What a true Franciscan Pope would say to America, today!

Tags

Communium Rerum, Liberty, Saint Pius X

Pope Saint Pius X, from his Encyclical, Communium Rerum, 1909 A. D.

…For you are aware, Venerable Brothers, and you have often lamented it with us, how evil are the days on which we have fallen, and how iniquitous the conditions that have been forced upon us… efforts of all kinds are being made to supplant the kingdom of God by a reign of license under the lying name of liberty. And to bring about by the rule of vices and lusts the triumph of the worst of all slaveries and bring the people headlong to their ruin-“for sin makes peoples wretched (Prov. xiv., 34)… thus the ministers of religion have been despised and mocked, and, wherever that was possible, reduced to powerlessness and inertia…distinguished laymen who openly profess their Catholic faith have been turned into ridicule, persecuted, kept in the background as belonging to an inferior and outcast class, until the coming of the day, which is being hastened by ever more iniquitous laws, when they are to be utterly ostracized from public affairs.

And the authors of this war, cunning and pitiless as it is, boast that they are waging it through love of liberty, civilization and progress, and, were you to believe them, through a spirit of patriotism-in this lie, too, resembling their father, who “was a murderer from the beginning,” and “when he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own, for he is a liar” (Igan., viii., 44), and raging with hate insatiable against God and the human race. Brazen-faced men these, seeking to create confusion by their words and to lay snares for the ears of the simple. No, it is not patriotism, or zealous care for the people, or any other noble aim, or desire to promote good of any kind, that incites them to this bitter war, but blind hatred which feeds their mad plan to weaken the Church and exclude her from social life, which makes them proclaim her as dead, while they never cease to attack her-nay, after having despoiled her of all liberty, they do not hesitate in their brazen folly to taunt her with her powerlessness to do anything for the benefit of mankind or human government.

…But with no less severity and sorrow have we been obliged to denounce and to put down another species of war, intestine and domestic, and all the more disastrous the more hidden it is. Waged by unnatural children, nestling in the very bosom of the Church in order to rend it in silence, this war aims more directly at the very root and the soul of the Church. They are trying to corrupt the springs of Christian life and teaching, to scatter the sacred deposit of the faith, to overthrow the foundations of the divine constitution by their contempt for all authority, pontifical as well as episcopal, to put a new form on the Church, new laws, new principles, according to the tenets of monstrous systems ; in short, to deface all the beauty of the Spouse of Christ for the empty glamor of a new culture…against which the Apostle frequently puts ;us on our guard: “Beware lest any man cheat you by philosophy and vain deceit, according to the traditions of men, according to the elements of the world, and not according to Christ.” ( Colos. ii., 8.)

By this figment of false philosophy and this shallow and fallacious erudition, joined with a most audacious system of criticism, some have been seduced and “become vain in their thoughts” (Rom. i., 21), “having rejected good conscience, they have made shipwreck concerning the faith” (1. Tim. i., 19) ; they are being tossed about miserably on the waves of doubt, knowing not themselves at what port they must land; others, wasting both time and study, lose themselves in the investigation of abstruse trifling, and thus grow estranged from the study of divine things and of the real springs of doctrine. This hotbed of error and perdition (which has come to be known commonly as modernism from its craving for unhealthy novelty), although denounced several times and unmasked by the very excesses of its adepts, continues to be a most grave and deep evil. It lurks like poison in the vitals of modern society, estranged as this is from God and His Church, and it is especially eating its way like a cancer among the young generations, which are naturally the most inexperienced and heedless. 

It is not the result of solid study and true knowledge, for there can be no real conflict between reason and faith. ( Concil. Vatic., Cons tit. Dei filius, capo 4·) But it is the result of intellectual pride and of the pestiferous atmosphere that prevails of ignorance or confused knowledge of the things of religion, united with the stupid presumption of speaking about and discussing them. And this deadly infection is further fomented by a spirit of incredulity and of rebellion against God, so that those who are seized by the blind frenzy for novelty consider that they are all sufficient for themselves, and that they are at liberty to throw off either openly or by subterfuge the entire yoke of divine authority, fashioning for themselves according to their own caprice a vague, naturalistic individual religiosity, borrowing the name and some semblance of Christianity, but with none of its life and truth. 

Now in all this it is not difficult to recognize one of the many forms of the eternal war waged against divine truth, and one that is all the more dangerous from the fact that its weapons are craftily concealed with a covering of fictitious piety, ingenuous candor and earnestness, in the hands of factious men who use them to reconcile things that are absolutely irreconcilable, viz., the extravagances of a fickle human science with divine faith, and the spirit of a frivolous world with the dignity and constancy of the Church.

But if you see all this, Venerable Brothers, and deplore it bitterly with us, you are not therefore cast down or without all hope. You know of the great conflicts that other times have brought upon the Christian people, very different though they were from our own days. We have but to turn again to the age in which Anselm lived, so full of difficulties as it appears in the annals of the Church. Then, indeed, was it necessary to fight for the altar and the home, for the sanctity of public law, for liberty, civilization, sound doctrine, of all of which the Church alone was the teacher and the defender among the nations, to curb the violence of Princes who arrogated to themselves the right of treading upon the most sacred liberties, to eradicate the vices, ignorance and uncouthness of the people, not yet entirely stripped of their old barbarism and often enough refractory to the educating influence of the Church, to rouse a part of the clergy who had grown lax or lawless in their conduct…

…To us, as you know well, Venerable Brothers, are especially addressed the words of the Lord: “Cry out, give yourself no rest, raise your voice like a trumpet” ( Isai. lviii., :t.), and all the more that “the Most High has made His voice heard” (Psalms xvii., 14), in the trembling nature and in tremendous calamities, “the voice of the Lord shaking the earth,” ringing in our ears a terrible warning and bringing home to us the hard lesson that all but the eternal is vanity, that “we have nowhere a lasting city, but we seek one that is to come” ( Hebr. xiii., 14), but also a voice not only of justice, but of mercy and of wholesome reminder to the erring nations. In the midst of these public calamities it behooves us to cry aloud and make known the great truths of the faith not only to the people, to the humble, the afflicted, but to the powerful and the rich, to them that decide and govern the policy of nations, to make known to all the great truths which history confirms by its great and disastrous lessons, such as that “sin makes the nations miserable” (Prov. xiv., 34), “that a most severe judgment shall be for them that bear rule” (Sap. vi., 7), with the admonition of Psalm ii.: “And now, ye Kings, understand; receive instruction, you that judge the earth. Serve the Lord with fear . . . embrace discipline lest at any time the Lord be angry, and you perish from the just way.” More bitter shall be the consequences of these threats when the vices of society are being multiplied, when the sin of rulers and of the people consists especially in the exclusion of God and in rebellion against the Church of Christ-that double social apostasy which is the deplorable fount of anarchy, corruption and endless misery for the individual and for society.

