The Catholic Church is not a charity organisation, nor an association, cultural society or club. She is the keeper and transmitter of the Truth about God and the truth about ourselves. The Catholic Faith is Supernatural as distinct from natural (earthly, pagan).
When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?
God can not be modified
So the controversy; the fight, continues, and it will as long
as the situation is not regularized.
It could be done at any time, in an instant, but ever since
the situation arose, it is the one and same sin that prevents
that from taking place:
Pride.
They don't call pride the deadliest of all sins for nothing.
The Catholic Church is the guardian of the deposit of faith;
she holds the truth about us humans and about God.
Despite humans being finite, limited, restricted, by our
humanness, in contrast to God who is All Powerful,
without limit, obstructed by nothing,
the Catholic Church offers by the means of the
Sacraments, for us to have a close relationship with Him, through
His Only Son Jesus Christ.
Even though I grew up in a post christian (protestant) country
and am a convert to Catholisism, I remember the absolute outrage,
even in my country of origin,
when the New Mass was introduced, because it was reported in
the media.
In the 50 years since then, I have progressivly learnt more
of the faith, because there was much unclarity, a lack of guidelines,
this hinders progression and true knowledge.
I wanted to learn more, driven by a desire to dig deeper, to truly
understand, so I could implement it in my daily life.
Integrating the teaching in myself, which implies obviously to
step outside the comfort zone,
taking risks and a complete trust in God.
It implies not being afraid
of being ridiculed and rejected, and to not be afraid of death.
Those who today are pejoratively called "intégrists" or
"fundamentalists", judged with contempt, while
in reality they are rather the logical result of taking abord the
message of Christ without modifying it to suit personal
whims and desires, are regarded with suspicion.
What Archbishop Lefebvre did was the exact opposite to
rebellion, it was a heroic sacrificial act with disregard to
himself, in order to save the Church; the true treasures of
the Church. With the new mass; the novus ordo, the
deconstruction of the Chuch was set in motion.
From then on subjective relativism replaced primordial
Catholic teaching; even the Decalogue, (written in stone..)
(And ever since, those who still holds fast to the new mass,
are unable to understand why there is less and less
people going to that mass.)
Monseigneur Lefebvre's situation was akin to a firechief
looking at a building containing everlasting value, which
had been set alight, in order to burn it down. He had
spent his whole life in service of propagating it, he had
been elevated to Archbishop of Dakar and Superior
General of the Holy Ghost Fathers, by the Catholic Church.
He was a 100% faithful servant of the Holy Catholic Church,
and never a renegade.
Then, due to the Second Vatican Council, he was faced
with the wilful dismanteling and destruction of the Church,
to be carried out from within, the impoverished new Liturgy
replacing the Liturgy of all times, the same Liturgy which
had produced thousands of known Saints and an unknown
number of unknown saintly ordinary men, women and children.
Lefebvre absolutely had to react, he was not disobedient,
on the contrary; he was obedient to the last;
obedient to God the Father.
When you are the Chief of a firebrigade, would it be normal
to stand there without reacting, looking at the building that has
been set fire to?
If Lefebvre had not founded the SSPX, the authentic Catholic
Church would have ceased to exist today, it was an absolutely
necessary act in order to preserve it.
Because he consecrated bishops without having obtained the formal
permission from the Pope who just wanted Lefebvre to toe the line
and stop making a fuss about the Faith being destroyed, and agree
to submit to Vatican 2.
Since that was not possible, he was ready to die rather than do that,
the ordinations went ahead.
He knew full well that he would be excommunicated, this is why his
actions were of sacrificual nature, he sacrified himself in order to save
the Church.
Even though this act has been called "schismatic", it has not, not up
until now anyway, been declared that SSPX are in actual schism, it is
much more ambigous than that.
They have, since the ordinations of the 4 bishops in
1988 been left in limbo, due to the Vatican's lack of willingness to
regularize them; declaring them to be in full communion with Rome.
I don't even put this down to the individual Popes we have had since
then, the diabolical powers of the world which have infiltrated the
Church are at play.
It is a question of punishment, they are being punished, for not
submitting to the order of accepting the unacceptible. (Vatican 2)
Similarly to the doctors who refused to inject their patients with the
covid "vaccine", which the manufacturers admitted were,
unlike other vaccines, not properly tested , therefore by definition
"experimental", based on the hippocratic oath they had
made and their own moral compass, they were struck off the register
and prevented from practising their profession/vocation.
It boils down to the power of authority. Not about right or wrong,
or the common good, but pure power.
I cannot help but to make the analogue with family.
Parents have the authority over their children, however that does
not prevent mistakes, bad judgement and sometimes cruelty and
abuse from parents even toward a good and well behaved child.
Sometimes it is simply the parent who is wrong, nevertheless they
have the upper hand of authority over the child.
What does the child do then?
But thanks to the good and saintly Archbishop, we have today
in full communion with The Holy See;
Traditional Roman Catholic Societies of Apostolic life like
Christ the King Sovereign Priest ( established in 1990), and the
Institute of the Good Shepherd,( 2006)
who continues to teach, transmit, educate the true authentic Faith.
