The Bed Of Pestilence

In the same year the Plague, which decimated France, swept over Europe. It reached the Rhine. Scattering dismay, despair in every home, the exterminating angel sped apace—wailings in his ear, and shivering terror in his van. Men shunned each other: the ties of affection—the bonds of love, plighted or sworn, broke asunder: all fled from the bed of pestilence—except the Jesuits. At the call of their provincial, they came together; and at the same bidding they dispersed, and fronted the angel of death. In the pest-house kneeling—in the grave-yard digging—in the thoroughfares begging—the Jesuits con 

The Jesuits during the plague consoled the dying, buried the dead, and gathered alms for the living. Blessed be the hearts of these self-devoted men! They knew no peril but in shunning the awful danger.

 For humanity—and, through humanity, for God—be that the stirring trumpet, whose echoes are deeds too great to be estimated, too great to be rewarded by the gold of Mammon or the voice of Fame. 

And yet Jacques Cretineau-Joly, the last Jesuit historian, professing to copy " unpublished and authentic documents," bitterly tells us that "this charity of the Jesuits, by day and by night, gave to their Order a popular sanction, which dispensed with many others,"—and that "the people, having seen the Jesuits at their work, called for them, to reward them for the present, and solicited their presence, provident of the future." 

Was it then for the Order's glorification that, in obedience to the superior's command, such self-devotedness was displayed? Was it only to gain a "popular sanction?" God only knows! but the doubt once suggested, and that too by a strong partisan, troubles the heart. We would not willingly deprive these obedient visitors of the pest-stricken, buriers of the dead, and feeders of the living, of that hearty admiration which gushes forth, and scorns to think of motives when noble deeds are done. At least to the subordinate Children of Obedience be that admiration awarded, if we must doubt the existence of exalted motives in the Jesuit-automaton ; if we must remember that at Lyons the Plague gave them a college, and in Germany "a popular sanction."

Link (here) to A History of he Jesuits

The Jealous God.

JEALOUSY signifies sometimes the ardent love one has for another; sometimes the indignation one feels against what is hurtful to the object loved; and also refers to the effort made to avert danger and to destroy the aggressor. God is therefore called Jealous, first, because loving Himself and His glory with an infinite love, He is angry and profoundly indignant against those who despise Him by committing sin; He is especially angry with those who transfer to idols the glory which is His. 

Hence we find in the 20th Chapter of Exodus, that after having forbidden His people to adore strange gods, He adds these words: "I am the Lord, thy God, mighty, jealous, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon their children unto the third and fourth generation of those who hate Me." 

And in Chapter 34 we read: "Adore not any strange god. The Lord His name is Jealous; He is a Jealous God." Second. He takes the name of the Jealous God, because He pursues with indignation and is intent upon removing whatever hinders the salvation of souls whom He loves as His spouses and His daughters and whose salvation He sovereignly desires. Third. Because as a Jealous Spouse, He is indignant against souls consecrated to His service if they love anything outside of Himself and for any other reason than for Him; or if they delight in things of the world and do not apply themselves to please Him in everything.

Link (here) to the book entitled The Names of God by Fr. Leonard Lessius, S.J.

Jansenist and Jesuit and Molière

Molière

Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, was known by his stage name Molière. In Molière's day, there was a bitter conflict going on within French Catholicism between the Jesuits and the Jansenists.  One thing, however, that both groups were united in was the conviction that Molière's Tartuffe was irreligious and deserved to be repressed.  The reason is not hard to seek.  The villain Tartuffe comes across as embodying characteristic features that each party, Jansenist and Jesuit, were passionate in attributing the other.

The Jesuits were relentless in their accusation that Jansenist Augustinianism was a form of Protestant Puritanism in disguise, and that their view of human nature was a slander upon God's favorite creature. The Jansenists were adamant in the picture of the Jesuits as consummate casuists -- artful abusers of reason, skilled in fallaciously reconciling the commands of God with the demands of worldly interest.  

(The most skillful and damaging exponent of this view of the Jesuits was the mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal, in his Provencial Letters.)

Link (here) to Study Guide: Molière

The True and Just One Will Not Disappoint

The Church is as a Light set upon a hill, not to increase or display the darkness of the rest of the world, but to throw a cheerful light on all around, upon those who wander in the gloomy paths of ignorance and heathenism, feeling, if haply they may find, the Living God. And each baptized Christian is a witness of God's Love to all his brethren. Some have spoken, indeed, of leaving those without the Church, their Church, to the 'uncovenanted mercies of God.' Uncovenanted mercies of God! we know not any. He has made a gracious Covenant with us in giving us any reason at all to rejoice in His Providential Care, to hope in His Mercy, to trust in His Love. The True and Just One will not disappoint the expectations which He has Himself awakened. 

While the Earth remaineth and living men are brought into being upon it,—while 'seed-time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night,' recur without ceasing,—while the Sun rules for us the day, and the Moon the night,—by the Light which He sheds upon us, by the Food which He provides for us, by the Life which He has given us, by the Spirit which witnesses daily with the spirit of each one of us, that we are in very deed the children of God,—by all this outpouring of His Goodness, ,—our Faithful Creator, I repeat, has made a covenant with us, an Everlasting Covenant of Love which can never be broken. 

