Memo to All Naturalists: We Place Our Hope in Christ the King and His Holy Church
To be blunt, the professional crybabies of the “left” are throwing a collective temper tantrum that has seen them use every excuse imaginable, up to and including alleged hacking by agents of the Russian government into the e-mails of the Democratic National Committee and the smarmy, pro-abortion Catholic named John Podesta, the chairman of Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton’s presidential campaign, to avoid the stark reality that there were enough voters in the “swing” states of Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin who had had enough of their failed policies and their righteously indignant efforts to use social engineering as a means to advance one abject moral evil after another.
True, the country is about evenly divided.
Granted.
However, the United States of America is so divided because it lacks the one and only means to unify men, namely, the Catholic Faith, and it is because that this country’s universal popularization of religious indifferentism that most of its citizens, whether of the “left” or of the “right,” look to politics, political parties and political ideologies/philosophies of one sort or another to “solve” social problems that have their remote cause in Original Sin and their proximate cause in their own Actual Sins. Countless “movements” of various kinds of naturalism have arisen in this country only to fall by the wayside and/or mutate into some other kind of “movement” over the course of time.
Although some of the "movements" are very inter-related, sometimes feeding into and off of each other, each has its own distinctive "cause" and "flavor." Just a quick listing of a few of these movements will indicate the degree to which a world that rejects the true Faith must look anywhere and everywhere to find some explanation for why human problems exist and how it is that they can be resolved. We've had the Abolition Movement, the Greenback Movement, the Prohibition Movement, the Women's Suffrage Movement, the Granger Movement, Progressive (or Reform) Movement, the Populist Movement, the Civil Rights Movement, the Antiwar (or Peace) Movement, the Environmental Movement, the Feminist Movement, the Environmental (or Green) Movement, the Libertarian Movement, the Conservative Movement, the Socialist Movement, the Liberal Movement, the Communist (or Workers') Movement, the Labor Movement, and on and on and on. And, yes, even the Right to Life Movement, in which I was directly involved for a long time, has suffered from a form of naturalism and interdenominationalism that has made much of its efforts to fight baby-killing under cover of law disjointed and characterized by disputes over principles, including endorsing "exceptions" to the inviolability of innocent human life as a matter of principle and minimizing, if not justifying, the evil of contraception, and tactics that have led to one dead end after another.
Each of these movements has had leaders, some of whom have been seen as virtual messiahs, veritable "beacons of hope" in the midst of the world. (Please see Movements to a Dead End, Now and for All Eternity for a review of some of these movements.)
Remember Henry Ross Perot’s “United We Stand” movement?
Perot had a cadre of supporters who flocked to him when he said on the February 9, 1992, telecast of Larry King Live that he was going to get “under the hood” to “find out” what problems faced the country, and that he would “fix” those problems. Some of those supporters were very downcast and disillusioned when he announced on July 17, 1992, that he was not going to make an independent run for the presidency. Famously, of course, Perot changed his mind again and re-entered the race on September 24, 1992. Perot had his “believers,” though, and those “believers” put their “faith” and “hope” in him.
It has ever been such in the annals of American politics, and it remains so today both for adherents of the “left” and of the “right.”
With apologies to Snagglepuss, “Enter Stage Left.”
The Obamas and Their Hope in Themselves
As is well-known, Barack Hussein Obama/Barry Soetoro and his wife have a special religion of their own: the worship of themselves. It is in themselves and their statist ideology that they have placed their hopes. They really believe in the salvific power of their “leftist” bent of naturalism. Indeed, they believe that they and their programs have inspired Americans to have “hope” and even “pride” in their country for the first time.
This was made evident when the self-referential narcissist junior senator from the State of Illinois spoke—aided by his omnipresent TelePrompTer—after winning thirteen state primaries to Madame Defarge’s ten on Super Tuesday, February 5, 2008:
You see, the challenges we face will not be solved with one meeting in one night. It will not be resolved on even a Super Duper Tuesday. Change will not come if we wait for some other person or if we wait for some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. (Cheers, applause.) We are the change that we seek. We are the hope of those boys who have so little, who've been told that they cannot have what they dream, that they cannot be what they imagine. Yes, they can. (Cheers, applause.)
We are the hope of the father who goes to work before dawn and lies awake with doubt that tells him he cannot give his children the same opportunities that someone gave him. Yes, he can.
(Crowd says in unison, "Yes, he can.")
We are the hope of the woman who hears that her city will not be rebuilt, that she cannot somehow claim the life that was swept away in a terrible storm. Yes, she can.
(Crowd says in unison, "Yes, she can.")
We are the hope of the future, the answer to the cynics who tell us our house must stand divided, that we cannot come together, that we cannot remake this world as it should be. (We Are The Ones We Have Been Waiting For.)
What was that I have been saying for the past thirty-two years about the “illusion of secular salvation”?
