Quid hoc ad aeternitatem?

Sermon for the Ascension of Our Lord

We celebrate today the glorious Ascension of Our Lord after having contemplated Him in the mystery of His Resurrection. What is the point of the Ascension? We answer with the Doctors that it is the crowning of the work of Redemption of Our Lord, the achievement of his exaltation that He has merited by His Passion and His entire life on earth since the day of the Incarnation. Saint Thomas explains that heaven was due to Christ because of His nature. It is natural that a being returns to the place from where he has its origin. And Our Lord told us from where He came. We heard that in last Sunday’s Gospel: I came forth from the Father and have come into the world. Again I leave the world and go to the Father. There is no more reason for Him to remain in the world since the work of Redemption has been performed.
And also, Our Lord shows us that His kingdom is not of this world and that our lives are just passing and transitional in this world. We are called to join Him: Where I am, there also shall my servants be.
Our Lord is the One who has revealed the mystery of the Holy Trinity; this mystery of love between the Divine Person. He tells us the secrets of His Father. He helps us to keep our attention toward the invisible realities of the Kingdom of grace. Our conversation is in heaven, Saint Paul says beautifully. There, there is someone who speaks now to His Father after He has spoken to us about His Father.
Communication has been established, Paul Claudel says. Now there is at the Father’s right hand a voice to explain this new acquisition and extension of His Son, this Passover that He so longed to take with us, this sin that was somehow unspeakably translated into love, this enriched declension of His Word, this bridal bouquet that sacrifices to Him its sweetness! A voice, and I could also say an ear: a divine ear within us pressed to our heart, a divine ear within us pressed to the heart of God!
You see, if you would spend more time about being more curious about God, more time of meditation about Our Lord Jesus Christ and more time for a true conversation – and not only prayers that can be so easily become a kind of routine – you would understand better the love of God for us. And this would make you happier. It would give you more peace. It would help you to understand that the troubles of this life are nothing in comparison with the glory of heaven. Quid hoc ad aeternitatem? Saint Bernard used to repeat constantly. What does this matter for eternity?
In fact, what does matter for my eternity is not the event that I face in my life, but how do I handle them. Do I accept everything with gratitude and do I always complain about others or about the burden that is on my shoulders. I was thinking a few days ago about the great number of prayer requests for friends or relative who are sick. Often we pray for the healing of someone, and there is nothing wrong about that, provided of course that the usual dispositions required when we pray are here. It is good to pray for each other. But I also realized how rare it is to receive prayer requests of thanksgiving when someone is sick. Of course, such a request should come from the sick person himself. I think I have seen that just once since I was ordained.
Quid hoc ad aeternitatem? How often do we ask for temporal good! How rarely do we ask for spiritual good! It is like if we have to spend our all eternity in this world. How often do we ask to be poor with Christ? How often do we pray to desire insults with Christ loaded with them or to be accounted as worthless and a fool for Christ? (Cf Spiritual exercises by Saint Ignatius) We are men of little faith. Very little!
We should desire what is the best for us in order to gain heaven. The fact is that might be better for us to be sick rather than healthy, or poor rather than wealthy, depending on how we use the temporal good. It is legitimate to pray for temporal good, but let us be sure that we will use them for the glory of God and our salvation when we ask for them.
Like Saint Paul, we should be able to say that our conversation is in heaven. Christ is there now. May Our Blessed Mother help us to understand this truth and encourage us to take the glorious way of the Cross! It is the only way that leads to the glory of heaven.

27th Pilgrimage of Pentecost

May 30th - June 1st 2009

From Notre-Dame de Paris to Notre-Dame de Chartres

The Paris-Chartres Pilgrimage is a three-day walk from Notre-Dame de Paris to Notre-Dame de Chartres, approximately 75 miles. Pilgrims are organized into groups of 20-65 people, that are referred to as "chapters". The "walk" is through the streets of Paris, and then into the countryside. It can be muddy, rocky, and demanding-and the rewards of such a penitential exercise are eternal. Good sturdy shoes are a must. Each chapter is accompanied by at least one chaplain, who hears confession and gives spiritual direction to each pilgrim who avails himself of the priest's presence. This pilgrimage originated in the 12th century, with interruptions for the various wars our European brethren seem to find themselves in from time to time. A plenary indulgence is granted, under the usual conditions.Pilgrims will meet in front of Notre Dame de Paris at 6 a.m. on May 30, and the journey of faith and foot begins.

