Monthly Archives: October 2014

October, Sacred Heart, Saints

Oct 16 – St Margaret Mary Alacoque, VHM, (1647-1690), Visionary of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus

sacred-heart

My parents had a very special devotion to the Sacred Heart as I was growing up.  Mara attends Sacred Hearts of Jesus & Mary School.  We attend the parish in Sun Prairie, WI as well.  My hope is that Mara will attend Edgewood High School of the Sacred Heart here in Madison, WI.  Each night, at grace, my parents and I would add to the grace, “O Sacred Heart of Jesus, we place our trust in Thee!”: fifty-six years of marriage and six children.

Roman Catholics celebrate the life of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, VHM, the French nun whose visions of Christ helped to spread devotion to the Sacred Heart throughout the Western Church.

Margaret Mary Alacoque was born in July of 1647. Her parents Claude and Philiberte lived modest but virtuous lives, while Margaret proved to be a serious child with a great focus on God. Claude died when Margaret was eight, and from age 9-13 she suffered a paralyzing illness. In addition to her father’s death as well as her illenss, a struggle over her family’s property made life difficult for Margaret and her mother for several years.

During her illness, Margaret made a vow to enter religious life. During adolescence, however, she changed her mind. For a period of time she lived a relatively ordinary life, enjoying the ordinary social functions of her day and considering the possibility of marriage.

However, her life changed in response to a vision she saw one night while returning from a dance, in which she saw Christ being scourged. Margaret believed she had betrayed Jesus, by pursuing the pleasures of the world rather than her religious vocation, and a the at the age of 22, she decided to enter a convent.

Two days after Christmas of 1673, Margaret experienced Christ’s presence in an extraordinary way while in prayer. She heard Christ explain that he desired to show his love for the human race in a special way, by encouraging devotion to “the Heart that so loved mankind.”

She experienced a subsequent series of private revelations regarding the gratitude due to Jesus on the part of humanity, and the means of responding through public and private devotion, but the superior of the convent dismissed this as a delusion.

This dismissal was a crushing disappointment, affecting the nun’s health so seriously that she nearly died. In 1674, however, the Jesuit priest Father Claude de la Colombiere, SJ, became Margaret’s spiritual director. He believed her testimony, and chronicled it in writing.

Fr. de la Colombiere, SJ, – later canonized as a saint – left the monastery to serve as a missionary in England. By the time he returned and died in 1681, Margaret had made peace with the apparent rejection of her experiences. Through St. Claude’s direction, she had reached a point of inner peace, no longer concerned with the hostility of others in her community.

In time, however, many who doubted her would become convinced as they pondered what St. Claude had written about the Sacred Heart. Eventually, her own writings and the accounts of her would face a rigorous examination by Church officials.

By the time that occurred, however, St. Margaret Mary Alacoque had already gained what she desired: “I need nothing but God, and to lose myself in the heart of Jesus.” She faced her last illness with courage, frequently praying the words of Psalm 73: “What have I in heaven, and what do I desire on earth, but Thee alone, O my God?”

Merazhofen_Pfarrkirche_Chorgestühl_links_Margaretha_Maria_Alacoque

tomb2stmargaretmaryalacoque

tombstmargaretmaryalacoque
-tomb of St Margaret Mary Alacoque, VHM.  Her remains were disinterred after burial for 140 years.  What you see above is a waxified skeleton for veneration.

“Our Lord frequently told me that I should keep a secluded place for Him in my heart… where He would teach me to love Him” -St. Margaret Mary Alacoque

“It seems to me that the happiness of a soul consists entirely in conforming to the most adorable will of God; for in so doing the heart finds peace and the spirit joy and repose.” -St. Margaret Mary Alacoque 

“My greatest happiness is to be before the Blessed Sacrament, where my heart is, as it were, in its center.” -St. Margaret Mary Alacoque 

“But above all preserve peace of heart. This is more valuable than any treasure.” -St. Margaret Mary Alacoque

“Love keeps Him there [in the Blessed Sacrament] as a victim completely and perpetually delivered over to sacrifice for the glory of the Father and for our salvation. Unite yourself with Him, then, in all that you do. Refer everything to His glory. Set up your abode in this loving Heart of Jesus and you will there find lasting peace and the strength both to bring to fruition all the good desires He inspires in you, and to avoid every deliberate fault. Place in this Heart all your sufferings and difficulties. Everything that comes from the Sacred Heart is sweet. He changes everything into love.”
-St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, VHM

“The sacred heart of Christ is an inexhaustible fountain, and its sole desire is to pour Itself out into the hearts of the humble so as to free them and prepare them to lead lives according to His good pleasure.”
–St. Margaret Mary

“The crown will be given neither to beginners, nor to the advanced, but to the victorious, to those who persevere to the end.”
—St Margaret Mary Alacoque

