The Cross

 

Human nature does not want pain, any kind of pain. 

We defend against it, run away from it, medicate 

ourselves, use drink and drugs to escape disappointments

and grief and the hard realities of life.

We even disconnect from ourselves, which is a way of 

giving up. 

Jesus said that the ones who wanted to be His disciples 

needed to pick up their cross, and follow Him. 

To follow Jesus, to become holy, implies accepting

and being fully present with everything difficult.

Because it is by the Cross that we Resurrect with Him.

When everything inside us screams : "I can't", " 

I can't do it", know that this difficulty is in fact a gift,

a treasure, and we might discover that we can open 

ourselves up to accept it. 

If we truly want to love, we must learn to suffer.

 

I was married to an alcoholic who, every time he was 

angry, and that was often, said that he was going to

turn our children against me. The children that I was

practically alone in taking care of. 

 

Imagine having as an objective in life to break the bond of 

love between the mother of your children and the children,

turn it into hate. A sick and perverted mind damaged 

by life long alcohol abuse, evil and corrupt. From my side, 

despite everything, I never had any wish to break any part 

of their relationship with their father, because I knew it 

would hurt them. 

 

The hardest cross anyone can have is the absence of love 

in one's life. 

Our heart cries out for love, and it is by giving that we

receive. It does not come by force, brutality or money. 

Love also involves suffering when it presents itself. 

This is true surrender, we become stripped of our

own minds, plans, wishes. 

 

The Power of Love will always win, the light that shines 

in the darkness is the Infinite Perfect Creative Power that made us, that made everything. 

 

The Paratrooper's Prayer

Give me, O Lord, my God, what is left Thee, that which no one asks of Thee. 

I do not ask Thee for rest or tranquility, neither of soul or body.

I do not ask Thee for wealth, nor success, nor health.

So many ask this of Thee, O my God, that there must be nothing left for Thee to give.

Give me Lord, what Thou hast left, give me what everyone else rejects.

I want insecurity and trepidation, I want struggle and torment.

Give me this definitively my God, give me the certainty that this will be my portion forever, because I will not always have the courage to ask Thee for it. 

Give me Lord, what Thou has left, give me what others do not want, but also give me courage, strenght and Faith. 

 Written by André Zirnheld

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Novus Ordo Mass

 

The spirit of the 2.nd Vatican Council was one of opening up 

and aligning the Catholic Church to the spirit of the world. 

Although the spirit of the world is opposite to the 

spirit of God, and Jesus Christ; Our Lord and Saviour, said 

repeatedly that His Kingdom was "not of this world." 


One of the documents with it's origin in the 2.nd VC; 

"Nostrae Aetate" concerns itself with dialogue with, 

and respect for, non- Christian religions, 

especially Islam. 

It's stated purpose is reconciliation with the other main 

religions of the world,

although it is not a dogmatic document.

How they hope to make two different irreconcilable religions 

reconcilable, without erasing one of them, I do not understand.

But I am sure that there will be no concessions or compromise

from Islam. So who is going to alter and modify their religion,

betray Our Lord, like Judas did? 


From this document sprung the idea of ecumenism and religious 

liberty, neither of which has strengthened the Catholic Church 

but rather has caused wide spread confusion and lack of clarity 

and guidance among Catholics, and has hugely contributed to 

people leaving the Church. 

Because such liberalism makes God Himself subjective  and 

relative; each one makes their own god. 

 

The new liturgy changed the very understanding of God, and 

our relationship to Him. 

The priest facing the people instead of God, changed everything, 

it changed the priesthood itself. 

The priest became "one of us", but he isn't, he is set apart from 

us, he is there to serve God, the Church, to save souls, to bring 

the Kingdom of God to people. 

  

They did away with kneeling while receiving Him on the tongue, 

we could from now on stand, as if we are His equal, and receive 

Him with our own unworthy hands, as if it was any other food. 

This itself caused people to loose faith in the Real Presence, it 

brought the Church down to the level of a human community, 

amongst all the others. 

And bringing lay people to distribute the Body and Blood of 

Our Lord was a terrible idea, a serious blow to the priesthood.

 

The Church's  true value; the divine and 

supernatural, was taken out.

People started to leave the Church in droves, and those who 

remained lamented the drop in numbers.

But there is a reason for everything, everything has a cause.

Ever since we hear about the lack of vocations to the priesthood, 

the low number going to Mass, etc.

But why would we bother going to Mass, if not going to Mass is 

just as good?

 

The work of ecumenism has brought a favorable attitude towards 

Islam amongst many Catholics, because many priests have almost 

been promoting it from the pulpit. This does not necessarily come 

from a good knowledge of it, it stems from the "Nostrae Aetate" 

document; it says: this is the attitude we now ought to have.

