This Too Shall Pass

 

To My Readers: You asked for him, you got him! TradWarrior has agreed to be a guest poster. He has been a tremendous asset as a commenter on this blog, adding to the quality of my posts. Now, he will be adding even more quality as he writes a post once every other month! Dive right in and feel free to comment as usual. If anyone has a specific question or comment for me, I will answer as always, but it may take me a bit longer to do so this week.

God bless you all, my dear readers---Introibo 

This Too Shall Pass

By TradWarrior

            For 2,000 years, the Catholic Church has had to weather one storm after another after another. Like riding the waves on a surfboard or the ups and downs of a roller coaster, it has had to survive endless battles, many of which sought to put the final nail in the coffin of it, only for it to rise again more triumphantly than ever before. There are many Catholics around the world who are dismayed, angry, frustrated, puzzled, and perhaps at their wits end wondering where all of this is going. This piece is to serve as a strong reminder that the Church Militant has Christ’s constant protection and always will.

            Every Holy Week, we celebrate the holiest time of the year where we remember how Christ underwent His horrific Passion and rose from the dead 3 days later. Here was the man His apostles were sure would vanquish their Roman oppressors, only to see Him executed in the most brutal of fashions.  When the apostles were locked in a room for fear of the Jews and Christ appeared to them, they had to have been completely deflated, knowing they abandoned the one who had been with them for 3 years. When He needed them most, they all fled Him except for John. He was scourged, crowned with thorns, and had nails driven through his hands and feet and if anyone at that moment had the right to verbally rip them apart to their faces, Jesus was that individual. Instead, He merely said “Peace be with you”, breathed on them, and gave them the power to forgive men’s sins. Only from God can such goodness come.

            For three centuries after the start of Christendom, Christian after Christian was martyred by the most horrendous methods known to man. In all likelihood, this new and emerging sect of Judaism should have died out. Nero, Domitian, Decius, Valerian, Diocletian, Galerius, and Julian executed so many Christians in the earliest centuries that if not a Divine Institution, the Holy Catholic Church would have never made it out of the 4^th century.

            When Satan and his demons saw that the attacks on the body were not working, they turned their attention to attacking the minds of the Christians by polluting the church as much as they possibly could with numerous heresies. Arianism, Nestorianism, Monophysitism, Monothelitism, and many other heresies caused much confusion and strife that would attack the church at its very heart and cause massive confusion all throughout the church. [1] The Arian crisis alone caused roughly 80% of the church’s bishops to adopt Arius’ belief that the Son was less than the Father. As the great Catholic historian Hilaire Belloc noted, “At this point, there entered the battle that personal force which ultimately won the victory for Catholicism: St. Athanasius.” [2] Exiled 5 times, St. Athanasius stood firm and refused admitting Arius to Holy Communion. Eventually the war would be won and Arianism and the other Christological heresies would be buried.

            One of the greatest confusions to Christendom occurred between 1378-1429, known as the Great Western Schism. Rival claimants to the papacy in both Rome and Avignon fought for control of the papacy. There were saints like Catherine of Siena who favored Urban VI and saints like Vincent Ferrer who favored Clement VII. Both would have numerous successors in both lineages and then a third lineage would shoot off with Alexander V coming from the Pisan line. It took 51 years for the madness to end until Martin V was elected at the Council of Constance and order was finally restored in the Roman Church.

            Just one century later, there arose one of the greatest heresiarchs the church ever had to contend with who caused irreparable damage that forever splinted Christendom. When Martin Luther issued his 95 theses in 1517, he drove them (and all the division that followed) into the heart of Christendom, causing the Sacred Heart of Our Lord unfathomable pain. Many European nations were swept away by Luther’s errors and in a short time the Church went from dealing with Lutheranism to all the other splintered groups that followed: the Anglicans, Presbyterians, Methodists, Congregationalists, Episcopalians, Baptists, and many others. The tragic aftermath that has followed the last 500 years since the Protestant Revolt has been one of enduring pain for the unity of Christ’s Church.

            The Protestant revolt by turning its back on Christ’s Catholic Church paved the way for the Enlightenment Era and its philosophers to further seek to destroy Christ’s Church. Rousseau, Voltaire, Napoleon, and many others gained steam in attacking the Catholic Church because Luther had already set the stage for them a few centuries earlier by fragmenting Christianity. If things like the pope, authority, and moral absolutes didn’t matter anymore, than any “enlightened ideas” were now fair game under the umbrella of religious liberty. As Napoleon Bonaparte once remarked to a cardinal, “Your eminence, are you not aware that I have the power to destroy the Catholic Church? The cardinal responded, “Your majesty, we, the Catholic clergy, have done our best to destroy the church for the last 1,800 years. We have not succeeded, and neither will you.” The bloodshed that began in France during the French Revolution would only spawn more bloodshed as the ideals that were birthed during the French Revolution engulfed all of Western Civilization as a whole. The physical casualties were numerous; the intellectual casualties are innumerable, as the West has been seeped into a melting pot of “any idea and belief now goes”.

