Neil Obstat
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I realize that this topic is not comfortable for Sede's, due to their disagreement in
whether the Pope is the pope, or whether the Bishops are bishops. Therefore,
if we could prescind from that argument, and let's all pretend that the pope to
whom we refer in this discussion is truly the Pope, regardless of whether one
actually exists today or not, and the bishops to whom we refer are truly Bishops,
whether all of them (or any of them!) in fact exist today in the world.
In other words, to avoid chaos and distraction into an endless rambling over the
identity of true bishops, perhaps this thread can remain focused on the
theological principles of the Collegial Consecration of Russia to the Immaculate
Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God.
For those who are unfamiliar with the topic, or for those who are disposed to a
dispute over the legitimacy of this topic, it may help if I briefly explain the source
of the principle at hand, the Consecration itself.
Throughout the "Marian Age," which arguably began at or slightly before Our Lady
appeared to Venerable Juan Diego in A.D. 1531, as the Virgin of Guadalupe, on
the day after her own Feast of the Immaculate Conception, Our Blessed Mother
has been giving us a message of consolation, maternal care and gentle warning:
sometimes not so gentle! In each of her apparitions approved by the Church, her
message does not change in its essence, although the specific words she uses to
convey the message do change, just as the various authentic Rites of the Catholic
Church do the same thing using a variety of forms.
In various ones of these approved apparitions, she has hinted at the theme of
the Consecration here discussed, but it was in the context of the approved
apparitions of Fatima that it is most clearly pronounced. Some contend that the
things we are saying came from Our Lady were not part of the apparitions in
Fatima, Portugal, but "occurred later." The fullness of her explanation did occur
in later years, and not in Fatima, literally, it is true, but to say that therefore it is
not part of the Fatima Message is false, for Our Lady clearly foretold in Fatima
that she would come later to ask for the Consecration of Russia to her
Immaculate Heart. She did not say how many days or even years later it would
be.
But she did come later, as she had promised, after two of the three seers had
already gone to their eternal reward, dear Jacinta and dear Francesco, and she
came to dear Lucia, the lone, surviving seer of the apparitions in Fatima. She
came in the context of a Theophany, the most all-encompassing image in the
history of the world, in terms of theological depth and mystery, for it entailed the
Blessed Trinity in plain view -- not as if with "vision clear," but as though
"through a lens darkly," along with Their most perfect creature, the Blessed Virgin
Herself. This took place in 1929 in the seaside village of Tuy, just north of Portugal.
And while Lucia saw this unique vision, the most rare Trinitarian Theophany,
Our Lady spoke these words in the presence, as it were, of the Most High God:
‘‘The moment has come when God asks the Holy Father to make, in union with all the bishops of the world, the Consecration of Russia to My Immaculate Heart, promising to save it by this means.
‘‘So numerous are the souls which the justice of God condemns for sins committed against Me, that I come to ask for Reparation. Sacrifice yourself for this intention and pray.’’
Our attention, therefore, is drawn to this concept of the Consecration because of
this marvelous experience granted to dear Lucia as a holy religious, living in
seclusion, away from her native village: living a quiet life of penance and
reparation. But we do not therefore base our judgment solely on the fact of this
reported experience of a poor Portugese nun. By the way, Saint Anthony of Padua
was a poor Portugese friar, and we don't usually cast aspersions on him for that
fact, do we?
We can approach discussion of this concept of the Consecration prescinding from
the report of Lucia, that is, as if it had never happened, so as to see what
fundamental credibility it has on its own, based on the whole of Revealation, the
history and teaching of the Church, and sound judgment.
The article, below, begins with the following introductory words:
The purpose of this article is to show that a consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary is of a theological necessity or at least a theological convenience, even if Heaven had never mentioned it. Therefore, in this article and for the sake of argument, we pretend that Our Lady never appeared at Fatima and that there was never a message.
