OUR LADY OF FATIMA  CATHOLIC CHURCH

Sacred Heart

This fire refers to the purifying and cleansing power which the Gospel thru the grace of the Holy Spirit will exercise upon mankind. But this power is effective only thru Jesus' Passion and Death. Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus began when that Divine Heart was pierced and sent forth its last drops of blood for our salvation.

Long ago it became the favorite devotion of the people. The love of this Divine Heart burned in the hearts of those who bore Jesus in their hearts; it burned in the heart of him who was privileged to rest on the heart of Jesus at the Last Supper, and who cries out with holy inspiration, God is Love ! -- Uniting in that one word all the Divine perfections. This love burned in the heart of Blessed Paul the Apostle who so frequently speaks of the great love of Jesus Christ and who, glowing with this love, solemnly affirms that nothing shall separate him from the love of Jesus Christ.

"Oh, how good and pleasant it is," says St. Bernard, "to dwell in the Heart of Jesus ! Willingly would I sacrifice all I have to possess It.

Almost 300 years ago on June 16, 1675 Our Divine Saviour revealed to St Margaret Mary that He desired to have a special feast in honor of His heart. He showed His Heart to her, saying: "Behold this Heart which has loved men so much that it has spared nothing, even to exhausting and consuming Itself in order to testify Its love to them, and in return I receive from the greater portion only ingratitude thru the contempt, irreverences, sacrilege and coldness with which they treat Me in this Sacrament of Love. But what grieves Me still more is that even souls consecrated to Me should treat Me thus."

It seems Our Lord had a word for our times. As peace hopes in the Middle East fade, floods rampage, strikes threaten, and the whole world continues to be unsettled, His words to Sister Faustina take on a deeper meaning.

"Tell ailing Mankind to draw close to My Merciful Heart and I will fill it with peace ... mankind will not find peace until it turns with confidence to My Mercy."

It is to be expected that Catholic instincts taking great joy in honoring the Heart of Christ should find it only natural to honor the Heart of Mary.

Once the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus was established in the Church it was in the order of Providence a natural consequence that a devotion to the Heart of Mary should also be established. Is there not a likeness in the honors the Church pays to Jesus and to Mary? The same love that has led Jesus Christ to associate His Mother with Himself in all the glory He enjoys in the Church Triumphant has led Him to associate her in the same way in all the honor He receives from the Church Militant.

Traverse in spirit the whole world and see how Jesus and Mary are everywhere honored together. Read the history of the Church in every Catholic state and you will see that Mary has ever been together with her Son the first and most tender object of the love and veneration of the faithful, and that same spirit of faith and grace, that inspires love for Jesus, always has inspired as lively a love for Mary.

We are just as much convinced today as was Leo XIII at the beginning of this century, that the only true ultimate hope for the human race lies in the heart of Christ and the Immaculate Heart of His Mother. No matter what the future, the devotees of the divine Heart will increase in numbers. They are sure of ultimate victory in the Love that surpasses all understanding and of its very nature will always gain ultimate triumph over the forces of evil.

Catholics everywhere face the future with this basic confidence. Therein lies their unshaken peace of mind, their peace of soul.

"And your peace no man shall take from you."

At the turn of the century it was common to, say "Christianity has been tried and found wanting." Chesterton answered, "Christianity has been found hard but not tried." We believe, today that Christianity has been found easy and not tried."

Those Christian practices which once were considered a very essential part of religion such as fasting, are very often ignored or dispensed. Our Blessed Lord said that certain kinds of devils were driven out only by prayer and fasting and not by prayer alone. Easter is wanted but not Good Friday which is its condition.

But there is an additional reason for fasting and that is in order that we may have an experimental knowledge of the hunger of the world. God Himself became Man in order that man could never say,"God does not know what it is to suffer."

"I listened to the agony of God -- I who am fed. Who never yet went hungry for a day. I see the dead -- the children starved for lack of bread. I see and try to pray.

I listened to the agony of God -- But know full well that not until I share their bitter cry -- Earth's pain and hell can God within my spirit dwell -- To bring His Kingdom nigh".

The essence of Christianity is the union of Christ and the Cross. He was not just a teacher. He was a Saviour and a Redeemer. Every other man who ever came into this world came to live; He came into it to die; to take the worst evil had to offer and then to conquer it.

But today Christ has been divorced from His Cross. The world today seeing this divorce, has chosen one or the other. Western Christiamity for the most part has taken up Christ without His Cross. He is presented as the ambassador of good will, the soft Galilean Whose breath never blights a fig tree, nor who never condemns divorce or fornication but who left pious platitudes from which we might pick and choose to post on our Church lawns. This is the soft Christ of Western Christianity without His Cross and its Redemption from sin.

At the other pole is the Cross, the symbol of discipline, order, self-denial restraint, dedication to a cause even to the point of death. Who has picked up the Cross? Communism. it has restored to a liberal world which believed in freedom without law, a sense of order, a passion for a world mission and a seriousness about life.

But just as Christ without a Cross is effeminacy and decay, so a Cross without Christ is dictatorship, persecution, tyranny and the anthill. If those outside of Christianity cannot see that it makes any great practical difference in our lives, then we must look forward to the victory of the Cross over the Christ without His Cross, but this should make Christian leaders frightened, for not until we put the two together will we bring back to the world a love that is deeper than sex and higher than sentimentality.

Only when we bring together Christ and His Cross and live our lives accordingly will we deserve that peace which Christ came to give us. That Peace which no man can take away from us.

In Silence Shall Your Strength Be

St. Benedict and all the founders of religious orders and masters of the spiritual life, esteem silence of capital importance. None more than the Father of Western Monks. They all seize upon the Word of God to back them up: "In silence shall your strength be". The strength to walk in the path of virtue.

A young man was once sent to Socrates to learn oratory. On being introduced to the great philosopher the young man talked so incessantly that when he got around to asking what Socrates' fees for the course would be, the learned man said he would have to charge a double fee. "Why charge me double?", asked the young man. "Because," said Socrates, "I must teach you two sciences -- one how to speak and the other, how to hold your tongue, and the latter is more difficult."

One of the most patent lessons ever taught in Holy Scripture revolves around Job and the time he talked too much. It seems Job, sorely tried as he was, must have said something to God that was out of place for Holy Scripture gives this account of what happened as a consequence: "The Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said, "Who is this that wrappeth up sentences in unskillful words? Gird up thy loins like a man, I will ask thee, and answer thou me. Where was thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me if thou has understanding ... Didst thou know then that thou shouldst be born? And didst thou know the number of thy days?" This withering questionnaire goes on for two long chapters, and then comes the prize understatement of the Bible, for Job said: "What can I answer who have spoken inconsiderately. I will lay my hand on my mouth. One thing I have spoken, which I wish I had not said and another, to which I will add no more. You have taught me a good lesson and I'm going to watch what I say in the future."

Silence is a rampart against the attacks of the spirit of the world and its frivolous agitations. The devil fears and hates this religious silence because he has experienced its strength and he tempts less frequently those communities where it is honored. Rarely does Satan gain signal victories over the individual who keeps silence.

Exterior silence is that of the lips, in conformity to the moral laws interior silence is that recollection whlch is the mainstay of exterior silence.

St. Jerome defines an idle word as that which profits neither him that speaks nor him that hears. Solon, a great statesman, having been asked (since he happened to say nothing) whether he was silent for want of words or because he was a fool, replied, "No fool is able to be silent."

Then there is the duty to speak when silence becomes a fault. A word of kindness might have saved Judas from despair. St. John the Baptist and St. Thomas More were obliged to tell kings, "It is not lawful" the death was the penalty.

Silence is the sacrament of the world to come. Plutarch once made a fine observation on talkativeness. He said, "Talkative people: if they wished to be loved, they are hated, if they desire to please, they bore; when they think they are admired, they are really laughed at, they spend and yet they gain nothing from so doings they injure their friends, benefit their enemies and ruin themselves."

One of the office force of a public servant suggested that he be silent in regard to certain important people. "They can make a lot of trouble for you." The reply was characteristic of the man. "I do not wish to hear such sentiments expressed in this office again. In all I do in line with my duty, what happens to me is of no importance."

Boredom is cured by prayer, by abstention from vain speech, by working with our hands according to our strength, by reading of the Word of God and by patience; for it is born of a faint soul, of idleness and vain speech." And finally the man of God must adorn himself with silence. In other words we must imitate Our Good Mother Mary - The Woman Wrapped in Silence.

Learn of me, says Christ, For I am Meek and Humble of Heart

The way of Love is the Way of the Cross. We must remember that the Sacred Heart is a pierced and bleeding heart --a heart which emptied itself in the manifestation of its love. The ideal of man is the Divine Crucified. All the saints without exception have been crucified, but willingly so. The Cross of Christ was the constant object of their desires.

Christ says to us, "Come to Me all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest." Then He bids us to take His yoke upon us, for Has yoke is sweet and His burden light. This is a hard saying. Certainly no burden could be heavier than the Cross of Christ and yet He calls it sweet and light. This is one of the great paradoxes of Christianity and like all the others it can only be explained in terms of love. Oh the magical power of love! Love is the Way -- love purifies, love tames, Love makes you thirst for God, love unites you with Him and with His whole creation. Love gives simplicity to your heart and peace to your soul, Love enables you to suffer with joy. Love inebriates you, love sobers you ... Love puts you at the mercy of your beloved and emboldens you to the joy of the cross and gives a foretaste Of eternal bliss.

Oh, the mystery of love! It began by separating and ends by embracing all. It began by loving nothing but God, it ends by loving all things in God.

What a wonder it is that the same love that moves the sun and the other stars has drawn the Son of God down to the earth and the sons of man up to heaven!

Humor, that is good humor -- is an essential ingredient of Christian perfection. A humorous man laughs at himself, while a wit laughs at others. In this definition wit is pagan but humor is Christian. The devil may be witty but he cannot be humorous. For there is often something sharp and venomous about wit and something mellow and kind about humor. It is important to remind ourselves that the cultivation of a right sense of humor can be one of the forms of piety.

We must learn to laugh rather than be vexed by other people's foibles and learn also to laugh at o ur own.

Meekness is a tree rooted in humility and watered by humor it flowers in the form of a serene mellowness and bears the fruit of docility to the Holy Ghost.

Someone has said that good humour is nine tenths of meekness and meekness in the foundation of a full Christian life. In a saint, humor serves to relieve the tension between grace and nature, thus making it possible to conquer nature in a graceful way. Humor flows from meekness, which in turn is replenished by it. Good humour mellows you and keeps you cheerful in the face of unpleasant events. Besides being an implement of your own sanctification. Good humor has an educative and apostolic value. St. Francis de Sales to begin with had a bilious temper, but thru grace and much effort, became the most gentle of saints.

A sister once rushed into his room and abruptly asked him, "What shall I do in order to become a saint?" Francis answered, "I think God wants you to shut the door more gently." I am sure the saint and the sister had a good laugh.

