Francis’ Bad Emanations Do Not Mean He Is an Antipope

In these confusing times, we have to educate ourselves on our Faith.  In these times, we have particularly to educate ourselves on the scope of the Pope’s powers and prerogatives, and the limits of his authority.  It is providential that Ryan Grant, an Idaho (!) Latinist, has been busying himself with the long-overdue task of translating the works of St. Robert Bellarmine into English.  On the Roman Pontiff is a must-read for all faithful Catholics who find themselves suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous pontiffs.  We are bound to suffer even more, and needlessly, if we are laboring under misconceptions about the limits on papal authority, when the Pope can legitimately bind Catholics, and when the Pope is and is not protected by the charism of infallibility.

Taylor Marshall interviews Christopher Ferrara about the meaning of the message of Fatima for our time.  The entire interview is fascinating.  If you struggle to reconcile the errors of Pope Francis with his authenticity as Pope, then pay attention, starting at 37:28.  Here Ferrara explains why the errors of Pope Francis do not trouble him about the Church’s indefectibility, even though the current Pope’s audacity exceeds anything we have ever seen before in the history of the Church.  He explains in particular how to cope with bad teaching from the Pope, and how to distinguish teachings that are truly magisterial from those that aren’t, even if they are labeled as such.

 The key point is that God is not mocked.  He is not fooled by false labels; nor does He require us to accept false labels, even when they are applied by the Pope and his minions.  On the contrary, we are bound to reject that which is false.  Therefore, God does not put us in a Catch-22 even when He allows us to be governed by a bad Pope who purports to change doctrine.

About Atheism

1. It takes a greater leap of faith to be an atheist than to believe in God.  It takes a greater leap of faith to be an atheist than to believe that, at Mass, a little white piece of unleavened bread becomes God in the hands of a sinful priest.  What you're saying, if you're an atheist, is that in the beginning, there was Nothing.  Nothing turned its non-existent self into Something.  Something magically evolved into stars, planets, galaxies, dinosaurs and men.  By pure chance, these things all continue in being and do not wink out of existence.  Also by pure chance, they are governed by the laws of physics.  You believe all this nut stuff, explicitly or implicitly, but you, who claim to be a disciple of Science and Reason, think I'm the loon.

2. There is no such thing as a principled atheist.  St. Paul blasts that notion out of the water in the first chapter of his Letter to the Romans.  Some people disbelieve in God because that's what they were taught.  These have not arrived at atheism by an exercise of reason, but are merely taking what they have been given.  They have a duty to investigate the truth of what they have been taught.  Some people reject the existence of God because of some trauma they have suffered.  These have not arrived at atheism by an exercise of reason, but based on emotion.  They need prayers.  Some people choose to disbelieve in God because they are attached to some vice they don't want to give up.  These have not arrived at atheism by an exercise of reason, but because they are enslaved to their passions.  They know that to acknowledge the existence of a Creator means acknowledging their duties toward Him, and His claims on them.  This would get in the way of doing whatever they want.  I suspect these are the majority.  

3. Atheists like to argue that religion is evil because of all the people who have allegedly been killed in the name of religion.  This argument is generally trotted out without specifying a religion, and without distinguishing between aggressors and defenders.  It is easily disposed of.  The number of people killed in the name of religion is dwarfed by the number of people murdered in the name of atheism since the French Revolution.  It was the great atheistic republics of the last two and a half centuries that gave us murder and destruction on an industrial scale.  Over the course of three and a half centuries, the Spanish Inquisition may have turned between 3,000 and 5,000 people over to the secular arm to be executed.  This figure is dwarfed by the millions upon hundreds of millions slain by the governments of revolutionary France, the Soviet Union, Red China, Nazi Germany, North Korea, Cambodia -- every one materialist, totalitarian and officially atheistic.

4. Which brings us to the inescapable conclusion that atheists are far more insistent on shoving atheism down everyone else's throats than believers -- at any rate, Christian believers -- are at pushing their creeds.  Islam has always been notorious for sword-point conversions.  Atheism, which has enlisted swords, guns, bombs, spies, snitches, prisons and insane asylums in its wars against throne and altar, can hardly claim to be gentler. 

5. In the words of Bing Crosby's Father O'Malley in Going My Way: you even throw like atheists.  

More on The Common Good

The common good entails respect for people's sensibilities.  I hasten to add, in our cock-eyed world: people's legitimate sensibilities.  Legitimate sensibilities are reasonable and grounded in nature and reality.  Sensibilities that are unreasonable, grounded in fantasy, and purport to require other people to give way before them at all costs, are not legitimate and should not be catered to.

Recall that the good of individuals is bound up in, and not swallowed up by, the common good.  The good of individuals involves consideration for their feelings, and for their attachments -- to family and friends, to places, to neighborhoods, to institutions, to culture, to manners, to creeds, to traditions.  The common good is not being served in any situation where callousness is institutionalized.  Where flesh-and-blood human beings are viewed as raw material to be "formed" and "molded" and experimented on according to some ideology, and can be uprooted and moved around and situated and employed according to the pleasure of governing elites -- and where there is no real emergency, like armed invasion, forcing a drastic change in priorities -- the common good is being trampled.  If you treat people's feelings as worthless, and their legitimate, natural attachments and aspirations as stupid and pointless, they begin to believe it, and to treat others accordingly.  Then we shouldn't be surprised when crassness and coarseness and even violence become widespread.

When people are objects to have things done to rather than for; when they are valued only to the extent they are "useful"; when their feelings and sensibilities are trivialized; then the common good is being violated.    

Authentic Goods

A partial list of authentic rights and what they entail: 

Freedom: the power to act deliberately on one's own responsibility; the basis for merit or lack of merit; inherent in the dignity of the human person.  It includes the freedom to act in accordance with one's conscience, rightly formed.  Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) at 1731 et seq.

Religious liberty: freedom from external constraint by political authorities in religious matters.  It does not mean the right to adhere to error.  CCC at 1747.

Private property: the legitimate acquisition of private property in order to guarantee freedom and dignity, and to secure the necessities of life for oneself and those in one's charge.  CCC at 2401 et seq.

Life: the right to life and physical integrity are inherent in human nature and human dignity.  It includes the right to the legitimate defense of persons and societies.  It does not exclude recourse to the death penalty.  CCC at 2258 et seq.

Economic initiative: everyone has the right to legitimately use his talents to contribute to the abundance that will benefit everyone, and to enjoy the fruits of his labor.  CCC at 2429.

Access to employment and professions: Work is a carrying on of creation and a carrying out of the stewardship of creation that God has committed to man; therefore it is a duty.  Unemployment is injurious to dignity and the stability of life.  CCC at 2401 et seq.

Just wages: fair remuneration for work, taking into account both the needs and the contributions of the wage earner.  A wage rate is not just merely because the parties agree to it.  CCC at 2434.

School choice: a fundamental right of parents as the first educators of their children to choose a school for them that corresponds to their own convictions.  CCC at 2229.