Consequently we have to examine the following questions:
1. Why a consecration?
2. Why to Our Lady?
3. Why to Her Immaculate Heart?
4. Why Russia?
5. Why not just by the Pope, but by all bishops?
I have skipped the first part and have gone directly to the second part, for it
seems to me opportune to do so at this time. If there is any interest, we can
most certainly return to the first part in due course...............
2. The Necessity of a Consecration to Our Lady
Who is God, is it Father, Son and Holy Spirit, or is it Our Lady? Doesn’t God, Holy Scripture, and Church Tradition require a consecration to God Himself?
Yes, definitely. It would certainly be less than appropriate to consecrate a church or an altar stone as such, to anyone, but to God Himself. A mere rock used as a grave for human bones, even the holy bones of holy martyrs, must be set apart, sanctified, dedicated and surrendered entirely to God by consecration, in order to be worthy, as an altar stone, for the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. The same is analogically true for a church and, ultimately, for the members of the priesthood.
But these consecrations, just like the consecration of Baptismal Water, are necessary to render some matter worthy of the Holy One, by sanctification. An altar stone is not consecrated to convey graces, but to allow to take place upon it the celebration of the sacrament such that the sacrament will convey the most potent sacramental graces. The altar stone does not convey the graces, but its consecration facilitates them. Neither an altar stone nor Baptismal Water are consecrated for the purpose of atonement in the strict sense, but for the purification needed to render the matter worthy of the proper sacrament.
Are all consecrations only to God? Ultimately, yes, but not always exclusively. God rewards the saints with a share of His Glory. The Medal of St. Benedict is consecrated in honor of St. Benedict asking for his intercession. It is consecrated to God Almighty, but in honor of St. Benedict.
God’s Holy Will to share His Glory with all the Saints is firmly established in the Tradition of the Church:
An altar stone must not be consecrated unless it properly contains the relics of martyrs; a church is usually dedicated to a saint; most feasts in the Roman Calendar are of saints; a Novena may be said equally well to a saint, or for Christmas, or for the Coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost (which is the oldest of all Novenae); a nun may be consecrated as a Sister of the Sacred Heart as much as she could be as a Sister of St. Joseph; during the Council of Trent three books were placed on the altar: the Bible, the Missal and the Summa Theologiae, written by a "mere" saint, but the Doctor Angelicus, the Doctor Communis, the Doctor Doctorum. Thus, one of the most fruitful gatherings of the bishops: one of the most inspired Councils ever, was thus dedicated and consecrated: to God in His Holy Writ, to the Church in Her Missal, and to a little, fat saint in his huge book containing at least four mistakes, but written in a glowing love incomprehensible for most of us.
Thus, God wanted the consecration not exclusively directed to His Perfection and Divinity (somewhat lessened by St. Jerome in the Vulgate), much less to the mistakes of Popes in the Proprium of the Mass (the Canon is without errors or faults!!!), and still less to the intellectual shortcomings of the magnificent, fat saint in his magnificent, fat book, called the Summa Theologiae. It can easily be seen that God wanted the Fathers of Trent to share in these three books’ inspiration, wisdom, information and insights, but foremost in the Divine Love shared with saints like St. Jerome, St. Gregory the Great, and St. Thomas Aquinas.
We will see in the next chapter how important this consideration is. Hope will be satisfied, Faith will be superceded, Love will remain. (Coming in part 3: Why to her Immaculate Heart?)
While consecration, generally speaking, is an act of Faith, set in Hope, it must be caused by Love, be it in obedience (which is a kind of love), or in choosing Love itself. Charity loves "thy neighbor" in obedience, friendship loves by choice. St. Thomas says: "Of all the things that pertain to love, friendship is the most perfect" (Summa Contra Gentiles, III, d. 27, q.2, 1).
We have seen that God wants His Glory for our sake, not for Himself, no matter how infinitely it is due to Him. His perfect Friendship is the purpose of all consecration. "Vos autem dixi amicos, but I have called you friends," said He to the disciples (John 15:15), and friends we are, when consecrated by dedication, atonement and especially obedience to His Will (cf. John 15:13).
