Some Theological Conclusions on Grace and Nature according to St Thomas Aquinas

The following theological conclusions have been recently learned by myself

Whether it is possible for man to love God, the author of nature, above all things by natural powers alone?

1) In the state of pure nature (which never existed) God is capable of attaining to an elicited love of God as the Creator by human powers alone.
2) In the state of integral nature such that Adam originally experienced, humanity also had the above capacity.
3) These two states presuppose the activity of natural concurrence on humanity to reduce potentiality to the relevant actuality.
4) In all states (possible or real) it is utterly impossible for man to obtain a love of God above all things as the author of grace.
5) This is so as each act is specified by its formal object. It is not sufficient for us to state that a supernatural object may be loved by natural powers even if there be a supernatural mode to bring it about.
6) In fallen creation man is unable to produce an affectively efficacious love for God above all things. This is so as a weak man is incapable of performing a work that pertains to the healthy.
7) Man subject to the dictates of concupiscence prefers private immediate goods to his true and lasting end. Human nature is more corrupted in respect of the appetite for good than for the attainment of knowledge. A sin against the eternal law is indirectly an offence against the natural law.
8) As human nature is not destroyed by the fall and the disappearance of integral nature, there remains in him a natural inclination towards God as creator.
9) There also exists in man a natural love for happiness which is present necessarily and can never be effaced from human nature. God here is considered as insufficiently indistinct from multifarious good objects.
10) In addition, man can possess an affective love for God as the creator by human powers alone. There is nothing more than a complacency in God's goodness and general providence according to the natural order.
11) Healing grace is absolutely necessary in fallen creation for man to fulfil evens the precepts of the natural law.

This is the doctrine of classical Thomism which contains the authentic teaching of Saint Augustine as developed by St Thomas and his devoted followers.These conclusions are supported by the Councils of Trent, Second of Orange and Milevum among others.The preceding conclusions have been taken from the Theological Summa of the Angelic Doctor, I II, q 109-114 as expounded by Rev. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange in his treatise ''Grace''.

Reflection on the Purpose of this Blog

However many articles I write all effort spent would be worth it if only one soul were to convert upon reading this blog. After all, a single soul in the state of grace is objectively greater than all of the marvels of nature combined. 

On the Eternal Procession of the Holy Ghost

A Short Lecture on Book One of the Sentences, Distinction XII, Chapter 1.

Whether the Holy Spirit proceeds first or more fully from the Father than from the Son

The following explanation is of divine faith and must be upheld by all Catholics. The very question hinges on an impermissible lack of sound understanding of the Holy Trinity, where an all too creaturely perception has undermined true comprehension (in as far as we are able) of the immanent processions.
 Saint Augustine did teach that the Holy Ghost proceeds ''principaliter'' from the Father and it is well known that the Greek Fathers preferred to stress that the Third Person proceeds per filium.Yet these profound explanations of the notional acts are not to be held as contrary to the faith as dogmatically defined by the Catholic Church.


 The Council of Florence in Laetentur Caeli (1439) decrees:

''Therefore, in the Name of the Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, with the approval of this sacred universal Council of Florence, we define that this truth of faith must be believed and received by all Christians, and so all must profess that the Holy Spirit is eternally from the Father and the Son, and He has his essence and His subsistent being at once from the Father and the Son, and He proceeds eternally from both as from one principle and one spiration''.

 The careful observer will notice that the present tense is used which will enable us to cast off any notions that are based upon a creaturely mode of signification. We are not to hold that the Holy Ghost has proceeded and now remains dormant as though there was a once when He began to proceed and an instant when He received His rest. The argument raised by Peter Lombard attributed to the heretic is based on such a flawed understanding. The human mind has its proper object in the essences of created things and therefore in order to reach higher we must use analogies and similitudes in our attempts to grasp the hem of the sacred mysteries. The crux of the heretic's logic is that the Son must first proceed in order for the Holy Ghost to proceed. This needs further distinction. If we are to assert that the Son is dependent on His Father for the possession of His subsisting divine essence so that He may spirate the Holy Ghost in union as one principle with Him, we may concede. In explanation, we are not to hold any temporal notion or sense of locomotion in this immanent notional act. The Son receives the entire Divine Essence from the Father not in the passage of time but as the eternal now. There is no transition of the Son's entering into possession of the divine nature and the second notional act of spiration. It is beyond our understanding to contemplate how this marvellous generating of the Word can ''occur'' in the eternal instant but this is to be accepted in faith and love.

An impure human understanding of this will lead to the following line of argumentation. In order for the traveller to pass from milestone B to milestone C he is required to journey from A to B. We can see here that not only in there a transition in time but one that is imperfect and dependent on other factors for the man to proceed from one stage to the next. The two notional acts of generation and spiration are never to be considered thus. There is no lapse of time, there is no ''becoming'', there is no before so that there may be an after. If we are to declare a priority, this is to be held as a ''principium'' or ''arche'' at most. There can be no priority of time so that potentiality and restriction pollutes the pure act of the deity. The Father is the source of the Trinity and the Holy Ghost can only proceed from the Son because the Latter has received the perfect and complete divine nature but we are forbidden to admit of a pause. In Their possession of eternity, there is no before and after. All is sublime enjoyment of Their glory and goodness, without decay, increase or mutation.

 In conclusion, let us note the words of the Doctor of Grace:

 ''In that highest Trinity, which is God, there are no intervals of time by which it may be shown, or at least asked, whether the Son was first born of the Father, and afterwards the Holy Spirit proceeded from both of Them...Can we therefore ask whether the Holy Spirit had already proceeded from the Father when the Son was born, or whether the Spirit had not yet proceeded and, after the birth of the Son, proceeded from both? It is absolutely impossible to raise such questions where nothing is begun in time in order to be completed at a later time. And so let him who can understand the begetting of the Son from the Father outside time also understand the procession of the Holy Spirit from both outside time.''

Is God the Cause of Evil?

A Short Lecture on the Sentences - Book One, Distinction XLVI, Chapter 3
''Whether evils things are done by God's will or against His will''

It is of divine faith that we assert that nothing can come to pass unless God positively ordains it or at least permits it. One may marvel at God's providence concerning both the lowliest creature to the structuring of the galaxy but the matter of evil and God's acceptance at least of it is an opaque mystery in itself and is much more challenging for the mind to grasp.
 Like many theological issues, the Church has set out for us clear parameters to guide the study of special dogmatics to a deeper comprehension of the sacred mysteries. Our two bounderies are the following:

1) All is under the dominion of God. Nothing can escape His providence
2) God can in no way be considered the author of evil.

These two articles are irreducible and it is forbidden for the Catholic theologian of sound mind to go beyond these parameters.

All that occurs in creation can not be contrary to the will of God
Evil is evidently present in creation
Therefore God is in some way responsible for evil.

I distinguish the major. If we are to assert that nothing created can violate the decrees of divine providence, I concede. If we are to state that deficient actions as regards the deficiency are proximately caused by divine premotion, then I deny.
 Let the minor be granted.
 The conclusion is invalid due to the distinction given in the major.

 As the motor power in an animal is not responsible for the weakness in the leg causing it to limp, then neither is God responsible for the malice in the human will. It is out with the proper and adequate object of God's will to love and cause evil. The ''physical'' and ''positive'' act must be caused by God, otherwise the human will would remain totally indifferent and paralysed in potentiality. All thoughts and actions, however great or small, are subject to the divine will. God not only creates and upholds but He turns each intellect and will however He decrees. The most excellent part of man, created in the image of God, is entirely subject to Him. This is a universal truth admitting of no exception. It is also true that God can convert all wills unto Himself, purifying all deficiencies and overcoming all obstacles by His efficacious will. As the Divine Apostle says, ''Who  shall resist His will?'' (Romans, 9:9)There is no simultaneous concurrence as the Molinists assert, where God is dependent on the consent of His creatures and His will is practically equal in weight to theirs. The human will is subordinated to the divine decree which moves man to his natural end (which He intimately knows as He is the author of human nature) sweetly, powerfully and yet without violence.Why this does not occur in the majority of instances is a mystery to be revealed only to the blessed in their glory. For now, let us state with St. Augustine of Hippo, that God saw it more fitting that evil should exist so that good may come out of than that no evil should exist at all.

