Author: Catholic Candle
The Evil & Dangers of Yoga
Catholic Candle note: In order to warn our readers about the prevalent errors of our times, we have included this article to contrast true meditation with eastern false meditation.
Just as the Mystics of the Catholic Church teach us about the three stages of the spiritual life, namely, the purgative, the illuminative, and the unitive; the devil tries to mock these stages. So he uses false religions to mimic the mystical life and perfection of the soul.
In our modern times the devil uses the same old tricks and doesn’t have to come up with new ones. Just as in the Old Testament there were many nations with false gods and false religious practices, so even now, there is still the worship of false gods and the use of religious practices.
One false religious practice prevalent today is Yoga. In order to understand the evil and dangers of the practice of Yoga, it is crucial to understand some of its history.
Actually Yoga is a prayer method of meditation from Hinduism or Brahminism. It is interesting to note that Buddhism, which also uses a method of meditation, also comes from Brahminism.[1]
The Catholic Encyclopedia explains how Brahminism is also called Vedism and dates back to 1500-400 B.C. The Vedas (veda means wisdom) are four primitive books: the Riga-Veda, the Sama-Veda, the Yajur-Veda, and the Atharva-Veda. These books contain ancient hymns to many false gods, ritualistic prayers, exorcisms, and magical incantations largely inherited from primitive Aryan days.[2]
Next the Encyclopedia tells of the Brahmanas (dating back to 1000-600 B.C.) which are a series of explanations of the contents of the Vedas. These Brahmanas were composed for the priests, the Brahmins. In addition, there were the Upanishads, a group of treatises, (dating back to 800-400 B.C.) which gave the pantheistic speculations on the nature of deity and the end of man. Lastly, there were books called Sutras, to accompany the Vedas, to explain the proper observance of the rites and customs. These works and two epics (the “Ramayana”, written in 400-300 B.C. and “Mahabharata”, written about 500-400 B.C.), make up the most important Brahmin literature.
In the early period of Veda, the religion was based on many deities great and small which were the personified forces of nature. The priests were called Brahmins. There were not temples at this time and the heads of the households would perform their oblations at their homes. The priests would assist in the more complex offerings.[3] These circumstances remind one of the Mosaic Law, and knowing that this religion is a false one, it is easy to see how the devil inspired this cheap mimicry of the Old Testament true religion.
Among the other pagan practices, the Hindus worshipped their dead relatives with the thinking that even though the relatives were in heaven, their happiness was determined by the devotion of those left behind. In addition to this, they worshipped nature. For example, the cow was reverenced, as well as trees and serpents.[4]
In general, Brahminism was constantly evolving which is another key sign that it is a religion inspired by the devil. In the period in which the Sutras and Upanishads were formed, a two-fold change came about. The Catholic Encyclopedia states,
On its practical side there was an exuberant growth of religious rites and of social restrictions and duties, while on the theoretical side Vedic belief in the efficacy of personal deities was subordinated to a pantheistic scheme of salvation. Thus the earlier religion developed on the one hand into popular, exoteric Brahminism, and on the other hand into priestly, esoteric Brahminism. The former is reflected in the Brahmanas and Sutras; the latter in the Upanishads.[5]
The Brahmins imposed a strict code for the people to follow, with many rites for purifying, with complicated liturgies and practices for both the priest and the laity. Some of these were clearly diabolical, for example, smearing themselves with cow-dung, and strange things like the sipping of water and the suppressing of breaths.
The priests were very exacting and taught that punishments would be severe if the people didn’t do the most rigorous penances. The priests taught a doctrine of karma (action) which was connected with the idea of rebirth (reincarnation). The lasting bliss of heaven was held out to the just; the wicked were punished with different fates. There might be long periods in hell or there might be a more or less extensive series of rebirths in the forms of plants, animals, and men. A man may have to pass by slow transition through the rest of the ascending scale till his rebirth as a man of honorable estate was attained.[6]
This doctrine of rebirth gave rise to absurdities like, for instance, not being allowed to kill insects. Water had to be strained so that minute life wouldn’t be destroyed. Carpentry, basket-making, and leather-working could not be done because it would mean killing of a plant or animal. Ironically, on the other hand, they had strict rules for being respectful to parents and superiors, being honest, being chaste (even though allowing polygamy), being temperate, and giving alms. They had a system of castes— warriors, priests, farmers, and servants. Only the two upper castes (classes) were allowed to learn from the ‘sacred’ Vedas books.
The priests, the Brahmins, when their sons were grown up, abandoned their homes and spent the rest of their lives in retirement apart from the villages. These were like begging monks and ate only the simplest of foods. They subjected themselves to extraordinary fasts and mortifications.[7] They were known as Sannyasis or Yogis and their penitential life was not to make up for past sins, but as a means of acquiring abundant religious merits and superhuman powers.
Coupled with these mortifications, was the practice of Yoga. The Catholic Encyclopedia describes this practice as follows:
They would sit motionless with legs crossed and, fixing their gaze intently on an object before them, would concentrate their thought on some abstract subject till thy lapsed into a trance. In this state they fancied they were united with the deity, and the fruit of these contemplations was the pantheistic view of religion which found expression in the Upanishads, and left a permanent impress on the Brahmin mind.[8]
Since there was a popular trend among the people to monotheism in their Vedic hymns, the Brahmins decided to make another adaptation to the religion. The Brahmins invented Prajapati (later they changed his name to Brahmā), who was supposed to be a personal god who was the lord of creatures, omnipotent, supreme, and masculine. He was considered to be the creator of all things. For this reason the other gods of their pantheon were worshipped as manifestations of Brahmā. Because their religion held that it was impossible to create something out of nothing, all things visible and invisible were considered as emanations from Brahmā. They also believed that every form of conscious individuality, whether human or divine, implies a union of spirit and matter. Yet the Brahmins who studied the Upanishads, taught that the ultimate source of all things was not the personal deity, Brahmā, but was the formless, impersonal, characterless, unconscious, great, all-pervading spirit known as Brahmă. Thus, they believed that the heavens, and the earth, men and gods, even the personal deity Brahmā, were destined in time to lose their individuality and be absorbed into the great all-pervading spirit. The conclusion of this thinking is that the manifold external world had no real existence and that only Brahmă existed.[9]
This impersonal pantheism of the Brahmin ascetics led to a new conception of the end of man and of the way of salvation. The old way they had taught was to escape rebirths and to store up merits of good deeds so that they could earn an eternal bliss of which they could really be conscious. But now, they taught that the only way to escape from constant ‘rebirths’ was through the saving recognition of one’s identity with Brahmă. As soon as one could say with conviction, “I am Brahmă,” then the bonds that tied him to the illusion of personal immortality, and consequently to rebirth, were broken. The Catholic Encyclopedia phrases it as follows:
Thus, cultivating, by a mortified life, freedom from all desires, man spent his years in peaceful contemplation till death put an end to the seeming duality and he was absorbed in Brahmă like a raindrop in the ocean.
The encyclopedia explains (in 1913) that this is still the teaching of the Brahmins up until the then present day.
However, human nature being what it is, it is understandable that the impersonal Brahmă was not a favorite with the majority of the people in India. This was the case not only because the impersonal Brahmă was incapable of hearing the prayers of the people, but because the people did not like the fact that their final end was one of losing any conscious existence. The Brahmins still were concerned chiefly with meditating on their identity with Brahmă, and practicing mortification to secure their freedom from all desires. Yet, the common people were looking for a way to secure for themselves eternal conscious bliss. The result was the popular development of special cults to two of the old gods; each was now raised to the position of supreme deity, and credited with the power to secure a lasting life of happiness in heaven.
These two cults seem to have arisen in the fifth or fourth century B.C., and these cults were rival cults. One cult was of the ancient storm-god, Rudra, who was destructive in tempest and lightning, and renewing life in the showers of rain. This god, better known under the name of Śiva, meaning ‘the blessed’, is popular because he was associated as the destroyer, the reproducer, and was the archetype of the lonely ascetic.
The other cult was of the god Vishnu, who was originally one of the forms of the sun-god. He was seen as a mild, beneficent deity whose genial rays brought gladness and growth to living creatures.
Then the pantheism in the mind of a Hindu saw all things as emanations of the supreme deity Śiva or Vishnu. Each cult worshipped one of these two and each of these gods was thought to have a special heaven, where his devotees would find after death an unending life of conscious happiness.[10]
Because the Brahmins saw that these two cults were becoming more and more popular and that their teachings about Brahmā were falling out of favor with the people, they once again saw that it was expedient to invent some concept to help the people keep an allegiance to Brahmā. They now taught that the supreme god Brahmā was associated with Vishnu and Śiva as a triad of equal and more or less interchangeable deities. Brahmā held the office of creator, or rather evolver. Vishnu was the preserver, and Śiva was the dissolver. This so-called trinity was called Trimurti (meaning tri-form).
More astonishing still was that the common people created the belief that Śiva had two sons, named Ganesa (who was the lord of troops and of mischievous imps) and Scanda (the god of battle).
In addition to this, the common people took two of the legendary heroes of the remote past, Rama and Krishna, and raised them to the rank of gods. The people started to refer to them as incarnations of Vishnu. Each incarnation was regarded as a sort of savior. In fact, these two incarnate saviors became so popular that the people lost sight of Vishnu. We Catholics can see a plain parallel to the concept of Our Lord being Our Savior and it doesn’t surprise us that the devil would mock Christ in this false religion. The Vishnaites became divided into two rival schisms — those who worshipped Rama, the Ramaites, and those who worshipped Krishna, the Krishnaites. There were two epic stories written about each of them. The one about Krishna was written in the seventh century A.D. It is not surprising that the epic about Krishna has many similarities with the life of Christ, which certainly shows that they copied parts of the life of Our Lord.
The Catholic Encyclopedia explains how the successive wave of foreign conquerors of India caused a steady weakening of the Brahmin influence. As a consequence of these foreigners in India, the population became more heterogeneous. Both Śivaism and Vishnuism departed more and more from traditional Brahminism. Each cult had a decided dissenting attitude toward the older religion and toward each other. This change brought about the people accepting immoral rites and base superstitions. Although asceticism was pushed to a fanatical extreme, the religion’s false version of charity was used as an excuse for gross impurity.[11]
The caste-distinctions were now broken down and the people asserted that men and women were equal, at least in public worship. The Brahmin rites were replaced, for the most part, with ones peculiar to the cults of Śiva and Vishnu and the two ‘incarnations’ of Vishnu. These rites were held to be all-sufficient for salvation. Hence, temples, idols, and impure symbols of these gods arose up everywhere. Each rival cult held their cult to be supreme and tried to get others to submit to their cult while at the same time holding the other’s cult in contempt.
The Catholic Encyclopedia further explains these sectarian degradations were caused by the latest innovation of worshipping the female side of these deities. The people insisted in having each of their gods have a wife.
Today the two main cults still exist, but have split into many schismatic divisions that are tolerant of each other. Both lay an emphasis on frequently reciting the names of their gods. Each person wears a string of beads around his neck to help him recite the names often. (This is the devil’s insult of the rosary.) Each person, when young, is initiated into one of these cults and given a ‘sacred’ motto called a mantra. The daily recital of the mantra was required to serve as a profession of faith. Another customary practice was to brand the body of the worshipper with the symbols of the sect.
One final point of importance regarding the particulars of this false religion is how the odd practices of this religion are a further proof of the devil’s influence to mock truth and to degrade man into not using reason. This is, namely, the ridiculousness of their highest form of worship. For the Śivaites, this rite would involve the Śivaite carrying a white pebble shaped into an impure symbol and he would mutter his mantra while sprinkling it with water and then applying cooling bilva leaves to it.
The Vishnuite rite was less degrading but more childish. This involved worshipping a statue of Vishnu, Rama, or Krishna. The image is awakened daily, undressed, bathed, decked with rich robes, decorated with jewelry and a crown, fed with choice foods, honored with flowers, lights, and incense, and then entertained with vocal and instrumental music and dancing girls.
But why study the particulars of Hinduism? Precisely to see how perverse and ridiculous this religion is, that is, how the devil inspires this sort of thing. Furthermore, to be able to understand why the traditional Church’s condemnation of their false meditation (Yoga) should be remembered in our times of Apostasy when so many ignorant or naïve people get involved with Yoga. But before addressing the modern trend to practice Yoga, let us first look at two associated errors.
The Church condemns Quietism and Theosophy.
There are two errors which are connected with Brahminism and have been condemned by the Church, namely quietism and theosophy.