The Church, in Her venerable Tradition of countless canonizations of saints, in Her benevolent protection of their cults, and in Her consecrations in their honor, illustrates and witnesses the firm will of Christ to share His Glory and merits with the ones consecrated to Him.
The conclusion is inevitable that His Mother not only is part of this sharing, but, being in the very first place of all saints ever, she is one to Whom we may consecrate. Her merits and role in the History of Salvation are praised and exalted in Holy Scripture as well as in Church Tradition, in the writings of the saints, and in an uninterrupted twenty centuries of true devotion and cultus. So exalted is (or was) Her position among the faithful, that G.K. Chesterton thankfully reminded us of the wisdom of the Church that always knew to emphasize the distinction between the God-Man Himself and a perfect human being (The New Jerusalem, last chapter).
The occasional exaggeration can be benevolently considered as comprehensible in the light of the Blessed Virgin’s position as Mother of God, Queen of all Martyrs, Queen of Heaven, Queen of the Angels, and Mediatrix of All Graces.
Let the quotations of a few saints suffice as a substitute for all the countless and often deep volumes written about Her glory:
... in the first place the memory of the glorious ever Virgin Mary, Mother of
Our Lord and God, Jesus Christ (Canon Missae); The humanity of Christ
inasmuch as it is united to God, and the created beatitude inasmuch
as it is fruition of God, and the Blessed Virgin inasmuch as She is
Mother of God, in a way have infinite dignity out of the infinite good, which
is God (Summa Theologiae, I, q.25, a.6, ad 4), and from this part
cannot be better (Summa Theologiae, III, q.7, a.12, ad 2); To be the Mother
of God is the utmost grace conferable to a mere creature. The same is
where God cannot do more. God can make a bigger world or a greater
heaven, but more than a Mother of God He cannot make (St. Bonaventura).
Our Lady’s function in the economy of salvation is not merely passive, She is not merely used by God; She devoted, with all of Her heart and not lessened by any sin, all of Her life and Herself completely as the ancilla Domini to God and His Divine Son in the mystery of the Redemption. She is, as St. Irenaeus says, the cause of salvation. St. Epiphanius calls Her the "Mother of the Living," and She is indeed our mother in the order of grace, because She is the GRATIA PLENA, full of grace, and the Mediatrix of All Graces:
From the time that the Virgin Mother conceived the Word of God in Her
womb ... She obtained jurisdiction in all temporal processions of the Holy
Spirit; so that no creature obtained any grace from God, unless according to
His pious Mother’s dispensation (St. Bernardine of Siena).
All consecrations for the purpose of obtaining graces must, therefore, be directed towards Our Lady, inasmuch as She is the Mediatrix of All Graces!
Now the above, as a theological opinion, seems to place a lot of its foundation
on the principle of Our Lady as Mediatrix of grace. There have been reports for
many years now, of this title for Our Lady being moved toward the forefront of
Papal acts, but the news seems to wane and wax over the years, with no firm
progress in view. It seems to me that it would make sense for the fulfillment
of Our Lady's request, for the Collegial Consecration of Russia to Her Immaculate
Heart, to be made at the same time as the dogmatic definition of Mary Mediatrix,
or, failing that, it seems likely that one would occur as a direct consequence after
the other. I cannot imagine, however, which would more likely come first, for they
are so closely related, that either one, coming first, would likely result in the other
happening as a consequence. That is to say, if they do not both happen on the
same day and in the same setting, the second one would likely follow the first by
no more than a few weeks' time.
IMHO!
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| Posted Jun 23, 2012, 2:17 am |
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Neil Obstat
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This one is even stronger:
| Quo Vadis Petre said: | I posted this on Consolation's forum. It is worth repeating:
A TIME-CAPSULE LETTER TO A YOUNG FRIEND
By
Brother Saul
...