 God must not be seen as a benevolent passive player in the drama of human existence. We must proclaim His lordship over all creatures and all acts, instead of relegating Him to some helpful but limited anthropomorphized agent. It is in some sense good that evils are done, not in themselves as they grievously offend God, but rather they are conducive to the perseverance of the saints and the greater humility of the penitents. The experience of wickedness may turn man to God in pursuit of justice and holiness.

 In conclusion:

1) God is the Creator and sustainer of all that is.
2) All is subject to His providence and none can resist His will.
3) All that is good is positively ordained by Him.
4) What is evil, in its physical aspect is willed by Him
5) What is evil, in its deficient aspect is permitted by God for a higher purpose.

On The Seventh Sunday After Pentecost

Being, movement and perfection are all under the dominion of the providence of God. No creature, however lowly or however magnificent can remove itself from the intimate and steady hand of Divine Providence.
 The Aristotelian philosophical principle of the real distinction between act and potency is of immense value to us and serves as a great aid to elucidating the divine motion upon all created being. No act, however insignificant can be performed without at least the natural concurrence of God. No agent is unable to rouse itself to movement without the exercise of God's motion upon their natures. Ignoring this truth would reduce all action and change to absurdity where no sufficient external causality could account for an outbreak of direction less transition without purpose. This natural concurrence is due to man's nature  and God owes it to Himself to assist nature as a whole to attain to its purpose as designed and implemented by His liberality in creating everything ex nihilo. This demonstrates that all thought, willing and acting can only be actualised by the consent and motion of God. Let us not confuse this with the higher inspiration of the Holy Ghost, or the formal participation in the divine nature of habitual grace or the transient participation in the same that is actual grace. Grave theological errors have been committed by the lack of due distinction between the orders of grace and nature. Yet gratitude should be shown for both.

 If we were to imagine the possibility of a completely natural state of creation, where Adam has no higher gift of divine life in his soul where his end is the purely nature knowledge and love of God above all things, he would still be utterly dependent upon his Creator for his being and movement. He would have all his faculties untainted by sin and the loss of original justice in grace, where these powers would be directed with rectitude to goodness. Yet after all this he would still require the assistance of God for any movement whatsoever.

 Let us then consider how much more imperative is the grace that is given for man in a fallen world to attain to holiness. We speak here not of general divine motion upon nature to reduce its potentiality to act but grace that is substantially supernatural not just modally. Without grace, the sinner may still be orientated towards universal good as his human nature is not destroyed, and he may attain to knowledge concerning the material world around him, but he is utterly incapable of raising himself beyond this. This is not to say that unfallen Adam could have elevated himself by pure will and discipline to the domain of the supernatural. The human soul has an obediential capacity to participation in the divine life which far excels the proper objects of its faculties yet is not entirely repugnant to its nature.

Oh happy fault that merited us so great a redeemer! With the School of Salamanca, I state sin was permitted by God for the greater good of the Incarnation. Slaves are to become sons and heirs too. Where sin abounded, grace abounded even more. Mercy and justice were the wounds of our Lord. Although the baptised may have entered into a formal participation in divine life (baptism being the seed of glory whose culmination is the beatific vision), the intellect is still darkened and the will remains vitiated. However, in this redeemed world, even greater helps are given to man than was available to Adam. The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is greater than the worship in Eden. The Incarnation is far superior to when God 'walked' in the garden with our first parents. Striving through pain and vicious temptation with these magnificent supernatural graces man can attain to greater holiness than Adam possessed before his sin.Through these actual graces and the possession of sanctifying grace man comes to know his subjection to God in both the natural and the supernatural spheres and he is glad of it. He recognises the mercy and bountiful goodness that has been shown to him. He marvels not that some are damned but that any at all have been elected for glory.

 His faculties and his body are understood now to be in the service of his Redeemer and Lord. Of his own, belongs sin. To God, belongs his virtue. Even when he was astray from God, the latter was near to him. To echo Saint Augustine, that doctor of grace, God was nearer to him than he was to himself! His thoughts although at least generally moved by God was not concerned with God. By the infusion of the theological virtue of faith, he begins to view matters not in the shadow of practicality but in the light of eternity. He comes to acknowledge humbly his vast plans and triumphs are as straw being blown towards the pit.

As he journeys along the path of spirituality, he can only respond with gratitude to the saving mercy of Jesus Christ on the Cross. His labours of sanctity can never now be seen as burdensome but rather as a joy and a free offering to almighty God. O clap your hands, all ye nations: shout unto God with the voice of joy!Who is God but our Father and Protector? His past deeds disgust him and by continual actual graces he resists the curiosity to consider what his life could now be like etsi Deus non daretur. No more will he be enclosed within himself but will deny himself and serve as Christ served according to the will of the Father.

 He shall live for God as Jesus died for him. 

Reflection on the Reception of Holy Communion

A well disposed reception of Holy Communion is sufficient to attain to great sanctity. One receives not a salutary instrument on the way to holiness but the end Who is Holiness Himself. 

Reflection on Inequality

Inequality is the root of every natural and participated supernatural order and goodness. It is a metaphysical truth that all that exists outwith the Divine Trinity. 

Reflection on Fascism

Fascism being of a revolutionary character is more in keeping with a "progressive" mentality than that of the traditionalist who is often derided as being an adherent of the former. 

An Early Witness to Clerical Celibacy

Pope Siricius, 384-399.

Directa ad decessorem to Bishop Himerius of Tarragona. (10th February 385)

''For We have learned that many priests of Christ and deacons, long after their consecrations, have begotten offspring either from their own marriages or from shameful unions, and they defend their offense under the pretext that one reads in the Old Testament that the authority to procreate was accorded to the priests and ministers...Why was it also required that the priests live in the temple away from their homes during the year of their service? Evidently, so they could not have carnal intercourse with their wives, in order that they might render an offering acceptable to God, resplendent with purity of conscience.
 Whence, the Lord Jesus, when He had enlightened us by His coming, also testifies in the Gospel that He came to fulfill the law, not to destroy it (Mt 5:17). And so He wished the form of the Church, who is His spouse, to shine with the splendor of chastity, so that, on the Day of Judgement, when He comes again, He may be able...to find  her ''without spot or wrinkle'' (Eph 5:27). By the indissoluble law of these rules we are all bound, priests and deacons, in order that, from the day of our ordination, we may hand over both our hearts and our bodies to temperance and chastity, so that we may be pleasing to the Lord our God in these sacrifices that we daily offer''

Reflection on Euthanasia

In polite society we are expected to oppose suicide but promote assisted suicide, as though the presence of a pillow would sanctity the latter. 

Reflection on Forming Civilisation

Egalitarianism could never create a civilisation to be proud of. Any spark of genius or profound originality, in the true sense, with its attendant notion of superiority, can only be regarded as suspicious or threatening. 

Reflection on Big Brother

Welfarism is the benign mask of a modern big brother state. 

Reflection on Christendom

Christendom is to be defined analogously as the perpetuation of the Incarnation in the socio-political order. It is nothing other than to live under the ever present reign of Christ. 

Reflection on the Value of History

It is preferable to be a medieval accretion than a modern concoction. 

Reflection on the Hermeneutic of Continuity

If we are to assert that the Second Vatican Council is in complete harmony with the pre-conciliar magisterium, I must be free to simply ignore its significance. 

Reflection on the Counter Revolution

It is not sufficient to aim to convert isolated hearts and minds when as soon as they breach the threshold of their household they are overpowered by the enemies of Christ. A counter-revolution that extends not only to private thoughts but rather to literature, music, entertainment of all stripes, education and the market place is urgently required. No sphere of human activity should ever be entirely "profane". 