Well, Michelle Robinson Obama has lost all “hope” now that her “agent of hope and change” husband will be leaving the White House in thirty-two days, whereupon the man she believes to be an agent of hopelessness and the wrong kind of change, Donald John Trump, will commence occupancy of the building that was modeled after the “Temple of Diana.” Here is a report of what the suddenly hopeless and ever clueless Mrs. Obama told the gazillionaire named Oprah Winfrey in an interview to be televised this morning, Monday, December 19, 2016:
Michelle Obama recently sat down with Oprah Winfrey for an interview that was previewed on “CBS This Morning” Friday in which she said following the election of President-elect Donald Trump, Americans now know what "not having hope feels like."
The show aired a clip of the sit-down that included a portion where the First Lady discusses the Presidential election.
Winfrey asks Obama, “Your husband’s administration… was all about hope. Do you think that this administration achieved that?”
Yes, I do. Because we feel the difference now,” she says. “See now we are feeling what not having hope feels like, you know. Hope is necessary. It is a necessary concept.”
She said her husband believed in that concept wholeheartedly.
Obama added, “What do you give your kids if you can’t give them hope?” (httpClueless Michelle Robinson Obama is No Hopeless As Well.)
Mrs. Obama, what about the hope that your husband and his administration stole from millions upon millions of preborn babies who were killed with legal impunity during his time in the White House, a genocide of the innocent that you and your husband support and enable?
Your husband, Mrs. Obama, a man who found time to prejudge the cases of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown, among so many others, kept his lips shut about the horrors of baby-butcher Kermit Gosnell, pretending to say that he did not know enough about the matter. You and your husband have worshiped at the altar of baby-killing and you have accepted the blood money of the racialist eugenicists of Planned Parenthood, which has been Evil From Its Very Inceptions.
What about the hope that your husband and his administration stole from Chaldean Rite Catholics and Orthodox Christians of Iraq and Syria by refusing to call Mohammedan terrorism by its proper name and to remain completely silent about the destruction of ancient Christian churches and shrines as these valiant souls, some of whom had remained in Iraq even after the wreckage that had been done by President George Walker Bush’s “liberation” and subsequent occupation of Iraq, were forced to leave their homeland?
Your husband gave these innocent victims of faithful Mohammedan killers no quarter. Despite all of his posturing about the conservative statist who preceded him in the White House, Barack Hussein Obama/Barry Soetoro has been perfectly consistent with George Walker Bush concerning abject silence about the persecution of displacement of Iraqi and Syrian Catholics and Orthodox Christians while denying them the human hope of entry into the United States of America as refugees because he favors Mohammedans as a means to “diversify” the country.
What about the hope that your husband and his administration stole from the Little Sisters of the Poor by forcing them to engage in expensive lawsuits to keep from providing coverage for contraception and other “family planning services” in accord with the terms of the mandate issued by the renegade Catholic named Kathleen Sebelius on June 28, 2013?
Hope?
Please, Mrs. Obama, spare us the crocodile tears. It is a little rich to believe that mere mortals, men who did not create themselves and whose bodies are destined one day for the corruption of the grave after their immortal souls have faced the Divine Judge, Christ the King, at the moment of their Particular Judgment, are the source of hope.
Ah, but Michelle Robinson Obama is not the only one who believes that “hope” can be found in politicians and their false belief systems. There are plenty of people who inhabit the space of naturalism called “conservatism” who belief that the results of the November 8, 2016, elections have restored “hope” after it had been lost for eight years.
Exit Stage Left.
Enter Stage Right
Consider the words of the naturalist named Rush Hudson Limbaugh III:
RUSH: Yourself, for crying out? What do you mean, hope? Don't get me started. Folks, I am so on edge today, I've about had it with these people and everything else going on here. I've got to rein in what I actually want to say about this bunch. "If you've lost hope, what else --" for the first time in eight years, Mrs. Obama, we have some [expletive deleted] hope! For the first time -- I'm sorry, folks. I'm at my wits' end with these people. (Clueless Rush Now Has Hope For the First Time in Eight.)
The “hope” that Rush Hudson Limbaugh III has is shared by millions of other well-meaning Americans, including many Catholics, who are already choosing to remain silent even though Donald John Trump’s commitment to international Zionism, a subject to explored again in part seven of the “Sober Up” series (part six mostly concerns Jorge Mario Bergoglio), has been on full display, especially by means of his nomination of David Friedman, who believes that Jerusalem is the “eternal capital” of Israel, to be ambassador to Israel.
Speaking of Trump, who will receive enough electoral votes today, Monday, December 19, 2016, to seal the results of the November 8, 2016, elections—although it is my belief that one or more members of the House Minority Caucus will attempt to raise objections to the vote when the President of the Senate, Vice President Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., unseals the ballots that will be cast today and counts them before a joint meeting of the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate on January 6, 2016), he responded to Michelle “Hopeless” Obama’s comments to Oprah Winfrey as follows:
Michelle Obama said yesterday that there’s no hope,” he said. At the mention of Mrs. Obama’s name, boos rose from the crowd.