http://www.nd-chretiente.com/

Pèlerinage de Chrétienté

The pursuit of happiness

Sermon for the fifth Sunday after Easter

The optimist considers that the absolute good that he seeks can be gained through the realization of his earthly hopes. The “pursuit of happiness” that is considered as an inalienable right of man in the American Constitution, is a specific product of such an optimistic mentality. At a first look, you may not see what is wrong with that. Is it not legitimate to pursue happiness? The answer is: yes it absolutely legitimate. Now it depends on how do you consider happiness and how do you seek it. Aristotle in his time already said that all men acknowledge that the supreme good is happiness, but right after, he added that there are different opinions concerning the nature of happiness. Basically, there are three main common opinions. Happiness resides in pleasure, in honor or in wealth.
It is interesting to see how Aristotle considers these three theories and how much his thought is very topical today. After all, it is not really surprising. Gustave Thibon has well said that Things have not really changed in two thousand years. The same repetition of error and evil commands the same repetition of truth and of good. We can see regularly here and there a champion of change claiming that a new era is about to begin and that the only thing we need is to believe in it. "Yes, we can!" he claims. Is there any novelty in this belief? If it is something new, it is at the very least already 300 years old. Charles Péguy in his time had already denounced the oldest error of the world that is repeated at every generation like the sap that rises every spring. This very ancient error is to believe that man can remake the society according to his wish. But, as Gustave Thibon points out, there is a conformism of revolt and chaos as there is a conformism of order. It seems after all that our innovators and heroes of change, of liberty, of nonconformism are more traditional than they believe. The Revolution has indeed its own tradition. The progressive and the modernist people have their own traditions. They have them so well, that we can anticipate their so called novelties. They say that nothing will be as before. Let us answer them: the more it changes, the more it is the same thing!
Certainly, the Revolution has different faces, and Gustave Thibon, speaking about this, notices that the ideological and moral contents of the various revolutions were totally different. But their authors were all similar in the way that all of them believed that they could perform a deep and lasting transformation, and they lived on the pretention that nothing would be as before. In a certain way there were right: everything, in general, became worst.
And as long as the great majority of men, especially those who are in charge of the destiny of our nations, believe that the supreme good resides in an earthly happiness, it will continue to get worst. And we will continue to see optimistic people saying that it can be better. To the question: “is the pursuit of happiness truly an inalienable right of man?”, let Our Lady answer.
Our Lady told Bernadette Soubirous: I don’t promise you to make you happy in this world, but in the other. Our Lady, seat of wisdom tells us what true happiness is. We can find it only in God. Aristotle had already discovered that happiness is a divine gift, in the highest degree among all human things and that it is the best of all things. And he added that every man can find it. What is his definition of happiness? It is an operation of the soul that is conform to virtue! Not too bad for a pagan! The Christian Revelation would confirm this definition and perfect it. Man’s happiness must of necessity consist in an operation, Saint Thomas Aquinas says. In fact, perfect happiness consists in an act of our intellect, which is nothing else than the vision of the Divine essence. This is eternal life, that they may know Thee, the only true God! (Jn 17,3)
This is not the optimism of the world, but the concrete reality of the nature of things. It is something that the innovators and the revolutionaries have forgotten. Even the naturalists do not understand the natures of things because they do not acknowledge the principle of nature. The optimism of Rousseau led the world to a global Revolution that finally becomes a world without God. Most of our contemporaries continue to believe in the noble savage myth and their optimism is nothing but an illusion.
And of course, they will accuse us of being pessimistic. With Gustave Thibon, we answer that we simply believe in original sin. The philosopher even adds: I do not need to believe it; the evidence exempts from faith. Are we pessimistic? We are simply Christians. We believe in original sin, but we believe also in the Redemption. Yet, as Thibon says, at the level of appearances, the balance between sin and Redemption is not equal. Sin is an evil that devastates all men and breaks out everywhere. But the benefits of Redemption remain in a very large measure virtual, for the great majority of men neglect or refuse to receive them. It is not enough that a remedy is infallible and universal. The sick must also use it.
It is legitimate to pursue happiness, but it can be find only in God and in the gift of Redemption. Refusing this gift can only leads to the ruin. The modern philosophers and politicians think they can provide happiness in this life. Our Lady promises it in the other life. Between illusion and reality, we should not hesitate. May Our Blessed Mother help us to make the good choice.

The picture of the day

The Hunchback of Notre-Dame

Father Weslin arrested at Notre-Dame

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiz4tfjSuPc

Saint Pierre était-il corse ?

Extrait de Sur les chemins de l'âme corse, Sauveur m'a dit...

De André Giovanni

La face tragique, celle des offenses, du sang versé et du sacrifice, est probablement celle que la Corse a regardée avec la plus vive compassion. Songeons au catenacciu de Sartène. Notre peuple s’y est reconnu que n’ont épargné ni les malheurs, ni les outrages, ni les violences, ni les injustices.
Et quel Corse, en son for intérieur, ne s’est pas retrouvé dans l’apôtre Pierre quand, au moment de l’arrestation du Christ, il tire le glaive pour frapper le serviteur du grand prêtre ? Ce geste vengeur, inutile, attire la réponse souveraine du Maitre : « Celui qui prend l’épée périra par l’épée. »
Le caractère insulaire, pétri de passions, a prouvé qu’il savait se dominer et surmonter les tragédies pour s’accomplir dans la charité. La charité du Christ. L’histoire de notre ile s’est jouée, et se joue encore aujourd’hui, dans un balancement violent entre la rusticité des passions humaines, les malheurs subis comme une malédiction fatidique qui pousserait l’homme à se faire justice, et finalement l’imitation du Christ, cloué sur la Croix par Amour, dans un sacrifice suprême pour la Rédemption de l’humanité.
Notre peuple, sans rien perdre de son identité et de ses justes revendications, doit dépasser les ressentiments provoqués par des vicissitudes trop humaines, pour accéder à un autre ordre, celui de la Miséricorde, tant pour lui-même que pour les autres, les frères, les voisins, et ceux qui passent. Se revêtir de la noblesse du Roi du monde, dans la lumière de la Charité. La justice suprême, c’est le pardon des offenses. « Pardonnez-nous nos offenses comme nous pardonnons à ceux qui nous ont offensés. Et délivrez-nous du mal.”

