We continue what be began in our last number, a three-part study of spiritual childhood by Father Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P. (1877-1964).
St. Teresa of the Child Jesus reminds us that the principal virtues of the child of God are those in which are reproduced in an eminent degree the innate qualities of the child, minus his defects. Consequently the way of spiritual childhood will teach us to be supernaturally ourselves minus our defects.
Happy Saint Patrick’s Day
I just read on the New Advent website the Catholic Encyclopedia’s excellent account of the life of Erin’s great apostle. I would highly recommend it if you can spare fifteen minutes today. I can’t think of anything I’ve read elsewhere over the years about the saint that …
That’s the motion that was debated last week in London, at an event hosted by the Spectator and held at the Royal Geographical Society. And guess what — “the 700-strong sell-out audience voted overwhelmingly in favour of the motion”!
Excerpt from The Catholic Herald:
Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, author Piers Paul Read and Dom Anthony Sutch, former headmaster of Downside, spoke for the motion.
Anime cartoons and their characters are a huge cultic phenomenon, the most popular of all escapist media venues. It is very addictive and very dangerous, to the soul and the mind. I don’t post weird stories, but this blog by Zoe Romanowski from Inside Catholic, along with another, even …
One of the commentators on the relevant CWN article expressed it well: “It’s past time someone said this. Too often ecumenism is taken to mean the weakening of the teachings of the Church and the addition of non-Catholic ritual and beliefs.” A-m-e-n-!
Past time is better than no time — or, “better late than never.” All the scandal that has transpired, and is ongoing, in the name of ecumenism and inter-religious dialogue should cease at these words of Cardinal Levada defining its purpose (or “final cause” to you Aristotelians out there): “Union with the Catholic Church is the goal of ecumenism.”
Our 2010 conference will be held on October 8 and 9 at Saint Benedict Center in Richmond, New Hampshire.
The information currently available is as follows:
Theme: “The Romance of Wisdom”
Cost: $100 for both days (Friday and Saturday). This includes meals. Single days without meals: $40.
Note: This year, Friday and Saturday will both be full days. There will be eight speakers giving presentations in addition to the master of ceremonies, our Prior, Brother Andre Marie.
Archbishop Alberto Bottari de Castello, apostolic nuncio to Japan, has a very perceptive insight into the subversive effects Buddhist doctrine has on the soul of a suffering devotee confronting hopelessness. From Sandro Magister’s latest column: “Why Life is Worth So Little in Prosperous Japan.”
“The Japanese do not have a personal …
[March 5, 2010 - Rome Reports (with hat tip to Rorate Caeli)]
Benedict XVI has formed a commission to investigate if Our Lady truly appeared in Medjugorje, a small town in Bosnia.
The commission is part of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and Cardinal Camillo Ruini will preside over the commission. Ruini is the pope’s former vicar of Rome’s diocese. Ruini goal will be to explain to the pope what’s happening at the sanctuary which has become the third most visited in Europe.
Allegedly, at least 6 people have witnessed the Virgins apparitions there since 1981.
When the enemies of the Church, the enemies of Christianity in general, and those who want to “hold” the Catholic hierarchy’s “feet to the fire” constantly jabber about Pius XII’s supposed complicity in the Nazi murder of Jews, it becomes necessary to defend the truth as well as the honor of the Holy Father. He was, after all, not only innocent of the crime of which he stands accused by an angry mob, but was also proactive in the protection of innocent Jews. That’s history. Catholics have a particular duty to defend the Church’s honor, but even secular historians of the era ought to vindicate Pius XII, if only to protect the integrity of their science.
In changing the traditional Douay-Rheims rendering of Genesis 3:15 from “I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel” to the Catholic Revised Standard Version translation (based on the King James Bible), “I will put enmities between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed: he shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel,” the scriptural foundation for the dogma of the Immaculate Conception is compromised. So, too, is the traditional doctrine concerning Our Lady’s essential role in salvation history, which has been translated into her more modern title of “Co-redemptrix.”
“The United Nations estimated that 683 Christians fled Mosul between February 20 and February 27. Chaldean Catholic Bishop Emil Shimoun Nona of Mosul estimated that ‘about 400 families’ had left the city’s community of 4,000 Christians.”
This disheartening data comes from an article in Catholic World News. The Iraqi Catholic bishops themselves are bemoaning the situation. But that’s not all they are doing; they are also praying, fasting, and organizing their people to protest peacefully. The facts are not to be denied, and they are not the “spin” of liberal news pundits trying to make a Republican effort look bad.
Happy Saint Patrick’s Day
I just read on the New Advent website the Catholic Encyclopedia’s excellent account of the life of Erin’s great apostle. I would highly recommend it if you can spare fifteen minutes today. I can’t think of anything I’ve read elsewhere over the years about the saint that is not included, at least in summary, in this magnificent article. It was written by Francis Patrick Cardinal Moran, Archbishop of Sydney, Australia. (+1911) The life of Cardinal Moran is itself a wonder and can be found also in the Encyclopedia here. At his funeral, a quarter of a million people lined the main thoroughfare in the heart of Sydney in July 1911 to pay him tribute.