And since silence or indolence on our part, as unfortunately is not unfrequently the case among the good, would incriminate us, too, let every one of the sacred pastors take as said to himself for the defense of his flock, and bring home to others in due season, Anselm’s words to the mighty Prince of Flanders: “As you are my Lord and truly beloved by me in God, I pray, conjure, admonish and counsel you, as the guardian of your soul, not to believe that your lofty dignity is diminished if you love and defend the liberty of the Spouse of God and your Mother, the Church, not to think that you abase yourself when you exalt her, not to believe that you weaken yourself when you strengthen her. Look round you and see; the examples are before you ; consider the princes that attack and maltreat her. What do they gain by it, what do they attain? It is so clear that there is no need to say it.” (Epist., lib. IV., ep. 12.) …

But there is comfort for us ; the Lord liveth and “He will make all things work together unto good to them that love God.” (Rom. viii., 28.) Even from these evils He will bring good, and above all the obstacles devised by human perversity He will make more splendid the triumph of His work and of His Church. Such is the wonderful design of the Divine Wisdom and such “His unsearchable ways” (Rom., xi., 33) in the present order of Providence, “for my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor my ways your ways, saith the Lord” (Isai. lv., 8), that the Church of Christ is destined ever to renew in herself the life of her Divine Founder, who suffered so much, and in a manner to “fill up what is wanting of the sufferings of Christ.” (Coloss. i., 24.) Hence her condition as militant on earth divinely constrains her to live in the midst of contentions, troubles and difficulties, that thus “through many tribulations she may enter into the kingdom of God” (Act. xiv., 21) and at last be united with the Church triumphant in heaven…

They err greatly, therefore, who lose faith during the storm, wishing for themselves and the Church a permanent state of perfect tranquility, universal prosperity and practical, unanimous and uncontrasted recognition of her sacred authority. But the error is worse when men deceive themselves with the idea of gaining an ephemeral peace by cloaking the rights and interests of the Church, by sacrificing them to private interests, by minimizing them unjustly, by truckling to the world, “the whole of which is seated in wickedness” (I. loan. v., 19), on the pretext of reconciling the followers of novelties and bringing them back to the Church, as though any composition were possible between light and darkness, between Christ and Belial. This hallucination is as old as the world, but it is alwaysmodem and always present in the world so long as there are soldierswho are timid or treacherous and at the first onset ready to throwdown their arms or open negotiations with the enemy, who is the irreconcilable enemy of God and man.

It is for you, therefore, Venerable Brothers, whom Divine Providence has constituted to be the pastors and leaders of the Christian people, to resist with all your strength this most fatal tendency of modern society to lull itself in a shameful indolence while war is being waged against religion, seeking a cowardly neutrality made up of weak schemes and compromises to the injury of divine and human rights, to the oblivion of Christ’s clear sentence: “He that is not with Me is against Me.” (I. Cor. ix., 22.) …

This effort is necessary not only to oppose the assaults from without of those who fight openly against the liberty and the rights of the Church, but also in order to meet the dangers from within, arising from that second kind of war which we deplored above when we made mention of those misguided persons who are trying by their cunning systems to overthrow from the foundations the very institution and essence of the Church, to stain the purity of her doctrine and destroy her entire discipline. For even still there continues to circulate that poison which has been inoculated into many even among the clergy, and especially the young clergy, who have, as we have said, become infected by the pestilential atmosphere in their unbridled craving for novelty which is drawing them to the abyss and drowning them.

Then, again, by a deplorable aberration the very progress, good in itself, of positive science and material prosperity gives occasion and pretext for a display of intolerable arrogance towards divinely revealed truth on the part of many weak and intemperate minds. But these should rather remember the many mistakes and the frequent contradictions made by the followers of rash novelties in those questions of a speculative and practical order most vital for man, and realize that human pride is punished by never being able to be coherent with itself and by suffering shipwreck without ever sighting the port of truth. They are not able to profit by their own -experience to humble themselves and “to destroy the counsels and every height that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bring into captivity every understanding even unto the obedience of Christ.” (II. Cor. X., 4. s.)

Nay, their very arrogance has led them into the other extreme, and their philosophy, throwing doubt on everything in darkness, has involved them ; hence the present profession of agnosticism with other absurd doctrines springing from an infinite series of systems in discord with one another and with right reason; so that “they have become vain in their thoughts . . . for professing themselves to be wise they became fools.” (Rom. i., 21, 22.) But unfortunately their grandiloquent phrases and their promises of a new wisdom, fallen as it were from heaven, and of new methods of thought, have found favor with many young men, as those of the Manicheans found favor with Augustine, and have returned these aside, more or less unconsciously, from the right road. But concerning such pernicious masters of an insane knowledge, of their aims, their illusions, their erroneous and disastrous system, we have spoken at great length in our encyclical letter “Pascendi dominici gregis.”…

But if the erring continue obstinately to scatter the seeds of dissension and error, to waste the patrimony of the sacred doctrine of the Church, to attack discipline, to heap contempt on venerated customs, “to destroy which is a species of heresy” (S. Anselm., De nuptiis consanguineorum, cap. 1), in the phrase of St. Anselm, and to destroy the constitution of the Church in its very foundations, then all the more strictly must we watch, Venerable Brothers, and keep away from our flock, and especially from youth, which is the most tender part of it, so deadly a pest.

This grace we implore of God with incessant prayers, interposing the most powerful patronage of the August Mother of God and the intercession of the blessed citizens of the Church triumphant, St. Anselm especially, shining light of Christian wisdom, incorrupt guardian and valiant defender of all the sacred rights of the Church, to whom we would here, in conclusion, address the same words that our holy predecessor, Gregory VII., wrote to him during his lifetime: “Since the sweet odor of your good works has reached us, we return due thanks for them to God, and we embrace you heartily in the love of Christ, holding it for certain that by your example the Church of God has been greatly benefited, and that by your prayers and those of men like you she may even be liberated from the dangers that hang over her, with the mercy of Christ to succor us.” Hence we beg your fraternity to implore God assiduously to relieve the Church and us who govern it, albeit unworthily, from the pressing assaults of the heretics and lead these from their errors to the way of truth.” (In libro II., Epist. S. Anselmi, ep. 31.)

« Laudato Sie, mi Signore… » — The Encyclical which needs to be written

Tags

Apostle Saint John, Christ Jesus, Encyclical, Environmentalism, Jesus Christ, Laudato Si, Pope Francis, Saint Francis of Assisi

Editor’s note: Since some Catholics may consider it distasteful or inappropriate to publicly criticize Pope Francis’ Encyclical on the Environment, I have chosen not to publish anything regarding it.

However, by the grace of God, there has come into view the text of a rough draft of an Encyclical from the future, the reading of which is an occasion to reinvigorate me in the Catholic Faith which has come to us from the lips of the Eternal Son of God, Jesus Christ.  Having transcribed it, as best I can, I pass it on the text to the readers of this blog for their edification and consolation in the present hour of madness and confusion.

 

ON THE HONOR AND GLORY DUE TO THE DIVINE MAJESTY OF THE MOST HOLY TRINITY

AGAINST THE ERRORS OF ENVIRONMENTALISM

(Draft Copy — Nota bene: Not under embargo)

Encyclical Letter From a Future Catholic Pope, to all the Cardinals, Archbishops, Bishops, Clergy, Religious and Laity in communion with this Apostolic See:

Peace and Apostolic Benediction!

INTRODUCTION

« Laudato sie, mi Signore cum tucte le Tue creature »:  with these words Saint Francis of Assisi — whom the Most High and Triune Lord, the Father, and the Son and the Holy Ghost, raised up from a family of cloth merchants in a small Umbrian town, and sent to this Apostolic See for the restoration of the House  of God, which is the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. (1 Timothy 3:15, cf Eccles 4:17) — the poverello, sought to draw all Christians to the praise and glorification of the One True God, the Catholic God, apart from Whom there is no god in Heaven or Earth.

