‘For
with Thee is the fountain of life’ (Psalm 36:9)
Of course
in this passage “Thee” is referring to God. But God is also the
Truth: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life” (Jn 14:6).
Today
there is a great attack against the Truth of God. And thus, a great
number of people believe to have found the “fountain of life”,
but instead it was offered to them the truth (“t”) and not the
Truth (“T”) which come from Jesus, the Truth! The damage to souls
due to this swapping of the Truth (of God) for the “truth” (of
relativism) is enormous!
“The
Truth (of God) will make you free!” (Jn 8:32). But the truth of
relativismo will make us slaves in the worst way after a little
pleasure outside of the Holy and saving Will of God!
You might
revisit, among others:
“Who
Decides The Truth?”
(http://spir-food.blogspot.it/2014/06/who-decides-truth.html)
“Spiritual
Food 1410” (http://wordbelife.blogspot.it/2014/10/john-635.html)
Read also
below, after the P:S., the meditation:
“THE
CHURCH, THE MOVEMENT AND THE CURRENT TIMES”
- - - - -
- -
An
Experience of Life:
Last year a
girl in my school told me that she had a sexual relationship with a
guy that she encountered on facebook, but had never met before.
I had
previously tried to dissuade her from doing this, telling her that it
was not the right thing and that she was loosing something very
important. I could not do anything else, but she did not changed her
mind, still not understanding the consequences of her choice. I was
very sorry. This year, being in the same school, I tried not to lose
her friendship, even though I did not agree with some of her ideas.
One day - I really did not expect it – she came to me and said:
"You know, I realize now that last year I made a stupid choice.
I have regretted it, now I have another consideration about my body."
At that
moment I realized that I was not wrong to have proposed to her a
different view, neither had it been useless. This experience made me
realize that we should not lose hope, even when we are the only ones
to present certain truths.
Riccardo ,
Italy
- - - - -
- -
Father
Joseph Dwight
P:S:
As you
know, I am a member of the Marian Movement of Priests. During the
International Spiritual Exercises, at Collevalenza – Sanctuary of
Merciful Love (Madre Speranza), June 22-28, 2008, Father Michael
Gaughran offered to over 200 priests and to over 10 bishops of the
movement these words in a meditation, with the title of the
meditation, “The Church, The Movement and the
current times”:
Marian
Movement of Priests
International
Retreat, Collevalenza, 2008
The
Church, The Movement and the current times
First
Meditation
(Draft
of the first meditation prepared in English by Father Michael
Gaughran for spiritual exercises which are held annually at the
Shrine of Merciful Love at Collevalenza (Italy), and here translated
into Italian. The dates are when Father Stefano Gobbi received the
interior locution from Our Lady.)
THE
CLOUDS ARE GATHERING
[We
have come to this point]
(We
have put in square brackets the additions and/or corrections made by
hand by Father Michael.)
Brethren,
it is time to talk seriously.
We
are going through a period in which many perceive the presence of a
threatening atmosphere, both for the Church and for the world. On the
one hand they have that threat to the Church herself, of which our
Mother has so often warned us about, and for which she offers us
there a remedy in the second commitment of the Movement (unity with
the Holy Father), that the circular letter of Father Gobbi mentioned.
But there's that other sense of threat perceived by many, the general
breakdown of society, of morals and of the order in the world. Those
of us who are diocesan clergy in touch with the anxieties of our
people, know well who much this uneasiness is diffused. The fact is
that we are in very serious times. [Is this the time when our mother
will lead us out in the open? Only she can let us know. But we have
to be ready.] This is why the right of God to rule in His own kingdom
is seriously challenged, and we have entered the time of decisive
conflict in which that challenge must be resolved. These are our
times, times extremely serious for which the Marian Movement of
Priests was founded by our Mother, and in which we find our vocation
in the Church.
This
being the case, it is essential to have a clear idea of what we are
and what our Mother expects to receive from us.
Our
Mother has described these times in this way:
"Today
we live in dark times, because they are trying to reach in every way
to compromise between God and Satan; between good and evil; between
the spirit of Jesus and the spirit of the world. Many are in danger
of becoming victims of this general confusion and even in my Church
they would like to spread a false spirit, which is not that of Jesus
the Son of God.