"His Heart, the Sacred Treasure - house of the generosity of God." How we love generosity in men and how we enjoy the occations when we try to be generous ourselves.

Here is this noble phrase in the Preface of the Sacred Heart .... "the generosity of God" -- to remind us that God is generous above all others. He has most to give, and most will for giving; and what He has to give is all stored up for us in the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ.

"His Heart.. was opened." This was the final thing done to our Lord, still hanging on the Cross, to crown and complete His work for redemption. His Heart was opened. It was opened for two reasons: to let something out and to let somebody in.

'To pour out rushing streams of grace and mercy.' These words give us a picture of the Living Waters of Salvation --the water of life released from the Sacred Heart. on Calvary and rushing down eagerly ever since for the salvation and refreshment of souls.

The Sacred Heart is said to be blazing perpetually with love for us, "like a welcoming fire on the hearth of some hospitable inn and thus it lies open for the faithful and a safe refuge for the penitent. Once opened on Calvary that door will never be shut again.

The natural and easy way to enter through the door of the Sacred Heart is when we make a visit to the Blessed Sacrament. But we need not wait for the time of our visit, for at any moment during the day we can let our thought go to that Home always ready for us, with its generous fire of Divine Love ever burning and be there in an instant on the wings of destre and add our little spark of love to its flames.

O Most Blessed Trinity

Today we celebrate the mystery of the Trinity which is the fundamental mystery of Christianity. It bids us believe that in God there is but one Nature and three Persons -- Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

Why did not God give us a fuller understanding of this mystery? Perhaps Chesterton and other wise men knew something of the answer. They said, "I would not give 2 cents for a religion about which I understood everything and left nothing to faith."

The Trinity is a mystery in the true sense, which could not be known without revelation and even with that help is never to be wholly intelligible to us. It is a part of the Divine revelation and it means that God is telling the believer something about Himself. He is doing this in love which is the reason God does all things. Faith says that the reward offered the faithful and loving Christian, is God, blessed and loving for all eternity.

The mystery looms in outline in the Old Testament as a truth ready for disclosure. God deals with the prophets of long ago. God discloses Himself in the Word Whom we are able to accept as Divine because of the activity within us of the Holy Spirit.

One day Jesus said to Peter in explaining Peter's profession of Jesus' Divinity, "Flesh and blood have not revealed it to thee but my Father Who is in Heaven."

Remember the change; the conversion in the Apostles. What they had believed only faintheartedly became now an unshakable certainty, stronger than the certainty of Jewish persecution and Roman tyranny.

What of us? How are we to be convinced, to become absolute believers?

The Holy Spirit alone gives our will the power and our understanding the truth, that we pass from the inclination to reject to the unconditional acceptance of the mysteries of faith. To be exact, I do not believe the Church (although I do! ) but the living God, Who comes to me in His Church. It is not I that believe but the Holy Spirit in me.

It is good to say "Lord I believe", but it is better to add "Lord, I will try to understand what You are helping me to believe." That kind of prayer has a high priority with the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. We can be a little less unsure about the expression of our Love if we try a little more to understand what direction our mind enlightened by the Holy Spirit says our hearts should take.

This need not be an age of total hopelessness. It could become the age of a revival inside the Church if priests recapture essentials of Christianity which clerics have neglected to practice.

That we are witnessing the last act of the drama of survival of our changing world cannot be denied, yet no sane Catholic can attribute this tragedy either to Christ the Founder of the Church or to the Holy Spirit. It has been the human element in the Mystical Body of Christ which must accept blame for the coming disaster. When one analyzes the history of the Catholic Church it is apparent that from the time of Athanasius there has been lacking a devotion to the Paraclete. Many Popes not only failed to implement the mandates of the Popes but failed to follow the leadership of the Holy Spirit to vindicate Christ and to lead Christians in the battle against Anti-Christ. These negatives have been more than any other historic fact the cause of the failure inside the Catholic Church.

No longer, then, is Christ with us on earth officially. He is here sacramentally in the Eucharist and sacrificially in the Mass. Officially the Holy Spirit presides over the destinies of the world - known as the Church. This then for Christians is the greatest romance in life, namely to be a part of this deific drama which day by day unfolds before their eyes.

Wars and famines become mere incidents of passing moment. Up becomes down, life becomes death, success at last is translated by failure, as man attempts to get along without Christ, Whom men crucified.

Let men with ears to hear the sounds of life's romance recognize that neither man's success on earth or salvation beyond this earth are of paramount importance. What does matter is the victory of Christ over Satan; Life over Death; God over the multitude of Anti-God pygmies who, having lost the vision of existence, worshiped the graven image of gold. Above the tornado of disaster will sound the voice of the Paraclete vindicating the Christ Who came to save those who refused to be saved; the voice of God the Father repeating the words which still echo on the Mount of the Transfiguration "This is My Beloved Son -- hear ye Him."

The Feast of Pentecost and the Faith of the Church

Someone in every generation must point out the very important fact that only by keeping the truth is one able to give it away."

In the past it was said, "Don't just keep the Faith -- spread it." Today we are doing well to keep the Faith. We must take care that we have the truth before we start spreading it, for you cannot give what you have not got.

The time predicted by St. Paul is here when men go about with itching ears --seeking not truth but novelty and change for change sake.

The firmest basis for our reassurance in the midst of trial and anxiety lies in the conviction, rooted in faith, that God's providence extends in a special way to the Church founded by His Divine Son, Who sent the Holy Spirit to guide and inspire her as well as to preserve her from error in interpreting revealed truth. "But the Paraclete,the Holy Spirit Whom the Father will send in My Name will teach you everything and remind you of all that I told you Myself ... "Do not let your hearts be troubled or fearful." "The Spirit dwells in the Church and in the hearts of the faithful as in a temple. The Spirit guides the Church into the fullness of Truth. He makes the Church grow, perpetually renews her and leads her to perfect union with her spouse."

The Holy Spirit promised by Christ to His Church is not only the Spirit of life and love, but equally the Spirit of hope grounded in faith. Today especially, the Church presents herself as a pilgrim of hope.

Much more is called into question now than in the past. Venerable customs and cherished practices have given way to rapid and radical change.

True, not all that is new or changing is the result of the second Vatican Council or a correct interpretation of its decrees: in some instances it is merely the result of human desire for novelty.

The Church must remain what she is and always has been: The Faithful who have no abiding city here on earth.

On this pilgrimage, particular joy and comfort come from Mary, Mother of the Church who "shines forth on earth until the day of the Lord shall come, as a sign of sure hope and solace for all the Faithful.

These are times to pray to God more fervently for deep faith and to beg the intercession of Mary and the Saints that like them we may have the courage and Christian calm in the face of trials and difficulties. They are times which call for prudence to distinguish - as far as possible - between that which is unchangeable because it is of God, and that which is changeable, because it is of men. These are times which plead for sons and daughters who will trust the Church and be ready to meet the future boldly with her - confident in the abiding presence of the Holy Spirt and His constant guidance. These are times which demand Christian kindness in a very special measure toward those whom St. Paul calls the weak, and to be ever considerate and patient with the Church's human side.

But while showing charity toward the sinner, we must not confuse truth with error or light with darkness. It is in a living faith and the hope which springs from it, that we will find both courage and that real security which is the true freedom of the children of God.

Let it then be our prayer now and in the days ahead, that the merciful Christ will grant us that measure of living faith, abiding hope and stout courage which will keep us faithful to Him, loyal to His Church and responsive to the challenge of Christians in our time.

Ascension

Christ said, "It is better for you that I go away; the Paraclete Who is to befriend you will not come to you unless I do go, but if I go, I will send Him to you."

The last words of Jesus before leaving this earth were words of peace and comfort. The world will hate and persecute you -- but have confidence I have Overcome the world. We too will overcome with our "Jesus of the Scars".

As a soldier may return from war wearing the ribbons of victory so Jesus ascends into Heaven wearing the scars of battle against sin!

Everywhere in the Paschal scene meet a great soldier with His Scars. Mary Magdalen who had anointed His feet for His burial and then once again knelt at His feet on Calvary's hill on Easter recognizes Him as the Risen Saviour as clinging to His feet she sees the lived memories of sharp nails.

There are two kinds of unbelief. Those who say something is not true because they wish it were not true and those who say something is not true because they wish it was. This latter kind is curable after eight days of the gloom that comes from doubt, the Saviour appears to the Doubter and wins from him that famous act of faith -- "My Lord and my God."

In rising and ascending into Heaven Christ bore in His Body the scars of Victory. O Captain of the wars, why do you wear these scars ?

First -- to prove the law of Christian life that no one shall be crowned unless he has struggled; that no crown of merit rests on those who do not fight; that unless there is a Good Friday in our lives, there will never be an Easter or Ascension; that no one ever rises to a higher life without death to a lower one, that God hates peace in those who are destined for war.

Secondly -- to prove His love. True love seeks not his own good, but the good of the other. True love is proven not by words but by offering something to the one loved, and the greatest offering one can give is not what one has but ones very life. Every scar tells the story. Greater love than this no man hath.

Jesus of the Scars knows what pain is. And if He who is God took pain upon Himself it must be that somehow or other it fits into God's plans. He could promise -- your sorrow shall be turned into joy.

Jesus of the Scars assures us that evil will never have an ultimate victory. Evil did its worst when it killed Goodness Itself. But being defeated in its mightiest moment by His Resurrection from the dead, we may be sure it will meet with ultimate defeat.

Scarred men come for healing only to Scarred Hands! Only a Jesus with scars can understand our hearts. This is an age of scars. Scars on bodies -- the wounds of war; scars on souls, the wounds of Godlessness. Either scars fighting against Thee or scars fighting with Thee! Come Jesus of the Scars, I am not strong until Thy pierced Hand clasps my own. I am not free, 'till Thou dost bind me to Thy Scars!

Too long have we been hard on Thomas! He is now our spokesman -- greater than all the rest! Since the world has scars, death surrounds and evil is strong, we too say, "Until I have seen the marks of the nails on His Hands, until I have put my finger into the marks of the nails and put my hands into His Side, you will never make me believe. And as we have doubted like Thomas, let us always like him add, "My Lord and My God."

The Call to Holiness

The problem of believing in Christ is not fundamentally different for modern man from what it was for the first Christians. Their problem was the same as our problem - to persevere in the faith in a world without faith, to remain pure in a society given over to all manner of covetousness.

How is one to persevere in the faith in our century? When one asks this nowadays, one is likely to be answered in terms of intellectual investigation, theological reading or discussion. This is excellent and vital but it is not enough. It is not even what is most necessary. It is prayer, not intellectual debate which is the first condition necessary in persevering in the faith. God is someone not about whom we speak, but to whom we speak. If God is not encountered in loving personal union in prayer, He will not be encountered in dialogue with others.

We speak of theology. The very purpose of theology is prayer and contemplation. A good test for genuine theology is whether or not it is a help to prayer and whether or not it creates a desire and need for prayer. If it doesn't do that, it may be brilliant and intellectually an interesting speculation, but it would not be authentic theology. Again, no one has ever really been able to speak about God who has not first found Him and spoken to Him through a habit of prayer.