According to the Catholic Encyclopedia quietism is
The doctrine which declares that man’s highest perfection consists in a sort of psychical self-annihilation and a consequent absorption of the soul into the Divine Essence even during the present life.[12]
Quietism is not the same thing as (and should not be confused with) the prayer of quietude or the prayer of quiet. The Catholic Encyclopedia makes the following distinction about “quietude”:
In the state of “quietude” the mind is wholly inactive; it no longer thinks or wills on its own account, but remains passive while God acts within it. Quietism is thus generally speaking a sort of false or exaggerated mysticism, which under the guise of the loftiest spirituality contains erroneous notions when, if consistently followed, would prove fatal to morality.[13]
Whereas the prayer of quiet is considered in Catholic mystical theology as one of the degrees of contemplation, quietism is not Catholic at all and is condemned as heretical. In fact, in its essential features, Quietism is a characteristic of the religions of India — Brahminism and its derivative, Buddhism. Brahminism aims at a sort of self-annihilation, and Buddhism aims at attaining a state of indifference in which the soul enjoys an imperturbable tranquility. Other forms of quietism sprang up in history, e.g., in Spain a man named Michael de Molinos developed a strict quietism. (He was condemned by Pope Innocent XI in 1687.)[14]
Man naturally desires to be united to God and to see the Beatific Vision. God made us with this desire. However, the heresy of quietism involves this union as a sort of forcing ourselves on God[15] and is a denial that God chooses His Elect. As St. Thomas Aquinas teaches, first God chooses a soul, then He loves that soul, and then He makes that soul worthy of His Love. Yet, the different forms of quietism perverted this order in some way, e.g., either by man somehow becoming absorbed in an impersonal “God”, or that man had as his supreme aim in life on earth, the contemplation of some kind of vague uncreated “light” whereby he was intimately united with “God”. The means for attaining to such contemplation was prayer, complete repose of body and will, and a process of auto-suggestion.[16]
The Church condemned the errors that man in the present life can attain such a degree of perfection as to become utterly impeccable; that the “perfect” have not need to fast or pray, but can freely grant the body whatsoever it craves; that they are not subject to any human authority or bound by the precepts of the Church. In other words, that a man can become so perfect in this life that he no longer has a need of external worship, of sacraments, or of prayer; they owe no obedience to any law, since their will is identical with God’s will; and they may indulge their carnal desires to any extent without staining the soul.[17]
The various forms of quietism insist that passivity, more or less, is the essential condition of perfection; and all of them have been condemned by the Church. This also refutes the Protestant thinking of salvation by faith alone. We know, as St. James tells us in his epistle, “Faith without works is dead.” We also know, as St. Paul teaches us, “to work out our salvation in fear and trembling.” Therefore, we must be active in the work of our salvation and not have the attitude that no cooperation is expected from us.
Whereas, the error of quietism had to do with becoming one with God[18], not really out of love for God and with a true amendment of life. An additional error of Theosophy shows confusion about what man can know about God and the manner in which he learns more about God.
The Catholic Encyclopedia clarifies this by the following:
Theosophy, knowledge of things Divine, is a term used in general to designate the knowledge of God supposed to be obtained by the direct intuition of the Divine essence. In method it differs from theology, which is the knowledge of God obtained by revelation, and from philosophy, which is the knowledge of Divine things acquired by human reasoning.
It is often incorrectly confounded with mysticism, for the latter is properly the thirst for the Divine, the aspiration for the invisible, and hence a natural manifestation of the religious sentiment.
By intuition or illumination the initiated Theosophists are considered to be in harmony with the central principle of the universe. This knowledge of the secret forces of nature, of the true relation between the world and man, frees them from the ordinary limitations of human life, and gives them a peculiar power over the hidden forces of the macrocosm.[19]
There is a direct connection of this error with Hinduism of India as the birthplace of all theosophic speculation. As covered above, the Hindu religion tries to get the soul to a state where it reunites with a universal soul. Even though the Hindus teach reincarnation or rebirths, the end result is the final absorption into the universal spirit, thus the individual soul will not exist anymore.
The Catholic Encyclopedia explains this idea in a few more details about Yoga as follows:
Yoga, i.e. “one who fits himself, or exercises”, refers to exercises practiced to free the soul from the body, which to it is like a string to a bird. Some of these exercises were: to rid one’s self of moral faults; to sit in certain painful postures, check the breath, and reduce thought to minimum by staring at the tip of the nose; to place the soul in a particular part of the body; to starve and learn to subsist on air, or even without it; to concentrate thought by meditation, i.e. to think about nothing, Thyana, the highest state of which is the cataleptic[20] trance samadyi, in which the mind is suppressed but the soul is in full activity. In this state the person is mahatma, i.e. masterful and can enjoy a temporary release from the body which it leaves to go roaming about, performing wonderful feats on material nature and controlling other less powerful souls. This latter was the secret of the Yoga’s real power and was supposed to be done by a transfer of soul. When the soul re-enters the body, the Yoga wakes and is like other people. By repeated exercises the soul can become so strong that it secures perpetual release from the body, thus, according to the older Yoga teaching, it flies to heaven where it enjoys great happiness, riding in a celestial car attended by lovely women and music; but with the latter Yogas, on breaking all bodily bonds it formed immediate absorption into the Supreme Soul.
Thus it is very clear to see just how diabolical this practice is. One can easily see how the devil could take possession of the soul practicing such dangerous meditation.
The Catholic Encyclopedia explains that theosophic teaching was also associated with the neo-Platonists. In addition to this, it was associated with the Gnostic systems and that the Jewish Kabbala had a theosophy mixture of magic and occultism. This occurred especially during the Renaissance.
In 1875, Madame Blavatsky started the foundation of the Theosophical Society in New York City. In 1895 her frauds were exposed by St. John’s College, in Cambridge. Despite this, the false teachings of Theosophy continued and were propagated by Blavatsky’s disciples.
The Catholic Encyclopedia explains and warns that Theosophy is not only a false religion, but also a philosophy of life. Its basic teaching is the universal brotherhood of humanity. Hence, it preaches toleration to all persons and to all varieties of belief. They believe that the universal brotherhood rests on the “solidarity” of all living, of all that is, in the one life and one consciousness. For them all forces are external and there is no supernatural, except the superhuman and supersensuous, i.e. powers greater than those normally exercised by man, which, however, can be developed. Because for them solidarity means the common life pervading all things and they use this as a basis for morality, hence a wrong done to one is done to all.[21]
We should shun Yoga, Quietism & Theosophy.
In our times it is easy to see the dangers of these false beliefs. Yoga is pushed as simply an innocuous method to relieve stress or as a relaxation technique. Unfortunately, even the Conciliar Church promotes it and so-called Catholic hospitals often offer Yoga classes. All you need to know about the goals (and who controls) the anti-Catholic Conciliar Church is found in the fact that the Conciliar Church promotes Yoga.
Yet, one can see by the descriptions given above, that emptying oneself and letting down the guard over his mind is like giving Satan an invitation to enter. Really, just knowing that this kind of meditation was condemned by the Church and that it is not Catholic, should be enough for sincere Catholics to avoid Yoga and shun it. Likewise, one should warn his friends and associates about the moral dangers of practicing Yoga.
We saw above how Hinduism is the parent of quietism and that quietism has the same basic beliefs as modern day Hinduism, namely, reincarnation, trying to gain spiritual powers to control things outside oneself, and the non-immortality of the soul by the soul being absorbed into some great spirit. Also, one can see the influence of theosophy in our modern politics, media, and academia. With the great push for a one-world Marxist government, the worship of ecology, and the ‘political correctness’ of not condemning blatant immorality, is like the ‘solidarity’ the theosophists revere. Plainly we can see that the dark forces of the demons are striving more than ever to influence humans away from trying to save their souls. Let us be informed Catholics so we can recognize the perils around us and take appropriate action to avoid the dangers of false religions and warn our families, friends, and acquaintances about Yoga and these other evil practices.
[1] This information is taken from the Catholic Encyclopedia, 1913 edition under Brahminism. Also, the article about Buddhism in Vol. III explains how Buddha (the historical details of his life are sketchy) did not like the idea of meditating to become one with a universal spirit and thus lose one’s individual soul and have no identity anymore. Consequently, he made up a state of soul called Nirvana. He taught that one, by getting rid of all desire, all ill-will, and delusion, could obtain an eternal rest, which he called Nirvana. The encyclopedia explained that it is not clear whether Nirvana meant annihilation or not, as the historical records are unclear on this point. It should be noted that Buddhism is a demonic mockery of Catholic monastic life.
[2] Ibid.
[3] The Catholic Encyclopedia article about Brahminism, 1913 edition, vol. II.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Ibid.
[9] This section is a summary of the longer explanation given in the article on Brahminism in Vol. II. Note: The letters ă and ā are bolded to make the only difference in the names noticeable.
[10] Summarized from the Catholic Encyclopedia’s article on Brahminism. It is interesting to note that because God wrote into the heart of man a natural tendency to believe the reality that God gives eternal rewards/punishments based on man’s actions in his life, even these pagans with the false religion of Hinduism felt the need to have this truth be a public teaching in their religion.
[11] Summary of information in the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia article on Brahminism.
[12] See the Catholic Encyclopedia 1913 edition article about Quietism in Vol. XII.
[13] Ibid.
[14] Ibid.
[15] It must also be noted at this point that the Hindu concept of God is not anything like the Catholic concept.
[16] This information is a summary of the Catholic Encyclopedia 1913 edition, Vol. XII, the article on Quietism.
[17] Ibid. This way of thinking was condemned by the Council of Vienne in 1311-12.
[18] It must be noted here too that their concept of God is not the same as the Catholic concept.
[19] Taken from the Catholic Encyclopedia 1913 edition, Vol. XIV; the article on Theosophy.
[20] [cataleptic = a condition of peculiar muscular rigidity in which the body and limbs keep any position in which they are placed.]
[21] Summarized based on the Catholic Encyclopedia 1913 edition article on Theosophy in vol. XIV.
CC in brief — September
Catholic Candle note: Catholic Candle normally examines particular issues thoroughly, at length, using the teachings of St. Thomas Aquinas and the other Doctors of the Church. By contrast, our feature CC in brief, gives a short answer to a reader’s question. We invite any reader to submit his own question.
Strategy for Obtaining a “Conscience Exemption”
When Confronted with a COVID Vaccine Mandate
Q. To get a “conscience exemption” from a COVID vaccine mandate, should we use this Vatican teaching (quote below)?
The Vatican has instructed the faithful that: “As regards the diseases against which there are no alternative vaccines which are available and ethically acceptable, it is right to abstain from using these vaccines if it can be done without causing children, and indirectly the population as a whole, to undergo significant risks to their health.”[1]
A. We, at Catholic Candle, would never accept the COVID vaccine under any conditions! Further, we would never use the above, dangerous, conciliar Vatican teaching to justify our refusing the vaccine.
First, to use this Vatican teaching plays the game on the conciliar playing field, i.e., it accepts the conciliar principle for making the decision. In contrast to the Vatican’s teaching (above), we hold the Traditional Catholic principle that no one may use abortion-related vaccines even if, hypothetically, many people would die (including us) if that vaccine were not used. The end does not justify the means, even when our life is at stake.
Second, if we were to rely on the Vatican’s principle (quoted above), this would suggest that we consider the conciliar popes to be worthy authorities on matters of Faith and morals. Although they are our valid popes[2] – one after the other – they are unworthy, bad fathers. Despite those popes holding the office of pope, we would never quote them as authorities for true Catholic Faith or morals.[3]
When we refuse the vaccine, we would rely on the argument that we are Traditional Catholic and that fact means that we reject the modern conciliar teachings. We hold fast to the Tradition of the Church on all matters of Faith and morals, including the Traditional teaching that such abortion-connected vaccines are always evil and never permissible for any reason.[4]
Not only do we reject that Vatican’s principle (above) because it is wrong and sinful, but we also think it sets the person up for failure to obtain a “conscience exemption” from the vaccine.
When one of the Catholic Candle Team was at Notre Dame, that university ordered him to get a rubella (abortion-developed) vaccine. The school used against him the Vatican language quoted above (about weighing the consequences of great danger to public health if he did not get the vaccine). The school told him that, under this Vatican language, those public health consequences required him to get the vaccine.
We think that a vaccine-objector cannot win this argument (based on the Vatican’s conciliar teaching quoted above) because it sets up both sides to weigh whether the end justifies the means in the particular case, and predictably, the pro-vaccine group (requiring the vaccine) will always say that the consequences are huge and that the end (public health) does justify the means (getting the vaccine).
The Catholic Candle Team member replied to the school, saying what any faithful and informed Catholic should reply:
You don’t understand. I reject that post-Vatican II teaching. I am Traditional Catholic and I follow the pre-Vatican II teaching that it is never permissible to get an abortion-connected vaccine.
Notre Dame kept insisting that he get the vaccine as the deadline approached, to see if he would back down. But when he did not back down, they granted him a waiver at the last minute.