“One just soul can obtain pardon for a thousand sinners.”
–St. Margaret Mary Alacoque

“Let every knee bend before Thee, O greatness of my God, so supremely humbled in the Sacred Host. May every heart love Thee, every spirit adore Thee and every will be subject to Thee!”
–St. Margaret Mary

“I have a burning thirst to be honored by men in the Blessed Sacrament, and I find hardly anyone who strives, according to My desire, to allay this thirst by making Me some return of love.”
– Words of Jesus to St. Margaret Mary

“The Divine Heart is an ocean full of all good things, wherein poor souls can cast all their needs; it is an ocean full of joy to drown all our sadness, an ocean of humility to drown our folly, an ocean of mercy to those in distress, an ocean of love in which to submerge our poverty.”
–St. Margaret Mary Alacoque

“Would that I could exhaust myself in acts of thanksgiving and gratitude towards this Divine Heart, for the great favor He shows us, in deigning to accept our help to make Him known, loved and honored; He reserves infinite blessings for all those who devote themselves to this work.”
–St. Margaret Mary Alacoque

“I desire but this one grace, and long to be consumed like a burning candle in His holy Presence every moment of the life that remains to me. For that I would be willing, I think, to suffer all the pains imaginable till judgment day, if only I should not have to leave His sacred presence. My only motive would be to be consumed in honoring Him and to acknowledge that burning love He shows us in this wonderful Sacrament. Here His love holds Him captive till the end of time. It is of this one can truly say, ‘Love triumphs, love enjoys, Love finds in God its joys.'”
– St. Margaret Mary

“My Divine Master revealed to me that it was His ardent desire to be known, loved and honored by men, and His eager desire to draw them back from the road to perdition, along which Satan is driving them in countless numbers, that induced Him to manifest His Heart to men with all the treasures of love, mercy, grace, sanctification and salvation that It contains.”
– St. Margaret Mary, July 2, 1674

In his encyclical on devotion to the Sacred Heart, Haurietis Aquas, May 15, 1956, Pope Pius XII wrote:

“… Christ Our Lord, exposing His Sacred Heart, wished in a quite extraordinary way to invite the minds of men to a contemplation of, and a devotion to, the mystery of God’s merciful love for the human race … Christ pointed to His Heart, with definite and repeated words, as the symbol by which men should be attracted to a knowledge and recognition of His love; and at the same time He established it as a sign or pledge of mercy and grace for the needs of the Church of our times.”

He further wrote: “The Church gives the highest form of worship to the Heart of the divine Redeemer.”

Love,
Matthew

Doctors of the Church, October, Saints, Teresa of Avila

Oct 15 – Logical Ecstasy


-“The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa”, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, 1647-1652, Santa Maria della Vittoria

teresa_of_avila_2

alanpiper
-by Br Alan Piper, OP

“I saw in [the angel’s] hands a large golden dart and at the end of the iron tip there appeared to be a little fire. [The] angel plunged the dart several times into my heart . . . . When he drew it out, I thought he was carrying off with him the deepest part of me; and he left me all on fire with great love of God. The pain was so great that it made me moan, and the sweetness this greatest pain caused me was so superabundant that there is no desire capable of taking it away” -Teresa of Ávila, Autobiography

In 1976, the two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and U.S. Poet Laureate (’87-’88) Richard Wilbur published a short poem entitled “Teresa.” The first stanza describes the famous mystical encounter between St. Teresa and an angel with a spear:

After the sun’s eclipse,
The brighter angel and the spear which drew
A bridal outcry from her open lips,
She could not prove it true,
Nor think at first of any means to test
By what she had been wedded or possessed.

Though now we can see that Teresa was “wedded” to God, at the time even she who enjoyed such divine intimacy did not rule out the possibility that she had been “possessed” by some lower power. In case of supposed mystical experiences, St. Teresa writes, “The safest thing, as the Lord told me, is to make known to my confessor the whole state of my soul and the favors God grants me, that he be learned, and that I obey him. The Lord has often told me this.”

The second stanza of Wilbur’s poem contrasts the ecstasy of St. Teresa with the experience of Odysseus’ comrades on the island of Aeaea. In Homer’s Odyssey, the witch-goddess Circe gave the men a drugged draft and changed them into swine: “She struck with her wand, drove them into her pigsties . . . with grunts, snouts . . . off they went to their pens, sobbing, squealing . . . (X, 260-70).” The first line of the stanza understates the contrast with Teresa’s “outcry”:

Not all cries were the same;
There was an island in mythology
Called by the very vowels of her name
Where vagrants of the sea,
Changed by a wand, were made to squeal and cry
As heavy captives in a witch’s sty.