            Protestantism removed the Catholic Church as any form of authority and only allowed for a belief in God and Christ as Savior. The Enlightenment removed Christ as unique savior with religious liberty as one of its foremost principles. Logically the last piece to the puzzle would be atheism, particularly under the form of communism. If there is no Catholic Church with moral absolutes and no unique savior such as Jesus Christ to redeem a fallen world, then the last logical step is that there is no God. This is exactly what Pope St. Pius X said in ‘Pascendi Dominici Gregis’ when he remarked, “…Modernism leads to the annihilation of all religion. The first step in this direction was taken by Protestantism; the second is made by Modernism; the next will plunge headlong into atheism.” [3]

            The Catholic Church and the world has just closed a few short years ago what was the bloodiest century in all of human history. Hundreds of millions of people were murdered by their own countries totalitarian regimes, put in place by men, instigated behind the scenes as always by the one who said from the foundation of the world, “Non Serviam”. On top of all of this, countless millions of babies have been aborted in their mother’s wombs, marriage has been redefined as no longer between a man and a woman but whatever mankind now deems appropriate and according to the latest fashion. In the last few years since, marriage has been “redefined”, not only have we seen men “marrying” men and women “marrying” women, but the floodgates of hell have completely opened up on this last battle between Satan and the Woman of Revelation. Not only have we seen “marriage” between the same sex (and sometimes more than two people) but there are cases around the world of people “marrying” their pets, their livestock, and even inanimate objects such as roller coasters, bridges, train stations, trees, Barbie dolls, and many other bizarre things.

            In all previous times of the Catholic Church’s history, the lay faithful always looked for sanity within the Church’s structure and Her teachings when dealing with an insane world. But since the close of the Second Vatican Council, right up to our present day with Leo XIV, more and more Catholics are growing more disillusioned by the day in trying to keep themselves sane when most churchmen (V2 sect) themselves have abandoned ship and jumped on board with the modern world. Leo XIV, who should be the Traditionalist Catholics greatest defender, is in some ways the Traditionalist Catholics greatest foe. Rather than defending and maintaining the doctrine and disciplines of Holy Mother Church, he, like Bergoglio before him, not only is destroying the moral edifice of the church but continues the attacks from all sides against families who are doing their best to uphold the church’s teachings in a neo-pagan world. 

            While Francis constantly barraged Traditionalists as “funeral faces, promethean neo-pelagians, sourpusses, pastry-shop Christians, creed-reciting parrot Christians, pickled pepper-faced Christians, Rosary counters”, etc., Leo, though more subtle in his approach, nevertheless continues the onslaught against traditionalism himself, just in a more low key and less conspicuous way. The attacks of the last 60 years have left those still in the clutches of the Novus Ordo wondering: If this man is not for us, then who is anymore???

For the faithful Catholic who is trying to save his or her soul and get their families to heaven, one is left wondering today: Who does one turn to anymore for help? Where is God in all of this? Where is this all going? These questions are being thrust more and more to the forefront of peoples’ minds as their very faith is being attacked not only from without but from within by the post-conciliar “popes” and the “bishops” in the church. Those who are supposed to be coming to the aid of their flocks are instead throwing their own sheep to the wolves. These shepherds are wolves themselves. The problem here is that what appears to be reality is really an illusion. To the roughly 1.2 billion “Catholics” around the globe, they see a man dressed in white. They assume that he must be the pope. They see men dressed in red. They assume that they are cardinals. They see men dressed in purple. To them, they are bishops. Why would any of these men be anything else? 

It is only the elect that have not been deceived. They are small in number, yet they remain the True Remnant of Catholics around the globe. The Freemasons in the “Alta Vendita” spoke about an insidious plot that would take many years to accomplish. They would slowly move through the ranks in the church. Like the Communists later, they would infiltrate the church more and more until they had control of the conciliar church and nothing was left but an empty shell of the Roman Church. They knew that this would not take place in a year, or several years, or even a century. But they were patient. Their machinations would eventually come to fruition if they just waited long enough. Fast forward to where we are now, and it is obvious (to the elect) that they have succeeded. The documents and addresses that come out of Rome are devoid of any Catholic substance. The men who appear to be the leaders of the church are anything but. They have changed the teachings of the church. They focus on the natural, not the supernatural.

 The supernatural has been all but eradicated from the highest levels in Rome. To those stuck in the clutches of the Novus Ordo, all seems well. Sure, the “pope” may occasionally say or do something strange, but at the end of the day, he is still the “pope.” After all, how could he be anything less? To the traditionalist, he sees through this façade for what this truly is – a complete takeover of what was once a fortress of orthodoxy. To most of the world, they cannot see it. For many who do eventually come to see it, they could still care less. The apathy and sway of the world is far too strong a current.