What the Christian can never forget is that religion is primarily about God, not about man. "Thou shalt love the Lord, Thy god," The Christian is warned by his Lord to "seek first the Kingdom of God and His justice." He is then assured that the other things will be later added to him. This is the supreme lesson to the world given by Jesus Himself. He is the man for the Father before being the man for others. Jesus, above all else, in the great adorer of God. He calls us to be adorers of Him also, in spirit and in truth.

If Christians have ever neglected their temporal tasks, it certainly isn't because they are too preoccupied with loving God. It is not possible to love God without including men in that love. But it is possible to love men without thinking of God and this very attitude is in some respects the modern version of Anti-Christ.

The call of Christian religion is the call to holiness. Again and again, in the Bible we hear God's command, "Be holy because the Lord, your God, is holy." It is only by seeking the Lord Himself - by following Him, loving Him, serving and seeking Him, that we will then learn by contrast of the unholiness of man. St. Paul says, "Do not model yourselves on the behavior of the world, but let your behavior change and be modeled on what is of Heaven. The only way to discover the will of God and to know what is of Heaven and what is good is to the follow the path shown us by Jesus who is from Heaven.

Becoming Saints is not our own doing. It is not even within our own power. All that we can do is to let God sanctify us. Our part is largely one of removing obstacles to God's work within us. We must begin by allowing Jesus to make us holy. This amounts to saying that we must let ourselves be loved by God.

Someone who truly loves will not let our life be easy. He will instead make us feel unworthy, he will make us want to be ever better. So it is with Jesus. He will not let us alone. He will not let us be content on this exile Earth. He will let us know we will not be truly happy until we are one with Him in Heaven.

There is no doubt that the way to holiness in only through prayer. The best way to learn to pray is simply to begin praying. This is the path towards holiness followed by the saints, and the path we must follow in order to achieve eternal rewards and eternal joys.

What God has joined together..

Those who begin by denying homage to our Blessed Mother end by denying Christ Himself. In considering the Immaculate Heart of Mary in its relation to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, one is of necessity drawn to Calvary on Good Friday afternoon.. Jesus has just completed His sacrifice of infinite love. As the culminating act of those long hours of agony on the cross, He has designated His own Most Sorrowful Mother as the mother of the disciple whom He loved. He has not only pointed her out as the Spiritual Mother of all the redeemed (who are represented by St. John) but He has by His divine words and will, solemnly constituted in Mary's Immaculate Heart a new motherhood of men for a new life of grace.

Such was the closing act of His life and the supreme expression of His love. After giving us Mary as our Mother and manifesting His consuming thirst, he could say: ":It is completed" and render up his unconquered spirit to His Heavenly Father. Mary has been crucified in heart while Jesus was crucified in body. Foretold from the first was the piercing of her Heart by Sorrow's sword.

But now on Calvary Jesus had glorified the Father by His death, and so we may see in this water which sprang forth from the fountain of the Sacred Heart, a divine outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon our sorrowful Mother to fit her for the mission she had just received, the motherhood of the human race. Those infinite streams of grace, flowing from the right side of the sacred temple of God, the lifeless body of the Divine Lamb, are to inundate the whole world as Ezechiel once saw in prophetic vision. They pour first into the reservoir of our Mother's Sorrowful Heart that thence they may overflow upon us her children. Christ stands at the door of each human heart and knocks and Mary remains at His side, the omnipotent suppliant for the salvation of her children.

The sea, remember, is the faint, imperfect and material image of Mary's Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart, God's masterpiece. God has joined the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary throughout life and He amalgamated them in the fiery furnace of the Cross. What God has joined together -- and no two human hearts ever have been or ever will be so united in one -- let no man put asunder.

Devotion then, to the Immaculate Heart of Mary is not an addition or a mere supplement to the devotion to the sacred Heart of Jesus. It is essential and necessary to it, so that genuine devotion to the Heart of Jesus cannot be had without a corresponding devotion to the Immaculate Heart. The most loving Heart of Jesus communicates to men the infinitude of graces and benefits which He receives from the Father by means of the Most Pure Heart of His Most Holy Mother which is the aqueduct and instrument through which we derive all benefits.

Can you prevent the sea from reflecting the sky ? Can you divorce the rays from the shining sun ? Can you divide the heat from the blazing furnace ? Sooner will you do so, than separate the Heart of Mary from the Sacred Heart of her Son -- above all on Calvary. If, lifted up, He draws all things to Himself, above all and beyond all, He draws to Himself the Heart of His Immaculate Mother.

At Valinhos (Fatima), on the 19th of August 1917, Our Lady requested: "Pray, pray much, and make sacrifices for sinners, for many souls go to hell because there is no one to pray for them or make sacrifices for them."

We ask - especially today - that the Good Shepherd send many men and women into the priestly and religious life, but more urgently we should beg Him to prepare fit places for these sheep, where they may learn, not theological opinions, but true and sound doctrine.

Permit me to read to you a letter from the Carmelite Sister Lucy to a Portuguese priest. "I saw from your letter that you are worried about the disorientation of our time. It is indeed sad that so many are allowing themselves to be dominated by the diabolical wave that is enveloping the world and they are so blind that they cannot see the error! The principal error is that they have abandoned prayer; and thus they have gone away from God, and without God everything is lacking in them. (Without Me you can do nothing.)

"What I recommend to you above all else is that you get close to the Tabernacle and pray, In this you will find the light, the strength and the grace that you need to sustain you and that you can pass on to others. Guide them with humility, with gentleness and at the same time guide with firmness, because superiors above all have the duty to maintain the truth in its proper place, with serenity, justice and charity. For this reason they need more and more to pray, to come closer to God, to speak with God about all their affairs before they discuss them with creatures. Follow this road and you will see that before the Tabernacle you will find more science, more light, more strength, more grace and virtue than you could achieve by reading many books or by great studies. Never think lost the time you spend in prayer. You will see that in prayer God will communicate to you the light, the strength and the grace that you need to do all that He requires of you.

"The only important thing for us is to do the will of God, to be where He wants us, to be and to do what He expects of us always with a Spirit of humility, conscious of the fact that of ourselves we are nothing and that it is God who works thru us and makes use of us to accomplish His work."

Weak faith drives us to do many jobs God doesn't require of us, for we feel more secure moving about the temporal things that are seen, rather than quietly guarding the unseen things which are eternal.

"We all need to intensify our life of union with God and this can be achieved only by means of prayer. Let time be lacking for us for everything else, but never for prayer and you will experience the fact that after prayer you will accomplish a lot in a short period of time. For this reason, Jesus Christ said, "You are the salt of the earth, but if salt loses its strength it is good for nothing but to be thrown out." We can receive our strength from God alone. We must get close to Him for Him to communicate it to us. We can only realize this closeness thru prayer because it is in prayer that the soul encounters direct contact with God.

"I would like you to pass on these recommendations to your religious brothers. Let them experiment with them, then you can tell me if I was wrong. I am convinced that the principal cause of evil in the world and the falling away of so many consecrated souls, is the lack of union with God in prayer. The devil is very smart and watches for our weak points so he can attack us. If we are not careful and attentive in obtaining the strength from God, we will fall, because our times are very bad and we are weak. Only God's strength can sustain us. See that you take everything with calmness and with great confi-dence in God. He will do for us what we can not do ourselves. He will supply for our insufficiencies."

THE ROSARY, OUR MIGHTY WEAPON

I dare to write of the holy Rosary because I am drawn to it by a deep love, a compelling love for Mary, the clear light in a dark and despairing world. With St. Bernard I exclaim, "Nothing so delights me, and nothing so frightens me as to speak of the glories of Mary." To dwell on her joys, her sorrows and her exalted triumphs enraptures me.

Scripture gives a most fitting picture of Mary: "In me is all grace of the way of truth; in me is all hope of life and of virtue. Like a rose planted near running water, I have opened up my petals."

The Rosary had its origin in the early days of the Church, but not as we know it today. In fact, to be exact, the Rosary began with the Angel's salutation, before Christianity began: "Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus."

The monks of old recited the psalms every day. They prefaced each one with an "Ave" in honor of Mary, the Nother of God. Thru the long centuries this devotion underwent many changes. Much was added to the. recitation and much was at times subtracted. Yet the intensity of the love was never lessened. To St. Dominic, the ardent lover of the Blessed Virgin we are indebted for the Rosary as it is known to us today. Thru the dictation and guidance of Our Lady, the saint composed and formed a garland of roses, to the honor and glory of the Queen of Heaven and Earth.

The Rosary existed long before St. Dominic but it was he who jealously preached it and made it popular. Dominic's eloquence and hard work made very little headway until, miraculously instructed by the Blessed Virgin Mary, he aroused the people to the recitation of the Rosary as she had suggested. It was thru recitation of the Rosary that love of Christ and His Blessed Mother was instilled into the hearts of the Albigenses, virtually wiping out the pernicious heresy.

In the 16th Century while Christian Europe was torn internally by the Protestant Reformation the powerful Turkish fleet continually raided the Christian communities around the Mediterranean.

St. Pius V aroused the Christian princes who put together a fleet of warships which decisively defeated the Turks at the great battle of Lepanto. This victory was won on the very day on which the sodalities of the Holy Rosary thruout the world had been beseeching the Blessed Virgin Mary to intercede with her Divine Son on behalf of the Christian people. The Holy Father ordered the feast of the Holy Rosary extended to the universal Church in gratitude to the Blessed Mother of God.

Sixteen years later the Christian forces under King John of Poland lifted the siege of Vienna and defeated the Turkish forces. This great victory occurred on Sept. 12th, the feast of the Holy Name of Mary. The next great victory occurred in Hungary in 1716 on the feast of Our Lady of the Snows.

Historical records reveal that during Ireland's most bloody and cruelest persecution, the Blessed Mother guarded the faith of the Irish people. It was a death penalty to assist at Mass or give shelter to a priest. God's anointed were hunted down and shot like dangerous animals. The faith was kept alive during those dark years by the recitation of the Rosary. In every cottage, the beads were said at morning, at noon and at night. The Irish called the Rosary, during this savage persecution, the "Dry Mass."

Our restless, weary and sinful age must return to God, to prayer and to Mary. She waits patiently to hear the cry of her children, lost and wandering in the darkness of the night. She loves each one tenderly. She loves the unbeliever as well as the believer, the skeptical, the faithful, the unfaithful, the arrogant, the good, the bad, the strong, the weak, the lonely, the discouraged and above all -- the stubborn sinners. Each one is her child. She waits with outstretched hands to embrace each sinner.

Now the evils in our day are basically spiritual and moral. What the Rosary accomplished for the Albigenses in the 13th Century it can accomplish for us in the 20th Century -- that is, if we will only try it. Let all men turn to her in these anguished times and cry out-"Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen'" Such a cry, such a repetition, such an unbreakable chain will go straight to the heart of the Mother of Mercy She will hear. She will answer. Love will awaken in men's hearts. Peace will come to nations and to the hearts of all people.