2. These words are drawn from his Canticle of Brother Sun, or Canticle of Creatures, and are in the native tongue of his home town, in the Umbrian dialect as it was spoken at the turn of the 13th century after the Birth of Christ, Jesus, Our Lord.

3. That Canticle begins with a praise of the One True God:

Altissimu, onnipotente bon Signore,
Tue so le laude, la gloria e l’honore et onne benedictione.

Ad Te solo, Altissimo, se konfano,
et nullu homo ène dignu te mentouare.

in which Saint Francis, after the likeness of a seraph of the empyrean Heaven, recalls to our minds the attributes which are peculiar and properly of God alone:  Most High, Omnipotent, Good Lord… words, which the Saint pronounces in the vocative case, to indicate, after the example of the Prophet Job, that when one speaks of Our Lord and Creator, it is most proper and right to do so, as one speaking to Him, not of Him.

4. For Our God is Most High, just as the Prophet Isaiah teaches:  O Lord of hosts, God of Israel, who sittest upon the cherubim, thou alone art the God of all the kingdoms of the earth, thou hast made heaven and earth. (Isaiah 37:16).

5. Our God is Omnipotent, that is, Almighty, as He Himself declared to the Prophet Moses:  I am the Almighty God: walk before me, and be perfect. (Genesis 17:1).

6. Our God is the Good Lord, as He Himself taught us, when He deflected the false praise offered to the human nature which He assumed in His Incarnation for our salvation, saying:  No one is good but God. (Mark 10:18).

7. God alone is good, because God alone in His very Being, which both is and exists from all eternity, is the sum and origin  of all perfection, and it is He Who is, and who was, and who is to come, just as He revealed to the Apostle Saint John:  I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, saith the Lord God, who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty. (Apoc 1:18)

8. Because God is God, the only God, for this reason all men are bound to praise and glorify him, as the holy man of Assisi did in his Canticle of the Creatures after the manner of a Levite of old, as was written of King David, when he brought the Ark of the Lord into Jerusalem for the first time:  And he appointed Levites to minister before the ark of the Lord, and to remember His works, and to glorify, and praise the Lord God of Israel. (1 Parapilomenon 16:4).

9.  This did the great Seraphim and Archangel Raphael command men, when in the guise of Azarias the son of the great Ananias (Tobias 5:18) he said to Tobit:  For when I was with you, I was there by the will of God: bless ye him, and sing praises to him. (Tobias 12:18).

10. But all the more so, are Christians bound to praise Him, they who have been saved through the laver of regeneration (Titus 3:5) by the merits of the blood of Christ Jesus, the Eternal Son of God, and have been transferred from the kingdom of this darkness, to the Kingdom of His Everlasting Light (cf. Colossians 1:13), and this after the example of the Prophet Moses and the Jews of old, who upon their rescue in the sea, when they sung the Canticle of the Lord, exclaimed: The Lord is my strength and my praise, and he is become salvation to me: he is my God and I will glorify him: the God of my father, and I will exalt him. (Exodus 15:2).

PART I

Our God and Savior is the Lord of Heaven and Earth

1. At the very heart of the Christian religion, which originated and endures and shall ever purdure only in the Catholic Church, lies the confession of a most sublime truth:  that Our God and Savior is the Lord of Heaven and Earth, that is, that He who had created us and all things at the beginning of time, who is named by the Name, “Yahweh, Sabbaoth!” (2 Samuel 7:27), is the same God, who in His incarnation as man, offered Himself up as a living holocaust for the expiation of sin upon the Cross (cf. Hebrews 9:14), during the reign of the Roman Emperor Tiberius, in proconsulship of Pontius Pilate (cf. Luke 3:1), on the mount of Golgotha (cf. Matthew 27:33; Mark 15:22; John 19:17).

2. This is what the people of God of old hoped and prayed for, as the Prophet Baruch witnesses:  For my hope is in the Eternal that he will save you: and joy is come upon me from the Holy One, because of the mercy which shall come to you from our everlasting Savior. (Baruch 4:22)

3. For the Creator of All, Who at the beginning of time, having created all things, pronounced them, “good” (Genesis ), in the fullness of time sent His Son to save sinners, and commissioned men to preach the Gospel of salvation, as is written of His preferential or antecedent will for mankind:  Who will have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth. (1 Timothy 2:4).

OUR DIVINE AND APOSTOLIC CHARGE MOVE US

4. For this reason, on account of the sublime office which We have received from the Hands of the Living God, when in the person of Saint Peter, he received from Christ Jesus Our Lord, the duty and office of confirming His flock in the truth of His teaching (Matthew 16:18), We cannot be silent at the grave errors of Our own day which have overwhelmed the entire human race with monstrous falsehoods which denigrate and dishonor the Divine and Eternal Majesty of God Our Creator and threaten and do lessen the glory which He is due from every creature, on account of the Goodness and Wisdom with Which He worked in the creation and ordering of the entire universe of things.

THE DUTY OF THIS APOSTOLIC SEE TO AVOID THE PROFANATION AND SACRILEGE OF ITS SACRED MINISTRY

5. For Our Most High Lord entrusted the office of teaching to Saint Peter so that the one, sole and unique Church which He founded in Himself upon the profession of Saint Peter’s faith, might be the bulwark and pillar of the truth for all His own, and indeed for all mankind, until the end of time, when He comes is glory to judge the living and the dead, meeting out eternal and glorious rewards for those who have remained faithful to Him, and punishing the wicked and godless with eternal damnation in the fire pits of Gehenna.

6. For this reason, if We as a private person were to use our august office to teach anything which is merely naturally good, We would not be exempt from the demerit of some culpability for having profaned the sacred duty of Our office.  This sin would be all the greater in Us and sacriligeous, if We used the authority of Our office — which is not of man’s contrivance, but which originates immediately from the largess of the Creator and Savior of men — to promote error or to foster in souls a turning away of minds and hearts and actions from the goal of the salvation offered by the Redeemer of mankind:  life on high with Christ Jesus, just as St. Paul wrote:  But our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ, Who will reform the body of our lowness, made like to the body of his glory, according to the operation whereby also he is able to subdue all things unto himself. (cf. Philippians 3:20).

7. For this reason, the Apostle of the Gentiles warned all who would follow him in the Apostolic ministry with these stern words:  Be ye followers of me, brethren, and observe them who walk so as you have our model. For many walk, of whom I have told you often (and now tell you weeping), that they are enemies of the cross of Christ; Whose end is destruction; whose God is their belly; and whose glory is in their shame; who mind earthly things. (Philippians 3:17-19)

8. This sinful obsession with earthly things is, as the glorious Doctor of the Church, the Seraphic Saint Bonaventure frequently notes, the necessary consequent of a human spirit bent down to face earthly things by the weight of his own sins and vices and concupiscences.

9. It should, therefore, not be a matter of dispute among all who know their faith, that godless and carnal men have not the liberty of mind to be but the cause of error and darkness, since their minds are not intent on things above in that Heaven of heavens, in which the God who is Light Himself, dwells in inaccessible light.