U lamentu di Maria

He will convince the world of sin

Sermon for the fourth Sunday after Easter

Our Lord prepares His Apostles for His departure: it is expedient to you that I go. If I go not, the Paraclete will not come to you. We read this text during paschaltide, in the context of the Resurrection and as a preparation to the mysteries of the Ascension and of Pentecost, but they were said during the Last Supper. The Apostles certainly did not understand the meaning of all the words of the Lord at this time, but they would understand when the Holy Spirit would come upon us. In the Chapter 14 of Saint John , Our Lord had already promised the Apostles that the Father will give them another Counselor and the Spirit of truth. He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.
Pope John Paul II in the Encyclical Letter Dominum et Vivificantem, says that the Holy Spirit is not only the Counselor of the Apostles, but of the whole Church. The words "he will teach" and "bring to remembrance" mean not only that he, will continue to inspire the spreading of the Gospel of salvation but also that he will help people to understand the correct meaning of the content of Christ's message; they mean that he will ensure continuity and identity of understanding in the midst of changing conditions and circumstances. The Holy Spirit, then, will ensure that in the Church there will always continue the same truth which the Apostles heard from their Master.
Our Lord says another Counselor, because He is Himself the first Counselor as He is the first bearer and giver of the Good News. There is an intimate bond, Pope John Paul II adds, between Christ and the Holy Spirit. In fact, The Holy Spirit continues the mission of Christ through His members: He teaches and bears witness as Jesus did during His life on earth, and that is precisely what the militant Church does on earth. The Holy Spirit has a very important mission in the Church and is like her soul. We will have the opportunity to meditate on this mystery in a few weeks.
But now, let us consider the mission of the Paraclete in the world. He will convince the world of sin, and of justice and of judgment. He will convince the world of sin! It is first the sin of those who rejected Christ and condemned Him to the death of the Cross. Jesus spoke these words only a few hours before His death. By dying on the Cross He performed the works of remission of sins. He did not come into the world to judge it but to save it. When the Holy Spirit convinces the world of sin, He also convinces it of the remission of sins. Therefore the world is divided into two sides. On one side, there are those who acknowledge the remission of sins and who accept it for themselves. They have received the Holy Spirit. On the other side, there are those who refuse the gift of redemption and this rejection will be their condemnation. The conviction of sin is intrinsically connected to the death of Christ on the Cross as Pope John Paul II points it out: it is the demonstration of the evil of sin, of every sin, in relation to the Cross of Christ. Sin, shown in this relationship, is recognized in the entire dimension of evil proper to it, through the "mysterium iniquitatis" which is hidden within it. Man does not know this dimension-he is absolutely ignorant of it apart from the Cross of Christ. So he cannot be "convinced" of it except by the Holy Spirit: the Spirit of truth.
The mystery of iniquity has its beginning with original sin. What do we know about the beginning? In the Beginning God created heaven and earth. It is the gift of Creation, a gift from the Three Divine Persons. The Word, who is the Second Person of the Trinity, is the principle of the Creation according to Saint John. In the beginning was the Word: and the Word was with God: and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him: and without him was made nothing that was made.
But at the beginning, there was also a spirit that is opposed to the Word of God and that has its origin in the will of the rational creatures. There was a tree in the garden and this tree brought death into the world by the disobedience of Adam. One day, another tree would bring back life by the obedience unto death of the New Adam. The spirit that opposes the Word, we can name it with Pope John Paul II, the Anti-Word or the Anti-truth.
This "anti-truth" is possible because at the same time there is a complete falsification of the truth about who God is. God the Creator is placed in a state of suspicion, indeed of accusation, in the mind of the creature. For the first time in human history there appears the perverse "genius of suspicion." He seeks to "falsify'' Good itself; the absolute Good, which precisely in the work of creation has manifested itself as the Good which gives in an inexpressible way: as bonum diffusivum sui, as creative love. Who can completely "convince concerning sin," or concerning this motivation of man's original disobedience, except the one who alone is the gift and the source of all giving of gifts, except the Spirit, who "searches the depths of God" and is the love of the Father and the Son?
Living in this world where two antagonistic spirits oppose each other, we often vacillate from one to another. Between Word and the Anti-Word, there is no hesitation possible. The Word is the principle of my being and of my life. May the Anti-Word not be the principle of my actions! Let us turn to the Mother of the Incarnate Word, so that we can live according to the Spirit of truth and reject the works of darkness that lead to death. Amen!

Parade in honor of Saint Ioan of Arc

May 8th 2009 in Orleans

The city of Orleans was delivered by Saint Ioan of Arc on May 8th 1429

Fetes de Jeanne d'Arc 2009 - Orléans
Uploaded by choreon

Saint John Bosco Academy

St. John Bosco Academy will be opening at Star of the Sea Village, near the Cherokee Village FSSP apostolate, starting in August 2009. Due to faculty constraints, the first year of classes will meet only three days a week - Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, with homework assigned for a fourth school day.