Like
an invisible toxic cloud expands the spirit of mixing between God and
the world, and it arrives to the point of taking away the force to
the Word of God, stripping away the strength of the proclamation the
Gospel" (December 8, 1982).
One
must never read these words in a hasty manner, because they describe
for us the true dimensions of the attack that was launched against
the Church, which we were called to defend with all our weakness and
poverty. If you do not let ourselves be penetrated by the seriousness
of what she is telling us, the answer to our Mother will be, at best,
below what is needed. When we read in the words of our Mother that
they are trying to reach a compromise between the things of God and
the things of Satan, it is clear that what is planned is nothing less
than a complete demolition of the Church in our times. [total
destruction. In the East, demolition] [8 dicenihre 1975].
Our
Mother speaks of a kind of toxic cloud that generates confusion
everywhere, in all that is good, and which stifles the spirit of
Jesus in His people; and this we can see in the confusion in doctrine
and morals that are taught in the Church by educated people,
producing a vision of the Church that has nothing to do with the
Church of Jesus Christ. This obscures the clarity of vision of men,
depriving them of the ability to discern right from wrong, to see the
distinctive good that comes from Jesus, the Word of God, from that
which is human and inspired by the devil. A total demolition, in
which an entity known as the Catholic Church will continue to exist,
with all its outward appearance, rituals and vestments, and ways of
working and exercising an authority, but without the supernatural
trace of the teaching of Jesus. It will be the exponent of the works
of Satan. As we have said they will try to oust God from His own
creation and eliminate His right to reign in His own kingdom.
Regarding all of this we can already say that we have been
testimonies, in the light of the prophetic messages given to us by
our Mother, while we have contemplated the progress of confusion, the
lack of discipline, the division and persecution and, at times, even
the rebellion in the Church, up to a point that we would not have
thought possible.
It
will be, as one hopes, the completion of the challenge or boasting of
Satan, as we are told by the prophet Isaiah:
"How
you are fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of Dawn! How you are cut
down to the ground, you who laid the nations low! You said in your
heart, 'I will ascend to heaven; above the stars of God I will set my
throne on high; I will sit on the mount of assembly in the far north;
I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will make myself
like the Most High’.” (Is 14:12-14).
[This
is the desire of the adversary: the direct worship to himself]
Of course
then the prophecy tells of the consequences of this arrogance:
“But
you are brought down to Sheol, to the depths of the Pit. 16 Those who
see you will stare at you, and ponder over you: 'Is this the man who
made the earth tremble, who shook kingdoms, 17 who made the world
like a desert and overthrew its cities, who did not let his prisoners
go home?' 18 All the kings of the nations lie in glory, each in his
own tomb; 19 but you are cast out, away from your sepulcher, like a
loathed untimely birth” (Is 14:15-19).
A
terrible attack, which causes immense damage, which culminates in the
defeat of the evil one. We are before the prophecy of the Antichrist,
and this is the nature of our times and the times of this Movement.
It was entrusted to us in these times, as a Movement of her priests,
a special responsibility, and it is necessary that we strive to
understand the great seriousness of involvement in which we find
ourselves; otherwise we will not have that determination of heart
needed to be fully engaged. One finds this in the messages.
These
things are not very diffused [in public] by the high authority of the
Church (presumably so as not to appear alarmists), but even so
Cardinal Karol Wojtyla shows us a sign of how they are alive and dear
to the heart of the Church, November 9, 1976, a few months before
being elected as Pope John Paul II:
Today
we are facing the biggest battle that mankind has ever seen. I do not
think that the Christian community has fully understood this. Today
we are facing the final battle between the Church and the
anti-church, between of the Gospel and the anti-gospel. "[It is
worth asking: do we know that many do not believe this?]
[THE
ANTICHRIST]
The
coming of the Antichrist and the man of iniquity. How else to
interpret the words of the future pope, "the Church and the
anti-church, the Gospel and the anti-gospel'': the final battle
against the very Word? In a Movement like ours, so closely involved,
such words must not be read but absorbed and taken to heart. In one
of the earliest messages our Mother she tells us:
"What
must these my sons, formed by me, now do, called and for the first
time gathered together? They must be prepared, they must be ready: -
For my orders, because soon I will call them and they will all have
respond to me, ready to be used by Me to extreme defense of my Son,
of Me, of the Gospel and of the Church.