10. For this reason, God in His Wisdom and Providence chose to warn us beforehand against those who would clothe themselves in the raiment of Angels and belch forth monstrous errors to deceive the faithful, after the manner of the False Prophet of which the beloved Apostle spoke in the Book of the Apocalypse:

And the fifth angel poured out his vial upon the seat of the beast; and his kingdom became dark, and they gnawed their tongues for pain: And they blasphemed the God of heaven, because of their pains and wounds, and did not penance for their works. And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon that great river Euphrates; and dried up the water thereof, that a way might be prepared for the kings from the rising of the sun. And I saw from the mouth of the dragon, and from the mouth of the beast, and from the mouth of the false prophet, three unclean spirits like frogs. For they are the spirits of devils working signs, and they go forth unto the kings of the whole earth, to gather them to battle against the great day of the Almighty God.

DIVINE PROVIDENCE CONDEMNED  BEFORE AND AFTER THE ENCYCLICAL LETTER OF MY PREDECESSOR

11. The Apostle of St. John warned us of these things long ago, just as Divine Providence did in our own days, when according to the liturgical books for the liturgy in the vernacular, on the very day great scandal was to be given to the world, this reading from Saint Paul was proclaimed:

But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach a gospel to you besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema. As we said before, so now I say again: If any one preach to you a gospel, besides that which you have received, let him be anathema. (Galatians 1:8-9)

12. And on the very day which followed, again, the passage of Our Lord’s admonition, which is aptly accommodated as a pastoral exhortation to the successors of Saint Peter:

Lay not up to yourselves treasures on earth: where the rust, and moth consume, and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up to yourselves treasures in heaven: where neither the rust nor moth doth consume, and where thieves do not break through, nor steal. For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also. (Matthew 6: 19-21)

13. For these reasons and motives, and after the example of the Seraphic Saint Francis, who grieved most of all from the many scandals which were given by corrupt clergy and religious, We consider it necessary to remove a grave scandal which has shaken the whole world: namely, that which emanated from the once unsullied throne of this Apostolic See. I speak of the encyclical letter, Laudato Si’ of my predecessor, Francis, of infelicitous memory, who added to the presumption of taking as his name, that of the Saint whom the Lord Jesus, in a vision given to Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, declared was the one most conform to His Sacred Heart, by promoting in an official papal document, into which he mixed many half-truths, the falsehood of environmentalism unto the deception of the entire Catholic world.

My Predecessor did not intend to exercise the Papal Magisterium when he wrote

14. To remove all doubt and scruple of conscience, We shall begin with the historical fact, that as is written in the official text of the Encyclical, Laudato Si, our predecessor never intended, when he prepared and wrote, to exercise the office of the magisterium which Christ entrusted to this Apostolic See. This is evident both in the circumstances of its release, which was entrusted to non-Catholics, and the text of the document itself in paragraph n. 15, wherein the author expresses his intention to engage in a pastoral approach and the opening of dialogue.  Nor is the affirmation, therein, that the encyclical enters into the social teaching of the Church, in any way definitive or obliging, since, according to the norm of canon law, there is no obligation except regarding that which is imposed.  This is further evidenced if we examine the presuppositions and contents of the encyclical letter, which deviate so clearly from the 5 necessary conditions for infallible teaching, established by the infallible and ecumenical First Council of the Lateran.  Finally, it should be obvious to sane and rational men, that the expression of opinion or the relation of facts is not teaching; rather the formal exercise of any magisterium consists in the declarative pronouncement of truths which must be accepted as true by all men in all times.  While this will become more clear, in what We have yet to say, yet, for the sake of all consciences, We affirm and declare and define that the entire totality of the Encyclical and its every part are to be considered merely as the personal doctrine of Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, and not of this Apostolic See.

PART II

God alone is the Lord of Heaven and Earth

1. First among the truths which must be professed against the errors of communism, socialism and environmentalism, is that the One True God is the Lord of Heaven and Earth.  This is no mere customary title ascribed to God.  Nay, as the Apostle of the Gentiles, the glorious Saint Paul of Tarsus preached in the Areopagus of Athens:  God, who made the world, and all things therein; He, being Lord of Heaven and Earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands (Acts 17:24).

2. This lordship of God depends upon the twofold dignity of God:  He is the first and only Eternal one, and He is the creator of all which comes after Him.  This lordship is not just a title of dignity, however, but a name of power which signifies to men that He is Almighty over everything in Heaven and Earth to such an extent and degree that no one can compare to Him (cf. Ps. 86:8, 40:5) in the power which He can display over them, the Wisdom with which He made and arranged them, and the Providence and Goodness with which He has designed and fashioned and now doth regulate  and govern them.

3. From these most profound theological truths regarding God, our Creator and Lord, we must recognize and profess that it is not man who is the lord and master of creation, but God; that it is not man who is first and foremost responsible for the heavens and the Earth and all these contain, but God; that is is not man who must mind the order and regulation of the environment, but God.  For without God none of these things would be, and they are sustained in continual being and right order by His Most Eminent Power and His Most Intimate Presence and His most Universal Omnipotence, in this way manifesting the sublime Dignity of the Father, the humble service of the Son, and the continual governing movement of the Holy Ghost.

Fundamental Presuppositions of Environmentalism impugn the Majesty and Wisdom of God, our Creator

4. For this reason, it is theologically an effrontery to God to say or concede that the environment of this planet Earth depends upon mankind.  And since the same Lord and Creator of Heaven and Earth, is the One who created man, it is similarly a blasphemy and indignity to man’s Lord and God, to say or imply that the nature or existence or natural actions of man can or are in disharmony with the divine order of the cosmos or the natural proper functioning of the organic biosphere of the planet Earth.

5. God made all things for man, but man for Himself, so that even in his being and acting man glorifies His Creator, that is, manifests the wondrous wisdom and providence and knowledge which His Creator exercises in making him, in designing him, in empowering him with intellect and will and in giving him a body and planet which is fit for everything which is necessary for human life (Genesis 1:29-30).

6. Therefore, it is false and heretical to say that the dominion over all things, which God has created, does not belong ontologically and causally and by right to the Lord Creator of Heaven and Earth.  It is also false and heretical to say that God cannot or ought not concede a relative, subordinate dominion over creatures to man, nay it contradicts Sacred Scripture. (Genesis 1:28).

7. Finally, it is false and heretical to say or imply that man does not have the divine right to exercise this rule over all creatures, or that in doing so he violates the Divine, moral or natural laws which God established for and in the universe.

Environmentalism contradicts Science on many points

8. Therefore, it is sheer popular superstition to hold, therefore, that anything natural which man dispossesses from his ownership can be the cause of the pollution or harm to the environment.  This is so, because, since God made all things to serve mankind, it is impossible that He did not make and fashion a world in which natural things acting naturally naturally take care of both man and the things he uses and has used or discarded.

9. This is confirmed by the many findings of modern empirical sciences such as physics, chemistry and biology, which confirm, that for ever action there is a reaction, that all things left to themselves tend to entropy, and that there is a hierarchy of innumerable species of life, subordinated to man, which live and thrive and have their being with him on this planet, in such wise as to use what is taken and discarded by others to foster their own growth and development.

10.  For this reason, We by Our Apostolic Authority, following closely in the footsteps of Saint Peter, to whom it was revealed by an Angel from Heaven, that things are not to be disdained, which God the Son had cleansed by His Passion (Acts 10:9-16), so We recognize and declare, that since God at the beginning had both made all things and declared them together with man, “very good” (Genesis 1:30, and throughout), that it is a mortal sin of blasphemy to call them or their use evil, and thus, likewise, a grave error and sin, to say that their non-use or discarding, is of itself, or by itself, or according to its genus a sin.