[1] Quoted from: Moral Reflections on Vaccines Prepared from Cells Derived from Aborted Human Fetuses, Pontifical Academy for Life, June, 2005.
[2] See the explanation here, that the post-conciliar popes are valid popes: https://catholiccandle.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/sedevacantism-material-or-formal-schism.pdf
Words to Live by – from Catholic Tradition
St. Alphonsus de Liguori, Doctor of the Church:
He who advances most in meditation makes the greatest progress in perfection. In mental prayer the soul is filled with holy thoughts, with holy affections, desires, and holy resolutions, and with love for God. There man sacrifices his passions, his appetites, his earthly attachments, and all the interests of self-love.
The Great Means of Salvation and of Perfection, Part II, Section 1, #II, in a section called: Mental Prayer is Indispensable in Order to Attain Perfection.
Model Letter Explaining Refusal of a COVID Vaccine
Catholic Candle note: In our current corona-scare and on-going leftist takeover, Catholics are being pressured and “required” to receive a COVID vaccine. We must die rather than commit this heinous sin! Below we provide a model letter you could use when explaining why you refuse this vaccine.
We understand that some non-Catholics and liberals might be offended by the strength of the letter below. Nonetheless, if we were to “soften” the letter it would be less effective in receiving a COVID vaccine exemption and also less likely to “plant seeds” of the Catholic Faith which could possibly sprout into a future conversion. It takes strong “medicine” to penetrate into the souls of persons in the world who are not searching for the truth and who are completely immersed in the sensibilities of the world!
Let us remember the advice of St. Thomas Aquinas, Greatest Doctor of the Catholic Church:
If someone is scandalized by hearing the truth, it is better that such scandal would occur than that the truth not be declared.
Catena Aurea on St. Luke’s Gospel, ch.17, §1, St. Thomas Aquinas, quoting and following the Venerable Bede, Doctor of the Church.
Suggested Model Letter Explaining the Refusal of a COVID Vaccine Mandate
To whom it concerns:
I am a Traditional Catholic, adhering to the teachings of the Catholic Church as they have been always taught prior to Vatican II (in the 1960s).
Having carefully examined the issue of the morality of the COVID-19 vaccines, I firmly conclude that it is impossible for me to accept this vaccine under the sincerely and firmly held Catholic principles which have governed my entire life.
Below, I
explain my Catholic principles and their application regarding the COVID
vaccines.
The Evil of using Vaccines made through the Murders of Babies
There are three reasons I hold that it is wrong to accept these vaccines developed or manufactured using the cell lines of murdered babies (abortion):
1. Using those vaccines promotes future murders.
2. Using those vaccines rewards persons connected with the murders.
3. I would incur guilt for those murders, by the inherent consent which would be involved in accepting any one of those vaccines.
Below, I discuss each of these reasons.
1. Using abortion-connected vaccines promotes future murders.
Using the cell lines from murdered babies encourages future murders whenever pharmaceutical companies deem it to be convenient and profitable to commit more murders for use in vaccine research or production.
Because people did not refuse vaccines coming from babies murdered in the 1970s (viz., the 1970s-era cell lines)[1], this caused drug companies, labs, and researchers to feel “free” to commit more murders to create new cell lines. For example, a new cell line from a new murdered baby, was announced in 2015.[2]
Accepting those vaccines manufactured through murdered babies, promotes future murders (and every murder of an innocent human is a murder too many)! Thus, if I would accept a vaccine produced through murder, I would be encouraging the drug companies to commit additional murders to keep vaccine production high.
2. Using those vaccines rewards persons connected with the murders.
It is wrong to use vaccines produced from murdered babies because using these vaccines enables manufacturers to profit through the murders. I must refuse to help drug companies make evil profitable!
3. I would incur guilt for the babies’ murders by my consenting to use any one of those vaccines.
I would become culpable for someone else’s sin by consenting to it.[3] When St. Paul teaches us this truth about sharing someone else’s sin by consent, he mentions murder in particular. Here are his words:
Being filled with … murder, … they who do such things, are worthy of death; and not only they that do them, but they also that consent to them that do them.
Romans, 1:29-32 (emphasis added).[4]
St. Paul shows that consenting to murder is a grave sin and shows this by teaching that such consent makes us “worthy of death”.
A person is guilty of a murder by his consent when he acquiesces[5], even passively[6], or accedes, even reluctantly,[7] to the murder. If I were to use a vaccine which comes from murder, I would be (at least) passively accepting – i.e., giving in[8] to – the murders that make those vaccines available.
A person can incur guilt by consenting even after the murder.
Some ways of sharing in someone else’s sin can only occur before the sin is committed, e.g., commanding or advising that the sin should be committed. See, the above list (from The Penny Catechism) of ways to share someone else’s sin.
However, consent to a sin is different. A person can consent to (i.e., acquiesce in) a murder either before or after it is committed, and so can incur guilt either way.
St. Thomas Aquinas, the greatest Doctor of the Catholic Church, teaches that a person can incur guilt by consenting to a murder which has already been committed. He applies this principle (of guilt through post-murder consent) to a person who joins the Jewish religion after Christ’s murder. Here are St. Thomas’ words:
When a person becomes a Jew, he becomes a participant in the killing of Christ.
St. Thomas Aquinas, Lectures on St. Matthew’s Gospel, ch.23, §1861 (emphasis added).
By using those vaccines manufactured through the murders of babies, a person thus incurs guilt by consenting to (i.e., acquiescing in) the murders of those babies even though those murders were already committed.
The passage of time does not remove the implicit consent, and thus, the sin, of
association with murders.
A superficial objection could be raised that the vaccines were made from murdered babies more than five decades ago and surely that is “so long ago” that we should disregard the murders because they are too distant in time.
That is wrong. God does not cease to treat a murder as murder merely because of the passage of time.[9] Those who commit murder and those that consent to it, remain culpable. The mere passage of time does not remove the inherent guilt. The punishments of hell are forever because the damned do not repent and the simple passage of time does not erase guilt (even a billion years in hell).
Just as God does not overlook culpability for murder simply because of the passage of time, man does not do so either. In the civil society, there is typically no statute of limitations for murder.[10] In other words, no murder is ever so remote in time that it is no longer culpable and punishable.
The murdering of the babies which was committed in order to “harvest” their cell lines, was premeditated and is first degree murder. The passage of time does not change the guilt of those murders and does not eliminate the guilt of a person who consents to them.
No matter how much time passes, Catholics who are faithful to the Traditional teachings of the Church will never accept a vaccine developed through the murder of a baby!
The end does not justify the means.
Another superficial objection could be raised that vaccines do much good and that they save so many lives that this “outweighs” the murders through which the vaccines are produced. However, faithful and informed Catholics must never be complicit in evil because of “good” that can come from it. The end does not justify the means!
We are not justified in consenting to even the smallest of sins, much less,
consenting to murder.
The evil at issue here is murder. That is a very grave evil. But even if a person were to suppose that receiving vaccines derived from the cell lines of murdered babies were “only” a small (“venial”) sin, even the very smallest sin is an infinite evil in three ways.[11] We should be ready to die rather than commit any sin.
Here is how St. Alphonsus de Liguori, Doctor of the Church, warns against committing even the smallest sin:
A single venial sin is more displeasing to God than [i.e., outweighs] all the good works we can perform.
St. Alphonsus de Liguori, Uniformity with God’s Will, §6 (bracketed word added for clarity).
Here is how St. John of the Cross, Doctor of the Church, warns us that the road to hell begins with small sins:
Our Lord said in the Gospel: “He that is unfaithful in little will be unfaithful also in much.” For he that avoids the small sin will not fall into the great sin; but great evil is inherent in the small sin, since it has already penetrated within the fence and wall of the heart; and as the proverb says: Once begun, half done.
Ascent of Mount Carmel, Book III, ch.20, section 1.
Here is how John Henry Cardinal Newman declares that the smallest sin is worse than all the physical suffering in the world:
The Catholic Church holds it better for the sun and moon to drop from heaven, for the earth to fail, and for all the many millions on it to die of starvation in extremest agony, as far as temporal affliction goes, than that one soul, I will not say, should be lost, but should commit one single venial sin, should tell one willful untruth, or should steal one poor farthing without excuse.
Apologia Vita Sua, by John Henry Cardinal Newman, Image Books, Doubleday, Garden City, New York, © 1956, p.324.
Conclusion of this section
In summary, some vaccines are produced through cell lines obtained from murdered babies.[12] There are three reasons I cannot accept the COVID vaccines:
1. Using these vaccines promotes future murders.
2. Using these vaccines rewards those connected with the murders.
3. I would become culpable for the murders, by my consent.
The Currently Available COVID-19 Vaccines are all Abortion-Connected and are all sinful to receive.
1. The Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine is tested using the HEK293 cell line.[13] The abbreviation “HEK293” refers to “Human Embryonic Kidney 293, identifying the organ of the particular murdered baby, who in this case was a baby girl aborted in the Netherlands in the 1970s.[14] Although each “cell line” is from a particular murdered baby, the cell line production process requires many babies dissected alive without anesthetic in order to successfully obtain a single such human “cell line”.[15]
2. The Moderna COVID-19 vaccine used the parts grown from the same kidney from the same murdered baby girl.[16]
3. The Oxford/AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine used the parts of the same kidney from the same murdered baby girl.[17]
4. The Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine uses the PER.C6 cell line. This is the body of a different murdered baby. This vaccine uses the retinal tissue of an 18-week baby boy who was murdered in the Netherlands in 1985.[18]
5. The COVID-19 vaccine being developed by Sanofi/Translate Bio uses the parts of the kidney from the murdered baby girl identified as HEK293.[19]
I would commit a serious sin by accepting any of these COVID-19 vaccines because they were developed using abortion.
For these reasons, based on my sincerely and long-held Traditional Catholic principles which govern my entire life, I cannot and will not accept a COVID vaccine.
Four Catholic Candle tips:
1. Be bold! Don’t minimize the problem with the vaccine out of human respect for your employer. For example, don’t change the word “baby” to “fetus” to avoid offending your employer.
2.
It is a type
of intellectual laziness to say: “Just give me something to sign that will
succeed in getting the waiver for me.” Master every aspect of the contents of
the letter. You won’t do well if you don’t thoroughly understand the content
of the letter you are sending.
3. Do not even consider a compromise, i.e., meeting the employer “half-way”. Not only is that a sin – and a compromise between light and darkness, between God and Baal – but if your employer knows you would even consider a compromise, it will make it less likely you would obtain your conscience objection waiver. Thus, e.g., if your employer proposed: “would you meet us half way and get one of the two shots (of the two-shot regimen)? If you even respond: “let me think about it”, you are signaling that you are not firm in your conviction. This is clear because anyone who would say “let me think about cooperating in the murder of babies” is not really firm against it.
4. As always, feel free to use Catholic Candle as a resource. Ask us questions. Tell us how we can help you! That is why we are here!
[1] https://www.lifesitenews.com/blogs/the-unborn-babies-used-for-vaccine-development-were-alive-at-tissue-extraction
[3] Here is a summary of this basic truth from a common catechism (The Penny Catechism):
328. When are we answerable for the sins of others? We are answerable for the sins of others whenever we either cause them, or share in them, through our own fault.
329. In how many ways may we either cause or share the guilt of another’s sin? We may either cause or share the guilt of another’s sin in nine ways:
1. By counsel.
2. By command.
3. By consent.
4. By provocation.
5. By praise or flattery.
6. By concealment.
7. By being a partner in the sin.
8. By silence.
9. By defending the ill done.
Quoted from The Penny Catechism, Nihil Obstat, Joannes M.T. Barton, S.T.D., L.S.S., Censor deputatus, Imprimatur, Georgius L. Craven, Epus Sebastopolis, Vicarius Generalis, Westmonasterii, die 20a Junii, 1958, p.57 (emphasis added).
[4] Here is the longer quote from St. Paul:
Being filled with all iniquity, malice, fornication, avarice, wickedness, full of envy, murder, contention, deceit, malignity, whisperers, detractors, hateful to God, contumelious, proud, haughty, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, foolish, dissolute, without affection, without fidelity, without mercy. Who, having known the justice of God, did not understand that they who do such things, are worthy of death; and not only they that do them, but they also that consent to them that do them.
Romans, 1:29-32
[5] One of the definitions of consent is: “acquiescence to or acceptance of something done or planned by another”. https://www.thefreedictionary.com/consent
[6] One of the definitions of acquiescence is: “passive assent or agreement without protest”. https://www.thefreedictionary.com/acquiescence
[7] Two of the definitions of accede are: “to consent” and “to give in”. https://www.thefreedictionary.com/accede
[8] Two of the definitions of accede are: “to consent” and “to give in”. https://www.thefreedictionary.com/accede
[9] St. Thomas Aquinas teaches the principle that a person is culpable for consenting to a murder even when that murder had been committed many centuries earlier. St. Thomas applies this principle to a person who joins the Jewish religion long after Christ’s murder. Here are St. Thomas’ words:
When a person becomes a Jew, he becomes a participant in the killing of Christ.
