Sexagesima: The Most Beautiful Epistle of the Year, Explained by St Pius X - "The Lord will never abandon His heritage"

From the Epistle for the Sunday in Sexagesima: "For though I should have a mind to glory, I shall not be foolish: for I will say the truth: but I forbear, lest any man should think of me above that which he seeth in me, or anything he heareth from me. And lest the greatness of the revelations should exalt me, there was given me a sting of my flesh, and angel of Satan, to buffet me. For which thing, thrice I besought the Lord that it might depart from me. And He said to me: my grace is sufficient for thee: for power is made perfect in infirmity. Gladly therefore will I glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may dwell in me." (II Cor. xii, 6-9)

When [St. Anselm] was torn from the solitude of the studious life of the cloister, to be raised to a lofty dignity in most difficult times, he found himself a prey to the most tormenting solicitude and anxiety, and chief of all the fear that he might not do enough for the salvation of his own soul and the souls of his people, for the honor of God and of His Church. But amid all these anxieties and in the grief he felt at seeing himself abandoned culpably by many, even including his brethren in the episcopate, his one great comfort was his trust in God and in the Apostolic See. Threatened with shipwreck, and while the storm raged round him, he took refuge in the bosom of the Church, his Mother, invoking from the Roman Pontiff pitiful and prompt aid and comfort; God, perhaps, permitted that this great man, full of wisdom and sanctity as he was, should suffer such heavy tribulation, in order that he might be a comfort and an example to us in the greatest difficulties and trials of the pastoral ministry, and that the sentence of Paul might be realized in each one of us: "Gladly will I glory in my infirmities that the power of Christ may dwell in me. For which cause I please myself in my infirmities . . . for when I am weak then am I powerful" (2 Cor. xii. 9, 10).

Such indeed are the sentiments which Anselm expressed to Urban II.: "Holy Father, I am grieved that I am not what I was, grieved to be a bishop, because by reason of my sins I do not perform the office of a bishop. While I was in a lowly position, I seemed to be doing something; set in a lofty place, burdened by an immense weight, I gain no fruit for myself, and am of no use to anybody. I give way beneath the burden because I am incredibly poor in the strength, virtue, zeal, and knowledge necessary for so great an office. I would fain flee from the insupportable anxiety and leave the burden behind me, but, on the other hand, I fear to offend God. The fear of God obliged me to accept it, the same fear of God constrains me to retain the same burden. Now, since God's will is hidden from me, and I know not what to do, I wander about in sighs, and know not how to put an end to it all".

Vatican News Website Promoting Heresy: Pascendi Explains Everything

Pascendi was the greatest Catholic document of the past 250 years. The simple parish priest Giuseppe Sarto explained all that had been going on in the underground of the Church since the 1789 Revolution and prophesied much of what would happen later, as we can see with our own eyes.

Saint Pius X did much to stem the tide, and we can see that his efforts lasted for decades. But, of course, there is no way to stop traitors with an "oath", because they lie through their teeth and double-dealing is their very life.

This can be seen in the following piece published Tuesday in the Vatican News website:

May, Mary's Month- I- Mary, the foundation, the noblest after Christ

Giovanni Gabrieli
Sancta et Immaculata Virginitas
quibus te laudibus efferam, nescio:
quia, quem caeli capere non poterant,
tuo gremio contulisti.
Genuisti qui te fecit,
et in aeternum permanes Virgo.

_______________________

[C]an anyone fail to see that there is no surer or more direct road than by Mary for uniting all mankind in Christ and obtaining through Him the perfect adoption of sons, that we may be holy and immaculate in the sight of God? For if to Mary it was truly said: "Blessed art thou who hast believed because in thee shall be fulfilled the things that have been told thee by the Lord" (Luke i., 45); or in other words, that she would conceive and bring forth the Son of God and if she did receive in her breast Him who is by nature Truth itself in order that "He, generated in a new order and with a new nativity, though invisible in Himself, might become visible in our flesh" (St. Leo the Great, Ser. 2, De Nativ. Dom.): the Son of God made man, being the "author and consummator of our faith"; it surely follows that His Mother most holy should be recognized as participating in the divine mysteries and as being in a manner the guardian of them, and that upon her as upon a foundation, the noblest after Christ, rises the edifice of the faith of all centuries.