If I could only be a fly on the wall to what has transpired over the last 20 years I would make a fortune as a writer of novels. But I am saddened to say that all of it, at least, is already determined by the providential finger of God. Let me explain a bit about the past and my present so you will better understand your time which is my future:
The conflict of Christ against the Jews so central to the Gospels is what history (towards its conclusion) will experience on a worldwide scale. As a Christian you should know your enemy the devil and his minions the Jews. The Jew is the original master revolutionary. It was the Jew who seduced Judas to betray Christ, who murdered the Son of God, who flattered the first Pope St Peter to deny the Lord for their craven human respect, who hounded the Apostles with an insane hatred throughout the ancient world to their martyrdoms, who fomented the cruel Roman persecutions against the primitive Christian Church, who incubated Gnosticism the first counter-Christian protest movement from their perverted occult system of Cabala, who fabricated the Mohammedan cult and who have been behind every secret and subversive attack on the City of God ever since. And all because by the time of the coming of their own Messias Jesus Christ, they had started to believe more in their own self-important status as “the holy people” than in God and His promised redeemer. A monumental case of the devil’s pride no less, and one expressed by the blackest of his crimes - deicide. To redress the affront caused by the Son of God overlooking the angel’s own perceived brilliance and choosing instead to set up His throne of grace united to a crass mortal human nature lower than his own. The scandal of the hypostatic union of God and man, which neither the devil nor his minions the Jews could accept. Christianity would remain the thorn in their side, the embarrassing truth of their deicide, which for the Jew must be wiped out from living memory at all cost before they can have their “Messianic Reign” and their Jewish King who the Christians call Antichrist.
But with the ascent of the Catholic Church, the conversion of the Emperor Constantine and the domination of the Holy Roman Empire the hand of God held them back for a thousand years. Non serviam! they have cried for a millennium like their father the devil. They will not serve. Ever since their occultic self-deification philosophy of Cabala gained prominence among certain nobles and inspired the European Renaissance their banking dynasties have risen to financial domination of the West by fomenting wars between Christian nations and financing both sides. With this hold over Crown and Tiara they have plotted and schemed for hundreds of years in their Judeo-Masonic workshops to demolish the Christian Old World Order through their failsafe two phase process of the alchemists known as solve et coagula which works to breakdown offensive institutions into their parts and reassemble them in a preferred bastard form. One made in their own image.
“The Process” as it is known to the Jewish “social engineers” behind the scenes is to “gentilize” basify or corrupt the Christian West. In other words the leveling all temporal and religious authority belonging to the Old World Order other than their own (e.g. The European Catholic Monarchs, The Catholic Church, Christian Institutions, economic subsidiarity etc), to thoroughly de-Christianize and corrupt the west, break down its moral resistance, precipitate a social and economic collapse, seize power and enslave the gentiles under their Noahide Laws, exalt themselves as the “Holy People” for their messianic reign and their Jewish King Rex Mundi (antichrist) who will usher in the last and greatest persecution of Christians holding on to their faith. Well at least that’s the 60 second version.
For the last five hundred years then Phase 1 of the Process has been the Spiritual, Moral, Social, Political and Economic Breakdown of the Christian West (The “gentilisation” of the west). By Judeo-Masonic subterfuge Christians have been induced to throw off the “shackles of God’s laws” for freedom and independence through all these spheres starting with the Protestant Reformation 1517 which rejected Christ’s Church and hence His authority, but not Christ or God (Spiritual Liberalism –“Every Man is his own Pope” Luther was advised and financed by Jews), The Masonic Enlightenment 1717 which rejected the Church and Christ but not God (Intellectual liberalism –“My mind does not submit to external authority” Voltaire, Rousseau and Kant were all Judeo-Masonic philosophers), The French Revolution 1789 (Political Liberalism “I will not be governed by God’s laws but by man’s” –the revolution was financed by Jewish money and the Jacobin Club protagonists were Judeo-Masons). The climax of these Judeo-Masonic revolutions was the Bolshevik Communist revolution of Czarist Russia in 1917 which rejected the Church, Christ and God and was a small scale foretaste of the end-result to all these errors.
