Two Things to Know about the Collegial Consecration

 From time to time, we hear claims that it is no use to do anything now about the Fatima Virgin’s requests (i.e., commands) to the Pope. Specifically, what is really meant is this: Cease asking for the collegial consecration of Russia (to which is automatically attached the papal promulgation of the Five First Saturdays devotion). Just give up.


I’m sure most of us have heard every excuse for this view, but there are two that keep coming up: Some are convinced the current Pope won’t do anything; others believe the shocking claim of a few Fatima organizations that it’s “too late” (but, hey, we can still reform ourselves and hope for the best). What you need to know is this: The latter claim is a monstrous hybrid-distortion of two different quotes—


—Our Lord said to Lucia: “Like the Kings of France, they did not wish to heed My request. They will repent and do it, but it will be late.” He also said: “Pray much for the Holy Father. He will do it, but it will be late.” [Emphasis added.]


—In a famous interview, Sr. Lucia said to Fr. Fuentes, in part:

“Father, we should not wait for an appeal to the world to come from Rome on the part of the Holy Father, to do penance. Nor should we wait for the call to penance to come from our bishops in our diocese, nor from the religious congregations. No! Our Lord has already very often used these means, and the world has not paid attention. That is why now, it is necessary for each one of us to begin to reform himself spiritually. Each person must not only save his own soul but also help to save all the souls that God has placed on our path."


“The devil does all in his power to distract us and to take away from us the love for prayer; we shall be saved together or we shall be damned together." [Emphasis added.]


Now, with the election of a new Pope, Lucia said of the collegial consecration of RUSSIA: “It is the will of God that the request be renewed with the Holy See.”


Two things to keep in mind:


1) Our Lord Himself said that it will be late (but never did He say “too late”). We don’t know with certainty which Pope will do as Our Lady commanded. We can never say that it cannot be a current Pope.


2) We must do our part, because this affects every soul in the world. As Luca said, “we will be saved together or we will be damned together.” She was referring to the current chastisement, which began decades ago and is reaching its apex.


Don’t despair. Keep confidence in God and in His Mother’s promise but remember their specific warnings, too. We accept that it is God’s will that we respectfully ask each Pope to lead and command the exact conditions for the collegial consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. And we will renew the request, with the current Pope or any following Pope, until it is answered as it should be.

Battling Modernism: Have You Prayed Your Rosary Today?

“Rejoice, O Virgin Mary, for alone thou hast put an end to all heresies...”

—Tract from the Common of the Blessed Virgin Mary, The Roman Missal

Today we face the greatest heresy to ever afflict the Church—modernism. Pope St. Pius X described modernism as the “synthesis of all heresies.” Now consider, just for a moment: The Madonna is hailed by the Church as “Conqueror of ALL Heresies.”

Putting two and two together, the solution to eradicating modernism is simple. To be rid of modernism—and, above all, for the good of our own souls—the first thing we must do is cultivate a true devotion to the Virgin Mary, Mother of God, the one who crushes the serpent’s head (Gen. 3:15). The foundation of such a devotion is to pray a daily Rosary. Yes, every day. It starts there, builds from there, and continues there.

WHY the ROSARY? Let’s hear what OUR LADY HERSELF said—

—To the three children of Fatima: “Pray the Rosary every day.” At each and every apparition, she repeated this motherly command. When she told them who she was, she said very simply: “I am the Lady of the Rosary.”

—To Blessed Alan de la Roche: “When you say your Rosary, the angels rejoice, the Blessed Trinity delights in it, my Son finds joy in it too, and I myself am happier than you can possibly guess. After the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, there is nothing in the Church that I love as much as the Rosary.”

—To St. Dominic, battling the Albigensian heresy: “Preach my Psalter” and “One day, through the Rosary and the Scapular, I shall save the world.”

—To St. Matilda: “‘Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee!’ No creature has ever said anything that was more pleasing to me, nor will anyone ever be able to find or say to me anything that pleases me more.”

WHAT GOD’S HOLY ONES SAID OF THE ROSARY:

—St. Bernardine of Siena: You must know that when you say ‘Hail, Mary,’ she immediately greets you! Don’t think that she is one of those rude women of whom there are so many—on the contrary, she is utterly courteous and pleasant. If you greet her, she will answer you right away and converse with you!”