St. John Bosco will offer standard K-12 classes.

For further information contact Lorri Sonnier at (870) 834-1541 or (870) 834-8993.

A place to visit with family if you go to France

"On paper, Philippe de Villiers is an unlikely populist. A strict Catholic and father of seven, he is president of the regional council of the Vendée, the heartland of French royalism. Yet, more than anyone else, he knows how to sell a conservative message in a modern way.
His first passion is the extraordinary theme park that he has created in a village called Puy-du-Fou. It tells the story of the Vendée, dwelling on the agony of the Revolutionary repressions, when priests were hunted down and villages razed.
It is, without being too blatant, a hymn to an older, seemlier France. And it is staggeringly popular, attracting some 20,000 visitors a day in the summer. Incredibly, it is staffed by volunteers, its profits going to local charities.
Puy-du-Fou is thus a standing affront to France's cultural establishment: it is politically conservative, popular and, worst of all, it does not take a penny in subsidy."

Daniel Hanman, in Telegraph.co.uk

La Cinéscénie

2006 show: "Mousquetaire de Richelieu"

Visit the website: http://www.puydufou.com/uk

Confederate Memorial Day in Georgia

"I, SONNY PERDUE, Governor of the State of Georgia, do hereby proclaim April 2009 as CONFEDERATE HISTORY MONTH and April 26, 2009, as CONFEDERATE MEMORIAL DAY in Georgia and encourage our citizens to observe this occasion with appropriate ceremonies. In witness thereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the Executive Department to be affixed this 11th day of December in the year of our Lord two thousand eight"

The marching armies of the past

Along our Southern plains,

Are sleeping now in quiet rest

Beneath the Southern rains.

The bugle call is now in vain

To rouse them from their bed;

To arms they'll never march again--

They are sleeping with the dead.

No more will Shiloh's plains be stained

With blood our heroes shed,

Nor Chancellorsville resound again

To our noble warriors' tread.

For them no more shall reveille

Sound at the break of dawn,

But may their sleep peaceful be

Till God's great judgment morn.

We bow our heads in solemn prayer

For those who wore the gray,

And clasp again their unseen hands

On our Memorial Day.

(Unknown writer)

Spiritual mirage

By Fénelon

Almost all who aim at serving God do so more or less for their own sake. They want to win, not to lose. They want to be comforted, not to suffer. They want to possess, not to be deprived. They want to increase, not to diminish. Yet all the while our whole interior progress consists in losing, sacrificing, decreasing, humbling, and stripping self even of God’s own gifts, so as to be more completely his. We are often like an invalid who feels his pulse fifty times in the day, and wants the doctor to be perpetually ordering some fresh treatment, or telling him how much better he is.
Some people treat their spiritual director or pastor in this way. They move round and round in a petty circle of easy virtues, never stepping beyond it heartily and generously, while they expect the director (like the physician) to soothe, comfort, encourage, and foster perfectionism, only ordering little sedative treatments that drop into mere habit and routine. As soon as they are deprived of conscious grace – grace that they can feel inwardly, grace that is like the milk of babes – such people fancy that all is lost. But this is a plain proof that they cling too much to the means and overlook the end, and that self is their main object.
Privations are the food of strong minds; they invigorate the soul, take it out to itself, and offer it as a living sacrifice to God. But weak people are in despair at the first touch of privation. They fancy that all their work is being overthrown, just when it is really beginning to be solidly fixed and thoroughly purified. They are willing to let God do what He will with them, provided always it be something great and perfect. But they have no notion of being cast down and crushed, or of being offered as a sacrifice to be consumed in the divine flames. They seek to live by pure faith, yet want to retain all their worldly wisdom, to be as children, yet great at their own eyes. But what a spiritual mirage this is!

François de Salignac de La Mothe-Fénelon

The Wrath of God

"What joy, what ecstasy it is to see our Father living and overflowing with love for us, with tenderness, compassion – all the right emotions, even anger! Yes, we love Him to take us as seriously in our transgressions as in our attempts to do good. Those fools who talk about a cruel God are imbeciles. He is a jealous God, yes, as jealous as you please, but we love Him that way!"

Paul Claudel

U Lamentu di Ghjesu

Merci a MonteCintu pour avoir mis cette video en ligne

Pace e Salute

Being a friend of the Cross

On Good Friday, we are going to ‘adore’ the Cross of Our Lord. The word seems too strong; it even seems to be heterodox as adoration is exclusively due to God. It may even have a whiff of paganism, and it would be the case without the understanding of the notion of analogy or rather of equivocality. In the strict sense adoration is the supreme act of religion offered to God by which we acknowledge His dominion over the whole creation and our submission to Him. In a looser sense, the reverence shown to any person or object possessing, inherently or by association, a sacred character or a high degree of moral excellence. (Catholic Encyclopedia)