'The gifts and calling of God are without repentance.' We do not then make light of Christian Baptism. Far from it. We do not, indeed, with the Jesuit Missionaries, or even with some of our own Church in the present day, make it a matter of eternal life and death to baptize a child. We do not think it necessary to run hither and thither, baptizing stray children or uninstructed adults in heathen lands, as if the mere act of sprinkling them with water in the Holy Name would work a mighty charm upon them, and convert them in a moment, by a stupendous change, from children of the devil into children of God. Surely, if such were the case, it would not be very difficult to go a little further than the Parisian Doctors, of whom I spoke this morning, and say that, in all consistency, the now baptized should be put then and there to death, to save them from the danger of falling back to their native habits again, and ensure them a blessed life in the other world. Nor do we think it right, with certain modern teachers, to enforce religious duties by the help of artificial terrors, to threaten parents that their babes, if unbaptized, will not be buried in consecrated ground, or to indoctrinate young children with the notion that a white angel follows the steps of the baptized, and a black demon haunts the unbaptized. Such conduct, indeed, may be redeemed from the domain of the ludicrous by a regard for the sincere religious convictions, of which it may often be the exponent. 

But there is always a root at the bottom of such practices, a dogma which appears in various forms, but of which this is the essence,—the notion which links Divine Grace and the communication of God's Spirit to anything but the living soul, to which it comes according to its capacity of receiving it,—the notion which confines the Love of God to any family, to any caste, or to the professors of any Creed. 

Surely, if Baptism had been, as some would deem it, the very gate of Paradise, we should have heard more about it from the lips of Jesus; we should have heard him tell the parents of the little ones, whom he took in his arms and blessed, that they must first be brought to be baptized, before they could enter the Kingdom. Yet it is plain that He admitted his followers into his flock by baptism— though 'Jesus himself baptized not, but his disciples': and the command in Matt.xxviii. 19,' Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost" would be conclusive as to the fact of his having directly enjoined the practice, were it not that this formula, with its full expression of the Name of the Trinity, betrays the later age in which the passage in which it occurs was most probably written.

Link (here) to Natal Sermons  published in 1866

Blogger Note: This is of Anglican origin

Uncovenanted Mercies Of God

Superior General Franz Xavier Wernz, S.

THE "BLACK POPE."

THE journalists of Europe have been busily occupied for the last week in exaggerating an event which but for preoccupations and prejudices would be regarded as an ordinary one. The Jesuits have had to elect a new General, and because they have elected Father Franz Xavier Wernz, a German canonist of repute, all manner of far-reaching deductions have been drawn. The German Emperor has, it is alleged, been using his influence in the election in the hope of enlisting the weight of the Roman Catholic Church on the side of his standing controversy with France. The Jesuits, it is asserted, have elected a German because he will be sure to punish France for dissolving the Concordat with the Pope; and the ambition of Berlin is to be gratified all through the world, and especially in German Austria and Spanish America, by the steady aid of the Church. Surely all this is a little absurd, and betrays something of prejudice as well as something of unreasoning fear. 

The Jesuits have a certain influence within the Roman Church, which is used in what Protestants must consider an unwise way; and being the ablest as well as the most cultivated of the priesthood, they have considerable weight with important individuals, especially with Roman Catholic Sovereigns, who have often reason to be anxious about their souls, and with the eminent politicians who direct their action. 

For the rest, the sort of quasi-supernatural power attributed to the Order by their enemies is merely a superstition fed by dislike of the peculiar rules which are supposed to govern their conduct. They are assumed, on the strength of some books of casuistry, to be utterly unscrupulous, and therefore to be immensely powerful, as if unscrupulous corporations did not constantly baffle their own objects by the hatred they are certain to inspire. A man who is always lying is always being detected, and always in the end destroys his own influence; and why should a corporation of whom the same thing is alleged escape the same result? An unscrupulousness at least equal to that of the Jesuits has not made the Russian bureaucracy strong; has rather fastened on them the suspicion and hatred at once of the intellectuals and the people. The Jesuits, again, are said to be dangerous because they implicitly obey the orders of their chief,—a theory which implies that despotism is the most effective method of government, and agents who are drilled into automata the most competent of administrators. 

Why should a Jesuit General be incapable of blundering any more than a Czar or an Emperor of China? Even if the aspersions are well founded—which may be doubted, for most of the Jesuit Fathers are gentlemen, and the obligations of caste restrain men almost as strongly as religious opinion—the success attributed to their machinations is for the most part a dreamy assumption. 

What have the Jesuits accomplished in pursuit of their alleged object of making the Roman Catholic Church supreme throughout the world? They helped when they were first organised to reform that Church, which had been sinking, through misgovernment at Eomo and overmuch luxury elsewhere, into a sort of paganism; but since that period they have accomplished politically exceedingly little. Providence has certainly not favoured them. 