St. Thomas Aquinas, Lectures on St. Matthew’s Gospel, ch.23, §1861.
Thus, St. Thomas teaches that even the passage of a long, long time (1200 years, in St. Thomas’ time) after the murder, does not remove the culpability for consenting to it. In other words, there is no “end date” for culpability by consenting to murder after it was committed.
Note also regarding St. Thomas’ own example, that he places culpability upon consent to the murder of Christ (through conversion to Judaism), not upon ethnic lineage of a person. Thus, this culpability does not touch the Apostles or any other ethnically Jewish persons who did not (do not) consent to the murder of Christ.
[10] Here is how one legal commentary summarized the state of the law:
Some crimes have no statutes of limitations. As an example, murder typically has
none.
https://resources.lawinfo.com/criminal-defense/criminal-statute-limitations-time-limits.html
Here is how the New York courts explain that murder does not become a non-prosecutable crime because of the passage of time:
Statutes of limitations are laws which say how long, after certain events, a case may be started based on those events. If the statute of limitations has run out, a case should not be started in court. If a case is started after the statute of limitations has run out, it is called time barred. A defendant or respondent can ask the court to dismiss the case if it is time barred by the statute of limitations.
Statute of limitations laws are based on fairness. Over time, memories fade, evidence is lost, and witnesses disappear. People get on with their lives and don’t expect court cases from events in the past – unless a really horrible crime has been committed.
The amount of time by when a person or agency can start a case is different depending on the claim. For example, cases about real property have a long time period, while slander and libel have short time periods. Some crimes, like murder, are so terrible that they often have no limitations period.
Except for when a government agency is sued, there is almost always at least one year from the date of an event to start a case no matter what type of claim it is. You should have no statute of limitations worries if you file your case within this one-year period.
https://nycourts.gov/CourtHelp/GoingToCourt/statuteLimitations.shtml
[11] For a full explanation of this truth that all sin is an infinite evil in three ways and mortal sin is an infinite evil in a fourth way too, read this article: https://catholiccandle.neocities.org/faith/the-infinite-evil-of-sin.html
[12] Here is a list of vaccines connected with murder and a list of ethical alternatives, if they exist: https://cogforlife.org/wp-content/uploads/vaccineListOrigFormat.pdf
[13] https://cogforlife.org/wp-content/uploads/CovidCompareMoralImmoral.pdf & https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.09.08.280818v1.full.pdf at line 270.
[14] https://www.lifesitenews.com/blogs/the-unborn-babies-used-for-vaccine-development-were-alive-at-tissue-extraction
[15] https://www.lifesitenews.com/episodes/the-origin-of-the-abortion-tainted-vaccines-will-sicken-you (listen at minute 15)
[16] https://www.ncregister.com/news/measuring-moderna-s-covid-19-vaccine-now-s-the-time-to-press-hard-for-ethical-options
& https://cogforlife.org/2020/11/16/moderna-covid-19-vaccine-facts-not-fiction/
& https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.09.08.280818v1.full.pdf
at line 270.
[17] https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinion/which-covid-19-vaccines-will-be-derived-from-aborted-childrens-cell-lines & https://cogforlife.org/wp-content/uploads/CovidCompareMoralImmoral.pdf & https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2622-0.pdf at heading “cell lines”.
A Lost N-SSPX Society
Catholic Candle note: The article below refers to Rome’s betrayal of the Catholic Faith. However, a reader would be mistaken if he assumed that Pope Francis’ betrayal somehow means that he is not the pope.
Sedevacantism is wrong and is (material or formal) schism. Catholic Candle is not sedevacantist. On the contrary, we published a series of articles showing that sedevacantism is false (and also showing that former Pope Benedict is not still the pope).
We recommend a small book explaining the errors of sedevacantism. It is available:
➢ Here, for free: https://catholiccandle.neocities.org/faith/against-sedevacantism.html or
➢ Here, at cost ($4): https://www.amazon.com/Sedevacantism-Material-Quanta-Cura-Press/dp/B08FP5NQR6/ref=sr_1_1
Here is what St. Bernard of Clairvaux, Doctor of the Church, teaches concerning the need to recognize and respect the authority of a superior – such as the pope – even when he is bad:
Even should the life of any superior be so notoriously wicked as to admit of no excuse or dissimulation, nevertheless, for God’s sake, Who is the source of all power, we are bound to honor such a one, not on account of his personal merits, which are non-existent, but because of the divine ordination and the dignity of his office.[1]
However, even while recognizing the pope’s authority and our duty to obey him when we are able, we know we must resist the evil he says and does. Read more about this principle here: https://catholiccandle.neocities.org/faith/against-sedevacantism.html#section-7
A Lost N-SSPX Society
A “lost” Society of St. Pius X sought anti-Catholic conciliar church acceptance from Rome after Archbishop Lefebvre died. The N-SSPX Ship of State lost its compass and rudder on the storm-tossed religious sea of Vatican II.
There are those who say that Archbishop Lefebvre wanted to reunite with Rome, but the critical difference is that he was adamant that that could not happen unless and until Rome converted back to the Catholic Faith. This was l988 and he had just survived the trap of the conciliar church proposing to recognize him and the Society, with impossible conditions, and from then on he refused to even discuss making a practical deal with Rome until Rome converted.
I believe that Rome has lost the Faith (as Our Lady of La Salette predicted it would) and is the seat of the anti-Catholic conciliar church of VC II. If you think about it, you have to wonder why the Society would want to negotiate and seek acceptance from the conciliar church in Rome. Rome, in pursuit of religious liberty, makes little pretext any more of believing that there is only one true Church, founded by Christ, and is the only possible path to salvation.
It becomes clearer if you keep in mind that there exist:
1. The true Catholic Church; and
2. A false, revolutionary conciliar church from Vatican II which is Catholic in name only and headquartered in Rome.
This Conciliar church is not merely a liberal way of thinking. It is a human organization (which deceptively uses the name “Catholic”) and has its own:
➢ false doctrines (e.g., the teachings of VC II, accepting the COVID vaccine);
➢ false and sacrilegious worship (e.g., Novus Ordo mass);
➢ places for sacrileges (viz., the conciliar churches stolen from the Catholic Church);
➢ false priesthood (new concept of priesthood; doubtfully valid ordinations);
➢ false laws (e,g,, the new 1983 Code of Canon Law);
➢ false catechisms (e.g., the new conciliar Catechism of the Catholic Church);
➢ false bibles (e.g., replacing the Douay Rheims Bible);
➢ new, politically-correct “Decalogue” (i.e., new humanist 10 Commandments issued by Pope John Paul II);
➢ new, politically-correct “Beatitudes” (issued by Pope Francis);
➢ new Mysteries of the Rosary (the so-called “Luminous Mysteries”);
➢ new (supposed) “saints” and new canonization process (e.g., so-called “St. John Paul II”);
➢ new (supposed) “miracles” and “apparitions”; and
➢ new (supposed) “sacraments” with conciliar names and formulae: for Catholics, it’s Confession; for conciliars, it’s “Reconciliation”, and on Occasion it’s “Group Reconciliation”.
The above are merely some of the changes that the Society and its followers will have to overlook and be willing to accept for canonical recognition from Rome. I expect that the N-SSPX will never have an additional bishop unless Rome approves.
Now, as these above changes clearly indicate, this conciliar church is a different (and false) religion. It uses the power structures of the Catholic Church for its own ends, punishing (including excommunicating) those who resist it.
But if followers of the Society were expecting the N-SSPX to make a powerful, public stand against Rome’s latest heresies (e.g., accepting the COVID vaccines, approval of the unnatural life style, religious liberty, celebrating Luther, etc.), then they usually wait in vain. If they had hoped for a strong defense against heresy from the N-SSPX, they get a mere mention of it instead. It’s well understood that when those in a position of authority (like the N-SSPX) fail to call a “spade” (heresy) a “spade” (heresy), the silence indicates acceptance. Or, when derogatory statements about the Faith go unchallenged, it reveals a lack of zeal for the Faith.
This is just one of the Society’s problems: I believe they have lost their zeal for the Faith. The leadership of the N-SSPX no longer has the burning desire to fight daily against the anti-Catholic conciliar church, as Archbishop Lefebvre did.
Unfortunately, loss of zeal leads gradually to loss of faith. This is very similar to what happened in the 1960s, after Vatican II, when the crisis of faith came from the top down (the pope), and was bewilderingly accepted by the clergy and the people in the pews. The return to the holy Catholic Faith seems likely to be from the bottom up, for Rome and (if the N-SSPX ever returns) for the N-SSPX too.
So, what is in store for the followers of the N-SSPX on their slippery slope of compromise? They want to believe the Society knows best, and will go along to get along. However, The Imitation of Christ states that: “We frequently judge that things are as we wish them to be, for through personal feeling, true perspective is easily lost.”[2] In other words, just because they would like to believe that today’s N-SSPX is the same Society as it was under Archbishop Lefebvre, that doesn’t make it so.
Belonging to the Society today is the easiest path for followers, when most of the people they know join them on the slippery slope, and it “proves” to them that they are correct in their position. And if there are only a very few who hold a contrary view and are willing to stand up and fight for Christ the King and against liberalism, then “those people” must be kooks and radicals.
Most members of the N-SSPX don’t want to work hard to understand or study the Faith, no matter how little energy and time it takes. Plus, they think they are too busy, and that God will understand. Wrong! God expects Catholics to earn Heaven and keep the Faith.
So, what does the future look like, being that Rome has not converted? This means real trouble for uncompromising traditional Catholics. But keep in mind that they are not alone, for Christ is surely with them, with extra graces and love.
We must pray hard, continue to sacrifice, and be on guard for-N-SSPX and conciliar traps, like accepting a hybrid Mass, being married or confessed in the Society (with its indults for the two Sacraments).
Let us trust in God, with strong hearts! Faithful and informed Catholics are sure to succeed. They have Christ with them.
Lesson #2 – Meditation – How & Why
Mary’s School of Sanctity
As Catholics we know that we need to pray. Our Lord tells us to “pray always.” Perhaps we take it for granted that we know how to pray. Yet, unfortunately, especially in these times of apostasy (since Vatican II), Catholics have not been taught how to pray. In particular we need to learn how to pray using mental prayer.
Some time ago the Catholic Candle ran an article about how to say the Rosary. This article explained about prayer and how to meditate. Let’s review the information given there.
Prayer is the lifting of the heart and mind to God. Meditation involves bringing some truth to mind and thinking about this truth, or one could call it pondering a truth. One considers the truth and draws what could be called some “profit, insight, or further conclusion” from “the considering” that one is presently doing. This process of considering might be called the preparation for mental prayer. The actual mental prayer is simply this, that one says something to God. This saying something to God is referred to as “an affection” or an “act of the will.” The consideration can be compared to the tilling of the soil, and the act of the will is like the harvest or fruit of the consideration. The goal of the consideration is the acts of the will. If one does not make acts of the will, then one is not lifting both the heart and the mind to God, and thus, one is not praying. When one is doing a good job making considerations, then the heart seems to overflow with things to say. This pouring out of the heart is what is also called the colloquy. These acts are typically of four kinds, namely, thanksgiving, contrition, petition, or adoration, which are the four types of prayer.
In meditation one considers some truth. One can think and consider about some topic, for example, the fall of the Angels. Then someone would ponder as many aspects of this topic as he wished, and this would produce many things to say to God, for instance, “Thank-you, Dear Lord, for revealing this truth to mankind”; or “Thank-You, Dear Lord, for saving me from falling into hell”; or “Thank-You for Your mercy to me, etc.”
One can also meditate on a standard Catholic prayer and think about the words of the prayer itself. This kind of meditation would involve thinking about the meaning of the words (singly, or perhaps, a couple at a time) and dwelling on them in order to appreciate them, and these thoughts would inspire acts of the will. This might go something like this, maybe taking the Hail Mary:
· One would say Hail (thinking inside himself – this is a greeting to Mary)
· Then, Mary (this name means “seas”)
· Then, Full of grace (this means that Mary is completely holy)
These are examples of the considerations one would make, and the following are possible “acts of the will” which the considerations might inspire:
· Thou are so fair, O sweet Mother, and so pure.
· I love you, Dear Mary, or, thy sweet name consoles me.
· Help me, Fair Lady of grace.