Reflection on Transubstantiation and Redemption

Transubstantiation not only re-presents the mystery of our redemption but is also in some analogous way reminiscent of how created man is united and graciously raised to the divine nature. 

Reflection on Gratitude

Gratitude is the most fitting sort of praise. When united to the Eucharistic sacrifice, man is unable not to be saved. 

Reflection on Active Participation

Active particulation at Holy Mass is nothing other than the beating of the believer's heart in time with the Sacred Heart of the slain and risen Lord enthroned upon the Altar. 

Reflection on Celibacy

The two bulwarks against the naturalisation of the priesthood are the Sacred Liturgy and mandatory celibacy. In the West the first has already fallen, let us therefore cherish and guard zealously the second. If the priest is not all for Christ, he exists all for nothing. 

The Rito Antiguo Returns to Valladolid

http://unavocevalladolid.blogspot.co.uk/

Photos and the original short article available through the above link.

Translation of Castilian article:

On the 17th May the first Traditional Mass according to the immemorial rite of the Roman Church, codified by Saint Pius V, was celebrated thanks to Canon Raúl Olazábal in the city of Valladolid, the first in many decades. Not in the province however, because on the 13th May, Don Francisco García had celebrated the Traditional Mass in the parish of Torrecilla de la Orden. We give thanks to all those who have made possible the celebration; as much our archbishop Don Ricardo Blázquez, as the Cistercian community of Saints Joachim and Anne.

The next Mass will be celebrated on the 15th June, the third Sunday of the month, at 7pm in the same place.

What the Youth Needs to Learn

Our Faith is of an essentially objective nature. This pertains to both its intellectuality and its historicity.

How are we to attract and retain the young in our Church? For some the solution is almost self-evident, it is the attempt to remould the Church in the image of ''modern youth''. It is to bend the Church to the expectations, likes, preferences and demands of the young. Only in this way, they allege, will Catholicism have any hope of progressing somewhat in the 21st century.

 I reply serenely: ''What has the past 100 years taught us other than that we are supremely capable of killing one another more efficiently?'' The fashioning of the perennial teaching of the Faith to the vicissitudes of a passing and frivolous age is bizarre to anyone who is half awake. Who has not considered the fact that men are castigated and regarded as dangerous extremists, bigots and wicked for holding views a merely five years ago were taken for granted? An institution, whether divine or human, perverted by a reshaping by every alterable wind will end up going mad or completely irrelevant. After all, who is God but subsisting intellect and unchanging goodness, holiness and justice?

I present to you what the Church and her shepherds must instil in the young: intelligence and truth. The Orthodox and Catholic Faith has nothing in common with the legends of the Romans, Greeks or any other pagan grouping whose stories are there to illustrate some moral at best or to fabricate an origin story at worst. Such stories are liable to be refashioned according to the tastes of the latest group of hearers and this constant re-forming is necessary to avoid boredom and impart new meaning from the source material ever malleable to the dictates of the poet. The particular facts are of themselves unimportant. Fertile matter for the fertile imagination.

Our Faith is not of such a character. Man has no more right to insert a new aspect onto the personality of Christ or His teaching than God has of denying His own goodness. What the Father taught Christ, Christ taught the Apostles who in turn taught their successors. We are to hold what the Church has always and everywhere taught, in the same sense as it was taught. This historicity of ''tradition'' in the most fundamental sense is of primordial importance for the survival of the Christian mind.If Our Lord did not take flesh, if He did not suffer truly and die truly, if He did not rise in the flesh, our faith is in vain and we only deserve the mockery of unbelievers. The Catholic who is tempted to say that it is only fitting for ancient man to assert such ''facts''' in order to console his ignorance has gone far astray from the Faith. He believes himself to have attained a ''higher consciousness'' of what God ''really meant''. Evolution of dogma is utterly devastating to the Catholic Church and to validity of thought. The Faith in its radical nature embarrasses him and he has no time for such embarrassment before his fellow man. He does not realise that by denying the historicity of the Incarnation and Resurrection of our Lord, he attributes no value whatsoever to the reality and necessity of it. The whole purpose of his unreasoning exercise is to make the Faith appear of ''value'' to modern man.Yet when intellectuality and historicity flee what is there of value left? It is a man made product of dubious quality.

 A more concrete solution I must urge. The young must be taught to think. They must be taught how to make distinctions. They must be taught how to define. The youth have particularly strong urges to overcome what they consider to be injustices and they possess a certain energy to make themselves noticed. Unfortunately they cleave to a mirage of thought that can be compressed on a placard. They think in slogans, clichés and parrot buzz phrases without considering the full implications of what they are actually spouting. Let us consider the matter of ''love is love'' on the basis of what they nebulously term ''marriage equality''. Such proponents of ''progress'' will assert that this is based on the simple notion of ''you can marry whoever you want''. Rather often I have retorted, ''even my sister?'', to which I am greeted with a sneering condescension and disgust.With the easy availability of contraception and abortion on demand such a state of affairs would not be of great import. In fact I found myself in temporary possession of the former on my very first day of university. It came with the welcome pack. It appears that they have their own prejudices and notions of boundaries. All would be well if they were cognizant of such a truth.

 The youth must be taught sound philosophy and a valid system of metaphysics. With the great degree of specialization that we have obtained so rapidly in the past century or so, why are these sciences neglected when they form a foundational edifice for truly understanding the multiplicity of our created reality? Such teaching will form their minds in discipline to seek what is truly lasting and valuable to man. If this training is to be neglected what will the youth base their practical judgements on, other than what appears to be good and appealing? Without sober judgement, rationality is impossible. Sainthood even more so. Some may respond that this is too scholastic an undertaking and some souls are to be treated to a ''mystic'' approach. Faith may be beyond our reason but reason is to be perfected by revealed truths. It is to mould our thought processes and eliminate errors of judgements and reason. Young Catholic souls are constantly attacked for their faith, so how are they to elucidate their interlocutors on the Divine Trinity and the mystery of grace if they are unable to progress past the preambula fidei? If the very notion of the rationality of God is being questioned, where the young Catholic soul is entirely helpless beyond the barrage of questions, what use is urging their friends to trust in Jesus and His Cross? The latter two are fundamentally dependant on the truth of God which has few true defenders. What will that young soul respond but ''I have my belief and you have yours''? If the Faith is to be of such a nature, arising from the subjective need of a spirit in search of consolation, it would be better to be without it. The militancy of the faithful has evaporated and so has their realization that the Faith can be intelligently defended and explained systematically.

 It is only in this way that we can do our duty towards the young. Give the young man a love of truth and a love of sacrifice. In this way he will save his own soul, as well as those of his wife and children.

Reflection on "Love is Love"

If love is love and you are unable to help who you "fall in love with", such an experience should hold no more sovereignty than an itch or any other involuntary physical reaction. 

Reflection on the Failure of the Second Vatican Council

In the old faithful nations of Europe and the New World, Catholicism has been reduced to an architectural curiosity. To blindly assert the fundamental goodness of the reforms of the Second Vatican Council is paramount to spiritual slaughter. As the last soul plunges into Hell, the Neo Catholic will still cry out "but the Council, the Council!?!"

One may retort that the disaster of the French Revolution occurred before 1962. It is just as well. We are well aware that the post-conciliar pontiffs would consider that nightmare as an "awakening of the consciousness of the rights of man and of his pre-eminent dignity as human beings".

Reflection on the Implementation of Vatican II

The Neo-Catholic would prefer that the whole episcopacy had apostosied rather than consider the merest criticism of the Roman Pontiffs for the implementation of the Second Vatican Council. 

On The Canonizations - Neo-Catholic Triumphalism

It has been announced that Pope Paul VI, of unhappy memory, is to be beatified at the close of the Synod of the Family in October. One may ask why the rush to canonize three recent popes, is it the case that their value of models of holiness will diminish with the passing of the ages? Or is it that with the sober judgement of time these men will appear to be no more than adequate as Roman Pontiffs and more probably, less than suitable for the heroic task of the papacy?