The Omission of “Difficult” Psalms and the Spreading-Thin of the Psalter

The Jefferson Bible, from which the arch-rationalist clipped what he disliked

(This article is being republished by popular demand, in revised form.)

PART OF THE WORK of reassessing the liturgical reform and correcting or rejecting its mistakes consists in making known, as widely as possible, the damage and destruction that was visited upon the unbroken liturgical tradition of the Catholic Church. It has been my experience that far too many Catholics today have simply no idea how much violence was done to the liturgy in the 1960s and 1970s — and that, when they do find out about it, they are rightly and properly scandalized, stirred up with a righteous indignation, and conscious of a new desire to know how they can reconnect with the great tradition that was and is ours as Catholics.

Pope Benedict XVI on the Life and Accomplishments of Saint Pius X

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Today I would like to reflect on my Predecessor, St Pius X whose liturgical Memorial we shall be celebrating next Saturday and to underline certain features that may be useful to both Pastors and faithful also in our time.

Giuseppe Sarto, that was his name, was born into a peasant family in Riese, Treviso, in 1835. After studying at the Seminary in Padua he was ordained a priest when he was 23 years old. He was first curate in Tombolo, then parish priest at Salzano and then canon of the Cathedral of Treviso with the offices of episcopal chancellor and spiritual director of the Diocesan Seminary. In these years of rich and generous pastoral experience, the future Pontiff showed that deep love for Christ and for the Church, that humility and simplicity and great charity to the needy which characterized his entire life. In 1884 he was appointed Bishop of Mantua, and in 1893, Patriarch of Venice. On 4 August 1903, he was elected Pope, a ministry he hesitated to accept since he did not consider himself worthy of such a lofty office.

Pius X's Pontificate left an indelible mark on the Church's history and was distinguished by a considerable effort for reform that is summed up in his motto: Instaurare Omnia in Christo, "To renew all things in Christ".

The Prophetic Words of Pope St. Pius X

Excerpts from:

Notre Charge Apostolique

"Our Apostolic Mandate"

Given by Pope Pius X to the French Bishops
August 15, 1910

“We fear that worse is to come: the end result of this developing promiscuousness, the beneficiary of this cosmopolitan social action, can only be a Democracy which will be neither Catholic, nor Protestant, nor Jewish. It will be a religion (for Sillonism, so the leaders have said, is a religion) more universal than the Catholic Church, uniting all men to become brothers and comrades at last in the ‘Kingdom of God’. We do not work for the Church, we work for mankind. 

Marriage, it's always been marriage

From the very first Martyrdom, that of the "Greatest born of women", Saint John the Baptist, whose Beheading we celebrate today, the purity/indissolubility of marriage has always been the essential moral and social dogmatic centerpiece of Christian life since the fullness of time, when Our Lord Jesus Christ, "by virtue of His supreme legislative power ...restored the primeval law in its integrity by those words which must never be forgotten, 'What God hath joined together let no man put asunder'." (Casti connubii, 34)

APOSTASY - How Suppression of Truth about God led to Depravity and Supression of Truth about Marriage and Family

Don Pietro Leone, a priest who celebrates the Traditional Mass exclusively in an Italian diocese, and who has sent so many gifts to Rorate readers, including his booklet on the destruction of the Roman Rite and his essay on Modernism, has a new Summer reading gift for our readers -- a long essay on Apostasy.

It is a booklet on Apostasy, and on how abandonment of the truth about God has led to all other evils in the Church and in Society. We strongly suggest you read, print out, send to friends, and spread it around as widely as possible, as it helps explain so much, including how a minority of perverted activists has been trying to alter the very words of Christ on the truth on marriage.

Is there hope? Read the essay to find out!

**********

APOSTASY

a special essay by Father Pietro Leone for Rorate Caeli

Watchman, what of the Night?        (Is. 21.11)

       In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

   Here in Italy the summer has reached its height: the sun beats down on the city and on the countryside by day, and by night the elderly sit outside and watch the people passing by.

