Why We Need Mary

One of the most attacked traditions of the Catholic Church is her veneration of the Blessed Mother. Protestants, Muslims, Jews, and Atheists alike viciously criticize Catholics for "worshipping" Mary. Do not so much as listen to this infernal noise! Our faith in the Mother of God must never be shaken.

These devilish arrows of contention have no sting. The Catholic Church's veneration of the Blessed Mother as a protectress and an intercessor is well founded. The mystery of the Incarnation gives us more than enough reason to praise the name of Mary. "No man puts new wine into old bottles; otherwise the wine will burst the bottles, and both the wine will be spilled and the bottles will be lost." (Mark 2:22) Saint Lois de Montfort, the author of one of the greatest works on the Virgin Mary, explained this analogy as pertaining to the Mother of God's role in the Incarnation. The Son of God cannot have been born to just anyone. The womb that would be his home of nine months had to be consecrated - it would be the first Tabernacle. God created Mary for that purpose alone. She was set apart as the chosen handmaid of the Lord, the Mother of her Savior and Spouse of the Holy Spirit.  She was conceived without sin to bear in her womb He who would conquer sin. The Mother of God HAD to be without sin. No unworthy vessel could carry this Child.

Mary was no ordinary woman. Claims, however, that Catholics "worship" Mary are both unfounded and slanderous. God is glorified through his Mother. Ignoring Mary would be a grave offense to God. He wishes for her veneration and praise. Who does not like to have his mother spoken well of? Devotion to Mary is given to us in Scripture. The Hail Mary, the most beautiful of prayers, is entirely derived from the Word of God.

Our worship of God is magnified through the Blessed Virgin. Unlike Jesus and Mary, we do sin, a lot actually. It is an act of great humility to go before the Virgin Mary and ask her to appear before the throne of God on your behalf. You allow her grace and virtue to take the place of your ingratitude and sin.

We need Mary.

This age needs Mary more than any other. We flounder and fail in vice and sin. We replace traditions with "progress" and morality with choice. Our age seems to have forgotten God. We can only be saved by turning back to Him through His Mother. Mary is the protectress of the mortal race. Her intercession can save us. The need for returning to the Mother of God, our Mother, has been explicitly revealed to us through the appearances at Fatima and the writings of many saints of our age.

How can we turn back to Mary? The best way is also the simplest. Pray. Prayer is perfected in the Holy Rosary. Meditating on the sacred Mysteries is a sure way to grow in personal holiness. Start small. Taking on a summit that is too steep will quickly discourage our weak hearts. Begin with a single decade or even simply three Hail Mary's every day. It might seem boring, but "Blessed be that monotony of Hail Mary's which purifies the monotony of your sins!" Build from there. Prayer is just like exercise. Do not expect yourself to bench three hundred pounds on your first try. It takes practice. We would do well never to overlook the power of the Rosary. The great Saint Lois de Montfort gives us the following words of inspiration and hope when it comes to the Rosary:

"If you say the Rosary faithfully until death, I do assure you that, in spite of the gravity of your sins 'you shall receive a never-fading crown of glory.' 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 save your soul, if - and mark well what I say - if you say the Rosary devoutly every day until death for the purpose of knowing the truth and obtaining contrition and pardon for your sins."

Our devotion to the blessed Mother can also be made manifest in action. We must show the world that Mary is our Mother. Live a life that is an imitation of both Jesus and Mary. Just as His earthly life is a guide for us to follow, Jesus gave us Mary as an example of holiness. Follow the virtues that Mary lived: humility, patience, reverence, and profound faith. There is a popular rubber bracelet with the acronym WWJD? - What Would Jesus Do? It would be truly fitting for us to add to that WWMD? - What Would Mary Do? Study Scripture and the works of the Saints to learn how to imitate the Blessed Mother in all fullness.