Who do we follow?
"Jesus said: My kingdom is not of this world. If it were,
my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish
leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place."
John 18:36
Jesus is challenged by Pilate in regard to his use of the word
"kingdom", interpreted by Pilate as if Jesus is declaring himself
to be a wordly king, that being the only concept of kingship
he understood.
But Jesus said that He came into the world to testify to the Truth,
and that everyone on the side of truth listens to Him.
We then have Pilate asking the famous question;
"what is the truth,"
and we know that what followed is that he didn't want to be
bothered by this case anymore, he himself was not Jewish,
his role was to govern this part of the Roman Empire.
He couldn't find any fault with Jesus, but as he felt the pressure
to make a descision, he caved in, he washed
his hands off the entire affaire and let them decide what to do
with Jesus, and they wanted Jesus dead.
It is surprising how little discernment there often is among
many Catholics in regard to wordly matters.
The power of the world and the power of God are
opposing each other,
they can not be "reconciled",
no compromise can be made,
they can only be managed by us as best we can, and that is
sometimes like a walk on a tightrope.
We should be able to distinguish between the two.
For the moment we live in this world, but we are not supposed
to live according to the world.
One thing is certain; Christians who truly live according to the
Word of God is hated by the world.
They are sure to be ridiculed, misunderstood and rejected.
We must be awake, to be able to capture nuances in what
is being said, and to reflect.
It is frightening for example to see Catholics having full confidence
in the Government, without any discernment, there seems to be the
automatic assumption that whatever comes from the governement
must be more or less morally sound, because it is the government.
Such a wrong assumption, forgetting that there is pressure on the
government.
We must be obedient to God, and at the same time we should not
break any civil law. This is often a tight rope walk; the right line.
Many examples comes to mind:
The corona vaccine being the most recent; an admittedly
experimental vaccine where the risks, evalued objectivly,
without the elements of pressure and fear, seemed too high
in proportion to the relative minor discomfort of the corona flu
virus.
People die every day, sometimes it can be just a flu that kills an
already weak and fragile body, but it was repeated again and
again that it was a flu, which any normal immune system can
deal with.
Yet, because of the governement and the hand-in-hand media
blew it up out of all proportion, leading a fear campaign, many
Catholics got themselves injected with an experimental vaccine
that had unknown side effects, despite many leading experts in
the field of immunology and vaccines warning against it, stating
that it will it will cause heart problems and cancer.
Reflect on the moral aspect; considering the fact that the
vaccines are made from stem-cells of aborted babies, taken when
the babies are still alive, as many aborted babies stays alive for a
a certain period of time after having being extracted from their
mother's body.
The forces of this world are diabolic, if we are not aware
of this fact, we will fall victim to it.
In this case, you might have thought that common sense and prudence;
erring on the side of caution, would have prevailed.
But no; a people who voted for abortion
(because "all the other countries are doing it" being the argument),
who voted for same sex "marriage" (the only country who
actually had a referendum on it, the governement of other countries
simply just brought it into law),
do not have a perspective of common sense and personal
reasoning, facts are discarded; they just go with the crowd,
the same crowd that demanded the crucifixion of Jesus.
Jesus came to testify to the truth, and Pilate famously answered;
"what is truth?"
Today people talk about "my truth" and "your truth", everybody
"their own truth", and this is also prevalent in the Church today.
Ever since the Second Vatican Council, which aimed for spiritual
renewal in the Church, the exact opposite has occured, and
quite logically so;
in proportion to the Church's "opening up to the world" and
aligning herself with the world, the objective Truth of which
the Catholic Church is guardian, has been obscured,
truth has become relative and subjective.
Never to forget that the Church is made up of sinful and weak
men and women,
who regularly gets lost and goes away from the Truth.
The Catholic Church is Holy, because Jesus Christ, who is God,
is her Head, we her members; all faithful, including Priests, Bishops,
Cardinals, Popes, are all sinners.
"Do not put your trust in princes, in human beings, who cannot save".
Psalm 146;3
"Blessed are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is
in the Lord their God"
Psalm 146;5
Who and what is Man
Psalm 8: 4-8:
"What is man that you are mindful of him,
and the son of man that you visit him?
For you have made him a little lower than the angels,
and you have crowned him with glory and honor.
You have made him to have dominion over the works
of your hands,
You have put all things under his feet,
All sheep and oxen- even the beasts of the field,
the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea that pass
through the paths of the seas."
Secularism and paganism denies
the reality that human beings possess a supernatural
prerogative.
Although we are created beings, we are above animals
and everything else in creation.
Why is that?
Because we have capacities that are particular only to us,
which animals do not have.
There is in nature perfect organisation; trees, flowers,
bees etc., everything is adjusted and arranged in a perfect
harmonic form, and in regard to animals; their senses and instincts
are usually well superior to man's.
So it is not any of those things that sets us apart and above.