So the poem distinguishes two kinds of ecstasy. The swine in Circe’s sty symbolize the irrational fits and shouts of human animality in revolt. When reason loses control to the emotions and sensuality, the rational animal turns wild. Man becomes a pig.

The second kind of ecstasy results from a knowledge of God. Catholics use the phrase “faith and reason,” but it would be a mistake to infer that some things are reasonable and that faith is not one of them. By faith, we transcend human reason and come to share in the knowledge of God, who is Wisdom Itself. When St. John calls Jesus the Word, the Greek word is Logos (from which we derive “logic” and all those names of knowledge ending in “-ology”). If faith is experienced as darkness, it is not because faith is irrational but because it is supra-rational. What Teresa saw was beyond her, but still her encounter with the Word was a real illumination.

A consummate wordsmith, Wilbur develops the theme by noting the similarity between “Teresa” and “Aeaea” (“the very vowels of her name”: e-e-a). Aristotle once remarked that among the animals only man possesses speech (logos), while the others have only the mere voice (phonē). Think of the cow’s “moooo” or the sheep’s “baaaahh,” or even the less reflective of human utterances: “ooooh,” “aaaah,” or “uuuuh.” By using consonants to shape the voice in numerous and various ways, the logical animal (the human being) turns a handful of vowels into a language of hundreds of thousands of words (to say nothing of poems). Likewise, inspired by the Logos, Teresa went on to write profound and detailed books on prayer. The Grecian vagrants, struck by the witch, could only grunt and squeal.

In fact, the wisdom of her teaching and the greatness of her deeds give eloquent witness to the authenticity of her visions. The last stanza of Wilbur’s poem gives voice to that witness.

The proof came soon and plain:
Visions were true which quickened her to run
God’s barefoot errands in the rocks of Spain
Beneath its beating sun,
And lock the O of ecstasy within
The tempered consonants of discipline.

The bulk of those “barefoot errands in the rocks of Spain” went toward the reform of the Carmelites—work that called for extraordinary discipline and uncommon vision. For Teresa, there was ultimately no contradiction between mysticism and intense concentration on the business of daily life, between the delights of prayer and the labors of reviving a late-medieval religious order. In fact, it was her mysticism, or better, her deep friendship with Jesus the Logos, that sharpened her mind and inspired her self-possession.

Nor did Teresa make “spirituality” a pretense for despising “organized religion.” She knew that the Logos had become flesh and established a visible, tangible Church, and that he had wedded the Church to Himself and so become one flesh with her. Teresa understood herself as both organized in that body and commissioned to organize the religion of a part of that body, the Carmelite Order. And it is in and through that organized body that the Logos recommends her sanctity to us today.”

Love,
Matthew

Sacraments, Theology

Oct 13 2014 – Synod on the Family, The Law of Gradualness

http://opeast.org/2014/10/14/st-john-paul-ii-and-the-law-of-gradualness/

http://www.zenit.org/en/articles/gradualness-a-solution-for-the-synod

-by Fr Dominic D.F. Legge, OP, J.D., Ph.L., M.Div./S.T.B., S.T.L., S.T.D.

“What John Paul called “the law of gradualness” does not refer to a “gradual” turning away from sin, but to the perennial Christian doctrine that we are not yet perfect in the first moment of our conversion. When we receive a grace of conversion, we break definitively from evil and then gradually advance in holiness. We may even fall back into grave sin, but, helped by grace, we repent and start anew. Here, the sacrament of Penance has an important role to play: it calls us to renounce our sins definitively with a firm purpose of amendment. In effect, he who will not yet repent, will not yet accept God’s mercy, and so is not forgiven. (CCC no. 1451; DH 1676.)”

“According to an official Vatican press briefing on Tuesday, Oct. 7, the discussion at the Synod over proposals for communion for divorced and remarried persons has shifted to “gradualness.” It seems that some are now arguing from the principle of gradualness that those who are not yet able to live according to the Church’s teachings could still receive Holy Communion as a step on the way towards a more perfect conversion.

For moral theologians, this is a case of déjà vu: the 1980 Synod on the Family already had this debate, and it was resolved by Pope John Paul II in his post-synodal exhortation, Familiaris Consortio.

In 1980, some voices had claimed that, in difficult cases, one could commit to “gradually” relinquishing a gravely sinful practice (like contracepting) and return immediately to the sacraments, even while intending to continue committing individual sinful acts in some (diminishing) measure. John Paul II clearly rejected this argument. Married couples, he wrote, “cannot . . . look on the law as merely an ideal to be achieved in the future: they must consider it as a command of Christ the Lord to overcome difficulties with constancy. ‘And so what is known as ‘the law of gradualness’ or step-by-step advance cannot be identified with ‘gradualness of the law,’ as if there were different degrees or forms of precept in God’s law for different individuals and situations.” (Familiaris Consortio no. 34.)