The sovereignty of the world has passed into other than Roman Catholic hands. The great States which have gradually grown to power are either Protestant, like Germany, Britain, and the American Union, or schismatic, like Russia, or, like France, so nearly agnostic that their usual Governments are regarded by pious Roman Catholics as deadly and dangerous foes. 

Outside a limited area in Europe, and a congeries of very feeble, though very extensive, States in Spanish America, the world has escaped the direction of the Roman Catholic priesthood; and, though the Jesuits have remarkable skill in educating youth, they do not breed the men of genius who might reconsolidate the Empire of the Church. As to any special relation between the German Court and the Order of Jesus, we simply disbelieve it. They cannot even wish that the house of Hohenzollern should be dominant in the world. That house is Protestant, and will always remain so. Its ideal of governing is absolute control in ecclesiastical as well as civil affairs, and its people, even when they are Roman Catholic, have none of the Latin feeling that the one road to heaven is submissiveness to the Church. The Deputies of the German Centre seek, sometimes even angrily, freedom for their Church, from a mixture of conviction and pride and thirst for their social liberty, precisely the motives which in the British Parliament move English Nonconformists. No one asserts that the Jesuits are hypocrites, or that they are looking forward to any end except the dominance of Roman Catholicism; and how is that to follow the overthrow of France by a Protestant Power, or the immense aggrandisement of that Power which would attend the absorption of the Roman Catholic provinces of Austria, or the acquisition of new and rich provinces on the American Continent? Tet all these objects are alleged to be among those which the new Jesuit General is actively to promote. As for Great Britain, the Jesuits regard her as the Vatican regards her,—as the one Great Power which, having broken loose from the true faith, still leaves to that faith an unwatched liberty which is refused by every other schismatic State. Even in India, where the Government is absolute, the Vatican is often protected against the self-asserting independence of the Patriarchs of Goa. Wherefore, then, all this terror of the Jesuit body, which numbers only about sixteen thousand devotees, and the keen interest in the nationality of its new General, who must regard himself as above all the petty divisions of race and forms of government? That the Roman Catholic States should be keenly interested is natural enough, for the function of the Jesuits in such States is to watch the Episcopate, to bring the Bishops to heel in the interests of the Monarch enthroned at the Vatican, and to repress all those tendencies which might in the end make of the Roman priesthood an independent body. The statesmen grow angry at what they think an unmanageable obstinacy, the Bishops grow irritated at what they deem unwarrantable interference, and the Liberal presbyters within the Church complain that they are placed in most galling and most unwise, or, as they usually describe them, "mediaeval," fetters. Who make the force of the intransigeants in the Curia itself except the Jesuits?

Nevertheless, the Jesuits hold to their policy, and, it cannot be denied, restrain the clerics of their own Communion from thinking and acting in a way which might in the end rend the Universal Church into a series of national Churches, any one of which might become schismatic, as the Churches which spoke Greek, and most of the Teutonic Churches, did. That, and not any belief in their half-supernatural cunning, is the root of the hatred which, when Roman Catholic dignitaries are confidential, is so often expressed in Roman Catholic countries towards the Order of Jesus. 

They hold, indeed, a position closely resembling that of the followers of our own High Church, who will never allow the Bishops to forget that among their functions is to protect unity, to respect symbolism, and to repress the instinctive tendency of Englishmen towards what is sometimes, not perhaps judiciously, called "atomism." The clergy are to be a corporation, to form an entity, and not to be a collection of presbyters, each thinking for himself and expressing the ideas which seem to him true. In electing a German General as their head the Jesuits may have chosen the wisest man among them; but they have spread a new race suspicion among the Latin peoples, who after all are, and wilr probably remain, the only peoples who heartily believe that the Roman Catholic Church is the only true exponent of Christianity, and that outside her Communion man has only to trust, and will err in trusting, to the uncovenanted mercies of God.
Link (here) to The Spectator published on September 15th in 1906 
Blogger Note: The writer is of "High Church" Anglican mindset

“Prove It!” Jesuit

St. Catherine of Siena Catholic Church in Chefornak

The people of Chefornak were all Catholic, served by Jesuit missionaries. Two weeks after our arrival, the village priest knocked on our back door, introduced himself, and hesitatingly told us that the former teachers let him come to the teacher’s quarters to take a shower once in awhile. Ours was the only house in the village with running water. I laughed, and said, “Sure – and stay for dinner too,” (after you smell better). And that was the humble beginning of my Road to Damascus and the fulfillment of that message in the chapel. That night, after dinner, I began asking the Jesuit priest questions about Catholic beliefs. My first question was, “Why do you Catholic priests think you can forgive sins? Only God can do that.” I added that I thought it was possible they got that strange custom from some of those “extra” books the Catholics have in their Bible. He replied, “You mean the ones that Martin Luther tossed out?” Not wishing to be deterred from my original question, I politely passed over that one, and back to the “prove it” about the forgiving of sins. So, he asked me to get out my Bible (King James Version), and we looked up passages referring to Jesus breathing on the Apostles, giving them the power to forgive or retain sins (John 20:21-23). After discussing this, I told him that I could see his point, but there must be some other explanation and I would have to think about it. Then the strangest thing happened: he looked me straight in the eye and said, “Now, don’t ask me anything more about the Catholic faith!” I objected and asked why he would say such a thing. He replied, “because I can prove everything and then you’d have to be Catholic.” I laughed and told him he had nothing to worry about – I’d never be a Catholic! It was impossible! Whenever I think back to that night, I have to smile, for I know I was being brashly bold in my own beliefs, thinking I could convince and convert a Jesuit! No one ever warned me about Jesuits. Nor did I suspect that this was the time the Holy Spirit would break through my theological barricades and bring me to understanding and truth.
Link (here) to read the rest of the story at The Coming Home Network

