Letter to Friends and Benefactors
The Blindness of Society
Dear Friends and Benefactors,
The world is getting day by day more difficult for Catholics to live in. From the moment they wish to take their Catholic Faith seriously, they find themselves more or less out of line with most everything that anyone else thinks, says or does around them. At which point, as Catholics either they start disarming their Faith with any one of a variety of readily available compromises, or they live in a state of continual – and increasing – tension with their surroundings, with little or no prospect of the tension easing off. What are they to do?
Surely youngsters who get caught in this situation are particularly deserving of sympathy, insofar as they did not create it, they have merely walked into it. It is understandable if many of them turn to false solutions like drugs, or pleasure, or material success, but the problem, which has been around for a long time, still does not go away. Serious questions deserve serious answers.
Let me quote from a letter that I received last month from a university student in the United States. I have slightly adapted his text
"... I am quite disgusted with school and society in general. Utter amazement is the only way I can describe my reaction to this great chasm that divides the Catholic from modern society. It has drifted so far... At times I rage internally against this whole abomination, and begin to wonder if I am slowly turning into a hater of mankind. But however misguided they may be I am still concerned for the souls of my fellow-men, so perhaps I am just frustrated.
"I have come to think that this whole crisis in Church and world can only be solved in blood. We are all guilty for the godlessness of today insofar as we are all sinners; we have all, through sins of commission or omission, contributed to the liberal disease. So God is just in making us all suffer, in demanding our blood as well as that of the leading criminals.
"I often wonder if a Restoration will be granted, or would we be the end? Could modern man really adapt himself to a renewed social reign of Christ the King? Or would such a Restoration demand the mass expulsion or, sadder, the mass extermination of whole populations as when the Israelites entered into Canaan? Our Lady has warned us of the annihilation of various nations.
"It is easy to lose sight of the seriousness of life, to let oneself be drawn into the fantasy which is deceitfully passed off as reality. We wade in Romanticism, the true opiate of the age, for which a just penalty will be exacted. But I know the Truth, which sets me apart from the liberal and romantic crowd in which I am immersed, so if I were to let myself drift with the crowd I would have to pay a severer penalty. May God deliver us from liberalism! I have seen too many people, even friends, devoured by the Beast. How frightening to know the living damned!
"Forgive my rantings, but such thoughts can drive one mad if they are not expressed. But to openly express such things can be truly dangerous in most company..."
End of extracts from student's letter. Now here is a line of reply –
My dear boy (he is humble enough to listen even after being addressed like that!), firstly, here and there you may rant, but you are far more on target than you are off target, and let nobody tell you differently. You are quite right in thinking that the mass of people around us are living out a fantasy, a fantasy of Romanticism, of love without God, which is turning into hate, so that there is going to be a terrible day of reckoning. You are right to be amazed, it is indeed an abomination, but be careful with the disgust or the rage. The great mass of people, in Our Lord's words, "know not what they do." They have lost the Truth, they have deserved to have God "send them the operation of error, to believe lying" (II Thes. II,10), they need to be very much pitied.
On the contrary you yourself have not lost the Truth, you have the Catholic Faith by which you are taking the measure of the world around you, and you are essentially correct. Make sure you thank God for that, but with no trace of the pride of the pharisee who thought himself better than everyone else, and in order to keep your grasp on the Truth, every day pray the Rosary, to stop "the operation of error" from closing over your mind and soul as it is closing over so many. The situation you are describing is firstly a supernatural war. You must employ firstly supernatural weapons. Lose the Truth, you lose everything. Pray the Rosary, God will give you to hold onto the Truth.
When you think that the abomination in church and world will have to be washed out in blood, you are surely right. Scripture says, "Without shedding of blood there is no remission" (Heb. IX,22). Men are committing a flood of sins needing remission, but they are choking off the flow of Christ's atoning Blood at the true Sacrifice of the Mass, therefore it is their own blood that will have to flow, unless there is a sudden wide scale repentance, which does not seem likely. You are wise to recognize that all of us sinners will justly suffer, but do not be scandalized if one day you see the blood of the innocent also flowing – the greater the innocence, the greater the power of remission. Remember the blood of the Lamb of God: wholly innocent, wholly powerful.
You are right again in asking if modern man could adapt himself to a renewed social reign of Christ the King. With his idolatry of his rights, liberty and independence he surely could not, unless he underwent a serious conversion, at which point the Truth would make him truly free, as Our Lord promised On. VIII,32), whereas now with all his boasted liberties he is a slave of "the operation of error", and a slave of the unseen masters of the world. But he cannot and will not see it. You are right to evoke the corrupt Canaanites upon whom the Lord God passed a decree of extermination. Obviously each Canaanite was offered before being exterminated all the grace he needed to save his soul for the next world, but he was too corrupt to be allowed to continue to live in this world. Similarly a mass of modern Westerners are in the process of forfeiting their right to life in this world.