They
will be the salt in a world fully corrupted and the light in the
darkness that has invaded everything. - To strive, because my
Adversary will unleash his army against them and fight with them and
will pursue them with a frightening combat. They will be ridiculed,
despised, persecuted and some even killed. But I will always be with
them and I will protect them and defend and comfort them, wiping each
of their tears as only a mother know how. - To defend the Pope,
already so alone to carry the cross of the Church; but the time will
come when, like Jesus on the way to Calvary, he will be abandoned by
almost everyone. Then these children of mine will be his comfort and
his defense, and they will win with Me with the greatest battle of
the Church" (September 23, 1973).
The
''extreme defense of my Son", "the greatest battle of the
Church ", words that echo those of Cardinal Wojtyla. One has the
impression of having arrived. I would say that these are the times of
the great conflict with the anti-christ, the times for which our
Mother has prepared us.
While
this battle is described in terms which seem to imply even physical
violence and force, and indeed this is not excluded (we can think of
our own Servant of God, Father Nazarene, as well as others), we are
talking about something much deeper and more subtle. We are dealing
with the interior of the heart of humanity and of the Church, which
is at stake. Nor should we look at this as something that concerns
only the future. For years the silent assault is taking place. It is
a direct assault against the Church at every level, but the attack
which primarily regards us in the Marian Movement of Priests is, of
course, the one directed against the priests. This is the most
important part of the attack, and we can offer our compliments to the
devil by saying that he knows his infernal job well! While it is true
that we priests remain poor human beings invested with powers
infinitely greater than we are, the fact is that we carry in our
hands, in the sacraments of Life, the salvation of the world and the
total response to the work of the devil: we bring Jesus Christ our
Savior, living and working in us. He understands the Church and her
spiritual reality better than any of us, and He is well aware that if
one causes serious damage to the priesthood, or even if one succeeds
in removing one priest from the exercise of his vocation, one
inflicts serious damage. Here it is not necessary to repeat the
horrendous statistics of the loss of priests and religious which
occurred mainly after the Second Vatican Council, but the fact is
that there was an attempt to strip the Church of a great number of
her priests. But it is not simply a matter of numbers.
[IT
IS AN ATTACK ON THE TRUTH OF GOD.]
It
grew gradually. It is enough to think of a subtle change that
happened around the time of the Second Vatican Council. With the
arrival of the “experts” there developed the fashion of
theologians (Note 1),
regardless of whether or not they deserved the name; the fact that
they had published a book, in general that was enough. This continues
and, with this, the center that guides the Church in the minds of
many, has shifted from where God had placed it, in the hierarchy, the
Pope and the bishops in union with him, and became the various
opinions of all sorts of writers. [The students collected the books.]
So, this has had an impact not only on the priests, but also on
seminarians in many universities. This is the first part of the
attack: the attack on the truth of God, the foundation of the Church.
[DISCIPLINE]
Then
let us think about another weapon used by our enemy: the attempt to
undermine the discipline for which the Church has always been known.
Its members always considered themselves linked among each other by
the reins of obedience, and this was its protection. It is rooted in
the certainty that the Church is ultimately governed by the presence
of our Lord Jesus Christ, led by His Holy Spirit, and not just by
men, however intelligent, but you could say that, if we thought that
the fulcrum of the guidance of the Church - as we have just said -
had become the thoughts and opinions of theologians, then it would
follow that the Church is founded on human opinion and not on Divna
Revelation. [Every man would become pope himself.] This is perhaps
the extreme damage that has been inflicted on the Church. The denial,
however implicit, of the Holy Founder and His continued presence in
the Church through his Holy Spirit, the guide of all. Exclude God
from His Church and you have demolished the Church, even thug she may
continue to adapt the same outward adornments.
This
is the serious truth that underlines these words of our Mother:
"How
many of you have stopped to consider His Word. They wanted to
penetrate and understand it only with their own human intelligence
and have thus inadvertently fallen into the most grave errors. It is
not by human intelligence alone that the Word of my Son is to be
read. He thanked the Father for having hid the mysteries of His
kingdom from the wise and prudent of this world in order to reveal
them unto the little ones. It is above all with inner humility, with
full docility of the soul, that His Word is to be read and
understood. For this, my Son entrusted the authentic interpretation
solely to the Magisterium of the Church. This in order to accustom
yourselves to this difficult, yet so necessary, attitude of humility
and inner docility.