Pray For The Jesuit Priests

Pope Benedict XVI and Superior General at the General Congregation 35

If we lose respect toward our Jesuit priests, we will lose respect for our Church and for our God, as well.  The greatest blessing we can receive on earth is the blessing that comes from our priests. 

When a Jesuit priest blesses you, it is Jesus blessing you. Do not forget to pray for your Jesuit shepherds. Their priestly hands are blessed by Jesus. When you go back to your parishes, show to the others how we should respect our priests. If your Jesuit priest is not doing things the way you think he should, do not judge him around. 

Take the rosary and pray to dear God for him. That would be the way to help the Jesuit priest, and not to judge, because in this world that we live in, people judge and criticize so much, through love and not to take into our own hands what only Our Heavenly Father, God, is supposed to do. We have this time we are living in right now, and we have the time of the Triumph. Between these two times, there is a bridge, and that bridge is our priests. That is why without priests, there is no Triumph. Do not to judge our priests and not to forget that our Heavenly Father chose them.  How can we take into our own hands what only God Himself is supposed to do? Because if God invited the priests, God will be their judge.

This post is adapted from this original post (here) at the site entitled, Medjugorje Miracles

Rene Goupil "Felled To The Ground By A Hatchet-blow"

Captured by the Iroquois near Lake St. Peter, he resignedly accepted his fate. Like the other captives, he was beaten, his nails torn out, and his finger-joints cut off. On the thirteen days' journey to the Iroquois country, he suffered from heat, hunger, and blows, his wounds festering and swarming with worms. Meeting half way a band of two hundred warriors, he was forced to march between their double ranks and almost beaten to death. Goupil might have escaped, but he stayed with Jogues. At Ossernenon, on the Mohawk, he was greeted with jeers, threats, and blows, and Goupil's face was so scarred that Jogues applied to him the words of Isaias (53:2) prophesying the disfigurement of Christ. He survived the fresh tortures inflicted on him at Andagaron, a neighbouring village, and, unable to instruct his captors in the faith, he taught the children the sign of the cross. This was the cause of his death. Returning one evening to the village with Jogues, he was felled to the ground by a hatchet-blow from an Indian, and he expired invoking the name of Jesus. He was the first of the order in the Canadian missions to suffer martyrdom. He had previously bound himself to the Society by the religious vows pronounced in the presence of Father Jogues, who calls him in his letters "an angel of innocence and a martyr of Jesus Christ." 

Link (here) to The Catholic Encyclopaedia

Historians As A Rule Did Not Write Religious History.

 

WHY CATHOLICS MAKE PILGRIMAGES TO AURIESVILLE.

"It has often been a matter of wonderment to the laymen why Catholics take so much interest in Auriesville. Lay historians make no mention of the spot, but this is accounted for by the fact that historians as a rule did not write religious history. Catholics revere the place because two of their earliest missionaries were there made martyrs to their religion. The two were Rene Goupil and Father Isaac Jogues. Both were French Jesuits who were propagating the faith among the Indians. In 1642 Goupil was murdered near the spot where the West Shore depot now stands. Father Jogues, his dear companion, was a witness to the foul assassination of his loved friend, and despite the earnest efforts of Father Jogues to give his friend a Christian burial he was unable to do so because of the treachery of the Indians. Father Jogues himself at this time was subjected to awful torture. Four years afterward Father Jogues was murdered near the same spot where his friend Goupil died. The grounds where these horrible crimes were enacted were purchased by the Jesuits and were made attractive places for Catholics to visit. There are twenty-eight acres embraced in the plot, sixteen in what is called the ravine and twelve in the Shrine ground proper."

Link (here) to the  book entitled, The Pilgrim of Our Lady of Martyrs

Jesuit 'Put To The Boots.'

In a letter, still preserved in the State Paper Office at London, Sir Francis Walsingham writes to the English ambassador at Edinburgh, in 1583, that Queen Elizabeth desires that Father William Holt, an English Jesuit then in Scotland, may be 'put to the boots.'

Link (here)

Gonzaga On Purgatory And Heaven

St. Aloysius Gonzaga, S.J. and St. Cardinal Robert Bellarmine, S.J.