I will say rather clearly that this set of ill-thought out and rushed canonizations has nothing at all to do with the men themselves. Apart from the case of Pope John Paul II, there has been little attempt to highlight and proclaim the great holiness of either John XXIII or Paul VI. Who has relate their heroic virtues? Are they worthy models of imitation for Christians? Who could possibly know as even the proponents of their raising to the altars are at a loss to explain exactly why they are deserving of this great honour. I set aside consideration of John Paul II as at least his firm faith and hope during tremendous suffering could be imputed to him as great virtue combined with his lively sense of piety.

These canonizations have nothing to do with the men themselves. They are pawns in the defense of a crumbling council. The council needs defenders. It needs canonization. What fruit of the Council can be detected? A vernacular liturgy that few attends? A new priesthood that men shy away from? A theology that is no more than sentimental mush that ill prepares even the keenest of intellect to defend the Faith against even the dullest of detractors? Point out to me a fruit of the Council and I will reply that it is laced with poison. The Roman Rite? Trivialised. Theology? Sentimentalised and no more than sentimental anthropology. Vocations? Few. Catholic nations? Just as atheistic and socialist as any other land. The popes travel, the popes wave, the crowd cheers...the crowd return home and live etsi Deus non daretur.

Would not one expect the Church to have canonized the various popes that were involved in the Council of Trent and those who strove to implement it? Frankly speaking, few of them were worth it. If we are to ascribe to the Bishop of Rome, supreme, universal and immediate jurisdiction over the whole Bride of Christ are we not to demand great holiness, wisdom and fortitude in exercising the petrine ministry? The faithful of those ages should have been even more triumphalistic about their Pontiffs considering the danger of the Reformation and the Protestants attack on the institution of the papacy. Yet, they wisely avoided this further danger. The vast majority of Roman Pontiffs have been no more than adequate. Plenty have been utter scoundrels and rascals who divided the garments of Christ among them for their own personal good. The traditionalist is not embarrassed by these scandals. Our Blessed Lord did not promise that Peter himself would never fall. All too often the popes have occupied the throne of Satan instead. On the other hand, great men have been chosen to succeed Peter and have dutifully carried out their mission with rectitude and courage. Where is the clamouring for the canonization of the superb Leo XIII? Or the much forgotten Benedict XV? The fate of souls was too pressing a matter for those involved in the Counter Reformation to divinize the Council of Trent and avert their eyes to the misery of heresy and schism. At least this sixteenth century Council produced great art and architecture? The Second Vatican Council? No more than the modernistic Scandinavian ''spaceship'' that is my local parish.

We are to raise three men to the altars, yet where have the men gone? The Faith proclaimed by these men has proven so ineffective to the evangelization and retention of young Catholic men who have therefore found solace in practical agnosticism at best. Where are the young men who will offer the Holy Sacrifice, who will raise families in the face of hostile secularism, who will teach boys to be men? These three pontiffs were more than negligent in presenting the Catholic Faith of the ages to these souls. The militancy of the baptised soul was to be purged in favour of a spirit of vain dialogue that has only created indifferentism and has made secular humanism the pinacle of moral consciousness. The Church seeks only a place at the table of discussion. She seeks fairest and an opportunity to speak in her turn. What a pathetic institution that these men have presided over! The bishops may be criticised but the popes? The popes who are of the same mould as their brother bishops are to be immune from criticism even when the same guilt belongs to them for the same acts and omissions!

Paul VI, a wretched, indecisive figure, divested himself of the papal tiara and in turn abrogated the kingship of Christ. Where in our Lord acknowledged? In the inter religious meetings? At Assisi? Certainly not before journalists where Francis refused to bless them in the Name of the Trinity, 'respectando la conciencia de cada uno''. Even a third rate sociologist appraising the numbers of the faithful who attend Mass, who can articulate a modicum of the Faith, the size and health of families and the state of such Catholic nations as Spain, Italy, Portugal and Brazil, can see that the Council failed in almost every aspect. 

The Neo-Catholic can only demand fidelity and ''obedience''. He is entirely incapable of defending the Faith in the light of tradition. It is contrary to the spirit and greatness of the Fathers and Doctors to angrily assert ''The magisterium holds such and such, believe it or you're disobedient!'' Did not these great men of old labour earnestly to explain the Faith suitably so that the doubters and deniers could reach an understanding of the mysteries of faith or the philosophical underpinnings of it? No such effort is considered by these apologists. Threats of suspension, excommunication and of being ''uncharitable'' are their stock in trade.

I await eagerly a true explanation of the the continuity of the Council with immemorial tradition, especially in the areas of religious liberty and ecumenism. There is nothing to be triumphalistic about in these matters. Millions of souls have perished due to the effects of the Council, whether the 'real' one or the virtual Council that Benedict XVI recently spoke about.

When facts are of little use, cries of ''disobedience!'' resound. Let the Neo-Catholic consider why we need a New Evangelization if the Council were not a complete failure? To them, it appears the New Evangelization is nothing more than a new buzz phrase which allows them to consider themselves faithful to the latest pontiff.

It is urgent that we realise the damage of the Council. Even if we are to hold that the Council has not been implemented correctly, are we to state that the Pontiffs were not involved in this ''bastardization'' of the Council? Were they not the ones who promoted and tolerated every novelty, heresy and extravagance? It is their Council and their implementation, their souls must mirror it.

Reflection on the Good Shepherd

Ego sum pastor bonus et cognosco meas et cognoscunt me meae

O what delight and consolation this should lend to the Christian soul! This profound intimiacy between ourselves and our Divine Protector and Redeemer! Our assent to the Lord must not be reduced to some form of syllogism where His guiding and nuturing hand is considered in the abstract.  Our Lord knows us as we know Him just as He knows the Father who sent him. What does our Lord say to the damned but, "I know thee not". On the contrary, He says to us, "I know thee, I love thee, come to Me".

Reflection on the New Evangelisation

The trumpeting of the need for a New Evangelisation is a more than tacit acknowledgement that the novel project of the Second Vatican Councol failed. If we are to state that the objectives of the New Evangelisation are to present the Faith in a modern way for modern man, either the Council has not been implemented (however with much destruction) or it tended to disaster. On no possibility do the Roman Pontiffs emerge immune from culpability. 

Reflection on Racism

To the explicit racist and the race hustler pertain the same species of malice, where the most bitter animus is projected upon the perceived threat of another grouping. Both are alike tinged with self-righteous indignation yet the latter is all the more dangerous for appearing pure and often in the elitist of circles.  

The Fathers Speak...The Person of the Holy Spirit and the Filioque

Saint John Damascene, De Fide Orthodoxa

''Likewise we believe also in one Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life . . . God existing and addressed along with Father and Son; uncreated, full, creative, all-ruling, all-effecting, all-powerful, of infinite power, Lord of all creation and not under any lord; deifying, not deified; filling, not filled; sharing in, not shared in; sanctifying, not sanctified; the intercessor, receiving the supplications of all; in all things like to the Father and Son; proceeding from the Father and communicated through the Son''

Reflection on the Sacraments

The sacraments have been fittingly ordained for the wayfarer in a redeemed world. While they purify the soul they cleanse the senses. They not only effect what they signify but they are constant reminders of how matter should be used, that is, in honouring the beauty and goodness of God whose secrets are made manifest by the things that are. 

Reflection on the Pope and the Faith

If you hang on to every word of the Roman Pontiff to discover what the latest attitude of the Church is, you have gone astray from Catholicism and instead have joined an esoteric cult. 

Reflection on Charity

Charity is the sweetness that transforms all other actions into great virtues inclining them to their only worthy end in God, the Supreme Charity. If man has not charity, all seemingly commendable acts are reduced to vice. The purification that is charity makes a man a companion of God and a true lover of self. 