Choice of profession and state of life: persons should not be forced in this area.  CCC at 2230.

Expression of opinion in matters pertaining to the good of the Church: both to pastors and to other members of the faithful.  CCC at 907.

Right of a child to be naturally conceived: a child is not an entitlement or a piece of property, but a gift, and must be respected as a person from the moment of his conception.  CCC at 2378.

Right of a child to be born of parents known to him and united in marriage: makes artificial means of conception, sperm donation and surrogacy immoral.  CCC at 2373 et seq.

Spreading the Gospel: both a right and a duty of Christians.  CCC at 900.

Right of the Church to announce moral principles: to the extent required by the fundamental rights of the human person or the salvation of souls.  CCC at 2032.

Immigration: persons have a right to emigrate.  Nations have a right to make policy on immigration and defend their borders.  CCC at 2241.

Preservation of material and spiritual heritage: to nations that take them in, immigrants owe, in gratitude, a duty to respect their material and spiritual heritage.  CCC at 2241.

Good name: everyone has a natural right to his good name and to respect.  CCC at 2479.

In an age when we are so busy pursuing imaginary rights, it pays to remind ourselves of authentic rights, lest we cease to value these and fritter them away.

Note on the Common Good

The common good cannot be separated from the good of individuals in particular.  The good of individuals is a necessary element of the common good.  Persons who love humanity in general but have no use for particular human beings do not thereby advance the common good.  Subordinating flesh-and-blood human beings to ideology does not serve the common good.  Even when an individual interest must give way to the common good, the common good nevertheless does not steamroll and run roughshod over the interests of individuals.

So anytime you hear somebody advancing some position in the name of the "common good" which however does not take into account the good of individuals, or which advances only the interests of one set of individuals at the expense of, or in disregard of, those of others...then the common good is not really being advanced.

Open Borders: Not a Catholic Doctrine

St. Thomas Aquinas: smarter than the rest of us
put together.

The impression is being created and fostered that, in order to be a truly good and great country, we must, at all costs, take in all who want to come here, no questions asked.  Many bishops and clergy seem to be on board with that view.  For this, and for a whole host of other reasons, it would seem that the Summa Theologiae is no longer required reading in Catholic seminaries.  But despite being a dead white Western male, and a member of the oppressive Catholic hierarchy into the bargain, the Angelic Doctor does have one or two illuminating things to say that are pertinent to the question of open borders.

Before we get to Aquinas, a couple of observations are in order.  First of all, when the rubber meets the road, virtually nobody really believes in open borders.  How many people would like to dissolve the borders of their own real estate holdings?  How many allow all and sundry into their residences?  How many open-borders advocates go so far as to live in gated communities from which most even of their fellow Americans are excluded?  During the last days his administration, Barack Obama, a passionate unbeliever in borders for the rest of us, busied himself with building a big, brick wall around his post-presidential palace.  He also put an end to "wet foot, dry foot" for persons who manage to escape the workers' paradise of Cuba, proving that there are some categories of people that even he thinks we already have enough of in this country.

Secondly, the average person who supports restrictions on immigration is not an ogre who wants to turn our backs on persons in dire distress.  I for one support reinstatement of "wet foot, dry foot," and I deplored the forced repatriation, under Bill Clinton, of Elian Gonzales, whose mother died getting him to our shores.  I think persecuted Christians from Syria and Africa and Asia should be moved to the head of the refugee line.  I welcome persons who believe in what America stands for and want to come here to work hard and be a part of it, like my Italian great-grandparents at the turn of the last century.

But am I wrong?  Is it true that, in order to be a good Catholic, I must support a policy of flinging wide the doors of the country to let in all comers, regardless of who they are or where they came from, or what they believe, or whether they have a criminal history, or contagious diseases, or are violently mentally ill, and to grant them all the privileges and prerogatives of citizenship?

The Catechism of the Catholic Church at paragraph 2241 says (emphases added):

The more prosperous nations are obliged, to the extent they are able, to welcome the foreigner in search of the security and the means of livelihood which he cannot find in his country of origin. Public authorities should see to it that the natural right is respected that places a guest under the protection of those who receive him.

Political authorities, for the sake of the common good for which they are responsible, may make the exercise of the right to immigrate subject to various juridical conditions, especially with regard to the immigrants' duties toward their country of adoption. Immigrants are obliged to respect with gratitude the material and spiritual heritage of the country that receives them, to obey its laws and to assist in carrying civic burdens.  

Clearly, (1) the obligation to take in immigrants is not absolute, but must be balanced against the common good, and (2) immigrants owe duties toward their country of adoption.

Let's look at the Summa Theologiae, First Part of the Second Part, Question 105, Article 3 (ST I-II. Q.105 A.3).  Question 105 explains the judicial precepts of the Old Law.  As you read through Question 105, it becomes clear that the preservation of a nation is a good, and the Law was designed in part to effect that good.  In his Reply to Objection 3 in Article 2, Aquinas says, "...the regulation of possessions conduces much to the preservation of a state or nation," and explains that the reason for the law against permanently alienating real property "was to prevent confusion of possessions, and to ensure the continuance of a definite distinction among the tribes."  Article 3 of Question 105 explains the laws pertaining to foreigners.  Aquinas begins by noting that there are two kinds of relations with foreigners: peaceful and hostile, and the Law provided suitably for both kinds.  Then he lists the three opportunities Israel had to carry on peaceful relations with foreigners: when they traveled through the land; when they came to settle as newcomers; and when they wished to join their full fellowship and mode of worship.  In the first two cases, the Law commanded that they not be molested.  Be it noted that you will nowhere find Aquinas suggesting that this precept applied to troublemakers and disturbers of the peace.

In the third case, Aquinas observes, there was a certain order:

For they were not at once admitted to citizenship: just as it was law with some nations that no one was deemed a citizen except after two or three generations, as the Philosopher [Aristotle] says (Polit. iii, 1). The reason for this was that if foreigners were allowed to meddle with the affairs of a nation as soon as they settled down in its midst, many dangers might occur, since the foreigners not yet having the common good firmly at heart might attempt something hurtful to the people. Hence it was that the Law prescribed in respect of certain nations that had close relations with the Jews (viz., the Egyptians among whom they were born and educated, and the Idumeans, the children of Esau, Jacob's brother), that they should be admitted to the fellowship of the people after the third generation; whereas others (with whom their relations had been hostile, such as the Ammonites and Moabites) were never to be admitted to citizenship; while the Amalekites, who were yet more hostile to them, and had no fellowship of kindred with them, were to be held as foes in perpetuity: for it is written (Exodus 17:16): "The war of the Lord shall be against Amalec from generation to generation."  [Emphasis added.]