Environmentalism detaches beauty from truth and goodness

11. Now just as the divine order of things, in which God has established the universe, manifest the Wisdom and Power of God, so does it manifest the Beauty and Providence of God.   For though the biological history of this Planet differs from age to age, yet nothing disturbs the wonderful, fruitful and abundant order in which God rules and commands the heavens at the service of the Earth, the Poverello of Assisi so truly sings:  May Thou be praised, my Lord, for brother wind, and for the air and the cloudy and the clear weather and every weather (Dan 3:64-65) through which to all Thy creatures Thou gives sustenance (cf. Ps. 103:13-14) [Cant 6].

12. For this reason, it is a grave perversion of right aestetics to say that anything in the environment which is caused by man or by natural forces is ugly, undue, or improper. This is God’s very own teaching, as it was revealed to the Prophet Isaiah himself:  For thus saith the Lord that created the heavens, God himself that formed the earth, and made it, the very maker thereof: he did not create it in vain: he formed it to be inhabited. I am the Lord, and there is no other. (Isaiah 45:18)

13. To say or imply, therefore, that man’s activities in general make this world ugly or pollute it is false, erroneous and implicitly heretical, inasmuch it impugns the Divine Goodness, Providence and Wisdom of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

14. The falsehoods and lies of environmentalism are derived from several errors, chief of which is materialism.  For the error of material holds that there is nothing spiritual and hence denies the existence of God and spiritual causes.  Combined with the darkness of unbridled pride of humanism, which would exalt man to the level of God Himself, it leads to the error that what is not in harmony with human will to be ugly and unjust.  And inasmuch as the proud man is the avaricious man, it says that which violates the aesthetics of man in his domination of creation is immoral and must be corrected.

15. Another chief cause of environmentalism is the error of naturalism, which holds that man is disparate and inharmonious with the rest of creation, which it terms the “natural world”: a name for creation which is false, since it presupposes that man is not part of creation, or that his handiwork is unnatural or in conflict with the rest of creation and its purpose.

15.  These errors combine to form a noxious poison in the minds of men.  To use an example:  Environmentalists see a landscape in which remnants of things made of paper or plastic or metal are strewn about by the wind, and they see pollution which must be corrected by the removal of all these things.  Yet, what they do not see is the forces of creation doing what they were made to do, in the manner in which they do it, of returning these materials to their constituent parts and elements and compounds by a process so gradual that it often escapes the observation of flighty men.  To say that the manner in which created things treat of created thins is ugly, unnatural, or wrong is thus scientifically as false as theologically it is erroneous and heretical.

16. For this reason, it is clear that much of what is called “pollution” is so named out of a aesthetic which has long been divorced from a Christian notion of creation and a Catholic appreciation of the divine order of things in the cosmos; which error is in turn founded upon an exaggerated notion of a man-centered materialism.

 17.  This is especially and primarily true in regard to those things used and manufactured by man, which are composed of substances and compounds and elements which occur naturally in creation.  For just as God created, let us say, the metal iron, and just as in some parts of the world the concentration of iron in the soil or water, naturally occurring, is too high to allow that water or soil to be readily used by men, so it would be false and erroneous to say that man, in abandoning iron in any place of this Planet is of itself, by itself, harmful to nature or contrary to the divine order of creation.  For if that were true, then God would Himself appear to be guilty of polluting the land and water, which He made, when He ordered the arrangement and disposition of things upon the Earth.

PART III

It is the Duty of Every Man to Recognize and Acknowledge the Sovereign Majesty of the Lord of Heaven and Earth

1. It follows from what We have said and expounded, that each and every man, woman, and child, is gravely bound to recognize and acknowledge the Sovereignty and Majesty of the Lord of Heaven and Earth, His Creator and Savior.  This is not only a grave obligation founded upon the rights of God but also a grave obligation founded upon the dependence of man, individually and as a society, upon Him and the divine order according to which He has arranged the universe, which He has created and given mankind to guard and keep and use, for His honor and glory and his own salvation.

2. This duty of recognition is first and foremost, only and truly fulfilled in the acceptance and profession of the Catholic Faith, which is the One and Only True Religion revealed by the Eternal God to men, as the sole means of salvation for mankind.  Without such a profession of faith and expression of fidelity in faithful adherence, man, even as a creature, is distanced from His Lord and Creator.

3. This distancing of mankind and the consequent disorder which arises in himself and in his relation to the university of things has no other cause but the sin of our father Adam, who having been entrusted with the headship of the human race and the rule of all creation under God, rebelled against His Lord and Creator by eating of the fruit of the Tree which he had been forbidden by God to eat (Genesis 2).

4. On account of this mortal sin, Adam lost many and tremendous divine gifts, for himself and for all his descendants.  Chief of these was the grace of God, without which man cannot clearly, easily or with facility, know God and obey His precepts.

5.  For this reason, just as there is no right and sane care for things of lesser significance, without dutiful fulfillment of things of greater import; and just as those who are faithful in greater things, can easily be faithful in lesser ones:  so it is vain and absurd for mankind to take care, individually or as a society, to guard the divine order of things in the created universe, if he neglects his own proper subordination and zealous service of the Divine Majesty of His Creator.

6. Indeed, only when mankind comes universally and faithfully to profess the Faith of Christ, that is the Catholic Religion, is any collective and effective care of the created things entrusted to mankind, by man as a race possible.  For the divine order of things, having God as their origin and cause, cannot be understood, let alone rightly perceived without faith in the Living God, the Lord of Heaven and Earth, as He Himself has revealed Himself in Christ Jesus Our Lord.

7. Therefore, let all mankind hasten to the Ark of Salvation, outside of which no man can be saved or have hope of salvation, and seek the cleansing waters of baptism in Christ Jesus, which have their full effect of grace and sanctification only in the Catholic Church, where there alone is a right profession of authentic faith, a firm and stable adherence to the hope which saves, and the working of the charity which both honors and glorifies God in the service of the needy.

Editor’s note: At this point, I cannot perceive clearly the text of the remaining pages, so I rush to publish what I have transcribed so far…if I succeed in discerning the contents of the rest of the draft copy, I will publish it in the coming days. — I only ask the reader to consider the contents, and not to shoot the transcriber!

Whatever 2 or 3 ask for in My Name …

The confidence to ask the Lord for the things which are necessary for our salvation and the salvation of others, is something that is often found lacking in the present age.

On every side the world gives us reasons to fear the worst and lose hope.  Even the many problems and weaknesses in ecclesiastical institutions, or the many scandals among religious or clergy, do not encourage us to pray.  Rather, they dispose us to lament of the woes of the age in which we live, in a bitter, hopeless manner.

But this spirit of hopelessness is quite contrary to that which Our Lord wants of us, and to that which faith in Him as God, demands of us.

Have no fear, little flock! says the Lord, I have overcome the world!

Our Lord adds this reassurance in reference to His expiatory Sacrifice on the Cross, by which He excorcised the Devil of this world from the world, and by which He paid the debt of sin for each and every man, woman, and child, not only believers, but also and even of those who would never believe in Him.

But Our Lord’s triumph is not only  against sin, but against all reasons for despair. Because with the Lord, there is mercy and truth, as the Psalm says. With the Lord there is mercy and truth! Let us say it again!  Because no matter how dark this world might become, no matter how bleak the future might seem for believers, Christ remains God and remains willing to assist those who hope in Him, with all the power of Heaven, all the force of His grace, all the fire and life giving power of His Holy Spirit, and with all the authority of His Eternal Father.*

This, to those weak in faith, or poorly formed in the spiritual life, might seem as a sort of spiritual avarice or unseemly precociousness on our part: to insist that God send His blessings and gifts.