It is our intelligence, our ability to create concepts and ideas
in our minds.
Concepts and ideas are not physical matter.
Thanks to our intelligence we have the capacity to
conceptualise,
which is a spiritual faculty.
All of us; we do this continually,
we are so used to it that we do not even realise that
we are doing it.
Think of new inventions for example; they were first
conceptualised in their inventor's mind.
The intelligence is by definition spiritual;
as it is completly non-material.
Man is the transporter of the non-material; the spiritual,
due to his intelligence.
The material; from matter, is specific,
The spiritual is universal.
Human beings live at the junction between earth
and heaven, above us we have the pure spirits of angels,
who unlike us, have no body.
Man is the meeting place between soul and body, the soul
is a spirit created by God, in order to be one with the body.
We sometimes hear people say that everything that happens,
happens first of all in the mind.
Based on that, we can see the importance of being aware
of what is going on in our minds.
Think of numbers; 1, 2, 4,10, 200, etc, they are little characters;
visible signs,
but the reality behind them are concepts, as is arithmetic and
all mathematics; e.g. 2+2=4 is a concept, a spiritual manipulation.
For example we can look at a cat in front of us, then the cat goes
away, but we have then internalised the concept of a cat, and
that concept is not material.
Man's intelligence captures intangible realities, we are repositories
and devices of spiritual things which do not derive from matter.
If it does not come from matter, where does it come from?
It has to have it's origin in something,
it is the effect of a cause.
Man is composed of a soul; a spirit, and a body.
The word "soul" in French is "âme", derived from
the latin word "anima" translated: "which gives life to",
our soul which comes from God is ONE with the body.
We are not just our body, and we are not just our soul,
we are a composition of the two; to form one substance.
If we were principally only soul, we would be the owner
of our bodies and we could dispose them if we wanted,
but we cant, because WE ARE our bodies.
The French philosopher Descartes thought that the spirit and
the body were two separate entities; he compared the soul to a
captain of a ship (the ship being the body), a bad comparison,
since a captain of a ship can get off and onboard the ship when
he wants, whereas we can't get in and out of our bodies as we like.
Our soul; possessing qualities that does not originate from matter,
is intellectual, spiritual. It internalises realities that are totally
non-material: ideas and concepts, to bring into the soul by it's
intellectual knowledge, completely non-material realities.
Man's other great capacity which set him apart is his ability to
love non-material things; e.g;
Justice, Truth, The Common Good.
We need to know ourselves; we are in the process of
salvation; by the Mystery of The Incarnation and the
Mystery of The Redemption, we need to know our true
state, this is continuous work.
Our soul is sensory, it is constantly stirred and agitated,
our way of reacting to events takes place in the soul.
As we know the register of emotions can range from
the extreme euphoric to the most desperate pessimistic.
Both the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle and the
great theologian Saint Thomas Aquinas
divided the human passions/emotions
(which we have in common with animals) in two main categories;
the Concupiscible and Irascible.
The Concupiscible side is pretty uncomplicated; it seeks fulfillment
of desires, it avoids pain, they are reactions of the soul.
The Irascible side is more challenging; it deals with strong reactions
such as anger, fear, despair, but also courage and hope.
There is an inter-actional relationship between the two sides;
the Irascible helps out the Concupiscible in order to attain the
desired goal.
The manner in which we react when our passions are triggered
depends on the disposition of our heart.
The Christian virtues are the spiritual supernatural dispositions;
"the settings" which goes further, they are added on top of what is
already there, they elevate the intelligence of the human heart.
The great Theological virtue of FAITH is a virtue of the intelligence.
It allows us to know truths to which we would otherwise have no
access to, only by God's authority.
The virtue of PRUDENCE is a virtue of the intelligence.
It allows us to calculate and deliberate our actions.
All the moral virtues are located in the willpower;
restraint in regard to the passions of the Concupisibles, and
strenght confronted with the Irascibles.
The two groups cooperate; for example if we
can moderate our appetite for food, we will find it easier
to control our anger.
"Morals" then, is about man's behaviour regarding, and
confronting, the passions, they need to be held in check.
Keeping in mind that all the passions are good in themselves,
since as everything else it is God who created them, we just need to
train ourselves to become masters of them.
Our 5 physical senses; sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch detect
external stimuli, and the information derived is transmitted into
our brain, where they are interpreted by each person individually.
This is where it gets interesting, because the individual
interpretation depends on the person's personal history and
imagination; the personal filter the data is processed through.
We can think of an investigation after an accident for example;
there might have been 5 witnesses; it is not uncommon that each
one has different versions of what happened.
We are plugged in to the world around us through the
5 senses, we communicate with others through them,
but the actual exchange itself;
what is being communicated, is non-material.
All matter is dividable; capable of being dissolved
or split into pieces.
Water can be split into it's two components of hydrogen
and oxygen.
Bodies degrade and in the end they decompose.
But the human spirit does not come from matter, it comes
from God, it is by it's nature elevated over the material,
it is immortal, eternal, indestructible.