So peaceful foreigners are not to be molested.  Nor, as Aquinas emphasizes, are men of any nation excluded from the worship of God and the things that pertain to the good of the soul.  The question is to what extent are they admitted into a nation's civil affairs.  Answer: not until they have the common good firmly at heart.  Foreigners, then, especially newly-arrived ones, are not deeply rooted enough in their adoptive country to become involved in its affairs; thus, as Aquinas notes in Article 1 of Question 105, the Law forbade the Israelites to choose a foreigner to be king, "because such kings are wont to take little interest in the people they are set over, and consequently to have no care for their welfare...."

And foreigners have no right to cause injury to their adoptive country or its people, any more than any one else has.  Under the old Law, some nations were to be excluded entirely from citizenship, on account of their hostility.  Aquinas:

But in temporal matters concerning the public life of the people, admission was not granted to everyone at once, for the reason given above: but to some, i.e. the Egyptians and Idumeans, in the third generation; while others were excluded in perpetuity, in detestation of their past offense, i.e. the peoples of Moab, Ammon, and Amalec. For just as one man is punished for a sin committed by him, in order that others seeing this may be deterred and refrain from sinning; so too may one nation or city be punished for a crime, that others may refrain from similar crimes.

From the talk these days about immigration, one gets the impression that the rights are supposed to all be on the immigrant side of the ledger, and the obligations all on the nation side.  But the Catholic Church teaches otherwise.  Nations have rights as well as obligations, and immigrants have obligations as well as rights, and these must all be rightly ordered for the sake of the common good.  A nation has the right to self-preservation, and to grant citizenship only to those who have the common good firmly to heart.  Gratitude imposes on immigrants the obligation to respect the law and the culture of their adoptive country.  If they don't, the state has the duty not to tolerate disorders for the sake of the people's welfare.

Those of us who want strong borders believe that our distinctive American culture (as distinguished from foul, rotten pop culture), founded on Judeo-Christian beliefs, is worth preserving.  We want our lives and our property to be protected from people who mean us harm.  We want to preserve the value of citizenship, and to not have its benefits diluted by conferring them on persons who are not entitled to possess them.  We want to help people in need, to the extent possible, but we want them to be willing to fulfill the duties of immigrants to their adoptive country.

None of which is contrary to the Christian faith, as the Catechism and St. Thomas Aquinas seem to indicate.

REPOST: Potuit, Decuit, ergo Fecit: Why the Immaculate Conception Must Be True

I will shew thee all good, and I will proclaim in the name of the Lord before thee: and I will have mercy on whom I will, and I will be merciful to whom it shall please me.  

Exodus 33:19

Once in a while, a comment comes along that deserves a post-length response.  Here, from a self-professed ex-Catholic turned non-denominational, is one that just came in on my post about the appalling song "Mary, Did You Know?":

Mary had to have sinned. She called Jesus "my Savior" and what is Jesus the Savior for? Sinners. She had sinned. And there is no biblical evidence for her having no sin.

Sigh.

Those of you with a kick against the Immaculate Conception always want to set limitations on God.  You generally have no problem acknowledging in theory that God is infinitely good, infinitely holy, infinitely perfect, infinitely merciful and infinitely powerful; but in practice, what you really want is a sort of bite-sized God, One that we can wrap our woefully inadequate brains around and Who does not confound our puny capabilities.  So when God actually goes and does something that only an infinitely good, holy, perfect, merciful and powerful Being could do, you protest.  The fact, however, is that God can do whatever He wants; and whatever is fitting, we may be sure that He will do.

God can do the impossible more rapidly and easily than we can blink our eyes or draw a breath.  It was perfectly within His power to preserve Mary free from the taint of sin from the instant of her conception.  This singular privilege of His grace was purchased for her by the limitless merits of Christ's suffering and death on the Cross.  God, not bound by the constraints of time or space, was perfectly capable of applying these merits beforehand and granting this privilege in advance of the Crucifixion.  Thus God really was Mary's Savior, and did not need her to sin in order to be her Savior: His intervention to prevent her from receiving the taint of sin that she would otherwise have contracted as a descendant of Adam was also a salvific act.  Have you never been prevented from committing sins -- by being deprived of means or opportunity, or because you have never experienced the temptation to commit particular sins?  These are also interventions of God's grace.  So you should know from experience that God saves us, not only by forgiving sins we have actually committed, but also by preventing us from committing sins we would otherwise have committed, perhaps to our eternal ruin.   Why, then, should it be so hard to accept that God, out of the abyss of His goodness and mercy, could exercise His infinite power to prevent the Mother of His Son from being tainted by the least stain of iniquity from the very instant she began to exist?

It is altogether fitting that God should preserve Mary inviolate and immaculate from the first instant of her life.  God always gives us the grace we need to do the work He gives us: the greater the work, the greater the grace given to carry it out.  Was ever a more important mission given to a mere human being than that entrusted to Mary?  It was her task to supply the matter out of which the all-holy Son of God would take flesh, to bear Him in her womb, to nurse Him and to rear Him to manhood, and to share in her soul in the agonies of His Passion.  This touches on a point raised by my correspondent in a follow-up comment:

Jesus was the perfect sacrifice for dying for our sins because He was without blemish. If Mary had no blemish either, that would pretty much validate her for crucifixion too. Which would make Jesus less important.

Here my correspondent, though off the rails in the implications for the importance of Jesus, hits on an important truth.  Mary did in fact suffer with her divine Son, more than any other human being could have.  The saints (e.g., St. Alphonsus Liguori) are of the opinion that her sufferings were greater than that of all other men who have ever lived or will ever live put together, and that only a miracle kept her from dying of grief.  This is why Catholics honor her under the titles of Mother of Sorrows and Queen of Martyrs: only her Son's sufferings exceeded hers.  When she presented her Son in the Temple, holy Simeon prophesied that a sword would pierce her soul, that out of many hearts, thoughts may be revealed (Luke 2:35).  It makes sense that she should bear so great a share in her Son's Passion: not only was she his loving mother; she was also fully aware that He was God, and therefore of the horrible outrage that He should be murdered by His own creatures.  Moreover, would it have been possible for her to suffer entirely for his sake and not at all for her own if she herself had had a share in the sins that caused Him to be nailed to the Cross?  Still, this share of hers in Christ's suffering does not in any way diminish Him.  Jesus was the perfect Sacrifice not only because He was without blemish, but because He was God.  Mankind had outraged the infinite God, and therefore it would take infinite merits to repair the outrage; these could only be offered by the Son of God. 

If you do not accept the Immaculate Conception, then I am bound to ask you why you would want the Mother of God to have been a sinner.  Is this not tantamount to wanting an unworthy vessel for the Incarnate God?   Does it make sense for the woman entrusted with bearing and caring for and suffering alongside the Son of God to have spent even a single instant under the dominion of hell?  No: especially when you consider that the Woman of Genesis 3:15, between whom and the serpent God put enmity is none other than the Mother of God, and her Seed is none other than Jesus Christ:

I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel.