 

The muslims are praised for being devote, compared to us 

Christians.

But I see many devote Catholics, mostly at Traditional Latin Mass, 

where they did not abandon the dogma and the teaching of the true 

faith. These communities, e.g. The Institute of Christ the King 

Sovereign Priest and others, are growing, and they constitute mainly 

of young people, they have real catholic schools where the Faith is 

being taught to the children from an early age. 

 

There is much less of a spirit of devotion in the Novus Ordo, where 

still to this day, many members of the congregation do not turn off 

their mobile phone before going in to Mass, where the dress code 

is non existent, where there is chatter and even clapping, and where 

the priest is your friend and your psychotherapist.

 

It is the Mass itself which is causing the lack of devotion. 


Groups of Lectio Divina, found in many parishes; where the Gospel 

is read, reflected on, shared thoughts on, reveals the differences 

people have on the Word of God, it is like "this is how I see it, this is 

how I feel", due to lack of catechism.  

Because God's word is objective, it is not up for interpretation.

 

In France there are already parishes that have shared prayer 

meetings with muslims, they often take place in mosques. 

This is set up by bishops. 

 

Also in France, in certain parishes The Holy Communion has been 

devalued, degraded, to such an extent that it is a buffet meal; instead 

of feeding the faithful with the Body and Blood of Christ in Holy 

Communion,  congregations are told that they can come up and serve 

themselves from the Ciborium, while the priest is sitting down.  

 

Also striking is the difference in the Sacrament of Confession between the 

Novus Ordo and the TLM.

In the N.O.the concept of sin has almost been done away with, so when 

you confess your sins to the priest, he almost justifies them for you, saying 

that what you did was totally understandable, and that in fact it was you 

that was the victim of somebody's else's sin, thus taking the responsibility 

for our actions away from us, and blaming someone else. This 

does not help us to grow in holiness, which is the sole purpose of the 

existence of the Catholic Church.

 

A sin must be recognized as such, confessed by the penitent, absolved 

by the priest, penance done, end of story, as it is done in the TLM.

Because hearing that it was "only normal and human" makes one think 

that it was fine, and there will be no effort of improvement. 

We are weak humans, but our participation in the Church is not about 

a growth in human nature, it is an effort to become more like Christ: 

God Himself.

  


 

 

 

God is Merciful, and also Judge

 

It is surprising to hear some Catholic's understanding of 

the Mercy of God, and the absence of the necessity of 

atonement or acts of reparation. 

Confessing our sins in the Sacrament of Reconciliation

means that we admit what we did wrong, and that we

understand why it was wrong, because it hurt God and 

usually another person(s) too. 

We know that being literally forgiven by God in this 

Sacrament is an immense grace that only exists in the 

Catholic Church, we know it is because God wants to

draw us nearer to Him while we are still living in this

dimension, but most people also have an inbuilt sense of

justice and balance; weighing things up.

 

If someone breaks somebody else's window by his own

fault, he can confess this to the priest in Confession, but 

he will more than likely be advised by the priest to go

to the person's house, and take responsibility for the 

reparation and cost of the window. 

It is only what any normal decent person would

do, who might not even be Catholic. 

We are after all for the moment living in a material world.

 

But some seems to have an unrealistic idea of God, they 

say that no matter what you do, God forgives unconditionally, 

because of His Mercy. 

But if they don't think that there are consequences for our

sins, how do they explain the existence of Purgatory, which 

is part of our Faith?

Purgatory exists because most people are not pure enough to

enter directly into Heaven, we need to purge our sins first,

it is a logical consequence.

These people believe that everybody goes directly to 

heaven,

no matter the quality of their soul and their person.

 

They do not believe in the existence of Hell either, even 

though Jesus Christ Himself spoke about it often, in the

New Testament He mentions it 60 times,

it seems therefore a bit rich for  anyone to decide that 

we can ignore that part.

This attitude is a pure protestant one; it is a "once saved,

always saved" belief, but Catholicism teaches that we can 

lose the grace of God at any moment, because of our fallen

nature, therefore we must never take God's Mercy for granted.

 

Being Catholic requires not only Faith, but also work.

Principally work on our self, self improvement, our own 

sanctification.

 

I heard someone use the words; "we're off the hook", which 

is not the right way to look at confession of our sins.

Going to Confession is never a light-hearted affair, and

why do we say in the Act of Contrition that we detest our sins

because of God's just punishment?  

 

Modernism and relativism has brought much falseness into

many Catholics understanding of the Faith, they have made 

it into a subjective, comfortable version that suits them.

 

But real Catholics are soldiers, they engage in the spiritual

battle every day, the battle against the evil one, and this is 

far from comfortable, I would wonder about anyone who feels 

comfortable.