But the truth is that Our Lord Jesus Christ, in entrusting us in a manner similar, but far inferior, to the manner in which He entrusted to His own Blessed Mother a necessary role in the salvation of sinners, has manifested that while He is far more willing to save souls that we can imagine — and though He certain does save souls regardless of whether we want them to be saved — nevertheless, He will save souls and grant graces and blessings, in a greater abundance and to a greater extent, IF WE ASK HIM TO.

This wonderful truth, He attempts to inculcate into us, by the words of hope, which are the theme of this month’s newsletter:  If 2 or 3 of you ask Me for anything in My Name, I shall grant it!

Those are powerful words of hope!  Let us consider that Our Lord, the Omnipotent God, has made a promise, and study how we can best profit by it.

First, as supreme Legislator of Divine Providence and as the Lord and Master of all creation, Our Lord makes this promise in a strict legal form.  We can see this by the grammatical form which He employs:  He begins the promise with the word “If” and ends it with the helping verb “will”.  He expresses very specifically the conditions of action (“ask”), the number of petitioners (“2 or 3”), the manner in which the petition must be made (“in My Name”), and what must be asked for (“anything”). That last condition, is really not condition.  By saying “anything”, Our Lord is clearly trying to encourage us in the greatest possible manner!

How much preoccupation some men or women have when they hear that this or that state run lottery has a jackpot of some tens or hundreds of millions of dollars.  As soon as they hear of the possibility that a winner has not come forward and that another drawing is drawing close, they run out to the nearest corner store and buy one if not many lottery tickets, saying to themselves, “If only I could win so much money, just think what I could do with it!”

The fact that the chance of their winning that jackpot is so very small, so infinitesimal, that whatever they spend on tickets, the chance is more a fable than a reality, does not stop them in the least of putting their hope into practice to obtain it.

But in this promise of Our Lord, which is our theme this month, we have One who is promising much more, and One who is giving us greater odds of winning!

In fact, He is not giving us odds of obtaining His blessings, He is practically guaranteeing it!

And yet, how many interest themselves to obtain, by this promise, what they seek?
It is the rare day that I encounter any believer at all, who says to me, “Brother, would you please join me in praying for x or y, because Our Lord promised that whenever 2 or three ask for anything in His Name, He will grant it.”

Such confidence, might seem exuberant, or the property of an evangelical protestant, but NO, Our Lord want us Catholics, His faithful sheep, to have it, and to unabashedly profess it.

I do not deny, that faith in this promise, is the foundation and motive we Catholics have whenever we ask others for prayers; but what I want to focus on, is that the eagerness and confidence we should have to ask, should be based more explicitly on this wonderful promise of Our Lord, and thus the number and intensity of our initiatives in this regard should reflect such confidence.

Now it is true that on account of our sins, or on account of our bad disposition, in which we in truth do not want what we should want, we often do not receive what we ask for, even if we meet the simply and facile conditions of this Divine Promise.

This failure, however, is all our fault.  Because God will not give us what is not conducive to our salvation or that of our neighbor; and moreover, even if it is conducive, He will not grant it until the time is ripe; that is, until the proper conditions for profiting by that gift are met.

Now it is not always clear, what obstacles are preventing us from receiving God’s blessings and mercies, but we can list a few general categories of obstacles, and employ the standard spiritual remedies for them, to eliminate most of the obstacles.

First of all, the number 1 obstacle to receiving God’s gifts and blessings is  sin; second vice, and third the lack of virtue.

First of all, sin, which by the etymology of its name means “obstacle” or “obstruction”, prevents us from receiving God’s gifts and mercies, because it puts us in the state of soul were we are not worthy, not only of not receiving them, but of having our petition heard by God.

God grants favors to His friends; and those who offend Him, are clearly not His friends, even if they imagine themselves to be.  Being God’s friend is such by His judgment; that is, he is a friend of God, whom God considers His friend.

In such friendship, the criterion is a one way street.  God has no need of friends, He is quite self sufficient and self satisfied in His Infinite Perfection.

God also is Infinitely Just and Perfect, in such a wise, that it is not easy to be considered His friend, if we speak of facility according to human standards.
In fact, by our own powers and graces and abilities, we can not nor can we ever make ourselves God’s friends.

We are only such, by God’s grace and by our fidelity to that grace to remain such!

Sanctifying grace, which first came to us in Baptism or in the moment we first believed, if we are an adult convert, is what makes us pleasing to God.  As St. Paul teaches, we are justified by Faith, that is made holy and upright; and without faith it is impossible to believe God.  But faith alone is not sufficient; for even the devils believe and tremble!  We also need to have HOPE in God and LOVE for God!

Love for God is the primary prerequisite.  If we do not love God, how can we be His friend?  Just think, — to use a crude metaphor which is not properly applied to God — how bad God feels if we do not love Him!

Being that God is infinitely worthy of love, on account of being INFINITE GOODNESS, it is very unreasonable and quite improper and wrong, not to love GOD, and not to love God WITH GREAT INTENSITY!

But certainly, since God is infinitely powerful and infinitely faithful, it is quite unreasonable and improper and wrong, if WE DO NOT HOPE JUST AS INTENSELY in obtaining His promises, and employ our selves diligently in seeking to acquire what He promises.

Now, in this, there is no room for the scrupulous who thinks that we offend God by seeking to obtain what He has promised us. Rather, we offend God, by sin; and if we think we offend Him by hoping to obtain what He promises, we are being very stupid and illogical, and are quite wrong and mixed up in the understanding of our faith.

The second reason for not receiving what God has promised is vice.  That is, if we are badly disposed, He will not give us what we ask for, for our bad disposition inclines us to ask for what displeases Him or would endanger our souls or that of others.

Thus the avaricious man prays with the hope of receiving greater wealth, but Our Lord has no intention of hearing such a prayer, since greater wealth would only worsen the condition of the man, by putting him in a greater occasion of avarice. And this is true of every vice, and of every prayer for that which our vices seek.

If Our Lord at times does answer such a prayer, it is rather to punish the petitioner, than to bless him.  And in many cases, God does answer such a prayer for those whom He foresees will be damned; not because He wants them to be damned, but because He sees this as the last way of opening the heart of the sinner to see the reality that God is much more desirable than His gifts.  But in general, it is a woeful thing to be heard in such a wrong-headed and evil petition.

The third reason for not obtaining what we pray for, is that we are lacking in the virtue which is necessary to receive such a gift.  If we are lacking in charity, for example, and we ask for the grace to do greater works for others, Our Lord will not grant this, because we do not yet posses the charity necessary to profit from such a grace.

Now removing these 3 obstacles can be easy or difficult.  Obviously, we can remove the obstacle of sin, by going to confession; and according to St. Alphonus dei Liguori, patron of moral theologians and of confessors, we can successfully uproot a vice, if we confess having it, in confession, and work with our confessor to target it and uproot it by spiritual practices.

And we can increase the virtue we have by being faithful to God’s graces, more generous in the fulfillment of our duties, and more generous in the works of charity for our neighbors and for those in need.

But, as I said, it can be difficult to remove these three obstacles of sin, vice and the lack of virtue, if we do not spend some time examining our soul, to consider what sins and vices we have, and which virtues we are lacking.