By now, the net effect of these subversive movements in the formerly Christian West is unadulterated, universal Liberalism in every area of human life. Above all else man’s liberty is all important because his so-called new found “dignity” supposedly gives him inalienable moral rights even above God’s rights. The 20th century then finds itself in a state of complete spiritual bankruptcy and moral corruption as planned by the revolutionaries. The Industrial Revolution took dad away from the family, The Sexual Revolution took man away from marriage, The Women’s Liberation Movement took mom away from the family, Abortion took man away from procreation, Homosexual Revolution took man away from woman, The Euthanasia bill took the weak away from the strong, The children’s rights movement took the children away from the family into state care etc. All divinely instituted forms of Christian authority like the Catholic monarchs, The family and father as the head of the family, and now even the subversion of the papacy itself have or are being been levelled. Smash, conquer, trample the Christian Old World Order! Instead decadence, hedonism and nihilism reign supreme now with irreligion, satanic cults, pornography, fornication, contraception, homosexuality, abortion, cloning, drugs, suicide, euthanasia, all purchased at the price of liberation from God’s laws.
It is in the present age then that the moral breakdown of the west is being used to usher in Phase II of The Process, which is its “redemption,” or should we say, enslavement by the International New World Order. This New Age Movement is a piece of “Communist Worker’s Paradise Propaganda” designed to entice the leaders of the west to finally throw their crowns, treasuries, and religions at the feet of shadowy Internationalists to be delivered from engineered epidemics of poverty, terrorism, human rights violations and religious wars, into the Social Utopian Age of Aquarius of peace, tolerance and brotherhood. An Age of Aquarius where everyone has enough food, drink, shelter, medicine, and luxuries and all religious differences have been set-aside for the One World Religion of Universal Brotherhood. In fact the Judeo-Masonic governments sitting on the U.N. are only using the New Age Movement’s aims of “International Friendship”, disarmament, pacifism and political and religious centralisation to spearhead the process of Sovietisation until the west is disarmed, dependent on a World Food Authority, Central Bank, Police Force and Education System. Then once weakened and governed centrally the levers of power are handed over from the New Age of International Socialism to the slavery of Communism under the Jewish Noahide system where everyone lives under the U.N.’s seven Noahide Laws prescribed for Gentile Nations and where Christianity is deemed idolatry and punishable by decapitation. This is the real inheritance man can expect from the “Spiritual” Age of Aquarius.
Even this New Age “Spirituality” of Religious Liberty and Equality and Fraternity is designed to flatten and homogenise all religions into the cult of Man, which is nothing less than the base materialism of Jewish Communism. All Religions arise from the same primitive cosmic humanistic revelation we are told. God is not a transcendent person but merely an evolutionary force in the Universe residing in man’s sexual powers at the base of his unconscious mind (The “Cosmic Christ” or “kundalini”). We will not be saved or redeemed by the blood of Christ (who was merely a misunderstood wise man who didn’t make it) but must save ourselves with the secret knowledge (“Gnosis” from the Gnostics) they say he tried to teach. Instead we must use psychotechnologies (Like Mantras, Yoga, Tantra, Psychedelic drugs, Alchemy, Visualization techniques) to still the conscious mind to the awakening of kundalini, annihilate the deforming effects of the ego-identity (like reason, free will and identity) to become at one with the natural rhythm of this cosmic force beyond. Only then can we cross the perceptual abyss of “separation” from the “divine” and join the evolutionary group mind. This is the New Age Cover story. The net effect of this self-deification is actually nothing less than the cult of Man (Atheistic Humanism) where man is placed on the altar instead of God. One where there is no supernatural God above the created world and Man is not fallen into a disordered state of sinfulness. One where the only sin is ignorance to enlightenment or “at-oneness” caused by division, separation and alterity to the Universal Brotherhood of Man. There is no God, no afterlife and hence no sin. So there is no need for a Redeemer. Man is just a hairless monkey who needs to unrepress all his instincts and be at one with the natural world around him. We only go around once they tell us, so take your share now and indulge your passions while you can. The real objective to the New Age Religious Propaganda then is to level Christianity by making an omlette of it with all false religions into the Cult of Man and secondly to depersonalize man with the new mysticism into a passive responder to his environment like a base animal or more likely a second class citizen (Goyim) in preparation for the dictatorship of “The Holy People”