—Blessed Alan de la Roche: “The Holy Rosary is the storehouse of countless blessings.”

—Pope Nicholas V: “The Rosary is the tree of life which raises the dead, heals the diseased, and preserves those who are in health.”

—Pope St. Pius X: “The Rosary is the most beautiful and the most rich in graces of all prayers; it is the prayer that touches most the Heart of the Mother of God…and if you wish peace to reign in your homes, recite the family Rosary.”

—Pius XII called the Rosary “a compendium of the Gospel.”

—Sr. Lucia of Fatima (Servant of God): “The Most Holy Virgin in these last times in which we live has given a new efficacy to the recitation of the Rosary to such an extent that there is no problem, no matter how difficult it is, whether temporal or above all, spiritual, in the personal life of each one of us, of our families, of the families of the world, or of the religious communities, or even of the life of peoples and nations, that cannot be solved by the Rosary. There is no problem I tell you, no matter how difficult it is, that we cannot resolve by the prayer of the Holy Rosary.

“With the Holy Rosary, we will save ourselves, we will sanctify ourselves, we will console Our Lord and obtain the salvation of many souls.”

—St. Francis de Sales: “The greatest method of praying is to pray the Rosary.”

—St. Louis de Montfort: “When the Holy Rosary is said well, it gives Jesus and Mary more glory and is more meritorious than any other prayer.”

He also said this: “If you say the Rosary faithfully unto death, I do assure you that, in spite of the gravity of your sins, ‘you will receive a never-fading crown of glory’ (1 St. Peter 5:4).”

And this: “Never will anyone who says his Rosary every day become a formal heretic or be led astray by the devil.”

This, too: “If you persevere in reciting the Rosary, this will be a most probable sign of your eternal salvation.”

AND this: “Recite your Rosary with faith, with humility, with confidence, and with perseverance.”

For those who think themselves already condemned to eternal perdition, St. de Montfort counseled: “Even if you are on the brink of damnation, even if you have one foot in hell, even if you have sold your soul to the devil as sorcerers do who practice black magic, and even if you are a heretic as obstinate as a devil, sooner or later you will be converted and will amend your life and will save your soul, if—and mark well what I say—if you say the Holy Rosary devoutly every day until death for the purpose of knowing the truth and obtaining contrition and pardon for your sins.”

—St. John Bosco: “Where the Rosary is recited, there will be peace and tranquility.”

—St. Bernadette: “In the evening, when you go to sleep, hold your beads, doze off reciting them, like babies who go to sleep in their mother's arms, mumbling ‘Mamma! Mamma!’”

—St. Therese of Lisieux (the Little Flower): “The Rosary is a long chain that links heaven and earth. One end of it is in our hands and the other end is in the hands of the holy Virgin...The Rosary prayer rises like incense to the feet of the Almighty. Mary responds at once like a beneficial dew, bringing new life to human hearts.”

—St. Pio (Padre Pio): “Some people are so foolish that they think they can go through life without the help of the Blessed Mother. Love the Madonna and pray the Rosary, for the Rosary is the weapon against the evils of the world today.”

These were only some of the Saints of God who spoke on the Rosary, testifying to a historical fact of centuries: After the Holy Mass, the Rosary is the prayer most pleasing to the Lord our God.

The Rosica Factor: When Priests Threaten to Sue Faithful Catholics

Looks like a new trend is arising amongst priests who threaten lawsuits against any Catholic lady or gent of the laity who call them on their error(s). If this keeps up, the trend may well be called "The Rosica Factor" (see a bit of the Fr. Rosica story-background here).

 The Rosica controversy reached such a height that
"American Cardinal Raymond Burke, who formerly served as the head of the Vatican’s high court until Pope Francis appointed him patron of the Order of Malta, joined the discussion to defend the blogger," according to the article linked above. This time, however, the one being threatened by a Catholic priest is a Catholic wife and mother of three children.