The Transfiguration

"I tell you truly, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God."

Now about 8 days after this had been said, He took with Him Peter, and John and James, and went up the mountain to pray. As He prayed, the aspect of His face changed and His clothing became brilliant as lightning. Suddenly there were two men there talking to Him; they were Moses and Elijah appearing in glory, and they were speaking of His passing, which He was to accomplish in Jerusalem. Peter and his companions were heavy with sleep, but they were awake and saw His glory and the two men standing with Him. As these were leaving Him, Peter said to Jesus, "Master, it is wonderful for us to be here; so let us make three tents: one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah". He did not know what he was saying. As he spoke a cloud came and covered them with shadow, and when they went into the cloud, the disciples were afraid. And a voice came from the cloud saying, "This is my Son, the Chosen One. Listen to Him." And after the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. The disciples kept silence and, at that time, told no one what they had seen.

Luke modestly says of the wonderful event of the Transfiguration, "The aspect of His face was altered." His purpose is clear. This event is not for Him a matter of splendor and glory (as Peter thought), but plainly a preparation for the Passion. Indeed it is at the same time a fulfillment of the saying that some will be allowed to see the Kingdom of God before they see death. But this vision, as it is manifestly part of following the Cross, is only to give strength to bear suffering. This purpose runs all thru St. Luke's account. Above all he makes what happened seem more human, more down to earth. He seems to indicate that the number of days is not here an important detail. He says about 8 days, while St. Matthew and St. Mark say exactly 6 days. Likewise, he does not give the name of the mountain. He simply says that He (Christ) went up into a mountain without mentioning a particular peak of the mountain. As was His custom, Christ went up into the mountain when He wanted to pray, and He did so now.

The shape of His countenance was altered. This wondrous event is given as the consequence of prayer, so that it is not extraordinary that His countenance was altered. Prayer nearly always changes the human countenance. We get more information about Moses and Elias from St. Luke than the other evangelists give us. We owe this to St. Luke's questioning of St. Peter himself. For soon we learn the fact that the disciples there upon the mountain, as later upon the Mt. of Olives, were 'heavy with sleep'. Only when they were fully aroused did they suddenly see the two men by Jesus' side, and not until a little later did they recognize who they were. St. Luke's account skillfully reveals how they gradually comprehended what was happening: 1st, "2 men," then that they were "talking with him", after that: "they were Moses and Elias", and finally, the most important, that they spoke of His death, which He should accomplish in Jerusalem.

We owe the knowledge of the subject of their conversation to St. Luke alone, for he, the evangelist of sacrifice, has carefully pointed out the close connection of this event with Jerusalem and Our Lord's death there.

When Peter saw that Moses and Elias were going to depart, the idea of building three tabernacles came to him. He did not want to let them depart. Everything he saw here seemed too beautiful for him to be able to believe that it was now all over. Poor human nature is ever the same. "When things are sweet and agreeable, we would like to remain here forever. But when the going is rough, we can't get away soon enough." As often in the past, St. Peter did not know what he said, so enraptured was he by what he saw. But yet, what happened next might be taken as an answer to this wish of St. Peter. God seems to have waited for this human declaration to complete the revelation.

First a cloud forms suddenly above the Mt. and envelopes them all. Then the apostles see how Jesus with Moses and Elias, enter into the cloud. Now they heard from the cloud the voice of the Father, saying: "This is my only beloved in whom I am well pleased; pay heed to Him." The clause 'hear ye Him' confirms our Lord's previous prediction of His own suffering as well as His instruction on the self denial of his disciples. The disciples were very much afraid, an incident fully agreeing with the feeling of several saints of the Old and New Testament in the presence of God's special manifestation.

And when they found Jesus alone now after the voice had spoken and the apparition had come to an end, the unprecedented had happened. He belonged to them now more than Moses and Elias who had disappeared again into the cloud. He had been given to them anew by this heavenly revelation. The touch of Jesus brought about the fearlessness enjoined by his words,

"Tell the vision to no man' - a prohibition given not for fear of scandal at the following suffering and death, nor on account of the Apostles' weakness, who needed the special infusion of the Holy Ghost in order to preach Christ's glory - nor to avoid offense on the part of those disciples who had not been present on Tabor, nor finally to teach humility, but the prohibition was based on the necessity of not arousing the people's expectations of a glorious Messias.

Therefore, there remains of all this vision, only the sober reality of the Cross and the death in Jerusalem. St. Luke also avoids relating the conversation during the descent from the mountain, this too, moves too much in the sphere of the dark and mysterious.

We find here the solution to the question why St. Luke did not relate the walking on the water -- after the multiplication of the loaves -- he does not like accumulating wonders. The life of Jesus is for him, more beautiful when it remains on the firm ground of this earth and does not contain too much of the extraordinary. It can be seen that this characteristic agrees with what Luke wrote of Mary. After the first events, she stands in the sober light of everyday life, all miracles happen far from her; the Angels appear to the shepherds (the star to the wise men in the east); the light falls on Simeon and Anna; and of the extraordinary event when Jesus was 12 years old, only the grief remained for her.

From the cloud on Sinai, God's demanding terms thundered forth: "Thou shalt and thou shalt not," and the people, Israel, were told that they should listen to Moses, the servant of God. Here on the mount of the transfiguration, the voice comes out of the cloud telling us we are to listen not to the servant, but to the Son; the words of harsh command are suspended by a message of love. As the people were terrified and trembled before the majesty of God on Sinai, so here the disciples are afraid and fall down with their faces to the ground. Jesus tells them to stand up and not to be afraid. It was impressed upon them that they are to keep the memory of this great and extraordinary event secret until the Son of Man has risen from the dead. Then the first fruits of them that sleep will be awakened to the fullness of life. The fulfillment of the last age will be here.

Christ is greater than the disciples or Peter himself even guessed. This super-human, super-temporal and super-mundane greatness of Christ which, thru death and resurrection, will usher in the new heaven and the new earth, change time into eternity and man's sorrow into joy, became visible upon the Mount of Transfiguration and will shine out from this mountain to illumine all the dark valleys of human life.

I am a King - But My Kingdom is not of this world

The fact that Our Blessed Lord claimed while He was on earth and ought to receive now that He is in Heaven, the honors due to a royal dignity, was not a fact which it took 19 centuries to discover. It was not a fact which daring thinkers have ever assailed with doubts. I don't suppose anybody who ever used the name of Christian, however heretical his beliefs might be in other directions, has ever challenged the sentiment -- Christ is King.

No -- when he instituted that feast, the Holy Father Pius XI was only giving expression to a fact universally recognized among Christians and it follows that He must have had some special reason for emphasizing that fact or He would not have interfered with the calendar at all. Catholic theology has always held that the spiritual and temporal spheres are separate: and that the secular authority in any country whether it be monarchical or not, has the same right to govern as the ecclesiastical. It is extraordinary how people outside the Church, even unreflecting people inside the Church get that point wrong.

The claim made is to a sovereignty in spiritual things. Let us look at the Gospel to see in what sense Our Lord makes that claim Himself and infer from that the mind of the Church on the subject.

Our Lord's words were spoken at a solemn moment before a juridical interrogation. The charge preferred against Him, the only charge of which a Roman judge is likely to take cognizance, is that He represents Himself as being a king. He can save Himself by denying it. Does He deny it? He does not. "Thou sayest that I am a king." That is of course a Hebrew way of answering in the affirmative. He then explains the sense in which the charge is true.

"I am a king, but my kingdom is not of this world". The means by which it is to be established are not the means which you associate with revolutionary movements, if they were I should not be standing here -- my friends would have rescued me. Yet even in this world, even where I stand before you, a helpless prisoner -- I do claim here and now to be a King.

A king then, in what sense and by what right? Because -- He says, I have come into the world for one express purpose, to bear witness to the truth. And truth, once it is rightly apprehended has a compelling power over men's hearts; they must needs assent and defend what they know to be the truth, or they would lose their birthright as men. You have no reason to fear as far as I am concerned, an armed rising against the Roman Government. But my servants are going to conquer the Roman Empire; they must inevitably, because it is founded upon a religion and that religion is a lie. The Roman discipline has conquered the world by force of arms. The Christian discipline is to conquer the world by the compelling power of its own reasonableness and the infectious influence which its divine origin guarantees.

Christian princes in the past have tried to spread the faith at the point of the sword, always or nearly always, with disastrous results for religion.

But the substantial victories of the Church have been always in the sphere of the human conscience. Christ has reigned not in the councils of Nations but in men's hearts. Christ will reign in the world only where, only in so far as, He rules in human hearts.

Pius XI saw that the minds of men, of young men especially, all over Europe would be caught by a wave of conflicting loyalties, which would drown the voice of conscience and produce everywhere unscrupulous wars between class and class, the threat of equally unjust wars between nations. To save the world if he could, from that frenzy of reckless idealism, he would recall it to the contemplation of a very simple truth. The truth that the claim of Christ comes first, before the claims of party, before the claims of nationality. "The Peace of Christ in the Reign of Christ"; peace and justice were duties which man owed to God more elementary than any duties to his fellow men.

All that before the conflict between Church and Fascism, before the revolution in Spain, before the name of Hitler had reached the first page of a foreign paper.

The institution of this feast was not a gesture of clericalism against anti-clericalism. It was a gesture of Christian truth against a world which was on the point of going mad with political propaganda.

It affects us very little, you may say. But we do not know what a day or an hour may bring forth. It may yet be important for men to be reminded in our country, in our lifetime, that the claim of the divine law upon the human conscience comes before anything else.

Christ .. Logos .. Verbum .. Glory of the Father, Light of Light -- is King, as we have been taught. And He is King because He inherits -- all kings inherit from their fathers --and He inherits from His Father Who begets Him in all Eternity. And He is King because He conquers; and title to kingship comes to all kings either thru heredity or thru conquest.

And He conquered on the Cross thru His Redemption of the human race. And He governs and His Authority is Sovereign, and there is no other sovereignty in Heaven or on earth.

"0 Crux, Ave, Spes Nostra ! - Hail, O Cross, Our Hope !"

My dear brothers and friends for all of us the reminder of the place which the mystery of the Cross, ought to occupy in our spirituality, in our Christian life is of the greatest importance.

Throughout the history of the Church, the Saints -- souls truly desirous of deepening their Christian life, of considering what God has done for us, the great mystery of the love of God for our souls -- these souls have always found the solution, and the means of increasing their spiritual life and of giving it a profound reality, in the mystery of the cross. This was particularly so in the Christian Middle Ages; and in our own day, one can still find traces of this deep devotion, this complete devotion of the soul to the mystery of the Cross. It can be seen in the construction of those magnificent Cathedrals, those magnificent churches the Cross dominates. It dominates the altar. The Cross is the sign which serves to give the form to our cathedrals, to our Churches. Many of the Saints -- including St. Bernard, manifested in their writings and in their flesh as well, the love they had for the Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ. For, in fact, the mystery of our sanctification, cannot be explained without the Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

And today more than ever, we need to meditate upon this mystery, because at all times and particularly in our own age, man wants to eliminate the Cross. He doesn't want to look at it; he does not wish to have it before his eyes. Why? Because the Cross represents sacrifice ... sacrifice! And yet it is only thereby - by the Cross, by sacrifice - that the Christian soul can regain life. We must die to ourselves to find life. That is the spiritual life; that is our justification. Holiness is nothing else !