Will their extermination be the end of the world? One may think not. Many prophecies speak of a great chastisement cleansing mankind to make possible one final glorification of the Catholic Church, a generation of peace ("In the end my Immaculate Heart will Triumph"), before the final corruption leads to the Antichrist. You are young enough to see the Chastisement. You might even be young enough to see the end of the world.
No matter. Those questions need not concern you. What should concern you is how at all costs to avoid being drawn into the fantasy as you call it, which is deceitfully passed off as reality, the "operation of error." Besides the Rosary, remember another great spiritual weapon given by God to his Church at the time when the operation of error began centuries ago with Protestantism: St. Ignatius' Spiritual Exercises.
The Ignatian Retreats are a providential means for Catholics in a distracted and distracting world to plunge themselves again, if necessary once a year, in the truths of their Faith, to regain their spiritual bearings, to discern the things that really matter, to revive their sense and love of God, to steep their souls in prayer. The yellow flyer enclosed tells of three locations in the United States for these Retreats, including December 26 to 31 this year as usual in Winona. Last year's Christmas retreat here was a grand success with 40 retreatants.
Finally the other great weapon in all supernatural warfare, next after prayer, is penance. Do penance. But as Our Lady told the children of Fatima at the beginning of our century, no doubt because she knew how difficult life would become for Catholics, sufficient penance today is to do the duty of our state of life. If you are a student, study; if you become a breadwinner, win bread; if you become a father, look after your wife and children. And leave in God's hands all kinds of other details. He wants us to trust Him. My dear boy, you are luckier than you think. You have not lost the Truth. There are all kinds of questions which are secondary. Look after the primary. Love God day by day. Look after God's interests and He will look after yours. As Padre Pio said, entrust the past to His mercy, the present to His love, and the future to His Providence, and God be with you!
End of a bishop's reply to a serious young man. Dear friends and benefactors, there remain only the Seminary Christmas cards to mention. We have them available for you to send to your friends or loved ones for them to be included in the Christmas Novena of Masses starting on Christmas night at the Seminary's main altar.
Remember especially the Holy Souls in Purgatory through this month of November. God bless you.
Sincerely yours in Christ,
Dear Friends and Benefactors,
The world is getting day by day more difficult for Catholics to live in. From the moment they wish to take their Catholic Faith seriously, they find themselves more or less out of line with most everything that anyone else thinks, says or does around them. At which point, as Catholics either they start disarming their Faith with any one of a variety of readily available compromises, or they live in a state of continual – and increasing – tension with their surroundings, with little or no prospect of the tension easing off. What are they to do?
Surely youngsters who get caught in this situation are particularly deserving of sympathy, insofar as they did not create it, they have merely walked into it. It is understandable if many of them turn to false solutions like drugs, or pleasure, or material success, but the problem, which has been around for a long time, still does not go away. Serious questions deserve serious answers.
Let me quote from a letter that I received last month from a university student in the United States. I have slightly adapted his text
"... I am quite disgusted with school and society in general. Utter amazement is the only way I can describe my reaction to this great chasm that divides the Catholic from modern society. It has drifted so far... At times I rage internally against this whole abomination, and begin to wonder if I am slowly turning into a hater of mankind. But however misguided they may be I am still concerned for the souls of my fellow-men, so perhaps I am just frustrated.
"I have come to think that this whole crisis in Church and world can only be solved in blood. We are all guilty for the godlessness of today insofar as we are all sinners; we have all, through sins of commission or omission, contributed to the liberal disease. So God is just in making us all suffer, in demanding our blood as well as that of the leading criminals.
"I often wonder if a Restoration will be granted, or would we be the end? Could modern man really adapt himself to a renewed social reign of Christ the King? Or would such a Restoration demand the mass expulsion or, sadder, the mass extermination of whole populations as when the Israelites entered into Canaan? Our Lady has warned us of the annihilation of various nations.
"It is easy to lose sight of the seriousness of life, to let oneself be drawn into the fantasy which is deceitfully passed off as reality. We wade in Romanticism, the true opiate of the age, for which a just penalty will be exacted. But I know the Truth, which sets me apart from the liberal and romantic crowd in which I am immersed, so if I were to let myself drift with the crowd I would have to pay a severer penalty. May God deliver us from liberalism! I have seen too many people, even friends, devoured by the Beast. How frightening to know the living damned!
"Forgive my rantings, but such thoughts can drive one mad if they are not expressed. But to openly express such things can be truly dangerous in most company..."