What John Paul called “the law of gradualness” does not refer to a “gradual” turning away from sin, but to the perennial Christian doctrine that we are not yet perfect in the first moment of our conversion. When we receive a grace of conversion, we break definitively from evil and then gradually advance in holiness. We may even fall back into grave sin, but, helped by grace, we repent and start anew. Here, the sacrament of Penance has an important role to play: it calls us to renounce our sins definitively with a firm purpose of amendment. In effect, he who will not yet repent, will not yet accept God’s mercy, and so is not forgiven. (CCC no. 1451; DH 1676.)

As St. John Paul says, the “law of gradualness” presupposes this turning-away from evil, so that one can begin to walk “step-by-step” on the upward – that is, gradually ascending – path of good. “What is needed is a continuous, permanent conversion which, while requiring an interior detachment from every evil and an adherence to good in its fullness, is brought about concretely in steps which lead us ever forward.” (Familiaris Consortio no. 9.) The ascent is gradual, but the renunciation of sin cannot be.

The Eucharist is living bread for those on the way. One need not yet be perfect to receive it – indeed, among Christians, who is? (Answer: Our Lady.) But one does need to break from evil in order to have communion with Christ: “If we say we have communion with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not live according to the truth.” (1 Jn 1:6.) We can expect the Synod to affirm nothing less.”

Love,
Matthew

October, Saints, Society of Jesus

Oct 10 – St Francis Borgia, SJ, (1510-1572), Husband, Father, 4th Duke of Gandia, 3rd General of the Society of Jesus, Confessor

“Go, sell all that you have. Come follow Me.” -cf Mt 19:21

San_Francisco_de_Borja
–San Francisco de Borja, 1624, by Alonzo Cano, 189 × 123 cm (74.4 × 48.4 in), oil on canvas, Museum of Fine Art Seville, Spain.  Please click on the image for greater detail.

By all accounts, Francis Borgia was handsome.  Of course, he was rich.  He possessed all this life could offer:  family, rank, wealth, health, preferments few could rival.  While true, he did consider religious life, so many rich and splendid appointments in the court of Emperor Charles V came his way, this was put aside.

A Spanish nobleman of remarkably high rank: grandson of a king (and a Pope – don´t be scandalized; not every Pope was a saint) and cousin to the Emperor Charles V.

He married well, had eight children, and bounced around royal society taking various positions (viceroy, duke, protector, etc.) for the first half of his life.

When his wife died (their youngest child was eight) it was a heavy blow to him; it sorely tested his faith.   As he escorted the funeral bier to its tomb, it was necessary he identify the remains, as was custom, as the person intended to be buried was actually his wife.  Not long after her death, but long enough for decomposition to begin, Francis was taken aback by what he saw in the coffin and by how quickly she had gone from life to what remained.  Shaken, disturbed, he began to consider more seriously the eternal, and the brevity and vanity of life.  He swore never again to serve a sovereign who could be corrupted in body in such a way.

St Ignatius had recently founded the Jesuits, and Francis was deeply attracted by their zeal and their particular mission of combining the contemplative life and the active life.  He made a secret, private vow to enter the order, and St Ignatius himself advised him to set all his affairs in order (especially providing for his children) before making the news public.

He did so, and eventually his desire was granted.  When he was forty years old, he went to Rome and entered the Society of Jesus.  The “duke turned Jesuit,” as he was called, learned humility and prayer through the rigors of religious life, where his superiors made sure that he spent plenty of time washing dishes and cleaning floors, to purify him from any left-over arrogance or pride, but throughout the years preceding his ordination he demonstrated exemplary virtue.

Once he was ordained a priest, he began preaching extensively, and was put in charge of all the Jesuits in Portugal and Spain.  Soon thereafter he was called back to Rome, where he became the most popular preacher to the Pope and Cardinals, and was named General of the Jesuit Order.

He put his vast experience of government and diplomacy (and his many personal connections with European nobility) to work and gave much needed structure and stability to the flourishing order, such that he is often referred to as the “second founder” of the Jesuits.

His seven years of brilliant and energetic leadership included starting Jesuit missions to the Americas, establishing the Roman College (now known as the Gregorian University), building churches and seminaries, and numorous other endeavors.  By the time he died, he was already acclaimed as a saint from one end of Europe to the other.

In 1572, the Turks were once again threatening Christendom.  St Pius V chose St Francis Borgia to accompany him on an embassy, due to his political skills and connections, to assemble a league of princes for defense.  The saint at once agreed, exhausted as he was from his life’s labors, St Francis died two days after his return to Rome.

