What A Jesuit Really Is

Interest is composed of a little, not much, religion, of the honesty which each possesses, I suppose in a perfect degree of the rank each occupies, of the fortune enjoyed by each; and of existence, to which all naturally cling. The wolves are in pursuit of all that, among us as in Russia, and they coming at full speed. 

If the Jesuits are thrown to the wolves, there still remain religion, honesty, rank, and fortune, and now if religion must be sacrificed, it will leave behind honesty, which is sufficient for life, with rank and fortune. .... If the wolves attack honesty! But it is so very vague at best, what does one understand by honesty? There are so many kinds! And it is essential to cajole the wolves. 

Rank, for example! Ah! that is serious! It is time to defend one's  self. Men defend their rank if they can! And they will die sooner than abandon fortune! And as it will happen, they -will die! They will die because of the first concession made, which has encouraged the wolves. For the sake of the indifferent, however, as well as for the believers, and even the Atheists, let us see what a Jesuit really is. 

He is a Religious. And what is a Religious? He is a man, who, to unite himself more closely to God, accomplishes of his own free will certain sacrifices, accepts voluntarily certain duties determined by a rule, and assured by vows which bestow the solemn approbation of an authority, admitted by the law of Catholic countries, and which is known as the Church. 

From a purely human point of view, what is more legitimate? What use, more manifestly lawful, can a citizen make of his liberty? Under what pretext, by what right, shall the exercise of this liberty be hindered or restrained? If it appear to you useful and proper to seek to accumulate the goods of the earth, it is your right to do so; if it please me to abandon them, it is equally my right to do so.

It is your right, if it seem to you useful and proper, to found a family; but if I determine to abandon these joys of the hearth, to devote myself to God and to mankind, my right is equal to yours.

 If it seem useful and proper to you to retain your entire independence, it is permitted; but if I fear so much liberty, and wish to limit it, is it prohibited? No, unquestionably not, except by the exercise of a tyranny at once so imbecile and so odious, that in order to gather any examples of it, one is obliged to peruse the worst soiled pages of the foulest volume in our annals. Thus speaks good common sense, thus reason teaches, faith indorses, and the Church approves. And what says history? Does she deny that modern life has sprung from Christ? No.

History shows us the first Christians of Jerusalem laying down their worldly goods at the feet of the Apostles, to live in common, in poverty;

 the deserts of Egypt peopled by solitaries; the East sanctified by the holy men of the desert; the West, by the sons of Augustine, Bruno, Benedict, and Dominic, fathers of those great families of laborers whose work enlightened Europe; who civilized barbarism; taught agriculture; guarded the treasure of literature, and revived the arts; heaping all these benefits upon a world which, in return, has shown them the scorn of its ignorance, and the hatred of its ingratitude. 

In point of being a Religious, the Jesuit is neither a novelty nor a monstrosity. There have been Religious before him. But it is urged "He is a Religious, sui generis, having but one special end, a manner of living that is peculiarly his own; tendencies, obligations, and customs which distinguish him from all other Religious." 

To be sure, and why not! He is a Jesuit, and not a Carthusian, a Benedictine, nor a Franciscan. Just as an artilleryman is a soldier, a cuirassier also, and a hussar the same, although the cuirassier is not a hussar, nor the hussar an artilleryman, nor the artilleryman a cuirassier. The Carthusian prays in his solitude for the world he has quitted; the Trappist sanctifies by his penance the noble and severe labor of the field; the Benedictine consumes his life in the arid researches of science; the Jesuits go beyond the seas, converting to civilization the barbarous tribes of Asia and Africa, the savages of America and Oceanica; or again, with no less bravery, struggle in Europe for truth against error, for the freedom of conscience against the despotism of men and the tyranny of passion. And is this evil? 

The Society of Jesus has never denied that it has one sole end in view. Its glory is to have been instituted for a special and well-defined end; it is a sacred battalion, or it is nothing. 

This is its boast. We have seen, beginning from the sixteenth century, a terrible subversion of ideas; the spirit of revolt sweeping over the world like a violent wind, and having assailed the Church, presently overthrows the political institutions, and even the foundations of society. 

These awful storms, whose consequences we still feel, have celebrated names in history—Protestantism, Jansenism, Philosophy, and the Revolution. Luther, armed with the mutilated Bible, arises against the Church, and presents to the astonished world the spectacle of a triumph as rapid as it is unfortunate, improbable as an ugly dream. But Luther finds the Jesuits opposed to him, and he fails of victory. 

Jansenius disguises, but poorly, in the pages of a spurious Saint Augustine, the first workings of his false and illegitimate Protestantism. The Jesuits close that route against him; he can not pass. The philosophers of the eighteenth century tear up the Bible, deny tradition, and pretend to "crush the Church."