Here is scriptural proof of the Immaculate Conception.  If God creates perfect and implacable enmity between the Woman and the serpent -- and surely it is unthinkable that if God creates enmity between the Mother of God and evil, this enmity will be imperfect and half-hearted -- then it follows that she could never be under the serpent's sway, or in allegiance with him, as she must be if she had sinned.  Thus it was fitting for God to preserve her without sin from the very beginning.

Since it was perfectly possible for God to preserve Mary free from sin from the moment of her conception, and it was fitting that He should do so, it follows that He in fact did do so.  It would be a gross omission on God's part, and incompatible with His infinite perfection, if He should leave undone that which was fitting.  Therefore, we may safely take it that He did not leave it undone.  

Potuit, decuit, ergo fecit! He could; it was fitting; therefore, He did it!

H/T Canterbury Tales. 

The Evil of "Inculturation"

At the heart of modernism is the reduction of Christianity to an abstraction.  To say that Christianity is an abstraction is as much as to say it can be anything to anybody, which is as much as to say that it is not real.  The whole point of purging churches of statues and images, butchering the liturgical calendar, and discarding devotions was precisely to further this idea of Christianity as an abstraction divorced from reality and inaccessible to our senses.

But in the Incarnation, God entered history in the flesh and made Himself accessible to our senses.  Luke's Gospel carefully spells out for us the time and place when this happened, and under which temporal rulers, and in what cultural context -- precisely so that we understand and take to heart the fact that Salvation occupied actual moments in the history of the world.  True, the artists of different nations have always felt free to portray Jesus and His mother with various ethnic features and in various costumes; but it is another matter entirely to try to shape the Christian faith itself according to the molds of cultural idiosyncrasies.

And that is where "inculturation" becomes an evil, in the service of the heresy of Christianity as a mere "idea."  Fr. John Hunwicke puts it best in his musings on the intimate connection between the Christian faith and the realities of life in the Mediterranean basin (emphases in original):

But more insidious still is the idea that the principle of inculturation could be applied to the elements used in the Christian sacraments. I have known suggestions that to use bread made from something other than wheat, alcohol produced not from grapes, and the oil of vegetables other than olives, would 'affirm' cultures which do not find their origins in the Mediterranean basin. This seems to be based on the notion that Christianity is an idea; and ideas can, in different cultures, be garbed in different clothes. That is what is the basic heresy. Because Christianity is not an idea. It is a person, a God who took flesh - a particular flesh - from a particular Girl in a particular country in a particular culture, and in that flesh died on a Cross made from a particular Tree after he had, on a particular evening, given himself to his friends under the outer appearances of a loaf and a cupful of wine. This particularity and this materiality, this rootedness, is Christianity. That is why the Gnostics were not Christians, and why Matthew Fox is not a Christian. And the Matter of the Sacraments is rooted in the particularity of that Incarnation and its culture.

Without the Corn, the Wine, and the Oil, nulla salus.

Indeed.

Convalescent Cogitations (UPDATED)

Sts. Cosmas and Damian: physicians and martyrs.

Going to the hospital for, if not a life-threatening, at least a life-inconveniencing procedure under general anesthesia causes one to pause and meditate upon one's vulnerability and mortality.  In the weeks leading up to this morning's surgery I mostly went about my daily business; but now, while I rest and metabolize the various sedatives out of my system, I have little to do except ponder Great Issues.  I probably should also make room in my cogitations to consider the wisdom of publishing their fruits while still in a condition that would make it illegal for me to drive; maybe I will hold off on clicking that button until tomorrow.  On the other hand, maybe today is the day to announce the happy news that I came through the surgery very well, with very little pain, and the doctor said everything looked good.  I should have lab results on the biopsy in a week.  UPDATE: Biopsy results were normal.

-- I have to first express my gratitude to my aunt, Margie Blake, who got up at an ungodly hour to drive out all the way from a neighboring county and get me to the hospital at 5:30 a.m.; stayed with me until I went into surgery; stayed at the hospital all morning until I was ready to go home; talked to the doctor for me after the surgery; and provided me with a very delicious potato soup and Jello.  Her response to being so sorely put out by me?  Happiness at being able to do it.

-- I have to also express my gratitude to the doctors and nurses and orderlies at St. Luke's Hospital in Boise for the extraordinary care they took to be kind and gentle, see to my physical comfort, avoid inflicting unnecessary pain and assuage my anxieties.  These were people who get up extremely early in the morning, work long hours, perform strenuous and sometimes stomach-churning duties, ford innumerable streams of government red tape, and treat difficult and demanding people with kindness and compassion on a daily basis.  I, who roll out of bed at the latest possible minute I can get away with and still make it to work, and then spend my days being difficult and demanding, don't know how they do it.

--  One point that forced itself upon me with great clarity this morning was the necessity of preparing spiritually in advance for that supreme moment when one is about to leave this life.  The only real way to do this is to get into the habit of praying -- in particular, praying for protection from a sudden and unprovided death -- and frequenting the Sacraments.  It is rash and foolhardy to count on being able to slide into heaven at the last minute after a lifetime of neglecting the things of God.  After all, even if you don't die suddenly, you may nevertheless be in excruciating pain at the end, or you may not have all your marbles, or you may suddenly lose consciousness.  (I tried but failed to be aware of the moment when I would lose consciousness in the operating room: I was waking up in recovery before I knew I had gone to sleep.)  But even if you have the capacity for quiet concentration, a hospital is too full of distractions and interruptions for it.  Make your preparations and intentions and resolutions for that time now, while you are still capable, and keep renewing them.

-- I did not seek the Sacrament of Anointing of the Sick, or Extreme Unction, before my surgery.  This was because Extreme Unction is for persons who have begun to be in danger of death through bodily infirmity and not an anticipated cause from without.  All the evidence up to now indicates that, apart from certain symptoms, I am otherwise quite healthy, so that to the extent, if any, that I was in danger of death, it was from an external source and not from one internal to myself.  However, there are other ways to prepare for situations like this: going to confession and receiving Holy Communion ahead of time; getting in the daily Rosary before going in (even if you can't quite finish it); wearing the brown scapular (though the doctors will make you wear it someplace other than around your neck); arranging in advance to have a priest contacted in the event something goes wrong.  If -- which God forbid -- my biopsy turns up something potentially life-threatening, then I will seek Extreme Unction in the hell-whipping traditional form.

-- You never want to eat a thick, juicy steak so much as on Ash Wednesday or Good Friday, and you never want to go out and run errands so much as when you're not supposed to drive.  I also would really like to take a shower tonight but can't.

-- I hope the Swedish chemist Nils Löfgren made it straight into heaven without stopping in purgatory for inventing Lidocaine.

-- One downside to the Internet is that the ready accessibility of limitless information makes people think they can be experts without the expense and arduous labor of going to school and gaining experience.  Doctors and nurses must get really tired of having constantly and daily to burst people's Internet research bubbles.

-- I told myself to pick up some dark chocolate with almonds when I went to the store last night.  Should have listened.

God Does Not Mess with Our Heads

Fracassini, Execution of the Martyrs of Gorkum.