There are many faithful Catholics wondering, will this too pass like many other evils passed in previous ages of our Catholic ancestors lives? It is important here to remember that we are the Church Militant and that this world is not our final destination. We will have our wounds, our battles, our scars, our casualties, etc., but in the end, if we endure, we will gain the Crown of Life. We must re-shift our minds and focus on the Eternal, not the Temporal. We were not made for this world, but the next and that is where our minds must be raised-to all things spiritual. As C.S. Lewis stated, “Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.” [4] The time is ripe right now for saints to be raised up to fight against the onslaught that is attacking the Catholic Church. 

As St. Teresa of Avila noted, the Evil One was deprived of many victims due to saints like St. Dominic, St. Francis of Assisi, and St. Ignatius of Loyola, whose religious orders they founded saved numerous souls from Satan’s snare. As St. Teresa said, “…how willing Our Lord is to grant us the same graces! In fact, there is even more urgent need now for persons to prepare for such favors, since there are fewer who care for His honor. We love ourselves too much and are too prudent to give up any of our rights. What a deception! May God in His mercy give us light, lest we sink into such darkness.” [5] 

            If God can raise up a great saint like St. Vincent Ferrer who converted 8,000 Moors and 25,000 Jews and raised at least 28 people from the dead (probably many more than that) and worked thousands of miracles when the world needed a Saint Vincent Ferrer, then God can also raise up a great saint here in our times. He can raise up men who will once again save Christendom, just as St. Athanasius did with the Arians and others have in all the other ages of the church. [6] The church is down, but it will NEVER be out for the count. It is important to remember that God allows things to occur by His Permissive Will that we as human beings will never fully understand in this life. God is allowing the Catholic Church and the world to undergo this extreme Passion right now, just as He had to on Good Friday before He could rise on Easter Sunday. No Passion, No Resurrection. It’s just that simple. From a human perspective, the Jews inciting the Romans to crucify the Savior, at the request of the whispers of the demons, was all a part of the Son of God’s plan to save the human race from all eternity. Every scourge, every thorn in the forehead, every spit, every strike, every blow, every nail, every drop of blood was allowed by God for His Son to endure so that He might redeem mankind in the greatest act of love the world has ever seen in human history. Satan in his pride was sure the victory was his as he put the Son of God to death.

             But all of this was part of God’s infinite plan of Wisdom. As Rufinus of Aquileia said, “The purpose of the Incarnation…was that the divine virtue of the Son of God might be as it were a hook hidden beneath the form of human flesh…to lure on the prince of this age to a contest; that the Son might offer him his flesh as a bait and that then the divinity which lay beneath might catch him and hold him fast with its hook…Then, as a fish when it seizes a baited hook not only fails to drag off the bait but is itself dragged out of the water to serve as food for others; so he that had the power of death seized the body of Jesus in death, unaware of the hook of divinity concealed therein. Having swallowed it, he was caught straightway; the bars of hell were burst, and he was, as it were, drawn up from the pit, to become food for others…” [7]

Conclusion

            So while it may be difficult when we see a “pope” contradicting the bi-millenial teachings of the Church, insulting Christians, and spiraling farther and farther down into complete chaos and taking the Church with him, it is important for us to remember that just like every other age of the church’s history, the Catholic Church survived and came out on top. This time will be no different. We must remember the discourse that God gave Job in the last 5 chapters of his biblical book. Were we there when God created the Heavens and the Earth and all of the splendors of the universe? No. He knows what He is doing and we must place our complete trust in Him and get behind Him with the full armor of our spiritual weaponry that He has given to us to survive: The Traditional Latin Mass, the Rosary, the Brown Scapular, Eucharistic Adoration, the Stations of the Cross, novenas, the intercession of all the angels and saints, and everything else that we have at our disposal. 

            Yes things are very dark in the world right now. But as the saying goes, “It is always darkest before the dawn.” The dawn is coming, with Our Lady’s Immaculate Heart leading the way. It’s going to get much worse before it gets better, but we are assured of God’s victory in the end, when the Eternal Judge makes all things correct in the end. Until that time comes, we must do our part and put our souls at rest in God in a restless world. As The Holy Ghost tells us in Psalms, “Be still, and know that I Am God.”  

Footnotes:

1. Ven. Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God (Abridged Version. Tan Books, 1978), pgs. 444-445

2.  Belloc, The Great Heresies (Tan Books and Publishers Inc., 1991), pgs. 30-31 

3. Pope St. Pius X, ‘Pascendi Dominici Gregis’ (1907), paragraph 39

4. Lewis, Mere Christianity (Macmillan Publishing Company, 1952), p. 106

5. St. Teresa of Avila, The Interior Castle (St. Benedict Press, 2011), p. 97

6. Fr. Hebert S.M., Saints Who Raised the Dead (Tan Books, 1986), pgs. 165-173

7. Bettenson & Maunder, Documents of the Christian Church (Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 38