He went on to say that “we have tremendous hope and we have tremendous promise and we have tremendous potential.” (Clueless Trump Has Hope, Too!.)
Well, none of this is at all new.
Indeed, it was on March 11, 2001, that a supporter of then President George Walker Bush expressed displeasure when I pointed out the facts about this phony-baloney “pro-life” naturalists’ anti-life agenda. “You can’t take this hope from me,” the supporter said in a phone conversation. “I have to have hope,” I was told.
Exit Stage Right.
Antidotes to the Worldly Who are Either Hopeless or Hopeful
True hope, however, is that for which we pray every morning:
O My God, relying on Thy almighty power and infinite mercy and promises, I hope to obtain pardon of my sins, the help of Thy grace, and Life Everlasting, through the merits of Jesus Christ, my Lord and Redeemer. (The Act of Hope.)
Ah, but placing undeserved human hope in naturalists always results in frustration no matter who the naturalist in question happens to be as each set of naturalists has “believers” who put their temporal hopes for improvement in the world upon men and women who are clueless about First and Last Things, and thus completely ignorant why the problems they seek to “solve” exist in the first place.
Such furtive “hope” is not unique to the United States of America, of course. Fallen man has long sought to place hope in everything except the true God of Divine Revelation, Who has warned us in the very words of Sacred Scripture not to place our trust in the princes of this passing world:
[2] Praise the Lord, O my soul, in my life I will praise the Lord: I will sing to my God as long as I shall be. Put not your trust in princes:[3] In the children of men, in whom there is no salvation. [4] His spirit shall go forth, and he shall return into his earth: in that day all their thoughts shall perish. [5] Blessed is he who hath the God of Jacob for his helper, whose hope is in the Lord his God:
[6] Who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all things that are in them. [7] Who keepeth truth for ever: who executeth judgment for them that suffer wrong: who giveth food to the hungry. The Lord looseth them that are fettered: [8] The Lord enlighteneth the blind. The Lord lifteth up them that are cast down: the Lord loveth the just. [9] The Lord keepeth the strangers, he will support the fatherless and the widow: and the ways of sinners he will destroy. [10] The Lord shall reign for ever: thy God, O Sion, unto generation and generation. (Psalm 145: 2-10.)
Those who lack the true Faith—the Catholic Faith—or a proper understanding of it view the world in purely naturalistic terms, and they live in fear of this or that boogeyman, whether of the “left” or of the “right” depending upon their own false belief systems and heedless of the fact that devils without their tails are actually more dangerous than those with tails.
Sacred Scripture teaches us in this regard as follows:
O Lord, how great are thy works! thy thoughts are exceeding deep. [7] The senseless man shall not know: nor will the fool understand these things. [8] When the wicked shall spring up as grass: and all the workers of iniquity shall appear: That they may perish for ever and ever:[9] But thou, O Lord, art most high for evermore. [10] For behold thy enemies, O Lord, for behold thy enemies shall perish: and all the workers of iniquity shall be scattered.
[11] But my horn shall be exalted like that of the unicorn: and my old age in plentiful mercy.[12] My eye also hath looked down upon my enemies: and my ear shall hear of the downfall of the malignant that rise up against me. [13] The just shall flourish like the palm tree: he shall grow up like the cedar of Libanus. [14] They that are planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of the house of our God. [15] They shall still increase in a fruitful old age: and shall be well treated, [16] That they may shew, That the Lord our God is righteous, and there is no iniquity in him. (Psalm 91: 6-16.)
We put our hope only in Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ as He has revealed Himself to us through His true Church. He alone is able to save us and thus to equip us with the necessary graces to save our souls and to be of true service in the building up of His Mystical Body on earth, which is the necessary precondition, although not a guarantor, of a genuinely just social order.
Saint Paul reminds us of this very fact:
Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the commandment of God our Saviour, and of Christ Jesus our hope: [2] To Timothy, his beloved son in faith. Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father, and from Christ Jesus our Lord. [3] As I desired thee to remain at Ephesus when I went into Macedonia, that thou mightest charge some not to teach otherwise,[4] Not to give heed to fables and endless genealogies: which furnish questions rather than the edification of God, which is in faith. [5] Now the end of the commandment is charity, from a pure heart, and a good conscience, and an unfeigned faith.
[6] From which things some going astray, are turned aside unto vain babbling: [7] Desiring to be teachers of the law, understanding neither the things they say, nor whereof they affirm. [8]But we know that the law is good, if a man use it lawfully: [9] Knowing this, that the law is not made for the just man, but for the unjust and disobedient, for the ungodly, and for sinners, for the wicked and defiled, for murderers of fathers, and murderers of mothers, for manslayers,[10] For fornicators, for them who defile themselves with mankind, for menstealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and whatever other thing is contrary to sound doctrine, (1 Timothy 1: 10.)
There is vain babbling from both the “left” and the “right,” and there is vain babbling from those who call themselves “moderates.” Naturalism of any kind is vain babbling. We do not put our hopes in politics and social reforms.