Finally, we can express our devotion to the Mother of God through consecrating ourselves to "this august princess." There are a few methods of consecration that have been handed down to us through the Saints.  Personally, I would recommend that of Saint Lois de Montfort. As you might have noticed, this illustrious Saint comes up often when we speak of Mary. He wrote "True Devotion to Mary" a work that outlined his plan of consecration. Consecration takes the form of "slavery to Jesus through Mary." By consecrating ourselves, we submit our bodies, our minds, our will, and everything we possess to the will of Jesus and the Blessed Mother. This is a very blessed form of veneration of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Mary is our Mother. We must not tolerate any insult to our Mother. Any time someone slanders the Blessed Virgin, you ought to be more offended than if they had slandered you yourself. Do not remain silent when her name and reputation are tarnished. We are the Church of Jesus. Jesus wants us to defend His most Holy Mother. We must also recognize our own sinfulness and turn to Mary as the means of worshipping God more fully and gaining salvation. Our lives should be an echo of Mary's Magnificat, "my soul magnifies the Lord."

Blessed ever-Virgin Mary, Mother of God - Pray for us.

Deus Volt!

The Dignity of Man

In his address to the United Nations, Pope Francis reminded the collective nations of a simple fact - all men are created in the image and likeness of Christ. Every man, woman, and child that shares this earth has the same essential dignity.

Despite the unprecedented level of connectivity and communication ushered in by technological advances, we maintain an attitude of what His Holiness called "exclusiveness." Far too often, we do not look beyond our borders, our families, and most importantly, our selves. It is far too easy to reduce the seven billion members of humanity to just that: a number.

Catholics should not look upon the world as a hodgepodge of separate nations, of individual interests, or of statistics. Sure, you might feel bad if you hear that just short of a billion people worldwide face hunger and starvation. But what do you do with that feeling? The sentiment is not enough. It might reflect well on your moral sensibilities if you can conjure up feelings of sympathy for the millions of displaced refugees around the world, but it does not make you a good person. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, or so the adage goes.

We are Catholics. The word "catholic" means universal. We are a part of the Universal Church. The truth in which we place our faith is not limited to any hemisphere of the globe. It is not limited to any culture. It is not limited to any tongue. Abraham and his descendants, the Israelites, were the first people chosen by God. When the Son of God became man, our inheritance was no longer of flesh and blood, but of the spirit.

Leaders and followers alike, do not fall into error! Do not forget that all men were created equally by God. There is no essential difference between an American billionaire and a Syrian refugee. Both have the same dignity as children of God.

Now what does this dignity mean? It means that all men are entitled to the same, basic rights. As the Declaration of Independence puts it, "unalienable rights." When speaking before the United Nations, Pope Francis put forth the three L's of human dignity: lodging, labor, and land. These three things are needed to give men quality of life. In addition to those three, His Holiness added to the necessities of life education, and religious freedom, freedom of conscience.

Men are not numbers. They are not a statistic. Refugees from regional conflicts are not a problem, they are people. The starving are not simply mouths. The homeless are not simply buckets to catch thrown loose change. Issues involving humans cannot simply be solved by throwing money at them.

What this world needs is a new host of Catholics who understand the dignity of each and every human life. We must protect that life from the womb to the grave. We must not stop fighting. We cannot allow children to be murdered in the womb. We cannot allow the elderly to be discarded when they are of no use. We cannot allow people to starve, to live in ignorance, to lack the basic necessities of a human life.

As always, Jesus did not leave us bereft of instruction. Matthew 25:37-40:

        "Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you? The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’"

When we see another man, we should not see the tone of their skin, their religion, their clothing, their wallet, or their language. We should instead see the face of God.

Especially in this age of darkness, when true doctrine is mocked and when faith is reduced to a fantasy, the faithful must act as the body of Christ. The Church must be the hands and feet of God, wherever He is needed. And He is needed everywhere: from the streets of Chicago to the slums of Mexico city, from the boardrooms of New York to the villages of Mongolia.

Every man was born as a reflection of the goodness of God.

No man can survive without God.

Deus Volt!

The Narrow Path

"Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it. For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it." Matthew 7:13-14

There is a famous joke involving a tourist in England. He finds a native and asks "How do I get to Carnegie Hall?" The inevitable and unexpected response is "practice, practice, and practice." 

The point is that it is very difficult to get into Carnegie Hall, at least in one sense. You cannot simply pick up an instrument and pluck a few strings for a few weeks or even a few months in order to perform in Carnegie Hall. You cannot buy a ticket to get in. The only way to Carnegie Hall is years and years of practice, of sacrifice.