Now where shall we find a living Cross, the Cross ever filled with that charity, with that holy spirit which we need to combat our evil tendencies so as to live the life of Our Lord Jesus Christ? At the holy altar - in our Churches - in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass ! And that is why the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass has so much importance and has always been at the center of the preoccupations of the Church. It is there that we find Our Lord ! The only difference between the Altar and Calvary is that, on Calvary, Our Lord offered a bloody sacrifice, and on the altar, He offers Himself in an unbloody manner. It is there we must find the source of our sanctification; in the Holy Mass. And that is why we have the need, of keeping the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, of leaving it untouched, so precious is it. If we came to make it a simple communion, a simple thanksgiving, a simple meal, we would cause this source of grace to disappear. There is unfathomable mystery in the Sacrifice of the Mass. That is why we ought to be attached to it with our whole soul, with all our heart because it is there that we find indeed that which the love of God has done for us.

For if there is a testimony of the love of God for us, it is certainly Our Lord Jesus Christ crucified on the Cross. What more could Our Lord have done, what more could God have done, than to immolate Himself on the Cross for us, to redeem us from our sins? Shall we be insensible to the sacrifice of Our Lord, of the Son of God?

And how earnestly those souls desired to assist at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass to participate therein, so as to relive Calvary, to relive what the Blessed Virgin Mary lived; and thus to unite themselves to the sufferings of Our Lord Jesus Christ!

Compassion! Our Lady of Compassion is the patroness of our Religious. Why? Because Christians ought to suffer with Our Lord. You should have the Cross ever before your eyes. To renounce ourselves, our wills in order to follow Christ and do His holy Will, to be little in our own eyes, to be oblivious of our own petty interests in order to embrace and promote those of Our Divine Lord, to live for Him and His Gospel, to spend and be spent for His glory, and the sanctification and the salvation of our own souls and the souls of many others redeemed by His Precious Blood -- all this will mean suffering and much suffering.

Finally, Christ says, "If any man wills to come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his daily cross and follow Me."

Why must Christians do all these things? Our Lord gives three reasons. First, because it is the only way to save one's soul. Just as the only way to renew and multiply the grain of wheat is to sow it, so the only way to find true life, is to subordinate the temporal life to it, that the lower might serve the higher.

Secondly it is the only profitable manner of life, for even "the gain of the whole world" cannot be compared with the loss of its supernatural life. Lastly, it is the only safe and secure way of life on Earth. "The Son of Man will come in the glory of His Father, with His Angels, and when He does, He will reward each one according to his works."

It was necessary that Jeremiah the representative and the mouth of God, suffer greatly and for many years. Thus he entered into his glory, and in God's good time, to bring many, many others with him to victory and glory. It was necessary that one, infinitely greater than "the prophet of doom and of failure," Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, suffer and even be put to a most painful death, and thus, enter into His glory. By this He merited superabundantly for all men the graces that wash their souls of sin, adorn them with virtue and holiness and enable them to renounce themselves, take up their cross daily and follow Him, and one day be victorious with Him and glorified with Him in Heaven.

The life of Jesus Christ, and the life of each of His true disciples, and especially of each of His priests, is the story of "the triumph of failure." Per crucem ad lucem et victoriam et gloriam.

Through the Cross to light and victory and glory. I add to this little sermon a definition of the Mass: The Mass is the sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, offered to God under the species of bread and wine, in order to renew and perpetuate the Sacrifice of the Cross.

ONE ANGRY MAN WAS DIFFERENT

It used to be when anyone wanted to justify a new Church or a new moral position he invoked the words of Christ. Today when anyone wishes to justify revolution, burnings, assault, and license, he also appeals to the same authority. As Shakespeare wrote: "What dammed error, but some sober brow will bless it and approve it with a text."

It is true that our Blessed Lord did many things "the angry young men" seem to be doing today. He challenged the authority and the morals of those who should have been models of virtue. He ruthlessly exposed the hypocrisy of those who, like whitened sepulchres on the hillside of Jerusalem, were clean on the outside, and were filled with dead men's bones on the inside.

His behavior and the company that He kept were so unconventional that the purists could charge "He eats with publicans and sinners." But there were two things that made Him different from the angry young men of today. Throughout all of His impatience with ruts and grooves and old fashioned patterns, He never once conceded an iota to the morals of the young people who surrounded Him or to the strange company He kept. Never did He defend stealing for the sake of the publicans, unchastity for the sake of the adulterers, want of respect for the law and the prophets which He came to perfect out of contempt for the Pharisees, never was there a denial of the spiritual because He walked with Pharisees. Unlike the angry young men of the new breed of today, that would break down morals, He could say, "Which of you shall convince Me of sin?" His voice was clear and limpid, not roughened by the satieties of pleasure, or by the hoarseness of protest. He authorized no carrying of banners, no shouting, no exhibitionism. He moved so silent, the Scripture had foretold, that His voice was not heard in the streets. The point is that He was anything but a destructive critic, for He confirmed over and over again that not an iota of His Divine Law should be changed. This was His first difference with the angry young men who would scrap the heritage of Divine Truth which has been sent collect to our minds and hearts.

The second difference was that He died for those whom He accused. The new breed can be, as well as the old breed can be, critical of convention because it costs little in the way of suffering, but when Our Lord played the role of the iconoclast, He paid for it. When He pointed out the disease, He took the disease: "He bore our infirmities."

This is the difference between the angry young men and the Angry Young Man, and between many of us who criticize the failures, the hypocrisy, the vanity of the Church and do nothing to suffer for it.

As the religion of self examination declines, the possibility of real leadership against evil also declines. Religion today has failed in this for its primary purpose was once the cultivation of the inner life as a condition of reforming others.

Few are the teachers who remind the young to be sure they are just on the inside before they are just on the outside. How can we develop leadership, if religion abdicates its mission of uprooting evil from the heart. Evil is in the center, in the core of one's being; in the heart.

Until the Church gets back to the Cross, to the training of the will, to the revival of discipline, to the looking into the heart of the protestor, the nation will have an abortion rather than a rebirth.

Third Sunday of Lent

"I have witnessed the affliction of my people ... so I know well what they are suffering."

It is well for us to remember the assurance given by Jesus that we are not to judge those who do suffer afflictions to be greater sinners than we are.

Of all the problems that complicate our daily lives, none has so persistently resisted solution as the problem of pain and suffering. It confronted Adam and Eve as they ate the apple. Now after centuries of thought and effort we find the problem is still with us. It is as impenetrable as death. It is said that suffering does not call for an explanation.., it calls for a presence ... and nothing less than the presence of God.

The Second Person of the Blessed Trinity put on human nature. At the same time He took upon Himself the pain and sorrow of human nature. He entered into our pain of living and our sorrow of dying ... so that ultimately we could enter into the pain and sorrow of His sacred Passion.

Only if He became man could He suffer. And only by His presence as man could suffering be made endurable.

Nothing is as personal as pain. It belongs to that class of things we call --incomunicables. We cannot receive another's pain. We cannot give of our own. It touches each sufferer uniquely, touches him in the depths of his individuality and in the height of his personality. For this reason we cannot share our pain with any mere man. Yet suffering does call out for a sharing and a presence.

What is not possible to man, is possible to the God-Man, Christ Jesus. It is the presence of Christ for which suffering calls. We can share our pain with Christ and He can share His with us.

To suffer alone, to be isolated in pain, is an evil of God-like magnitude. But to suffer in union with Christ, to be joined to His passion -- that is the first and last lesson of love. It is the measure of greatness.

Suffering in union with Christ does not take the hurt out of pain. The Passion of Christ and our participation in it denies nothing; least of all does it deny the cruel distress of pain.

Sometimes Christians say that when we suffer in union with Christ pain becomes a mere nothing. That is nonsense. Neither reason, nor the Gospel, nor Christ's Passion demands that we remain insensible to pain. Such insensitivity is neither human or Christian. Now, how are we to unite ourselves with Our Lord's Passion? To become united with Christ in a way that His Passion becomes truly ours, we must do more than meditate on the sufferings of Christ. We must make our own the Wounds that heal us and the nails that liberate us.

We can touch the Passion of Christ and make it ours in a divine way. This is the way of the Mass.

It is possible in the Mass to come into contact with the Passion of Christ as a present reality. The death that Christ died on Calvary is made present in the Mass for us. This is not a new death. Christ does not die again in the Mass, Just as He suffers no more. Though Christ suffers no more, yet the Passion which Christ suffers in made present in the Mass. The sufferer enters the new dimension of the Mass, and joins his pain to the pain of Christ which is made a present reality. Consequently the one who suffers in all truth, suffers with Christ.

In this matter -- there is an important point to remember -- no matter how elevated pain may become by reason of the presence of and union with the Passion of Christ, pain never became an end in itself. Not even the passion of Christ is something in which we rest as in a final end. That would be a very dismal teaching. The ultimate reality is not pain but joy; not the Passion of Christ - but His Resurrection. As St. Paul tells us - he who is joined in pain to the Passion of Christ -- will also be joined in glory to the Resurrection of Christ. Suffering with Christ does not explain pain but transforms it.

Our Lady and the First Martyrs

As we look upon the beautiful lives led together by Our Lady and Saint John, we are led to wonder how St. John told the Mother about the persecutions of those earliest times. There would be in her heart a divided feeling; intense sympathy with the terrible sufferings of the martyrs and confessors, and at the same time, a holy pride in these first flowers of the Passion. How She must have prayed for them, that they might be firm in confessing their Lord to the end like the martyred mother of the Machabees, She, the Queen of Martyrs, would urge on Her children to offer up their lives for their Holy Religion.

Two great martyrdoms marked Her last years on earth. St. Stephen, the first of all to follow his Lord through the Red Sea of His Passion; and Saint James the Great, the only Apostle martyred before she went to Her Eternal Glory.

Her prayers, we cannot doubt, must have gone up mightily to Heaven with those two victors, and earth and all of the white-robed army.

She would rejoice at these fresh Passion Flowers, radiant in the offering of their own blood in union with the Precious Blood of Jesus.

So, the first martyrs would go forth to their conflict and triumph with Our Lady's benediction to strengthen and console them. And as Our Mother and Saint John prayed together for these in the arena of martyrdom, Calvary would come once more before them, the Passion of the King of Martyrs; And they would repeat His dying words, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do," and the rest of those Divine utterances. He left us when -- "Seven times He spoke, seven words of love, and all three hours His silence cried for mercy on the souls of men."

