Addressing the present state of the Church

Below is an extract from a message reputedly given by Our Lady to a saintly nun in Quito, Ecuador in the 17th Century - Venerable Mother Mariana de Jesus Torres. It makes sober reading and certainly given the recent revelations of corrupt and sinful clergy in many parts of the world it seems to be spot on.

I offer it for your consideration and as an encouragement to more prayer, fasting and penance for the many sins of the clergy and religious which are particularly offensive to God since they are consecrated and set apart in a profound way by virtue of their ordination or profession - not that holiness is the sole preserve of the clergy and religious. I often think how diificult it will be for those of us who are priests to enter heaven.


"The Church will find itself attacked by waves of a secret sect ... corrupted priests will scandalize the Church ... Moreover, in these unhappy times there will be unbridled luxury which, acting thus to snare the rest into sin, will conquer innumerable frivolous souls who will lose themselves. Innocence will almost no longer be found in children, nor modesty in women, and, in this supreme moment of need of the Church, those whom it behooves to speak will fall silent."

“As for the Sacrament of Matrimony, which symbolizes the union of Christ with His Church, it will be attacked and deeply profaned. Freemasonry, which will then be in power, will enact iniquitous laws with the aim of doing away with this Sacrament, making it easy for everyone to live in sin and encouraging the procreation of illegitimate children born without the blessing of the Church. The Catholic spirit will rapidly decay; the precious light of Faith will gradually be extinguished until there will be an almost total and general corruption of customs. Added to this will be the effects of secular education, which will be one reason for the dearth of priestly and religious vocations. “The Sacrament of Holy Orders will be ridiculed, oppressed, and despised, for in this Sacrament, the Church of God and even God Himself is scorned and despised since He is represented in His priests."

"The Devil will try to persecute the ministers of the Lord in every possible way; he will labor with cruel and subtle astuteness to deviate them from the spirit of their vocation and will corrupt many of them. These depraved priests, who will scandalize the Christian people, will make the hatred of bad Catholics and the enemies of the Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church fall upon all priests. "This apparent triumph of Satan will bring enormous sufferings to the good Pastors of the Church, the many good priests, and the Supreme Pastor and Vicar of Christ on Earth, who, a prisoner in the Vatican, will shed secret and bitter tears in the presence of his God and Lord, beseeching light, sanctity, and perfection for all the clergy of the world, of whom he is King and Father."

On being a son of God

At the minute I am reading the wonderful theological and spiritual classic by Blessed Columba Marmion: Christ, the Life of the Soul. Marmion could be described as one who strongly promotes and emphasises the fact that we are adopted sons and daughters of God in and through the only Son of God – Jesus Christ. His writings are full of great spiritual gems. Below you will find some of them. I will add more as I find them.

By nature, God has only one Son. By love, He will have a multitude of them, without number. This is the grace of supernatural adoption.

The Father pre-destined us to be adopted… through Jesus Christ (cf. Ephesians 1:5). We are sons, like Jesus – we by title of grace, He by nature. He is Son, and we are sons: He, the Father’s own Son, and we, adopted sons. But He saves, while we are saved.

Christ is not only holy in Himself, He is our holiness. All the holiness that God has destined for souls has been deposited in the humanity of Christ, and this is the source from which we must draw.

God has chosen me – chosen us – to be raised infinitely above my natural condition, to enjoy eternally His own beatitude, to be the realisation of one of His Divine thoughts, to be one voice in the concert of the elect, to be one of those brethren who are like Jesus, and who share, without end, His celestial inheritance.

Every one of the elect is the fruit of the blood of Jesus and of the wonderful operations of His grace.

We shall be pleasing to the Eternal Father – and is not the very basis of holiness to be pleasing to God? – only if He recognises in us the features of His Son. Through grace and our virtues, we ought to be so identified with Christ, that the Father, gazing on our souls, may recognise us as His true children, may take pleasure in that, as He did in contemplating Christ Jesus on earth.

The Idolatrous Worship of the Priest

A few days ago I baptised a few children here in the parish. One of those children was the 5th child of a particular family and so her other siblings (all under 9) were there for the great occasion. After the ceremony had taken place and as all the photos were being snapped I was doing a little bit of a tidy up and went to blow out the paschal candle. As I was taking it down out of the candle stand (can anyone tell me what this is called) one little boy of about 5 years of age came running up to me. I lowered the candle to him and told him to blow it out - he duly obliged.

