerate today as Queen of the Holy Rosary. At this time, at the Shrine of Pompeii [see below], the traditional "Supplication"  is being elevated to which countless people throughout the world are joined [this prayer is traditionally said at the Shrine and around the world right at the time the Pope was speaking.  Click on link for prayer]. While we associate ourselves spiritually in this choral prayer, I would like to suggest to everyone to renew the prayer of the Rosary in the upcoming Year of Faith. With the Rosary, we allow ourselves to be guided by Mary, model of faith, in meditating on the mysteries of Christ, and day after day we are helped to assimilate the Gospel, so that it shapes all our lives. Therefore, in the wake of my predecessors, especially the Blessed John Paul II, who ten years ago gave us the Apostolic Letter Rosarium Virginis Mariae, I invite you to pray the Rosary personally, in the family and in the community, learning at the school of Mary, which leads us to Christ, the living centre of our faith.

The icon of Our Lady of the Rosary of Pompeii 

presents the image of the Madonna with 

Jesus in her arms, and at her feet are

St. Dominic and St. Catherine of Siena

Mentioning the Shrine of Pompeii shows even further the emphasis that our Holy Father is placing upon the importance of the Blessed Mother in the renewal of faith.  The Shrine of Pompeii is considered the most important Marian shrine in Italy, visited by four million people every year.  From Wikipedia:

Bartolo Longo started restoring a church in disrepair in October 1873 and promoted a festival in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary. In 1875, Longo obtained a painting of Our Lady of the Rosary from a convent in Naples and raised funds to restore the image so as to locate it in the church.

Miracles began to be reported and pilgrims began flocking in droves to the church. Bartolo Longo was encouraged by Giuseppe Formisano,Bishop of Nola, to begin the construction of a larger church—the cornerstone being laid on the 8 May 1876. The church was consecrated on the 7 May 1891 by Cardinal Raffaele Monaco La Valletta, representing Pope Leo XIII.

Notice, too, that the Pope is not talking about only individual prayer but prayer with others "in the family and in the community". The Rosary can bring us together and revitalize our faith. No one has ever gone astray when they draw close to our Blessed Mother. From the time of her Immaculate Conception she has been at one with the Holy Trinity. We can always find our Lord when we find Mary. Her motherly love for us is all about bringing us to her Son.

Below are the 15 promises given to us by our Blessed Mother if we will regularly and consistently pray the Rosary. Each and every promise made here will change the world, driving out the evil that surrounds us:

1. Whoever shall faithfully serve me by the recitation of the Rosary, shall receive signal graces.

2. I promise my special protection and the greatest graces to all those who shall recite the Rosary.

3. The Rosary will be a powerful armor against hell. It will destroy vice, decrease sin and defeat heresies.

4. It will cause virtue and good works to flourish; it will obtain for souls the abundant mercy of God; it will withdraw the hearts of men from the love of the world and its vanities, and will lift them to the desire of eternal things. Oh, that souls would sanctify themselves by this means.

5. Those who recommend themselves to me by the recitation of the Rosary shall not perish.

6. Whoever shall recite the Rosary devoutly, applying himself to the consideration of its sacred Mysteries shall never be conquered by misfortune. God will not chastise him in His justice, he shall not perish by an unprovided death; if he be just, he shall remain in the grace of God, and become worthy of eternal life.

7. Whoever shall have a true devotion for the Rosary shall not die without the sacraments of the Church.

8. Those who are faithful to recite the Rosary shall have during their life and at their death, the light of God and the plentitude of His graces; at the moment of death they shall participate in the merits of the saints in paradise.

9. I shall deliver from purgatory those who have been devoted to the Rosary.

10. The faithful children of the Rosary shall merit a high degree of glory in heaven.

11. You shall obtain all you ask of me by the recitation of the Rosary.

12. All those who propagate the holy Rosary shall be aided by me in their necessities.

13. I have obtained from my Divine Son that all the advocates of the Rosary shall have for intercessors the entire celestial court during their life and at the hour of death.

14. All who recite the Rosary are my sons, and brothers of my only son, Jesus Christ.

15. Devotion to my Rosary is a great sign of predestination.

We are all wringing our hands and wondering what to do about the oppressive government in our country.  The answer will not be found in politics or science or the humanities.  With all due respect to our bishops, the answer is not even in campaigns about "religious freedom."  Three small children at Fatima knew the answer that the best minds of our time haven't been able to figure out.  We are our brother's keeper. It is our Christian duty to pray for others and do penances and reparations on the part of others.  That is what the "community of saints" is all about.  Our Blessed Mother holds her loving arms out to us and longs to give us the answer if we will only turn to her.  The Vicar of Christ has pointed the way to her.  Let us turn to her in prayer and supplication and allow her to lead us to her Son.