If
you will be united to the Magisterium of the Church, if you will be
humble and attentive to what She indicates to you, you will always
remain in the truth of the Word of Jesus.
Today
more and more in the Church there is spread error and it seems by now
that there is no more suitable dike to contain it. It is spread above
all by many theologians; it is spread by my poor Priest sons. How,
today, in the Church, can you be certain to save yourselves from
error? Look at my Son crucified and you will be faithful. My Son Who,
being God, became obedient unto death on the Cross. Look at His
thorns, look at His blood, look at His wounds: they are open flowers
on the pain of His obedience.
My
dearest children, now that the darkness engulfs everything, you are
called to bear witness to the light of complete obedience to the
Church: to the Pope and to the bishops united with him" (April
13, 1976).
The
lack of discipline arising from a disunity towards the Holy Father
and a loss of supernatural perspective in understanding the role of
the Church as a teacher, leaves man in the throes of ways of thinking
and behaving in ways foreign to the Church. Let us recall the words
of Pope Paul VI cited for us by the spiritual director at the
beginning of the Blue Book:
"What
strikes me, when I consider the Catholic world, that is, within
Catholicism, there seems to predominate sometimes a type of
non-Catholic thought, and it may come about that this non-Catholic
thought, in the inside of Catholicism, might become tomorrow the
strongest thought. But i twill never represent the thought of the
Church."
Yes,
that thought [not Catholic] is in the Church, although coming from
outside of the Magisterium; it is alien to her because it is not
touched by grace.
Brethren,
this is what happened in our Church. Let us be careful to see that
the real evil is found not only in disobedience to particular
commands, but in the entire attitudes. Our Mother refers to the need
to be obedient to the Church even in those things that may seem like
small issues, such as wearing the clergyman’s suit. It is not at
stake the materale importance of what is required of us, but the
question of levity, not to say indifference, in the way in which
authority is considered and is set aside. Let us return to the need
to see the authority of the Church in supernatural terms, and in the
presence of the Lord which underlines the duty of obedience.
[THE
SUPERNATURAL NATURE OF THE CHURCH]
Sadly,
this lack of the sense of the supernatural has been the cause for
some to neglect the seeking of the presence of God in their lives. No
doubt, if a man does not lead a life centered on prayer, he can not
lead a life as a good priest; such as: how can he properly live and
act in the Person of Jesus, if he neglect to seek a union of spirit,
alive and humble, with Him? Our Mother warns us about this:
"It
is indiscipline, the lack of inner docility to God's will, which
manifests itself in breach of your obligations of your state in life;
the obligation of prayer, of good example, of a holy and apostolic
life.
How
many there are, among the priests, who let themselves be absorbed in
disorderly activity and no longer pray! The habitually neglect the
Liturgy of the Hours, the meditation, the recitation of the Holy
Rosary. The limit the prayer to a hasty celebration of the holy Mass.
So
these my poor children become internally emptied and have more light
and strength to resist the many temptations in the midst of which
they live. They are thus contaminated by the spirit of the world and
accept its way of life, sharing its values, participating in its
secular manifestations, they let themselves to be conditioned by its
means of propaganda, and eventually they are covered by its same
mentality. Then they end up living as ministers of the world,
according to its spirit, which they justify and spread, causing
scandal among many believers.
From
here is born the widespread rebellion against the canonical norms
that govern the life of Priests and the recurrent protest against the
obligation of celibacy, desired by Jesus through His Church, and that
in these it has been again firmly reaffirmed by Pope" (February
2, 1979).
This
message merits a special reflection on the part of all of us, since
it contains a wealth of analysis of the situation in the Church
today, as a result of the enraged attack by our enemy. But I think we
should pay special attention to the sad reference of our Mother to
the state of scandal caused among the people. It is true that the
attack comes from the enemy, and is primarily directed against the
priests - a terrible satanic initiative - but even so we must say
that the cooperation that he has received came from the priests, and
is not the fault of the laity. Not that everyone might be perfect,
and there is need of good pastors, but there has been a lack among
many priests a lack of spiritual guidance owed to our people. There
is a considerable sense of scandal in the Church today by good
believers, in seeing the shortcomings and the divisions among priests
and the disloyalty to the Holy Father. We must remember, as our
Mother has just told us, that they are ordained to be servants of our
Lord Jesus Christ, and not ministers of the world. [We can look at
the events of recent years - pedophilia, prestige, opulence -
mentioned in the Act of Consecration].