We may not be called to martyrdom; but everyone of us has suffering and temptation to meet and endure, and we, too, need our Mother's prayers and blessing and sweet encouragement. And our trials are those which those first Christians too, had to bear. Not only outward trials, but spiritual suffering. We know how temptations against faith came even to Our Lord's first disciples. We remember the sad, despairing words of the two disciples by whose side He walked on Easter Sunday on the way to Emmaus: "We hoped that it was He that should have redeemed Israel."

How blessed for those early followers of the Lord that they had His Mother to go to. Nothing draws us nearer to Jesus than devotion to Our Lady; and true childlike devotion will always lead us to Her company.

Can we imagine how Mary's soul rejoiced over the first martyr, St. Stephen? His trial, sufferings, were made known to Her either naturally or supernaturally. St. Stephen, we rejoice with you in your glory; we rejoice with Our Lady in the joy you were to Her Maternal Heart. Ye poor, you give your blood as you give your daily will, if you unite those labors by a voluntary offering to the adorable Will of God. Queen of Martyrs, be our stay and our comfort in all suffering. Pray for us, that nothing may lead from our loyalty to Jesus and to you, Dearest Mother of His brethren !

The Grace of God our Savior hath appeared to all men.

The word grace as used by the Apostle does not denote this or that special gift. It denotes the whole economy of the Christian law; all the work of Jesus Christ; the entire work for which Christ came down from Heaven.

"The grace ... hath appeared to all men". . .without exception - freemen and slaves, Jews and Gentiles. Salvation is for all who wish to open their eyes to the light which envelopes them, and to stretch out their hands to receive the graces offered them. If the entanglement of human affairs cause many to be deprived of the fruit of Christ's redemption, the cause is not to be found in Christ, but in men themselves.

"Instructing us," Christ teaches us by example as well as by word. Christ supported His words by His deeds, he illustrated ttis teaching by His own life. Thus He saith: Learn of Me, because I am meek and humble of heart. He taught men to be poor, and exhibited this by His actions: "But the Son of Man hath not where to lay His head". Again He charged them to love their enemies, and He taught the same lesson on the Cross when He prayed for those who were crucifying Him.

What does He teach us? "Instructing us, that denying ungodliness and worldly desires, we should live soberly, justly and piously." All the practical teaching of the Gospel can be reduced to two heads: "Avoid evil and do good.

The Gospel of Christ not only forbids us to follow the vile desires of the flesh, but it also binds us to practice all the virtues.

If we deny ungodliness and worldly desires, and live sober, Just and pious lives, we must suffer continually and daily practice mortification and self-denial. To inspire us with the necessary courage and generosity, St. Paul reminds us of the reward set apart for us: Looking for the blessed hope and coming of the glory of God and Our Savior, Jesus Christ.

Just as the laborer receives his wages at the close of the day, so we shall receive our reward at the close of this short day of human life, if we follow the directions of the Apostle, and fight the good fight.

Can Anyone Live a Life of Chastity ?

The answer is "No! Not without the Grace of God." But God is always ready to give man the grace to lead a chaste life if he sincerely asks for it.

The reason why he (man) cannot, is that the mind of man has been blinded to Divine truths and his will so weakened to do what is right because of the influence of his rebellious passions, that no man can know and do the right without the illuminating and strengthening grace of God. The deadly enemy of man -- the Devil -- as St. Peter says, "is always roaming the earth seeking souls whom he may devour" and the only way man can resist his power is thru a strong Divine faith in the Redemption of Christ.

Living then, in a secular world, most of which denies God's existence or ignores Him, you will find that many of the most clever men and women will tell you that it is impossible for young people to remain pure until marriage. And, what is more, they say it doesn't matter. Your doctors, your teachers, some of your priests will tell you this, and, although they haven't one solid argument to back up these false statements they will keep repeating them -- and laugh at your silly ideas -- so that - it will take a lot of courage to resist -- and much prayer.

And such talk is blasphemous when one considers what Christ has declared, what the Apostles and saints and the great doctors of the Church taught. Besides, such talk is a base insult to pure daughters and noble sons and chaste fathers and mothers and our venerated and Religious and priestly sons -- and there are thousands and millions of them who have lived and live chaste lives. Christ declared that men and women could live chaste lives, and extolled the person consecrated by vow to virginity far above others not doing so; Christ and the Church would not and could not permit anyone to make a vow of perpetual chastity were such a life not possible and practical. True, some have failed, but it was thru their own fault; they did not avoid the occasions of this sin and did not seek Divine help without which living a chaste life is impossible. Others that once failed fought their way back thru penitence and severe austerities.

I am convinced that the Catholic youth who have considered the Blessed Virgin Mary, St. Joseph, St. Agnes, St. Cecelia, St. Teresa, or any of the great saints, can preserve his or her chastity Stainless. Moreover, when our Catholic people receive into their bodies the virginal Christ in Holy Communion day after day, week after week, can't they be chaste? They can and they are -- millions of them.

That Catholic youth who kneels every day before the spotless, Immaculate Virgin and Mother Mary, and asks her to teach him to love virginity and respect parenthood -- don't you suppose that this all-powerful and all-loving Mother will watch over her child?

No, living a chaste life is not easy in this modern world; but it can be done. It requires much prayer, frequent reception of the Sacraments, mortifying the flesh, and especially shunning the occasions of this alluring vice. Many fail, as the Blessed Mother told the children of Fatima, but it is always by their own fault. "My grace is sufficient for thee," Christ told St. Paul when he thrice prayed to be freed from that persistent sting of the flesh, "for in tribulation is virtue made perfect."

He says the same to you and to me. But Christ also declared, "Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God."

THE DECALOGUE IS BINDING FOR ALL TIME

Let it be clearly understood that the 10 Commandments which the Lord God Himself proclaimed with a loud voice to the entire assembly at Mt. Sinai, and spoke from the midst of fire and a dense cloud are not nationalistic, or for the Israelites alone they are universal in their outlook, and briefly and clearly expound the fundamental principles of the religious and moral obligations of all men.

To explain the moral precepts of the Decalogue are the moral natural law or the law which is inscribed upon every human heart and there to govern their lives and, therefore they may and should be known to all men thru their consciences or the natural light of reason. In short, the 10 Commandments are clear statements of man's inescapable duties to His Creator and to his fellow-men, duties which each man can know by his own reason.

But these natural unwritten laws had become obscure through the centuries and this, thru their many and various sins -- the terrible blindness that is the penalty of sin! And Almighty God in His mercy reminds men of the truths they had culpably forgotten, and the 10 Commandments He solemnly proclaimed became His revealed will in regard to man's fundamental obligations to his Lord and his God, and to his fellowmen. They are now positive laws and they are binding on all men whom He endowed with the precious gifts of reason and free will and as binding today as they have been in every century of the past.

Reminders of the importance of the 10 Commandments are especially needed in our times when there are those instruments of the "father of lies" among us who would have men believe that the 10 Commandments no longer bind anyone !

Their diabolical declarations are an insidious attack on the very nature of man as rational ! The following fact is a matter of experience, namely that one of the fearful consequences of closing one's mind to the light is that such a one reaps in spiritual darkness and in loss of the power to discern the true from the false.

I once heard a speaker say that a certain well known philosopher abhorred logic. This reminded me of the famous Paulist Father, James Gillis who was very strong for logic. After an hour's conversation with a young man he mentioned the word logic. The young man said, "there is no use talking if you bring logic into the discussion." A little amazed, Father Gillis answered, "Why didn't you say that an hour ago? You would have saved my time and your own."

So it is with this question of internal sabotage. Many good men, including our President say, "There is no internal danger, To say there is danger is to promote suspicion and bad feeling." The men of logic say, "Maybe there is no danger. But can any harm come of 'playing it safe?'" There may be nothing to gain, it is true, but there is quite a bit to lose.

Loving people may result in our finding them pleasing to us; but that isn't what it means. To love someone means to want with the whole power of our will, what is good for that person. We may or may not find the person pleasing or attractive.

We're not bound to seek anyone out, nor to draw every man into bosom friendship. Only one Apostle, John, rested his head on our Lord's breast To love someone means to want with the whole power of our soul what is good for that person.

We desire and pray for the salvation of all men, excluding no one, and by our thoughts, words, and actions, we do our best to help that cause along.

"Don't waste time bothering whether you love your neighbor," says C. S. Lewis, "Act as if you did. (As soon as we do this, we find one of the great secrets.) When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you'll presently come to love him. If you injure someone you dislike, you'll find yourself disliking him more. If you do him a good turn, you'll find yourself disliking him less."

Our Lord wanted this world to be one great symphony playing sweet music to God. Everything beneath the human level is perfectly attuned and gives constant glory to the Blessed Trinity by its faithful obedience to instinct and the law of nature. There is a majestic rhythm in the rising and setting of the sun and the turning about of the seasons. It is quite like a work of art -- a ballet, forever being performed for God's delight and ours.

PATH TO MARY

Remember that one Saint gives more glory to God than a whole nation of ordinary Christians. By devotion to Mary, followed perseveringly you will become a saint. You will attract God's mercy and draw the Holy Spirit of Light to disperse the clouds of infidelity and the mists of error with which the earth is now covered. Yes, Mary's own will stand faithfully thru the mystical crucifixion of the Church, the Spouse of Christ. When other members of Our Lord's Body will fall away, Mary's own will pass scathlessly thru the fiery ordeal - yet not without pain. And when the Church shall rise triumphant over her enemies more glorious than ever, then will those happy ones who by a great grace, stood faithful in the midst of general desolation, sin and misery, sing gladly, sing joyously, praising God with the jubilant Heart of Mary on account of the great things He has done to them. Happy those who see that day, the glorious day of the resurrection of the Church!

It is not given to us to know God's times, but let us pray Him to hasten that glad time - the glorious period in the history of the Church that the writings of holy people show us will most certainly come. And in the meantime let us, by increased fervor, ami by embracing this most excellent devotion to Mary, prepare for the trials and temptations of the present era in which we are now living when the Passion of Our Lord has recommenced in His Body the Church.

Those who suffer must remember that Jesus is our model in suffering and in His tender compassion. He has shown Himself in His sufferings and sorrows not triumphant or joyous, but pale, heavy, weary and even fearful.

We must remember, so long as we are not selfish in our sufferings and do our duties to others, the merit of our cross is not lost if we are not so brave as we could wish (whether the suffering be a bodily or spiritual suffering or as often happens, both). Mary's own are supported under crosses which thru her are made most sanctifying, but which without the support they receive from her they would probably surrender. Hence for all eternity they will rejoice in the sufferings which placed them so close to Jesus and Mary in Heaven. It would be well to think of this often.

The Church appears to have entered upon the time when she mystically represents the Passion of Our Lord and her members are unusually affected and tried: the thought can not be too often in your mind of the priceless value of suffering, of the short time the general suffering can last, even if it lasted without intermission thru your whole life. Meditate again and again in union with the Mother of Sorrows upon the value of suffering since it will procure an infinite reward.

It will be well to remember that suffering not only procures a closer union with God and greater happiness in Heaven, but it likewise begets a greater happiness even on earth. Suffering is the one thing we may glory in. Suffering borne patiently, borne as God wills, is a present we may offer back to God and be sure it will be a gift pleasing to Him.