The Cross of Jesus possesses in a highest degree the character of moral excellence as it is the instrument chosen by God to redeem us. Christ has desired to embrace it, to be nailed on it, to be one with it, so that we can be saved. It is hard to understand. The Cross is unto the Jews a stumbling block and unto the Gentiles foolishness (1 Co 1,23). In fact, there is only one way of understanding the Cross. Neither the Law or reason allow us to comprehend it. Speaking of Saint Paul, the Holy Father says that the "Gospel of grace" thus became for him the only way of understanding the Cross, not only the criterion of his new existence but also his response to those who questioned him.[1] What is true for Saint Paul is true for each one of us. I cannot understand the Cross of Jesus if I do not receive and accept in my life the “Gospel of Grace.” And if I do not understand the message of the Cross, how can I understand my life?
Our Lord has indeed performed a revolution when He incarnated. The idea that God can assume a created nature shattered the way of thinking of the Jews as well as of the Gentiles. Yet, for God it is not enough. The Man-God would suffer and die as a criminal, as the least of men, the rubbish of the society of men. The scandal is absolute! For those who, like the Greeks, see perfection in the spirit, in pure thought, it was already unacceptable that God should become man, immersing himself in all the limitations of space and time. Then for them it was definitely inconceivable to believe that a God could end on a Cross! And we see that this Greek logic is also the common logic of our time.[2]

Not only does the Cross shatter the intelligence of man, but it challenges him. Once he has bowed his intellect in front of the Divine Mystery, he still has to render himself and offer his own life. The Cross is not only a call to my reason, but is the principle of the interior renovation of my whole person. I may acknowledge the mystery of the Cross, because I am a faithful Catholic who believes, yet it does not necessarily mean that I have embraced it. Faith is not Charity! Believing in the mystery of the Passion of our Lord is one thing. Loving the Cross is another thing.

Saint Louis Grignion de Montfort echoes this reality when he says: if I am captivated by its splendour, I am no less frightened by its responsibility, for it is a title (friend of the Cross) that embraces difficult and inescapable obligations, summed up in the words of the Holy Spirit, “A chosen race, a royal priesthood, a people set apart.”[3] This is a verse from the Scriptures that is often used to laud the People of God. The laity, by a kind of mysterious inspiration insufflated by a mysterious spirit of the Council, has suddenly discovered that it is a royal priesthood; and since we live in a time of demands and claims, the People of God has come to fight for its rights, sometimes against a certain “old and obsolete ecclesiastical institution” incarnated by the authoritarian power that dwells in the Vatican, far from the reality of the modern world. In fact, we simply witness the class war within the Church.

But being a chosen people and a royal priesthood is not a license to enter and to jiggle into the sanctuaries. It is first a responsibility as Saint Louis de Montfort states. It is the practical acceptance of the Cross in my daily life!

A Friend of the Cross is one chosen by God, from among thousands who live only according to their reason and senses, to be wholly divine, raised above mere reason and completely opposed to material things, living in the light of pure faith, and inspired by a deep love of the Cross.
A Friend of the Cross is an all-powerful king, a champion who triumphs over the devil, the world and the flesh in their three-fold concupiscence. He crushes the pride of Satan by his love of humiliations; he overcomes the greed of the world by his love of poverty; he retrains the sensuality of the flesh by his love of suffering.
A Friend of the Cross is one who is holy and set apart from the things that are visible, for his heart is raised above all that is transient and perishable, and his homeland is in heaven; he travels through this world like a visitor and a pilgrim, and, far from setting his heart on it, he looks on it with indifference and tramples it underfoot with contempt.
A Friend of the Cross is a glorious trophy gained by the crucified Christ on Calvary, in union with his holy Mother. He is a Benoni or Benjamin, a child of sorrow and of the right hand, conceived in the suffering heart of Jesus, born from his pierced side, and baptised in his blood. True to his origin, his life embraces the cross, and death to the world, the flesh, and sin, so as to live here below a life hidden with Christ in God.
In short, a perfect Friend of the Cross is a true Christ-bearer, or rather another Christ, so that he can truly say, "I live now not with my own life but with the life of Christ who lives in me."

Being another Christ! This is the vocation I have received the day of my Baptism. I shall be another Christ only when I shall totally surrender myself to the will of God. This is the way of the Cross; the way of my Cross. May Our Lady of sorrows keep me safe on this way!


Father Laurent Demets, FSSP (Upon this Rock, April 2009)

[1] General audience, October 29th 2008
[2] General audience, October 29th 2008.
[3] Letter to the Friends of the Cross.

Sermon for the 5th Sunday of Lent....

(.. that many read or hear, but only a few - unfortunatelly - put into practice, because it is hard to change a habit of life!)

During the retreat that we had this past week, many of you told me: "Father, it is something new for me, or I have never thought about that before. I realize that I am not the saint I wanted to be." The reason is that a retreat is a meeting with Our Lord, a time when you can really look at Him and listen to Him, without the distractions of the world. When you take the time to look at Him and to listen to Him, then He can reveal to you who you are. This is what we need: to know who we are.