   To the eyes of the Faith, by contrast, the whole of mankind is plunged in the most profound darkness, for both the Church and the World are in the throes of the gravest and most profound crisis in the history of their existence. The crisis is one of Apostasy, not so much in the formal sense of the explicit rejection of the Catholic Faith, but rather in the general sense of the falling away from God. 

    To help us understand the nature of this apostasy we shall make a brief meditation on the first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans (vv. 17-32), in which St. Paul refers to this same phenomenon in his own epoch. Holy Scripture is widely applicable to the events of human history: we shall see how the passage in question may usefully be applied to the circumstances of our contemporary world.

   The elements which we propose to consider in this essay are the following:

I)   The suppression of the Truth about God;

II)  The refusal to honour God;

III) Foolishness;

IV) Idolatry;

V)  Depravity.

PART 1.

   I   The Suppression of the Truth about God

   St. Paul writes (v.18) of ‘those men that detain the truth about God in injustice’. ‘Detain’ (detinere in the Latin, catechein in the Greek) signifies the suppression of that which moves the agent to the good; ‘in injustice’ signifies that this suppression is in opposition to the order that God has established; ‘the truth’, as the context shows and as we proceed to explain, is both the supernatural knowledge of God, namely the Faith, and the natural knowledge of God which is acquired by the use of reason.

   The Truth about God which is suppressed in the contemporary world belongs, like the Truth of which St. Paul treats, both to the supernatural and the natural orders.

    A.  The Suppression of the Supernatural Truth about God

The Lake Garda Statement

Lake Garda from Above

This year’s Summer Symposium of The Roman Forum in Gardone Riviera, on the shores of Lake Garda (See previous reports: here and here), concluded with a strong statement on the crisis in the Church and the world, and the necessity of returning to the fulness of Catholic Social Teaching in order to meet the crisis. It calls for an end to the policy of “opening to the world,” and for an end to the “fruitless collaboration with the Church’s implacable opponents” that this opening has meant, and calls for “a recovery of the Church’s traditional teaching on the Social Reign of Christ the King.” The statement is being simultaneously published on several websites. We are pleased to publish this important document in full here on Rorate Cæli. (Printable version). 

The Lake Garda Statement

On the Ecclesial and Civilizational Crisis

Preamble

Among the Catholic faithful the conviction grows that the ongoing crisis in the Church and the drastic moral decline of our civilization have entered a critical new phase which represents a turning point in the history of the world. 

In the Church, a Synod on the Family has devolved into a battle to defend the indissolubility of marriage from an attack within, pitting cardinal against cardinal and bishop against bishop. The Synod has produced a midterm relatio, approved by the Pope himself, which calls for the admission of divorced and remarried Catholics to Holy Communion on a “case by case” basis without any renunciation of adulterous relations, contrary to the explicit teaching of Pope John Paul II in line with the perennial discipline of the Church.[1] The same document speaks of “valuing” the “homosexual orientation” while recognizing the “precious support for the life of the partners” supposedly provided by “homosexual unions.”[2] Bishop Athanasius Schneider rightly observes that “[t]his is the first time in Church History that such a heterodox text was actually published as a document of an official meeting of Catholic bishops under the guidance of a pope, even though the text only had a preliminary character.”[3]

50 Years Ago: Dietrich von Hildebrand Confronts Pope Paul VI

The following excerpts are taken from a fascinating 2001 interview with Dr. Alice von Hildebrand (the full text is available here) that is required reading for every Catholic who wants to understand what has happened in the Church since the mid-20th century. I found myself thinking once again about this interview because Alice mentions a private meeting that her husband had with Pope Paul VI on June 21, 1965, 50 years ago this Sunday (right before the very last, October-December session of the Second Vatican Council), which was followed up with a manuscript that really ought to be published someday. Read on…

*          *          *

TLM: Dr. von Hildebrand, at the time that Pope John XXIII summoned the Second Vatican Council, did you perceive a need for a reform within the Church?

AVH: Most of the insights about this come from my husband. He always said that the members of the Church, due to the effects of original sin and actual sin, are always in need of reform. The Church’s teaching, however, is from God. Not one iota is to be changed or considered in need of reform.

TLM: In terms of the present crisis, when did you first perceive something was terribly wrong?