I asked him a question or two about himself and his newly baptised sister and then sent him on his way. I was not prepared for what happened next. Before he took his leave, he folded his hands reverently in prayer and made a profound genuflection in front of me. When I pointed out to him that it was towards the Tabernacle that he should be genuflecting and not to the priest - he looked genuinely perplexed as if what he had done was the most natural thing in the world; and so he turned to head back to his family - none of whom had noticed what he had done.

The incident got me thinking about another incident in which a priest friend of mine was visiting a class of 6 year olds and was asked by one inquisitive young boy if he was God.

My brush with idolatry struck me forcefully though - since that young boy somewhere, somehow probably began to associate (and confuse) the priest with Jesus. And it made me think of the many ways in which I am anything but Christ-like. And what damage can that do to the faith of someone as young or as impressionable as this little boy if I were to be anything less than Christ-like. If only I and every priest would be mistaken for Christ in the way we live and speak and proclaim the Gospel - how much more effective our ministry would be. This little boy's mistaken identity episode has reminded me that I must live up to the calling that is mine as a priest of Jesus Christ.

The Importance of Meditation and Contemplation for Priests

The following is an extract from an Apostolic Exhortation on Priestly Sanctity given by Pope St. Pius X called Haerent Animo. It is a rather long extract but well worth a read.

Despite the high dignity of the various functions of the priestly office and the veneration which they deserve, frequent exercise of these functions may lead those who discharge them to treat them with less respect than is their due. From a gradual decline in fervor it is an easy step to carelessness and even to distaste for the most sacred things. In addition, a priest cannot avoid daily contact with a corrupt society; frequently, in the very exercise of pastoral charity, he must fear the insidious attacks of the infernal serpent. Is it not all too easy even for religious souls to be tarnished by contact with the world? It is evident, therefore, that there is a grave and urgent need for the priest to turn daily to the contemplation of the eternal truths, so that his mind and will may gain new strength to stand firm against every enticement to evil.

Moreover, it is the strict duty of the priest to have a mind for heavenly things, to teach them, to inculcate them; in the regulation of his whole life he must be so much superior to human considerations that whatever he does in the discharge of his sacred office will be done in accordance with God, under the impulse and guidance of faith; it is fitting then that he should possess a certain aptitude to rise above earthly considerations and strive for heavenly things. Nothing is more conducive to the acquisition and strengthening of this disposition of soul, this quasi-natural union with God, than daily meditation; it is unnecessary to dwell upon this truth which every prudent person clearly realizes.

The life of a priest who underestimates the value of meditation, or has lost all taste for it, provides a sad confirmation of what we have been saying. Let your eyes dwell on the spectacle of men in whom the mind of Christ, that supremely precious gift, has grown weak; their thoughts are all on earthly things, they are engaged in vain pursuits, their words are so much unimportant chatter; in the performance of their sacred functions they are careless, cold, perhaps even unworthy. Formerly, these same men, with the oil of priestly ordination still fresh upon them, diligently prepared themselves for the recitation of the Psalms, lest they should be like men who tempt God; they sought a time and place free from disturbance; they endeavored to grasp the divine meaning; in union with the psalmist they poured forth their soul in songs of praise, sorrow and rejoicing. But now, what a change has taken place!

In like manner, little now remains of that lively devotion which they felt towards the divine mysteries. Formerly, how beloved were those tabernacles! It was their delight to be present at the table of the Lord, to invite more and more pious souls to that banquet! Before Mass, what purity, what earnestness in the prayers of a loving heart! How great reverence in the celebration of Mass, with complete observance of the august rites in all their beauty! What sincerity in thanksgiving! And the sweet perfume of Christ was diffused over their people! We beg of you, beloved sons: Call to mind . . . the former days; for then your soul was burning with zeal, being nourished by holy meditation.

Some of those who find recollection of the heart a burden, or entirely neglect it, do not seek to disguise the impoverishment of soul which results from their attitude, but they try to excuse themselves on the pretext that they are completely occupied by the activity of their ministry, to the manifold benefit of others.

They are gravely mistaken. For as they are unaccustomed to converse with God, their words completely lack the inspiration which comes from God when they speak to men about God or inculcate the counsels of the christian life; it is as if the message of the Gospel were practically dead in them. However distinguished for prudence and eloquence, their speech does not echo the voice of the good Shepherd which the sheep hear to their spiritual profit; it is mere sound which goes forth without fruit, and sometimes gives a pernicious example to the disgrace of religion and the scandal of the good.

It is the same in other spheres of their activity; there can be no solid achievement, nothing of lasting benefit, in the absence of the heavenly dew which is brought down in abundance by the prayer of the man who humbles himself.