The Jesuits come forward to the combat. They fall, betrayed by the royal authority which they defended, but the earth trembles beneath their fall; royal authority has worked its own ruin, and the God whose existence was denied, seems to turn away from the sight of the queen of nations wallowing in the bloody mire of a Saturnalia that dishonors history. 

 Is God vanquished, however? No. Is the Church crushed? No. One is as impossible as the other. But the Jesuits? Ah! unquestionably the Jesuits can die; they possess neither the eternity of God nor the immortality of the Church in time. But they live! 

Live (here) to the book entitled, The Jesuits!

Marie Madeleine "Victoire" de Bengy and Fr. Joseph Varin, S.J.

A momentous event in 1815 had unexpected consequences for Victoire. When Napoleon escaped from Elba, Joseph Varin, former Royalist soldier and now Jesuit priest, was again a hunted man. Victoire offered him safe refuge at Parassy, even though, in her own words a dreadful thought came to mind. It seemed to me that if Father Varin came to my house, I would have to enter religion. Despite her fears she did not withdraw her offer of hospitality. The Jesuit remained with her for five months. In his company she came to know more of the Society of Jesus, to imbibe the spirit of the Society of Jesus from his conversation and to practice its spirituality. As she began to follow a more ordered life of prayer and discernment, the quality in her character which her family knew so well "What Victoire wants, Victoire gets," her mother used to say, was transmuted into a determination that what "God wants, God should get." One link in the chain taught her to trust. She was daily aware of what she calls terrifying details of the army's advance; in due course the troops entered the village and the officers arrived at her home. They did not even bother to reply to what I said but continued to speak and act as if they owned the house. I was terrified and prayed silently to the Lord with all my heart. But her situation changed when the Colonel realized that she was the sister of Claude de Bengy with whom he had studied. I have to admit, Madame, that your position was more unpleasant and dangerous than you could have imagined. She was to need great courage and trust in the years ahead A significant decision Step by step, though never in a straight line, she followed what she believed was the path laid out for her. One missionary priest whose advice she sought in Bourges, having listened to her account of herself gave as his opinion that God wants your whole heart. You must give it to him without reserve. This opinion was confirmed the following year, 1816, in Amiens when Father Sellier urged me to lead a more perfect life and to make the vow of chastity. I positively refused to do either. In her honesty Madame d’Houët came to acknowledge that on her return to Bourges she experienced such utter weariness and distaste for amusement that I found it impossible to resume social life. Then on Trinity Sunday, 1817, as she was praying before Mass quite suddenly and unexpectedly it was made known to me that God wished me to make the vow of chastity there and then, in his presence. What was asked of me appeared so clear and positive, that in spite of the strong natural aversion I had felt up till then, I no longer had the slightest objection... I readily and joyfully made the vow. She made it immediately but conditionally, the condition being that she would renew it on a day to be approved by Father Varin if he agreed with what she had done. It was six months later that he agreed but by that time people and events had so confused her that all her old fears came rushing back. I positively refused. I said that if God called me to be a religious I would do so willingly but if I remained in the world, I did not wish to bind myself... But she had long prayed to know what God wanted and to be strengthened to do it, faithfully and joyfully, as soon as it was made known to her. I went to the church of St Geneviève and remained there a long time. Only God could change my heart and conquer my resistance. In his infinite goodness this is exactly what he did once more and accepted from me what a mortal man in a similar situation would undoubtedly have refused. Returning to her rooms she confided to her journal: I have spent the evening sitting on the floor, weeping... I continue to have a terrible repugnance. With utter trust, on December 9th 1817, before Communion I pronounced my vow ... at the same moment all my fears and misgivings vanished for ever. This day, the most beautiful of my life, has ever since been for me a great source of consolation and a motive for eternal gratitude. But consolation did not mean pain and suffering were excluded from her life. She describes Father Varin S.J. as "this holy man who wanted at all costs to unravel what came from God and what might have merely sprung from my imagination."

Link (here) to

Post-Conciliar Liberal Catholicism

The most significant contribution to the universal Church of pre-conciliar liberal Catholicism in America was the development of a Catholic theory of religious freedom—which led, in due course, to Vatican II’s epic Declaration on Religious Freedom, to the post-conciliar Church’s history-changing defense of human rights, and to the Church’s crucial role in democratic transitions around the world. This achievement, in which the debates on religious freedom at Vatican II were pivotal, unfolded in close collaboration with the U.S. bishops. It was Cardinal Francis Spellman of New York, for instance, who brought Father John Courtney Murray, S.J., to the Council, where Murray became one of the intellectual architects of the Declaration on Religious Freedom. And it was Murray (now falsely enlisted post-mortem into the pro-Obama camp of the Catholic diaspora) who, with the U.S. bishops and others, worked the Council process so that it became clear to a critical mass of the world’s bishops that religious freedom was indeed congruent with what Cardinal George called “the Catholic and apostolic faith.” That liberal Catholics of the 2012 diaspora refuse to concede the grave threat to religious freedom posed by the administration’s mandate, and that they have given political cover to a gross infringement on religious freedom by a federal government that looks ever more like Hobbes’ Leviathan, is a grave breach of ecclesial communion in itself. It also represents a tragic betrayal of the best in the liberal Catholic heritage in the U.S., even as it illustrates the utter incoherence into which post-conciliar liberal Catholicism in America has tragically fallen.