Reflection on Religion as Divisive

The cardinal virtue of religion is that it is divisive. It separates good from evil, the elect from the reprobate, justice from oppression, heaven from hell, God from Satan. A unity without regard to these categories is a sham and a greater mythology than they could very accuse us of. 

Reflection on Individuality

The amusing aspect about the cult of individuality is that there is a parade of like minded souls parroting the same lines about choice and creativity unaware they each so mimics the other that none knows who has originated the trite catchphrases they incessantly declaim.

Reflection on Good Friday

From the eternal Father was begotten in the most intimate manner the Son, the perfect image and Word of the First. The entire divine nature was communicated to Him without lapse of time nor numerical division. The principle that goodness is diffusive of itself is persevered and perfected in the immanent notional acts. It was therefore not necessary at all for God to create anything as He was sufficient in the one society of the Blessed Trinity, lacking nothing and possessing all. He brought us forth not according to any essential emanation of His divine nature but according to the order of His absolute free and sovereign will. There was no compulsion in this decree which had its effect in time, as though God had a moral imperative to bring forth creatures to share in His essential goodness. It was not better that God should create. It pertained to His liberality and was merely fitting that we should be formed from nothing. His absolute will was subject to nothing other than His wisdom and justice.

 On Good Friday, we contemplate the binding of the God for the sake of those He created freely and with the utmost ease. There was no strain in creation. Even though the cosmos was brought forth from no pre-existing subject, and we were the most purest of potentialities, by a single decree of His divine will, all began to exist with time. With in the beginning, God gained nothing. In the fullness of time , He lost everything. The power that said 'Let there be light' and the light was made, descended into the darkness. The hands that could stretch across the horizon, directing, governing and moulding all that He brought forth freely, are now bound and He is left only to groan and writhe. The lifeless earth trembled while He who is essential Life, fell silent.    

The Doctors Speak

From the last good Jesuit besides Louis Cardinal Billot:

''God wanted man to know him somehow through his creatures and since no creature could fittingly reflect the infinite perfection of the Creator, he multiplied his creatures and gave a certain goodness and perfection to each of them so that from them we could judge the goodness and perfection of the Creator, who embraces infinite perfection in the perfection of his one and utterly simple essence, just as a gold coin contains the value of many copper coins. My soul, when anything seems wonderful strikes your eye or your thought, make it a ladder to recognise the Creator's perfection which is incomparably greater and more wonderful. This way created objects which have become a 'snare to the feet of the unwise' (Wis 14:11), as the Book of Wisdom teaches, will not mislead you but will teach you; they will not cast you down but direct you upward toward better things. Therefore, if you encounter gold or silver or jewels, you will say in your heart, ''My God is more precious, who promised to give me himself if I despise these things.'' If you marvel at kingdoms and earthly empires, say in your heart, ''How much greater is the kingdom of heaven which endures forever and which God, who does not lie, promised to those who love him.'' If pleasures and delights begin to titillate your sensuality, say in your heart, ''The pleasure of the spirit is much more enjoyable than the pleasure of the flesh, and intellectual delights are much more enjoyable than those of the belly.'' The first come from a perishable creature, the second come from the God of all consolation. He who tastes the latter can say with the Apostle, ''I am filled with comfort, and I overflow with joy in all our troubles'' (2 Cor 7:4). Finally, if you are offered something beautiful, new, unusual, great, or wonderful on condition that you desert your God, answer serenely, ''Whatever good they possess and much more and better are beyond doubt to be found in God.'' Therefore, it would be useless to trade a gilded coin for gold, glass for a precious gem, little for much, the uncertain for the certain, and the temporal for the eternal.

The Doctors Speak

St. Robert Bellarmine

''Now it is the time for us to go up as well as we can to the fountain of wisdom. Ecclesiasticus says, 'the word of God on high is the fountain of wisdom'' (Sir 1:5). He rightly says ''on high'', because the fountain of wisdom richly and profusely flows out not only to the holy angels and to the souls of the blessed who live in heaven, but to us who are engaged as pilgrims in this desert, there comes not wisdom but a certain mist or scent of wisdom.
 For this reason, my soul, do not for now seek higher than you should. Do not be a 'searcher of majesty'' lest you ''shall be overwhelmed by glory'' (Prv 25:27). Wonder at his wisdom about which the Apostle Paul says, ''God who alone is wise'' (Rom 16:27). Congratulate the blessed spirits who drink from the fountain of wisdom, and although they cannot fully grasp God, which is a property restricted to the very fountain of wisdom itself, still they look into the face of God, the first cause, not covered by any veil, and understand aright all things in the flashes of his splendor. In that noonday light of wisdom they do not fear the darkness of error nor the obscurity of ignorance nor the fog of opinions.
 Aspire after this happiness: to obtain it with certainty, love with your whole heart the Lord Jesus Christ, ''in whom are hidden all the treasures of the wisdom and knowledge'' of God (Col 2:3). He himself said in his Gospel, ''He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him'' (Jn 14:21). What does ''I will manifest myself to him'' mean except that ''I will manifest all the treasures of the wisdom and knowledge of God which lie within me?'' Certainly every man by nature desires to know, and although in many people fleshly concupiscence now in a way puts this desire to sleep, still when we shall have put aside our body which decays and which now weighs down the soul, then the fire of this desire will blaze out beyond all other desires. How great will be your happiness, O soul, when Christ your beloved and lover shows you all the treasures of the knowledge and wisdom of God? Strive to keep the commandments of Christ so that you do not cheat yourself of this great hope. He said, ''If anyone love me, he will keep my word'' (Jn 14:23, 24). Meantime, let your wisdom be that which holy Job describes when he says, ''The fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to depart from evil is understanding;; (Jb 28:28). Recognise that any good you see in creatures flows from God, who is the fountain of goodness, so that you can learn with Blessed Francis to taste that fountain of goodness as it flows in individual creatures as in streamlets'' - ''God is the Fountain of Wisdom'', in ''The Mind's Ascent to God by the Ladder of Created Things''

Reflection on Reading as a Devotion

The driest and most dense tome of metaphysics may furnish as many graces and as much illumination as the reading of any spiritual text by the most mystical of ascetics for the one who is well disposed to discover God in all truth.

Reflection on the Cause of Evil

The very possibility of evil arises from the quality of all things besides the divine essence. Defectibility is an intrinsic and necessary possibility of all that is composed of act and potency. Goodness which is convertible with being is the material and accidental efficient cause of evil as without a subject in which to inhere it could not even be known.

Reflection on Thomist Metaphysics

Perhaps the key principle in Thomist metaphysics is that of the real distinction between act and potency. This principle readily presents itself to the mind and is fundamental if one wishes to distinguish the Actus Purus Who is God and the corruptible cosmos of creatures. The failure to have even any implicit understanding of this axiom will shatter not only a solid understanding of metaphysics or natural philosophy but will unhappily extend to every treatise possible of Sacred Theology. Grace, predestination, the human will and even the immanent notional acts of the Divine Trinity will be devastated. A sound cognisance of metaphysics will cover for a multitude of theological errors.

Reflection on the Fundamentals of Faith

The mystery of the Blessed Trinity and the Redemptive Incarnation are the fundamental dogmas of our Catholic Faith without which the while edifice of belief would crumble. Prescinding from these would lead us to a naturalistic philosophy based on sentiment and would not be more divine than any other fabrication of a lonely and needy soul. To put aside these dogmas as though they were hindrances to dialogue is to strip man of anything that could possibly save him and those he claims to love.

Reflection on Conscience

Conscience must be defined as knowledge of the natural law applied to some particular instance. It is foolish to give it a unique place in human judgement if we are to consider it instead as some form of manufactured imposition of one's preferences onto reality. What is pleasant and endearing should not necessarily be sealed with the sanction of individual conscience.

Reflection on Religious Liberty

Religious liberty necessarily is conducive to suppression of religion in the public sphere. While it attempts to protect individual freedom from coercion it reduces all religions to the same level of irrelevance. From the ashes of a fallen Christendom, a pathetic carcass of secular morality rises up due to the absence of a vital Catholicism. When all that matters is not the truths of religion but the mere option to choose, it should cause no surprises that when the content of one of these systems demands a bit too much to be comfortable for the rest, it will be ruthlessly put down.