Below is the trailer to the movie, "The 13th Day" about the story of Fatima.  I think this trailer speaks volumes about the answers to the evil we face in this world.

St. Dominic Teaches Us How To Pray

Are we an angel on Sunday and
a devil the rest of the week?

Many, if not most, in today's world compartmentalize their lives.  They have their business lives, their family lives and their "spiritual" lives (At least some people have a spiritual life.  Far too many completely neglect this aspect of their lives).  They pray on Sunday (or at least a small percentage do) and then work and/or play the rest of the week.  They feel free to take part in almost any activity they want, never thinking of whether it is "right" or "wrong" in the sight of God because their spiritual lives, if such even exists, are completely disengaged from their every day lives.

This is a very dangerous way to live our lives because everything around us, including our very lives, is temporary.  Everything that we can see, touch, taste, smell and hear is going to fade away, and all we will have left is the spiritual  If our entire lives have been consumed with the physical and material, we will fade away right along with it.  Matthew 6:19-24 tells us:

19 Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth: where the rust, and the moth consume, and where thieves dig through, and steal.
20 But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven: where neither the rust nor the moth doth consume, and where thieves do not dig through, nor steal.

21 For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also.

22 The light of thy body is thy eye. If thy eye be simple, thy whole body shall be lightsome.

23 But if thy eye be evil, thy whole body shall be darksome. If, therefore, the light that is in thee be darkness, how great will the darkness itself be?

24 No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other: or he will sustain the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. 

Christ further warns in the the next chapter, Matthew 7:

21 Not every one that saith to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven: but he that doth the will of my Father, who is in heaven, he shall enter into the kingdom of heaven.

22 Many will say to me in that day: Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name, and cast out devils in thy name, and done many wonderful works in thy name?

23 And then will I profess unto them: I never knew you: depart from me, you that work iniquity.

24 Every one, therefore, that heareth these my words, and doth them, shall be likened to a wise man, who built his house upon a rock.

25 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and they beat upon that house, and it fell not, for it was founded upon a rock.

26 And every one that heareth these my words, and doth them not, shall be like a foolish man, who built his house upon the sand.

27 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and they beat upon that house, and it fell, and great was the fall thereof.

How do we separate ourselves from this world so that we do not perish with it? It is only through prayer, through communion with God. The devil is actively pursuing you, and unless you are actively and constantly resisting him, you will fall prey to his trap. Our strongest weapon in the fight against the devil is prayer, unceasing communion with God. As St. Paul tells us in I Thessalonians 5:17, Pray Without Ceasing. The question is, how do we do that?

Pope Benedict XVI recently gave a wonderful talk on this very subject.  I have frequently posted the weekly talks by Pope Benedict XVI because I have found them so very helpful and inspirational.  He has been focusing heavily on prayer in his talks as can be seen here, here and here.  The Holy Father has also included several talks on silence, which is intimately linked to prayer as can be seen here and here.  He continues this theme from his summer vacation home in Castel Gandolfo in a talk he gave on August 8.  This was the feast day of St. Dominic, the founder of the Dominicans.  The Holy Father emphasized the importance of prayer in St. Dominic's life and how he incorporated it into everything he did, leaving us a strong example of how we should live our lives.

Here is the English translation of the transcript from his talk:

On the Prayer of St. Dominic

"The day he dedicated to his neighbor, but the night he gave to God"

CASTEL GANDOLFO, Italy, AUG. 8, 2012 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of the Italian-language catechesis Benedict XVI gave today during the general audience held at Castel Gandolfo. This morning the Holy Father reflected on the prayer of St. Dominic.

* * *

Dear brothers and sisters!

St. Dominic

Today the Church celebrates the memorial of St. Dominic de Guzmán, priest and founder of the Order of Preachers, also known as the Dominicans. In a previous catechesis, I presented this illustrious figure and the fundamental contribution he made to the renewal of the Church of his time. Today I wish to highlight an essential aspect of his spirituality: his life of prayer. St. Dominic was a man of prayer. In love with God, he had no other aspiration than the salvation of souls, especially those who had fallen into the snares of the heresies of his day. An imitator of Christ, he radically embodied the three evangelical counsels, uniting to the proclamation of the Word a witness of a life of poverty. Under the Holy Spirit's guidance, he advanced along the way of Christian perfection. At each moment, prayer was the force that renewed and rendered his apostolic works increasingly fruitful.   