The contemporaries of Christ had the opportunity to meet Him face to face. They have certainly felt in the deepest of their soul the piercing gaze of the Lord who knows all about you, about your life, about your thoughts, your feelings, and who knows all your sins, especially those who remain hidden in a dark corner of your soul. Realizing who they truly were, then they fell on their knees and, as Peter did, confessed their sinfulness: Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord. What a grace! It is a grace to understand that you are a sinful man. It is a grace to fall on your knees and to humble yourself. It is a grace to cry for your sins and to shed tears of repentance.
Saint Ignatius had this grace in his life and he wants to share it with us. As the contemporaries of Our Lord, we can also meet Him and look in His eyes. We can let Him look in ours. It is precisely what we do in a retreat, especially with the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius.
They are a conquest: a conquest over yourself as the Saint put it: to conquer oneself and regulate one’s life. But in order to conquest yourself, you first have to know yourself. And that is not so common. Saint Ignatius knows this fact and this is why he wants us to ask often God the grace to know ourselves well. Then, once we begin to understand who we are, we can ask for what we need. For example, it will be to ask shame and confusion at myself. It is not the kind of petitions we usually pray for, isn’t it? We usually ask God for a success for an exam, a work or whatever. We pray for the conversion of someone or his healing if he is sick. We pray for the Church, the souls in purgatory and many other intentions and all of these prayers are good. It is rare to pray and to ask for shame, humiliation, or confusion. The reason is that we do not know ourselves and consequently we do not know what we really need for our souls. Strange as it may seem, Cardinal Newman says, multitudes called Christians go through life with no effort to obtain a correct knowledge of themselves. They are contented with general and vague impressions concerning their real state; and if they have more than this, it is merely such accidental information about themselves as the events of life force upon them. But exact systematic knowledge they have none, and do not aim at it.

It is certainly very difficult to know yourself very well. All the Doctors and Saints agree on this matter. But difficult does not mean impossible. It means that you have to make some efforts. It means that you have to perform some particular and proper acts that allow you to know yourself.

Self-knowledge does not come as a matter of course, Cardinal Newman continues. It implies an effort and a work. The very effort of steadily reflecting, is itself painful to many men; not to speak of the difficulty of reflecting correctly. To ask ourselves why do this or that, to take account of the principles which govern us, and see whether we act for conscience’ sake or from some lower inducement, is painful.

Then we have to overcome the self-esteem that we have. Because of certain good actions we do, we think that we are not so bad. Remember the danger of being a Pharisee we were talking about last week. After all, I go to Mass every Sunday; I even go to Mass during the week; I am not a criminal; I am not a thief; I do not have any big sins to confess etc… Then you end by thinking with a false air of humility that you are certainly not perfect but that you are finally not too bad. This way of thinking is very dangerous and has terrible consequences. One of them is a judgmental mind toward others and instead of displaying compassion you just show critics and judgments. You are very good at detecting the faults of your neighbor while you even do not see your own faults. Cardinal Newman says again that if the truth were known to us, we should find we had nothing but debts, and those greater than we can conceive, and ever increasing.

We also have to consider the force of habit that is a serious obstacle to self-knowledge. We all have our habits. Some are good, many are wrong. For that reason we have to reform ourselves regularly. There is a common idea that wisdom comes with time and that the older you are, the wiser and better you are. It is not always true. In fact it is true only if you have the good habit of reforming yourselves. If you do not do this at the time or your young age, it will become more and more difficult to do it as you get older. The effects of original sin do not naturally fade with time and they even can be worst. If you have lived with illusion about yourself during the time you were younger and more active in the world, there is no reason that you will suddenly become better. It is rather the opposite that is true. You get accustomed to your own way of thinking, to your own way of living and it is just become harder and harder to reform yourself. Pride is simply the cancer of the soul and, unless you use the proper treatment to heal it, it continues to develop.

Many things are against us, Cardinal Newman concludes. This is plain. Yet is not our future prize worth a struggle? Is it not worth present discomfort and pain to accomplish an escape from the fire that never shall be quenched? Can we endure the thought of going down to the grave with a load of sins on our head unknown and unrepented of? Can we content ourselves with such an unreal faith in Christ, as in no sufficient measure includes self-abasement, or thankfulness, or the desire or effort to be holy? For how can we feel our need of His help, or our dependence on Him, or the nature of His gift to us, unless we know ourselves? How can we in any sense be said to have that “mind of Christ” to which the Apostle exhorts us, if we cannot follow Him to the height above, or the depth beneath; if we do not in some measure discern the cause and meaning of His sorrows, but regard the world, and man, and the system of Providence, in a light different from that which His words and acts supply? If you receive revealed truths merely through the eyes and ears, you believe words, not things; you deceive yourselves. You may conceive yourselves sound in faith, but you know nothing in any true way. Without self-knowledge you have no root in yourselves personally.

Yes, dear brethren, unless we have a true faith, we are in danger. And as Cardinal Newman just said, we ought to have faith not only in the words – the creed – but also in the realities that are signified by the words. This includes self-knowledge. We also know that faith without the works is useless. Faith must be followed by obedience, not only in theory but in the cursus of our daily life. It means obedience to the teaching of God and to the teaching of the Church. It means obedience to our natural and legitimate superiors. It means obedience and docility to the teaching and the admonestations of a guide. As we have already seen, this is the admonition of admonitions. This is also a powerful means of acquiring self-knowledge. For that, you have to open your soul to your spiritual director. It is certainly a most difficult thing to do, but it is your safeguard against self-illusion.