My initial thought was to wonder at the coincidence (or is it one?) that this story came out on the Feast of the Virgin-Martyr, St. Joan of Arc. Anyone familiar with the life of St. Joan should recognize the implicit reference to the abuse she suffered under the hand of Church prelates. It went so far that she was martyred---while in the custody of Catholic bishops who abused their authority. It was they who martyred the saint. History has proven who was on the side of God---the great Saint Joan---and who was on the side of politics and religious respect----the bishops of England. And lest we forget, the imprisonment, maltreatment, and martyrdom of St. Joan (at the hands of the Catholic clergy who proved themselves guilty of human respect) occurred before the Protestant Revolt.
 
To return to the incident with the Catholic blogger (who also happens to be a wife and mother), she includes screenshots as proof: Catholic Priest Threatens Mum of 3 with legal action, because she told him off for saying that the Holy Spirit is female, and then he lies on Twitter about her!

Your thoughts?

A New Holy League for Catholic Men

For the convenience of those who don’t have the Internet bandwith to watch videos, I’ve transcribed the text of the video (embedded at the bottom of this post). If you’d like to share my transcription on your own blog, website, FB page (etc.), kindly link back to this post.
My transcription now follows:

[OPENING]

“Hi, I'm Doug Barry, founder and director of Radix and Battle Ready.

“March 7, 2015 is the 440th anniversary of the formation of the Holy League, called for by Pope St. Pius V. This movement of prayer and solidarity united Catholics throughout Europe in defense of Christendom. On this anniversary, we announce to you the launching of a new Holy League.

“And now, a very important message from the spiritual head of the Holy League, His Eminence Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke.”

[CARDINAL BURKE NEXT SPEAKS]

“I want to commend to you in a very particular way a spiritual activity of the Holy League. It draws its name from the historic Holy League which was an activity of intense activity and prayer during the time of the threat and the overtaking of Europe by Islam, and through prayer and especially through Eucharistic adoration and through the praying of the Holy Rosary, a great victory was won at the Battle of Lepanto, a victory that we recall every year on October 7, the Feast of Our Lady of the Holy Rosary.

“The Holy League is a very simple and tremendously powerful movement in the Church, founded in 2014—last year—and it is basically one thrust, and that is that WE AS MEN to be in the state of grace, being the state of friendship with God, through the confessions of our sins and the even greater welcoming of those graces which God gave to us by our Baptism and Confirmation, and the actual graces that He gives us every day to live faithfully as Christians, and, out of the Holy League, propose to help us to be in the state of grace and to remain in the state of grace so we can be a source of strength for the Church in these very troubled times. It is by way of the Holy Hour, a monthly Holy Hour, during which the Sacrament of Confession is available, a Holy Hour concentrating on our relationship with Our Lord, Jesus Christ, growing in our closeness to Him so that He can help us to be strong and holy men for our time.

“And so I want, in my message today, to say how important you are to the Church and to the world in our time. The Church and our world has always depended upon strong Catholic men.

“I want to encourage you in all that you are doing to be strong Catholic men of our time, for the transformation of our culture, for the building up of the Body of Christ, to be that leaven in the world which transforms it and prepares the world for Our Lord’s final coming—for that Final Consummation of His saving work.

“So please be of good courage. I ask you in a very particular way to consider becoming a part of the Holy League-giving your time once a month to the Holy Hour and time also for a very sincere and humble celebration of the Sacrament of Confession and a time to be reinforced in your daily prayers and devotions.

“May God bless you all and, in blessing you, may He make you a blessing for the Church today and for our work." 

[MR. DOUGLAS BARRY speaks again, below]

“What more needs to be said? Every Catholic man can be a part of this work. There is a great need in our world today for unity and support of this movement.

“The goal of the Holy League is nothing short of establishing a network of monthly Holy Hours for men with Confession and fraternity in every parish throughout the world.

“This is building on the call of Pope St. John Paul II to establish Eucharistic Adoration in every parish, as well as the call of Pope Francis who called for 24 hours of Eucharistic Adoration with Confession for March 13-14.

“This is a call to all men, to all Catholic apostolates, to every man involved in Catholic ministry of any kind, to join this alliance, this Holy League.”

“For more information, visit Holy League.com

“You [will] need to join the Holy League Information Network by texting the word EPIC to 84576.

“Ephesians 6:12 reminds us that our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities of darkness.

“We need to remember the words of St. Paul: ‘Put on the armor of God.’

“Gentlemen, the Holy League needs you. God bless and strengthen you.”