Today I found myself reflecting on Protestantism, and it occurred to me that among its fundamental flaws is that it is okay with the idea of a God Who messes with our heads.  This is because Protestants hold that Christ established an invisible church of true believers, rather than a visible Church of true teachers.  In other words, God leaves us to figure out for ourselves what we need to do to save our souls.  

The idea that God allows us to puzzle out our own path to salvation gives us way too much credit for brains, and God no credit at all for being a loving Father.  What loving human parent allows a child to figure out for himself whether to stick his hand in a pot of boiling water, or light matches, or run out into traffic?  What loving parent fails to pass on to the child wisdom and knowledge that the child cannot learn without being told?  So God sets up visible authority figures for the child in the person of his mother and father in order to teach him the things he will need to know in order to survive in the world -- and also in order to give him a reason to believe what he has been taught without having to find it out through tragic experience.  If God does this in order to secure our temporal good, why would He not, to secure our eternal good, set up a true Church of visible teachers with authority to teach in His Name?  After all, the avoidance of hell and attainment of heaven is the paramount business of our lives.  Nothing else equals it in importance.  It is why we were created.  Failure to achieve our supreme objective is catastrophic and irreversible.  And, if we are honest with ourselves, we have to admit that there is a reason Holy Scripture constantly compares mortal man to sheep.  We are not very bright.

So why would anybody even want private judgment to be a true doctrine?  Clearly, the purpose of private judgment is to allow us to rationalize doing whatever we want.  It provides us with a built-in scorn for, or at least suspicion of, authority -- especially the authority of the Successor of Peter -- that permits us to doubt and ultimately disregard any authoritative teaching that goes against our perverse inclinations.  It blinds us to the truth by allowing us to replace reality with our own fantasies and stamping them with the imprimatur of the Holy Spirit.  It gives us a basis to conclude that, after all, breaking our marriage or religious vows or neglecting our kids or accumulating an Everest of possessions or furthering the cause of socialism or apostatizing from the Catholic faith may indeed be our own personal path to salvation.  In the end, private judgment must lead to a forgetfulness of salvation at all, in favor of idolizing the transitory happiness of this life.  Private judgment is ultimately rooted in pride.  This has to be why the confidence of its adherents is not shaken by the proliferation of contradictory and mutually exclusive judgments, each of which is held by someone claiming to have been inspired by God.

But God does not inspire chaos.  He does not leave us without guidance in the pursuit of our most vital interests.  He does not deprive us of light in our search for Truth.  He does not make the most vital truths obscure and indiscernible.  God does not mess with our heads.

The Immaculate Conception

Yesterday was the 73d anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor; today, the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, is the 73d anniversary of our declaration of war on Japan.  Mary under the title of the Immaculate Conception is the patroness of these United States.  Have you ever thought about whether there is any significance in the fact that we entered the Second World War on our patronal feast?

This year it seems good to link to a couple of apologetics posts on the subject of the Immaculate Conception:

Mary, Conceived without Sin, You DID Know: why a certain popular song about Mary must never be sung in a Catholic Church

Potuit, Decuit, ergo Fecit: Why the Immaculate Conception Must Be True: a response to a self-professed apostate

Holy Saturday: The Harrowing of Hell

I will deliver them out of the hand of death. I will redeem them from death: O death, I will be thy death; O hell, I will be thy bite... 

Osee (Hosea) 13:14 (Douay-Rheims translation)

Because Christ also died once for our sins, the just for the unjust: that He might offer us to God, being put to death indeed in the flesh, but enlivened in the spirit, in which also coming He preached to those spirits that were in prison: which had been some time incredulous, when they waited for the patience of God in the days of Noe, when the ark was a building: wherein a few, that is, eight souls, were saved by water. 

1 Peter 3:18-20 (Douay-Rheims translation)

...He suffered, died and was buried.  He descended into hell...

From the Apostles' Creed

In this age of modernist obfuscation and general graying out of vivid supernatural reality, the Harrowing of Hell is probably the most ignored of the creedal doctrines.  Yet as Catholics, we are bound to believe that sin shut the gates of heaven against the souls of men; that it was only Christ's Passion and Death on the Cross that opened heaven; that until then, the souls of the Just were imprisoned; and that, after His death, Christ liberated these souls.  Perhaps one reason we do not devote more time to considering this stupendous event is because it has been obscured by the modern obsession with avoiding any and all mention of Hell: its edge has been blunted by the milquetoast English rendition of the event as "He descended to the dead."  This bland, pedestrian translation fails to confront us with the startling fact of Christ in Hell; we are not inspired to inquire further into its meaning.  It seems obvious that while His Body lies in the tomb, the Son of God is among the dead, having died on the Cross; but how can He, pure and sinless, be in Hell, and why?

First of all, what is the Hell to which Christ descends?  We think primarily of the Hell of the damned, from which there is no escape, and from whose punishments there is no reprieve.  Before the coming of Christ, sin barred the gates of heaven to men.  The souls of the Just could not get into heaven until after Jesus had sacrificed Himself to pay the penalty for our sins.  As St. Thomas Aquinas says in the Summa Thelogica:

[T]hrough Christ's Passion the human race was delivered not only from sin, but also from the debt of its penalty.... Now men were held fast by the debt of punishment in two ways: first of all for actual sin which each had committed personally: secondly, for the sin of the whole human race, which each one in his origin contracts from our first parent, as stated in Romans 5 of which sin the penalty is the death of the body as well as exclusion from glory, as is evident from Genesis 2 and 3: because God cast out man from paradise after sin, having beforehand threatened him with death should he sin.

So what happened to all the good people who lived before Jesus' time, and died without ever having the opportunity to believe in Him or receive the Sacraments?  They dwelt in a place of waiting -- variously called, among other things, the Bosom of Abraham, or the Limbo of the Fathers, or the Limbo of Hell.  There they did not suffer the torments of the damned, but they did suffer privation.  Aquinas elucidates:

After death men's souls cannot find rest save by the merit of faith, because "he that cometh to God must believe" (Hebrews 11:6). Now the first example of faith was given to men in the person of Abraham, who was the first to sever himself from the body of unbelievers, and to receive a special sign of faith: for which reason "the place of rest given to men after death is called Abraham's bosom," as Augustine declares (Gen. ad lit. xii). But the souls of the saints have not at all times had the same rest after death; because, since Christ's coming they have had complete rest through enjoying the vision of God, whereas before Christ's coming they had rest through being exempt from punishment, but their desire was not set at rest by their attaining their end. Consequently the state of the saints before Christ's coming may be considered both as regards the rest it afforded, and thus it is called Abraham's bosom, and as regards its lack of rest, and thus it is called the limbo of hell. 