A very affecting incident was his leave-taking with Father Corbinelli. This was the old priest, whom he had so long and carefully tended. Both were now dying, and neither could go to see the other, so they sent daily greetings. But this was not sufficient,' for on the eighth day before his death, the father requested to be allowed to see Aloysius for the last time. Upon hearing this, Aloysius instantly begged the infirmarian to dress him and carry him in. 

This was done, and the mutual joy of the two dying religious was beautiful to behold. They talked of the heavenly home to which they were both shortly going, exhorted each other to bear sufferings patiently and begged for each other's prayers. Finally, when Aloysius was about to leave, the aged priest begged his blessing. Of course Saint Aloysius was frightened at this proposal, and protested that it was by 'no means fitting for him, a mere scholastic, so young and unworthy, to presume to bless a priest. 

On the contrary, it was the part of the other, as a priest and the older person, to give the blessing. Nevertheless Father Corbinelli persisted in his request and bade the infirmarian not to move Aloysius till he had complied. He felt he was in the presence of a saint, far superior to himself in spiritual perfection. The infirmarian added his voice to that of the Father, till at last Aloysius yielded to their solicitations, endeavoring at the same time to co-ordinate his aged friend's requests and his own sense of humility. 

So, taking holy water and signing himself and the priest with the sign of the cross, he said: "My father may God, ever Blessed, bless us both, and fuflll your holy desires; pray for me, and I will pray for you." Aloysius was carried away and shortly after this the father died. 

They wished to keep the news from the saint, but it was impossible. On the night of his death he appeared thrice to Aloysius in a dream, the first time to tell him that he was in his agony, the second to beg Aloysius' prayers to help him to bear his terrible sufferings, and the third time to say that he was dead. So vivid was the impression that the saint was unable to sleep any more that night. He afterwards said to Father Bellarmin that Father Corbinelli had but passed through purgatory ; and so confidently did he asserts it that it was taken as undoubted truth. More than once his friends exhorted him to pray for his own recovery, knowing full well the power of his prayers. But he firmly refused, answering in the words of Saint Paul, he would prefer to pray for his immediate death, so anxious was he to reach his eternal home. So far did he carry this desire that he feared to be detained in purgatory for it. 

Once he asked his confessor, Father Bellarmin, if he thought anyone ever went directly to heaven. That father replied that he firmly thought so, and furthermore was certain Aloysius would. 

On hearing this the saint fell into an ecstasy, in which he remained all night, although as he afterwards said, it seemed to him but one moment. In the morning he announced that he would die in eight days—on the octave of Corpus Christi.

Link (here) to the book entitled, The Life of St. Aloysius Gonzaga

Prayer Of St. Aloysius Gonzaga To The Blessed Virgin

MOST holy Mary, my Lady, to thy faithful care and special keeping and to the bosom of thy mercy, to-day and every day, and particularly at the hour of my death,

I commend my soul and my body; all my hope and consolation, all my trials and miseries, my life and the end of my life I commit to thee, 

that through thy most holy intercession and by thy merits all my actions may be directed and ordered according to thy will and that of thy divine Son. 

Amen. 

His Holiness Leo XIII., by a rescript of the 5. Congr. of Indulgences, March 15, 1890, granted to the faithful who recite the above prayer: An Indulgence Of Two Hundred Days, once a day.

Link (here) to The Catholic Girl's Guide: Counsels and Devotions for Girls

Abundance Of Divine Light

St. Aloysius Gonzaga, S.J.

Passing over the names of many grave, learned, and pious divines, names carrying much weight in their day, we may rest satisfied with the testimony of the great Robert Bellarmine, whose high reputation for spiritual gifts and theological science is still fresh in our times. As Aloysius's confessor, we have had occasion to record his opinion more than once in the course of the saint's life. It may here be added that he was in the habit of saying that so long as Aloysius was at the college, he did not fear that any evil could happen to it; and in a discourse delivered before the whole community in the year 1608, he has left on record an attestation truly remarkable, as coming from one whose own soul was so sublimely illuminated. 

"When I gave," he said, "the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius to Luigi, I discovered in him such abundance of divine light, that I must confess that, at my advanced age, I learned from this youth how to meditate." 

When raised to the Cardinalate, the venerable prelate not only continued his yearly practice of repairing to the College church of the Company to venerate the tomb of Aloysius on his anniversary, but used to make a devout visit to the room whence he had taken his flight to Heaven, and there would shed tears of tenderness in memory of their last parting. Viewing this apartment as a hallowed spot, he did not think it ought to be used any longer as a common infirmary, and the superiors readily acquiesced in his desire. 

Heaven itself seemed to signify its approval, for many times was sweetest music heard to issue from it. No research could ascertain the source of these melodious strains; whence it was piously inferred that they proceeded from choirs of angels who descended to consecrate with their songs the spot from which their loved companion had left the earth to take his place in their glorious ranks. 

When the Holy See had declared Aloysius to be in the possession of eternal glory, the cardinal had this room converted into a chapel at his own expense. He rendered his crowning testimony by desiring to be laid after death at the feet of "the blessed Aloysius," once his spiritual son, but, in the spirit of obedience, left the disposition of his body to the will of his superiors; and they, to confer upon him the greatest honour within their power, deposited him in the same

Link (here) to the book entitled, The Life of St. Aloysius Gonzaga, S.J.