I believe that a person who wishes to be devout will never carry great crosses or carry them joyously or perseveringly without a tender devotion to Our Lady. In these trying days of the Church, when unusual temptations abound, and trials of all kinds are assailing God's people -- in these sad times, when we see some whom we have respected and loved succumbing under those temptations and trials, and falling away from the Church, well may we fear for ourselves and wise shall we be if we seek that assistance that may hinder us falling and giving way likewise. It is Mary who will assist in the hour of need, When you have an offering to make to God, says St. Bernard, be sure to offer it by the hands of Mary, if you would not have it rejected.

Remember there is one thing you can do now that Mary cannot -- that is -- suffer. Oh, then to suffer in her place, if you would be one of the favorites of heaven.

Let us then, in time of suffering, be unselfish and knowing that it is the time when we can pray most efficaciously, for the prayer of a suffering heart has wondrous power with God -- Let us, united to the compassionate Heart of Mary, beg the Mercy of God, that His Holy Spirit may descend upon the Church, the Spouse of Christ, now persecuted as was her Lord.

Let us be hopeful if at times we walk sorrowfully; Mary's is near; she will comfort our poor weak hearts; she will manifests herself to us, sweet Mother that she is, and when strengthened for our onward journey, seemingly perhaps leave us to ourselves again for a while.

If any of you are now suffering, take heart; lift up your eyes to heaven, for Jesus is smiling upon you. Your patient endurance is dear, very dear to Him; your life is beautiful in His sight.

Let us raise our eyes timidly to His face, see the eyes of Jesus, God and Man, bent upon us with that look of unutterable sweetness and love. It were a long life of sorrow and self-denial to obtain.

Beg from our Mother the grand gift to persevere in her sweet way, by which surely we shall live noble lives on earth and obtain that happiness in the next world, which God has promised to those who have faithfully followed and loved Him in this.

The Lost Sense of Sin

Pope Pius XII, towards the end of his pontificate, said, "Perhaps the greatest sin in the world today is the fact that men are beginning to lose the sense of sin".

Now we see that the prophetic words of Pius XII fulfilled. Without a sense of sin there can be no real repentance and no salvation. Many men have lost the faith. Divine Faith - a free gift of God - is the most precious gift that God has given to man; that is why the rejection of divine Faith is such a horrible sin of ingratitude.

Cardinal Wright, commenting on the challenge that the modern priest faces in restoring to the people the sense of Faith and sin, sharply differed from some of our modern prelates and priests as to how this is to be done.

One of these modern critics of the Church stated that the great need today is a better, deeper understanding of the mission of the priest in the modern world; that he must become more active in the scientific, social, even the political life of men; that it is the lack of freedom in these matters that caused the sense of frustration and defection in the modern priest and was the reason for the lack of vocations.

Cardinal Wright rightly denied this claim: "There is only one kind of priest; He is Jesus Christ, yesterday, today and forever the same." In fact Just the opposite of the former statement is true; the modern priest is being dominated too much by the spirit of the world - Satan's world - and not enough with the spirit of Christ.

The world hates Christ and it will hate the good priest who seriously works to make the message of Christ known to the people.

What the Church so urgently needs today is saintly bishops, saintly priests, saintly religious men and women, so deeply imbued with the spirit of Christ, that they seek to be, not more free from the laws of Christ and the Church, but to be more obedient, even as Christ ever was - more self sacrificing, more ready to suffer anything, even to sacrifice life itself - again as Christ did to promote God's truths. These are some of the qualities that Christ emphasized that He wanted in His disciples - clergy and lay persons: "Be ye perfect", follow his example, not that of the world: "deny yourselves and take up your cross and follow Me", "keeping my Commandments". And because millions of souls followed Christ's bidding, the Church has prospered.

Perhaps no one in modern times more deeply influenced men to lead a saintly life, than did St. John Vianney and the Little Flower, and note how closely they walked in the footsteps of Christ.

So, if there is turmoil in the world today - crime and sin (and there is) - the clergy must assume much of the responsibility. Christ commissioned the Apostles and their successors to make known His message of truth, of faith in God and moral living, to the whole world; and they have not done so; largely because they have lacked the spirit of Christ. The result has been a dwindling sense of morality and of sin. The devil hates God and is ever striving "to get even" with Him. His favorite trick, liar that he is, is to make sin look trivial, and even desirable. Through his human agents he lies, saying that God's Commandments don't bind anymore; you are free to form your own conscience; and he promises "the whole world in exchange for man's soul".

So it is a painful situation, and made more so, by the fact that some bishops, priests and religious, whom Christ has chosen to help conquer sin, are committing that greatest of sins - unfaithfulness to Christ.

Christ while on earth confirmed the Ten Commandments of God given to Moses; He told the man who asked what he must do to obtain eternal life to "Keep the Commandments" as being absolutely necessary for salvation.

No, the above narrative is not a myth or fairy tale, as some of our modern theologians are trying to tell the faithful and are teaching our youth. These are the truths taught by the Church and are of divine faith.

No there can be no question about what the Church teaches about sin and its horrible consequences. If men ignore these truths, and misinform others, it only makes them more culpable. And what makes the action of the un-repentant sinner the more revolting, is his shameful lack of gratitude to Christ for making possible, and even easy, his salvation. By refusing to repent, the sinner makes the agony of Christ's crucifixion useless.

The prophet calls the man a "fool who says in his heart that there is no God." How much more is that Christian a fool who refuses to consider seriously the nature of sin and its horrible consequences. One of the most excruciating pains of the dammed, is remorse.

I could so easily have saved my soul while on earth but now it is too late. Never-forever.

The Service of the Blessed Virgin

If I wanted to, I would show you that in all walks of life there have been great servants of the Blessed Virgin. I would find for you, among them, those who lived in much the same sort of state of life as many of you. I would find them for you among the wealthy, and in great numbers, too.

We read in the Gospel that Our Lord always treated people with great tenderness, except for one type of people whom He treated with severity; these were the Pharisees, and they were so treated because they were proud and hardened in sin. They would willingly have hindered, if they could, the accomplishment of the will of the Father. What is more, Our Lord called them "Whited sepulchres, hypocrites, brood of vipers, offspring of vipers, who devour the breasts of their mothers."

We can say the same thing on the subject of devotion to the Blessed Virgin. All Christians have a great devotion to Mary except those old and hardened sinners who, for a long time, having lost the faith, wallow in the slime of their brute passions.

The Devil tries to keep them in this state of blindness until that moment when death opens their eyes. Ah! if they had but the happiness to have recourse to Mary they would not fall into Hell, as will happen to them!

No, my dear children, let us not imitate such people ! On the contrary, let us follow the footsteps of those true servants of Mary. Belonging to this number were St. Charles Borromeo, who always said the rosary on his knees. What is more, he fasted on all vigils of the feasts of the Blessed Virgin. He was so careful about saluting her on the stroke of the bell, that when the Angelus rang, wherever he was, he went down on his knees, sometimes even in the middle of the road where it was full of mud. He desired that his whole diocese should have a great devotion to Mary and that her name would be uttered everywhere with the utmost respect. He had a number of chapels built in her honor.

Now then, my dear brethren, why should we not imitate these great saints who obtained so many graces from Mary to preserve them from sin? Have we not the same enemies to fight, the same Heaven to hope for? Yes, Mary always has her eyes upon us. Do we suffer temptations? Let us turn our hearts towards Mary and we shall be delivered.

The Meaning of Life

The two questions occuring at the beginning of the Catechism are still and always will be very important for all of us. They must be answered. I refer to -- Who am I? and Why did God make me? I am a creature of God, made to His image and likeness. God made me to know Him, to love Him and to serve Him in this life and to be happy with Him in the next. We all know these answers but we need to remind ourselves often of them, and live according to them.

One of the last lines in a play was spoken by a father after his son's violent death. "He never knew who he was." Like millions of others he moved across the stage of life, making his entrances and his exits without ever learning the point of the drama of life.

The author of the play, when he saw people coming out of the theatre crying said, "Why shouldn't they weep. They saw a picture of themselves; crowded, faceless people lost in the shuffle of time and movement without any hope of redemption." The problem few dare face is: "Who am I?"

Am I just an individual like an orange to be replaced because not juicy enough? Do I fear being different as I would to catch leprosy? Do I repeat little phrases that cover up an absence of thinking like -- "I must take a drink, otherwise I would he thought odd."

However much we shrink from answering the question, there come certain moments when we are forced to do so. One such moment is when we have to step out of the crowd -- appear solitary and alone, and that is the experience of death. Because our existence is threatened we have to answer the question "Who am I ?"

A young man came to a renowned doctor in Paris complaining of dejection and nausea at life - asking what he could do to get well. The doctor with a trace of envy pictured the happy state of the young blade Grimaldi who was the leader of the younger set in Paris night clubs.

"Go to him," said the doctor. "Let him show you how to enjoy yourself and you will get well. The downcast young patient looked up with a sardonic smile and said," I am Grimaldi."

Almighty and Eternal God, deepen our faith, our hope and our charity, so that we may attain what you have promised and love what you have commanded.

EPIPHANY

St. Paul told the Ephesians that they - Gentiles by birth - were at that time apart from Christ, -- strangers to the covenants of the promise, having no hope. But now in Christ Jesus, you who were once far away have been brought near in the blood of Christ. For He is our peace who hath made Both peoples one and demolished in His flesh the wall of enmity. He abrogated the law of precepts and decrees, so that from the two He might create in Himself one new man and might reconcile them both in one body, to God thru the cross, killing by it that enmity.

And He came and announced the good tidings of peace to you who were far off, as well as to those who were near, for thru Him we both have our access in one Spirit to the Father.

Today we commemorate the manifestation of Jesus to the Gentiles. On His Birthday poor Jewish shepherds came to join Mary and Joseph in adoring the Infant Savior. Today prosperous and learned foreigners, guided by a miraculous star came to see and adore the King of the Jews. Both learned at the crib that here was to be found glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to men of good will.

Thus, already when He was Born and announced did He manifest Himself as that celebrated Cornerstone. Already was He beginning to join together in Himself two walls coming from different directions. He was leading the shepherds from Judaea and the Magi from the East that He might make the two in Himself into one new man; making peace ... peace to those that were afar off, and peace to those that were nigh.

But today we should speak of the men whom faith brought to Christ from remote parts of the earth. They came and sought Him saying, "Where is He that is born King of the Jews? For we have seen His star in the east and are come to adore Him." Their firm faith impels them to undertake a long and hazardous journey to find and adore Him, Who alone was worth seeking. What a contrast between the faith of these outsiders and the blindness of the Jewish rulers. What a magnificent thing it would have been had these blind leaders of the blind joined those seekers of Christ when they heard from them that they had seen His star and had come to adore Him! If they personally had led them to Bethlehem!

They knew from their study of Holy Scripture the place where the Messiah would Be born. If only they had seen Him -- understood Him and adored Him! But actually after they had shown the fountain of life to others, they themselves perished of thirst.