In
looking at what we have said, we see taking form that which regards
the purpose of the Marian Movement of Priests in the battle declared
by our enemy. We have seen, in the first place, the attack on the
truth of God and the alienation from the Magisterium which has been
brought to many through a false concept of freedom. At the base there
has been a loss of the supernatural sense of the Church, that is, the
recognition of the presence and the hand and of the conducting
authority of Jesus Christ our Lord. She is debased to the level of
human society, subject to every whiff of human opinion. The Roman
Catholic Church has, as one of its characteristic signs, that of
being HOLY, precisely because of this presence and of this divine
activity.
Against
this division and alienation, our Mother demands of us the
commitments that we assume in the Movement. In these days, in his
circular letter for this year, as well as in what he chose to speak
about in his retreat, Don Stefano paused on the second of those
commitments: the union with the Pope and the hierarchy united with
him. In this aspect, our Mother has offered to us the necessary
refuge to escape from the alienation from the Truth of which we have
spoken, for the Lord has granted us the truth through the person of
the Holy Father, His guardian. together with the hierarchy united
with him. Then she asks us to form this union in the Truth in those
souls that are entrusted to our pastoral care, spreading the spirit
of consecration to her Immaculate Heart among the faithful.
That
unity she seals in the first of our commitments: the consecration to
her Immaculate Heart. That heart she promised us as a refuge in the
storms that surround us ("My
Immaculate Heart will be your refuge and the way that will lead you
to God"), and, in entrusting
ourselves to her heart, we offer ourselves to be nourished by her
holiness, by her knowledge, by her wisdom, so that we live a life
that is hers, because it is lived with her and in her.
It
is here that we find the gift that our Mother is doing for her Son in
the battle in which the Church is involved. We have said that the
attack is subtle, directed against the inner or the heart of the
Church.
["Fear
not, I repeat: you are mine and Satan will not touch them. You are in
my garden and no one will snatch you from my Immaculate Heart.
The
hour has arrived, thug, in which you will be called much greater
sufferings: persecution, imprisonment, for some the offering of your
life. Soon you will have to live moments that you could not withstand
if next to you there was not your Mother.
Now
you must prepare yourselves. For this, today, with solicitude I ask
from you only docility, prayer and suffering" (February 11,
1978).]
- - -
Note 1:
When
Pope John Paul II replied bluntly in response about many bishops who
do not believe in the Devil: “Anyone who does not believe in the
Devil does not believe in the Gospel”,
the Vatican's chief exorcist, Father Gabriele Amorth, was asked in
his interview of 2001: “Again, ARE YOU
SAYING THAT MANY BISHOPS AND PRIESTS ARE NOT, CONSEQUENTLY,
CATHOLIC?” Amorth replied: “Let
us just say that they do not believe a Gospel truth. So, if anything,
I would stop them propagating a heresy. But, to be clear about this,
a person is officially a heretic if he or she is accused of something
and persists in the error. No one today, given the situation in the
Church, is accusing a bishop of not believing in the Devil, or in
demonic possession or of failing to appoint exorcists because he does
not believe. And yet I could give you the names of so many bishops
and cardinals who, on their appointment to a diocese, stripped
exorcists of their faculty to perform the rite. Or there are bishops
who openly say they don’t believe, that these are things of the
past. Why is that? UNFORTUNATELY, WE HAVE HAD THE INSIDIOUS INFLUENCE
OF CERTAIN BIBLISTS and I could mention some illustrious names. We
who are in daily physical contact with the ‘other world’ know
that this influence is evident in numerous liturgical reforms. (For
example?) The Second Vatican Council asked that some texts be
revised. Disobeying this command, they set about re-writing them
completely with no thought for the danger of making things worse
instead of better. So many rites came off badly from this mania to
throw out the old and start from scratch, as if the Church to date
had always conned us and as if only now the time had at last come of
the great geniuses, the super theologians, the super-biblists and the
super-liturgists who know what the right thing is for the Church.
This is a lie: the last Council simply asked that the texts be
revised, not destroyed.”
(http://www.speroforum.com/site/article.asp?id=2879;
http://www.vaticans.org/index.php?/archives/61-An-interview-with-the-Vaticans-chief-excorcist,-Father-Gabriele.html).