Pope Pius XI made this point very firmly in his first encyclical letter, Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, December 23, 1922:
There is over and above the absence of peace and the evils attendant on this absence, another deeper and more profound cause for present-day conditions. This cause was even beginning to show its head before the War and the terrible calamities consequent on that cataclysm should have proven a remedy for them if mankind had only taken the trouble to understand the real meaning of those terrible events. In the Holy Scriptures we read: "They that have forsaken the Lord, shall be consumed." (Isaias i, 28) No less well known are the words of the Divine Teacher, Jesus Christ, Who said: "Without me you can do nothing" (John xv, 5) and again, "He that gathereth not with me, scattereth." (Luke xi, 23)
28. These words of the Holy Bible have been fulfilled and are now at this very moment being fulfilled before our very eyes. Because men have forsaken God and Jesus Christ, they have sunk to the depths of evil. They waste their energies and consume their time and efforts in vain sterile attempts to find a remedy for these ills, but without even being successful in saving what little remains from the existing ruin. It was a quite general desire that both our laws and our governments should exist without recognizing God or Jesus Christ, on the theory that all authority comes from men, not from God. Because of such an assumption, these theorists fell very short of being able to bestow upon law not only those sanctions which it must possess but also that secure basis for the supreme criterion of justice which even a pagan philosopher like Cicero saw clearly could not be derived except from the divine law.
Authority itself lost its hold upon mankind, for it had lost that sound and unquestionable justification for its right to command on the one hand and to be obeyed on the other. Society, quite logically and inevitably, was shaken to its very depths and even threatened with destruction, since there was left to it no longer a stable foundation, everything having been reduced to a series of conflicts, to the domination of the majority, or to the supremacy of special interests.
29. Again, legislation was passed which did not recognize that either God or Jesus Christ had any rights over marriage -- an erroneous view which debased matrimony to the level of a mere civil contract, despite the fact that Jesus Himself had called it a "great sacrament" (Ephesians v, 32) and had made it the holy and sanctifying symbol of that indissoluble union which binds Him to His Church. The high ideals and pure sentiments with which the Church has always surrounded the idea of the family, the germ of all social life, these were lowered, were unappreciated, or became confused in the minds of many. As a consequence, the correct ideals of family government, and with them those of family peace, were destroyed; the stability and unity of the family itself were menaced and undermined, and, worst of all, the very sanctuary of the home was more and more frequently profaned by acts of sinful lust and soul-destroying egotism -- all of which could not but result in poisoning and drying up the very sources of domestic and social life.
30. Added to all this, God and Jesus Christ, as well as His doctrines, were banished from the school. As a sad but inevitable consequence, the school became not only secular and non-religious but openly atheistical and anti-religious. In such circumstances it was easy to persuade poor ignorant children that neither God nor religion are of any importance as far as their daily lives are concerned. God's name, moreover, was scarcely ever mentioned in such schools unless it were perchance to blaspheme Him or to ridicule His Church. Thus, the school forcibly deprived of the right to teach anything about God or His law could not but fail in its efforts to really educate, that is, to lead children to the practice of virtue, for the school lacked the fundamental principles which underlie the possession of a knowledge of God and the means necessary to strengthen the will in its efforts toward good and in its avoidance of sin. Gone, too, was all possibility of ever laying a solid groundwork for peace, order, and prosperity, either in the family or in social relations. Thus the principles based on the spiritualistic philosophy of Christianity having been obscured or destroyed in the minds of many, a triumphant materialism served to prepare mankind for the propaganda of anarchy and of social hatred which was let loose on such a great scale. (Pope Pius XI, Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, December 23, 1922.)
Once again for the sake of those who have not read the first five parts of “Sober Up,” it is not to deny the real dangers posed by Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton and her own claque of “believers” to point out the illusion of secular salvation. What I continue to find astounding at this late date, however, is that so many Catholics really believe that Donald John Trump will be an instrument of genuine good despite his embrace of the sin of Sodom and what will be a policy of benign neglect (a few executive orders and judicial appointments) concerning the daily slaughter of the innocent preborn.
The search for a secular saviour, whether of the “left” or of the “right,” is reminiscent of the mistaken notions that the Jews had about the Messias at the time of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ’s Incarnation and Nativity.
Most of the Jews of Our Lord’s time, suffering from the cruel yoke of Roman occupation and oppression, believed that the Divine Messias would manifest Himself thunderously out of the side of a mountain and break the fetter of Roman rule once and for all. They imagined the Messias to be a political saviour, in other words, who would restore Israel to its rightful place as the chosen nation for the Chosen People. This is pretty much what Zionist Jews believe today, and there are a whole lot of such folks in the ranks of Donald John Trump’s own family and inner circle, to say nothing of those that he has nominated thus far to serve in his administration.
There is no such thing as political salvation. None.
We put our hopes solely in Christ the King, Who condescended to be born for us in humility, poverty, and anonymity at Midnight on Christmas Day, and His true Church, the Catholic Church, outside of which there is no salvation and without which there can be no true social order.
Reflection on the O Antiphons that we pray in Vespers from December 17 to December 24, Father Benedict Baur, O.S.B., provided some commentary that is as relevant to our circumstances today as they were when his Light of the World was published in Germany in 1954. (The entire texts of Father Baur's reflections on the first three O Antiphons can be found in the appendices below.)
Father Benedict Baur’s reflection on the antiphon prayed on December 17, “O Wisdom,” contains the following passages that describe both the ignorance of the naturalists—the “sensible” men of the world—and the faith of those who duly submissive to the Church founded by Wisdom Incarnate:
Divine Wisdom clothes itself in the nature of a man. It conceals itself in the weakness of a child. It chooses for itself, infancy, poverty, obedience, subjection, obscurity. “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and the produce of the prudent I will not reject. . . . Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For seeing that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God, by the foolishness of our preaching, to save them that believe. For both the Jews require signs, and the Greeks seek after wisdom; but since we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews, indeed, a stumbling block, and unto the Gentiles foolishness; but unto them that are called both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God. . . . But the foolish things of the world hath God chosen, that He may confound the wise; and the weak things of the world hath God chosen, that He may confound the strong. And the base things of the world and the things that are contemptible, hath God chosen, and the things that are not, that He might bring to naught the things that are” (1 Cor.19 ff.).
Come, O Divine Wisdom, teach us the way of knowledge. We are unwise; we judge and speak according to the vain standards of the world, which is foolishness in the eyes of God. Come, O divine Wisdom, give us the true knowledge and the taste for what is eternal and divine. Inspire us with a thirst for God’s holy will help us seek God’s guidance and direction enlighten us in the teachings of the holy gospel, make us submissive to Thy holy Church. Strengthen us in the forgetfulness of self, and help us to reign ourselves to a position of obscurity if that be Thy holy will. Detach our hearts from resurgent pride. Give us wisdom that we may understand that “but one thing is necessary” (Luke 10:42). “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his soul?” (Matt. 16:26.) The Holy Spirit would have us know that one degree of grace is worth more than all worldly possessions.
“The sensual man,” with only his natural ability, his unaided human talents, “perceiveth not these thing that are of the Spirit of God” (1 Cor. 2:14). Eternal Wisdom is foolishness to such a man. He cannot understand because he is not spiritually minded. The spiritual man is guided by the Holy Ghost, penetrates and values all things in the light of divine Wisdom, who “Himself is judged of no man. For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct Him? But we have the mind of Christ,” the eternal Wisdom (1 Cor. 2:15f.).
The wisdom of God appears to us in the crib, in poverty, in silence, in the weakness of childhood, in the gospel message: Blessed are the poor in spirit, the meek, those who suffer persecution for Christ’s sake. The wisdom of God is made manifest in the foolishness of the cross. (Father Benedict Baur, O.S.B., The Light of the World, Volume I, B. Herder Book Company, 1954, “O Divine Wisdom,” pp, 77-78.)
Father Baur’s reflection on “O Adonai,” which was prayed last night, Sunday, December 18, 2016, the Fourth Sunday of Advent, echoes themes that had been written by Pope Pius XI over three decades earlier, reiterating the sad state of those who prefer to believe that Our Lord, if He is truly the Divine Redeemer, has no place in public life, or that all mention of His Holy Name must be banished from social discourse:
O Adonai, O almighty God, stretch forth Thy arm and save us. The enemy of our salvation, the enemy of souls, the enemy of the Church rises with great power seeking to destroy belief in God, in Christ, and in the Christian religion. Men have wandered far from the true God; they have turned their backs on Him and made for themselves grave images. They have banished God from their thoughts and from their lives. God is a disturbing element which they would be glad to be rid of. Any other molestation they will gladly suffer, no matter how foolish and disturbing it is.
“Be astonished, O ye heavens, at this, and ye gates thereof be very desolate with the Lord. For My people have done two evils: they have forsaken Me, the fountain of living water, and have digged to themselves cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.” (Jer. 2: 12 f.). Both men and nations have lost all peace and tranquility. All virtues, innocence, fidelity, honor, honesty, and even a man’s word may be bought for gold. Scarcely one man can be found who trusts another. Nation has risen against nation, and man against man. Few are they who are faithful to their duty. The spirit of self-sacrifice is rarely to be found. Whether men read, study, or work, their actions are characterized by a spirit of restlessness and disquietude. All their striving produces few results, except to make them more tired, empty, and soulless. And yet they perish in their efforts to do without God and without Christ. Thus they live in spite of the fact “there is no other name under heaven given to men whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4: 12.). Only He, the almighty God, can save us. (Father Benedict Baur, O.S.B., The Light of the World, Volume I, “O Adonai,” pp. 79-80.)
Yes, this describes all naturalists—whether their name be Obama, Trump, Limbaugh, et al.
“All their striving produces few results, except to make them more tire, empty, and soulless. And yet they perish in their efforts to do without God and without Christ.”
This is a perfect description of the vain babbling that so many people accept as “wisdom” in this world, which is indeed in the grip of the adversary, something that Father Baur pointed out in his reflection for today’s antiphon, “O Root of Jesse”:
“Come to deliver us and tarry not.” The world cries out for Christ its King, who shall cast out the Prince of this world (John 12:31). The prince of this world established his power over men as a result of original sin. He exercises his lordship very efficiently, and has led man men into apostasy and idolatry, and has brought them into the temples where he himself is adored. He even dared to approach our Lord, after His fast of forty days in the desert to tempt Him to fall down before him and adore him. Even after we had been delivered from the servitude of Satan through the death of Christ on the cross, the prince of this world attempts to exercise his power over us. “The devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he may devour” (1 Pet. 5:8). Like a bird of prey he hovers above us waiting for a favorable opportunity to seize us and to lead us into sin. Often enough he transforms “himself into an angel of light” (1 Cor. 11:14). The sworn enemy and adversary of Christ and of all that is good, he devotes his entire energy and his great intelligence to the task of establishing a kingdom of sin and darkness which is opposed to God and to Christianity.
Satan establishes his power over deluded over men in a way that is perfectly obvious. When he has gained control over the body of man, he uses it for his own purposes, as though it were he who actually controls and animates the body in place of the human soul. He often exerts his influence over men by harassing them and hindering them by his external works, as is so evident in the lives of some holy men and women. In these trying times, when faith in Christ and in God has largely disappeared, when the propaganda of a pagan culture is broadcast everywhere, and the forces of evil and falsehood rise up to cast God from His throne, who does not feel the power of the devil? Does it not appear that we are approaching that time when Satan will be released from the depths of hell to work his wonders and mislead, if possible, even the elect? (Apoc. 20:2; Matt. 24:24.)
“Come, tarry not.” Observe not how thoroughly the world of today has submitted to the reign of Satan. Mankind has abandoned the search for what is good and holy. Loyalty, justice, freedom, love, and mutual trust are no longer highly regarded. Establish, O God, Thy kingdom among us, a kingdom established upon truth, justice, and peace. “Come, tarry not.” “Thy kingdom come.” (Father Benedict Baur, O.S.B., The Light of the World, Volume I, B. Herder Book Company, 1954. pp. 81-82.
We must cry out for Christ the King in the midst of the madness of these times.
We must make reparation for our sins, including our own sins of indifference or lukewarness towards—if not outright rejection of—the necessity of viewing everything in the world through the eyes of true Faith at all times and without any exception whatsoever.
We must make use of this holy week of Our Lady’s Expectation to pray her Most Holy Rosary, especially the Joyful Mysteries, with renewed fervor and with the authentic Supernatural Virtue of Hope that our souls will be prepared properly for the celebration of the Nativity the Baby Jesus on Christmas Day, and that they will be disposed to receive Him in Holy Communion with renewed fervor, purity, and devotion.
Catholics are never without hope!
Catholics hope in Christ the King and in the Revelation He has entrusted to His true Church as they rely upon the maternal intercession of the Mediatrix of All Graces, she who is our very “life, our sweetness, and our hope,” to help us to live in such a way in this life so as to be prepared at all times to die in a state of Sanctifying Grace as a member of the Catholic Church and thus adore God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost in the unending Easter Sunday of glory in Heaven that the Newborn Christ the King came to win for us on the wood of the Holy Cross.
Viva Cristo Rey! Vivat Christus Rex!
Immaculate Heart of Mary, triumph soon!
Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us!
Saint Joseph, pray for us.
Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.
Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.
Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.
Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.
Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.
Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.
Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.
Saints Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, pray for us.
Appendix A
Father Benedict Baur on "O Divine Wisdom"
“O Wisdom, who camest out of the mouth of the Most High, reaching from end to end and ordering all things mightily and sweetly, come to teach us the way of prudence.”
O Wisdom! The Savior whom we shall find as a weak babe in the crib is the Wisdom which from eternity proceeds from the Father. The eternal Wisdom which comes to us in the person of the Savior, has devised everything that is: heaven and earth, angels and men, matter and spirit, the entire universe. It has formed all creatures and given them their outward form and their place in the order of creation. It has fixed the wonderful order of nature, and it governs its laws. The power of this gentle and mighty Spirit has its eternal designs upon the world and pervades and governs all that exists. Eternal Wisdom, resting as a child in the lap of Thy mother, I believe in Thee. How great Thou art in the works of Thy creation, how wonderful is the order of Thy universe, how merciful in the work of redemption, how sublimely humble in Thy crib, how divinely wise in the teachings of Thy gospel, how provident in the work of Thy holy Church! O divine Wisdom, let me understand Thee!
Divine Wisdom clothes itself in the nature of a man. It conceals itself in the weakness of a child. It chooses for itself, infancy, poverty, obedience, subjection, obscurity. “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and the produce of the prudent I will not reject. . . . Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For seeing that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God, by the foolishness of our preaching, to save them that believe. For both the Jews require signs, and the Greeks seek after wisdom; but since we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews, indeed, a stumbling block, and unto the Gentiles foolishness; but unto them that are called both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God. . . . But the foolish things of the world hath God chosen, that He may confound the wise; and the weak things of the world hath God chosen, that He may confound the strong. And the base things of the world and the things that are contemptible, hath God chosen, and the things that are not, that He might bring to naught the things that are” (1 Cor.19 ff.).
Come, O Divine Wisdom, teach us the way of knowledge. We are unwise; we judge and speak according to the vain standards of the world, which is foolishness in the eyes of God. Come, O divine Wisdom, give us the true knowledge and the taste for what is eternal and divine. Inspire us with a thirst for God’s holy will help us seek God’s guidance and direction enlighten us in the teachings of the holy gospel, make us submissive to Thy holy Church. Strengthen us in the forgetfulness of self, and help us to reign ourselves to a position of obscurity if that be Thy holy will. Detach our hearts from resurgent pride. Give us wisdom that we may understand that “but one thing is necessary” (Luke 10:42). “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his soul?” (Matt. 16:26.) The Holy Spirit would have us know that one degree of grace is worth more than all worldly possessions.
“The sensual man,” with only his natural ability, his unaided human talents, “perceiveth not these thing that are of the Spirit of God” (1 Cor. 2:14). Eternal Wisdom is foolishness to such a man. He cannot understand because he is not spiritually minded. The spiritual man is guided by the Holy Ghost, penetrates and values all things in the light of divine Wisdom, who “Himself is judged of no man. For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct Him? But we have the mind of Christ,” the eternal Wisdom (1 Cor. 2:15f.).
The wisdom of God appears to us in the crib, in poverty, in silence, in the weakness of childhood, in the gospel message: Blessed are the poor in spirit, the meek, those who suffer persecution for Christ’s sake. The wisdom of God is made manifest in the foolishness of the cross. (Father Benedict Baur, O.S.B., The Light of the World, Volume I, B. Herder Book Company, 1954, “O Divine Wisdom,” pp, 77-78.)
Appendix B
Father Baur on "O Adonai"
“O Addonai (O almighty God), and leader of the house of Israel, who didst appear to Moses in the burning bush and didst give to him the law on Mount Sinai, come with an outstretched arm to redeem us.”
O Addonai! The Redeemer whom we await was already the Redeemer in the Old Testament. He it was who appeared to Moses in the burning bush in the desert and gave him the commission to lead Israel out of the bondage of Egypt. Through Moses, He wrought great signs in Egypt and rescued His people from the power of the tyranny of the Pharaohs. He led His people with power through the Red Sea and gave them the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai. He led them through the desert, provided food and drink, and ushered them into the Promised Land. He appears now also as Redeemer of the Church of the New Law. He is the Savior and guide of those have been baptized in the Church. Little child of the crib, so small, so weak, so silent, how mighty must You be to rescue us from passion, from temptation, and from the power of Satan! We believe in Your power, we trust in the strength of Your arm, we follow with confidence Your leadership and Your guidance.
O Adonai, O almighty God, stretch forth Thy arm and save us. The enemy of our salvation, the enemy of souls, the enemy of the Church rises with great power seeking to destroy belief in God, in Christ, and in the Christian religion. Men have wandered far from the true God; they have turned their backs on Him and made for themselves grave images. They have banished God from their thoughts and from their lives. God is a disturbing element which they would be glad to be rid of. Any other molestation they will gladly suffer, no matter how foolish and disturbing it is.
“Be astonished, O ye heavens, at this, and ye gates thereof be very desolate with the Lord. For My people have done two evils: they have forsaken Me, the fountain of living water, and have digged to themselves cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.” (Jer. 2: 12 f.). Both men and nations have lost all peace and tranquility. All virtues, innocence, fidelity, honor, honesty, and even a man’s word may be bought for gold. Scarcely one man can be found who trusts another. Nation has risen against nation, and man against man. Few are they who are faithful to their duty. The spirit of self-sacrifice is rarely to be found. Whether men read, study, or work, their actions are characterized by a spirit of restlessness and disquietude. All their striving produces few results, except to make them more tired, empty, and soulless. And yet they perish in their efforts to do without God and without Christ. Thus they live in spite of the fact “there is no other name under heaven given to men whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4: 12.). Only He, the almighty God, can save us.
Thou art He “who didst appear to Moses in the burning bush,” “I have seen the affliction of My people in Egypt, and I have heard their cry because of the rigor of them out of the hands of the Egyptians and to bring them out of that land into a good and spacious land, into a land that floweth with milk and honey” (Exod. 3:7f.). Thus spoke the Lord to Moses from the bush which burned but has not been consumed, which is a figure of God’s condescension to assume the weakness of human nature. The human nature of Christ is united to the burning divine nature, and yet it is not consumed.
As Moses approached the burning bush, so we approach the divine Savior in the form of a child in the crib, or in the form of the consecrated host, and falling down we adore Him. “Put off the shoes from thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground. . . . I am who am” (Exod. 3:5, 14).