Aquinas goes on to explain that the Limbo of the Fathers is not qualitatively the same as the Hell of the damned, because the damned suffer eternal torment without hope of reprieve, whereas the Just before the coming of Christ suffered no sensible torments and had hope for a release from imprisonment.  On the other hand, situationally, the Limbo of the Fathers was probably the same as the Hell of the damned:  

For those who are in hell receive diverse punishments according to the diversity of their guilt, so that those who are condemned are consigned to darker and deeper parts of hell according as they have been guilty of graver sins, and consequently the holy Fathers in whom there was the least amount of sin were consigned to a higher and less darksome part than all those who were condemned to punishment.

So, as Aquinas says, 

Directly Christ died His soul went down into hell, and bestowed the fruits of His Passion on the saints detained there; although they did not go out as long as Christ remained in hell, because His presence was part of the fullness of their glory.

We come to the reasons for the Harrowing of Hell, which we have already begun to touch on.  The Angelic Doctor gives three reasons why it was fitting for Christ to descend into Hell.  Firstly, to bear the penalty for sin -- namely, death of the body and descent into Hell -- in order to free us from penalty (though we are not yet delivered from the penalty of bodily death).  Secondly, to force Hell to disgorge its righteous captives.  And thirdly, to show forth His power and glory even in the domain of the devils.

This last point is worth lingering over.  Because the wills of the damned are confirmed in evil at the moment of their deaths -- just as the wills of the righteous are confirmed in goodness and charity at the moment of their deaths -- Christ did not rescue any of the damned from Hell.  In His essence, He visited only the Limbo of the Fathers; but the effects of His power reached every part of Hell.  Aquinas:

A thing is said to be in a place in two ways. First of all, through its effect, and in this way Christ descended into each of the hells, but in different manner. For going down into the hell of the lost He wrought this effect, that by descending thither He put them to shame for their unbelief and wickedness: but to them who were detained in Purgatory He gave hope of attaining to glory: while upon the holy Fathers detained in hell solely on account of original sin, He shed the light of glory everlasting.

In another way a thing is said to be in a place through its essence: and in this way Christ's soul descended only into that part of hell wherein the just were detained. so that He visited them "in place," according to His soul, whom He visited "interiorly by grace," according to His Godhead. Accordingly, while remaining in one part of hell, He wrought this effect in a measure in every part of hell, just as while suffering in one part of the earth He delivered the whole world by His Passion.

He puts it briefly in another place thus:

When Christ descended into hell, all who were in any part of hell were visited in some respect: some to their consolation and deliverance, others, namely, the lost, to their shame and confusion.

With Christ's visitation, the spoliation of Hell was complete.  A final extract from the Angelical that is worth many hours of meditation (emphasis added): 

When Christ descended into hell He delivered the saints who were there, not by leading them out at once from the confines of hell, but by enlightening them with the light of glory in hell itself.

Think of it.  Hell is the privation of God and His glory.  For the imprisoned elect who found themselves in the presence of the living God and beheld the light of His glory, Hell, in that moment, ceased to be Hell.  Hell was overthrown.  No wonder it is written in Philippians 2:10-11 "That in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those that are in heaven, on earth, and under the earth: And that every tongue should confess that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father."

Today at Matins (Office of Readings) according to the revised Breviary, we read the following ancient, anonymous Holy Saturday sermon:

Something strange is happening - there is a great silence on earth today, a great silence and stillness. The whole earth keeps silence because the King is asleep. The earth trembled and is still because God has fallen asleep in the flesh and He has raised up all who have slept ever since the world began. God has died in the flesh and hell trembles with fear.

He has gone to search for our first parent, as for a lost sheep. Greatly desiring to visit those who live in darkness and in the shadow of death, He has gone to free from sorrow the captives Adam and Eve, He who is both God and the Son of Eve. The Lord approached them bearing the Cross, the weapon that had won Him the victory. At the sight of Him Adam, the first man he had created, struck his breast in terror and cried out to everyone: “My Lord be with you all.” Christ answered him: “And with your spirit.” He took him by the hand and raised him up, saying: “Awake, O sleeper, and rise from the dead, and Christ will give you light.”

I am your God, who for your sake have become your Son. Out of love for you and for your descendants I now by My own authority command all who are held in bondage to come forth, all who are in darkness to be enlightened, all who are sleeping to arise. I order you, O sleeper, to awake. I did not create you to be held a prisoner in hell. Rise from the dead, for I am the life of the dead. Rise up, work of My hands, you who were created in My image. Rise, let us leave this place, for you are in Me and I am in you; together we form only one person and we cannot be separated.

For your sake I, your God, became your Son; I, the Lord, took the form of a slave; I, whose home is above the heavens, descended to the earth and beneath the earth. For your sake, for the sake of man, I became like a man without help, free among the dead. For the sake of you, who left a garden, I was betrayed to the Jews in a garden, and I was crucified in a garden. See on My Face the spittle I received in order to restore to you the life I once breathed into you. See there the marks of the blows I received in order to refashion your warped nature in My image. On My back see the marks of the scourging I endured to remove the burden of sin that weighs upon your back. See My hands, nailed firmly to a tree, for you who once wickedly stretched out your hand to a tree. I slept on the Cross and a sword pierced My side for you who slept in paradise and brought forth Eve from your side. My side has healed the pain in yours. My sleep will rouse you from your sleep in hell. The sword that pierced Me has sheathed the sword that was turned against you.

Rise, let us leave this place. The enemy led you out of the earthly paradise. I will not restore you to that paradise, but I will enthrone you in heaven. I forbade you the tree that was only a symbol of life, but see, I who am life itself am now one with you. I appointed cherubim to guard you as slaves are guarded, but now I make them worship you as God. The throne formed by cherubim awaits you, its bearers swift and eager. The bridal chamber is adorned, the banquet is ready, the eternal dwelling places are prepared, the treasure houses of all good things lie open. The kingdom of heaven has been prepared for you from all eternity.

The Saints in Art

Today I happened upon a rather striking image of the Presentation by Bl. Fra Angelico, the great artist of the Order of Preachers:

Fra Angelico frequently includes Dominican saints in his scenes from Scripture and Tradition.  At first glance, I assumed the kneeling friar was St. Dominic.  But upon closer inspection, it is clearly not St. Dominic.

St. Dominic is usually pictured with a star over his head.  There is no star over the head of this friar.  But look closely at his scalp.  His skull is split.

This is St. Peter Martyr, also known as St. Peter of Verona.  Born in 1205 in Verona, Peter was received into the Order of Preachers at age 16 by St. Dominic himself.  He was a great preacher, mystic and miracle worker, and was appointed Inquisitor for northern Italy by Pope Gregory IX.  Among other miracles, Peter predicted his own martyrdom, which took place near Milan, Italy on April 6, 1252.  Cathar assassins waylaid him on the road, striking his head with an axe and stabbing him.  Before he died, he traced in the dust, with his own blood, the first line of the Creed: Credo in unum Deum.  At the sight of Peter's saintly death, one of his murderers, named Carino, was converted and later himself took the habit of St. Dominic.  