Instead of promoting the rights of God, we have falsely adopted the right of man to form his own understanding of reality, which is of no more validity than anyone else's.

Reflection on Repentance

The vital difference between attrition and perfect contrition is that the former consists in how sin afflicts man while the latter considers how sin offends the All-Holy God. Only the saints have breached the chasm between the two. Sanctification may be said to be found in the transition from the first to the second.

Reflection on Traditional Catholicism

We must not foster a common notion that traditional Catholicism is intrinsically linked to various pet conspiracy theories incidental to the actual Faith. Too often "adherents" of our movement have made fools of themselves and the Catholic Faith by attributing divine approval and decree to what is frankly ridiculous and belongs in no way to the Deposit of Revelation.

Reflection on "Only God can Judge Me"

Those who proclaim "Only God can judge me" in the face of public criticism should remember that the former is a far stricter and more truthful Judge than any ignorant passerby.

Reflection on Detraction

The pillaging of the reputation is far more malignant than the plunder of material goods. The latter may be returned without suffering loss, but the damaged name of another can only be repaired over much time and where the suspicion of doubt will always rest.

St. Bonaventure on the True St. Francis

''True piety which according to the Apostle is helpful for all things, had so filled Francis' heart and penetrated its depths that it seemed to have appropriated the man of God completely into its dominion. This is what drew him up to God through devotion, transformed him into Christ through compassion, attracted him to his neighbour through condescension and symbolically showed a return to the state of original innocence through universal reconciliation with each and every thing. Through his virtue he was attracted to all things in spiritual love, especially to souls redeemed by the precious blood of Jesus Christ. When he saw them being stained by the filth of sin, he grieved with such tender pity that he seemed like a mother who was daily in labour pains bringing them to birth in Christ. This was his principal reason for reverencing the ministers of the word of God, because with their devoted concern for the conversion of sinners they raise up seed for their dead brother, namely Christ, crucified for us, and guide them with their concerned devotion. He firmly held that such work of mercy was more acceptable to the Father of mercies than any sacrifice, especially if this eagerness arose out of perfect charity more by example than by word, more by tear-filled prayer than by long-winged sermons.'' - The Life of Saint Francis

Reflection: The poor friar was a radical lover of God, his whole orientation and being were directed towards and grounded in the mercy of the Lord for the miserable sinner. He grieved over the poor, the innocent, the dejected, the suffering, as he could only envisage the countenance of the Crucified Lord in them. For him, all should tend to God, all should give praise to Him. All belongs to His mercy and goodness. His heart abounded in trust for God Who would bring him and his brothers back to the bosom of His tender goodness. Sin was abhorrent to Francis as it marred the divine likeness in man and could be be an insult of ingratitude to the One Who has offered him so much. 

Reflection on Truth and Feelings

When all validity is relegated to the perception of offense, all objective reality is utterly destroyed.

Reflection on the Temporal Missions

The temporal missions of the Divine Persons mirror exactly the immanent divine life and origins of the subsisting relations as God does not reveal Himself to be other than He is. If it be objected that the Son is set by the Spirit, one must respond that it is in accordance with His assumed humanity. The Second Person is sent by the One who has charity appropriated of Him as it is by charity that God unites Himself to us. Furthermore, as sanctification is by extension appropriated to the Third Person, the hypostatic union is the principle of our redemption.

Reflection on Public and Private Religion

All that is of the natural order is to be referred to God as urgently as all that which pertains to the supernatural. There is no private sphere that prescinds from the dominion nor the paternal solicitude of our Lord and Saviour, the Author of nature and of grace. What has been rendered to Caesar was first given by God and it shall return to Him.

Reflection on Overcoming Pride

Humility most offends the natural and so-call justly possessed notions of self-worth and noble purpose. The desire for acknowledgement by others as you intend good is the deepest thorn of pride to remove.

Reflection on the Priesthood

As the priesthood is entirely of the supernatural order, common place notions of inclusivity and opportunity do not apply. The only truly worthy priest is our Lord and High Priest, Christ.

Reflection on Enjoying the Good Things in Life

On Use and Enjoyment: Distinction One of the Sentences

We truly enjoy those things of the created order when we perceive the divine traces that are scattered along the horizon. The divine likeness among creatures forms an ascending and descending hierarchy from and to the Foundation of all delight and our one true rest. We are not to discard with contempt what is beautiful and glorious but we are under obligation to refer them back to their Source. Only in the light of this acknowledgement can we be said to properly use things, not as mere instruments but as finite rays of the divine goodness.

Reflection on Writing

In writing there is always a temptation to be original when being truthful would suffice.

Reflection on Mercy

Mercy must not be defined merely as the withholding of punishment due but as the granting of grace to obtain a degree of perfection.

Reflection on Appealing to Compassion

The cry for a renewal appears all the more sweet when it is sickened by the appeal to mercy without consideration of goodness.

Reflection on Truth and Conversion

Let a boy's natural curiosity for knowledge be united with a young man's delight in pursuing and grasping truth, and any moral objection to embracing the Faith will fade away.

Reflection on Predestination

God does not grant a man salvation because He foresees that he will merit it, but rather He grants the merits to make him worthy of it.

Reflection on Pope Francis and Evangelii Gaudium

For Pope Francis the Joy of the Gospel appears to be founded upon the rejection and negation of all that made the faithful in ages past rejoice at the beautiful, the sublime and the glorious. Instead of an objective complacence in what is truly good, he has exchanged this for a superficial and dangerous glee in poverty so falsely understood.

Reflection on Customs and the Faith

Pious customs and liturgical norms incarnate the Faith so that in the minds of the simple and the learned alike become almost synomymous with our religion. It is for this reason that Suárez considers the Roman Pontiff who puts away the treasures of the Catholic religion to be a schismatic, severing himself from the life and charity of the Body of Christ.

Reflection on the Will and Intellect

The boundless licence of this age appears to precede from the mindless subjection of the intellect to the will. Instead of full formed choices grounded in appreciation of objective really man now considers the very act of choosing to be of primordial importance. How can one choose freely what one does not know? It is for this reason that modern man is frivolous in his pursuit of delight. He becomes emptier as he fills himself up.

Reflection on Who Can Be Saved?

Is there anything more offensive to God's dominion and economy of salvation than to assert that the pleasant shall inherit the kingdom? It is absolutely impossible for the atheist to enter eternal glory no matter the value of his natural works in the sight if men. In an attempt to exalt the mercy of the Lord they besmirch His decrees and oppose His grace. Salvation for them can only consist of the intensification of natural pleasure and not the face of God as He is in Himself.

Reflection on Ambiguity

A prelate's ambiguous words must not be interpreted favourably when he puts the Faith in danger. The view that it is disobedient to oppose his loose speech is to subject man's absolute loyalty to God to his conditional submission to earthly legitimate authority.

Reflection on Temptation

In matters of temptation, one either falls on God or falls from God. There is no middle term.

Reflection on Modernity

The modern by its nature is relative and consequently always in danger of passing into old-fashionedness particularly quickly. As its newness decreases, so does its relevance. Its instrinsic value is limited to the age in which it finds favour.

Reflection on Adapting to the Times

The sexual morality of the Roman and Hellenistic world of the first century was not very dissimilar to our own. Yet when our Lord came He preached the indissolubility of marriage and the illicitly of acts outwith it. What principle could be further from His divine mind than adapting to "modern sensibilities"!