And being conceived in original sin, though by Baptism we are cleansed of it, there remains in us a strong disposition to avoid such self reflection.  Indeed, there is no food as bitter as the bitterness we fallen creatures find in admitting our own faults, sins, vices and spiritual lacks.  So bitter is this practice, that most of us have a very strong habit of mind of avoiding any consideration of our possession of these 3 obstacles. We are more ready to spend 1,000 days chatting about the problems of everyone else in the world, than spend 5 minutes considering that perhaps we have at least 1 problem ourselves, I reason to say, “I have committed a sin”, “am beholden to a vice”, or “lack a virtue”.

Here, the virtue of humility, of which we spoke of in regard to Our Lady, is crucial to practice.  For if we make an act of humility, and take some time to consider whether we have one or ore of these 3 obstacles, we can begin to cut the greatest knot restraining us from spiritual progress, endangering our salvation and obstructing us from receiving God’s blessings.

____________________________________

* As God, Christ possesses each of these powers and attributes, though when speaking of the Trinity, it is the ancient Catholic custom of attributing specific ones to each Person. Thus, we we speak of God giving life or inspiring vocations, we attribute this to the Holy Ghost; when we speak of God creating and ruling the universe, we attribute this to the Eternal Father; and when we speak of God redeeming, saving, teaching, etc., we attribute this to the Eternal Son, Christ Jesus Our Lord.

Lo! I am with you always …

The confidence to ask the Lord for the things which are necessary for our salvation and the salvation of others, is one of the foundations of Christian living.

This confidence is a wonderful gift, and to fan it into flames, we need to follow it with a consideration on the gentle but pressing Presence, the Lord Jesus surrounds His faithful with, who call upon His Name!

If one reads through the Old Testament, one can discover many wonderful and awe-inspiring examples of just how good God can be to those who are faithful, and just how terrible He can be to those who are unfaithful.

In regard to how wonderful and good He can be to those who are faithful, Our Lord proclaims in the New Testament and most consoling truth:

Lo! I am with you always, even unto the consummation of the age!

Which some Bibles in English render as, Behold! I am with you always, even unto the end of the world!

The thought that Our Lord is nearby and at hand, and present, is a most consoling thought and consideration.  But to understand and appreciate this great grace, we need to first put it into proper context, and understand aright, what Our Lord is referring to.

First, let us consider what Our Lord  IS NOT referring to.  We live in an age of faithlessness, of apostasy, of infidelity, of heresy, and of out right paganism and the revival of the same.

One horrible error and perverse practice which has arisen in recent decades is called the “New Age Movement”.  And one error of this movement says that anyone can spiritually connect into some greater spiritual power or presence, at will.

On account of this pagan superstition, promoted by such films as Star Wars, or by the promotion of the sale of crystals or by those who advocate going to spiritual places to be “energized” or “to get into contact” with spiritual power; there are not a few of the faithful who believe, that Christian life is not about sanctification, but about being “empowered” spiritually, and about being “spiritual”.

Worse of all, this error holds, that being “spiritual” has nothing to do with being morally upright, with the observance of the 10 commandments.

The insidiousness of these errors of the New Age Movement, requires that we consider very carefully and exactly, what our Holy Catholic Faith teaches, and distinguish the truths of Our Faith, from these detestable errors.

Yes, it is true, that being spiritual, does not require that you be moral or upright.  The proof of this is that Satan, the most evil and devious spirit, is by nature a pure spirit, and thus has a pure spirituality.  He is very a very spiritual angelic person, but he is very evil and immoral.

So, as far as we Catholics are concerned, it is evident that if the Devil is very spiritual, that being spiritual is not the measure by which a Catholic can measure his fidelity to the Lord, or his progress in God’s grace, nor his sanctification by virtue.

As human beings, we can only be so spiritual, and we cannot be perfectly spiritual, since for us humans, such a spirituality would be unnatural and thus sinful.

This is because, as humans, we are composed of 1 soul and 1 body.  We are in truth, both our soul and our body.  But both together.  That is why when our soul separates from the body, in death, we can truly say, not only that our bodies “die”, but that “we” die.

If were were perfectly spiritual, we would not be living with a body; and since having a body is part of human nature, such a perfect spirituality is not proper for men.

Now, do not misunderstand me; I am not saying that we ought not be holy, or that we ought not be spiritual in the proper sense of the term.

And to understand what I mean to say, let me first explain, another term:  “carnal”.  What is of the flesh, is carnal; but in the terminology of St. Paul the Apostle, “carnal” has the meaning of “disordered by concupiscence”, that is by that spiritual disease which entered into man by Adam’s sin.  After Adam’s sin, man’s flesh became carnal in a sense it was not before.  Before, his flesh was carnal in the sense that “carnal” means nothing more than “of flesh”.  But after his flesh became “carnal” in the sense that his flesh became subject to the disorder of concupiscence, which is called the fomes of sin.  “Fomes” in Latin, means “tinderbox”, and St. Augustine uses this term to indicate that concupiscence in our flesh, is the tinder upon which sinful movements arise in our hearts and bodies.

So we should be spiritual, in the sense that we should mortify ourselves, body and soul, against concupiscence, that is against having a carnal mind, or living according to the sinful impulses of the flesh.

But it is better to call this “the work of our sanctification” or “the pursuit of perfection,” than “spirituality,” because while it is true that Dominicans have a particular spirituality, and Franciscans, and Carmelites and Benedictines, etc., too; it is also true to say that Satan has his own spirituality; but that is not anything we want to know or imitate!

Back to the words of Our Lord:

Thus, when Our Lord makes us the wonderful promise or proclamation, that He will be with us, unto the end of time, we must first understand that this promise is not true in all times and places.  This seems a contradiction, so let me explain.

Yes, it is true, that this promise is true in all times and places; but it is also false to say that it is true in all times and places.  This is because, we, in all times and places, do not deserve to benefit from this promise; and so in all times and places we cannot PRESUME that Our Lord is with us.  For that reason, to avoid presumption, we ought not ASSUME that Our Lord is with us; we must rather work and strive to be worthy of His Presence!

When we do work and do strive to be worthy of His continual Presence, then these words of Our Lord become true.  Not because our power makes them true, or our effort, or that we merit that they be true; no! Rather, because when we are worthy of His Presence, He makes His Presence felt, as it were. And when we do not merit it, He makes Himself absent, as it were, that is, He does not intervene in our lives with graces and mercies, lights an protections, and leaves us to ourselves — which is a most horrible fate.

For this reason we must be on the alert for 2 kinds of spiritual paralysis, which makes us insensible to the Presence of Christ:  blindness and indifference.  The Catholic who is blinded by mortal sin or by habitual venial sin, knows still by faith that Our Lord is present, for example, in the Most Blessed Sacrament, but it means nothing to him personally.  Likewise, a Catholic who by habitual sin or neglect lives as if this truth means nothing, even while confessing it on his lips, suffers from a hardening of the heart, which is called “indifference.”

A wonderful example to illustrate this, is the simple and beautiful faith of Catholics of the Eritrean Rite. The Eritrean Catholics, unlike us Romans, when waiting for the church to open, do not stand with their backs to the door of the church; no, they stand with their faces to the door.  If you ask them why, they say that it is because Our Lord is present in the Church, and they are waiting for Him to open the doors of His House to them!