What was the secret of this paean of Christian virtue?  The more renown and attention he received, the more self-effacing he became.  When one of his companions asked him why, he remarked that for six years he had meditated on the life of Christ, and in those meditations he always put himself at the feet of Judas.  Why?  Because St Francis Borgia recognized the potential Judas in himself, and that kept him humble.  We are all Judas.  We all deny him every day.  “I do not know Him!” -Lk 22:57.  “Do you love Me?” -Jn 21:17

800px-Sant_Francesc_de_Borja_màscara_mortuòria
-deathmask of St Francis Borgia, SJ, please click on the image for greater detail.

“We must make our way towards eternity, never regarding what men think of us, or of our actions, studying only to please God.”
-St. Francis Borgia

“Who could ever soften this heart of mine but YOU alone O Lord!”
—St. Francis Borgia

Lord, be my strength when I am tempted to deny You, when I am remiss in speaking Your name lovingly to another, of telling them what You mean to me.  Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner.

Love,
Matthew

October, Saints

Oct 9 – St Louis Bertrand, OP, (1526-1581), Apostle of South America

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-Saint Louis Bertrand, OP, 1636-1638, by Francisco de Zurbaran, 209 x 154 cm, oil on canvas, Spanish baroque style, Museum of Fine Art Seville, Spain.

Louis Bertrand was born in Valencia to Juan Bertrand and Juana Angela Exarch. Through his father he was related to St. Vincent Ferrer, a thaumaturgus of the Dominican Order. At an early age he conceived the idea of becoming a Dominican Friar, and despite the efforts of his father to dissuade him, was clothed with the Dominican habit in the Convent of St. Dominic, Valencia on 26 August 1539. After the usual period of probation, he pronounced the evangelical vows.

In demeanour he was grave and apparently without any sense of humour, yet withal possessed of a gentle and sweet disposition that greatly endeared him to those with whom he came in contact. While he could lay no claim to the great intellectual gifts and ripe scholarship that have distinguished so many of the saints of the Dominican order, he applied himself assiduously to study, and stored his mind with the sacred truths expounded in the pages of the Summa. In 1547 he was ordained to the priesthood by the Archbishop of Valencia, Saint Thomas of Villanova.

He was appointed to the office of master of novices, in the convent at Valencia, the duties of which he discharged at different intervals for an aggregate of thirty years. When the plague broke out in Valencia in 1557 he devoted himself to the sick and dying; the dead he prepared for burial and interred with his own hands.

When the plague had subsided, the zeal of the holy novice-master sought to extend the scope of his already large ministry into the apostolate of preaching. Although it is said that “his voice was raucous, his memory treacherous, his carriage without grace”, he became a fervent preacher.

The cathedral and most capacious churches were placed at his disposal, but proved wholly inadequate to accommodate the multitude that desired to hear him. Eventually it became necessary for him to resort to the public squares of the city. It was probably the fame of his preaching that brought him to the attention of St. Teresa, who at this time sought his counsel in the matter of reforming her order.

Louis had long cherished the desire to enter the mission fields of the New World. Receiving permission he sailed for America in 1562, and landed at Cartagena, where he immediately entered upon the career of a missionary.

Missionary work in South America

The Bull of canonization asserts that he was favored with the gift of miracles, and while preaching in his native Spanish was understood in various languages. With the encouragement of Bartolomé de las Casas defended the natives rights against the Spanish conquerors.

From Cartagena, the scene of his first labors, St. Louis was sent to Panama, where in a comparatively short time he converted some 6,000 people. His next mission was at Tubará, situated near the sea-coast and midway between the city of Cartagena and the Magdalena River.

The success of his efforts at this place is witnessed by the entries of the baptismal registers, in the saint’s own handwriting, which show that all the inhabitants of the place were received into the Church by St. Louis; Turon places the number of converts in Tubará at 10,000. Remarkably all had been adequately instructed in the teachings of the Church before receiving baptism, and continued steadfast in their faith.

From Tubará, Louis went to Cipacoa and Paluato. His success at the former place, the exact location of which it is impossible to determine, was little inferior to that of Tubará. At Paluato the results of his zealous efforts were somewhat disheartening. From this unfruitful soil the saint withdrew to the province of Santa Marta, where his former successes were repeated, yielding 15,000 souls. While labouring at Santa Marta, a tribe of 1500 natives came to him from Paluato to receive baptism, which before they had rejected.

The work at Santa Marta finished, the tireless missionary undertook the work of converting the warlike Caribs, probably inhabitants of the Leeward Islands. His efforts among the tribesmen seem not to have been attended with any great success.

Nevertheless, Louis used the occasion again to make manifest the protection which overshadowed his ministry. According to legend, a deadly poison was given to him by one of the native priests. Through Divine interposition, the poison failed to accomplish its purpose.