St. Aloysius Gonzaga, S.J. Great Indulgence

St. Aloysius Gonzaga, S.J.

The devotion of Pius IX., to St. Aloysius Gonzaga, S.J. is still in the recollection of all. He appointed his feast-day for the ceremony of his coronation, and every year on June 21st sent precious gifts to the tomb of the Saint where he was often seen kneeling in prayer. In an audience granted to the German college in the November of 1873, the venerable pontiff recommended to the students devotion towards our Saint in these words: 

"I still remember," he said, "with what deep emotion I read in my youth the life of the angelic young man and how many tears I shed over it. Read, my sons, the life of this Saint, not only to rejoice in the sweet odour of his virtues, but to emulate them, and to grow like him in the perfect love of God." 

In a decree of June 4th 1861 the Holy Father enriched the devotion of the Chapels called "le Cappellette" of Saint Aloysius with great indulgences; and, on the 25 th of July 1861, he issued a decree granting to all priests, permission to say the votive Mass of the Saint in the Church of S. Ignatius, on all days, except Feasts of the first and second class, when white vestments could be used in the Church. The splendid Brief of our glorious reigning Pontiff Leo XIII. shows beyond a doubt that His Holiness is behind none of his illustrious predecessors in devotion to S. Aloysius and zeal for his honour.
Link (here) to the book entitled Life of Saint Aloysius Gonzaga By Italian Jesuit Fr. Virgilio Cepari, S.J.

"Young Jesuit" By Titian

Source of Picture

may be that Ranuccio Farnese's features have been handed down to us in the portrait of a "young Jesuit," now preserved in the Gallery of Vienna. 

This curious picture represents a boy in a dark silk dress, with one hand on his breast, and the other holding a glove and a couple of arrows. The head is raised, the eye turned towards heaven; and the impression created is that of a childish ecstasy, produced by causes to which the figure itself gives no clue. 

On close examination it appears that Very little of Titian's work, except some parts about the ear and cheek of the boy, has been preserved; a large piece has been added to the left side of the canvas, and the hand and arrows look like modern repaints. Some mysterious agency has thus apparently changed the original form of the piece. By a fortunate combination of circumstances the key to the mystery has been furnished in a curious and unforeseen manner. The "young Jesuit" of Vienna reappears without the arrows in a picture of the Berlin Museum, where he is seen standing at a table, on which some books are lying, and the cause of his ecstasy is explained by the attitude and gesture of a bearded man near him, who points with the fore finger of his right hand towards heaven.
Link (here) to Titian: His Life and Times 
Blogger Note: Some source material states that the subject is St. Alouisus Gonzaga, S.J.

The Jesuit Church Of Venice: Chiesa di Santa Maria Assunta detta I Gesuiti

SANTA MARIA DEI GESUITI, 
OR, I. GESUITI. 

This church is not more than three or four minutes' walk from Sta. Caterina.

Nothing that spacious design and the use of rich material can do has been spared to make the building imposing. Over the first altar to the left, in the nave, is the Martyrdom of St. Lawrence, by Titian. In spite of the darkening of this picture, it enforces a deep impression of irresistible power. St. Lawrence lies on an iron cage, with fire below. The only points of high light come from a basket of burning fuel and from a break in the clouds, through which light from heaven falls on the saint.

Link (here) to the original book entitled Venice by Grant Allan first published in 1898

To Blog Or Not To Blog

America did not have a blog when I was hired, and there was some question as to whether we should dip our toes in those waters. Commonweal had recently launched a blog with great success, yet we did not enjoy the same editorial independence. 

The Jesuits who publish America were already a target in the mostly conservative Catholic blogosphere; there was little question that an America blog would quickly become a subject of those other bloggers’ scrutiny. The editorial staff always took great care in crafting its positions, yet blogs by their nature do not always allow for such moderation. 

We began with a compromise: a blog on Scripture and preaching, which built on our popular “Word” column on the Sunday readings. We recruited a roster of biblical scholars and encouraged them to connect their exegesis to contemporary events. The blog slowly built an audience, but we still felt we needed a forum to weigh in on breaking news. 

Eventually we launched “In All Things,” a group blog that includes among its contributors the writers Sidney Callahan and Michael Sean Winters. The blog has proved more controversial than our Scripture blog, and has raised questions for some about where the positions of the editors end and those of our bloggers begin. In an environment often marked by vitriol, we have tried to encourage charity, not always to great success. 

Yet for better or worse, blogs are often the place where ideas are thrashed out in today’s twenty-four-hour news cycle, and we want to be part of the conversation. 