God's reality is objective and unchanging.

 

 


 

 

 

 

AUTHORITY

 

We know that in order to live correctly we must be obedient.

A child must obey it's parents, at school; the teacher,

at work; the boss.

We must also obey the laws of the country that we live in.

 

The Holy Family were perfectly obedient and submitted 

to the laws of the land they were living in. 

For example, Joseph, who was born in Bethlehem, had to 

go back there to comply with the census regulations. 

Another example: they also complied with their Jewish 

customs as Jesus was brought to the Temple for the Jewish 

rite of  purification.

 

For Catholics it has become extremely complicated  

to be able to distinguish between what is God's law 

and what is the law that we must obey.

 

Since the 2.nd Vatican Council the doctrine of the 

Church has been more than vague, it is almost wiped 

out, apart from those adhering to Tradition, most Catholics 

think that being kind and helpful to others suffices, and 

since kindness and gentleness is something that hits home 

with the average human being everywhere, and all religions,

the Catholic Church is now in the transition of melting with 

the other religions in order to just have one world religion as

Pope Francis's Encyclical "Fratelli Tutti", which focuses

on worldly fraternity, underlines.

 

Yes, world peace, no more wars, is what we want.

Yes, we must love and respect all people, no matter 

religion and culture. Most of us grown up in 

the West know this, it is at the base of our cultures.

There are a multitude of international structures,

organizations and programs that works with this as

goal, but the problem of man's sinful and corrupted

nature always comes back to put obstacles in the way.

 

But the Catholic Faith is not just yet another program for 

good living and decent human behaviour.

It is much much more;  it is a program for sanctification; 

divinisation, the complete Catholic Doctrinal Faith is 

supernatural in nature.

 

This is why we need dogma and clear and unambiguous 

teaching, not a modified, watered down, vague and blurred 

version which fits in with the worldly trend, deprived of all 

supernatural. 

 

Jesus said: "My kingdom is not of this world." 

John 18:36

 

We live in a state and under a government which deems it

legal and acceptable to kill living babies, because they have 

not yet passed through the birth canal. 

But in the 6th Commandment of the Decalogue, it says the 

premeditated killing of another human being is forbidden.

 

This is just one example of the contradiction between God's

Law and civil law, but there are very many more which are 

irreconcilable, incompatible.

 

We live in the world, but as Catholics we should not live 

according to the world.

 

Catholics are in the fog, everything is blurred, they do no longer 

know how to distinguish and discern between right and wrong, 

they do not know which authority is "right", because often they 

unconsciously believe that elected members and ministers 

of government are automatically right, when they might actually

be on the side of the devil, but since they are conditioned to 

obedience to civil authority, being "good girls and boys", 

since childhood, they feel that they have no choice.


And because their conscience have not been informed and hence 

formed, by the divine teaching of the Catholic Church; the guardian 

of the full deposit of faith, as it is no longer generally taught.

 

God can not be updated, we can not inform God about what things 

are like nowadays, we can not say to Him: "hey God, you must 

understand that today in 2025, things have changed, its not like it 

was before, in your time", because God is outside time;

He Was, Is, and Will Always Be. 

 

"I Am Who I Am"

Exodus 3:14

 

God is Constant, Eternal, unchangeable, He exists in Himself.

He does not operate according to our way of thinking and acting;


 "For my thoughts are not your thoughts,

neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.

For as the heavens are higher than the earth,

so are my ways higher than your ways

and my thoughts than your thoughts"

Isaiah 55:8-9

 

We should not compromise with the world, because it 

leads to the destruction of the Church and the loss of souls. 

It is painful to see how priests are obliged to do so, due to 

their vow of obedience, they have sometimes to comply 

with changes that contradicts the fundamentals, 

the absoluteness of catholic doctrine; for example the 

indissolubility  of marriage, by introducing the possibility 

for annulments.


We only need to read the old testament, long before 

The Incarnation, to see that nothing has really changed, 

the world is as corrupt today as it was 

before, human nature is as bad today as before, the ways 

and manners have changed, but they are external and 

superficial, the human heart has not changed.  


Politics is at work inside the church, the destructive work of 

ecumenism which wastes precious time and deviates the focus.

As Catholics we are not obliged to follow this, and what is more, 

we ought not to do so, since the focus and goal is our own sanctification

and evangelisation of the world, bringing the Word of God to others. 

The very concept that the Catholic Church should approach

the churches that willingly broke away from her, and faiths

that are totally different, like Islam, by pretending that we have

the basics in common, (we believe in one God), is trickery and 

deception, making people believe that the differences between us are 

negligible, it weakens the church and drives people who are not there 

for community activity reasons, away.