There is no better example of the Tripartite Motto of the Judeo-Masonic “Fraternity, Equality and Liberty” at work than with their attempted subversion of Christ’s Catholic Church during this, phase II of “The Process.” For She was hijacked and infiltrated by the Judeo-Masonic lodge at the notorious Second Vatican Council and is destined to be leveled and recast in the image of the beast. To be brought low from her exalted state of Christ’s own mystical body, His chaste modest bride to that of the Apocalyptic harlot who fornicates with every worldly and religious error in the name of the new religion of universal brotherhood (Fraternity), democracy (Equality) and human rights (Liberty). Meanwhile she has become the outright mouthpiece to the Judeo-Masonic United Nations principles of the New World Order like “international friendship”, disarmament, pacifism, and the globalization of political and economic centralization. She preaches world peace (at the expense of religious truth), social justice (at the expense of salvation of the soul), human rights and human dignity (at the expense of the 10 Commandments), Religious Freedom (at the expense of Loyalty to God), Tolerance for all religions (at the expense of evangelization) etc. She is being made into none other the false prophet who promotes the U.N.’s cult of man to the Gentiles and the Talmudic Socialist Propaganda of the Jews and their Messias Antichrist as the “Holy People” and “Saviour of Mankind”
But Catholic prophecy tells us they wont succeed. At least not yet. Before the final tribulation and the revelation of antichrist their world Communist revolution to demolish the old Christian world order must try and fail and be humiliated by a glorious God-sent renaissance of the holy Roman Catholic empire. This is prophesied by many Catholic visionaries, seers and mystics to gather momentum in the first few decades of the 21st Century. By now then Schizzy (2026) you may have witnessed the European civil wars, the great schism of the Catholic Church, the invasion of the Russians, Prussians and Muslims into Europe, the Noahide Communist revolution, the three days of darkness, the rise of the great European monarch and the miraculous election of the angelic Pope, the re-Christianization of the world and possibly even some of the Marian era of peace foretold by the Blessed Virgin Mary to the three shepherd Children of Fatima in the year 1917 when she came to warn the Church of the impending errors of Communism (the year the Communist Revolution broke out in Czarist Russia). You will also have felt the power and intrigues of the Jewish Nation grow on the world stage in preparation for the coming of their false Messiah, Antichrist.
So I leave you now perhaps in greater clarification of recent events or if not perhaps in greater preparation for events still yet to come.
Remember one thing. Life is a pilgrimage. We are only here for 3 score and ten years. So don’t get to attached to it. Certainly don’t get seduced, diverted or distracted by the attractive glitter, lights and glamour of the stalls along the roadside. Set your face like flint, take up your cross and ascend your Calvary where, if you climb the ropes of grace thrown down to you from heaven, you will win your crown at its summit. God has given us His laws to be our directions to the Heavenly afterlife and His own Body and Blood in the Sacrifice of the Mass to do it under His strength. Have courage and faith then and know that if you lean out from this lofty precipice, that the warm wind of God’s providence will be there to support you always.
I entrust you to the Sacred and Immaculate Hearts of Jesus and his Virgin Mother Mary in this, the hour of their triumph on earth.
God Bless +
Brother Saul.
_____________________
A Time-Capsule Letter to a Young Friend
My Comment:
I want people to understand that "Jews" means here the Jewish leaders and those who faithfully follow their holy book. |
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| Posted Jul 21, 2012, 7:53 pm |
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