Dear Brethren, we have tried to consider during this Lenten Season, what are the necessary means of sanctification we ought to use in ordre to progress in spiritual life. Saint Francis de Sales, Saint Ignatius of Loyola and Cardinal Newman have been our guides in this meditation. We know now what we have to do in order to do the will of God, that is our sanctification. God want me to be holy; Do I?

May our Blessed Mother give us the desire of holiness.

Sermon for the 4th Sunday of Lent

As the Sundays of Lent follow one another, we continue our reflection on the Christian perfection and the means to acquire it. We know now that perfection is the will of God for each man and that it is not enough to just keep the commandments of God in order to answer this call of our Father. Furthermore, the experience teaches us that many souls that content themselves of just trying to keep the commandments fall occasionally or regularly in mortal sin and hardly make progress in their spiritual life. And if they finally obtain eternal life, we can reasonably suppose that they will see God after a substantial time of purification in purgatory. The truth is that one has to be holy in order to see God. If you do not use the grace of God in this life to be perfect, then God will have to make you perfect without your own participation in purgatory, provided that you are in state of grace at the time of your death. Another truth is that the sufferings of this world are nothing in comparison to the pains of purgatory.

And there is also a difference between the pains suffered in this present life and the pains suffered in purgatory. In the first case, you can offer these pains in satisfaction for your sins and this satisfaction is meritorious. It is a gain for eternal life, an increase of your future glory and happiness. In purgatory your sufferings are no longer meritorious. The soul in purgatory accepts these sufferings because it understands that it is good, but they are more endured than offered. For that reason, we speak about satispassion.

God wants you to be perfect. Is it also want you want? Is your ambition is to become a Saint? How do you think the Saints became Saints? “I have always wanted to become a Saint” Saint Therese of Lisieux says. And that was her concern during her whole life. What about you? Do you want or not to be a Saint? If you do, then you can be a Saint. You can! Now you still have to change the simple desire into a firm resolution, as Saint Francis de Sales says. We are now in the field of practical realization of a program of life. Your desire of holiness has to be effective.

"I have always wanted to be a Saint!"

We have seen that a condition for the achievement of this goal is self-denial, which is the practical acceptance of the cross in our live. We have seen that it is also necessary, as it is a part of self denial, to practice the virtue of obedience, and for that to put ourselves under the guidance of a good man, which is the admonition of admonitions, as Saint Francis de Sales reminded us last week. It is even more necessary as we have a natural tendency to be individualist. I want to worship God and serve him in my way! Maybe you want, but are you sure that it is what God wants? We are very individualistic in our way of serving God and that is a serious obstacle in the process of our sanctification. Saint Ignatius of Loyola gives us rules that might help us overcome this obstacle. They are the rules that we should follow to acquire the true sentiment which we ought to have in the Church militant. I put these rules in the bulletins for many weeks. What use of them do you make? Do you even try to put them into practice? These rules are precious, as they help us to get rid of a selfish religious life centered more on ourselves rather than on Christ and His Church. They help us not only to follow the commandments but also to live with Christ and His Church by uniting our will to the will of Our Lord and to think and to feel with the Church – sentire cum Ecclesia. And this might be the difference between a Pharisee, who is a strict follower of the commandment, and a disciple in truth of spirit, who aspires not only to serve his Master but also to love and to please Him.

Cardinal Newman says that the Pharisee – in the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican – looked upon himself with great complacency, for the very reason that the standard was so low, and the range so narrow, which he assigned to his duties towards God and man. He used, or misused, the traditions in which he had been brought up, to the purpose of persuading himself that perfection lay in merely answering the demands of society. He professed, indeed, to pay thanks to God, but he hardly apprehended the existence of any direct duties on his part toward his Maker. He thought he did all that God required, if he satisfied public opinion. To be religious, in the Pharisee’s sense, was to keep the peace towards others, to take his share in the burdens of the poor, to abstain from gross vice, and to set a good example. His alms and fastings were not done in penance, but because the world asked for them; penance would have implied the consciousness of sin. He thanked God he was a Pharisee, and not a penitent.

The danger of being a Pharisee is great. It is always a threat to the Christians. This is the usual and eternal temptation: self-satisfaction, self-sufficiency, self-esteem! If there is a “self” that we should observe, it is self-denial, which gives us the true spirit of penance. It is good to remember this, especially now in this time of Lent. Self-denial supposes also self-knowledge, and that will be our subject for next Sunday. In order to deny myself, I have to know who I am. Now, I ought to be a penitent, because I am a sinner. Let the penitent always feel pain for his sin, Saint Augustine says, and always feel joy for his pain. Today, the Church invites us to joy. But what is the motive of my joy?

May Our Blessed Mother continue to lead us of the way of self-denial and of penance, so that we can find the true joy of penance, the true joy of the cross, the true joy of the truth and the true joy of life. This way is the One who once said: I am the way, and the truth, and the life!

Cantemus Domino

Since 2000 the Fraternity of Saint Peter (FSSP) has had an apostolate at St. Michael’s Catholic Church in Cherokee Village, near Hardy. Every Sunday since then there has been a High Mass, with the Ordinary, the Propers, and various traditional Catholic hymns sung in Latin. The beauty of the Gregorian Chant and Polyphony has attracted a number of talented young people over the years, and the Cherokee Village Latin Mass Choir and Schola has made an impact within Latin Mass communities around the region.