I especially appreciated Cardinal Moran’s account of Saint Patrick’s forty day penitential retreat on the mountain that became known as Croagh (Mount) Patrick. Of the five major concessions the apostle exacted from God through his angel on the mountain the last one was always a problem for me — that Patrick should judge the Irish race — especially after hearing Brother Francis’ comment on this tradition; namely, that he would rather be judged by Our Lord Jesus Christ. But, lo and behold, that is not the actual promise Patrick won. The actual promise, as Cardinal Moran has it, is that Patrick should be deputed to judge the whole Irish race on the last day, not the singular particular judgment at death. That is much easier to understand than what is wrongly believed by some Irish that Saint Patrick will judge their own soul at the moment of death. Concerning the general judgment, Our Lord Himself told His Apostles that they would judge the twelve tribes of Israel.
The question used to always come up, especially if in company with Italian friends, as to Saint Patrick’s nationality. We Irish used to be enthusiastically informed that our patron saint was not Irish, but Italian. None of my Irish Catholic friends ever thought Patrick was Irish, by the way. But, was he Italian? His mother, Conchessa, was a near relative (some writers say sister) of Saint Martin of Tours, and that great saint was not Italian, or French, but Pannonian (or Illyrian). It was during Saint Patrick’s sixty years in Ireland that Emperor Theodosius II conceded Pannonia to the Huns. So, it eventually became known, as it is today, as Hungary. Saint Patrick’s father, Calphurnius, however, was from a high ranking Roman family, serving as decurio in the empire’s furthest western outpost in Scotland. A decurio was some kind of provincial official of ancient Rome, or perhaps a cavalry man in charge of ten soldiers (decius, ten). So, yes, one could say that Saint Patrick was Italian (I am always happy to do so), even though the peoples of Italia in the fifth century were no ethnic relation to the Italians of later centuries who sprung mainly from the Germanic Lombards. Interestingly, it was in the late sixth century that the Lombards were forced by the Huns out of — guess where? — Pannonia. By the eight century almost all of Italy (not the Roman province) was ruled by the Lombards. The south, however, Ravenna and other areas, were actually Byzantine. Then the Normans came in the eleventh century and conquered the Byzantine territory.
Now, here is a very interesting fact linking Saint Patrick even more with the Pannonians. Ancient Illyria, in which kingdom Pannonia was located, was a huge area on the western side of the Balkans bordering the Adriatic Sea, whose inhabitants shared a common language. Illyria was a Greek word, so the kingdom was part of the Hellenistic world. The Romans conquered Illyricum in 168 B.C. In Our Lord’s time the Romans divided Illyricum into Pannonia and Dalmatia (which became Yugoslavia). Both territories shared a similar Illyrian language. Saint Jerome, the great Doctor of the Church, was a Dalmatian. While a young man studying in Trier (circa 370), Jerome happened to stop at the city’s marketplace during a slave auction. The slaves being sold were captured by the Romans from the shores of eastern Ireland. Jerome was astonished as he listened to the captives speaking their native Gaelic. Why? Because he could understand a good portion of what they were saying. Now, if, as many historians believe, the Irish originally (circa 1500 B.C.) migrated from Galatia (the Gaels), then the ancient mother tongue of the Irish would be eastern European. Would that be the same mother tongue from which the Illyrian language came? It would seem so; otherwise, how was it that Saint Jerome, whose native language was Illyrian, was able to understand something of what the Irish slaves were saying?
Another connection of the Irish with the Galatians is that some historians believe that the Gaelic migration took them first to the south, and into Egypt. Their Druid religion has undeniable similarities with that of the Egyptians in the times of the pharaohs and Moses, circa 1500 B.C. The magicians of pharoah were able by diabolic power to perform amazing prodigies, just as the druid magicians of high-king Laoghaire (Leary) did in their confrontations with Saint Patrick, as was seen at Tara. Certainly the Gaels left traces of their migration in the cultures of northeastern Spain (the Basques) and on the east coast of France (Gaul) in Brittany. That’s another story.
Finally, I was grateful to read in the Cardinal’s article about the origin of the name Patrick. I had thought that it was from his father, who was assumed to be a “patrician.” This is not the case. Rather, it was Pope Celestine himself who, in commissioning the son of Calphurnius to go to Ireland in 432, gave him the name “Patercius” or “Patritius”, “not as an honorary title, but as a foreshadowing of the fruitfulness and merit of his apostolate whereby he became pater civium (the father of his people).” What was Saint Patrick actual name? Maewyn Succat. I do not know the source for this, but it is found, often with a question mark, in many biographies of the saint. Cardinal Moran does not venture even a guess at what Patrick’s name was, although he does provide that of his parents.
Nor does this brilliant and holy cardinal mention the expulsion of the snakes from the island at Patrick’s command. I have my own opinion about this. I give it to you by way of a tongue-in-cheek article I once wrote on the subject. I am sure some of our readers who are childlike at heart will enjoy my defensus traditionis: vadete serpentes (Be Gone ye Serpents!)