On the Divine Relations and Communicable Divine Nature

''There is in God actually, or in the order of reality, only one being, which is not purely absolute or purely relational, neither mixed nor composite, or resulting from either of these, but most eminently and formally possessing that which is relational and that which is absolute. So in the formal order, or in the order of formal reasons, in Himself, not in our mode of speaking, there is in God only one formal reason or essence. This is neither purely absolute nor purely relational, neither purely communicable nor purely incommunicable, but most eminently and formally containing both that which is absolutely perfect and that which the relational Trinity demands. We are in error, however, when we proceed from the absolute and relational to God because we imagine that the distinction between the absolute and the relational is prior to the divine nature. The complete opposite is true, for the divine nature is prior to all being and all of its differences; it is above being, above one, etc...It remains that (God) is both communicable and incommunicable'' - Cajetan.

Commentary: There is a particularly certain danger of regarding the divine relations as something superimposed onto the perfect and complete divine essence. We are not to consider the Persons as being mere accidents existing consequent to the deity, almost as a secondary formation distinct from the Godhead or as having no subsisting reality apart from the reflection of our minds. Nor is the distinction due to the economy of salvation where God appears in time in different guises to communicate some heavenly lesson to frail man. There are no accidents in the actus purus not is there any potentiality for perfectibility in Him. It must be stated here that the Thomists posit a minor virtual distinction between the divine Persons and the divine essence. Our concept of the divine nature implicitly contains paternity while the blessed in their glory intuitively yet not exhaustively know the personal and subsisting divine relations. The obstacle appears to be the fact that while the divine nature is communicated entirely to the Word by the Father, it does not follow that paternity is included in the transmission of the essence. It is for this reason that we say the paternity of the Father is altogether incommunicable or the formal distinction between the Persons would be confused and the divine ''order'' would arise merely from human constructs of reason. There is however an absolute identity of the Father and the Godhead, He truly is God, yet He is not the Son, nor the Spirit, Who each fully possess the entire divine essence. Let us consider prayerfully the dictum of the Council of Florence, ''In God all things are one where there is no opposition of relation''. This supernatural mystery can not by reason alone be demonstrated and it would have remained far above the reaches of man if God had not revealed it to us. A consideration of the cosmos may lead man to an analogous knowledge of the creator of all but there is nothing in nature that can point man infallibly to the Triune nature of God as He is in Himself. On the level of natural theology only a consideration of de Deo uno may be made.

Reflection on Egalitarianism

Egalitarianism is a pious fiction and a fairy tale imposed on a random assortment of matter by those who claim to have out aside childish religious mythology.

Reflection on Liberal Theology

Liberal Catholicism is nothing more than sentimental anthropology. Their only "Theos" is in their belly and their glory is in their shame.

Michael Matt on Criticising Pope Francis

I'll let Michael Matt speak for himself. His words are certainly worthy of consideration. No Catholic should rejoice at the opportunity to rise up against the Holy Father, in fact it should cause us great grief to realise that we have almost been abandoned by the Shepherd who appears oblivious to the dangers that press on from all sides against the Catholic Church. Let us pray constantly for the illumination of the mind of Pope Francis so that his words may at all times mirror the mind of the Church concerning the Orthodox Faith. On the other hand, let us never be so naive to expand the respect due to the office of the Petrine ministry to ridiculous lengths that damage not only the Church but the soul of the very pontiff who could continue in his errors without opposition. Let Christ and the faith He founded be our first consideration and from that we will proceed with the greatest love possible for His Vicar.

Reflection on Elections

When the far left is considered by the media to be the political moderates any party with a semblance of conservatism can only ever be seen as extremist and reactionary.

Reflection on the Eternal Father

To claim that Christians, Jews and Muslims share the same Father is to confound the orders of nature and grace. It reduces the baptismal life to nought, resulting in the most deplorable heresies. The error of Pope Francis either consists in material heresy or a dim mind. May the reader chose the most apposite.

Reflection on Favouritism

It is foreign to Catholicism to insist on a poor Church for the poor. This narrow minded exclusivism   only leading to factions and self-righteous accusations. Christ is not Saviour for one group in an economic sense. We preach a Catholic Church for the Catholicus.

Reflection on Tolerance

Tolerance is not the virtue of a magnanimous spirit but rather the vice of a tepid and weak soul.

Reflection on Diversity

If human society is truly diverse, how can we say there exists absolute equality amongst the members of it?

Reflection on Papal Popularity

Is it reasonable to suggest that if the reigning Pontiff is considered likeable, men would put away their vices at once and follow Christ wherever the Lamb shall go? It appears that Francis is lauded as it seems to the opinion makers that he is not Catholic.

On the Gospel for Sexagesima

Benedicta sancta Trinitias, atque indivisa unitas!

Taken from St Luke, 8:4-15.

A fundamental lesson of our Lord's words in today's Gospel highlights two aspects which I would like to develop further in this short reflection. Let us begin by considering the first which will lead into a more fruitful discussion of the latter.

1) The universal reach of divine causality. 

All that is not God is under the dominion and sway of God. All persons of whatever state, condition and means are subject to His will whether they have ever paused to consider His lordship or have ever acknowledged it. This is symbolised by the various qualities of the ground. As the great multitude pressed about Jesus anxious to hear His latest teaching and perhaps to experience a further miracle, our Lord spoke in a parable which even the Apostles deemed as beyond their understanding. In response to their question as to the meaning of the sower going out to sow, Christ said, ''To you it is given to know the mystery of the Kingdom of God, but to the rest in parables: that seeing they may not see, and hearing may not understand''. In contradistinction to Billuart I consider this to be the sacred puzzle and the toughest aspect of theology for the mind to apprehend. Why is it that God elevates one to the supernatural level and maintains them there in His grace while He permits another to be obdurate before His appeal in love? Let us not be so foolish as to believe that God grants certain indiscriminate, naked graces to all souls that they are free to accept or decline. Is God not capable of bringing forth good fruit from the harshest of soil? Is He not willing to till the ground so that the weeds are cast aside to allow the seed to grow? Is He powerless before His creatures?

 We hold God to be the creator of nature and the author of grace. The fruitful reception of grace by a soul is not dependant upon the conditions of time and space which God foresees, as the followers of Molina assert, but rather it is God who turns to us and grants us life. By His divine movement He converts the soul to Himself, eliciting a truly free and human response. The soil is not 'discovered' by the sower, an analogy of the redemption love of Our Saviour, where He is incapable of turning the ground so that it is sensitive to His approach. The soil represents the soul laid bare and its quality is utterly dependant upon it's response to God's movement of redemption. Nothing else matters in this life. Is salt which has lost its saltiness is only good to be trampled upon what use is infertile soil to a grace filled, fruitful life in Christ? It is fit only to be condemned to rot.


2) Sufficient grace is granted to all men so that they might be saved. No man may ever claim that God has abandoned him to achieve his own salvation. All men are granted sufficient grace to know and love the one true God and redeemer of the nations. We hold that God is certainly capable of saving all men if He so decreed but that in His wisdom and justice He allows certain souls to remain outside of His love, where the devil reigns in his rebellion. Through malice the bloom of efficient grace is suppressed and man can only answer for his rejection of God. No soul could ever reproach God for failing to approach him in grace. Yet too many, as Our Lord teaches, only accept parts of the Gospel to suit their own ''needs'' and to appeal to their convenience. They receive it as only a teaching of man, a lifestyle, a simple philosophy to adapt to their circumstances. It is on account of this misunderstanding of the divine foundation of the Gospel, that Satan so quickly and easily snatches away the seed that God has planted so that they may not truly believe and be saved. As it falls among thorns, it is choked by a worldly conception of God's action among us. For these unfortunate souls, God's mission of redemption is seen as weaker than the allurements of the flesh, the seed of the word of God is considered cheap and easily bought. They have refused to see that the ground was purchased by the blood of Christ. It is not the burial place of the Traitor that is the field of blood, but our own souls. No fruit is brought forth for these men who have converted the Gospel into another aspect of their lives, a token, a sentimental belief that leaves their inner nature untouched by grace. They lack supernatural faith and rely on tradition, custom or hold on to particular features of the Gospel for the sake of consolation.