Blessed Jordan of Saxony (who died in 1237), his successor as head of the Order, writes: "During the day, no one showed himself more sociable than he … Conversely, by night, there was none more assiduous than he in keeping watch in prayer. The day he dedicated to his neighbor, but the night he gave to God" (P. Filippini, San Domenico visto dai suoi contemporanei, Bologna 1982, pg. 133). In St. Dominic we can see an example of the harmonious integration between contemplation of the divine mysteries and apostolic activity. According to the testimonies of the persons closest to him, "he always spoke with God or of God." This observation points to his deep communion with the Lord and, at the same time, to his constant commitment to leading others to this communion with God.

St. Dominic, to whom the Blessed Mother
gave the Rosary to fight heresy

He left behind no writings on prayer, but the Dominican tradition has collected and handed on his living experience in a work titled: The Nine Ways of Prayer of St. Dominic [click on the link if you wish to read about this]. This book was composed between the year 1260 and 1288 by a Dominican friar. It helps us to understand something of the saint's interior life, and it also helps us, as different as we are, to learn something about how to pray.

St. Dominic in prayer

According to St. Dominic, then, there are nine ways of prayer, and each of these -- which he always carried out in the presence of Jesus Crucified -- express a bodily and a spiritual attitude that, intimately interpenetrating, favors recollection and fervor. The first seven ways follow an ascending line, as steps on a journey toward communion with God, with the Trinity: St. Dominic prays standing, bowed down to express humility; prostrate on the ground to ask pardon for his sins; kneeling in penance to participate in the sufferings of the Lord; with arms outstretched gazing at the crucifix to contemplate Supreme Love, his gaze turned toward heaven, feeling drawn to the world of God. Thus, there are three forms: standing, kneeling, and lying prostrate on the ground -- but always with one's gaze turned to the Crucified Lord.
          

   FIRST WAY OF PRAYER                       SECOND WAY OF PRAYER



Illustrations from The Nine Ways of Prayer from St. Dominic





The two final ways, which I would like briefly to consider, correspond to two forms of piety the saint normally practiced. First, there was personal meditation, where prayer acquires a still more intimate, fervent and comforting dimension. At the end of the recitation of the Liturgy of the Hours, and following the celebration of the Mass, St. Dominic prolonged his colloquy with God, without placing any limits on time. Seated quietly, he would recollect himself in an attitude of listening, reading a book or gazing upon the Crucifix. He lived these moments in his relationship with God so intensely that even outwardly his reactions of joy and tears could be perceived. Thus, through meditation, he assimilated the realities of the faith. Witnesses recount that at times he entered into a kind of ecstasy, his face transfigured; but immediately afterward, he would humbly resume his daily activities, recharged by the power that came to him from above. 



Then, there was his prayer during journeys between one friary and another; he recited Lauds, the Midday hour and Vespers with his companions, and as he crossed valleys and hills he contemplated the beauty of creation. From his heart there flowed a hymn of praise and thanksgiving to God for so many gifts, especially for the greatest wonder: the redemption wrought by Christ.

Dear friends, St. Dominic reminds us that prayer, that personal contact with God, is at the heart and origin of the witness of faith that every Christian must give within family life, at work, in social commitments, and even in times of relaxation. [To separate God from one part of our lives is to be separate from Him in every aspect of our lives.  A relationship with God is an all or nothing proposition.] Only this real relationship with God gives us the strength to live each event intensely, especially the most painful moments. This saint also reminds us of the importance of exterior attitudes in our prayer: kneeling, standing before the Lord, fixing one's gaze on the Crucified, pausing to recollect oneself in silence are not secondary; rather, they help us to place ourselves interiorly, with the whole of our person, in relation to God. I would like to recall once again the need in our spiritual lives to find quiet moments for prayer each day, to have a little time to speak with God. We should take this time especially during the summer holidays, and make a little time to speak with God. It will also be a way of helping those around us to enter into the luminous rays of the presence of God, who brings the peace and love that we all need. Thank you.

St. Dominic was one of the greatest saints of the Catholic Church.   But as with all other great saints, this did not just happen.  He completely gave his life to God.  Every moment was somehow in communion with the Lord, either talking about Him, meditating, reading and of great importance, praying.  He was so united with the Lord that everything he said and did flowed out of that relationship.  That is what it means to be a saint, and that should be the goal for each and every one of us.  "With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible."  (Matthew 19:26). 

Prayer - intimate communion with the Great Almighty God - is the most powerful spiritual weapon God has given us.  Let us not neglect it, as our Holy Father has exhorted us over and over.