Tenerife in the Canary Islands became the next field of the saint’s apostolic labours. Unfortunately, there are no records extant to indicate what was the result of his preaching.

At Mompax, thirty-seven leagues south-east of Cartagena, we are told, rather indefinitely, that many thousands were converted to the faith.

Several of the West Indies islands, notably those of St. Vincent and St. Thomas, were visited by St. Louis in his indefatigable quest for souls.

Return to Spain

After seven years as a missionary in South America, Bertrand returned to Spain in 1569, to plead the cause of the oppressed Indians, but he was not permitted to return and labor among them.

He used his own growing reputation for sanctity, as well as family and other contacts to lobby on behalf of the native peoples he had encountered, as well as serving in his native diocese of Valencia.  There he also became a spiritual counselor to many, including St. Teresa of Ávila.

In 1580, the Bertrand fell ill and was carried down from the pulpit of the Valencia cathedral. He died on October 9, 1582, as he supposedly foretold.

Bertrand is sometimes called the “Apostle of South America”.

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-statue of St Louis Bertrand, OP, St Louis Bertrand Parish, Louisville, KY

In Catholic iconography, St. Louis Bertrand is often portrayed holding a chalice from which serpents are emerging. In the other hand, he displays a crucifix with a pistol at its base. These articles call to mind two stories from the great saint’s life when God miraculously saved him from attempts on his life by vile would-be assassins. The first recalls the story of Brother Louis’ the above story where a native priest gave him a chalice of poison for Mass. Louis made the sign of the Cross over the toxic potation, and serpents sprang from the chalice, thus revealing its true contents and saving his life.

The second object – the crucifix/pistol – recalls another account of near-martyrdom in the life of St. Louis Bertrand. Set upon by a crazed gunman, St. Louis calmly made the conquering sign of the Cross. With this most basic gesture of our faith, the barrel of the gun miraculously turned into a crucifix.

“If because of your preaching men lay aside enmities, forgive injuries, avoid occasions of sin and scandals, and reform their conduct, you may say that the seed has fallen on good ground. But to God alone give all the glory and acknowledge yourselves ever unprofitable servants.” -St Louis Bertrand, OP

O God, through mortification of the body and preaching of the faith, You raised the blessed Louis, your confessor, to the glory of the saints; grant that what we profess by faith we may ever fulfill by works of piety. Through Christ our Lord.  Amen.

Love,
Matthew

Crusades, New Evangelization, The Inquisition

“Fire & Sword: Crusade & Inquisition” -Matthew Arnold

https://soul-candy.info/2014/10/matthew-arnold-new-age-agnostic-to-catholic-apologist/

fire_and_Sword_nodisc__89369.1410853409.1280.1280

from:
http://saintjoe.net/fire-and-sword-crusade-inquisition/

“There is probably no institution in the history of man more unjustly maligned than the Catholic Church-and no more powerful rhetorical device than the distortion of the facts regarding the Crusades, Inquisitions and the Protestant Reformation. Opponents of the Church demand to know, “How can the Catholic Church be the true Church when she tortured and killed Jews, Muslims and even other Christians in the Inquisition?” “How can a truly Christian Church be responsible for bloody religious wars, when Christ said, ‘Turn the other cheek’?” “How can this Church, with the blood of millions on her hands dare to condemn ‘a woman’s right to choose’?”

Myths and Misconceptions
In the fascinating new three CD series, Fire and Sword: Crusade, Inquisition, Reformation, Catholic convert and EWTN Radio personality Matt Arnold pits the common accusations about these historical events against the findings of modern scholarship and what he uncovers will amaze you! In this informative presentation, he reveals that those who have a stake in keeping the myths and misconceptions alive are actively obscuring the best scholarship from both religious and secular historians.

Fire and Sword begins with an introduction to many virtually unknown facts about the Middle Ages, and exposes the common misconceptions about the period. Through the works of many leading medieval scholars Matt demonstrates that, “If we judge the past by its fruits, we’ll soon discover that the Middle Ages weren’t so dark (and Catholics not so barbaric!) as so-called history suggests.”

Holy War
In the presentation on the Crusades, you’ll discover the true motives and methods of the Christian Crusaders and the nature of their struggle with Islam. Following the example of the best current scholarship, modern medievalists going directly to primary sources for their research. They’ve discovered that Protestant and secular bias has rejected out-of-hand, the well-documented motives of the Crusaders in favor of a projection of their own anti-Catholicism. Surprisingly, the supply of written records from the Middle Ages is both large and largely ignored. Even many Catholics will be surprised by what they contain!

Catholic Kryptonite
In Fire and Sword, Matt Arnold describes the Inquisition as “Catholic Kryptonite” because many times, just when a Catholic apologist begins to make headway on issues like the papacy or the Real Presence, the specter of the Inquisition is invoked to destroy his credibility. This series will offer you the crucial facts to put this topic in its rightful perspective and even show how the process of Catholic inquisition was often more just and lenient than other contemporary forms of justice.