Link (here) to George Wiegal's article entitled, The Catholic diaspora and the tragedy of liberal Catholicism.

Jesuit On Praying The Family Rosary

Excerpt from the booklet "Our Glorious Faith and How To Lose It" by Fr Hugh Thwaites S J. and (here)

In my work of going round visiting homes, I have seen this conclusion borne out time and again. Homes can be transformed by starting the recitation of the daily rosary.

I remember a woman telling me that she could not thank me enough for having nagged her into starting it; it had united her family as never before.

And I remember another home where I called. There was a strange tension there: the children were silent and the wife seemed withdrawn, but the husband was willing to start the family rosary.

When I called back again a couple of months later, the atmosphere was quite different. The children were chatty and the wife was friendly,

and the husband walked down the road with me afterwards and said how amazing it was that the home was so much happier.

Listen to Fr. Hugh Thwaites, S.J. (here)

Dating Easter

How do we date Easter?

Easter Procession

Why is Ash Wednesday and Lent so early this year? This article will primarily focus on the Western (Gregorian Calendar) way of dating Easter. The dating of Easter arises from the complicated joining of two different calendar systems. These calendars might be illustrated by the early story of Cain and Abel. If you are an Abel type, hunting, fishing, watching your flock by night, you will focus on the moon and the lunar cycle of 29 and a half days. Moonlight and tides will be significant to you. If you are a Cain type, a tiller of the ground and grower of crops, the solar cycle and its seasons will be more significant to you. The dating of Easter comes out of combining these solar and lunar calendars.
Passover - Pesach
The Jewish calendar is lunar. Twelve lunar months, with an occasional extra month popped in to keep up with the solar year. The month begins with new moon, and full moon, in the middle of the month, is the obvious time for extensive parties and festivals. There’s more light at night! Passover (Pesach) is the first full moon after the vernal (Northern Spring) equinox (14 of Abib in the Old Testament's Hebrew Calendar) (Lev 23:5). This was to be a "perpetual ordinance" (Exodus 12:14).

Nicaea on Easter

There appears confusion between the synoptics (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) and John on the relationship between the Passover celebration and Christ’s death. Added to that, some early Christians celebrated Pascha (Easter) on the Jewish festival of Passover, whilst others always celebrated it on the Sunday following. The former were called Quartodecimans (Latin: quarta decima, fourteen). The Council of Nicaea (325) decided against the Quartodecimans and in favour of Easter always being on a Sunday. Rather than produce a canon on this, they communicated this to the different dioceses and gave the Bishop of Alexandria the privilege of announcing annually the date of Easter. The Council of Nicaea determined that Easter would be the Sunday which follows the first full moon after the vernal equinox. If full moon happens to fall on Sunday, Easter is celebrated the following Sunday. Furthermore, it fixed the vernal equinox to be 21 March. By the sixth century complex mathematical methods had been devised, involving paschal cycles of 19 years in the East, and 84 years in the West. Hence Easter calculations are based not on the astronomical full moon but an "ecclesiastical moon," based on these created tables.

Link to the full article entitled, How do we date Easter from the blog Liturgy.

Easter and the Holy Eucharist by Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J. (here)

Jesuit On Ash Wednesday

St. Jane de Chantal

....receive the ashes that both remind us of our mortality and call us to undergo a change of heart so as to live more closely according to the Gospel. And to receive the Body and Blood of Christ whose passion death and resurrection we will commemorate and celebrate at the climax of these forty days. Lent is not just a season of “give ups”: smoking, chocolate, desert, meat, and so on. It is a time of taking on: taking on time to meditate on the Gospel, taking on time for spiritual reading, prayer or adoration. And it is a time to heed the advice of St. Jane de Chantal, foundress of the Order of the Visitation of Holy Mary, “We cannot always offer God great things but at each instant we can offer little things with great love.” Offering those little things with great love may be a more difficult mortification than giving up desert for the next forty days.

Link (here) to read the full blog post by Fr Jack S.J. M.D., his blog is entitled, Fr. Jack S.J. M.D.