It would seem that the appearance of Christ to the world is of greater importance than even His death for the world, according to the opinion of St. Paul. In Romans we find: "For unless He was manifested to us, we could not know Him, and unless we knew Him we could not believe in Him and unless we believed in Him, we could not be saved. It is true that unless He died for us we should never see God, but it is just as true that unless He manifested Himself to us, we should never know Him. The nobility of the Child Jesus appeared in the Virginity of His Mother, and the nobility of the Mother was made manifest in the Divinity of the Child.

Among the Jews the Magi found the Infant whom the Jews were to deny when He was teaching among them. These strangers coming from afar adored the Christ Child when He was not yet uttering words. His own countrymen crucified Him when He was a young man working miracles. The first recognized God in His tiny body; the others, when He was performing great deeds did not spare Him even as a human being.

No! It was not prodigies that made the difference between the unbelieving Jews and the believing Magi. It was the great and wonderful gift of Faith that made the difference.

The shepherds were Israelites, the Magi Gentiles; the latter came from afar, yet both met at the Cornerstone which is Christ. "Coming", as the Apostle says, "He preached peace to us that were afar off, and peace to these that were nigh. For He is our peace who has made both one and has made the two in Himself into one new man, making peace and has changed both to God in one body - killing the enmities in Himself."

To us also did the heavens show forth the glory of God; we, too have been led to the adoration of Christ by the truth shining forth from the Gospel; we too have listened faithfully and have understood the prophecy honored in the Jewish race -- A testimony, as it were, of the Jews refusing to go on with us. We too, by acknowledging and praising the King, the Priest, the Christ Who died for us, have honored Him so to speak with the gold of sincere faith, the incense of prayer and praise and the myrrh off sorrow and repentance.

It only remains for us to be heralds of His Gospel and to go a new way, the way of grace and not return the way we have come. No one who ever meets Christ with a good will returns the same way as he came.

"The Word was Made Flesh, and Dwelt Among us."

This is the glorious, unsearchable, incomprehensible Truth on which all our hopes for the future depend. It is the wonderful Economy of Redemption, by which God became Man, the Highest became the lowest, the Creator took His place among His own creatures, Power became weakness, and Wisdom looked to men like folly. He that was rich was made poor; the Lord of all was rejected: "He came unto His own and His own received Him not." This is the grand mystery of the season.

The very first idea of the Divine Being, if we make the Creed our guide, is Omnipotence: "I believe in God, the Father Almighty." Nothing can add to Him; no one can be His creditor, no one can claim anything of Him. He asks of His creatures, "Is it not lawful for Me to do what I will?" What binds Him is the dictate of His own perfect attributes. He is just and true, because His attributes are such; but we have no claims upon Him. Or, if we have claims, it is in consequence of His own gratuitous promise, by which He does indeed bind Himself.

It is not merely that God became man, not merely that the All-possessing became destitute; but the All-powerful, the Infinite, became "subject" to the creature; nay not only a subject but a captive, a prisoner, not once, but on many different occasions.

The very first act of His Mother's on His birth is both an example and a figure of His life-long captivity. "Mary brought forth her first-born Son and wrapped Him in swaddling clothes and laid Him in a manger." And, so, like some inanimate image of wood or stone, the All-powerful lies in a manger, or on her bosom, double helpless, both because His infancy is feeble and because His bonds are strong.

It is in this wise He was shown to the shepherds; thus He was worshipped by the wise men; thus He was presented in the Temple, taken up in Simeon's arms, hurried off to Egypt by night, His tender Mother adoring the while. So His first months passed. When for a moment He anticipated His mission, and sat down among the Doctor's in the Temple, He was quickly recalled by His Mother's chiding, and went back again to her and Joseph and "was subject to them."

Jesus outgrew the necessity of a Mother's arms, only to present Himself to the tyrannous grasp of the heathen soldiers. And now surely my brethren, we are come to the end of these wonders. He tore open the solid rock; He rose from the tomb; He ascended on high; He is safe from profanation. It is not so: He is indeed beyond the reach of suffering.

Does He set such a value on subjection to His creatures, that, before He goes away, on the very eve of His betrayal, He must actually make provision, after death, for perpetuating His captivity to the end of the world? By Brethren, the great truth is daily before our eyes: He has ordained the standing miracle of His Body and Blood under visible symbols, that He may secure thereby the standing, mystery of Omnipotence in bonds. He took bread and blessed, and made it His Body; He took wine and gave thanks and made it His Blood; and He gave His priests the power to do what He had done. Henceforth He is in the hands of sinners once more !

My Brethren, it is plain that, when we confess God as Omnipotent only, we have gained but a half-knowledge of Him. His is an Omnipotence which can at the same time swathe Itself in infirmity and can become the captive of Its own creatures.

He has, if I may so speak, the incomprehensible power of making Himself weak. We must know Him by His names, Emmanuel and Jesus, to know Him perfectly.

If the very principle of sin is insubordination, is there not a stupendous meaning in the fact, that He, the Eternal, Who above is sovereign and supreme, has given us an example in His own Person of that love of subjection which in Him alone is simple voluntary, but in all creatures is an elementary duty?

0 my Brethren, let us blush at our own pride and self-will. Let us call to mind our impatience at God's providences towards us, our headstrong efforts to reverse His just decrees, our fierce passionate willfulness when we see that will too clearly; our determination to do things for ourselves without Him, our preference of our own reason to His word - the many shapes in which the Old Adam shows itself and of which our conscience tells us in our own; and let us pray Him Who is independent of us all, yet Who at this season became as though our fellow and our servant, to teach us our place in His wide universe, and to make us ambitious only of that grace here and glory hereafter, which He has purchased for us by His own humiliation.

...in the highest Heavens and Peace on Earth to men that are God's Friends.

Dear Friends, An old priest wrote a few years ago, "In the many years that I have been a priest, I have learned a few things. The most consoling discovery has been that God writes straight with crooked lines and that I cannot make anyone do anything. The only thing I can do is to change myself and sometimes, oh, so seldom, others will change in response to me." I mention this hard earned wisdom because I have learned something else which I seem to be ignoring. The days before and after the Nativity are for many of our people the best times of the year. More than at any other period, people think of other people. They meet socially and make merry. They give and forgive. They realize again the worth of family. The worth of friends touches them as at no other time. They feel emotionally as they do at no other time. Because of this, they are drained of feeling and they grow tired.

In spite of this discovery, here I am on the Sunday after Christmas, coaxing you to do some of the hardest thinking of the year. I am counting on the grace of God and of the Season. The grace of God has dawned on all men ... Who among us dares to forecast the things which will happen in the coming year?

Another old priest began his letter as follows: "Christmas of 1972 will be remembered as the day the free world surrendered to Marxism." That is a very serious thought to end the year with. Whether you see an ending or beginning in today and tomorrow, identifies you as an optimist or pessimist. The tall veiled figure of the New Year stands there, willing to reveal the new things only hour by hour. You can not predict. You must not worry. You dare not be anxious.

The end of one year, the beginning of another, is an occasion for checking on myself and on my attitude toward time and its meaning. Constantly we must include another dimension, that of a life to come, and another virtue, divine Catholic faith.

A Pope tells us in what way we can be helped by thought of the Holy Family: "The silence of Nazareth teaches us recollection, reflection and eagerness to heed the good inspirations and words of true teachers, it teaches us the value and need of preparation, of study, of meditation, of a personal and interior life, of prayer which is seen by God alone in secret."

Much of my life in the priesthood - continues the old Priest - almost 20 years, enjoyed the moral leadership of Pope Pius XII. In 1957 he said at Christmas time . ."The call to Christianity is not then, an invitation from God simply to esthetic pleasure in the contemplation of His marvelous order, but the call to unceasing action under obligation and strict discipline with respect to all the paths and conditions of life.

"However, it is necessary for Catholics first to take account of the extent of their ability and of their aims; that is, let them be spiritually and technically trained for what they are proposing to do. Otherwise they will bring no positive assistance, still less the precious gift of eternal truth, to the common cause, with undeniable hurt to Christ's honor and to their own souls."

The days at Nazareth do not provide us facts nor with details. We can only imagine what life was like for Jesus, Mary and Joseph. St. Paul wrote this to his generation of believers and I share it with mine. "There must be no wavering amidst these trials. You know well enough that this is our appointed lot. Indeed when we visited you, we told you that trials were to befall us ... We gave you a pattern of how you ought to live so as to please God; live by that pattern and make more of it than ever."

The end of one year and the beginning of another calls for gratitude, for faith, and for God's help. Make a resolution which will please God because you are trusting in Him. His days given us, are always good days. Let us close out the year with an expression of sorrow for all our sins, as He sees them. Let us dedicate ourselves anew to His purpose and make this New Year truly the year of Our Lord.

Christmas is a time when many celebrate with feasting while getting the feast, and make merry without knowing how merriment came into the world. Christmas is not something that happened, like the first trip to the moon; rather it is something that happened to me personally. It is a time of seeking, finding and partaking.

First of all we must seek inner peace. God makes the counter-moves on the chessboard of life, but I must make the front move under His stimulus. Then He responds. If I lack peace it is because I wanted it at my pace. The two classes who found the Babe sought Him; the simple shepherds and the Wise Men.

Both were stimulated to do so, for behind every search is an urging sometimes called grace; it was the song of Angels for the shepherds and the sight of the star for the Wise Men.

Seeking without finding frustrates, the chase without the capture palls. Christmas means Christ lives in me, works thru my hands, sees thru my eyes and loves thru my heart. Only when I empty me of myself can He fill me Himself. If all of me, then nothing of Him; if some of me, then something of Him; if none of me, then all of Him.

Do I want to keep the sweet memory of the Babe in the crib of long ago, with the sweet chants of Holy Night? If He really came and asked me to give Him my finger would I not dread lest He take my hand?

Christmas can make us sad, not glad, if all we do is to give our gifts to friends, but never give self to the Giver. But Christmas can be merry when the "life of Jesus is made manifest in our mortal flesh." (2 Cor. 4,10)

If I am tired of me, divorce me from myself. Never shall I be free until Thou dost ravish me. Down deep I know that I feel Thy presence when I am in Graces I feel Thy absence when I am in sin, as I knew water when I thirst and food when I hunger.

Come then to another cave, deeper than Bethlehem -- the cave of my subconsciousness. There all my faith and childhood prayers and innocence have sunk. Psychoanalyze me with contrition. Unwash me of all that is bogus. Attune my eyes to the song of angels and my eyes to the vision of a star.

I think I know what Christmas is; it is discovering that the worst thing in the world is not sin; it is denying I am a sinner. If I were blind and denied light, would I not want to see? "If I had never sinned, I never could say Saviour." That is having a "Merry Christmas". That is what I wish you all.

"Reign, 0 Queen Mother, over the minds of men, that they may seek only what is true; over their wills, that they may follow only what is good! over their hearts, that they may love only what you yourself love." (Pope Pius XII)