Interestingly enough, there is a parallel to Heaven here. There is no easy way to gain eternal life. Now, notice that I say "gain" instead of "earn." The distinction is monumental. We, all by our little old mortal selves, cannot earn our way to Heaven. There is no deed so great, no life so perfect (excepting Jesus and Mary of course) that would make us perfect enough to enter into Heaven of our own accord. Heaven, just like grace, is a gift. Heaven, just like grace, can be rejected. The consequences of rejection remain the same: spiritual death and Hell.

But make no mistake. Though we cannot earn our way into Heaven, there is still a Hell, and it is very real. Despite the grace that has been given to us by God, despite His love, innumerable souls decide to reject His plan in favor of their own. In doing so, they reject His eternity. We are not privy to the will of God. We do not known how He decides which souls enter into Heaven. All we know is what Jesus has told us.

The gate to eternal life is a "narrow" one. As pessimistic as it sounds, there are "many" souls who reject the narrow road and plant their feet on the "wide road" that "leads to destruction."

How often do we forget this? In a world that likes to ignore both Heaven and Hell, we are told that we can live as we please. The lie of relativism tells us that there is no true way to live, only the way that seems right to us. In days such as these, the other road must be very wide in deed.

This is the danger of tolerance. For false love of image and of acceptance, we allow people to live in sin. We allow people to walk that "wide road" to Hell. This is not judgement. Who among you would allow a blind man to walk straight off a cliff, simply because you do not want to presume to show him the right way for fear of offending his sensibilities?

Jesus did not say "many is the way to Heaven, just do what you would like, and I will give you eternal life just so long as you offend no one." There is but one way to Heaven. That is the way of God.

It is hard to walk the narrow path these days. Everyone will shout that you are going the wrong way, that you are an idiot for choosing such a difficult path. All the while, they are blind to the quicksand that they themselves trod so assuredly.

Know that the road is hard. The gate is painfully narrow. There are brambles on this road. There are thorns that will cut and hurt and bleed you. There are stretches of mud that seem impassable. There will be days on this road when you will want to turn around. You will want to return to the illusory safety of the wider and easier road. The road that is far less lonely.

Remember that you do not tread this road alone. There have been saints who have walked this road. They have left us maps for the path. Look to the lives of the Saints. Read their words of encouragement and instruction. They know what it means to walk this road that seems ever narrower.

Remember what lies at the end of this road. We do not strive towards fame, wealth, or any earthly gain. All those will perish like dust in the wind. We walk to Heaven, the eternal reward. We were made for eternity, not this world of shadows.

The narrow road is hard. The reward, however, is very much worth it.

Deus Volt!

Mere Spirituality

Spirituality is not religion.

In our convenient age of five-step formulae and "there's an app for that" mentality, it should come as no surprise that we often look for similar shortcuts when it comes to practicing religion. Previous generations had at least the decorum to be either hot or cold when it came to religion. You either believed in God or you did not. Simple. There were no impious half-measures.


Not so today, not so. We have created a blasphemous assortment of half-prayers and religious "feelings." This Frankenstein's monster goes by many names: New Age philosophy, astrology, pantheism. It is most commonly addressed as "spirituality." The basic message is simple. Get rid of all that doctrine, tradition, and rules, and replace it with emotional experiences that will somehow coalesce into the achievement of some esoteric plane of existence, nirvana, enlightenment, etc....

Spirituality is the essence of our times. No responsibility, no rules, no tradition, and no God. Spirituality is far more dangerous than atheism. It is, in itself, a kind of cocktail mix of agnosticism and religion. It removes God from the equation. All of the religious feelings sans a Supreme Being. This is a dangerous, spiritual arsenic. It is a devilish trick. There is nothing wrong with spiritual feelings in themselves. In fact, they are very good. Such feelings often mean that the Holy Spirit is moving within our hearts. These feelings are intended to bring us closer to God.