 The soul that is well prepared by God is receptive to His further graces. In patience they accept what He has decreed eternally at whatever moment He brings it about in time and space. Their glory before God is unending, they bring forth a hundred fold of what is sweet and pleasant in the sight of the saints. They are the moisture of civilization. They are the instrumental causes of the fruitful reception of grace by other souls. God works through them to show His mercy to others. They predispose other men to prepare themselves for God. It is with joy that they submit themselves to the sweet yoke of Christ and His Cross, where they see only glory and opportunity rather than a burden to be shunned if possible. All other souls perish when they regard the grace of God in too human a fashion, choked by cares and ambition.

 Let no man glory in his salvation but be grateful that he has been called out of nothing to be raised to a formal participation in the divine nature by grace. Let the reprobate condemn himself for his hardness of heart and stiff neck. Let God be glorified in all things.

 In Domino,

Charles Stuart.

Reflection on a "Church for the Poor"

A "Church for the poor" is just as exclusivist as a "Church for the rich" and which in turn reduces the essential mission of salvation on the part of Our Lord to that of inspirational leader or moral charlatan.

Reflection on Grace

No grace could ever be asked for had there not been an anterior grace granted so that the seeker may desire it.

Reflection on Progressivism

It is enticing to believe that popular based change is to be accounted as progress, to consider oneself to be part of a future-defining moment. Yet if there exists no standard but the very fluidity of movement, how could one possibly and objectively determine with any sort of confidence progression or regression of said acclaimed alteration?

Reflection on a New Catholic Church

To present an opposition between an exclusivist fortress Church and an evangelizing, missionary spirit is to posit a false dichotomy. For the missionary Church to be truly evangelical it must possess a truth or a treasure which is worth zealously guarding. There is nothing less relevant or useless than an open mind which is devoid of content. A missionary Church which has suffered the loss of such a precious jewel can only eco back the sundry prevailing fashions and slogans of a decadent and transient age while claiming to present a new reality for the people of God.  Their new orientation is secular humanism which is only tinged with religious sentimentality to ease their consciences.

Theological Shorts - The Immutability of God

In this theological and philosophical reflection we proceed to explain the mind of the Angelic Doctor which was in complete harmony with the articles of Faith upheld by the Catholic Church concerning the immutability of God. Our guide shall be the Theological Summa, First Part, Question 9, Articles 1 and 2.

The metaphysical essence of God primarily consists of His self-existence or what one may term His aseity. This truth is what is first presented to the mind of man when He considers the nature of God. Alone of all that exists God is said to be pure act, without any admixture of potentiality, Who is rightly held to be Himself in virtue of Himself and not through another. The Thomists teach that His existence and His essence are identical as He requires no outside force or agent to unite them by acting upon Him. We posit only a minor virtual distinction between His divine attributes and each one is notionally included in the other without confusion and each formally possesses the divine nature entirely. His duration is eternal, His relation to the external created world is non-necessary and purely voluntary. His end is Himself and all that He wills is willed for Himself and His own goodness. His will is immutable, His liberty, supreme, His knowledge, the cause of all things. The mixed perfections of creatures are contained eminently and virtually in Him and other perfections when stripped of their human mode of signification may be formally attributed to Him.

We hold it be an article of Faith as well as a certain truth of reason that God, the creator of all that is, the fountain of all that moves, the sustainer of all that perishes is Himself immutable in a way not possessed by any other substance whether rational or purely spiritual. We posit absolute simplicity in the divine nature which can be known analogously and abstractly through a consideration of God's actions ad extra. Yet the objection may arise that the angels themselves are pure spirits, free from the encumbrance of finite matter to restrain their being, possessing no division of parts, having reached their end already. However they, like man and the rest of creation, possess their essence and existence ab alio. It is correct to say that they are self-subsisting beings, individuals which do not form part of another or exist in the form of an accident in another substance, but they are still brought into being from nothing and only held in being by the benevolent will of the one true and immutable God and if He willed that they should be not, they would simply disappear. It is to God alone that we ascribe self-existence, ens a se, in the most proper sense.

 In addition we hold that God is immutable as regards His full possession of perfection or it may be more correct to state that He is Himself perfection of being. He requires no further knowledge to improve His choices, He is in no need of another to console His uniqueness in eternity, He is impassible in His divine nature and subject to no other.  Who could move Him? Who could further determine Him? Who could even have existence beside from Him? He remains from all eternity what He is and He remains Himself without any 'shadow of alteration or decay'.

As a corollary let us pause to set out what Billuart has called the ''nodus totius theologiae intricatissimus'' and an 'aenigma sacrum' that of the relation between the divine immutability, which applies not only to the substance of God but also to His will, and His absolute liberty. God's decrees are entirely free of coercion, change or error. Although it is certainly puzzling to modern man, but God's immutability is the very foundation of His liberty. Man is often deceived as to his choices, which would for sure change if he knew all things and needed none of them, yet he holds himself free in choosing multitudinous objects in successive acts of the will as they are presented to Him. God possesses greater liberty inasmuch as His relation to the world is as the cause of it. There is no necessary relation of God to what is brought into being by Himself from nothing and therefore He is free supremely from want or obligation to act. Joseph Pohle explains furthers:

 ''The kernal of this difficulty is to be found in the thoroughly anthropomorphic conception of divine freedom which man forms after the analogy of his own free will, without considering that the liberty of God is something altogether different in kind...The liberty of God, on the other hand, is not an active indifference with respect to several subjective acts. It is but the indifference peculiar to a single, absolutely simple pure act, in relation to different objects. This divine act, being intrinsically necessary, immutable, and eternal, is extrinsically free, inasmuch as it implies a non-necessary, and therefore a free relation to the created universe'' (Dogmatic Theology, Volume 1)

God in one pure and simple act wills His own goodness and the created participatory goodness of that He chooses to bring into being. His will remains immutable while He creates in time what He has decreed from all eternity to bring forth.

Reflection on the Papacy

The Roman Pontiff is the most bound of the servants of God, his scope of action is restricted by divine decree to the presentation of the Sacred Deposit of Faith. He is tied taught by the chains of Saint Peter.

Reflection on "Marriage Equality"

If we are to hold that in the 21st century marriage is nothing more than an oppressive, outmoded institution, the offer of "marriage equality" should appear more as an act of cruelty than one of solidarity.

Reflection on Sanctity

Sanctity may be described analogously as the striving to love God as He loves Himself. An absolute identity of being, intellect and will resting in the Supreme Good.

Reflection on Euthanasia

To reduce all worth in human living to the sensation of relative painlessness is to devalue humanity to the level of brute beasts where few rights could ever apply.

Reflection on Equality

Is there anything less self evident than the equality of all men, but is more treated than a fundamental dogma of modern living?

Reflection on the Supersubstantiality of God

God is above all that we know and is the source of all we know. It is only through the latter that we can know Him at all.

Reflection on a Notion of God

Our conception of God has been the first casualty in the progressive war on civilisation. The anthropomorohization of the divinity to create a God more favourable to human vices has not made Him more relevant but has formed a being utterly incapable of receiving any sort of reverence.

Reflection on Liberalism

The liberality of modern day liberalism appears confined to the sexual whereas in matters economic and political it verges on the totalitarian.

Reflection on God's love for Man

An appreciation of God's love for man may be honoured in solitude alone. Once out in a crowd, passersby appear only as irritants and obstacles. Let us marvel that God even loves this tangle of souls.

Reflection on "Know Thyself"

If man is a mystery to himself how is he to reach the transcendent God? Consider yourself and His creation in a tranquil spirit.

Reflection on Charity and the Poor

                   The relief of the poor of temporal concerns is only to refresh their hearts for the eternal.

Reflection on Democracy

Democracy is the widescale political equivalent of handing a five year a scalpel to operate on you in the interests of fairness.

Reflection on Slogans

The vulgarisation of the political or societal slogan has been deftly exploited by those opposed to a natural objectivity and foisted upon a generation much given to parroting a phrase in common but not devoted to actually understanding it. The downfall of liberalism can be brought about by applying their lines of attempted "thought" to situations hardly considered.