So, what is my conclusion? The Irish race may not have been so foreign to Saint Patrick, after all. Perhaps 2000 years before Maewyn Succat was born the ancestors of the Irish and their apostle were one people, Galatian.
How dumb can people with no religion get? This dumb:
“Discovery News reports: What is death? Over the centuries, the line dividing life and death has moved from the cessation first of breathing, then of the heartbeat, and finally of brain activity. But cryogenic methods first contemplated in science fiction may push the line even further. The idea is to freeze legally dead people in liquid nitrogen in the hope of regenerating them at some future date.
“Today’s cryonics scientists believe that this future may be a mere 100 years away. Alcor Life Extension Foundation in Scottsdale, Ariz., the world’s largest cryonics company, charges US $150,000 to freeze and maintain a body and $80,000 for a head, typically paid for with a life insurance policy.” If you want to read more of this fascinating new way to make money off of gullible rich folks who’ll believe anything but the truth, it’s here.
Zenit News reports: Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun offered a memorial Mass on Friday in memory of Cardinal Kung. The cardinal, who was the bishop of Shanghai, died March 12, 2000, in the United States. About 40 people attended the Mass in the Salesian chapel, some of them Shanghai natives. Read more here.
That would include sixty bishops scattered across the ten provinces and three territories with all of their parishes.
CNA reports: On March 12, leaders of the Traditional Anglican Communion (TAC) in Canada sent a letter to the Holy Father formally requesting to become unified with the Catholic Church. This initiative, says a leading bishop, is what he believes to be part of a “worldwide movement.” Full article is here.
Asia News reports: Fuan (AsiaNews/Ucan) – An underground priest from the Diocese of Mindong (Fujian) was arrested for organizing a camp with 300 students. Three other priests who work with him have received an arrest warrant, not yet carried out, a further three were fined up to 500 Yuan (about 50 Euros). Weeks before his arrest, the priest had said: “I would be happy to serve as a witness to Christ and follow the example of many holy martyrs.”
Fr. John Baptist Luo, 39, and 6 other priests from the underground church had organized a winter camp for four days with 300 students, divided into two stages, in late January and early February. On 3 February, the public security came to the camp (in the church of Saiqi) and ordered the priests to cancel the event. The priests refused and explained the situation to the students present there, inviting those who were afraid to leave the area and reassuring those who remained that the priests would always be with them. Only 20 of the students left. The next day members of the public security subjected the priests to a long interrogation but did not make any arrests. Read more here.
What a beautiful and crowning epithet this would have been on his tombstone. He wrote this in his early diary.
Zenit has a insightful interview with the head of the Italian Chestertonian Society addressing why the great writer and thinker became a Catholic. For those who love Chesterton this is a good read.
Anime cartoons and their characters are a huge cultic phenomenon, the most popular of all escapist media venues. It is very addictive and very dangerous, to the soul and the mind. I don’t post weird stories, but this blog by Zoe Romanowski from Inside Catholic, along with another, even sicker, story I came across a month or so ago, should alert anyone whose children (even young adult children) are into Anime to banish the material from the home. Anime addiction is progressive. It starts off with some innocent serial stories, via comic books and videos, and, if you move up the scale, it quickly descends into paganism, moral perversity, and graphic violence. Bookstores are packed with this infantile literature. I once saw five shelves full of Anime comic books in one Waldenbooks’ store. The story about the deranged girl who acts like a wolf caught my attention because of her addiction to Anime.
You can read about Venerable Bishop Baraga on our website here.
CNA reports; Father Ronald Browne, who has been appointed to lead the work of the canonical tribunal, explained the story behind the alleged miracle. “We have a case involving what was thought to be a tumor on a patient’s liver that showed up on various tests, including a CT scan and an ultrasound. However, when exploratory surgery was done, there was no tumor to be found,” Fr. Browne said. Full article is here.
Archbishop’s March 2 address to Catholic Health Care Workers: Thank you all for being here, and I especially want to thank Sister Miller, Clarke Gormley and George Strake, and of course my friend John Hittinger, for making our time together today possible. Texan hospitality has lived up to the size of its reputation. I’m very grateful.
We should start with the obvious. I’m not a doctor, nurse, hospital administrator, or insurance executive. I’m a pastor. So my thoughts on health care come from that mission. My task – the task of a bishop — is to preach Jesus Christ, teach the Catholic faith, and guide the people God puts into my care. Read more of the address here.
Catholic Vote Action. org reports: Archbishop John Hepworth, Primate of the Traditional Anglican Communion (TAC), told LifeSiteNews (LSN) on Friday that the TAC is very clear on refusing Communion to pro-abortion politicians or anyone advocating an anti-life view.
“Anybody publicly espousing an anti-life stand against the clear teaching of the Church and the commandments would be immediately removed from any office, and certainly would be told they can’t receive Communion,” he explained. (LSN) Read more here.
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