Now, in our daily Rosary we practice meditation as we consider the points of the mysteries and make acts of the will, namely, say something to Our Lord, Our Lady, or the saints. Yet, a separate daily meditation on a particular subject is very efficacious for our salvation and sanctification. Setting aside 25 minutes or a half hour per day for a meditation time is a way to make sure we actually do a meditation. It is very important to pick a time in which one will be able to actually get away for this precious quiet time with God.
But how does one do a meditation? First, select a topic or a book to read to get some food for thought. When beginning, we should imagine that we are in the Presence of God. We could think about how God will judge us when we die, and acknowledge how very sinful we are. We can make a preparatory prayer offering to God all our actions for His Glory and asking Him to help make our actions for His glory.
After our preparatory prayer, we should set forth our intentions for the meditation we are about to do. We should ask for what we need, most importantly, our spiritual needs.
When making the considerations described above, we use our intellect. We can use our imagination to make a mental picture, based on our topic, to construct a sort of backdrop to help us reflect. At this point, we can read a bit from a spiritual book to get ‘food’ for thought. We should read slowly and ponder the meaning of the words we are reading. We should ask ourselves often, “What is the good Lord teaching me in this passage? How does this apply to my soul?”
When we are struck by something in what we are reading, we should pause and let the Holy Ghost teach us what He wills. It is often at this point in the considerations that we get many insights. The insights we get usually inspire us to say something to God, the angels, Our Lady, or perhaps our patron saint. We should go ahead and say what we are inspired to say. When we are talking to God, even just inside our head, we are making affections or acts of our will. This is the praying part of the meditation and is also called the fruit of the meditation. Even if we use the rest of the time we have set aside for our meditation to continue saying acts of our will, we should not fret because God is allowing us to pray in a manner that pleases Him.
If the “juices” of our acts of the will “dry up”, then we should go back to where we left off in the book and/or topic we were using, continue to ponder and make considerations until we are inclined to say more to God.
When the time slot we have allotted is just about used up, we can wind down this precious time by saying a set prayer, e.g., The Anima Christi, Hail Mary, or a favorite Litany, etc., and close up our Meditation with a prayer of thanksgiving to Our Lord and Our Lady.
After the meditation, preferably directly after, we should take some notes on the insights we received. This is a good way to help us keep in mind the pearls we have received. Also, it is a good idea to examine how well we focused during our mental prayer.
Having a meditation schedule is very helpful. This means we have a plan of what we will meditate on for each day of the whole week. The plan might go something like this:
Mondays—I will meditate on my particular judgment. (Using such and such a book)
Tuesdays— I will meditate on the writings of my favorite Saint.
Wednesdays – I will meditate on some part of the Gospels.
Thursdays – I will meditate on one of the Psalms.
Fridays – I will meditate on Our Lord’s Passion.
Saturdays – I will meditate on Mary’s Sorrows.
Sundays – I will meditate on the Propers for the Mass of that Sunday.
Having such a plan keeps us looking forward to the topic of the day and keeps us focused on the material we are using for our meditation. Designing one’s own plan is very fruitful. It is a way to find the time to get in some spiritual reading—which is sometimes difficult to do in our busy lives.
Now that we have learned how to meditate, let us consider why we should do a daily meditation. The most important reason is because it gives God His just due. We owe it to Him to do a meditation. Also, it pleases God and it is the means that God wants us to take to progress to a higher state of perfection.
In the Objective Truth Series we discussed the importance of being objective and trying to learn to acquire more and more objectivity in order to make proper decisions, and to acquire humility, maintain humility, and increase in humility. A strong prayer life and depending on God are absolutely necessary to keep the proper perspective and for peace of soul. This is an important reason why a daily meditation is so helpful. It forces us to step back, reflect more, and seek the help of God. We need to feel our need for God, and daily meditation makes this really hit home. Thus, daily meditation helps foster the needed objectivity to acquire humility. “Unless you become humble like a little child, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.”
God is our heavenly Father and wants us to feel like the adopted children that we truly are. Daily meditation helps us recalibrate our soul and keep in touch with the eternal reality that we must save our souls, namely, be good clay that the Divine Sculptor can mold into the saints He desires us to be.
Daily meditation helps us take time out of our crazy-busy life for God. It is, as it were, putting ourselves on the operating table and “holding still” so the Divine Physician can take His Knife and work on our souls. Likewise, daily meditation is our medicine, our food, our lifeline, and our security which keeps us clear-headed and refreshes our poor, tired souls. Our daily meditation becomes our daily strengthening, which has a “healing” and “soothing” effect on our souls. Again, however, most importantly, we owe it to God to pray to Him in daily meditation.
God knows we need these things and Our Lord tells us to “pray always”. He also taught us the Our Father to help us understand our dependence on Him. Furthermore, we are called to the life of contemplation and mysticism. Daily meditation prepares us for this divine friendship. Daily meditation is the school of sanctity which we must and should desire to attend. Thus, we really become drawn to our daily meditation and find that we cannot get along without it.
The great medieval commentator, Fr. Cornelius de Lapide, in explaining Our Lord’s words to Mary Magdalene’s sister Martha, that Mary has chosen the better part, says the following things about meditation:
Figuratively, this “one thing” is to be acquired by meditation and prayer, for thus men are brought into communion with God. Hence, he who would lead a religious life should seek this one thing only, so as to be thereby drawn into union with the Almighty.[1]
St. Alphonsus de Liguori, Doctor of the Church, also emphasizes how crucial a daily meditation is to spiritual advancement. Here are his words:
But you will ask what are you to do, that you too may be inflamed with the love of Jesus Christ. Imitate David: "In my meditation a fire shall flame out” (Ps. xxxviii). Meditation is the blessed furnace in which the holy fire of divine love is kindled. Make mental prayer every day, meditate on the passion of Jesus Christ, and doubt not but you too shall burn with this blessed flame.[2]
In these words, Cornelius de Lapide and St. Alphonsus de Liguori are telling us how crucial it is to do meditations, showing us that meditation is how we keep our friendship with Christ going and our love of Christ growing. In fact, meditation is the foundation for the higher life of contemplation which we will study in our next class.
We bring Mary our gratitude poem now, thanking her for allowing us to learn about mental prayer and how it pleases her Son and brings our hearts closer to Him.
Mary, Our Meditation Teacher
O Mary, Mother of our school,
May we make it our daily rule,
To meditate a span of time,
In learning truths, which are sublime.
Mary, may this be our delight,
To draw closer to, Thy Son’s Light,
To please Him with our mental prayer,
And learning things which are so fair!
We thank thee, Mary for these gems,
From which our meditation stems,
Insights given, to help us through,
In trials of life, they are our dew.
Mental prayer is the foundation,
To prepare for contemplation,
Wonderful Mother, she invites,
To start the path up to the heights.
She wants to unite us this way,
With visits to her Son each day,
Thus, blessed union with her Son,
With meditation we’ve begun!
August 2021 PDF Issue
Lesson #1 Introduction to our teacher– the Blessed Virgin Mary
X Mary’s School of Sanctity X
Catholic Candle note: This is the beginning of a reflections series which will be placed in the setting of a school where we, along side of our readers, study what Mary Our Mother would like us to learn—namely how to sanctify our souls.
This little schoolhouse, so to speak, will have for the staff of teachers Our Lady herself, St. Joseph, and Our Lord Himself. How can this be done? By following what the Church and saints have written about the topics covered, all of which are geared to instruct us in the sanctification of our souls.
Thus this series is intended to enrich our understanding of many subjects relevant to our spiritual lives, some examples of which are: meditation, the temperaments, and the Spiritual Exercises that Our Lady gave to St. Ignatius of Loyola.
There are so many topics that Catholics have always needed to study for perfection. In these times of Apostasy in which we live, we especially need the means that the Catholic Church has taught throughout the centuries, in order to defeat the evil one. Since the best teachers are Our Lord Himself, Our Lady, and good St. Joseph and we learn about them through the writings of the saints of Holy Mother Church, we delight to study and ponder these works along with our readers.
Lesson #1 Introduction to our teacher– the Blessed Virgin Mary
Let us enroll in Mary’s School by taking a look at our Mother Mary, after whom this School in named, for she is God’s special gift to us to be our model in sanctity. Our Lord gave us Mary while He hung on the cross. She is precious to Him but He wanted to give her to us because He knew we need her to gain our salvation.
Mary is a treasure for us. God has blessed Mary with many prerogatives. They are so numerous that we cannot address them all in one article. Indeed, many books have been written about her prerogatives. However, in order to appreciate Mary more and more we will look at a few of her prerogatives below:
· Mary is Immaculate.
· Mary is the Mediatrix of all graces.
· Mary IS LOVED BY God more than all the angels and other saints put together.
· Mary LOVES God more than all the angels and other saints put together.
· Mary is omnipotent by grace.
Mary is Immaculate.
Mary is God’s masterpiece whom He wants us to follow. He created her Immaculate. Mary’s Immaculate Conception was solemnly defined in 1854. Because He intended for her to be the Mother of the Incarnate Word, she was conceived immaculately in the womb of St. Anne. This means that she never had original sin. She not only was conceived immaculate, she was also preserved from ever committing any actual sin, mortal or venial. It was fitting that she be always pure.
Mary is the Mediatrix of All Graces.
Mary is not only immaculate; she is also the Mediatrix of All Graces. St. Alphonsus de Liguori, in his book, The Glories of Mary, explains this Catholic dogma by citing several authorities. He relates what St. Sophronius, Patriarch of Jerusalem says, “Truly was she full; for grace is given to other saints partially, but the whole plenitude of grace poured itself into Mary.”
St. Alphonsus cites St. Basil of Seleucia, saying, “Hail full of grace, mediatress between God and men, by whom heaven and earth are brought together and united.”
St. Alphonsus further cites St. Laurence Justinian, saying, “Otherwise, had not the Blessed Virgin been full of divine grace, how could she have become the ladder to heaven, the advocate of the world, and the most true mediatress between men and God.”
As Mediatrix, Mary is so precious in God’s sight. St. Alphonsus beautifully explains the connection between God’s plan that Mary was to be the Mother of Our Lord and the Mediatrix for the spiritual children given to her.
If Mary, as the already destined Mother of our common Redeemer, received from the very beginning the office of mediatress of all men, and consequently even of the saints, it was also requisite from the very beginning [that] she should have a grace exceeding that of all the saints for whom she was to intercede. I will explain myself more clearly. If, by the means of Mary, all men were to render themselves dear to God, necessarily Mary was more holy and more dear to Him than all men together. Otherwise, how could she have interceded for all others? That an intercessor may obtain the favor of a prince for all his vassals, it is absolutely necessary that he should be more dear to his prince than all the other vassals. And therefore St. Anselm concludes that Mary deserved to be made the worthy repairer of the lost world, because she was the most pure of all creatures. ‘The pure sanctity of her heart, surpassing the purity and sanctity of all other creatures, merited for her that she should be made the repairer of the lost world.’[1]
St. Thomas Aquinas says in his commentary on the Angelic Salutation:
So full of grace was the Blessed Virgin, that it overflows onto all mankind. It is, indeed, a great thing that any one saint has so much grace that it is conducive to the salvation of many; but it is most wondrous to have so much grace as to suffice for the salvation of all mankind. Thus, it is in Christ and in the Blessed Virgin.[2]
Hence, we can see plainly that Mary is necessary for our salvation.
Mary IS LOVED BY God more than all the angels and other saints put together.
In addition St. Alphonsus in the above quote hints at the next prerogative that we want to look at, namely, that God loves Mary more than all the angels and saints put together. In fact, St. Alphonsus states:
Let us conclude that our heavenly child [Mary], because she was appointed mediatress of the world, as also because she was destined to be the Mother of the Redeemer, received, at the very beginning of her existence, grace exceeding in greatness that of all the saints together. Hence, how delightful a sight must the beautiful soul of this happy child have been to heaven and earth, although still enclosed in her mother’s womb! She was the most amiable creature in the eyes of God, because she was already loaded with grace and merit. … And she was at the same time the creature above all others that had ever appeared in the world up to that moment, who loved God the most; so much so, that had Mary been born immediately after her most pure conception, she would have come into the world richer in merits, and more holy, than all the saints united.[3]
Also, St. Alphonsus cites St. Vincent Ferrer, saying, “that the Blessed Virgin was sanctified, in her mother’s womb above all saints and angels.” Thus, God loves her the most.
St. Thomas Aquinas says in his commentary on the Angelic Salutation:
She is, therefore, full of grace, surpassing the angels in that plenitude. For this reason she is rightly called Mary, which signifies that in herself she is enlightened and that she enlightens others throughout the world. Thus, she is compared to the sun and to the moon.
Mary LOVES God more than all the angels and saints put together.