End of extracts from student's letter. Now here is a line of reply –
My dear boy (he is humble enough to listen even after being addressed like that!), firstly, here and there you may rant, but you are far more on target than you are off target, and let nobody tell you differently. You are quite right in thinking that the mass of people around us are living out a fantasy, a fantasy of Romanticism, of love without God, which is turning into hate, so that there is going to be a terrible day of reckoning. You are right to be amazed, it is indeed an abomination, but be careful with the disgust or the rage. The great mass of people, in Our Lord's words, "know not what they do." They have lost the Truth, they have deserved to have God "send them the operation of error, to believe lying" (II Thes. II,10), they need to be very much pitied.
On the contrary you yourself have not lost the Truth, you have the Catholic Faith by which you are taking the measure of the world around you, and you are essentially correct. Make sure you thank God for that, but with no trace of the pride of the pharisee who thought himself better than everyone else, and in order to keep your grasp on the Truth, every day pray the Rosary, to stop "the operation of error" from closing over your mind and soul as it is closing over so many. The situation you are describing is firstly a supernatural war. You must employ firstly supernatural weapons. Lose the Truth, you lose everything. Pray the Rosary, God will give you to hold onto the Truth.
When you think that the abomination in church and world will have to be washed out in blood, you are surely right. Scripture says, "Without shedding of blood there is no remission" (Heb. IX,22). Men are committing a flood of sins needing remission, but they are choking off the flow of Christ's atoning Blood at the true Sacrifice of the Mass, therefore it is their own blood that will have to flow, unless there is a sudden wide scale repentance, which does not seem likely. You are wise to recognize that all of us sinners will justly suffer, but do not be scandalized if one day you see the blood of the innocent also flowing – the greater the innocence, the greater the power of remission. Remember the blood of the Lamb of God: wholly innocent, wholly powerful.
You are right again in asking if modern man could adapt himself to a renewed social reign of Christ the King. With his idolatry of his rights, liberty and independence he surely could not, unless he underwent a serious conversion, at which point the Truth would make him truly free, as Our Lord promised On. VIII,32), whereas now with all his boasted liberties he is a slave of "the operation of error", and a slave of the unseen masters of the world. But he cannot and will not see it. You are right to evoke the corrupt Canaanites upon whom the Lord God passed a decree of extermination. Obviously each Canaanite was offered before being exterminated all the grace he needed to save his soul for the next world, but he was too corrupt to be allowed to continue to live in this world. Similarly a mass of modern Westerners are in the process of forfeiting their right to life in this world.
Will their extermination be the end of the world? One may think not. Many prophecies speak of a great chastisement cleansing mankind to make possible one final glorification of the Catholic Church, a generation of peace ("In the end my Immaculate Heart will Triumph"), before the final corruption leads to the Antichrist. You are young enough to see the Chastisement. You might even be young enough to see the end of the world.
No matter. Those questions need not concern you. What should concern you is how at all costs to avoid being drawn into the fantasy as you call it, which is deceitfully passed off as reality, the "operation of error." Besides the Rosary, remember another great spiritual weapon given by God to his Church at the time when the operation of error began centuries ago with Protestantism: St. Ignatius' Spiritual Exercises.
The Ignatian Retreats are a providential means for Catholics in a distracted and distracting world to plunge themselves again, if necessary once a year, in the truths of their Faith, to regain their spiritual bearings, to discern the things that really matter, to revive their sense and love of God, to steep their souls in prayer. The yellow flyer enclosed tells of three locations in the United States for these Retreats, including December 26 to 31 this year as usual in Winona. Last year's Christmas retreat here was a grand success with 40 retreatants.
Finally the other great weapon in all supernatural warfare, next after prayer, is penance. Do penance. But as Our Lady told the children of Fatima at the beginning of our century, no doubt because she knew how difficult life would become for Catholics, sufficient penance today is to do the duty of our state of life. If you are a student, study; if you become a breadwinner, win bread; if you become a father, look after your wife and children. And leave in God's hands all kinds of other details. He wants us to trust Him. My dear boy, you are luckier than you think. You have not lost the Truth. There are all kinds of questions which are secondary. Look after the primary. Love God day by day. Look after God's interests and He will look after yours. As Padre Pio said, entrust the past to His mercy, the present to His love, and the future to His Providence, and God be with you!
End of a bishop's reply to a serious young man. Dear friends and benefactors, there remain only the Seminary Christmas cards to mention. We have them available for you to send to your friends or loved ones for them to be included in the Christmas Novena of Masses starting on Christmas night at the Seminary's main altar.
Remember especially the Holy Souls in Purgatory through this month of November. God bless you.
Sincerely yours in Christ,