Just as the resurrected Christ is always shown with the pierced hands and feet of His Crucifixion, martyrs are also frequently depicted in art bearing their mortal wounds, or with the weapons that dealt them their death blow.  St. Paul, for instance, usually carries the sword that cut his head off; St. John Houghton, one of the Carthusians hanged, drawn and quartered under Henry VIII, is shown with a noose; St. Maximilian Kolbe is shown wearing his prisoner's uniform from Auschwitz.  This is not only so that their images may be recognized and identified.  It is also because these symbols of their martyrdom, which seem gruesome and squalid from the world's point of view, are really trophies of victory.  They were borne out of love, and are therefore these saints' glory in heaven.

Here is St. Peter Martyr and his split skull again, in this scene of the Madonna and Child, also by Fra Angelico.  

Here we have Sts. Cosmas and Damien, St. Mark, St. John, and St. Lawrence, who carries the grill on which he was roasted alive.  The three Dominican saints are recognizable by their distinctive emblems.  A star shines over the head of St. Dominic.  St. Thomas Aquinas, who, in his humility, tries to hide behind St. John and St. Lawrence, can nevertheless be recognized by the sun shining from his breast.  And St. Peter Martyr bears the ghastly axe wound that sent him into eternal life.  Notice, too, that the halo surrounding the head of the Christ Child contains the cross, while His Mother is crowned with twelve stars, like the woman clothed with the sun in the Apocalypse (Book of Revelation) of St. John.

Really good Christian art inspires, edifies, uplifts, and is rich in food for meditation.  

The Immaculate Conception

According to the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, Mary, the Mother of God, was free from the instant of her conception from the taint of original sin on account of the merits of Jesus Christ, Who was to suffer and die on the cross.  Bl. Pius IX defined this dogma in 1854, citing Scripture and Tradition.  Four years later, the Blessed Virgin appeared to St. Bernadette Soubirous at Lourdes and identified herself as the Immaculate Conception -- a term the uneducated country girl did not understand.  The Mother of God had never before so identified herself: Queen of Heaven though she is, she waited until her Son's Vicar on earth stamped that title with his authority.

I look back on the blog and find a fair number of posts about the Immaculate Conception.  Here are the choicest:

Excerpts from Ineffabilis Deus, in which Bl. Pius IX defines the dogma of the Immaculate Conception.

Mary's assigned role in the work of our redemption required the unparalleled grace of the Immaculate Conception.

The popular song "Mary, Did You Know" should be rejected by Catholics as a flat denial of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception.

Potuit, decuit, ergo fecit: those who reject the Immaculate Conception are hopelessly mistaken about God Himself.

The beauty of Mary in the wonder of her Immaculate Conception.

Queen conceived without original sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.

December 5, 1933: A Toast to a Well-Deserved Failure

Prohibition is an awful flop.

We like it.

It can't stop what it's meant to stop.

We like it.

It's left a trail of graft and slime,

It's filled our land with vice and crime,

It don't prohibit worth a dime.

Nevertheless, we're for it.

Franklin P. Adams

It has just been brought to my attention that it was 80 years ago today that the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution -- Prohibition -- was repealed.  Now it isn't every day that an injustice gets remedied in our corrupt world, so when one is, that is a moment to celebrate and commemorate.

Yes, Prohibition was an injustice.  It was an unjust burden on individual liberty to outlaw drinking for all, even in moderation, because of the relative few who abused drink.  Deliberate drunkenness is a serious sin, because it deprives us of our capacity to reason; but there is nothing, however legitimate, that can't be abused.  Liberty itself can be abused, and is, every minute of every day; but that would not justify locking everybody up on the off-chance.  Besides, despite the religious justifications advanced for Prohibition, the absolute prohibition of alcohol is contrary to Scripture.  Our Lord Himself turned water into wine at the wedding at Cana: not grape juice, but actual wine, with alcohol and everything.  (Question: at the time of Christ, was there such a thing as non-fermenting grape juice?)  He also drank wine Himself -- for which the Pharisees criticized him (Matthew 11:19).  And St. Paul advises his brother bishop, Timothy, to take wine for his health (1 Timothy 5:23).  

Prohibition was an outstanding example of America's curious ideas about morality.  In his essay "On American Morals," G.K. Chesterton reflects on an article by an American writer calling for the abolition of what she called "righteousness," on the grounds that "righteousness" was incompatible with reality.  He sums up the American attitude:

The standard of abstract right and wrong apparently is this. That a girl by smoking a cigarette makes herself one of the company of the fiends of hell. That such an action is much the same as that of a sexual vampire. That a young man who continues to drink fermented liquor must necessarily be "evil" and must deny the very existence of any difference between right and wrong. That is the "standard of abstract right and wrong" that is apparently taught in the American home. And it is perfectly obvious, on the face of it, that it is not a standard of abstract right or wrong at all. That is exactly what it is not. That is the very last thing any clear-headed person would call it. It is not a standard; it is not abstract; it has not the vaguest notion of what is meant by right and wrong. It is a chaos of social and sentimental accidents and associations, some of them snobbish, all of them provincial, but, above all, nearly all of them concrete and connected with a materialistic prejudice against particular materials. To have a horror of tobacco is not to have an abstract standard of right; but exactly the opposite. It is to have no standard of right whatever; and to make certain local likes and dislikes as a substitute. We need not be very surprised if the young man repudiates these meaningless vetoes as soon as he can; but if he thinks he is repudiating morality, he must be almost as muddle-headed as his father. And yet the writer in question calmly proposes that we should abolish all ideas of right and wrong, and abandon the whole human conception of a standard of abstract justice, because a boy in Boston cannot be induced to think that a nice girl is a devil when she smokes a cigarette.

This muddled thinking persists to this day.  There are still many who look upon even the moderate use of alcohol and tobacco as vices, in a country that countenances, among other things, promiscuity, sexual deviancy, abortion and euthanasia.  Indeed, it is practically a vice to regard a vice as a vice.  We really do not have a standard of right or wrong.  William F. Buckley, Jr. once commented: "You can take the most disorderly, self-indulgent twenty-one-year-old sailing; he may smoke pot in his cabin while fornicating, but he will not throw the trash overboard.  How come?"  It is a species of the "formless fanaticism" that Chesterton called the great danger of the American temperament.

The failure of Prohibition is attributed, at least by some, to the shortcomings of law enforcement; by others, to the shortcomings of men in general; but the fact is, despite its noble intentions, Prohibition deserved to fail.  Tonight, before I go to bed, I will pull a cork and drink a toast to the correction of this extravagant societal over-correction.

“Wherever the Catholic sun doth shine,

There’s always laughter and good red wine.

At least I’ve always found it so.

Benedicamus Domino!”

― Hilaire Belloc

God Never Messes with Our Heads

Our Lady of Fatima pilgrim statue in Boise, 2007.
Photo by Jim Nourse.