As St. Alphonsus stated just above, “… And she was at the same time the creature above all others that had ever appeared in the world up to that moment, who loved God the most;”[4]
Likewise, St. Alphonsus quotes Richard of St. Victor, saying, “Ah! Well might even the Seraphim have descended from heaven to learn, in the heart of Mary, how to love God.”[5]
St. Bernard, commenting on St. John’s Apocalypse, referring to a woman clothed with the sun, says that this woman must be Mary because, “She was so closely united to God by love, and penetrated so deeply the abyss of divine wisdom, that, without a personal union with God, it would seem impossible for a creature to have a closer union with Him.”[6]
Mary certainly gave herself entirely to God and did all that He wanted her to do in her life. She never denied anything He asked of her. Just as she said, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord. Be it done to me according Thy Word,” so was her whole life was one loving “Fiat.” St. Bernardine explains this when he says, “The mind of the Blessed Virgin was always wrapped in the ardor of love,” and “That she never did anything that the divine Wisdom did not show her to be pleasing to Him; and that she loved God as much as she thought He was to be loved by her.”[7]
Mary is omnipotent by grace.
St. Alphonsus explains about this in his The Glories of Mary:
As the mother, then, must have the same power as the Son, justly was Mary made omnipotent by Jesus, who is omnipotent; it being, however, always true, that whereas the Son is omnipotent by nature, the mother is so by grace.
He quotes St. Bonaventure, who says, “Mary has this great privilege that with her Son she above all the saints is most powerful to obtain whatever she wills.”
Further, St. Alphonsus cites St. Peter Damian addressing Mary as follows, “All power is given to thee in heaven and on earth, and nothing is impossible to thee who canst raise those who are in despair to the hope of salvation.” And then adding that, “When the Mother goes to seek a favor for us from Jesus Christ, her Son esteems her prayers so greatly, and is so desirous to satisfy her, that when she prays its seems as if she rather commanded than prayed, and was rather a queen than a handmaid.”
St. Alphonsus gives additional quotes to prove this wonderful truth about Mary. He tells how St. Germanus addresses Our Lady, “Thou art the Mother of God, and all-powerful to save sinners, and with God thou needest no other recommendation; for thou art the Mother of true life.”
“At the command of Mary, all obey, even God,” says St. Bernardine, as St. Alphonsus also records in The Glories of Mary. As if these quotes weren’t enough, he supplies these also:
St. Anselm addresses Our Lady: “Our Lord, O most holy Virgin, has exalted thee to such a degree that by His favor all things that are possible to Him should be possible to thee.” And further, “Whatever thou, O Virgin, willest can never be otherwise than accomplished.”
St. Antoninus proclaims, “And thus, God has placed the whole Church, not only under the patronage, but even under the dominion of Mary.”
St. Alphonsus reports that St. Bridget heard Our Lord talking with Mary and telling her, “Ask of Me what thou wilt, for no petition of thine can be void.” And the reason Our Lord gave for this statement was, “Because thou never didst deny Me anything on earth, I will deny thee nothing in heaven.”
St. Alphonsus explains then, “Mary then, is called omnipotent in the sense in which it can be understood of a creature who is incapable of a divine attribute. She is omnipotent, because by her prayer she obtains whatever she wills.”[8]
These quotes about Mary being omnipotent in grace are very impressive. Yet, it should not surprise us that the Lord, being so loving as to give us Mary while He was hanging on the cross, would make her such a powerful advocate and intercessor for us while we are exiles in this vale of tears.
Conclusion:
Because Mary is our precious Mother in Heaven and God’s masterpiece whom He gave to us on the Cross, she is the perfect teacher of sanctity. We delight in studying in her school of sanctity and cover the many topics she has to teach us through the great teachers of the Church. As a little gift of our appreciation for Mary our teacher, Mediatrix of all graces, let us give Mary a mystical apple— a little poem of gratitude.
Mary, Our Mediatrix
Mary, what thanks do we not owe?
To Our Lord Who hath loved us so,
To give us such a dear sweet Queen,
Whose watch over us is e’er keen.
A mother so sweet and so pure,
Helping her children to endure,
All God’s graces come through her hands,
‘Tis how God obeys her commands.
God has bestowed on her great things,
Far beyond one’s imaginings,
Her love of God is better than,
All the angels and all of man.
God loves her most of creatures made,
We can always count on her aid.
In her power we can e’er trust,
She conquers evil with one thrust.
Thank you, Mary, our teacher dear,
You show us how to truly fear,
To displease God in any way,
Bring us closer to Him each day.
To thy school of holiness we,
Gladly come to learn from thee,
Many topics, without an end,
Mary, you are our tender friend.
[1] The Glories of Mary —discourse #2 the birth of Mary
[2] Of course, St. Thomas is not saying here that all men actually receive grace but he is only expressing Christ’s and Mary’s plenitude of grace.
[3] The Glories of Mary — discourse #2 the birth of Mary (emphasis added).
[4] Quoted from St. Alphonsus’s The Glories of Mary discourse #2, The Birth of Mary.
[5] Quoted from St. Alphonsus’s The Glories of Mary, part IV, The Virtues of Mary, section 2, The Charity of Mary towards God.
[6] Quoted from St. Alphonsus’s The Glories of Mary, part IV, The Virtues of Mary, section 2, The Charity of Mary towards God.
[7] Quoted from St. Alphonsus’s The Glories of Mary, part IV, The Virtues of Mary, section 2, The Charity of Mary towards God.
[8] All of the quotes regarding Mary’s omnipotence in grace are from St. Alphonsus’s The Glories of Mary, chapter 6, section about Mary our Advocate.
Is Your Goal to Be an Ordinary or Extraordinary Saint?
Catholic Candle note: The article below refers to Rome’s betrayal of the Catholic Faith. However, a reader would be mistaken if he assumed that Pope Francis’ betrayal somehow means that he is not the pope.
Sedevacantism is wrong and is (material or formal) schism. Catholic Candle is not sedevacantist. On the contrary, we published a series of articles showing that sedevacantism is false (and also showing that former Pope Benedict is not still the pope).
We recommend a small book explaining the errors of sedevacantism. It is available:
➢ Here, for free: https://catholiccandle.neocities.org/faith/against-sedevacantism.html or
➢ Here, at cost ($4): https://www.amazon.com/Sedevacantism-Material-Quanta-Cura-Press/dp/B08FP5NQR6/ref=sr_1_1
Here is what St. Bernard of Clairvaux, Doctor of the Church, teaches concerning the need to recognize and respect the authority of a superior – such as the pope – even when he is bad:
Even should the life of any superior be so notoriously wicked as to admit of no excuse or dissimulation, nevertheless, for God’s sake, Who is the source of all power, we are bound to honor such a one, not on account of his personal merits, which are non-existent, but because of the divine ordination and the dignity of his office.[1]
However, even while recognizing the pope’s authority and our duty to obey him when we are able, we know we must resist the evil he says and does. Read more about this principle here: https://catholiccandle.neocities.org/faith/against-sedevacantism.html#section-7
Lastly, in the article below, the reference to becoming an “ordinary saint” is not a reference to becoming a saint through attending the evil novus ordo mass, a/k/a the “ordinary rite”. The new mass is inherently evil and a sacrilege. This evil rite does not give grace[2] or help us toward heaven.
Is Your Goal to Be an
Ordinary or Extraordinary Saint?
You will have to be one or the other to get to Heaven. Only saints get to
Heaven. Most people believe a lie of the devil, that “It’s too hard to be
a saint; I’m not even going to try.”
We must want to be saints! In order to do this, we must love God. Yet, to love God we must have knowledge of Him.
Okay, let’s list things to do to increase your understanding and knowledge of a loving God, Who makes it so easy to love Him:
❖ Understand what He has done and continues to do for you. Here are a few especially important blessings to remember:
➢ He created you specially;
➢ He suffered and died for you so you could be happy here on earth and forever happy with Him in Heaven. He would have done the same if you were the only person on earth; and
➢ He keeps you in existence with His knowledge of you.
❖ Make a real effort to return His love for you by your love for Him.
➢ Make many and frequent Spiritual Holy Communions; and
➢ Discuss with Him (like you would with your best friend) all aspects of your life and how you want to be a saint and be forever with Him in Heaven.
❖ To increase your love, make an effort to study His life on earth and the aspects of that life. You must have knowledge of the Person you love, as well as of the things you could study and even touch, if permitted, e.g., the Holy Cross He died on, the Crown of Thorns, etc.
At the top of the list is the Shroud, the “clean linen cloth” (as the Gospel calls it) in which Christ was laid when He was taken down from the Cross. Here is what the Catholic Encyclopedia says about the Shroud:
This relic, though damaged by a fire, bears the faint but distinct impress of a human form both back and front. The cloth is about 13 ½ feet long and 4 ½ feet wide. If the marks we perceive were caused by a human body, it is clear that the body (supine) was laid lengthwise along one half of the shroud while the other half was doubled over the head to cover the whole front of the body from the face to the feet. …
In 1898 when the shroud was solemnly exposed, permission was given to photograph it, and a sensation was caused by the discovery that the image upon the linen was apparently a negative – in other words, that the photographic negative taken from this offered a more recognizable picture of a human face than the cloth itself or any positive print. In the photographic negative the lights and shadows were natural; in the linen or the print they were inverted. Three years afterwards, Dr. Paul Vignon read a remarkable paper before the Academie des Sciences in which he maintained that the impression upon the shroud was a ‘vaporigraph’ caused by the ammoniacal emanations radiating from the surface of Christ’s body after so violent a death.[3]
Shown below is a picture I believe was providentially developed using the shroud as a model. It is a big help to greatly improve your Spiritual Communions, increase your love, help in discussions with Him, and better understand how it demonstrates His love for you.
Consider suffering and dying for Him (as He did for you) if it ever becomes necessary in the anti-God world we live in. It appears a possibility, just as in 16th century England, and in other periods of persecution throughout history.
Then, the persecutions sought to eliminate the Catholic religion; now it will be to eradicate completely all reference to, or thought about God, while promoting Mother Earth, the pagan Pachamama, etc. Don’t expect any help from Rome. Our leaders there have already betrayed the Catholic Faith.
Our Lord knows the extent of your love and your willingness to suffer and die for Him because He can read your heart. Oh, what a blessing!
Be sure to fulfill all the duties and requirements of your state of life, which includes unfailingly standing up for Christ.
If, by chance, you still consider it impossible to become a saint, then the devil is still trying hard to discourage you. Ask for God’s help and discuss it with Him. He knows how to solve your problem.
It’s possible to be an exceptional saint — like St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Francis, St. Paul, etc. – but that requires not only your special dedication but also God leading a person to that greater state. However, even so, the road to that exceptional sanctity passes through “ordinary sanctity” as a preparation for even higher things. So, keep it up! You don’t know what God has planned for you. Whatever God plans for you is not impossible; don’t listen to the devil. You must first pursue becoming an “ordinary saint”.
On this road to “ordinary sanctity”, God will direct you to what is best for you to reach your goal of Heaven in today’s world in which you live. It will be somewhat different than in the past. Most likely He does not plan for you to live as a hermit in the desert, or on a platform atop a pole like St. Simon Stylite. It could be He wants you to join an uncompromising monastery (when one becomes available); or He may ask you to start one, or to finance one.
His plan for you certainly won’t be impossible for you. No, He will give you all necessary help. So, it is up to you to use His help to succeed and to be happy with Him for all eternity.
It goes without saying that all of the above requires much prayer (i.e., conversations with God).
What we stand against – August
Catholic Candle note: Below is a new, occasional feature of Catholic Candle, called What We Stand Against. It calls to mind the maxims and principles of a faithful and informed Traditional Catholic.
What We Stand Against
Resist the beginnings of liberalism. Remedies come too late,
when delay has caused this evil to become established and to gain strength.
Wikipedia – a tool of the Leftists
Catholic Candle note: The article below is a warning about the harm caused by the free, online encyclopedia called Wikipedia. There are many ways in which Wikipedia does harm, e.g., it has a huge amount of the vilest impurities, ready to send a person straight to hell.
However, the article below focuses only on a single type of Wikipedia’s evil: its leftist bias.
One modern habit which is harming intellects and spreading error, is people’s wide-spread excessive use of, and overreliance on, cell phones. Connected with that bad habit is many people’s gullibility and intellectual laziness in using unreliable online sources as their “go-to” sources for practically all information.
By gullible and intellectually lazy, we mean a blind trust in information sources which are convenient, popular, and approved by the world, without making the effort to be more careful, dig deeper, do more thinking, reading, and searching for the truth in better, (but often less convenient), sources.
One of the common sources of falsehood frequently relied upon by the gullible and intellectually lazy, is Wikipedia.