In August 2008 the choir recorded a CD at the Christian Science Center in Batesville. This location was chosen for the quality of the organ and the acoustics in the building.

The choir is under the direction of 16-year old Emily Byrne, a Nursing student at the University of Arkansas Community College in Batesville. Miss Byrne has directed the choir for two years. In October 2007 she directed a combined choir at the Saint John Center in Little Rock at a Latin Mass at the diocesan priests meeting in which Pope Benedict’s document Summorum Pontificum was addressed and discussed.

The Chaplain of the Cherokee Village Latin Mass Community is Fr. Laurent Demets, FSSP, who has an intense interest in liturgical music. Fr. Demets, who participated in the recordings, sees the effort to preserve traditional Catholic music as a duty:

The Latin Mass community of Arkansas is a humble link of a great chain that goes back to the apostolic times. It is what we call Tradition. We have received from our elders a precious treasure, which is the Gregorian chant and the polyphonic music, as an authentic way of worshiping Almighty God. We have no other desire but to continue this ancient work of Divine praise and to hand it over the next generation that will come after us. The ultimate goal is simply the Glory of God and the edification of souls.

The organist is Mr. Robert W. Clayton, a native Catholic of Northeast Arkansas. Mr. Clayton is a 1982 graduate of The University of Dallas. He has worked professionally in various parishes of the dioceses of Dallas, Charleston, Owensboro and Little Rock.

The title of the CD is “Cantemus Domino” (We Sing to The Lord). It is a fascinating assortment of Catholic music: Gregorian Chant, polyphonic, and pilgrimage hymns. It includes selections of music from throughout the liturgical year, beginning with Christmas, then through Lent, Easter, and concluding with the beautiful Carolingian Acclamations (Christus Vincit) and two hymns of Pilgrimage. Michael Prince of All the Angels is traditionally sung during the Pilgrimage of the Feast of St. Michael, and Stella Splendens is a pilgrimage song from the famous Libre Vermeill de Monserrat.

Pope Benedict XVI declared in an address on Sacred Music, June 24, 2006, that

…sacred polyphony, particularly that of the so-called "Roman School," is a legacy to preserve with care, to keep alive and to make known, not only for the benefit of experts and lovers of it but also for the entire ecclesial community, for which it constitutes a priceless spiritual, musical and cultural heritage.

In the words of Bishop Taylor, Diocese of Little Rock, “The traditional music on this CD…has been sung by many generations of Catholic believers and borne the test of time.”

To order a copy of the CD ($15 that includes shipping), you can send e-mail to jmirabel@sbcglobal.net or fax to (870) 793-5279, Or write to:

Jim Mirabella
109 Leonard Drive
Bono, AR 72416

Declaration of President Blaise Campaoré

President of Burkina Faso, Blaise Campaoré made a statement on the use of condom: a lesson for our politicians who want to impose their own views to the whole world. I did not find an English translation of his speech that was posted on Le Salon Beige in French. I used google translator and made a few corrections so that it can be understandable.

http://lesalonbeige.blogs.com/my_weblog/2009/03/le-d%C3%A9bat-sur-le-pr%C3%A9servatif-ne-concerne-pas-lafrique.html

It is a moral commitment when you are responsible for a community of 12 million people. In West Africa, AIDS threatens the lives of millions of men and women. Its impact on society is considerable. The head of state must be at the forefront. Burkina Faso has developed a strategic framework with the classic elements of the fight against AIDS: prevention, epidemiological monitoring, and care of patients. We are starting to achieve results - the prevalence rate decreased from 7% in 1997 to 4% in 2003. [...]

Faced with international agencies, it is important to resist. They can advise us, but they cannot do for us. [...] The Europeans do not feel the danger of AIDS in the same way as us. For Burkina Faso, the danger is immediate. The pandemic is a visible reality, it strikes your family, your closest friends. In Europe, you may have time to make arguments for or against morality. In Burkina, we do not have time. [...]
There is often a chasm between what the media say and what happens on the field. In Africa, we are living with AIDS every day. The debate on condoms, as you have, do not concern us. The French like controversy; it is their ‘Gaulois’ side! Some criticize the Church's position by claiming to defend the Africans. Very well! But most of them never came here! I advise them to come to stay in Burkina Faso. Here, the imam, the priest and the chief work together: they all have the ambition to face the same pain. Focusing on the condom, is ignoring the problem of AIDS. [...]
Many people ignore the work of the Church in Africa. In France, the intelligentsia does not understand the nearness with Catholic leaders. But in Burkina Faso, the Church means primarily schools and clinics. The debate on AIDS is not theoretical, it is practical. The Church makes its contribution. If abstinence is a means of prevention, we will not do without it! [...] The Church has no monopoly of abstinence! As head of state, I have made commitments in this direction since 2002 as part of the campaign "It's my life." The objective was to put people in front of their responsibilities. Among the commitments offered, some were directly call for abstinence, "I decided to abstain from sexual relations when my husband (my wife) is absent "and" I decided to abstain from sexual relations until marriage. "

Les propos du Saint Pere

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