Sunday, March 29, 2020

Weighed Down by Chastisement

Pope Francis gives Urbi et Orbi blessing (livestream screenshot)
This is my first Sunday feeling the full effects of what has been aptly described as God’s interdict.  Since Idaho’s stay-at-home order was issued, our bishop locked up all the churches, and even the SSPX had to suspend Mass at its local chapel.  So, for the first time in many years, I stayed home from Sunday Mass.  There were no Sunday Masses I could go to.

To still keep holy the Lord’s Day, I watched the live-streamed traditional Latin Mass out of the FSSP parish up in Coeur d’Alene, following the propers in my hand missal and making a spiritual Communion.  I made up my mind some time ago that I will not attend the Novus Ordo Mass any more, unless there is no other way to fulfill my Sunday obligation.  In this crisis, during which I cannot attend any Mass at all, and therefore have no Sunday obligation, I nevertheless had my pick of live-streamed traditional Masses.

One tries to see the good in this abnormal and unsettling time — during which one feels weighed down by the fact that God has permitted everything that is happening, and that we have more than deserved it — though we will not really be able to fully comprehend all that is happening, while it is happening.   One thing that seems to be happening is the rediscovery of the power of tradition, and the exposure of the Church’s great modernist experiment as a colossal fraud.  When things get real, the “pastoral accompaniment,” the new-world-order globalist tripe, the secularist jazz, the hippie-dip theology, get tossed out as the irrelevancies they truly are.  We saw this on Friday during the Pope’s extraordinary Urbi et Orbi blessing.  Admittedly, I do not know much Italian, and I chose not to watch a feed with a translation, so I, like probably many others, am going by what I saw.  I saw that Pope Francis brought out, not the idiotic and blasphemous Evo Morales commie “crucifix,” but the ancient plague Crucifix (though, inexplicably, this was left out in the rain).  I saw the salus populi painting of the Blessed Mother, said to have been made by St. Luke himself.  I saw Eucharistic adoration, with traditional trappings, and the very moving three-fold Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament over the city (Urbi) and the whole world (Orbi).

Has the Pope, with this blessing, now done enough to lift God’s censure?  At this writing, the censure continues.  Is it sufficient reparation for the veneration of Pachamama idols at the heart of Christendom on earth, or for the awful sellout of Catholics to the communist Chinese government, or for the clergy sex abuse scandal?  That is only for God to decide.  Has it benefitted the Church?  I think so, even if it is not a cure-all.  God can use even devils as His instruments for good.  It is worth meditating on the fact that the blessing happened at all.  Since Pope Francis is not a fan of bestowing blessings, or of traditional Catholic things in general, this Urbi et Orbi blessing struck me as an example of how, sometimes, the graces of office assert themselves in spite of the office holder.  It is a proof that God is in charge, not mere men.  And since I believe this is an incident in which the graces of office asserted themselves, I believe it is therefore a proof that Francis, not the former Benedict XVI, is in fact the true Pope.

We have had a thousand years’ worth of confusion packed into the last seven, ever since that fateful day when Pope Benedict XVI abdicated and lightning struck the dome of St. Peter’s.  Maybe another salutary effect of the current chastisement will be to put an end to that confusion.  Maybe Francis is the Pope who will be moved to finally consecrate Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, in union with all the world’s bishops.  That seems to me something worth praying for.

4 comments:

  1. Interesting. I didn't watch that blessing, didn't even know it was happening, but I am grateful for it.
    God can soften even the hardest of hearts.

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  2. Sunday Mass was better since Erica was in Frankie's bed instead of playing with my missal ribbons, but it still feels weird.

    I didn't see the Pope's blessing since I'm sort of hard wired now to ignore him.

    When we think of "giving up something for Lent" I never thought it would be Mass.

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  3. I made a point of watching the blessing, since it carries a plenary indulgence even when viewed and heard via media. I was very moved by the Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. I was very struck by the fact that, although the man, Jorge Bergoglio, doesn’t like blessings and traditional Catholic anything, Pope Francis, Christ’s Vicar on Earth, gave this blessing outside of the times when the Pope is expected to give it. I don’t attribute it to the man Bergoglio: he is not the One Who is in charge. The “Antipope Bergoglio” crowd can think I am delusional if they want to; I don’t care.

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  4. Maybe Francis will have a conversion to the Roman Catholic Faith! Maybe he will stop supporting population control and the UN! Maybe he will be a papa to the persecuted Chinese! With God all things are possible.

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