Wikipedia was started about 20 years ago. It is a free, online encyclopedia available to anyone with an internet connection. The name “Wikipedia” is a combination of:
· a Hawaiian word “wiki”, which means “quick”, but in this context seems to connote collaboration; and
· the end of the word “encyclopedia”.
Wikipedia is free and convenient and so, is very popular. Wikipedia claims to be:
the world’s largest reference website, attracting 1.7 billion unique visitors monthly as of November 2020. It currently has more than fifty-six million articles in more than 300 languages, including 6,347,334 articles in English.[1]
However, Larry Sanger, one of Wikipedia’s two co-founders[2] (who has since left the organization) warns that Wikipedia “completely ignores any conservative, libertarian, or critical treatment of the subject.”[3]
According to Sanger, Wikipedia did not start with its current heavy leftist bias. However, a decade ago, “as liberals, or leftists made their march through the institutions, Wikipedia became one of those influential institutions. They started their march and basically took it over.”[4]
One way Wikipedia prevents the (conservative) truth being presented in its articles, is that the encyclopedia has blacklisted most conservative media sources because these media sources do not hide the truth that the leftists want to hide.[5] These blacklisted sources are the only news sources doing any reporting on many important stories. Wikipedia bans even mainstream media sources that are less liberal, e.g., like Fox News, the New York Post, and Daily Mail (UK).[6] Other examples of Wikipedia’s blacklisting include Lifesitenews.com and TheEpochTimes.com.[7]
Wikipedia allows anyone to author new articles. However, as a consequence of the above-mentioned bias, even if a Wikipedia article’s author hypothetically wanted to cite one of those less-liberal sources to support a statement in his article, he is not allowed to do so. If the author gives no citation to a source, he risks deletion of his statement by Wikipedia because it is unsupported.
Let us examine a few examples of Wikipedia’s leftist bias.
Wikipedia changes “facts” in its “historical” and “scientific” articles,
serving leftist goals.
Have you ever heard of Dr. Robert Malone? According to Wikipedia in mid-June 2021, he is the principal inventor of the mRNA technology used in the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines. Here is a screenshot of the beginning of Wikipedia’s entry for the invention of mRNA technology, as it read on June 14, 2021:
This entry is now changed (as we will explain below); and so, we had to extract the above screenshot from a past version of Wikipedia which is stored at archive.org.[8]
On June 10, 2021, Dr. Malone joined biologist Dr. Bret Weinstein, Ph.D., on the Dark Horse Podcast, to discuss the use of mRNA technology in the COVID “vaccines”.[9] Dr. Malone raised numerous safety concerns about the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines, both of which use the mRNA technology invented under his leadership. Among other hazards, he warned about future autoimmune risks caused by the spike proteins within the mRNA injections.
This podcast was uploaded onto YouTube but it didn’t last there very long before YouTube deleted his warnings off of its site.[10]
Dr. Malone repeated his warning about the danger of mRNA “vaccines” when he appeared a few days later on Fox News.[11] So here was one of the principal inventors of the mRNA technology used in these COVID “vaccines”, who was warning about their danger. These warnings contradicted the mainstream media’s constant promotion of those “vaccines” and Dr. Malone’s status as chief inventor of this technology gave great weight to his warnings.
On June 16, 2021, Wikipedia changed its mRNA article to remove all credit and mention of Dr. Malone from the entry. Here is a screenshot, (again from archive.org[12], because Wikipedia changed the mRNA article again, as will be explained below):
Wikipedia then tweaked the article again to give chief credit to Jon Wolff (a collaborator of Malone’s in 1990), for the mRNA research experiments. Here is a screenshot from earlier July 2021[13]:
As you see, Wikipedia’s article now also praises and promotes Katalin Karikó. Karikó strongly promotes these mRNA “vaccines”.[14]
This is an example of Wikipedia’s bias in countless articles. This reminds us of the warnings in George Orwell’s novel, 1984, in which the main character, Winston, worked in the Ministry of Truth to re-write articles in order to change the “truth” as it had been previously written, in order to fit the current desires of the totalitarian government.
There are countless other examples, besides the above, extended example of Wikipedia falsifying history and science by re-writing[15] what it claims as true. Wikipedia expediently changes its narrative of the science/history involved, thereby destroying Dr. Malone’s important authority to speak on the subject, serving to promote the vaccines using the technology that Dr. Malone knew well and about which he began giving public warnings. Wikipedia was his “cheerleader” until political expedience caused Wikipedia to “cancel” him.
Let’s look into more examples that show Wikipedia promoting leftist ideology rather than truth and facts.
Gender dysphoria on Wikipedia
Wikipedia writes a solemn “academic” treatment of people’s gender delusions as if those poor confused souls were not out of touch with reality.[16]
Wikipedia writes how some people have no gender (“agender”).[17]
Wikipedia solemnly explains the teachings of “scholar” Finn Enke, a poor deluded woman professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison (a university known for its craziness and its doctrinaire leftism, similar, in this way, to the University of California at Berkeley). On Enke’s website, you can also see that woman’s ugly, disorderly, talentless, and gimmicky “art” that she is promoting.[18]
With great seriousness, Wikipedia explains how “agender” is a gender, how a person can have multiple genders at once, or even all genders at once (whatever that means, and which absurdity is called “omnigender”).[19]
Wikipedia solemnly explains how some people (whom common sense recognizes as indecisive and confused) are “gender fluid” because they don’t want to commit to being either one of the two real genders or even firmly commit to any other specific (pretend) gender they might concoct.[20]
This Wikipedia article (as so many others) pretends that Nature does not exist, as if God does not exist, and as if reality were only whatever a person chooses, similar to a person deliriously deciding he is Napoleon.
Wikipedia gives no hint that this transgender delusion is irrational. Of course, we also know that this position (which Wikipedia sets forth) not only attacks sound reason and the magnificent Catholic culture which the Catholic Church built (viz., Christendom), but also God’s Law and the Holy Catholic Faith itself.
Further, Wikipedia gives no hint that there is another side on this issue, besides the satanic lie that Wikipedia gives. Perhaps Wikipedia would object that it does present both sides of an issue when there are two sides worthy of mention. Wikipedia might then claim that its transgender position – which is the leftist position – is the only reasonable one and so that is why the article does not give the conservative (and true) position. However, even under that hypothesis, Wikipedia would still be no less biased and this would still result in Wikipedia being a purveyor of leftist propaganda.
Wikipedia’s article does not mention that this transgenderism was listed as a mental illness by the World Health Organization until 2019 and by the American Psychiatric Association until 2012.[21]
This is one of countless examples of Wikipedia pushing the leftist evils as if they were the only “orthodoxy”.
Truly, our times fit St. Paul’s warning:
For there shall be a time, when they will not endure sound doctrine; but, according to their own desires, they will heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears: and will indeed turn away their hearing from the truth, but will be turned unto fables.
2 Timothy, 4:3-4.
Wikipedia’s treatment of “conversion therapy”
We know from our Holy Catholic Faith (as well as from the science of Ethics) that a man can follow reason and eschew sin and vice. In this he is not like the brute beasts, who follow instinct and have no free will. Unlike the brute beasts, man is both capable of sin and capable of overcoming sin. Unnatural vice is sinful[22] because a man has a free will and can stop sinning.
Thus, we know that a man who has fallen into unnatural vice was not “made that way” as some of those men claim, nor is he incapable of ceasing to commit those sins (as is also true of other sins).
So, we know that a person can stop committing these unnatural sins and that people can help him do so, by prayer, moral support, good habits, good advice, etc. This is Catholic, reasonable, and common sense.
Now let’s look at Wikipedia’s false and leftist treatment of the issue.
Wikipedia correctly says that “conversion therapy” involves trying to change someone who is involved in such unnatural impurity, and describes the methods as:
counseling, visualization, social skills training, psychoanalytic therapy, and spiritual interventions such as “prayer and group support and pressure”.[23]
In a rough sort of way, this description corresponds to the many Catholic moral helps which can aid a person to conquer this habit of sin.
Wikipedia adds that all such efforts to help a person free himself from this unnatural vice are “pseudoscientific”.[24] Wikipedia defines “pseudoscience” in a way that shows Wikipedia is saying that conversion therapy does not and cannot work:
Pseudoscience consists of statements, beliefs, or practices that claim to be both scientific and factual but are incompatible with the scientific method. Pseudoscience is often characterized by contradictory, exaggerated or unfalsifiable claims; reliance on confirmation bias rather than rigorous attempts at refutation; lack of openness to evaluation by other experts; absence of systematic practices when developing hypotheses; and continued adherence long after the pseudoscientific hypotheses have been experimentally discredited.[25]
Wikipedia not only falsely declares that efforts to help a person to stop committing sins of unnatural vice are unscientific, discredited, and futile, but also connects these efforts (in the article) with “icepick lobotomies”, electric shock therapy, and other weird things[26] which have nothing to do with helping a person eschew sin by increasing virtue in the soul, as God wants us all to do.
As with the transgender article discussed above, this Wikipedia article (as so many others) pretends that Nature does not exist, that God does not exist, and that acts of unnatural vice are good, if that is what a person chooses.
Again, Wikipedia’s position is not only attacking reason and the magnificent Catholic culture which the Catholic Church built, but also the Holy Catholic Faith itself.
Also, Wikipedia gives no hint that there is another side on this issue, beside the satanic lie that Wikipedia gives. If Wikipedia does not even recognize there is a conservative (and true) position worthy of discussion, that would merely cement Wikipedia’s status as a leftist mouthpiece.
Wikipedia gives no hint that, only a few decades ago, before society became as degraded as it is, this unnatural vice was listed as a mental illness and also was a felony. This crime traces its way back to the law of God, making it a capital offense. Leviticus, 20:13
This is one of countless examples of Wikipedia pushing the leftist evils as if they were the only “orthodoxy”.
Historically, Catholic morality has been reflected in the civilized world’s common law. That is a subject for a different article, but many of the basic principles of our law, like the right to confront witnesses, were first established in the Church’s own courts.
Of course, the Catholic Church and the Natural Law are the source of much of the civilized world’s substantive laws too, such as the recognition of the criminality of unnatural vice. See, e.g., the U.S. Supreme Court upholding the criminality of unnatural vice, in Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 U.S. 186 (1986).
Wikipedia casts doubt on the truth of the Gospels
With a thin veneer of pseudo “scholarship”, Wikipedia rolls out the usual claims made by Our Lord’s enemies that the Gospels are uncertain, unreliable, disputed, contradictory, and not historically accurate.[27] Wikipedia simply echoes the assertions of centuries of heretics, Jews, and other non-believers in telling the reader that the Gospels tell us little or nothing about the “historical Jesus”.[28] Rather, they are merely pious assertions and falsehoods which are disputed by “truth-telling” scholars.[29] Wikipedia asserts that its pronouncements on the Gospels are the conclusions of “the majority of scholars”, although Wikipedia makes no effort to prove this false assertion.
Wikipedia’s promotion of abortion
Wikipedia’s article on abortion is full of falsehoods and leftist bias. For example, it claims that “When properly done, abortion is one of the safest procedures in medicine.”[30] This is a statement straight from Planned Parenthood’s own propaganda.
Wikipedia’s claim omits the obvious fact that abortion murders a baby, so it is a deadly procedure. Further, this claim ignores the vast body of evidence proving the grave harm to the mother, morally, emotionally[31], intellectually, and, often, physically[32], when she consents to be an accomplice to this murder of her baby.
Wikipedia’s promotion of legalizing mind-altering drugs
Wikipedia minimally acknowledges some of the obvious problems with legalizing hallucinogenic drugs, e.g., legalization leads to increased consumption of drugs.[33] But Wikipedia’s treatment is like the typical leftist talking points which promote the legalization of “recreational” narcotics. Although Wikipedia mentions that legalization foreseeably will cause drug use to increase, the encyclopedia then quickly transitions to the pro-legalization talking points, such as decreased gang violence, saving the costs of enforcing these laws, ability to tax “recreational” narcotic use to increase government tax revenue, and the police’s ability to concentrate on enforcing other laws.[34]
Wikipedia’s promotion of allowing the adoption of children by persons who
live lives of unnatural impurity
Wikipedia’s leftist bias is on display on this adoption issue too. Wikipedia presents (supposed) “science”, “fairness”, and “civil rights” in favor of this evil, and says that those people opposed to such adoptions are against it because of their own personal assumptions and personal faith-beliefs.[35] The implication is that these assumptions are unscientific and unfair and that the particulars of such people’s personal beliefs are not a basis for society to prohibit such adoptions.