AVH: It was in February 1965. I was taking a sabbatical year in Florence. My husband was reading a theological journal, and suddenly I heard him burst into tears. I ran to him, fearful that his heart condition had suddenly caused him pain. I asked him if he was all right. He told me that the article that he had been reading had provided him with the certain insight that the devil had entered the Church. Remember, my husband was the first prominent German to speak out publicly against Hitler and the Nazis. His insights were always prescient.

[…]

TLM: Did your husband think that the decline in a sense of the supernatural began around that time, and if so, how did he explain it?

AVH: No, he believed that after Pius X’s condemnation of the heresy of Modernism, its proponents merely went underground. He would say that they then took a much more subtle and practical approach. They spread doubt simply by raising questions about the great supernatural interventions throughout salvation history, such as the Virgin Birth and Our Lady’s perpetual virginity, as well as the Resurrection, and the Holy Eucharist. They knew that once faith – the foundation – totters, the liturgy and the moral teachings of the Church would follow suit. My husband entitled one of his books The Devastated Vineyard. After Vatican II, a tornado seemed to have hit the Church. … The aversion to sacrifice and redemption has assisted the secularization of the Church from within. We have been hearing for many years from priests and bishops about the need for the Church to adapt herself to the world. Great popes like St. Pius X said just the opposite: the world must adapt itself to the Church. …

There have been two books published in Italy in recent years that confirm what my husband had been suspecting for some time; namely, that there has been a systematic infiltration of the Church by diabolical enemies for much of this century. My husband was a very sanguine man and optimistic by nature. During the last ten years of his life, however, I witnessed him many times in moments of great sorrow, and frequently repeating, “They have desecrated the Holy Bride of Christ.” He was referring to the “abomination of desolation” of which the prophet Daniel speaks.

TLM: This is a critical admission, Dr. von Hildebrand. Your husband had been called a twentieth-century Doctor of the Church by Pope Pius XII. If he felt so strongly, didn’t he have access to the Vatican to tell Pope Paul VI of his fears?

Queen of May- I- Mary, the foundation, the noblest after Christ

Giovanni Gabrieli
Sancta et Immaculata Virginitas
quibus te laudibus efferam, nescio:
quia, quem caeli capere non poterant,
tuo gremio contulisti.
Genuisti qui te fecit,
et in aeternum permanes Virgo.

_______________________

[C]an anyone fail to see that there is no surer or more direct road than by Mary for uniting all mankind in Christ and obtaining through Him the perfect adoption of sons, that we may be holy and immaculate in the sight of God? For if to Mary it was truly said: "Blessed art thou who hast believed because in thee shall be fulfilled the things that have been told thee by the Lord" (Luke i., 45); or in other words, that she would conceive and bring forth the Son of God and if she did receive in her breast Him who is by nature Truth itself in order that "He, generated in a new order and with a new nativity, though invisible in Himself, might become visible in our flesh" (St. Leo the Great, Ser. 2, De Nativ. Dom.): the Son of God made man, being the "author and consummator of our faith"; it surely follows that His Mother most holy should be recognized as participating in the divine mysteries and as being in a manner the guardian of them, and that upon her as upon a foundation, the noblest after Christ, rises the edifice of the faith of all centuries.

In Honor of the 111th Anniversary of Tra le sollecitudini (November 22, 1903)

The greatest and most influential church document ever written on sacred music appeared this day 111 years ago, from the hand of Pope St. Pius X. So very much has been written about this document’s general principles, its advocacy of Gregorian chant and polyphony, the checkered history of its implementation, and the tragic triumph of the incorporation of the Pope’s teaching into Vatican II’s Sacrosanctum Concilium followed by an almost total contradiction in practice, that it seemed to me more interesting today to recall a certain paragraph that seldom receives the attention it deserves:

19. The employment of the piano is forbidden in church, as is also that of noisy or frivolous instruments such as drums, cymbals, bells, and the like.

Unlike the same document’s prohibition of female singers (n. 13), which was later lifted under Pius XII, the official ban on pianos in church has never been lifted. And how seriously ought we to take this fact? St. Pius X states at the start of Tra le sollecitudini: