“Steadfast in the Faith” (1Pet.5:9)
Be
“steadfast in the Faith,” says St. Peter (1Pet.5:9). Our Catholic Faith
is our anchor in these troubled times. Nothing else gives such meaning
and stability to our lives. It tells us that Jesus Christ is our Way,
and our Truth, and our Life (Jn.14:6). But there has been a great
falling away from the Faith in these times. Our Lord Himself predicted
it:
“When the Son of Man comes, will he find, do you think, faith on the earth?” (Lk.18:8).
St. Paul calls it the Apostasy:
“Let
no one deceive you in any way, for the day of the Lord will not come
unless the apostasy comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son
of perdition, who opposes and is exalted above all that is called God
or that is worshipped, so that he sits in the temple of God, and gives
himself out as if he were God” (2Thess.2:3,4).
But are we really approaching the end times? Here are Our Savior’s words:
“Amen
I say to you, this generation will not pass away till all these things
have been accomplished. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words
will not pass away. But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the
angels of heaven, but the Father only” (Mt.24:34-36).
Our Lord told us of what was to come before the end:
“There
will be signs in the sun and moon and stars, and upon the earth
distress of nations bewildered by the roaring of sea and waves; men
fainting for fear and for expectation of the things that are coming on
the world; for the powers of heaven will be shaken. And then they will
see the Son of Man coming upon a cloud with great power and majesty. But
when these things begin to come to pass, look up, and lift up your
hands, because your redemption is at hand” (Lk.21:25-28).
Should
we be afraid? Some speak of strange things happening even now. But the
fact that Jesus knew two thousand years ago should give us confidence.
He has everything under His control. And He is providing all that we
need to find our way in the darkness of these times. We are the lambs of
His flock, and even if we stray He goes looking for us. But we must
return now.
Again,
we are like children who need to be taught to believe the truth, and to
live by the truth. In these times when our Mother, the Church, is in
almost total eclipse, He gives us His own Mother, the Blessed Virgin
Mary, to keep us safe from harm and protect us from the devil’s snares.
This is why the Holy Rosary is so important in these times, and why it
is so essential for us to turn to Mary, our Mother, and to consecrate
ourselves to her Immaculate Heart. We hear her speak to us in this
passage from Proverbs:
“So
now, O children, listen to me; instruction and wisdom do not reject!
Happy the man who obeys me, and happy those who keep my ways, happy the
man watching daily at my gates, waiting at my doorposts; for he who
finds me finds life, and wins favor from the Lord; but he who misses me
harms himself; all who hate me love death” (Prov.8:32-36).
In
many places after the so-called Protestant Reformation, Catholic altars
and sanctuaries were stripped, statues were smashed, vestments were
burned, and the beautiful canticles and anthems of the Church were heard
no more. Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary ceased, and the Blessed
Mother was forgotten. Theirs was a cold religion, without a Mother.
And
it’s happening again. Take a look at the hideous churches of the Novus
Ordo. Many of them look more like Masonic meeting rooms than Catholic
Churches. And perhaps that’s because they ARE Masonic meeting rooms.
I have been in the city of Rome several times. On one of these occasions I was in the Paul VI Audience Hall (Aula Paolo VI)
where the papal audiences are held. I was in it, but I did not really
see it. If you view the aula from the sky above it looks like the head
of a serpent. And if you stand in the center aisle and look towards the
front you see the serpent’s wide open mouth and its deadly fangs. You
see his scaly head which arches above, and his cold staring eyes. But at
that time I saw none of these things, even though they were staring me
in the face. My eyes were focused on the throne in front of the
serpent’s fangs, where sat the one they called the “pope”. It’s beyond
belief! But you can see pictures of this Vatican horror on the Internet.
As Our Lady foretold at La Salette, Rome has lost the faith and become
the seat of the Antichrist.
So
is the Catholic Church an evil organization? Certainly not! It is
precisely because the Catholic Church is the one, true Church of Jesus
Christ, that the devil and the Church’s enemies have been scheming day
and night to infiltrate it and control it from the inside. At this time
the true Church is in eclipse, hidden behind the false church. But the
charade will soon be over for the church of Vatican II. Pope Leo XIII’s
vision of the one hundred years of the devil’s power over the Church has
been fulfilled, and the Church still lives. And we are now one hundred
years from Our Lady’s appearances at Fatima.
But
the end of the Church’s dark night will not be soon enough to prevent
the persecution of the Church foretold in Holy Scripture. When the world
finds out how it has been deceived it will take its revenge on the
false church, and true Catholics will not escape its wrath. But nothing
can separate us from the love of Christ, says St. Paul:
“Who
shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or
distress, or persecution, or hunger, or nakedness, or danger, or the
sword? Even as it is written, ‘For thy sake we are put to death all the
day long. We are regarded as sheep for the slaughter.’ But in all these
things we overcome because of him who has loved us. For I am sure that
neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things
present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any
other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God, which
is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom.8:35-39).