Spirituality takes these feelings and disguises them, disguises them, and perverts them. It is a subtle lie unlike the outright rejection of atheism. Atheism is a desert. Spirituality is a poisoned well. The combination is deadly. St. Augustine wrote that "You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you." The heart cannot survive on atheism alone, on shadows. It needs spiritual substance. And instead of the true fruits of the true Church, a modern soul is deceived and taken in by the sweet-tasting but ultimately empty.

This is the strategy of evil. Starve the soul with atheism. Create a culture immersed with the death of the spirit, Nietzsche's nihilistic message, "God is dead." Eventually, the soul will reject the lies it has been fed. It will OD on sand and dirt. That is where spirituality comes in. When the soul has emptied itself with darkness, it looks for something more. The answer of the world is spirituality. An empty "religion" based only on emotion and fantasy, on feelings and sensations.

Always remember that God cannot be replaced. There is nothing that can replace the need for God in our souls, no matter the amount of garbage we swallow. Our hearts will be forever "restless" until they find God.


Deus Vult!

On Abortion

There is nothing morally ambiguous about abortion. Nothing can justify it. Taking a life is only justified in combat, in self-defense, in defense of innocent life. But abortion is the taking of innocent life. It is the premeditated destruction of a human child. Killing a baby is nothing but murder. There is no justification.

The fight for the lives of the unborn has been going on for far too long. It is now a multigenerational war. Roe v Wade happened over forty years ago. Parents have handed down the struggle to their children. The new millennium inherited the struggle. A new array of recruits have taken the field. In a long war such as this, it is all too easy for combatants to descend from crusader to cynic. We lose sight of what we are fighting for. 

Abortion is not an issue of the left or right. It is a human issue. We should not fight for its end because of our political affiliation but because of our outrage at this moral obscenity. The murderous streak in man has a long history. Just ask Cain and Abel. We have killed each other in very nearly any way possible. There have been monsters disguised as men. Abortion, however, is a monster's dream come true. It is murder disguised with rubber gloves.

The numbers for abortion make a very decisive statement. About 6 million Jews were killed during the Holocaust. Stalin's purges and despotic influence reaped 20 million corpses. The regime of Mao Zedong brought a death toll that was twice that. In the United States alone, 58 million and counting children have been killed by abortion. According to US Abortion Counters, more than 1.3 billion babies have been killed since 1980. That's more than one seventh of the current world population. And that number is only going to get bigger and bigger. Today, a fifth of pregnancies end in premeditated murder.

And abortion is murder. You do not sever the life of a human being and call it a medical procedure or a right for women. Life begins at conception. That is a fact. Attempts to push the beginning of life to a date later than that defy logic. If life begins at sixteen weeks, why doesn't it occur at fifteen weeks instead? That is an idiotic argument formed by people who are either supremely ignorant or murderers.

All you have to do is watch some of the Planned Parenthood videos that have been released in recent weeks to see the dark side of the abortion industry, the industry of death. Abortion is not some clean medical procedure. Killing a baby is far from humane, go figure. The baby's body is crushed in certain ways to ensure that vital organs remain viable and therefore profitable.

It is sickening to hear a crime called a right. It is morally reprehensible to defend what is clearly murder. Perhaps this generation will not see justice. It has taken far longer than forty years for some wrongs to be righted. It is just that few wrongs have ever been this wrong. There will be justice. We might not be able to charge those morally complicit in abortion with murder in the end. Those who knew exactly what they were doing and didn't care might not spend a day in jail. But justice is not of man but of God. And God's justice comes in His own time. 

Never forget what we are fighting for. Never forget who we are fighting for. Every time you see a baby, every time you see the wonder in their eyes, remember. Remember that we are not fighting for a political agenda or personal gain. We are fighting for the children. 

Deus Vult!

A Divorce Society

We have lost our reverence for the sacrament of marriage. You hear this a lot in reference to the legalization of homosexual "unions," which are indeed a terrible mockery of the indissoluble union between man and woman instituted by God. But this is just one of the symptoms of a culture bereft of respect for matrimony, and a rather minor one at that. Proportionately, there are surprisingly few homosexuals. Therefore the effects of gay marriage are relatively limited in scope.

There is one symptom of our culture of death and disunity that dwarfs homosexual "marriage" in both scope and significance: divorce. 