Polish Donuts And Lenten Preperation Equals "Pączki Day"

Pączki is pronounced puonch-key

Every month I'm a guest on Relevant Radio's daily call-in spiritual direction show "The Inner Life," hosted by Chuck Neff. Last week the producer wrote me about the topic for today's show and wondered if I wanted to talk about Lent. My first reaction was "No! We're going to have 40 days of Lent. No need to start it early." Instead, I thought it would be good to talk about Mardi Gras or Fat Tuesday or, as it's often called in the Polish community of Milwaukee, Paczki Day. Is it OK for Christians to have fun? Of course! Jesus had fun. Unfortunately much of our religious art makes Jesus look as though he never cracked a smile and never laughed. He appears very somber and even scarey. But this can't be the way Jesus really was. No one would want to go near Him. Certainly not the children. Yet Jesus attracted droves of people to Himself. So Jesus must have smiled, laughed, had a good time, and genuinely enjoyed life. He even described heaven in terms of a big party or wedding feast and when He participated in a feast where the wine had run out, He made more. But what about "Fat Tuesday" and all the excesses we see? The tradition of over-indulging seems to have arisen from the logic that since we're going to have to fast and pray and go to confession, now's the time to party. This isn't really the best way to enter into Lent. 

Link (here) to read the full post by Fr. James Kubicki, S.J. and his totally awesome blog, Offer it Up!

Jesuit On Democratic Totalitarianism

Catholicism, much to its surprise, suddenly finds itself in the eye-sight of the absolute state because it is now the remaining body of reasoning that articulately opposes this power extension into all aspects of human life. No one should be fooled into thinking that a democratic totalitarianism is not possible. It is in fact happening before our very eyes. It will be very smooth and enticing. It will reward those who assist it along the way.

What is thus of particular interest is the way that administration spokesmen use dissident Catholics to play off Catholics against the hierarchy. 

The U.S. bishops have become remarkably alert to the threat against its public institutions in a way that many self-announced Catholic politicians, universities, hospitals, and publicists have not. The fact is that those Catholic sources that support the administration’s move can anticipate reward on the condition that they serve to justify doctrinally what is going on in the name of “democratizing” Catholicism. 

Link (here) to the full article by Fr. James Schall, S.J. at The Catholic World Report

Freedom Of Conscience And Religious License

Requiem Masses for Non-Catholics 

The funeral for Queen Victoria at St. George's Chapel

The official organ of the Society of Jesus, La Civilta Cattolica, devotes a long article to the question of celebrating requiem masses for non-Catholics, and especially for the late Queen Victoria. It is written in reply to recent letters in the London Times, and deals particularly with the following sentiment expressed in one of them: "We are touched at hearing that African chiefs have ordered tom-toms to be beaten or cattle sacrificed for the repose of the soul of the Great White Queen. What pleases the subjects of the queen is the expression of devotion by men of all races and religions. The Catholic church, through Cardinal Vaughan, has struck a discordant note." The source of all the evil is, according to the Civilta Cattolica, "that badly interpreted liberty, so contrary to religious virtue, which they call freedom of conscience, and which is, in reality, religious license. ... To this is due the absurd theory that all religions are worthy of respect as judicial equals, as though the rights of truth and error were, or could be, the same. The pretense of some Catholics that the church should mitigate her ancient severity toward dissidents is attributable to the same pernicious attitude." Continuing, the Jesuit organ says: 

"Requiem masses are not simply civil and external honors ascribed to the defunct by survivors, but are religious acts and constitute the prayer which the Catholic church offers that its children may be received into the eternal peace of the just. 

Therefore, to claim a right to this solemn prayer for whomsoever died separate from the community of the faithful, or even only to pretend that, for reasons of human policy or ill-comprehended patriotism, Catholics should be allowed the privilege of honoring with Catholic obsequies the king or queen who voluntarily and publicly lived and died Protestant, would be a profanation, a non-sense (controsenso), a placing upon the lips of the church words and formulae which in such case would be lying and fraudulent. 

Since Protestants deny the Real Presence and all those dogmas which form the basis of Catholic liturgy, they can not reasonably be presumed ever to have desired the celebration in suffrage of their souls of that sacrifice (the mass) which they publicly and constantly stigmatize as a blasphemous fiction and a pernicious imposture. 

As to the case of the late Queen Victoria, she is known to have been the head of the Protestant Anglican church and to have professed and to have been in duty bound to maintain its articles of religion." 

Link (here) to Public Opinion

The Latin Mass And The Jesuit Missionary

It is easy to forget that so much of the missionary work of the Church was done through its worship and the old Latin Mass; the people of Kent were moved by Augustine's chanting monks, 

the Jesuits were rowed up South American rivers to the sound of violins, flutes and voices. Engaging the heart and senses seems to have been the first act of missionaries in the past, using beautiful music, stimulating a sense of wonder,

 causing people to reflect and to be still, to recognize God as Beauty, to look for his presence in their hearts.

Link (here) to Fr. Ray Blake's Blog

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