When one breaks weeks of silence, one casts about for the best subject with which to do it.  One runs one's mind over affairs both temporal and spiritual, from the government shutdown to the Pope's Big Interviews that have caused such a ruckus.  Today the big news item in the Catholic world was the Holy Father's consecration of the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, on this, the 96th anniversary of the Miracle of the Sun at Fatima, witnessed by tens of thousands of believers and non-believers over a large area of Portugal.  To my way of thinking, this is only the third really comforting thing Pope Francis -- whom I believe can rightly be described as the Pope of our punishment -- has done so far in his reign, the first being the worldwide hour of Eucharistic adoration in June, and the second being the day of prayer and fasting for peace in Syria last month.  All of his talk about Mary and about the reality of hell and the devil is good, but not surprising, since, the Pope, no matter who he is, cannot do otherwise than reaffirm authentic Catholic doctrine.

Which brings me to one theme that has underlain my thoughts in recent days: God does not mess with our heads.

In a world saturated in the despairing infidelity of modernism, in which being manipulated by government, media, Madison Avenue, each other, and even ourselves is a daily way of life for nearly all of us, it pays to remind ourselves of this.  God is Truth and Justice, and can no more deceive than He can be deceived.  The beauty and order of creation, from galactic superclusters to the inner workings of the subatomic, testify to the existence of a Creator Who is all-knowing, all-seeing, all-powerful and all-good.  The laws of nature communicate truths about how creatures function and interact, and we try to traduce these laws at our peril.  The very best and highest authority that any proposition can have is that God revealed it.  On that basis alone, it would deserve to be believed and not doubted, even if we do not like it or cannot understand it.  

So how can we know that a proposition comes from God?  We can know it if it has the backing of the Church founded by Jesus Christ, endowed with His authority, under the headship of His Vicar, the Pope.  He gave us a clearly visible and recognizable institution to teach us all that we need to know in order to save our souls, and He has guaranteed it against error in matters of faith and morals.  No matter who the Pope is, no matter how many disconcerting things he may do -- even if he is an unabashed public sinner like Alexander Borgia, or hopelessly incompetent as an administrator, like St. Celestine V -- the Pope could not change even the tiniest particle of doctrine, even if he had all the armies that have ever existed at his back.  When it comes to the most critical business of our lives -- our eternal salvation -- God does not leave us to puzzle things out for ourselves, or pull a bait-and-switch on us.  His justice demands this.  Since He does not leave us without a lamp for our steps, He also does not leave us with any excuses for persisting in darkness.  God does not mess with our heads.

God will not mess with our heads even after we are dead.  Contrary to popular depictions of the afterlife in movies and books, there will be no confused period of wandering disembodied on the earth, no haunting by human spirits of houses or old battlefields, no mistaking hell for heaven, or heaven for hell.  In the very place where we die, we will be judged.  By the time others have figured out that we are dead, we will have already been completely undeceived about ourselves and about God, and about where we deserve to spend eternity -- and we will have already gone there.  At the end of time, all flesh will be confronted with all truth, and all obscurity and confusion will disappear.  We need not allow ourselves to be deceived by charlatans claiming to be the Second Coming.  They aren't.  The real Second Coming will leave us in no possible or impossible doubt as to its authenticity.  Some things really are that simple and straightforward.  God does not mess with our heads.

Since God does not mess with our heads, we can and should allow ourselves to derive consolation from both our Faith and its wholesome outward expressions that, in this modernist age, have been derided from within and without the Church as childish superstition.  We have allowed ourselves to become inured to believing bad news over good, but the Gospel really is good news, and is really true -- more true than anything that bears the stamp of the world, however plausible.  Beauty really is truth, and truth really is beauty: we need not be prisoners of the lie we have been conditioned to believe, that only the gray, the banal, the flat-footed and the pedestrian are real.  The forces of evil may seem to have the upper hand in our age, and in many places, but the truth is that they have already lost, and their time is short.   Jesus really is the Son of God, and really did die on the Cross to save us, and really did rise from the tomb and ascend into heaven.  He really did give us His Immaculate Mother to be our mother.  That is why we can expect good to come of the Holy Father once again consecrating the world to her Immaculate Heart.

We may deceive ourselves and each other.  We may play psychological games, and manipulate, and create frenzy and precipitate crises, one after the other, in order to control others.  The devil may also do this to us in order to lure us into hell.  But God never does any of these things.  If we find ourselves caught in these webs, God is not behind that.  Perversity and sadism are not attributes of God.  God never messes with our heads.

Thou Art a Priest Forever

Fr. Scott Carroll, probably as a seminarian.  Source.

The Holy Mass and the Sacrifice of Calvary are one and the same.  At Mass, we are really at the foot of the Cross.  What the priest does at Mass is really done by Christ; and what Christ does is also really done by the priest.  Christ offers Himself; the priest offers himself.  The priest and the victim are one.  This identity of the priest and victim is shown in the traditional Mass, where each article of the priest's vestments is a symbol of the Passion, and the chalice is also clothed in vestments to match those of the priest.  The priesthood is about self-sacrifice.

Sometimes God is pleased physically to accept this sacrifice.

Deacon Scott Carroll, aged 45, was a seminarian for the Diocese of Toledo and was to have been ordained to the priesthood on June 22nd.  But the deacon had been battling cancer for some time, and during the week of May 6th, it became clear that the disease had taken a grave turn.  Confronted with these circumstances, Bishop Leonard Blair rose to the occasion.  To fulfill the desire of this son of his, and to ensure that he would not die without the indelible character of Holy Orders on his soul, Bishop Blair ordained Scott Carroll to the priesthood at his parents' home on Wednesday, May 8th, and assigned him as associate pastor of his home parish of St. Joseph in Maumee, Ohio.  

Now Father Carroll, failing in body, could unite his sufferings to Christ's on the cross in a new and greater way.  On Friday, May 10th, the new priest, alter Christus, offered Mass -- Christ offering Himself, Father Carroll offering himself.  He fell asleep after it was over, and opened his eyes on eternity.

How great is the goodness of God, to implant in this man the desire to be His priest; to sustain him in his sufferings; to bring him through cancer to the end of his priestly studies -- and then, in the last hours of his life, to lavish him with graces to strengthen him at the moment of death and increase his glory in heaven!  If He wills, God can give us everything in an instant.  Nor should we be surprised if it should turn out that Father Carroll was a man of constant and fervent prayer.  That his last acts on earth should be the reception of Holy Orders and the offering of Holy Mass was surely a reward for perseverance in prayer not only for himself but also for the consolation of his family and friends, who were privileged to be shown such evident proofs of God's love and mercy.

We should pray for the family and friends of Father Carroll, newly bereaved, and also for his soul, in case he still has some Purgatory time to serve -- it is a very bad habit we have fallen into of instantly canonizing the dear departed, and leaving them without the assistance of our intercession.  

Yet it seems more likely that it is Father Carroll, a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek, who is busy doing from heaven the work he intended to do on earth, interceding for his family and friends, and for us.

Source.