Divorce is so commonplace today, it's almost moral gray noise. We forget that half of modern marriages end in divorce. We forget that whole legal practices have been built upon divorce cases. No one pays any attention to the fact that celebrities have five ex-wives and their current spouse is half their age. Nevertheless the roots of a lot of our problems today lie in divorce. Divorce could well be what kills our culture. 

Indissolubility is one of the essential characteristics of the Sacrament of marriage. God did not intend for the wedding band to be a rubber band, easily stretched and easily broken. Marriage is a union that should be set in gold, not broken for convenience. 

Christ's teachings on this subject are very clear: "What God has joined together, man must not separate.... I say to you, whoever divorces his wife

(unless the marriage is unlawful)
and marries another commits adultery." (Matthew 19:6,9)

It is amazing how easily the words of the Gospel are forgotten by Christians. The teachings of the Church, however, are decisive. Matrimony is a sacrament that should not be changed. 

Apologists for the existence of divorce always fall back to the singular example of an abusive spouse. Clearly, they say, such a case would merit the severance of marital relationships. The Church allows for the physical separation of spouses in extremely grave cases such as abuse. Reconciliation, however, remains the goal in such cases. The nature of the marital bond means that the one spouse must never give up on the other. In extreme cases, there is the process of annulment. Ecclesiastical authorities can declare a marriage to be null and void, as if the bond had never existed in the first place, but this is the exception and not the rule. 

Nowadays, couples become divorced for trivialities. They break the divine bond of matrimony for incompatibility of temper or even economical reasons. There are several attitudes of this culture of death that contribute to a high divorce rate.

The most prevalent erroneous attitude towards marriage is that of temporality. A man and a woman should not become married because they are attracted to one another for beauty is fleeting with age. They should become married because they love one another, not with a carnal love, but with a sacrificial love. Marriage is not a condition forced upon a couple because of the duration of their relationship. It is not the evolution of a dating relationship, but the highest form of love a man can have for a woman and likewise. 

Some like to think that divorce is a victimless phenomenon, that its effect is limited to husband and wife, that since two consenting adults agree to go their separate ways no harm has been done. That is not the truth. Irreparable damage is done to the very core of society: the nuclear family. Children are never the same after a divorce. Regardless of age, they are scarred for the rest of their lives. Suddenly, Mommy and Daddy are no longer living together. The children are deprived of the gift of a father and a mother. Vast numbers of families today are headed by single-moms. 

Binders of studies have been done on the effects of only having a single parent. The single most common denominator for prison inmates is that they were raised by a single parent. A 1996 study showed that 70% of juvenile delinquents were raised by single mothers. Divorce is even more prevalent in minority families. A study by the Progressive Policy issue showed that if you control for the effects of single mothers, the difference between the white and black crime rates disappears. 

The scariest numbers, however, come from a Village Voice cited study. If a child was raised by a single mother, they "are five times more likely to commit suicide, nine times more likely to drop out of high school, 10 times more likely to abuse chemical substances, 14 times more likely to commit rape (for the boys), 20 times more likely to end up in prison, and 32 times more likely to run away from home." 

(Note: most of these studies were listed in an article on rightwingnews.com)

Divorce is a viscous cycle. Even if a couple doesn't have a child when they first get divorced, aren't they even more likely to get divorced a second and a third time? And a child from a divorced family, will undoubtedly be far more inclined to have a divorce when they themselves become married. That is the cycle that will dethrone the world as we know it. 

What we need today are more models of the beauty of Holy Matrimony. We need more married couples who embody the spirit of St. Monica. St. Monica is best remembered by her relationship with her son, St. Augustine. Augustine was an avowed heretic for many years. He was an outspoken opponent of the Church during a time of Roman persecution. But through the unceasing prayers of his pious mother, Augustine became a Catholic and went on to become one of the greatest doctors of the Church. Clearly, St. Monica is an example of the value of persistent prayer and the need to pray for one's children. But there is a better reason that she should serve as the model for married couples today.