O Adonai, almighty God! Mighty in the weakness of a child, and in the helplessness of the Crucified! Thou, almighty God, mighty in the wonders that Thou hast worked. Mighty in guiding, sustaining, and developing Thy Church! “The gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matt. 16:18). Thou art mighty in the healing and redemption of souls, mighty in Thy love for us, who are so unworthy of Thy love. Instant are Thou in mercy, and all-sufficient in every need. Come and save us.
“Come with an outstretched arm to redeem us.” This is the cry of the Church for the second coming of Christ on the last day. The return of the Saviour brings us plentiful redemption. “Come, ye blessed of My Father, possess you the kingdom prepared for you” (Matt. 25:34). (Father Benedict Baur, O.S.B., The Light of the World, Volume I, “O Adonai,” pp. 79-80.)
Appendix C
Father Baur on "O Root of Jesse"
“O Root of Jesse, who standest as an ensign of the people, before whom kings keep silence and the Gentiles shall make supplication, come to deliver us and tarry not.”
Christ the King, the Lord! Divine Wisdom, Adonai, the powerful God, is at the same time man with flesh and blood at the house of Jesse, the father of King David. The glory that once clothed the royal family has faded and withered, leaving only a blighted and withered root. But from this root is to spring a glorious blossom, the King of the world. “He shall rule from sea to sea and from river unto the ends of the earth. Before Him the Ethiopians shall fall down and His enemies shall lick the ground. The kings of Tharsis and the islands shall offer presents: the kings of the Arabians and of Saba shall serve Him” (Ps. 71:8-11). To Him God has said, “Thou art My Son. . . . I will give Thee the Gentiles for Thy inheritance, and the utmost parts of the earth for Thy possession” (Ps. 2:7 f.).
“He shall be great. . . . and the Lord God shall give unto Him the throne of David, His father, and He shall reign in the house of Jacob forever. And of His kingdom there shall be no end” (Luke 1:32. f.). In the face of Roman power He shall declare, “I am a King” (John 18:37). On the throne of the cross they shall proclaim His kingship in the three universal languages of the time: “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews” (John 19:19). He will send forth apostles, for all power is given Him “in heaven and in earth. Going, therefore, teach ye all nations, . . . . teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you” (Matt. 29: 18-20). Before Him a Herod, a Domitian, and a Diocletian shall tremble. A Julian will be obliged to confess, “Galilean, Thou hast conquered.”
He will establish His kingdom in the world, a kingdom of truth, of justice, and of grace. He who was cast off by men and fastened to the cross, will make that cross a throne. The Lord rules as a king from His cross. He is remembered gratefully and loved by millions who leave all earthly things, father and mother and all else, to follow Him. They devote their health, their life, even their blood, to His service. Root of Jesse. Thou standest as an ensign of the nations, and kings are silent in reverence before Thee.
“Come to deliver us and tarry not.” The world cries out for Christ its King, who shall cast out the Prince of this world (John 12:31). The prince of this world established his power over men as a result of original sin. He exercises his lordship very efficiently, and has led man men into apostasy and idolatry, and has brought them into the temples where he himself is adored. He even dared to approach our Lord, after His fast of forty days in the desert to tempt Him to fall down before him and adore him. Even after we had been delivered from the servitude of Satan through the death of Christ on the cross, the prince of this world attempts to exercise his power over us. “The devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he may devour” (1 Pet. 5:8). Like a bird of prey he hovers above us waiting for a favorable opportunity to seize us and to lead us into sin. Often enough he transforms “himself into an angel of light” (1 Cor. 11:14). The sworn enemy and adversary of Christ and of all that is good, he devotes his entire energy and his great intelligence to the task of establishing a kingdom of sin and darkness which is opposed to God and to Christianity.
Satan establishes his power over deluded over men in a way that is perfectly obvious. When he has gained control over the body of man, he uses it for his own purposes, as though it were he who actually controls and animates the body in place of the human soul. He often exerts his influence over men by harassing them and hindering them by his external works, as is so evident in the lives of some holy men and women. In these trying times, when faith in Christ and in God has largely disappeared, when the propaganda of a pagan culture is broadcast everywhere, and the forces of evil and falsehood rise up to cast God from His throne, who does not feel the power of the devil? Does it not appear that we are approaching that time when Satan will be released from the depths of hell to work his wonders and mislead, if possible, even the elect? (Apoc. 20:2; Matt. 24:24.)
“Come, tarry not.” Observe not how thoroughly the world of today has submitted to the reign of Satan. Mankind has abandoned the search for what is good and holy. Loyalty, justice, freedom, love, and mutual trust are no longer highly regarded. Establish, O God, Thy kingdom among us, a kingdom established upon truth, justice, and peace. “Come, tarry not.” “Thy kingdom come.” (Father Benedict Baur, O.S.B., The Light of the World, Volume I, B. Herder Book Company, 1954. pp. 81-82.)