Likewise, if you have a living faith and ardent love for Our Lord, it is second nature for you, when passing a Catholic Church were the Sacrament is reposed, to want, as it were, to go and embrace that church, give it a hug, as it were, since it is where Our Lord is dwelling.  We do not hug the doors or corners of our Churches, but perhaps that is because we are just not fervent enough!

Second, to understand the words of Our Lord, upon which we are meditating this month, we need to understand what the word “present” means.

“Present” in English comes from “praesens” in Latin; in Latin the word means “being before” that is “in front of”, or in other words, “before the face of”.  What is present, therefore, is right in front of you, you need only open your eyes to see it.

Obviously, when we speak of the Presence of God, we are using a metaphor, because God, as God, is not present physically, that is corporally, anywhere; simply because God is a pure Spirit, and has no body which is bound by spatial dimensions or locations.

We we say God is present, we mean that He is attentive by His Power, Knowledge and Love.  Though God is in no place, He is present to every place, because He created every place, and sustains every place in being.  All places, as it were, are in the palm of His Hand, and so wherever we are, we are not far from Him, ontologically speaking, even if we are far from him, spiritually speaking, because we are in sin or blinded by sin or made indifferent in our hearts by sin.

With these distinctions made and these errors avoided, we are now prepared to consider what Our Lord DOES mean by this holy words:  Lo! I am with you always, even unto the consummation of the age!

Our Lord is not present to us, without any purpose.  It is for our salvation! not for our sense of sentimental peace or well being.  God does nothing without purpose, and if He is actively attentive by His Power, Knowledge and Love, that is by His Grace and Mercy, it is to save us, and to help us towards salvation, or to aide us to help others towards their own.

God makes His presence known to us, in a variety of ways.  Often it is by a grace which enlivens our soul, so that we make and act of love, faith, or hope, which move us toward observing His Commandments or evangelical Counsels, or the precepts of the Church, or to fulfilling some particular duty.  Nearly every time, Our Lord works this actual grace through the mediation of our guardian Angel; sometimes through the mediation of a special Angel, associated with such a work, virtue, place, or person; often through the intercession of some Saint, and always through the Mediation of Jesus and Mary, who always have at heart and on their mind, our salvation.

God is present, also, in two ways:  actively and passively.  Actively by the manifestation of His Power or grace.  “Passively” when we are in the state of grace, in the sense, that we need not do anything to have Him present, since sanctifying grace makes Him present to us, and we to Him.  “Passively”, Christ is also present in the Most Blessed Sacrament,  in the sense that He need not do anything, nor we, that He be present there, since He has already made Himself present there Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity; the Divinity by means of the Humanity.  But God is so infinitely Active, that even when He is passively present, He is active, that is working grace and mercy in us or for us.

But the secret of sanctification lies in a wonderful truth, which is taught throughout the Old Testament and which is valid and applicable to our days, now that Our Lord has Ascended to His Father on High.  This truth is not emphasized in the New Testament, because in the New Testament the Apostles and Evangelists were emphasizing the Sacred Humanity of Our Lord, and the New Covenant wrought in His Blood.

The secret of which I speak refers to a the power and efficacy of a “spiritual covenant” with the Lord.  Each and every man woman or child, who has supernatural faith, can make a covenant with the Lord, and thereby make himself present to God and God to him, not by grace, but by a certain sort of spiritual contract, whereby one commits oneself to doing good works, and thereby to meriting those actual graces which lead to God’s greater blessings.

Now the motivation to make such a covenant comes from God, because in the work of our sanctification, man does nothing first.  So what I say here, presumes those cases where the Holy Spirit is giving the grace.  And we know by God’s working in the Old Testament and New Testament, that He wants men to make these kinds of spiritual covenants.

In the Old Testament these covenants were the bread and butter, as it were, of the Jewish religion; but in the New Testament Age in which we live, they are secondary and very inferior to the Covenant wrought in Christ’s Blood; nay, they are only effective in that Blood, that is, when employed to arrive at doing Christ’s will on earth.

Each one of us can make a covenant with the Lord, which regards any good work, great or small.  The vows of religious are a type of covenant; marriage vows are another; a private vow to go on pilgrimage, to give up drinking or smoking, or some particularly grave vice, such as gossiping, each of these are spiritual covenants, when we promise God to fulfill them or do them.

According to an exaggerated fear, common to the age of Jansenism, when to save souls from the extremity of scrupulosity in which they thought everything was a sin, confessors were apt to counsel nothing under the obligation of a promise — an exaggeration which went so far as to lead some new religious communities not to take vows! — many a manual or book on the spiritual life counseled against making promises to the Lord.  This is quite unimaginable, and quite unbelievable, that anyone would counsel something so diametrically opposed to all that God has revealed! simply out of fear that some scrupulous person, out there somewhere, might fall into trouble by such a promise!

Oh, what scruples to avoid scruples!

Nay, rather, God wants us to enter into such a covenant with Him; and to show us that He is very pleased by it, we have only read of the wonderful blessings God bestowed upon the Jews of the Kingdom of Judah in the Books of Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, and Judges, to see the efficacy of this spiritual practice.

When we promise the Lord to do a good work, habitually, or give up a habitual morally bad habit, we show God respect, trust, love, honor, and give Him glory, as the God of all Justice and Holiness!  And this is, indeed, a thing very pleasing to God, the Holy Ghost, who is infinitely zealous for our progress in all holiness and virtue, for by such a progress we are conformed to Him.

In making any such covenant, we merit immediately the remission of some of the temporal punishment for sins, esp. for the sins we have promised to avoid.

Indeed, the spiritual life of sanctification, cannot go forward without such promises or covenants.  Spiritual stability for us feeble, unstable men is founded upon a chain of such promises, well made and well thought out, and faithfully kept, even if at the beginning, it is difficult or we fail.

These covenants are the stages of the life of perfection, the training in the art of spiritual warfare that the Lord wants to train us in.

For those who want a suggested formula for a general covenant of life with the Lord Jesus, here is a suggested formula:

A Covenant Prayer with the Sacred Heart of Jesus

O Sacred Heart of Jesus! Thou art the Great and Wonderful Lord, the Mighty God!  Who has descended from Heaven, to sweat and suffer and die, rejected, so that I might live and have life eternal!  Who ascended into Heaven to prepare a place for me in Thy Eternal Kingdom! Who dost stand before the Throne of Mercy of Thy Eternal Father, ever interceding for us! Hear, I beg Thee, the prayer of a most unworthy creature!

Mindful of all that Thou has done for me, and of how much I, a wretched sinner, need Thee:  I resolve this day to make this covenant with Thee:  I take Thee to be My God, and I surrender myself to be Thy servant and subject!

I will do what Thou has commanded!  I will head what Thou has counseled!  I will obey Thy Voice speaking to me through the Pope and the priests who are my sacred pastors.  I will mind the precepts of the Church, and confess my sins, especially resolving to uproot the vice of _________.  I am confident that with Thee all good things are possible, and that Thy grace is sufficient for me!  For to have Thee, is to have all, in time and eternity!

Help me, Save me, O most Merciful Heart of Jesus!  Make me be all Thine, and be always at my side, to help, protect, enlighten and guide me, this day, and to bring me safely to Thy Eternal Kingdom, in Heaven. Amen.

O Blessed Virgin, intercede for me, and obtain for me the grace to keep this covenant with your Divine Son! To be faithful to it, all my days. Amen.