No marriage is perfect. You cannot expect two human beings to live together and never fight. Nevertheless, it is certainly true that some marriages are much more difficult than others. St. Monica's marriage was one of those. She was married to Patricius, a pagan. Patricius was about as abusive as a spouse can get. He verbally abused the faith that Monica held so dearly to her heart. He was both an alcoholic and a gambler. But St. Monica never gave up on her husband. It is very doubtful that she always liked him, but she never stopped loving him. Just as her persistent prayers saved her son, St. Monica's faith converted her husband on his deathbed.

We need more couples like St. Monica and less like those on Desperate Housewives.

Marriage is a sacred institution created by God. People like to say that Christians did not create marriage and therefore they have no say on the subject. Only half of that is true. Christians did not come up with marriage just as they did not invent the Mass. Both were instituted by God Himself. It is therefore impossible for us to change the essential nature of marriage. All we can do is twist and pervert it. Yes, homosexuality distorts Holy Matrimony. Divorce, however, does so even more.

Deus Volt!

The Darkness of Atheism

Atheists are idiots.

It's that simple. Now, I understand that some atheists may seem to be intelligent in the eyes of the world. They might have doctorates.  Their names might be hallowed in the halls of academia. They might have published New York Times best sellers. That, to the secular eye, constitutes intellect.

But atheists are fundamentally stupid. They are like a well crafted watch that is set to the wrong time. Sure it might keep good time, but it will always be wrong nevertheless because of its internal and essential flaws. Atheists are like a castle built in the sand, to paraphrase Chrisy. Externally, they might appear sturdy and strong. But such an edifice will not stand the test of time as it is built on a poor foundation. 

Atheists have built up their castles, their lives, on a lie. That lie, is that God does not exist. There is no question that can trump that of the existence of God. Nothing is more important. This question is not one that can be answered with a noncommittal answer, though people have certainly tried. This question is the difference between light and darkness, between Truth and a lie. 

Here is the truth: God is alive. This is a truth of the heart, the mind, and the soul. This is the Truth. When I look at an ocean sunset, mist sliding down the mountains, the eyes of a newborn child, I cannot help but know in my heart that God is alive. 

Anyone who says that they do not believe in God is lying to themselves. The existence of God is a self-evident truth. No one is born an atheist. What child does not pray for a pup or a new bike? Atheism is the delusion of pride. When most people say that they don't believe in God, the inevitable explanation is that they believe that they have been personally wronged by God, and therefore He must not exist. Such is folly. Yes, there is suffering in this world. A lot actually. Bad things happen. Loved ones die of cancer, children starve on the streets, natural disasters kill thousands and leave many more without a home. But this reality is not the antithesis of God. God allows us to suffer. Why? The true reason is known only to Providence. But it is through suffering that we become disillusioned with the things of this world. It is through loss that we often turn to God. Adversity tends to weed out the fair weather believers. Gold needs to be tested by fire. 

The problem with atheists is that they believe in the primacy of human reason, even when that "reason" is blinded by emotion and hubris. Since an atheist believes they have concocted some crackpot contradiction to the reality of God, God must not exist. The idiocy of atheism lies in the fact that they somehow think that their minds have to be able to comprehend every single facet of an omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient God. They forget that His ways are higher than our ways. 

I am not sure that all ants believe in humans. Certainly, not all ants have seen human beings. They might have heard about them from other ants, but a fair number of ants could live their entire lives without setting their ant eyes on a human being. A greater number of ants, while not having seen a true human, will have seen the works of human hands. Perhaps some ants will have the wisdom to infer the existence of some form of higher life through these objects, but I am sure that just as many ants claim that the cities and sidewalks and suburbs have always existed, they exist by pure chance . The ants certainly cannot have an exact idea of the nature of human beings. We a s humans have not deigned to send a messenger to the ants to explain ourselves. Therefore, large numbers of ants likely deny the existence of man. 

This tangent might seem a tad ridiculous. Certainly the human race exists. Just because ants cannot wrap their minuscule intellects around our nature, does not change the reality of our existence. 

This is an analogy to atheism. The arrogance of the ant academia cannot change the truth. The hubris of man cannot change the truth. The existence of God is not predicated upon our believing in Him. 

  

Deus Volt!