Wikipedia promotes the leftists’ “climate change” narrative
Wikipedia promotes the leftists’ climate alarmism.[36] The encyclopedia falsely claims that there is an “overwhelming scientific consensus” for global warming caused by humans. Wikipedia falsely says all research scientists agree on this “fact” and that “no scientific body of national or international standing disagrees with this view”.[37]
Wikipedia says that the only persons who disagree are the deniers spreading misinformation, who are funded by conservatives and the self-interested fossil fuel industry. Wikipedia says that the uncertainty and controversy are not real but only manufactured.[38] The article does not give any of the great abundance of evidence disproving the leftists’ climate alarmism.
Wikipedia promotes the leftists’ narrative on the 2020 U.S. presidential elections
Wikipedia gives a false, one-sided account of the 2020 election fraud controversy, saying that the Republican side was merely “promoting the conspiracy theory that falsely posits” election fraud. Here is one place Wikipedia states this leftist propaganda:
Stop the Steal is a far-right and conservative campaign and protest movement in the United States promoting the conspiracy theory that falsely posits that widespread electoral fraud occurred during the 2020 presidential election to deny incumbent President Donald Trump victory over former vice president Joe Biden.[39]
This article is false and completely one-sided, failing to provide any of the extensive evidence of the actual voting fraud.[40] However, leaving to a different time an examination of the truth of the fraud evidence (which exists in large amounts), for the present we note that this is another example of Wikipedia giving a one-sided narrative setting forth only the leftists’ talking points.
So, if anyone seeks only to know what the leftists say about the election fraud, he can find it in Wikipedia. But for anyone seeking to understand what evidence has moved 41% of U.S. voters to believe that Biden did not win the election fairly,[41] Wikipedia withholds this information.[42]
Conclusion
Wikipedia is largely not a source of truth but of leftist ideology. Wikipedia can (and often does) change its articles almost instantaneously to take today’s news into account. So, what was “true” yesterday, might be denied or deleted today, with no indication that yesterday’s “truth” was the opposite.
Beware of Wikipedia’s leftist bias on a large number of topics:
❖ from philosophy to foreign policy;
❖ from science to civil unrest;
❖ from technology to elections;
❖ from biography to religion;
❖ from history to immigration;
❖ from morals to medicine;
❖ from forensics to the Constitution;
❖ from medicine to music;
❖ from law to culture; and
❖ from politics to the rule of law.
With few exceptions, only globalist, progressive mainstream sources – and sources friendly to globalist progressivism – are permitted. What is against Wikipedia’s leftist agenda is either ignored or is summarily dismissed as “misinformation” or a “conspiracy theory”. In saying so, Wikipedia (and other, similarly-biased institutions) are plainly claiming exclusive control over what is thinkable. They want any debate to occur only on the leftist playing field and want to set the boundaries of that debate, in order to tell you how to think about countless important issues.
Wikipedia articles are the perfect bait for intellectually lazy and gullible people, who are looking for a “go-to” source which is convenient, popular, and approved by the world, which does not require the effort to be more careful, dig deeper, do more thinking, reading, and searching for the truth in better, (but often less convenient), sources.
A further “advantage” for lazy Catholics, that get their information from Wikipedia, is that they do not risk the possibility that they might learn something which would require them to withstand opposition from the world in order to defend truth and Christ the King.
We are not saying that Wikipedia never ever says anything true – even Satan tells some truths/half-truths, for his own ends. But we urge everyone to remember whenever he is on Wikipedia (if ever) that he is in enemy-occupied territory, which exists to move the reader toward the left.
[3] https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/inventor-of-mrna-technology-removed-from-wikipedia-after-he-warned-against-taking-covid-jabs/
[4] https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/inventor-of-mrna-technology-removed-from-wikipedia-after-he-warned-against-taking-covid-jabs/
[7] https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinion/has-wikipedia-banned-lifesite-articles-as-a-reference-source
[9] These mRNA treatments are called “vaccines” but don’t really fit the definition of what a vaccine is. Instead, they are really gene therapy. They are falsely called “vaccines” because that label makes them more acceptable to the public than if the experimental COVID mRNA treatments were called “gene therapy”. That is an issue we will return to in a future article.
[10]
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/inventor-of-mrna-technology-removed-from-wikipedia-after-he-warned-against-taking-covid-jabs
[11] https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/inventor-of-mrna-technology-removed-from-wikipedia-after-he-warned-against-taking-covid-jabs
[13] This screenshot is found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RNA_vaccine
[14] https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/nov/21/covid-vaccine-technology-pioneer-i-never-doubted-it-would-work
[15] Wikipedia is not the only leftist media company which changes its information on the fly, to serve the leftist agenda. Another prominent example is Merriam-Webster, owned by Encyclopedia Britannica.
In October 2020, when Mrs. Amy Coney Barrett (who is relatively conservative) was testifying at her Supreme Court confirmation hearings, she was asked, in substance, if she supported a person’s “right” to live a life of unnatural impurity.
Mrs. Barrett replied obliquely that she never discriminated against people with that “preference”. The leftists, including Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, quickly pounced on her for implying that people living like that were not “born that way”. Senator Hirono and various leftist pressure groups said that Mrs. Barrett’s comment was insulting to persons living that “lifestyle”.
One problem for the leftists, though, was that the principal dictionaries, including Merriam-Webster, showed that Mrs. Barrett’s word usage was correct and not insulting. So, the same day Merriam-Webster changed its definition to state that using the word “preference” the way she did was an insult.
Read the account of this incident here: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/merriam-webster-dictionary-updates-sexual-preference-entry-after-amy-coney-barrett-hearing/ar-BB1a3Glr and https://www.dailywire.com/news/merriam-webster-suddenly-alters-definition-of-preference-after-dems-attack-coney-barrett
[16] For an examination of how this transgender delusion is a consequence of society’s apostasy from the Catholic Church, read this article: https://catholiccandle.org/2019/12/01/the-direct-road-from-apostasy-to-gender-confusion/
[21] https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/world-health-organization-removes-gender-identity-disorder-from-list-of-mental-illnesses
[22] Romans, 1:27.
[25] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudoscience (emphasis added).
[31]
https://www.lifenews.com/2021/08/05/woman-attempted-suicide-three-times-after-having-abortion-thanks-god-for-saving-her-life/
[32]
Although the mainstream media ignores the frequent medical emergencies,
the serious physical injuries to the mothers of the murdered babies is so
common it is hardly “news”. Here is one of countless reports: https://www.lifenews.com/2021/08/05/woman-hemorrhages-after-abortion-clinic-lacerates-her-uterus-during-botched-22-week-abortion/
[36] Climate alarmism is really a power grab to control people. Read this analysis here: https://catholiccandle.org/?s=climate
[39] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attempts_to_overturn_the_2020_United_States_presidential_election
(Emphasis in the original).
[40] See, among many other analyses of election fraud, White House trade representative Peter Navarro’s three-part analysis available here: https://peternavarro.com/the-navarro-report/
[41] https://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/june_2021/55_of_voters_support_election_audits
[42] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attempts_to_overturn_the_2020_United_States_presidential_election (Emphasis in the original).
July 2021 PDF Issue
Spiritual Nuptials
Objective truth series – Reflection #24
We, baptized Catholics, are each called to be a Bride of Christ. Our souls are meant to have a Mystical Union with the Bridegroom.
In this reflection series we have been considering the journey of the individual soul and how God, being the Divine Sculptor, leads the soul to Him through humility and charity. Below we give a bullet point list of the purpose for each of the reflections and how there has been a step-by-step progression which has led up to this point of considering what it means to be truly a bride of Christ. Spiritual Nuptials is the spiritual gift of God which He uses to ultimately prepare a soul for life eternal. This intimate union between Christ and the soul is a state of soul that God intends for every soul that is in sanctifying grace. It is something we should aspire to. We need to beg God to help us understand it so we can aspire to cooperate with God in striving for it!
Here is a brief recap of the Objective Truth Series:
· Reflection 1 discusses how God sculptures our souls.
· Reflection 2 describes how God inspires us to find examples of humility.
· Reflection 3 ponders our nothingness.
· Reflection 4 shows how submitting to God’s Will helps us unite with and trust God.
· Reflection 5 shows how we must have a healthy mistrust of ourselves.
· Reflection 6 shows how to be on guard against proud self-complacency and how to sincerely compassionate our neighbor.
· Reflection 7 shows the importance of taking corrections well.
· Reflection 8 shows how we need to guard against pride.
· Reflection 9 speaks of how to avoid frustration and discouragement which are forms of pride.
· Reflection 10 shows the importance of making frequent acts of humility.
· Reflection 11 shows how God draws the soul to new levels of understanding.
· Reflection 12 shows how gratitude brings humility.
· Reflection 13 shows how God fosters humility in us by having us seek His guidance.
· Reflection 14 shows how we must shun false human respect and lovingly pursue truth.
· Reflection 15 shows how wonderful it is to possess the truth.
· Reflection 16 shows how God simplifies the truth to give us a delight in it.
· Reflection 17 ponders the amazing fact that God uses us as His instruments.
· Reflection 18 shows how we need to live life keeping eternity always in mind.
· Reflection 19 shows how tears of compunction are a good thing to ask for.
· Reflection 20 shows how by thinking on death helps us die to ourselves.
· Reflection 21 shows how we should have a great desire for heaven.
· Reflection 22 shows how, when we forget ourselves, we become consumed in the love of God.
· Reflection 23 shows how God wants us to focus on Him abiding in us.
Thus, in our last reflection we pondered upon the Holy Trinity and what it means to have the Trinity dwelling in a soul which is in the state of grace. When one understands how this dwelling of the Trinity in the soul is the reality, this helps the soul to understand the Church’s mystical teaching about the spiritual marriage that occurs between Jesus Christ and the soul.
Catholics are taught their Catechism from their youth, but unfortunately, they are rarely taught mystical terminology or concepts. Yet, we are all called to a mystical union with the Lord. This union is a mystical marriage between the Bridegroom, Our Lord Jesus Christ, and the soul.
When considering marriage in the natural order, it is easy to see why husband and wife are supposed to be best friends. They would be content to be alone on an abandoned island. Their happiness would be complete because of their bond of friendship.[1] And so it is in the spiritual realm. Our Lord Jesus Christ wants each Catholic in the state of grace to be His bride.
Mary is our model of such a mystical Bride because she was immaculately conceived and was never marred by any sin or imperfection. She is God’s masterpiece, the Virgin of virgins, the humble Handmaid of the Lord, His Mother and the Spouse of the Holy Ghost.
The Canticle of Canticles, written by King Solomon, refers to the mystical marriage between Christ and the soul. The soul loves Christ by obeying His commandments, becoming selfless, and being consumed with the love and service of God. In this way, God so sculptures the soul to become more God-like and to become the bride of the Divine Son.
So, this amazing marriage with Christ is not just something we read about in the lives of the saints, for example, St. Catherine of Sienna or St. Theresa of Avila, but something that our souls should truly desire for ourselves.
In these times of apostasy, when Christ wants us to trust in Him completely, He surely wants to console us by such a remarkable union with Him. Likewise, we should want to console Him Who is so blasphemed and hated in these evil times. These are special times we live in, where to stand up for being normal and moral is considered a heroically virtuous act. So let us fly to Christ and cling to Him, begging Him to make us worthy to be His spouse. Let us throw ourselves at His Feet and adore Him Who does not change, – and Who is Truth Itself. Oh, that we could fall eternally in love with Truth – Objective Truth – and be willing to seek the truth always, abide in truth, defend truth, and suffer and die for truth!
The Apocalypse refers to more, and more glorious, martyrs in the end times—may we, God Willing, want to suffer something for Christ—really suffer all things for Christ, our Spouse! With overwhelmed hearts and burning zeal for Christ perhaps we would pledge our love in the following betrothals:
Dear Spouse of souls, in Thee we trust,
We want so much Thy spouse to be,
Yet unworthy, we are but dust,
We wholly give our hearts to Thee.
This union is a mystic one,
Understood by the saints of old,
United to the Begotten Son,
‘Tis more precious than pearls and gold.
Mary, our Queen and our Mother,
The model bride we should admire,
Her virtues are like no other,
What love of God she doth inspire!
Of the Lord, she was a Handmaid,
And Spouse too of the Holy Ghost,
Mother of God, a virgin stayed,
Of all creatures she loves God most.
She merited being Christ’s bride,
Like Our Queen, we would like to soar,
To be forever at Christ’s Side,
And have the Groom forever more.
Of such a Groom, who is worthy?
Yet He’s meant for each soul in grace,
Mary, please help us prepared be,
So that this marriage may take place.
With burning hearts we yearn for this,
Nuptial bond with Our Divine King,
So, in time we enjoy such bliss,
And have a divine wedding ring.
Catholic Candle note: For a further treatment of this spiritual marriage to which Christ calls our souls, read this article: https://catholiccandle.org/2019/06/20/our-souls-should-be-docile-brides-of-christ/