Read Maurice "Tim" Reidy's entire piece (here) at Church

To Counteract Infidelity And Immorality Among The Students Of The Jesuit College

The May devotion [to our Lady] in its present form originated at Rome where Father Latomia of the Roman College of the Society of Jesus, to counteract infidelity and immorality among the students, made a vow at the end of the eighteenth century to devote the month of May to Mary. From Rome the practice spread to the other Jesuit colleges and thence to nearly every Catholic church of the Latin rite (Albers, "Bluethenkranze", IV, 531 sq.). This practice is the oldest instance of a devotion extending over an entire month. (Catholic Encyclopedia, “Special Devotions for Months”) Yet, although many Catholics know that May is dedicated to the Mother of God, it may be a bit of a puzzle as to why May was chosen for this special honor. What is it about May that makes it suited to be the Month of Mary?

Link (here) to the New Theological Movement to read the rest of the story.

Jesuit On Myrrh

Myrrh is for death
Myrrh is a resin (really an aromatic oleoresin, a natural blend of oil and resin) which can be extracted from various trees native to Africa, Arabia, and India. Myrrh resin is a natural gum and, like frankincense, could be burned as a type of incense. 

In ancient times, myrrh was so valuable as to be as or even more precious than gold. Beyond being used as incense, it was used also as perfume, and medicine. Most specifically, myrrh was commonly used (especially in Egypt) in the process of embalming. 

The last great Jesuit biblical scholar, Fr. Cornelius a’ Lapide, states: “The bodies of the dead are buried with myrrh, that they may remain incorrupt. Myrrh has the property of drying up moisture, and preventing the generation of worms.”

Link (here) to New Theological Movement blog

President Honors Two Jesuits

Two Jesuit priests were honored by the White House for their work in Catholic higher education. Fr. Charles Currie, S.J., president of the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities, and Fr. William Leahy, S.J., president of Boston College, were honored with 8 others as “Champions of Change” by President Obama.

From the White House website:

On Wednesday, January 25th, the White House honored nine leaders in Catholic education from across the country as Champions of Change for their service to their communities and our nation. These extraordinary individuals have made a significant impact on the students, families, and educators through Catholic schools and universities throughout America. Their innovative ideas and dedication to students and to the wider community, demonstrate the strong commitment to ensuring that every child has an opportunity for greatness.

Link (here) to The Cardinal Newman Society

Articulation Of Christianity

David Lynch is not frequently mentioned in the same sentence as Saint Paul the Apostle. But both Lynch and St. Paul end up earnestly articulating the message of Jesus in a way their audiences can understand and embrace. While Paul preached around the Roman empire, Lynch spoke to viewers of prime-time TV. He gives us what’s arguably the best articulation of Christianity ever to air on CBS. Watch what would certainly be St. Paul’s favorite scene from town of Twin Peaks here. See what I mean? And this from the guy who, in Blue Velvet, puts together one of creepiest opening montages in film history. (If you haven’t seen Blue Velvet, or even if you have, Siskel & Ebert’s must-watch synopsis and review can be found here. Blue Velvet’s plot begins in a manicured suburban neighborhood where an all-American teenager stumbles upon an ant-infested ear . Lynch starts the film there, because, more than anything, he wants to show us the startling and unexpected parts of peoples’ lives.

Link (here) to read the post by Perry Petrich, S.J. entitled David Lynch the Apostle at the multi-Jesuit authored blog The Jesuit Post

Some Blogger Notes

Saint Ignatius in his "Rules for Thinking with the Church"  states in Rule #12

"It is a thing to be blamed and avoided to compare men who are living on the earth (however worthy of praise) with the Saints and Blessed..." 

You can read this rule and the other seventeen (here)

David Lynch is a practitioner of neo-Hinduism and is a student and follower Maharishi Mahesh Yogi the originator of Transcendental Meditation and an early advocate of yoga in the West.

David Lynch, who grew up in a Presbyterian family, discusses his practice of transcendental meditation as a way of connecting to the divine. He says of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the religious figure who influenced the Beatles in the 1970s, "I think he's a holy man, and I owe him the discovery that the possibility for happiness dwells within us." Mr. Monda reflects his personal beliefs in the question that he shoots back to Mr. Lynch, "What about that is different from St. Augustine's 'Noli foras ire, in te ipsum redi, in interiore homine habitat veritas ('Go not about, retire within: Truth dwells in the inner man.')?" Mr. Lynch replies, "Transcendental meditation is a mental technique that I practice twice a day; it allows each human being to dive into his own ego and reach pure consciousness and pure happiness. In St. Augustine, on the other hand, it's all closely tied to Christian revelation."
Link (here) to the article originally found in the National Catholic Reporter

One can not help connecting Lynch's cynicical mockery of Christianity by exploring Lynch's characters. In Erasurehead a character is called "the Lady in the Radiator" in the movie the she sings a satirical hymn entitled "In Heaven" Lynch's clasped hands and blue lighting compare to the holy imagery of "Our Blessed Mother" and the infamous character in Twin Peaks' "Log Lady" with images of "Our Lady and the Christ Child"  or how about Erasureheads swaddled reptilian? (here) to the Nativity? (here)