Finally, CD three takes a revealing look at the dark side of the Protestant Reformation. Far from an indulgence in “comparative atrocities,” this presentation uncovers undeniable facts of history, often in the words of the reformers themselves, to expose the real motives behind the 16th century movement to abandon centuries of Christian Tradition.

Powerful Reminder
You’ll have your eyes opened to new perspectives and, perhaps most importantly, you’ll more readily understand why certain forces (even within the Catholic Church herself) are so fervently dedicated to keeping the old myths alive. Fire and Sword: Crusade, Inquisition, Reformation explodes the many myths surrounding these crucial episodes in Salvation History and will positively empower you to better defend the Church that Christ established.

Questions Answered:
What was the real motive behind the Crusades?
Did Catholic Inquisitors really kill millions of innocent people?
Why did the Reformation happen?
Was the medieval Church corrupt?
Are the Crusades responsible for modern Muslim resentment of the West?
Why should the Middle Ages rightly be called the “Age of Faith?”
What does modern scholarship say about the Crusades and Inquisitions?
Why did some reformers consider reason an enemy of faith?

Love,
Matthew

Ecclesiology, New Evangelization

Matthew Arnold: New Age Agnostic to Catholic Apologist

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Matthew Arnold is a convert to Catholicism, and one of the nation’s most talented Catholic apologists. Through his apostolate Pro Multis Media he promotes the teaching of the Faith through public speaking and communications media. Yet he was once an agnostic who dabbled in the New Age movement.

Arnold, born 1960, grew up in a nominally Christian family in Southern California. But, he joked, “About the most Bible reading I heard was by Linus on the Charlie Brown Christmas Special.”

After graduating high school, Arnold worked as a musician, playing bass in a Top-40s band. He developed an interest in performing magic tricks, and graduated from the Chavez School of Magic. He worked as a magician in Hollywood, performing at restaurants, children’s shows, and private parties. He combined his talents as a musician, magician, and comedian to do warm-up acts before live audiences gathered to watch the filming of television sitcoms.

Some fundamentalist friends had turned him off to Christianity, but, Arnold recalled, “I still had a ‘God-shaped’ hole inside of me that I tried to fill up with the rock n’ roll party lifestyle.”

Having no religious formation, Arnold became involved in the New Age, including astrology and tarot cards.  Through a friend he was introduced to “channeling,” which would ultimately lead him out of the New Age altogether.

A young woman he knew claimed to be channeling (that is, serving as the voice for) a group of spirits who said they wanted to speak to Arnold. He agreed, and the spirits mostly offered him advice on his career. They were usually re-assuring, but at times the channeler could be verbally abusive. She could also be difficult to wake up from her trance.

To this day, Arnold is uncertain whether the experience was legitimate or an elaborate hoax. He reflected, “The whole thing was rather bizarre, but I had no formation or standard by which to judge. So, I was ready to believe it.”

Arnold experienced some physical manifestations that suggested the spirits’ authenticity. For example, one time he was knocked off his feet by an unknown force. Another time, he was sleeping and awoke to experience the feeling that someone was sitting on his chest. He was alone, but he thought he saw a face looking at him. He said the Lord’s Prayer, turned on all the lights in the house, and waited for morning. He also found a Bible and began reading it.

His New Age friend called Arnold the next day and informed him that the spirits had sent him an invitation the previous evening to return to their channeling group. He responded, “Tell them I got the message, and no, I don’t want to come back.”

Arnold met and married his wife, Betty, who had also been involved in the entertainment industry in Hollywood. She was Catholic, and Arnold, a voracious reader, undertook a careful study of her Faith. He credits the prayers of his wife and the intercession of the Blessed Mother for his conversion, as well as the instruction of a local priest.

In 1996, during the Easter Vigil, Arnold entered the Church. He was still working in Hollywood, making good money, and enjoying a successful career. However, fired up with the zeal of a convert, he decided that because of widespread immorality in Hollywood, he had to quit.

His final night, he was doing the warm-up show for a taping of the hit sitcom Friends. The episode featured Courteney Cox and guest star Tom Selleck, playing girlfriend and boyfriend, in bed together. Arnold’s job was to get the studio audience revved up for the taping, but, he recalled, “I was being a cheerleader for mortal sin.”

He quit, and never looked back.

Arnold began working in Catholic apologetics, using his media talents to create and produce Catholic audio tapes and DVDs, and soon was hosting Catholic radio and television programs. In 2006, he formed Pro Multis Media. Recent projects have included producing an abridged audio version of The Soul of the Apostolate for Lighthouse Catholic Media and recording the official audio version of Pope Benedict’sJesus of Nazareth for Ignatius Press.

