Is Bishop Williamson being prepared for Holy Martyrdom? I think that Bishop Fellay may be having his heart hardened and he is being prepared for hell. What does the forum think?

Andy

I think it unlikely that Bishop Williamson will be executed for his Catholic Faith by any authority.  

I do not understand the penchant of modern-day man to so understate what constitutes "suffering", "persucution", and "martyrdom".

Indeed, when the persecutions ended and the memory of real martyrdom fresh in people's minds, theologians and Churchmen talked of "white martyrdom" and such.  But who were they talking about?  The Desert Fathers, the monks who lived their lives in true poverty and silence, the hermits.

Since being "silenced", Bishop Williamson is heard all over the world.  He has visited the United States and other countries.  He lives comfortably.  All this even though he is degraded and despised by his fellows.  He is experiencing a mild persecution by way of culumnies, but I doubt even Bishop Williamson would admit to being subject to any sort of martyrdom.  He is indeed suffering but his suffering is not his personal suffering but the penance he is doing on behalf of those who ridicule him.

When Catholics have to hide priest in hidden cupboards in their homes and spies report on the whereabouts of suspected Catholics as was the experience of Saint Edmund Campion in England, then is when we should discuss true persecutions and martyrdom.

I do not understand the penchant of modern-day man to so understate what constitutes "suffering", "persucution", and "martyrdom".

Indeed, when the persecutions ended and the memory of real martyrdom fresh in people's minds, theologians and Churchmen talked of "white martyrdom" and such.  But who were they talking about?  The Desert Fathers, the monks who lived their lives in true poverty and silence, the hermits.

Since being "silenced", Bishop Williamson is heard all over the world.  He has visited the United States and other countries.  He lives comfortably.  All this even though he is degraded and despised by his fellows.  He is experiencing a mild persecution by way of culumnies, but I doubt even Bishop Williamson would admit to being subject to any sort of martyrdom.  He is indeed suffering but his suffering is not his personal suffering but the penance he is doing on behalf of those who ridicule him.

When Catholics have to hide priest in hidden cupboards in their homes and spies report on the whereabouts of suspected Catholics as was the experience of Saint Edmund Campion in England, then is when we should discuss true persecutions and martyrdom.

Very astute post, TKGS (as usual !).

This reminds me of the widespread habit amongst Catholics today (most notably women) of referring to "dark nights of the soul," or "going through a dark night of the soul."  It's silly; they simply mean spiritual dryness and labouring under the effects of Original Sin.  The true dark night of the soul is the passage through the purgative into the illuminative way of the soul's mystical life.  It is called the dark night of the soul poetically by St John of the Cross because one is outside of comfort, without the consolation of a clear vision of one's spiritual progress.  It involves the removal of the images produced by one's imagination that the soul relies on during contemplation, but it is a necessary purgation into a higher form of affective contemplation that is not reliant upon being absorbed in the sensible aspects of Our Lord's mysteries.

The reason why I think women have more of a tendency to use this phrase inappropriately than men (or so I have noticed) is because it helps them cope with spiritual dryness to over-dramatise and emotionalise it, turning it into some grandiose struggle.  The battle of the soul certainly does have its grandeur, but it is not this kind of baroque, romantic spectacle that allows for "frequent dark nights of the soul," a phrase that is based on such a thorough misunderstanding of the concepts involved that it is misleading to use it in any context but that of mystical theology and contemplation.

Likewise, having people think you are odd for wearing dresses and refusing to swim in mixed company and in public is not "martyrdom."  It's not even close; it's only the most basic beginning of living one's Faith and keeping good interior discipline like our devout ancestors.  It is so elementary; people who get hung up on it and speak frequently of martyrdom cheapen the struggles of the true saints and martyrs by inaccurately comparing themselves to them in such situations.  I do not think it is fitting to speak of such serious things so lightly and casually, lest we lose perspective of reality and imbue ourselves with spiritual pride and childishness.  I cannot help but think that these trends are somewhat impacted by how the bourgeois consumer culture has commodified people's sense of importance, reducing most people to a sort of adolescent spiritual and emotional state wherein they feel they must emphasise their participation in the Mystical Body of Our Lord as analogous to belonging to some other counter-cultural trend or subculture.  Suddenly you have trad-Catholic chic, and it allows for fora such as Fisheaters to mold and shape the general mentality, praxis, attitudes, and externals of large swaths of traditional Catholic households.  This sets the stage for the development within the past decade of neo-tradism and liberal traditionalism.

Please, let us not allow ourselves to become so melodramatic !  As the jolly old French voyageurs said of the Spaniards at Santa Fé when setting up trading posts amongst the Comanches in the Arkansas River valley in the 1740s, too many Catholics today act like "women."  Let us, rather, act like men.  I am going somewhat far afield here, but I would like to posit that the true Catholic spirit produces a certain interior restraint in the soul that shudders in the face of melodrama and other things that are low and ignoble; the faculties of the soul inflamed with holy desires are robust of limb, fresh, clean, and flexible.  They do not require being luxuriated by little self-congratulatory fantasies.  That is the way, rather, of spiritual mediocrity.  I say this as one who is trying to advance in the spiritual life but who is not very advanced; what I think I do know, however, is that true poverty of spirit cries out for giving everything it's due and demands for noble simplicity and manful purity; it excises everything extraneous and superfluous and gaudy from one's union of the heart with the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

Please, anybody, respond to this writing of mine if you think I have missed something important or said something badly.

As for Bishop Williamson, I do not rule out the possibility that his current isolation would give him that extra spiritual muscle to endure martyrdom if it comes to him.  But it seems a bit premature and exaggerated to conclude that the bishop will be martyred with only his current isolation as evidence of a progression.  And to say Bishop Fellay's heart is being hardened for Hell, that he could not repent and regret his current behaviour and so forth, seems rather flamboyant and silly.  Pray for them both.

A good post PereJoseph. You know, (this is off topic) but it gives some insight as to why women aren't meant to be priests. I can only imagine having a woman as a confessor/ spiritual director.