The Vatican specifically criticized Eastern meditative practices such as yoga, Transcendental Meditation and Zen in a 23-page document released Thursday. It was the closest Rome has come to admitting the attraction some Catholics have for Eastern religions. The director of a local meditation center said that Catholics are very involved in TM. "I've instructed mainstream Catholic priests, nuns and leading Catholic lay people," said Bruce Beal, coordinator of Houston's Transcendental Meditation Center at 2110 Lexington. "Out of the 1,500 people in Houston that we know practice Transcendental Meditation, a strong percentage are Catholic.' However TM, as well as yoga and Zen, are unacceptable for Catholics, said the "Letter tothe Bishops of the Catholic Church on Some Aspects of ChristianMeditation." It was released by the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the pope's guardian of orthodoxy.
Link (here) to the full article at The Houston Chronicle
 

America Magazine On The Obama Administration

The Obama administration’s religious exemption covers only entities that serve patently religious functions, including parishes and parochial schools. But serving the broader community through hospitals, clinics, service agencies and institutions of higher learning is not an extraneous activity for the Catholic Church. It is a civic manifestation of the church’s deep beliefs in human dignity, solidarity with the suffering and forgotten, the importance of learning and commitment to the common good. Even as the church remains true to its moral teaching, it is called to remain open and engaged with the wider society. The administration must be led to understand that defining away the church’s service to the world infringes upon Catholics’ free exercise of religion.

Link (here) to the full editorial at America

The Jesuits who told us this would never happen (here)

Insouciant About Orthodoxy

R. R. Reno is the editor of "First Things" magazine, teaches theology at Creighton University and is the author of In the Ruins of the Church: Sustaining Faith in an Age of Diminished Christianity (Brazos). Rusty converted to the Catholic Church from the Episcopal tradition in the fall of 2004. This reflection was written in the winter of 2005.

Read a portion of his story below

I put myself up for reception into the Catholic Church as one might put oneself up for adoption. A man can no more guide his spiritual life by his own ideas than a child can raise himself on the strength of his native potential. Stories of conversion to the Catholic Church can be rather tediously joyous. One might wish for some variety in such stories, perhaps something along the lines of Winston Churchill's observation that "democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." But such variety as there is in conversion stories would seem to rest on the different ways in which converts describe a newly found bounty. For me, the gain was fairly simple. 

The Catholic Church did not deliver me from apostasy and false teaching. I teach at a Jesuit University, so I am not naïve about just how insouciant about orthodoxy priests can be. Nor did Catholicism provide me with a neat, efficient, and trouble-free church. I do read newspapers. 

What my reception into the Catholic Church provided was deliverance from the temptation to navigate by the compass of a theory. The Catholic Church has countless failures, but of this I am certain: Catholic Christianity does not need to be underwritten by an idea. A Pentecostal friend came to the Mass of reception at the Jesuit Martyrs' Chapel. He is a close friend and a man whose faith I admire. After the Mass we talked for a while. He asked me, "So, what did it feel like to become a Catholic?" I told him, "It felt like being submerged into the ocean." He reacted with a look of thinly disguised horror. That look reminded me that, while I sometimes suffer from an attraction to Emersonian fantasies of self-reliance and disdain for hierarchy, I have never wanted to be alone with God. It has always seemed to me that such a desire too easily turns into a longing to be alone with one's idea of God, and that is the same as being alone with oneself.

Link (here) to R. R. Reno's conversion story at Why I am a Catholic

Zags Learning About Business, Ethics, And Life From Billionaire Warren Buffett

Warren Buffet with President Obama

Twenty Gonzaga University entrepreneurship students will spend a day this fall in Omaha learning about business, ethics, and life from billionaire Warren Buffett, the “Oracle of Omaha," one of the most innovative and influential business leaders in the world. Buffett is chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, an Omaha-based conglomerate of more than 70 companies with nearly a quarter-million employees that also invests in numerous companies and investment vehicles. Buffett invites a select number of universities to Omaha every year. Todd Finkle, Gonzaga’s Pigott Professor of Entrepreneurship, initiated the visit with the assistance of Paul Buller, the School of Business Administration’s Kinsey-Robinson Professor of Business Management. Finkle wrote an in-depth case study on Buffett and Berkshire before coming to Gonzaga. Buffett read the case and invited Finkle and 27 students from University of Akron, where Finkle taught before coming to Gonzaga. They spent a day in Omaha at Berkshire Hathaway’s world headquarters and two of his subsidiaries.
Link (here) to Jesuitbusinessschools.net
Read about Warren Buffets Support of Planned Parenthood and Catholics for Choice (here)

Jesuit On Mitt Romney's 2012 Campaign

It appears then that Mr. Romney's re-branding of himself is well underway. Yet the former governor Mitt Romney appears to be in a constant state of becoming. As I have previously noted in this space, in the 2008 G.O.P primaries, Mitt Romney changed his message not once, but four times. There was Romney 1.0, the Massachusetts liberal Republican who had previously supported gay rights and abortion rights. Then Rudy Giuliani entered the 2008 race and it seemed that there was only room for one liberal Republican, so Romney's campaign launched Romney 2.0, the social conservative. 

Link (here) to read the full editorial by Matt Malone, S.J.