Arnold has a special devotion to, and has placed his apostolate under the protection of, Our Lady of Good Success, an apparition which occurred in Ecuador in 1594. Although the appearance occurred centuries ago, he believes Our Lady’s message relevant for today. “What struck me was that the Blessed Mother said the problems in the Church would reach a critical point after the mid-point of the 20th century,” Arnold said. “It was then that we had the upheaval of the 1960s—the sexual revolution, immoral fashions, vocations crisis, and decline of marriage.”

Love,
Matthew

Crusades, Ecclesiology, New Evangelization

The Glory of the Crusades

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I am a fan of Steve Weidenkopf.  I own and have on my iPhone his Epic:  A Journey Through Church History.  It is interesting, fascinating, and worthwhile.  He gives the best, and frankly only, explanation of the  Inquisition (The Holy Office) in a positive light and reasoning I have ever heard.  He is informed, factual, balanced.  Who could ask for anything more from any author on any topic, or even just citizen?

Keep in mind the Ottomans constantly threatened Europe, which is where we get the narrative of Vlad the Impaler, or Dracula, from, Happy Halloween!!!  And, the Moors occupied Spain for 700 years, 711 -1492 AD.  Servant of God Queen Isabella the Catholic, whose cause for beatification is pending, would not meet with Columbus to “give him her jewels” for his attempt at a voyage until the Moors had been driven from Spain once and for all in the Reconquista.

I have just ordered his latest work The Glory of the Crusades.  The ebook becomes available this month.  I found it interesting, informative, educational, and enlightening.

It does seem history repeats itself?  Regardless of the reason?  The USA had bombed seven Muslim countries recently.  “Eight and I get a free falafel!” -Stephen Colbert.  Our Lady, Queen of Peace, pray for us!

http://www.lighthousecatholicmedia.org/store/title/understanding-the-crusades

“We have returned to the Levant, we have returned apparently more as masters than ever we were during the struggle of the Crusades—but we have returned bankrupt in that spiritual wealth which was the glory of the Crusades.”
-Hilaire Belloc, The Crusades, 1937

“In our age the Crusades are described as barbaric, wasteful, shameful, and even sinful. Rarely are they called glorious. This is because the modern world embraces a false narrative about the Crusades. This false story, however much discredited by authentic modern scholarship, remains entrenched in the minds of the masses.

Yet it was not always so. During the Crusading movement these military events were mostly seen in a positive light throughout Christendom, with popes and saints exhorting Catholic warriors to engage in them. Warriors who participated in these armed pilgrimages did so for a multitude of reasons but primarily for the sake of their own salvation. The Crusades emerged from a feudal society that stressed personal relationships founded on honor, loyalty, and service to one’s vassal. Crusading knights invoked those virtues as they fought for Christ and the Church to recover ancient Christian territory stolen by Muslim conquerors.

The Crusades also emerged from an age in which faith permeated all aspects of society. This does not mean medieval Europe was heaven on earth or that Christendom was some idyllic utopia. But it was nonetheless an era in which people made radical life decisions because of their faith in Jesus Christ and his Church. Accordingly, the Crusading movement was a Catholic movement. Popes called for them, clerics (and saints) preached them, and Catholic warriors fought them for spiritual benefits. The Crusades cannot be properly understood apart from this Catholic reality.

Sadly, though, too many Catholics today seem more inclined to apologize for the Crusades rather than to embrace their glory.

Perhaps this is because the meaning of glory is not properly understood. The Old Testament can help provide us a proper understanding of glory. After Moses had led the Israelites out of Egypt, they sinned against God by worshipping the golden calf. God wanted to destroy the Israelites for their idolatry but Moses interceded for the people and the Lord relented. Moses’ special relationship with God included the gift of being in the presence of the Lord in the meeting tent where Moses spoke to God face to face. Moses pleaded with God for his presence to remain with the Israelites on their journey to the Promised Land so that the other nations would see their uniqueness.

Moses also begged the Lord to show him his glory (Ex. 33:18). The Hebrew word for “glory” used most often in the Old Testament is kabod, which means “heavy in weight.” To recognize the glory of something, therefore, means to acknowledge its importance or “weight.” Moses wanted the Lord’s glory to shine for the people in order that they would recognize the important act of their deliverance from bondage. To recognize the glory of the Crusades means not to whitewash what was ignoble about them, but to call due attention to their import in the life of the Church.

Perhaps by reclaiming the true Catholic narrative of the Crusades we may be emboldened to honor our Lord by proudly bearing the cross against modern enemies that threaten his Church no less than did the followers of Mohammed a millennium ago.”

Love, glory, & victory,
Matthew